Chapter 16: Child's Play
Behind every great magician is an equally great assistant.
Unfortunately, the magnificent Cu'u has been saddled with a menace by the name of Stella.
"Take good care of my apprentice, daughter."
"You can come home when she goes home, daughter."
Cu'u could only rapid-fire through the memories of these last few months.
One time she and Stella set up flaming hoops for her to jump through, but she made the gaps too narrow and Cu'u's feathers caught on fire.
"Aaaaaaaah!" Cu'u rolled around on the floor trying to put them out while Stella stood on by cringing.
"W-Wait! I remembered!" In a 'genius' move, she readied her wand with glowing blue light, "W-Waterga!"
And once again Cu'u succumbed to the comet of flooding waters.
Then there was the time Cu'u was hungry and wanted a sandwich.
Leaning lazily on their cruddy couch, Cu'u waved her fingers in the air and closed her eyes, "Stella I'm hungry, magic me up a sandwich, pronto!"
"Ummm, ok? What kind?" Stella said with that dumb blobby look in her eyes.
"I don't know! Just make it big and stuffed!" Cu'u opened her mouth and pointed at it.
Stella had to get out the spellbook to fulfill this ultra specific need.
"Ah! Got it!" She sounded confident. Little dude Cu'u know…
Stella swung her wand around and then shouted, "Give her the meal of her dreams! Engorgus Subbus!"
Cu'u opened her eyes and found a sub sandwich floating overhead with all the meats and non-spicy peppers she could ever want.
"Oooohhh…!" Her teary eyes sparkled.
…And then the sandwich descended, revealing it was…much, much bigger than she wanted.
"...AAAAAAAAAAH!" The sandwich shoved itself into her gaping mouth like a bundle of hay and she stumbled off the couch.
And then who could forget…the incident.
"Brrr…gosh darn goblins and their beatboxing." Cu'u said with a shiver.
"Did you say something?" Stella wondered while preparing to go to high school as Selina.
Cu'u was all envious, pitying and bitter at her passive ability to be an airhead.
"Mrr…" Cu'u pouted and paddled her legs in midair, "Go on. And stay out of trouble."
"I will be verily careful!" Stella proclaimed before heading out of the warehouse.
"Somewhere the inventor of grammar cringes…" Cu'u grumbled, before dropping to the ground and stretching her arms.
"Oooookay, now to trail her and make sure she-"
Cu'u's eyes sagged, as a trigger was pulled on her conscience and made her moody, "Actually, you know what? To heck with her today…!"
After multiple instances of her ignorance being paid unto someone of her magnificence, Cu'u walked towards the door with a simple plan, "Today's gonna be about me, me, ME!"
She cast a spell to make herself invisible and unable to be heard by anyone but herself.
"If she can age herself up, she can be responsible like an adult too!" Cu'u took to the skies, but not TOO high cause she'd get sick. It was a cloudy day, but she had stellar vision to compensate.
Though her mouth was getting more use than her eyes.
"I beg and beg mom to let me be older and she says," She pretended to be a suave woman, "'No honey, you're not ready for that responsibility'."
"But STELLA wants to be older and all she's gotta do is flick a wand!"
Cu'u madly fluttered her wings and threw her fists down, "I'm 18 damn it! Where's my boobies and long legs?!"
She then dropped her head with a frumpy pout and remarked, "Ah forget it, I'm literally shouting at the wind."
"So…what da heck do you do for fun on this planet?" Cu'u wandered off to another city since this "Seattle '' just seemed like a bunch of buildings, loud cars and trains.
There was a smaller city not far off over the hills that seemed worth checking out.
Upon landing in the streets Cu'u grumbled, "Friggin' mom couldn't have left me an instructional manual for around here?"
There were a lot of humans moving around. Big, small, fat, skinny, short, tall, pimply, pretty, blah blah blah.
"As long as this spells up, no one will know I'm here. Heh heh, perfect stealth mode." She flashed a smug grin and tried to find a shop for her interests.
