"How?" asked a panting Rainbow as he caught up with the scampering Mera. "I mean, since when has Lila actually liked someone?"
"Forget to tell you, Rain. My bad." Mera gave him a gigantic grin as she skidded to a halt, sending mud flying in all directions. "Lila likes this red Yoshi named Thildon."
"Red Yoshi…" Rainbow paused as he thought about it, gently fingering his multicoloured scales. "Yeah, I've seen him. His scales are the same colour as rubies."
"Exactly!" cried Mera with a snap of the fingers, her eyes gleaming. "See, we know they like each other – they always give each other really nice presents at the winter giving time. Plus sometimes, I see Lila thinking – you know, her cheeks are reddish-pinkish, she's stroking the satchel Thil gave her last winter, and she's in deep thought. I can tell it has nothing to do with the tribe – if it did, she'd looked more concentrated. Instead, she just looks faraway and hazy...and (sigh)... in love."
Rainbow stopped her then, holding up a single hand to put an end to the answer. "OK, fair enough, but how do we actually do it?"
"You'll see, you'll see," was Mera's answer as she bent down on the ground, absently picking some leaves from the undergrowth and sweeping them into a satchel she kept at her side. "After that, we'll do… Let's see… Nicky and Lauranna, and then, I guess, you and Berra, and then…"
"Then you and… that other Yoshi..." Rainbow could barely contain his giggles as he watched the expression on his new friend's face flick rapidly from one of vague thought to one of surprised amazement.
"Rainbow!" In one flowing, smooth movement, Mera pushed the Mythical Yoshi of Legend to the floor and stomped on his chest in pure Yoshi style.
"Mer!" He wriggled furiously under her blue-violet boots. "Furious, crazed yellow Yoshi! Stop working yourself into a frenzy already!"
"Well… Then I guess we'll have to do the others…"
Rainbow rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. Why in the world had he ever let her drag him into this?
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"Whoa. I knew Mera was crazy, but I never knew she was insane," remarked Roberta calmly, as if she were remarking upon a small but strong thunderstorm that had shaken the island. "Poor Rainbow!"
"Maybe we should help," began a somewhat flustered Olivia (and this is the Yoshi who was beating her chest like King/Donkey Kong before? No way!) as she headed for the horizon. "I mean, well, duh."
"No, they'll be all right." Elsa laid a restraining hand on her friend's shoulder. She flashed a look to the two as they trudged upon the shoreline – at least, Rainbow was trudging as Mera went into great gesticulating detail about something.
"Mm. You have to trust Elsa, Ollie," Roberta agreed with a nod as the figures of Mera and her new friend disappeared into the trees. "She might be crazy, but she wouldn't purposefully hurt Rain.".
"Purposefully," Olivia retorted, rolling her eyes. "She might actually hurt him by accident, you know."
At this point, both Elsa and Roberta turned to her with awed expressions on their faces. "Right," they replied in perfect unison as their heads shook with unified voices.
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"Lila – follow the path of blue spring flowers/Past the path your true love lies/Soft and red under summer showers/Go meet him now, before the sunlight dies."
"I'm not saying you're a bad poet, but seriously, Mera…" Rainbow's voice dubiously trailed off into the mist. "Is Lila really going to believe that?"
"Probably not, but knowing Lila, well… Let's just say she's incredibly curious and will probably follow the flowers we're leaving here anyway."
The Mythical Yoshi of Legend glanced down at the cerulean-blue tulips, roses and daisies they were tossing on the floor as they made their way over to a thick palm tree on the shore. The palm tree's wide, spreading branches provided perfect shade for those hot summer evenings and sweltering afternoons – Mera, of course, being who she was, was going to prepare another simple, one-stanza poem for Thildon, which would lead him to this very place. Then, according to her – BAM! They just had to sit back and let the sparks fly.
"But we're not going to watch them, obviously," she had assured Rainbow with the world's biggest smile. "Not only is that mean, it can also get pretty icky," she added, finishing her short speech with a fake gagging sound.
"Mer…"
"You have to trust me, Rain." She smiled engagingly at him. "Besides, you have no choice – I won't let you. First I have to set you up with Canberra."
Blushie on Rainbow's part.
"You like somebody, too," he muttered, and Mera's facial hide went an equal shade of red.
"Under the light your lost love lies/Search for her, by aid of the red blossoms that speck your way/Meet her where the sun shines from the sky/What's her name, hey, hey, hey." (Mera, you see, wasn't the world's best poet, though she could have passed for the Mushroom Kingdom's best grinner instead.)
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"I guess I'll follow the red flowers – I know it's not from Lila herself" -- more reddening of scales -- "but it must have to do with her, I figure."
Thildon felt reassured at the sound of his own voice. Sometimes -- as it had always been for the young red Yoshi – just talking aloud helps soothe you, calm you down. It worked like a charm now, allowing him to organise his thoughts into order.
With a sigh, Thildon bent down and examined one of the ruby-coloured blossoms that had been thrown, curled up, on the soil. Whatever it was, he was sure nothing bad would come out of it – even it was a prank. After all, pranks were for joking around, right? This meant that, in other words, as the blood-red Yoshi reasoned, he'd be better off by following the trail of red flowers. So, there, under the light of the spreading jungle trees, he followed the path of bright red flower tops, all the way to the beach.
The spreading sand unrolling around lazily before him, Thildon paused as he stared out in the distance. There, the trail of red flowers petered off under a large palm tree. Not just a palm tree. The palm tree. The palm tree that was – supposedly – the meeting place of all young couples, where they met for the first time and smoothed out the bumps before true love was finally reached.
"Well, here goes nothing," said Thildon, facing the horizon as he mustered a small smile. "Onward, fair mate of nothingness, to the journey of a lifetime."