Before any of us knew it, time flew once again.
It was now October, and the majority of the Card Castle peers were very busy with the last few Halloween preparations for the next day.
In-castle trick-or-treating was always a huge success among everyone in Card Kingdom, especially when Queen first came along and introduced some new types of candy to everyone else throughout the years, such as lemon drops or cinnamon bombs.
The guards would also occasionally hand out candy to those who happened to want to trick-or-treat at the entrance of Card Castle, but logically enough not grant them any permission to enter.
In Rouxls's case, he was the least popular giver of treats, for rather than candy, he'd only hand out worms worms that, very unfortunately, weren't gummy worms and made the trick-or-treaters turn their backs at him in less than even a millisecond.
King and Queen, however, had a large chance that they'd pass on handing out candy this year, for Queen was now almost 9 months pregnant and at the verge of starting to have her baby anytime soon.
"My Queen?" Cathy asked. "Is it okay if I hand candy out in your stead tomorrow? I don't have anything useful to do by then, after all."
"Of Course Cathy Dear" Queen replied with a sweet smile, which still looked quite tired. "My Candy Stash Is Just Over There." She pointed at a small, as-good-as-meaningless cupboard in one of the corners of the main room.
"Thank you kindly." Cathy couldn't help but chuckle softly at a certain thought. "Is it okay if I have a few lemon drops for myself as well by then?"
"Of Course. They're Your Favourites Right?"
"Aside from M&M's, they indeed are. Iggy likes the cinnamon bombs better, though."
"Well In That Case You Should Make Sure To Give Her Plenty Of Those. She Might Be Nothing But Busy With Me Very Soon. Please Feel Free To Grab Them Right Now."
"Thank you, my Queen…!" The usually feisty Hathy lady went towards the aforementioned cupboard, from which she took the two large bags of lemon drops and cinnamon bombs. "Have a nice one, and please take it as easy as you can."
"Thank You." Queen petted Cathy's head before the latter went off. "Phew I No Longer Have To Worry About That Candy Being Forgotten This Year." She then settled herself at the table.
From King, who already sat at his usual spot at the table, Queen had received quite the galore of forehead and baby bump kisses, which made her giggle and blush all over.
"It won't be long anymore, will it?" King said.
The cyber monarch shook her head with obvious movements, after which she returned the many kisses onto her husband's two cheeks.
"I'm honestly very nervous for Lancer's arrival. I hope they won't be in too much pain once they're there."
"Hey Don't Worry. With Iggy's Proper Care All Should Most Likely Be: Alright. Plus I Am Also Required To: Do My Best, For I Have Never Given Birth Before."
"Are you nervous about the process of your labour, if I may ask?"
"404 Answer Not Found." Queen's visor showed the error code of 404 while she spoke.
"I somewhat understand, for this is indeed your first time, and most likely your only time as well since we didn't decide on more offspring after Lancer."
"100% My Only Time. It's Probably Not Easy If We'd Have Heirs Of Two Different: Lines Of Coronation, In Case Our Second Would Be Of: My Species. Or If You Have Two In Your Own Line In Case Our Second Would Also Be: A Spadeling."
"Good theory. It additionally wouldn't be fair if two siblings of two totally different species wouldn't be permitted to see one another, simply because they're in those two different lines of coronation. We can't have two monarchs of two different kingdoms who are also siblings."
"I Never Heard Of Two Siblings Who Are Both Monarchs Either So No It's Indeed: Impossible. And In This Case I'm Not Counting Clover Either For She's Just: Herselves. A Clubling. How They're Supposed To Be."
"Clublings are indeed a whole different story."
Just as Queen wanted to speak again, someone knocked on the door of the main room again.
"Please Come In" she just said.
The door opened up, and Castiel showed up with a large serving trolley on which two glasses of water, some cutlery, some napkins and two trays with cloches were present.
"Good evening, my King and Queen" Castiel greeted the two monarchs. "Dinner is served for the two of you." He took the two trays off of the trolley each before removing their cloches, revealing two bowls of stew with plenty of beef, mashed potato and pumpkin. "This is a new recipe that my fellow chefs and I have been trying lately. I had one taste, and it was stupendous, especially with that classic mashed potato recipe." He then put the glasses, cutlery and napkins near the trays, just near their corresponding bowls. "Please enjoy."
"It looks irresistible, Castiel" King said. "Both of my mouths are already watering like crazy!"
