Recursion Error
Episode 41- We're planning a party
Sorun had seen a lot of pathetic sights in his life. Seeing his own reflection in glass staring forlornly down at a display full of pies was up there with the worst of them.
There he'd been. Wandering around Knothole without a care in the world when he'd come across a bakery of some sort. And now he was here, standing outside the front window and staring at all the colorful pies that were on display behind the glass. And when Sorun reached into his pocket and pulled out the contents, all he found were three mobium coins resting in his palm.
"The life of a poor man," Sorun morosely thought as he pocketed the three coins. "Never shoulda bought those expensive-ass candles..."
He was only drawn away from his money woes when he saw a peculiar sight in the reflection of the window, nearby and right behind him. Two floating forms that he recognized as the only two bee Mobians that lived in all of Knothole. He rose his eyebrows a bit in surprise at the sight, and then turned around towards the two of them.
All the way on the other side of the street was Charmy. The small Mobian was floating and meandering about, the usual smile on his face as he went from shop window to shop window while looking through them all. On Sorun's side of the street, with her back to him, was Saffron. Even with her back to him, though, Sorun could tell that the female bee was staring out towards Charmy.
"Huh, there's those two," Sorun thought to himself. He found his feet automatically carrying himself towards the closer bee, all the while silently wondering to himself, "Wonder what's going on with them?"
Even after stopping right next to Saffron, the bee didn't seem to notice his presence, her eyes continually focused on Charmy in the distance. From this position he could see that there was an almost sullen look on her face. Sorun, looking right at the floating Mobian, rocked back and forth on his feet while waiting for her to finally take notice of him. His patience eventually wore off, making him speak up.
"Hey, Saffron," Sorun coolly greeted, "what's going on?"
She straightened up in surprise at hearing his voice, and then turned around, relaxing when she made out Sorun's form. "Oh, Sorun. I'm sorry, I didn't notice you standing there," she said, voice quiet and light. "I hope I wasn't too rude by-"
"Saffron, you're fine, you're fine," Sorun assured her, his eyes drifting over to Charmy's location. The male bee was still looking around at all the shops, seemingly oblivious of the other two looking at him. "What's up with Charmy?"
"Hm? Oh!" A smile grew on her face when she turned to look at Charmy alongside Sorun. "Well, Charmy decided we were all going to have a party."
"... A party," Sorun repeated. "Really?"
Saffron nodded. "Charmy felt that since there hasn't been a single incident with Eggman in a whole week and everything's been quiet, it was time we should celebrate. You know, with us having come so far and done so much to freeing the planet from him and everything getting so peaceful as of late..." She trailed off a bit, smile growing wider as she clasped her hands in front of her. "He talked with Sally over it and she agreed to let us use the Freedom HQ. She even agreed to help us set everything up!"
"Knowing her she just agreed to it for a morale boost," Sorun jokingly stated, though he did reach a hand up to rub at the back of his head. "Though... I guess a party does sound kinda nice."
It sounded very nice, actually, and Sorun rarely ever got to do anything even remotely nice these days. So going to something like a party to wind down felt extraordinarily pleasing to him. At the very least it was something to take his mind off the near future, and he'd prefer doing that with a party as opposed to killing robots any day.
So yeah. A party sounded nice to him.
"I know. Princess Sally seemed really thrilled with the idea." For some reason, the smile on Saffron's face dropped just slightly. "I think it will do good for Charmy. I hope it does. He's... been through a lot."
The change of tone in the bee's voice was immediately noticeable to Sorun, who glanced to the side at her with a slightly questioning look. "He has, huh?" he mumbled out.
She gave him a sad nod. "We used to have a home of our own, in the Golden Hive Colony. It was a kingdom our kind inhabited, a place all bees called their own. And Charmy... Charmy was next in line to become king."
"Wait, seriously?" Sorun fully turned his head to Saffron in shock. "Charmy? Royalty? Like, Sally-level of royalty?" He turned back to the male bee in the distance, confusion marring his features. None of the interactions he'd ever had with the bee ever painted him as someone even remotely royal in any way. Not from the childish way he always acted, or his total lack of an authoritative aura, for lack of a better term. Qualities that he saw in Sally that Sorun saw none of in Charmy.
He hardly believed it, but if it came from Saffron, it had to be true. She was much too timid and polite to lie, especially about something like this.