Music, video games, books…they made shops for BOOKS?!
"Holy moley, humans prop up the dumbest things! Next you'll be telling me they-" She turned around and saw a store specifically made for selling spicy food.
Her wings drooped and with a blunt, dumbfounded look in her eyes she muttered, "...I think I'm gonna shut up now."
Since the crowd was a little much to deal with, she fluttered up to the nearest building and sat down to observe.
She saw some adult picking their nose and laughed, "Pah, what a child! I stopped picking my nose when I was ten!"
And then that guy went and shamelessly wiped it on his pants. To make it worse, he was just about to meet up with a woman for a romantic date, from the looks of things.
Cu'u stuck her tongue out and gagged, "Uuuugh, good luck to you, lady."
Then a lightbulb went off in her head and with a devilish giggle she dropped to the sidewalk and said, "Actually, I can get away with a little fun here."
She tip-toed up behind the couple on their date and then pointed her finger at the fire hydrant, wrapping it in a small lasso of magic, "Just gotta loosen you up a little and…"
She got just enough elbow grease in to make the fire hydrant squirt water on the dating man's crotch, then she closed the hydrant back up and saw the lady react with shock.
"Neener neener! Now you're cleaner!" Cu'u stuck her tongue out and fell back giggling, but upon looking up she saw the lady taking out a rag from her purse to let him dry off with.
The two laughed it off and continued to enjoy their date.
"Whaaaaa?" Cu'u sputtered in disbelief, "You could at least be inconvenienced!"
With the couple melding into the crowd, Cu'u crossed her arms and mumbled, "Ah to the heck with it, he'll ruin it for himself."
She stuck her tongue out with a "Bleh!" and then continued wandering around looking for something else to do.
"Ugh, I feel like I'm wasting my time, maybe I should-" Cu'u slapped herself quickly and remembered, "No, Cu'u! This is about you today! Not the spoiled apprentice."
She determined right then and there that the next building that caught her eye she'd enter without hesitation.
She fluttered over the crowd and scanned the street, and found a building skirting the edge of the corner that said "Adult Commodities" and "18+ only" and her eyes lit up.
"AHA! Now I can figure out what it's like to be an adult!" She dove straight for the entrance and entered it alongside someone else.
A few seconds later, she exited with the color drained from her face and her pupils shrunken.
She lifted her hands nine inches apart and stared at them both, silently mouthing something until she found it in her to shake that image out of her head.
"...OOOOKAY! The NEXT building then!" She crossed her arms and looked for anything that didn't have the number 18 on it.
And then she finally saw it. The glimmer in her eyes to end all glimmers, "N-No way…!"
She floated off the ground across the street, nearly getting hit by a car in the process, "AAAAH!"
She then tumbled out of the air onto the crosswalk and sprung right back up a few feet away from a jewelry store.
"Jewels must be really common on this planet if humans can sell them…" Cu'u murmured, her mouth salivating.
She cupped the spit in her mouth and swallowed, then waited for a chance to sneak into the building.
There were counters FULL of different kinds of jewels, the majority of them diamonds and gold rings.
She floated around in the air in a trance, narrowly avoiding bumping into the other patrons, but after a little time inside she laughed, "I-I mean…it's impressive for human standards. But this ain't even a drop in my moms' pond."
She could gladly be smug about her moms' wealth when looking at these pitifully small prices too, "I should snatch up this whole store and take it home with me, start my own horde! And then…what the HELL am I saying?!"
She froze mid-air and was flabbergasted by what she heard, shaking it off with a growl of, "Gosh darn dragon genes acting up again…!"
She closed her eyes and admitted, "It's like I'm saying, these are just jewels! It's not like…"
A red sparkle manifested itself out of thin air, and like a gentle pair of hands they opened her eyes and guided her towards their presence in the form of small, iridescent rubies.
"R-R-Rubies…" She said, fully hypnotized into fluttering over, her voice trapped into being monotone.
"I neeeeeed…" She said, holding her hands against the glass and fogging it up with every breath.
