29 October 2015

I always feel so bad whenever I see someone favouriting one of my fics because of the shitty update rate but nothing motivates me.

30. Disucussion

of instruments and hallways and titles.

"Band-Aid Band-Aid Band-Aid Band-Aid Band-Aid look!"

When the Kirby calls you, you answer immediately. Bandana Dee whipped around, eyes darting up from where he was fiddling with some weeds. "At..?"

"There was a really nice villager!" That... did not answer the question at all. "And we had a conversation! So, I was like, oh, hi, want any cabbages? We're on sale. 'We're' referring to me, because I'm a one-man business. And he was all, oh, no thank you, but you're the legendary Kirby right? And I was like, yep! And then he said—"

"Why do you have a piano outside of your house..?" Bandana Dee squinted, before realising Kirby was giving him a very strange, foreign look. Bandana Dee's used to those things; almost guiltily, he shuffled backwards. "Sorry for interrupting."

The pink puffball's gaze flicked to the black grand piano situated right outside of his house. "Yes. The piano. Good pianos. You have fantastic observation skills, Bandana Dee, I must say. A ten out of ten for you!"

Uh. "Thanks..?"

"Yes, short story short, the villager gave me a grand piano. Like, he just tossed it outta nowhere, and I was talking with Bob, and he was like, oh, you can have this. And he left before I could even throw it back at him. So it's mine to keep. For now."

Bandana Dee thought Kirby was weird. (Obviously.) Keeping a grand piano (...or grand piano lookalike) was practically a blaring sign, inviting thieves all hey, I'm over here! Then again, there was no space in Kirby's house, and it wasn't even like Kirby even thought of the grand piano as precious, and didn't seem like he would mind if he lost it.

You can't really lose a grand piano. But, y'know.

That didn't really interest Bandana Dee, though. He was not musically talented and he was not going to fight about it. Music just didn't really catch his interest, and while it was nice to hear a piece or two, Bandana Dee wouldn't stay for the third.

None of the above justified Bandana Dee stopping the conversation, though. So he didn't.

"Can you play the piano?" He realised he'd been asking nothing but questions, so far, but he politely excused himself with the fact that he probably didn't know half of what made up Kirby, and Bandana Dee himself wasn't a very interesting person in the first place.

"Of course," said Kirby, indignantly. "It's been a while since I've touched one, but I still remember how to!"

"But how did you learn..?" You didn't really learn how to play a piano without one.

"Where I came from, there was a piano. But no one used it, except for me, so it's technically mine!" Er. No. "Someone taught me how to read the notes, and stuff, and I just figured out how to work the piano from there. And there were like, scoresheets. By actual musicians, so I could teach myself some! I still remember a few!"

Oops, he tangled the weeds—Bandana Dee attempted to fix the mistake carefully. "Um. Like?"

"'Cakeland'. Ever heard of it?" Before Bandana Dee could process his words: "Nope, you haven't, because it doesn't exist. Mm-hrm... I know Moonlight Slaughter."

Moonlight— "Moonlight Sonata?"

"Ah, yeah. Whatever. Moonlight S-omething."

Bandana Dee felt as unimpressed as the weeds. (Uh.)

Kirby didn't say anything, but he was still bouncing on his toes and regarding Bandana Dee with a curious spark. The waddle dee, unable to save them, dropped the weeds back into the grass. ...Oh, uh—was the pink puffball expecting him to say something about himself? He didn't really have any, apart from the time when he threw a tuba at the jammed door.

...And that didn't count as musical experience, either.

Unable to think of any of his own, and definitely unable to tolerate Kirby's inquiring gaze, Bandana Dee dug the first thing related to the topic out of his head.

"Great King sings in the toilet sometimes."

Kirby was caught off-guard. Just for a moment. Barely. ...Maybe. He probably wasn't startled at all. Nope. Just Bandana Dee's imagination. Was it?

"'Great King'—oh, the not-great king." Bandana Dee would've retaliated, but it was hopeless to ever attempt to usurp Kirby from his Nonsense Logic That Always Wins Throne, and it was... also... quite... true. "How would you know that?"

"Great King's toilet is separated! It's a door in a used hallway," Bandana Dee immediately defended, although he realised a minute too late that Kirby had not been insinuating anything. (Welp.) "...I don't usually take that hallway, but erm... Great King is scared of the dark, so during the night—"

"—he gets one of you to stand outside the toilet on standby in case any shadow monster leaps out of the mirror. Yes, yes, I know that." Then what was the point of even asking? "Larry tells me a lot."

Larry was the... fake plant Dedede kept. For some reason or another. Admittedly, Bandana Dee was surprised it wasn't mingling with a heap of garbage at the moment.

"But... Larry can't speak."

"Lies."

Bandana Dee could argue. Again, he chose not to bother.

The pink puffball finally stopped hazardously bouncing on his toes, and settled for a straight, steady standing posture instead. "So! I can play Starlight Slaughter now, if you want. I don't remember half the chords, so I'll just skip to the parts where I remember!"

"'Moonlight Sonata', and—"

"But wasn't the title an alliteration?"