"Yes, it's true. He was a prince to our people," Saffron confirmed. "But... it's gone now. The entire colony, our people and families... they're all gone..."
A slow, deep sigh left Sorun. "Robotnik?" he guessed.
"Yes," she said, features having turned saddened. "As far as we can tell, we were some of the only survivors of the attack. Even before that Charmy had lost a dear friend of his named Mello due to the actions of criminals on Angel Island." Her face fell into an extremely dour expression. "He tries to keep a strong face in front of me and the others, but sometimes I really worry about him, especially after everything... after everything..."
By now she'd grown so sad that her sentences were beginning to be interrupted by hiccups. It was a situation that made Sorun increasingly more uncomfortable the longer he stood there, and when he saw the edges of Saffron's eyes begin to moisten he decided to speak up out of concern. "U-uh, Saffron, are you okay?"
She sniffed, and then wiped the tears out of her eyes as she turned to Sorun, a small, wavering smile on her face. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sorun. I'm fine. Thank you for the concern." The smile grew more steady, though it did drop a bit when she glanced back at Charmy's direction. "I just hope that this party will do him some good and help take his mind off things. I always try to be there for him, but, well..."
"Yeah..." Sorun replied, tone listless as he glanced off in the same direction.
Saffron continued looking at Charmy's way until her head suddenly picked up. "Oh my, I just remembered! Charmy wanted me to gather things for the party." Saffron's wings began to buzz at a higher intensity as her body turned away. "I hope I'll see you at the party, Sorun!"
"Um, sure..." Sorun waved the bee off as she flew away, eyes trailing after her form until she disappeared around a house's corner. He sighed, and then turned back towards Charmy, who was still wandering around across the street.
"The people that live here are always so cheery that sometimes I forget that they have pretty terrible lives like I do," Sorun thought to himself, eyes still on Charmy. "How the hell does someone like Charmy go through all that and stay the same cheerful guy I see around all the time?"
It was an aspect of the usually-cheery bee that completely baffled Sorun. The revelation of him being royalty was all but forgotten now, his mind too focused on this development. Never, not even once, during any time he'd interacted with Charmy had he ever expected the Mobian had ever gone through that kind of loss. Losing a friend was one thing, but a whole kingdom, family, and possibly almost his entire species? That sounded absolutely devastating, which was why Sorun was so confused when he looked at that childlike Mobian floating off across the street.
If he was being honest with himself it made him feel a bit ashamed of himself, and of the way he'd acted during his first month here on Mobius. Especially from the way his attitude had been after the incident with the first Emerald. Even then his current attitude wasn't much better now that he really thought on it.
"Well, this is frustratingly humbling. And here I thought I was the only guy that got to be depressed around here." A deep sigh left Sorun, his brows creasing as he came to a decision. "Charmy and the rest of these Mobians, I swear... they really amaze me sometimes."
He saw that there was a box nearby that Charmy was blindly flying towards as he continued to look around. Making a split-second decision, Sorun decided to Trick onto the box and settle into a sitting position as to appear he'd been sitting there for a while. It'd taken about twenty seconds, after which Charmy had floated so close to Sorun that he almost bumped into the sitting Earthing. He let out a startled gasp and hovered back a bit to put some space between them.
"Gah! Eh-heh, sorry, Sorun, didn't see ya there." Charmy made a light chuckle and closed his eyes while grinning at Sorun, going as far as to rub the back of his head and grin so widely that his teeth shone. "Whatcha doin' here?"
Sorun didn't respond at first, too mesmerized by that wide smile the bee was giving him. A smile that didn't line up at all with all the trauma Saffron had described to Sorun that Charmy had suffered. None of the floating Mobian's demeanor fit it at all. Beneath the surface of confusion in his mind he felt different kinds of admiration, and he could even feel bits of envy well in him at the sight of Charmy. All he could do was stare as he thought about him.
"How does he do it? How?" Sorun silently wondered. "How does he continue going about smiling like that after losing almost everything? Is it because he has friends? A significant other like Saffron? Is it just because he's just that much better of a person compared to me? Him? What could it possibly be?"
"Er, Sorun?" Charmy voiced, a bit nervously. "You're, er, kinda staring."
Sorun blinked, and then clicked his tongue in irritation when he realized how lost in his thoughts he'd been. "My apologies, Charmy. I was thinking of something," he said.
"Okay?" Tilting his head in a curious manner, Charmy floated a bit closer to him. "What're ya doin' out here?"