And then she looked at the prices and remembered something KINDA important…
It wouldn't matter if these were penny-pinching cheap, cause as her mom said, "Also, I am cutting you off from your allowance for the time being. You need to learn how to start earning your own funds."
This snapped her out of her trance long enough to curse through gritted teeth, "DARN. IT. MOM!"
She slammed her hands atop the glass and remarked, "How am I supposed to earn money from nothing?"
And the answer slapped her like a cold tuna, "Oh, duh! Magic!"
She had the perfect spell in mind to get what she wanted, "It's fine, they won't miss a few jewels "
She cast magic on her right hand and that let her phase through the glass and grab a few rubies, "Hehehe! See Stella, THIS is how a real magician works!"
The moment she pulled them out a loud siren went off and iron bars went down on the front door.
The cashier shouted, "Ok! Who has stolen jewelry?! Raise your hands, nobody moves!"
Cu'u sputtered, "E-Eh?"
Another employee thrust his finger at a teenager and shouted, "It was him! I saw him eyeing the rings hungrily!"
The teenager threw his hands up and said, "W-Wait, I was just wanting a good engagement ring for-"
The cashier vaulted over the counter straight into a tackle, "Big talk, thief! Now give it up!"
Cu'u winced at the unrestrained beat down foe a little bit and then dulled it out to look at her ill-gotten gains.
Only to realize, "Wait…these are just imitations!"
Grumbling her way into putting them back, she then used her magic to get out of the shop as three police cars rolled in and the cops surrounded the store.
Cu'u muttered, "There's gotta be something a big, mature homunculus like me can enjoy…"
She wandered out of town a bit and headed down the street.
Unable to appreciate just the simple joys of nature around her, she kicked the dirt off the ground, and splashed around in the puddles.
"Haaaa…this is boooooring. I miss the giant crabs on that one planet we vacationed on. I wanna go visit colorful jungles and flee from giant snakes…"
Cu'u stopped and hung her shoulders, "Wait a tic…I HATED that stuff…!"
Not that it changed her points though. She stopped what she was doing entirely, sat on the curb, and moped, "I wanna go home…"
She kicked a rock and mumbled, "It's not fair. Stupid mom…"
She looked up and saw a light beaming down over something she only heard whispers of.
A bunch of metal bars put together to suspend a leather seat via chains. Or in layman's terms…
"A-A…swing set?" Her eyes lit up with childlike wonder and she crossed the street, only to bump into the fence.
After climbing over it she walked on up to the swings and gave one a jiggle. The rattling of chains made her smile and she promptly sat down.
A light kick made the swing go and she used her wings to steadily go higher and higher.
"Heh heh heh…!" Childish laughter left her gleeful face, until eventually she was going so high she could see only the sky at points.
"Whee!" Her heart fluttered with excitement. This was the life.
She heard a bell ringing and slammed her heels into the dirt to stop.
This swing set was in a yard and upon that bell ringing, a stampede of children 10 and younger came flooding out of the building.
"Hah…!" She gasped, getting off the swing and molding the dirt back into place with her hands and breath.
Then she fluttered off atop a nearby tree and watched the kids scatter across the playground, with a couple adults keeping watch close by.
The yard was quickly filled with laughter and the energetic sounds of children playing on the large toys.
Cu'u smiled and commented, "Children get to have fun here? Guess humans are doing something right with all this real estate."
Her heart warmed, she decided to flutter over atop the swing set to get a closer look.
A small group of children broke off and chased each other around, with one of them seeming to be the target to avoid.
She had heard this game was called "tag", and it seemed like a lot of fun.
She wanted oh so much to swoop in and tag one of the kids as a joke, but shook her head free of those thoughts and continued to remain perched safely out of sight.
A young boy with white-ish hair and a striped shirt seemed to be the one who needed to tag his buddies. He had a bounce in his step, and was leaping over the equipment with ease to catch his targets.
"I'm gonna get you!" He shouted.