In response to that statement, Queen immediately grabbed her napkin with which she dabbed the mouth on her husband's stomach.
"Queenie Beanie, you know that that was your napkin, right?"
"Yeah I Know But I Had To Act Quick Just Now."
"Legit point. Do you mind having mine?"
"Not At All."
While Castiel left the main room and quietly closed the door behind him, King and Queen swapped napkins before starting on their first bite of the stew.
"Oh my goodneth…!" King said with his mouth full. "It ith irrethithtible!"
Queen nodded in agreement while humming in approval of the taste.
"They thould make thith more often…!"
"It Almost Feels Like Christmas Dinner" the cyber monarch said after swallowing her second mouthful. "That Mashed Potato Is Just As Perfect!"
"I agree!"
"We Should Complement Castiel And The Others On This Yummy Dish Once Our Dinnerware Gets Picked Back Up."
"Absolutely. I really do wish to have this more often… that baked pumpkin really stands out, too! Bet that's a secret recipe."
"Wouldn't Surprise Me."
The two monarchs continued eating in the fullest enjoyment of the experimental but successful recipe to this autumnal stew.
Ever since her pregnancy started progressing during the 4th month, Queen had been more hungry than she usually was, causing her to have finished her dinner quicker than King once again after the last spoonful.
As soon as all of the bowls and glasses were empty, Castiel showed up again with the serving trolley to bring all of the used dinnerware back to the kitchen.
"It was delightful and highly enjoyable" King said as he dabbed his mouth with his napkin before putting it onto the top of the trolley. "Kudos to whoever thought of this idea. This should become an annual dish for the fall."
"I Agree" Queen said.
"That's a big pleasure to hear" Castiel said. "I'll tell my fellow chefs about this." Once he was all done putting everything onto the trolley, he turned towards the door again. "You two, have a nice evening, and remember to take it easy."
"We'll Be Alright Castiel I Promise."
"I second that." The Hathy chef gave the cyber monarch a hearty wink before he left the main room and closed the door behind him again.
Later that evening, King and Queen had replaced themselves towards the sofa after having had a nice cup of tea with Rouxls, who expressed way-too-obvious concern about Queen the entire time.
"Out Of Everyone I Know Here" Queen said, "Rouxls Is The Biggest Worrywart. Mark My Words."
"He's just a bit of a cretin" King said, "and occasionally, neither of us even understand why he became my servant in the first place. Oh well, at least he gave us some fresh popcorn and limeade from the kitchen so we can settle down for a movie." He grabbed the remote from the nearby coffee table and started channel-surfing. "No, nothing interesting here… and not here either…"
"I Wonder If They Released Anything Special Recently?"
"Hell if I know."
Queen carefully bent forward to grab her bowl of popcorn, which she subsequently settled on top of her baby bump.
"Haha, what a funny sight…! Careful that Lancer doesn't accidentally tip your popcorn over, though. They're the bounciest little pumpkin lately, you know?"
"Don't Worry He'll Probably Tip It Over If I Don't Like It. But What's Not To Like About: Popcorn?"
"I don't know, unpopped kernels? A lot of others don't like those, but I just eat them whole to not waste anything."
"In Case I Have Any Of Those They're: Yours."
King chuckled and put his left arm around Queen's shoulder.
"Ooh, this one looks interesting."
The television channel only just started playing said movie, judging from the fact that the intro of the music and the start of the cinematic both seemed to be 'cut off'.
"In the early 20th century" the narrator of the movie said, "darkness covered a small town in the United States. During that era, a young couple mysteriously vanished from their home."
"Ah, so this is a movie that the Lightners once produced, huh?"
"They Barely Air Those Anymore." Queen then quietly ate one kernel of her popcorn. "This One Seems Very Interesting."
"Two years later" the narrator continued in the meantime, "as soon as he seemed to disappear, Greg suddenly returned. He has never told anyone about his whereabouts and what he had been doing. But he soon started a solitary yet mysterious study. As for his wife, Mara…" The background music faded out, and about five seconds of silence followed. "She never came back." Some more seconds of silence. "Eight decades have passed ever since."
The movie was a pretty popular one in the Light World. It followed a young 12-year-old boy who was a direct ancestor of those aforementioned Greg and Mara people, and initially lived an unassuming ordinary life with his father and two younger brothers until his bedside lamp suddenly became possessed by some sort of evil entity.