"Lamenting my current status as being amidst the destitute. Anyway," he said, turning back to Charmy, "I heard you were planning a bash?"
"A ba- oh, you mean the party! Yeah!" Charmy brightened up immediately, and a smile was sent Sorun's way. "It's gonna be a really neat thing! Sally and Saffron are helping me set everything up, and I decided that while they're doing that I was gonna make a cake!"
Sorun's head sharply tilted at an odd angle. "A cake?"
"Mm-hm!" Charmy's smile turned a bit sheepish. "Though I, eh-heh... can't really find the bakery..."
"Is that why he was wandering around like that?" Sorun regarded the bee for a moment, and then turned around to the shop he'd seen the pies in briefly, going as far as to point at it. "The bakery over there should have most of everything you need. And there's a grocer down the way that sells things like eggs or other things you might need for it." He turned back to Charmy. "I can lend you a pair of hands should you require them. Or four. Or even more since-"
"You'd really do something like that for me!?" The wide smiled turned beaming, enough that Sorun found himself wincing. There must have been sunlight reflecting off his teeth, because there was no other way he could be smiling so brightly that he was practically shining. "That'd be such a big help!"
His face remaining in a neutral expression, which, compared to Charmy, may as well have been the exact opposite of the bee's demeanor, Sorun stood up off the crate. "You seem like you need the help. And you're a nice guy," Sorun said. "It'd be a bit too cruel leaving you hanging."
"Heh-heh. Aw, come on, Sorun, you don't gotta say stuff like that." He flashed Sorun a thumbs-up. "But thank you so much for helping me with this! I really appreciate it!"
"... It's not an issue, Charmy." Sorun's eyes flicked towards the direction of the bakery. "You'll have to pay for everything, though. I wasn't exaggerating about that destitute bit I said earlier. I really am flat broke."
"Ah, you really sound like Vector when you say stuff like that..." Charmy sighed out, floating in front of Sorun's view. "Anyway, don't sweat it. Princess Sally gave me some money so we're all good on that front!"
"Then in that case, let's go."
"Thanks again for helping out with all this, Sorun!" This voice came came from Charmy, who had just now floated out from the blue portal that had appeared in the Freedom HQ's kitchen. He had a bag in his hands filled to the brim with baking supplies, and after setting it down on the kitchen's counter he turned towards the portal. "And thanks for giving us a ride here, too! I was really worried about carrying this all back!"
A second form, Sorun, calmly walked through the portal. His Bringer Claws were manifested, both carrying more bags of supplies, while Yamato and its scabbard rested in his hands. He quickly closed the portal, and then dispelled the sword as the blue, feathered arms put the two bags down alongside the one Charmy had set down. "Well, it's not like I was gonna make us walk all the way back here. Or fly, in your case."
Charmy made a light giggle, and then turned towards the bags to unload them, but paused when one of Sorun's Bringer Claws beat him to it. The blue hand deftly reached into the bags and began to rapidly carry out the items, from bags of flour to eggs, and then began placing it all along the counter quickly while at the same time ensuring no damage was done to the items. At the same time the other hand was reaching into cabinets to bring out various bowls and measuring cups for use later.
Whistling at the sight of the arms blurring around, Charmy turned towards Sorun. "Wow, Sorun. Those arms of yours sure are... handy, huh?"
The pun was enough to have Sorun make a facial twitch, after which he faced Charmy. The bee was grinning cheekily at him, causing the teen to roll his eyes and pocket his normal hands. "Six outta ten," he blandly stated, walking towards the counter.
"W-wha-!?" Charmy sputtered, following closely by Sorun's side. "Aw, come on! I had to think really hard for that one!" he complained. "It's a seven, at least!"
They both stopped by the counter, with Sorun giving a shrug. "Six-and-a-half."
"Nuh-uh, you can't go halfsies!"
"This isn't the context you use halfsies in," Sorun corrected, glancing at Charmy from the side of his eyes. "Halfsies is when you split something with someone. This is meeting in the middle."
All that had accomplished was to make Charmy groan out and shake his head. "Agh, whatever. It was still a good pun."
Sorun said nothing in response, though the corners of his mouth did upturn into the smallest of grins. He made sure to wipe it off when he saw Charmy look his way to avoid being seen with it. Afterwards he looked down at the countertop they were both directly in front of.
