"You sure you don't want to come with us?"
"Nah, it's all right." Daisy waved her hand vaguely and graciously in the air, as if it mattered not. "We'll stay and wait when you guys bring back the Mythical Yoshi of Legend."
"Well, I guess we'd better prepare, then," announced Midnight, turning his back to the other two. "Food!"
He sounded… er…demented? Anyway, Yoshi rolled his eyes and amicably pushed his friend's shoulder. "Life isn't all about food, you know, Midnight. This is only gonna take a day, not a month."
"Yeah, right," was Midnight's smooth answer as he cheerfully waved goodbye to the travellers and began setting off through the trees. Alber, however, took this as a good sign and bade them goodbye likewise, followed by a grumbling, muttering Yoshi.
"Come on, Yoshi, it was just a tiny offense," Midnight protested when the scowling dinosaur's figure lagged behind his own. "I didn't actually didn't take any food, did I?"
"True," Yoshi agreed, allowing a small smile to curl his mouth as he looked at the thick, multicoloured knot of blue and red he knew to be his friends. "Very true."
"Well, we'd better start going, then." Alber's voice cut through their thoughts and they turned, just in time to see the young red Yoshi pluck a pod-shaped, Tinkleberry-filled leaf from a nearby stalk before his red form disappeared through the trees. Yoshi and Midnight hurried after him, their booted feet clumping on the green grass tufts in the chase.When the three of them were finally walking together under the cool, serene light of the jungle, Alber turned round and handed them some Tinkleberries. They chewed on the soft fruit wordlessly for a while, until the sound of cascading sapphire water met their ears-or whatever Yoshis have in place of ears, at any rate.
It was the waterfall that all young Yoshis had been taken to when they were babes, the one that was normally filled with the small, paddling bodies of the swimming young ones. Now, because of the arrival of the travellers on the island, it was totally and completely empty, but one thing remained; its cool waters reminded you of time, of eternity, of goodness that would never end. Or so were the thoughts, anyway, of Yoshi, Midnight, and Alber upon entering the clearing where it was situated.
The frothy waters were churning slightly in the pool they flowed into. The three friends paused at the water's edge, ears alert, eyes bright, as they listened to the sounds that assured everyone that "justice and love will always win!" Nah, just a bit of Dwarven Vows for you there (Tales of Symphonia, anyone?). Anyway, all was still and silent for a few moments as they listened to the waterfall's cool waters -- flowing... Ever flowing... Always, eternally, fovermore flowing...
Finally, their trance was snapped as they finished, magically and -- weirdly enough -- in perfect sync with each other. They exited the clearing and returned under shade of the jungle's trees, whispering among themselves.
"I hope we'll see him soon!" declared Alber as they headed in the opposite direction, throwing his arms in the air. "Mythical Yoshi of Legend, here we come!"
But, before a long time had elapsed, Midnight noticed that Yoshi was edgy again, jumping at the least crinkling of leaves or rustling of twigs. He was on tenterhooks, frightened and distracted in this newfound tension. The dark blue rideable dinosaur reached out to his friend in alarm, but he only skilfully pulled away.
"M-Midnight!" Yoshi stuttered as he avoided his friend. "Something's here, and it's not good!"
"What are you saying, Yosh? I mean, it's not like we're going to be captured by evil Fuzzies or something."
But a shadow that darkened their faces, cutting across their pathway, told them he was wrong.
"Eek!" Midnight let loose with that most feminine cliché-d cry when the big, hulking, spiked figure of a giant Fuzzy picked the three of them up as if they were mere rag dolls. It then proceeded to bounce through the trees as any Fuzzy would, its grotesque, misshapen mouth open to reveal several unevenly spaced, pointed teeth. Its wide eyes were goggling all around, rolling, at everything and nothing as it brought the Yoshis to its shoreside lair.
Yoshi, of course, being who he was, had an almost as cliché-d – though slightly more masculine - cry --
"Waaaaaah!"
But Alber was silent – silent, but not still. He was wriggling furiously in the grip of the gigantic Fuzzy, trying to stickt his ridged pointed purple-blue scales anywhere he could on the Fuzzy. Their enemy, however, had a thick skin – each thwack of his scales only rebounded on its forest-green hide.
They could feel themselves bouncing up and down with the creature as it bounded up and down through the heavily shaded jungle. Each and every jump rattled their bones in their sockets and sent the scales rubbing painfully upon one another. By the fifth jump, the tongues of all three were literally spilling from their mouths, drooping lifelessly -- ruffled slightly by the strong wind blowing – and one could remark their similarity to panting dogs.