Two other kids laid down a trap in his path using a jump rope, causing Cu'u to gasp and shout, "Hey! Watch out!"
The kid looked down and then jumped the rope, with a few more paces managing to tag his target on the shoulder.
"Awww…" The defeated kid hung his arms.
"I won!" The victor jumped in the air repeatedly with his fists flung high.
"Yeah!" Cu'u jumped and cheered, then promptly slipped off the metal bar thanks to her poor choice of footwear.
"ACK!" She hit the back of her neck on the way down, which caused her to flip under the swings and go tumbling until she hit the ground on her back.
But despite that harrowing experience, she was so intoxicated by the sounds of playing and laughter in the air that she breathed it off and smiled.
She laid there for a little while until that white-haired boy came running over, bending down and whispering, "Hey, are you alright?"
Cu'u smiled, "Oh, yeah, thanks for asking."
"Great!" The child smiled bright and wide, "Thanks a bunch for helping me out before!"
"Huh? Oh, he must mean the game…" Cu'u decided it was finally time to stand up and flutter the dirt off her wings.
After which she smiled proudly with her fists on her hips, "Not a problem! I'm here to fight for children's happiness everywhere!"
"Hah!" The child gasped in awe, "Then you're a superhero?"
Cu'u rubbed the underside of her nose and boasted, "Well, I'd rather be called a magnificent hero, but sure!"
The child then took her hand and shook it gently, "Thank you for all your hard work then!"
"Don't mention it kid!"
After a few more seconds of the kid shaking her hand, Cu'u slowly opened her eyes and uttered a blunt, "Eh?"
She then locked eyes with the kid and felt all the color leaving her face.
"EH?!" She pulled free from his grasp and slammed back into the nearby fence, watching as the kid's eyes blinked with puzzling curiosity.
"Is something the matter?" He asked innocently.
"What in the name of the fourteen moons?!" She looked at her hand, his warmth was still fresh on her nerves
She looked at him, this bright, cheerful…honestly normal looking child! Ok, so the white-hair was a little weird, but still…!
"Y-You can…see me?" She said with a hint of fear.
"Yep!" The child used the same tone as always, acting like this was NORMAL.
While Cu'u continued to lose her mind trying to piece this together, "AND you can hear me?"
"Oh? Was I not supposed to talk to you?" The child jumped to, hanging his head slightly with sad, puppy dog eyes, "I'm sorry…"
Cu'u bit her lower lip with guilt and then waddled up to him, "N-N-No, it's not that…!"
She then laid a hand over her chest and hastily explained, "See, I cast a cloaking spell! So you shouldn't be able to notice me!"
She paused for a moment and then with dilated pupils yelled in her head, "WHY AM I TREATING THIS AS NORMAL?!"
She reviewed the spellbook page she had meticulously read over and over in her head, "Ok, think. Was. There. A catch? No?! Then what the heck?!"
And when she looked up none of the other kids seemed to be paying attention to what they were doing.
Just this one, normal (?) white-haired boy.
The boy smiled and kept taking this matter in stride, "If I'm the only one who can see you, then you're like…an imaginary friend!"
"Errr, yeah! I…guess so?" Cu'u said, her worries fizzling out as the boy extended his hand again and remarked, "My name's Xander! And yours?"
"Ummm, Cu'u Bella!" She shook the kids' hand and resumed smiling, "Awww, look at him grinning. What am I getting so worked up for? He's just a really energetic young boy."
"Now we're friends, Cu'u! C'mon! I wanna introduce you to my other friends!" Xander held on gently and pulled her along the playground.
She was at first laughing along with his enthusiasm before needing to remind him, "H-Hey, I told you, nobody should be able to see me…"
She then sighed and closed her eyes gently, "Ah never mind…"
He brought them over to two nearly identical red-haired girls his age sitting under a tree. Both of them were drinking apple juice out of a bottle, but one was playing on their phone and the other was bird watching through their binoculars.