As he did this the Bringer Claws disappeared, their work completely done. All the supplies they'd need, from the bowls to the cups to the pans taken from the cabinet, to all the ingredients and miscellaneous baking items like the frosting they'd bought, was on full display and neatly resting right in front of them. With all the preparation complete, all that was left was to make the actual cake.
The both of them stood there for multiple moments, silently staring at the spread of items in front of them. At one point Charmy had made a single cough and began to awkwardly rub at his arm, while Sorun had made an unsettled hum at the sight of it all. The dark-haired teen had eventually reached out and grabbed a purple bowl, though all he'd done with it was set it in front of them and gently rock it with his hand.
"... Hey, Charmy?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you actually know how to make a cake?"
The Mobian shook his head. "No. Do you?"
"I've never baked a day in my life."
"Oh..."
It quickly dawned on the two just how ill-prepared for this task they truly were. Charmy had blanched from the mere thought of it, while Sorun had released his grip on the bowl, only to reach over and grab one of the eggs.
Perhaps going forwards knowing this wasn't something they were equipped to handle wasn't the best way to go about this, but he didn't find himself caring all that much. Ever since his talk with Saffron he'd been too curious over Charmy, and all it took was for Charmy's sunny disposition to win Sorun over for becoming fond of him. Sorun himself wasn't so sure how it'd happened. The bee's attitude, maybe, or his small size, or the fact he admired Charmy's integrity to maintain that personality of his despite how much adversity he'd apparently faced. He was honestly amazed he'd grown so attached to him in such a short amount of time, even if he still couldn't figure out how Charmy maintained that integrity of his.
He hadn't exactly intended to let what was supposed to be an educational outing for himself turn into a bonding session with Charmy, but it'd happened while he wasn't looking, so he wasn't willing to let this go here. Especially after he'd promised Charmy he'd help with the cake.
They were making this cake, dammit.
"How hard can it be? It's just mixing things together and throwing it in an oven," Sorun reasoned, bringing the egg he'd grabbed in front of his face. "We'll just start with the eggs... eggs with a very questionable origin now that I think about it." He tapped the egg. "Wasn't the lady we bought this from a chicken...?"
"Er, Sorun?" Charmy continued to look towards Sorun's face as he stared at the egg he held in his hand with a contemplative look. Eventually he ran out of patience, prompting Charmy to shout out, "Sorun!"
The egg was thrown into the bowl by a startled Sorun, shell and all.
After hearing the egg crack against the bowl, both of the would-be bakers looked down into it. Sorun impassively blinked at the sight of the broken egg leaking yolk and whites into the bowl, whereas Charmy made a disgusted face while sticking his tongue out.
"Looks like progress to me," Sorun confidently said.
Charmy's response was to look up at the human with a flat face. "I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to add the shell part in."
Slowly nodding, Sorun reached a hand into the bowl and grabbed the shell, lifted it from the bowl, shook any gelatinous remains off from it, and set it aside on the counter. "Progress," he reaffirmed, turning back to Charmy.
The floating Mobian didn't at all look convinced. "I don't know about this, Sorun..."
Undeterred, Sorun reached to the side and grabbed a bag of flower. "Look, Charmy, baking is like science. It's a whole lot of trial and error. It's chemistry. Chemistry that you get to eat later." He tore open the top of the bag and began tilting flour into the bowl. "I say we just go at it and see what turns up. If we do something wrong we'll just adjust, and if we keep doing that eventually we'll get a cake."
Charmy slowly reached towards a whisk as Sorun spoke, an unsure look on his face. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. "Maybe we should go get somebody that actually knows what they're doing."
"I don't want to bother anybody with this, and besides, it's fine." After he felt like he dumped enough flower into the bowl, Sorun reached for another egg. "We'll get it done in no time, huh? All we need is a little perseverance."
30 minutes later
"I think it's time to call it quits, Charmy."
As it turned out, raw perseverance didn't quite cut it as opposed to having the actual knowledge needed to know how to bake. They'd tried. It'd been a valiant effort on both their parts, but despite their best efforts, they hadn't been able to cobble together a cake. They hadn't even made anything closely resembling a cake.
What they did manage to accomplish was making a mess of the kitchen. Bowls were upturned, raw ingredients laid strewn about everywhere, and Charmy was left sitting on the kitchen counter looking about at the mess with a dejected look on his face. Sorun was sitting on the ground, his back pressed against the counter and a bowl over his head and concealing his face.