That evil from said entity originated from the movie's main antagonist, an ancient alien that Greg had performed experiments on 8 decades prior to the movie's events. Said evil caused more devices and even animals and humans to become influenced or possessed by it, bringing the entire hometown of Hamlet into havoc and uncontrolled chaos.
While Queen was mainly focused on watching the movie, she did occasionally add some of the unpopped kernels of popcorn into King's bowl, smiling somewhat absently but especially in approval while she did.
"It's a very compelling movie, isn't it?" King whispered, kissing his wife's cheek as a thanks for the kernels.
Queen simply nodded.
"I hope the two friends can easily find their way through that big factory so they can fire that bomb and unblock the way… those enemies are no match to them, in any case!"
"Those Little Atom-Bomb-Like Babies Are Beyond Adorable…"
"Looks can be deceiving, though."
Queen softly chuckled as she ate her next handful of popcorn.
As the movie progressed, even the weirdest of events happened there. Cars and trucks had suddenly gone on the loose in the next town, a resident from said town had lost their fake eyeball, the next town had a common cold epidemic going on, meaning that the protagonist and his friend were not permitted to interact with them in any way…
According to Queen, the most intense parts of the movie were the one where the protagonist saving a beyond-strong little girl from a zombified graveyard at southern Hamlet, the one where he defeated an alien at an abandoned museum who was broadcasting sound waves that were beyond everyone's hearing frequency but broke all of the glass cases, the one where he and his two friends got lost almost all the time in an abandoned mansion full of even more bloodthirsty zombies than back at the aforementioned graveyard, and the one where the trio arrived in a small town where everyone had been cursed to be of old age.
But none of those scenes beat the final part: the one where the group of now four started scaling the Holy Moly Mountain and made friends with a robot that the protagonist's great-grandfather Greg had made long ago. Said robot was unbelievably strong, but unfortunately exploded upon having defeated its enemy, which was a ginormous, bulky male robot that would not go out of the way towards the ancient alien's cave.
While the cyber monarch continued to watch the rest of the movie in the highest of anticipation, King had fallen asleep during the scene where the protagonist and his three friends took the rocket to a distant island to deliver a peculiar yet very-much-loved (in the movie, at least) delicacy, which was cherry tofu.
The foursome eventually fought the ancient alien by force, until they suddenly remembered a poem that the protagonist had somehow learned from Greg, which the alien hated to the fullest and made him weaker and weaker every time a new verse of it had been read aloud.
"What A Philosophical Poem…" Queen whispered with a loving smile. "Swatch Could've Easily Written It…"
With that being said, the alien surrendered and conceded defeat, but not before telling the protagonist and his three friends that they'd be back.
The good news, however, was that the alien's evil influence had finally ceased to exist after their defeat, and that all of the people that they had abducted were finally free as well, with which the movie ended openly but in any case positively.
It was when the credits were over and some short trailers started playing that Queen noticed that King was asleep for quite some time now, judging from his slow breathing movements and the fact that his arm around his wife's shoulder seemed to feel heavier than beforehand.
"He Must've Found It Boring Contrary To: Me…!" The cyber monarch quietly giggled, her visor showing the text 'haha' while she did.
She then placed her now empty bowl next to her equally empty large glass on the coffee table near her and leaned closer to the sleeping King, who did not seem to budge at her movements or even the small kisses that he got on both of his cheeks.
Then suddenly, Queen felt quite an intense shock of pain from her stomach, where her baby's movements had intensified dramatically. This was soon followed by the breaking of her water… right on the middle part of the sofa. How would this have to be cleaned out…?
"Kingy Wingy…!" Queen exclaimed as she frantically shook King awake. "Kingy Wingy!" Her visor showed four exclamation marks, which was rare to behold but an actual sign of alarmedness.
"Huh…?" King mumbled as he slowly woke up. "Queenie Beanie, what are you doing…?"
"I Think The Baby Is Coming!"
"The what now…?"
"I Said: I Think The Baby Is Coming You Big Stupid Noob!"
"Whoa there, okay, okay." The spadeling practically jumped off of the sofa, swiftly lifting his wife into a bridal carry. "Someone else will have to take care of that stain soon… the baby is more important…" He then speed-walked out of the main room, being in too much of a hurry to turn the TV off and close the door behind him, and one elevator ride later, the couple successfully found themselves in Card Castle's only medical room, where Iggy already happened to have made some mandatory preparations for Queen and the baby.
A/N: In case you hadn't noticed, the movie is a spoof on Mother/EarthBound Beginnings, one of my long-time favourite games! :)