"Hey guys! Hey guys! I made an imaginary friend!" Xander then let go and stepped between Cu'u and the twins to introduce them, "Cu'u! This is Sol! And this is Ana! They're my cousins, and my friends!"
Xander stood between the twins and put one hand on each shoulder, "They're cousends!"
The twins dropped what they were doing and looked in Cu'u's general direction, only to split up their response, starting with Sol saying, "Xander-"
And then Ana said, "-there's nothing there."
Cu'u breathed a sigh of relief.
Sol followed up with a cheeky grin that made her uneasy, and commenting dully, "I bet any imaginary friend you'd find would have an ugly shade of pink skin-"
Ana continued with a giggle, "-and would look like they just walked through a chicken farm covered in glue."
Cu'u's brows sagged as she murmured, "That's weirdly specific…"
The ticking sounds went off in her head before a loud ding caused her to throw her fists down and shout, "HEY!"
Sol then grinned and said, "Yes, we-"
"-can see you."
Xander looked at them with a little disappointment, "Awww, that wasn't very funny."
Sol remarked, "It was for-"
"-us."
Cu'u then slapped her face and groaned, having lost the will to be bewildered from the last instance, "I give up…"
Peering at the twins between her fingers she commented internally, "Though…getting a closer look at these two, they got a 'special' kind of vibe to them. They must come from a powerful bloodline."
"Stiiiiill doesn't explain Xander though…"
The twins then raised their hands and took turns asking her, "Question…"
"What are you supposed to be even?"
Cu'u stood up and turned her head with a flash of smugness on her face, "That's easy! I am none other than the MAGNIFICENT Cu'u!"
The twins' snickers bit her ego.
Sol pointed at her and remarked, "We meant-"
"-your species."
Xander plopped down between them and remarked, "You got dragon wings! Are you a dragon?!"
Cu'u crossed her arms and remarked, "Teeeeeechnically?"
The twins chimed in again, "She also has-"
"-pointy ears."
Xander's eyes lit up even more, "You're an elf too?!"
"P-Partially…?" Cu'u took a moment to tug away at her ear, "Why DO I have these ears?"
The twins snickered again, and Cu'u threw her fists down and shouted, "Look! I'm a homunculus! I got a lotta stuff inside of me!"
Her cheeks puffed and then deflated at the sight of Xander showing great interest in her.
"...Listen, you seem like a buncha…" She glared at the twins in particular, "Nice kids…"
She then propped her hand up and leaned the other into her hip, "But I was told it's a VERY bad idea to be caught. So I should probably-"
Sol interrupted to murmur, "Sounds like she's-"
Ana added, "-a leashed momma's girl."
Cu'u's ears perked up and she retaliated like she looked ready to cry, "I-I am not! I just really, really think it's better if I leave!"
Sol remarked, "For a magical creature-"
Ana leaned her head back and yawned, then smacked her lips, "You seem awfully boring."
Xander, however, wondered quietly, "Do you really have to go? We just met…"
Seeing him pout made her heart ache, and after scratching the side of her face a bit she remarked, "I-I'd love to stay. It's great seeing all the kids having fun. But I just can't…"
Sol and Ana teamed up in a sing-song tone, "Momma's girl~!"
Cu'u growled ferociously and threw her fists down, "I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I'M 18 YEARS OLD!"
The twins paused and Cu'u smirked cockily, "Yeah that's right, you flame-haired brats! I'm totally capable of thinking for MYSELF, thank you very much!"
Sol chuckled, "She's barely any bigger-"
"Than cousin Lunalei."
Cu'u didn't know who this Lunalei was, but she sounded like a puberty disappointment, "You cheeky…!"
"No. No. Settle down. They're just…kids…you are like…a THOUSAND times more mature than them…!" Cu'u glanced aside smugly and threw away any prior caution to the wind.
"Ok…! Seems like seeing is gonna be believing! So rejoice! The Magnificent Cu'u is going to give you a one-time magic show!"
Xander clapped his hands, "Cooool!"