"We should have gotten somebody to help us," Charmy said.
"Probably, yeah," Sorun agreed. "I think it's important to look at the bright side of these types of things, though."
"There's a bright side to all of this?"
"Dunno, but if you find one, do me a favor and let me know what it is."
A small sigh left Charmy upon hearing this. He opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped cold when he heard somebody enter the kitchen. Sorun, with his head covered by the bowl, wasn't able to make out who it was, though he did hear the pair of footsteps approach them before abruptly stopping, as if in shock.
"Uh-oh..." Charmy mumbled, voice turning meek and shameful.
Sorun's bowl-covered head lifted upwards. "What? What, who is it?"
"Mon dieu! What have you two done!?"
"Oh, that's who it is..."
After heaving a deep breath through his nose, Sorun reached up and lifted the bowl up off of his head far enough that he could see. The first thing he did was wince upon seeing the kitchen was even more of a mess than he remembered it being in before he'd been blinded by the bowl. And then he saw Antoine, standing at the edge of the kitchen completely frozen with a look of horror on his face like his own mother had just been shot in front of him.
"..." Sorun let go of the bowl and let it fall back over his eyes. "I can explain," he said, voice muffled by the bowl.
"Explain? Explain!?" Angry footsteps approached Sorun, the Earthling not moving so much as a muscle when the bowl was practically ripped off his head to reveal a practically fuming Antoine. Sorun found himself less focused on how angry Antoine was and more on how he could be so red past all the light-brown fur covering his face.
"How? How could zis have happened?" Antoine demanded. "What were you even trying to make to cause such a mess!?"
"A cake."
One of Antoine's eyes began to violently twitch. "A cake...!?" he all but hissed. "You 'ave nearly destroyed ze Freedom HQ's kitchen trying to bake a cake!?"
Sorun made a resigned sigh. "Look, baking's hard, man."
"No eet izn't!" Somehow Antoine seemed even more offended by Sorun's notion than the actual mess that was lying around them. "Look at zis! What iz zis? What even iz zis?" Antoine looked up from Sorun, at a glob of an off-white substance that had been Sorun and Charmy's best attempt at making cake batter. "What have..." Poking the substance, Antoine made a disgusted face. "Zis consistency, ze color, eet iz all wrong! Did you even separate ze eggs, Sorun!?"
"... Define separate." When Antoine's gaze snapped down at Sorun, he asked, "seriously, what does that mean? There's more to eggs than just dumping them in the bowl?"
He didn't get an answer to his question. What he got was Antoine breathing in deeply through his nose, and then slowly exhaling through his mouth. His shoulder relaxed just the smallest bit, followed by the coyote pressing his hands together while mumbling under his breath.
"Happy thoughts, Antoine, happy thoughts, you must be thinking ze happy thoughts..." He sighed after whispering the last word, and then looked to the side, over at Charmy who had been shuffling uncomfortably on the kitchen counter the entire time. "I am assuming zis cake was for ze party later, non?"
Hesitantly, Charmy nodded. "Yeah, that's right..."
"Oui, oui, alright, eet iz ze obvious fact zat you two are ze hopelessness when it comes to ze finer points of ze culinary arts." Antoine reached down, grabbed a very confused Sorun's arm, and hefted him up to his feet. "Charmy, you will be staying weeth me to clean zis mess you two 'ave made." Maneuvering behind Sorun, Antoine began to physically push the Earthling out of the kitchen. "And you, Sorun, are going far away from here!"
"Huh?" Rapidly blinking, Sorun turned his head back far enough to look at Antoine as he continued to be pushed from the kitchen. "B-but the cake-"
"I will handle the cake, Charmy will help, you will not!"
"But I can-"
"Non!" His protest falling on unwilling ears, Sorun was pushed out from the kitchen with a final shove. He turned around towards Antoine, and found himself shying back a bit when he saw Antoine glaring at him with arms crossed. "Really, Sorun, you have done quite enough. I would thought someone like you of all someones would behave better zan to let zis befall ze kitchen!" After speaking, Antoine gestured back to the kitchen, making Sorun wince a bit in shame. Now that he had a wide view of the place it did look awful, all things considered. He didn't even know how it had gone that bad. He and Charmy had just gotten carried away during their experimenting.