Now the Fuzzy crashed to the undergrowth of a clearing on his seventh bound; the Yoshis dropped limply from its grasp. It appeared to be jabbering with some other large, spiky figures that had been clustered near the heavily tree-lined edge of the clearing; they came bounding forward as their Fuzzy approached.
They're Fuzzies! No, of course they're Fuzzies! Yoshi mentally reprimanded himself. He made a small, careful mental note: stop stating the obvious, whether out loud or otherwise.
That thought in mind, Yoshi lifted his head from where he had been cruelly thrown into the bush-ridden undergrowth, his body a greenish wreck that lay, splayed, across the reedlike, easily-snapped foliage. What he witnessed then was more than scary – it was horrific, horrendous, and horrible, all rolled together into one.
The five giant Fuzzies had bounded their way through the weeded undergrowth and were swarming around a central area – from his position on the ground, it looked like a cauldron bubbling above a tiny campfire. Wait a minute… A cauldron! How in the world's that possible? From where he was, he could see them dumping spicy herbs into the cauldron; gray-tinged bluish smoke wafted out of the thick black potions pot, spiralling into fluffy, distorted shapes. Every now and then, one of the Fuzzies would consult a large, leather-bound book that was propped up against the wooden structure that held the cauldron over the fire.
Wha… What's going on? F-Fuzzies are annoying and mischievous, not evil and Yoshi-eating… Th-This makes absolutely no sense… Well, no matter how much sense it didn't make to the usually cheerful green dino, they were about to saved.
While the Fuzzies were cackling over their mysterious, bubbling potion, Midnight was the first to notice a glimmer of rainbow in between the trees bordering the clearing. He caught a glimpse of shining scales as the figure behind the outgrowth of Tinkleberry plants cut a swath of wrecked plant life as he neared them; Midnight struggled furiously in a Fuzzy's grip as one of the relentless newcomers toyed with him like a dog with a meaty bone.
The Fuzzy was tall and hulking, with an odd midnight-coloured hide that was strung with small Tinkleberry seeds; they clinked together as he came toward them, attached as they were by some thick cord made out of jungle leaves. The delicate sound flittered softly through the air as the Fuzzy carefully pulled Alber from his position on the ground, as if he were a particularly stubborn carrot he wanted to eat.
This was when the figure made his mark.
His feet pounding and flailing on the thick, knotty weeds, the hidden Yoshi abruptly soared up and onward, clinging just in time onto a nearby hanging vine as he did so. The vine creaked slightly under his weight, but the Yoshi was unperturbed; he merely pressed two booted feet onto a sapling in his line of landing. The young tree swayed slightly with the movement, but the Yoshi had gotten his leverage; he released his feet just in time as the vine went swinging past the now slightly-bent sapling. He glided easily once in the air, as if he had been doing it all his life. Within seconds, the Yoshi had jumped courageously from the vine, leaving it twisting in the air behind him.
Midnight, who had witnessed this very scene with the Mushroom Kingdom's widest eyes, allowed his mouth to drop open – tongue and all – and his body to cease wriggling in the Fuzzy's grip. He cried out faintly; the figure didn't hear him, but he obviously knew of their predicament.
"Leave them alone!" the Yoshi called from his vantage point lower on the grass, feet planted next to a gently-winding river that ran not far from where the others were. He raised his hands to his mouth before crying out again. "Leave them alone, you barbarians!"
Even though all three Yoshis were fighting to escape from the gigantic Fuzzies, Alber could still see the mysterious one as he stood, stock-still, on the brook. He was tall-looking; his age, Alber guessed, was around fifteen or so. His scales glittered and sparkled with every colour of the rainbow -- especially around his back, where any other Yoshi would have a saddle. This one, however, had nothing but row upon row of glowing scales. Every time he moved, his scales fanned against each other, rubbing slightly as they metamorphosed before Alber's very eyes. He could see it better now, could see the scales' colours fading before reappearing in dazzlingly bright starbursts. The starbursts were flickering, flitting across his scales, changing colours. Blue, yellow, red, green, orange, purple, violet, crimson, mauve, scarlet, celestial, baby blue. Turquoise, pumpkin, butter, amethyst, aquamarine, daisy. Iris, gold, emerald, sapphire, cherry, silver, peach. To Alber, it seemed like every possible colour in the world was there, glowing, glittering, shining on his scales. That, of course, could only mean one thing…
In one instant, three voices had added themselves to the din:
"Mythical Yoshi of Legend!"