"Hmm…"
"Ehh" Sol and Ana's reactions were muted but they put down what they were doing to pay attention.
"Ok! Just need something that won't draw much attention…Ah! Perfect!"
She flicked her hands down and poofed a white top hat into existence. Then after noting Xander's attention she reached in and pulled out a deck of cards, "The classic opening act!"
"But with a twist…!" She grinned with excitement.
She flattened her top hat and put it under her foot, then unfurled the deck into a fan in front of the kids, "One of you will pick a card."
Sol shrugged and turned to his sister, "May I?"
"Get this over with? Sure."
Sol tapped a card closer to the right, and Cu'u laced it with a little magic before folding back the full deck.
She then took one step back and hit her top hat at the right point to make it flip into the air. Along the way it scooped up the deck of cards and then suspended in place in front of her face.
She put her hands up on both sides of the top hat and spun it around with her magic wiggling fingers.
"Now watch closely…" The flattened hole side pointed towards the engaged kids and a light display roulette of all 52 cards started rolling on it.
"As I pick out your card!" Cu'u swept her hands down and the roulette began to slow down. When it landed on the 8 of Hearts she pulled her top hat into the air and lifted one leg, as the 8 of Hearts bloomed into a miniature firework.
"Ta-da! Well, am I the greatest card guesser or what?" As she was holding her nose up with confidence while Xander applauded, the twins spoke up.
"Well maybe if we got to see the card first-"
"-your bragging would have merit."
"Bwuh…?!" Cu'u's eyes bulged out and she immediately dropped her hat before her chest, "T-That can't be right! I know I followed the steps!"
She tried to unflatten her hat, but that wound up having a springboard effect of launching all the cards out like raining leaves.
"ACK!" She scrambled at lightning fast speeds to scoop up all the cards before someone saw them, and her antics ended up making all three kids laugh.
The twins murmured, "What a-"
"Klutz."
That word echoed painfully in Cu'u's head across multiple alien languages, leading to her gritting her teeth and dribbling out tears, "I…am not…a KLUTZ!"
Xander's disposition broke through like sunshine on a cloudy day, "That was great, Cu'u!"
"T-Thanks…" Cu'u blushed and folded her tiny wings over her body as her smile wobbled.
But again, those gosh darn twins had to snicker.
This time Cu'u put her foot down and proclaimed, "Ok you know what? I'd love to see you do something cooler! You can't!"
She held her head up high and proud as it seemed the twins were going quiet as an admission of defeat.
But then they stood up, with Sol sighing like this a chore for her, "Ok Ana, you know the drill."
"Let's make this quick."
The twins stood closer together and then held hands. Then with equally powerful smirks, their bodies began to glow with heat.
Cu'u shivered and quickly lost her pride as these twins briefly flashed with flames carrying the warmth of the sun.
But then they pulled their hands apart and closed their eyes with an air of superiority firmly established, having left the homunculus' mind in tatters.
"Who ARE these kids?!" Her mind screamed.
The bell rang from the school, and with that the three kids grouped up and started walking back to the building.
Xander turned back and said, "I had fun, Cu'u! I hope you come back another time to play!"
Sol and Ana turned their heads back, and with grins like the devil they said in sync, "We had fun too, Klutzy Cu'u."
Cu'u went from dominated to scowling in seconds, "Grrr…! Those cheeky brats! Oh it is ON!"
"Something something don't get caught…"
"Oh who gives a hoot! H-How am I supposed to become a magnificent performer if I let myself get upstaged?!"
"This isn't over, twinsies…" Cu'u made the declaration then and now, "I WILL be back!"
Thus ends her first day of completely and utterly slacking off her duties as Stella's observer.
Besides, it's not like Stella needed to get out of any trouble, right?
Meanwhile, where trouble was happening…
Stella, still currently Selina, was trapped in an ever-growing mound of mashed potatoes alongside Violet and many other classmates.
Stella stuck her tongue out and giggled, "Tee-hee! Oopsie!"
Next Time: Cousin vs. Cousin Round 2!