It wasn't like he'd meant for it to go this far out of hand, really, he hadn't. He'd just been really determined to help make that cake- perhaps a bit too determined. But he hadn't wanted to let Charmy down.
He should have listened to him and got somebody that actually knew what they were doing before they wrecked the kitchen.
Antoine's features softened slightly. "Sorun, do not be making zat face."
"I'm not makin' a face." That was probably a lie. Sorun couldn't see his own face, but he could feel the sad pout on his mouth was making. Apparently it was very noticeable to Antoine, who just looked uncomfortable now.
"Agh... Sorun, eef you really want to help, le princess iz just behinded me weeth things for ze party. I am being sure she would appreciate ze help."
Sorun immediately brightened up. "Oh, yeah. I'll go do that."
"Bon, bon, now I need to salvage zis travesty..."
It was no sooner that Antoine walked back into the kitchen that Sorun heard a pair of footsteps descending the stairs into the HQ. He could immediately tell from the blue boots he saw that it was Sally. And that was all he saw, as the rest of her body was obscured by the large amount of boxes she was carrying.
She didn't seem to have a very stable hold on the boxes, as they were stacked far above her head and were swaying from side-to-side. The wobbling only increased the further down the stairs she went, and when she finally set her foot down on ground floor, the boxes came to a tipping point. Literally. They began to fall over, with Sally gasping out in shock as she attempted to stabilize the boxes.
Fortunately for her Sorun had been standing on the other side of the room, so when he saw Sally drop the boxes two spectral hands had extended from his shoulders, reached across the room, and caught the boxes. Sally, still holding an armload of boxes in her hands, stared at the blue, feathered arms next to her in surprise, and then followed them to the awkwardly-grinning teen across from her.
"Hi," Sorun greeted, giving a small wave. "Need some help?"
"Thanks again for helping me set all this up, Sorun."
"It's not a problem at all, Sally," Sorun said, though currently his focus wasn't on the princess. It was on a paper cup he was holding in his hand, his eyes scrutinizing the details of the cup. When he decided there wasn't anything interesting to be had with it, the cup just being an ordinary paper cup, he set it down on the long table in front of him lined with dozens of other identical cups. He then turned around to face the rest of the HQ's living room.
All in all, there wasn't that much to be set up for the party that was to come. It was just to be a small affair for the Freedom Fighters, after all. A few tables and some chairs, mostly, and some other small items like the numerous cups that were set behind him. "Cozy" is a word Sorun would use to describe how the place looked. Small. Simple. With how complicated his life was he often yearned for the simpler things, so seeing that the party being planned was going to be a small, simple thing like this was a bit comforting to him.
He turned to the side just as Sally finished setting down one of the folding chairs she'd brought in. With a satisfied sigh, she nodded at the chair and then turned to Sorun. Sorun in turn found himself asking as the princess approached, "So what made you decide to go through with Charmy's party idea in the first place?"
"With how little has been going on I figured that it couldn't have hurt. That and the fact I figured we were all due something for all the work it took us to get this far," Sally answered as she stopped in front of him. "I think it'll do us all a bit of good to relax a bit for once."
"Mh." Sorun glanced to the side at the kitchen. "They're having fun."
Sally's eyes followed his gaze to the kitchen, and the small smile that had been on her face became strained. The kitchen had been cleaned for the most part while she and Sorun had prepared everything else, though there were still a noticeable few misplaced items scattered about along with some stains. Her attention was less on that and more on the pair that were currently in there. Charmy and Antoine were in a heated argument, the former of which was holding a bowl full of batter and flying around to avoid the latter that was trying to to grab at the bowl.
"You really had to leave those two in the kitchen with each other?" Sally asked as she turned back to Sorun.
"I didn't leave anybody with anything," Sorun denied. "What are they even arguing about, anyways?"
"From what I picked up Charmy wants to add honey into the cake and Antoine doesn't want to because it messes up his recipe," she answered with a roll of her eyes. "Saffron said that she was going to be adding honey into the punch she volunteered to make for the party. It makes me wonder why they're so partial to that stuff."
"I mean... they are bees," Sorun pointed out. He found his gaze maintained on Charmy's face, his own turning into a contemplative frown. "Charmy's been through a bunch, huh?" he asked.
From the corner of his eye he noticed that Sally's face dimmed down into a dour look. "Yes, he has. Did he tell you what became of the Golden Hive Colony?"
"Saffron did." A pause. "How does he do it, Sally?"
"Do what?"
"Be him," Sorun sighed out. "I can't figure it out. How a guy like that can lose so much and stay so carefree like that. It doesn't make sense." He shook his head and turned back to Sally. "I know he still has her, Saffron, but that can't be all, can it?"
His questions seemed to have caught Sally a bit off guard from how she'd widened her eyes a bit in surprise. A small breath soon left her, after which she closed her eyes in quiet contemplation for a few moments. She then opened them and focused back on Sorun. "Does this have anything to do with you?" she asked.
The question had been a bit unexpected for Sorun, who stilled a bit as he thought. It was true that he'd lost everything like Charmy had, albeit on a larger scale. What the bee hadn't lost compared to Sorun was his own life, which for Sorun was practically on a painfully short countdown timer at this point. A life that had little more value than fulfilling some contrived prophecy. The only comfort Sorun found in it was that it was a life spent saving everybody's lives, though he had to wonder if Charmy would be so cheery if he was in the same position Sorun was in.
Knowing him, Sorun somewhat suspected little would have changed with Charmy even if he had the same looming threat hovering over his head like Sorun did. That's what confused Sorun so.
"... Partially," Sorun eventually said in answer to the princess's question. "He doesn't act like somebody who lost their entire colony and family. There's no way he's a callous enough person that he just got over losing them all."
"You're right, he isn't," Sally agreed. "It's not like he was the way he usually is when it happened. He was devastated, Sorun. Both him and Saffron." She paused and looked in the kitchen towards Charmy himself. "I think it'd be safer to say he got past it," she continued, turning back to Sorun. "Having Saffron nearby certainly helped, as well as the support of his friends and everybody else around him. But in the end, well... he's Charmy. I think that's just the way he is."
Sorun's response was to let out a single, low chuckle that sounded a bit too sad to even be called a laugh. "It's just a bit upsetting is all," he told her. "You people always seem to bounce back from the worst tragedies. I'm just a bit jealous seeing Charmy cope so well with everything he lost. Because I see that, and then I look at myself and wonder what I am compared to that." He looked towards the ceiling and began rubbing at the back of his head. "I guess I'm a pretty depressing guy to hang around, huh?"
"Oh, Sorun, don't say that." When he looked down, Sorun saw that Sally had taken a few steps closer to him. "We can't all be Charmy. Some of us just take a bit longer to get past these things than others. I can... personally attest to that." That last sentence had been spoken a bit quieter, and she'd moved her head a bit away when she said it. She quickly re-faced Sorun before speaking again. "But I'd say you're doing better than you think." Her features brightened up considerably. "I think the fact you went out of your way to try and help Charmy with this says enough. Just go at your own pace, Sorun. We're here if you need us."
Shifting his eyes away from embarrassment, Sorun mumbled out, "Yeah, I know." His eyes went back to Sally when he heard her make a small laugh, and then turn towards a small box that was sitting near the wall.
"Anyways," Sally said, bending down to pick the box up, "moving away from all that, there's one last thing to take care of."
Sorun hummed as he watched Sally place the box on the nearby table. "Oh, yeah? What's- oh."
He knew what it was the moment she'd opened the box. He didn't even need to wait for her to open it all the way, as he'd seen the golden light shine through the crack of the box's lid as she began opening it. When the box was fully opened, he'd leaned forwards in order to peek into its interior to confirm what he thought was inside of it.
Power Rings. A lot of them, as least ten. Sorun had gawked slightly at the sight of the rings, and then looked to the side at Sally who was grinning at him.
"They're for Nicole," she explained. "I figured that since everybody was going to this thing that she should be a part of it, too, so I got a bunch of these together so she could stay in her body through the whole night."
"You really did that for her?" Sorun asked, almost in disbelief as he looked back towards the rings.
"Well, of course I did. She's one of my closest friends and it wouldn't have felt right excluding her from this."
"I see. That's... that's really nice of you, Sally." There was an air of appreciation and awe in his voice as he reached out towards the box. "Hey, Sally. Is she with you right now?"
He saw Sally shake her head. "No, she's in the lab doing something. Why?"
Sorun's hands grabbed the edges of the box. "You, um... would you mind if I gave her these?"
As he began dragging the box off the table and towards him, he saw Sally tilt her head back a bit in surprise at his question. "I... suppose that's fine," she said after a moment. "Can I ask why?"
"Ah, I just felt like doing a spontaneous act of random kindness. They can change the world, you know," Sorun said as he walked over to the entrance of the HQ lab, box of Power Rings in hand. "I'll make sure to get these to her. See ya in a bit."
The first thing he'd done when Sorun had entered the lab was make sure it was empty of anybody else aside from the person he was looking for. He breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw that the lab for the most part was empty: no sign of Tails or Rotor at all. What was there was the small handheld computer plugged into the lab's computer at the other end of the lab.
Sorun stared ahead at the computer, and then down at the box in his hands. He heard his heart begin to beat in his ears, took a breath to steady himself, and then began walking forwards.
"Heyyyy, Nicole," Sorun greeted, setting the box down on the ground as he sat down in the nearest swivel chair in front of the lab's computer. "You busy right now?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the Nicole-shaped icon he'd grown accustomed to seeing appeared on the screen in front of him. "As it happens, yes, I am," she informed him. "I appreciate the visit, Sorun, but I'm afraid I am too preoccupied to do much more than chat for a short time."
"That's fine, I just needed to tell you something." Sorun bent down towards the box at his feet. "Did you know... that there's gonna be a party tomorrow night?"
"A party? No, I was not aware."
Sorun opened the box. "It was Charmy's idea, and Sally went for it. It's not really that big a thing, just gonna be all of us hanging out for a night pretty much, but, y'know, it'll still be nice." Sorun grabbed one of the rings and held it up for the computer's camera to see. "And as it happens you're part of 'all of us', so Sally got you a whole box of these things so you could spend the whole night with us."
There was a noticeable pause before Nicole spoke again. "She... acquired a box of Power Rings specifically for me?"
Sorun glanced down into the box. "I mean if you want a hard number it's, like, ten or so, but yeah."
"I..." The voice being projected through the computer's speaker almost sounded unsure before Nicole began speaking again. "I do not think allocating so many Power Rings for my own personal use just to participate in a gathering is the best use of-"
"Nah, nonsense, nonsense." Sorun tossed the Power Ring back into the box and slid it to the side of the computer with his foot. "They're yours. Besides, the things literally spawn infinitely out of a lake, and the princess already gave the okay. Ten's enough to get you through a whole night, right?"
"It's more than enough, which is why I don't think I should-"
"Nicole. They're yours." Sorun pushed himself away from the computer, stood up, and pushed the chair back in. "If you really have to just consider it a gift for your due diligence or whatever, but the truth is she just didn't want you missing out on the party." He sighed and looked away from the computer. "And... I feel the same as her. To be honest with you I was kind of planning on stealing a bunch of rings for you in the back of my head until Sally showed me the box." He made a nervous chuckle. "I'm, uh, really glad I didn't have to do that."
"As am I. I do not think that you committing larceny against the kingdom would have gone well with Sally." Nicole's icon closed its eyes, after which a small smiled appeared. "Thank you for this, Sorun. This means much more to me than you know. If it is not too much trouble, could you please relay my thanks to-"
"You can just tell her yourself. Tomorrow night," Sorun reminded her. "She'll be there along with everybody else."
Another pause. "... This is true. Very well," she conceded. "Then... I will see you tomorrow night, then."
Sorun nodded. "Yeah. Totally." His eyes flicked back to the door. "I-I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Seeya."
That was as far as he could go before his nerves overtook him and he found himself walking back towards the doors. He didn't hear Nicole say anything to him after he departed, and he couldn't make up his mind on whether or not he was relieved or upset at that. He pushed it out of his mind and focused on trying to regain his normal composure before he exited the lab and went back to everybody else so they didn't notice anything off with him.
"I really would have stolen those rings, too... ack, good on Sally for looking out for Nicole, I guess. Though I kinda wish I woulda been the one to come up with all those rings. Now Sally gets all the credit." He reached the door, held his hand on the handle, and let out a small breath. "Forget it. I should just be happy for her. She doesn't really get to do this kind of thing. Didn't think I'd ever be going to something like a party with all these people, too..." He sighed out and opened the door.
"But... I guess it's fine," he continued thinking as he stepped out of the lab and made his way to the main room where everyone else was. "After everything we've been through we deserve it, and seeing as I'm not gonna be around much longer... yeah. Screw it. We'll have one last night of fun with everybody. And then... then I guess I'll go end this and die."
