The Ball Pit
Kirby / Tulok / Meta Knight
Kirby / Tulok / Meta Knight
All told, this is probably one of Meta and Kes’ better ideas.
Living with a pair of Leos from South Nova does come with its share of challenges. Pop Star isn’t what anyone would call a bastion of lava and heat by any means – it’s no East Nova, as Teacher might’ve said. Still, South Novans weren’t exactly made for heat at all.
That was true enough for Kes, his dear sweet wife who complained fiercely of the mild winters and would absolutely shank him if he so much as nudged her towards the door on a pleasant summer day.
It was doubly true for Tulok. His little boy, his baby although he certainly wasn’t a baby or toddler anymore, feisty and fierce like his mother and full of vinegar in the way only kids were. Feisty, and very much a big brother’s boy, and therein is the problem.
Kirby likes to adventure around. He’s been all across the galaxy at least five times in just as many years, sightseeing if not having to save the universe for the sixth time. And when he’s home, he’s usually out patrolling, or just goofing off who knows where. And Tulok wants to be just like him.
And it’s such a shame because Tulok can’t. Not as young as he is, as frail as he is. So many times Kirby has gone out to do something and Tulok couldn’t come because it was either too dangerous or just too warm. So many crying fits, so many tantrums. Fatherhood is hard.
So, all told, this is probably one of the parents’ better ideas. If it goes well.
“Tada! What do you think, icicle?”
Icicle, because recently Tulok has entered a phase of being ‘too cool’ for ice cube, blinks blearily out at the scene from where his blindfold had been unceremoniously flung off. Meta brandishes his arm at the same time Kes, perfectly on point and maybe rehearsed, out into the living room.
Tulok stares, wide-eyed at the scene.
The entire living room has been shuffled out of the way to make room in the center for a truly massive inflatable kiddie pool that sits almost doubly as tall as Tulok himself is. Bright blue, decorated in all kinds of little designs, it’s an absolute bargain that Meta was certain was bound to catch the boy’s eye. A rubber mat is laid out underneath, stretching across the expanse of the living space, completing the piece.
The entire pool is piled high with little balls, a veritable mountain that looks like any child’s playhouse. They come in all different shapes and sizes, different colors and patterns, each one eye-catching in their own way, but by far, the star-shaped balls take up most of the pool. That was partly Meta’s idea; stars are practically sacred in their house by now, if not for their symbolism, then simply because it makes Tulok think of Kirby, and Kirby is pretty much the second coming in his eyes.
When Tulok does little but stare for an increasing stretch of minutes, Meta nudges him gently. “Why don’t you take a closer look? There’s something special about them!”
And when Tulok tiptoes over to get a closer look at Meta’s wink, he finds that they exude a cold that is by now terribly familiar to him, from the freezer, from his mother. They are, in fact, frozen.
Tulok is quiet for maybe all of ten seconds, the only sign of his outward emotion coming in the form of bristled wings and steady tapping of a star-shaped rubber ball covered in a sheen of frost.
And then he lets out the worst shriek that Meta has ever heard in his life, and the boy goes flying.
It’s kind of comical, really, the way he scrambles and jumps from the edge of the pool right into the pit. Several balls go flying, landing with broken frost and ice across the rubber mat lain just for that purpose. There’s gibberish that Meta doesn’t bother parsing, muffled within the mountain that is Tulok’s new home. Tulok is gone. He is non-existent. There is only the ball pit and its ball pit monster now.
Kes is quiet, as Kes is often wont to be, an observer of celebration and tragedy where words will do her no good. The smile on her face, though, is bright, warm as a summer’s day, and her eyes look at him with a fondness that makes him lose his breath for its intensity.
It had been her idea to freeze the balls over some, to give Tulok a bit of extra comfort in these balmy summer months. It had been her idea to even fill the pool up with rubber balls in the first place, caught by the discount toys at the store just a week ago.
Meta knew why well enough. There’s a burger joint they go to for a kid’s meal by the hospital whenever Tulok is especially well-behaved during his clinic visits, one that’s decked out with a truly massive play area with a truly massive ball pit. Tulok had always itched at the bit to dive in every time they went, careless for the much bigger children or the sheer size of the pit that was bound to get him lost in the first three minutes.
He never could understand why Meta hadn’t allowed him to, no matter how much he cried or begged.
Neither Kes nor Meta said it, but it did hurt, watching him forced to play on something a little gentler within their view so nothing happened, if he were allowed to play at all. He always wound up angry, like he did every time Kirby had to leave and he could never go with. They’d even debated stopping the burger place trips all together, just so we wouldn’t be forced to sit there and watch.
Well, he thinks, grin small but no less bright, it won’t be a problem now that Tulok has his own ball pit to play in.
Another peal of laughter rings out, louder than Meta has heard in some time. Definitely one of their better ideas.
They linger for a few minutes, content to just watch Tulok as he has the time of his life unfettered by any annoyance at his lack of brother or the limitations of his body. They could both stay there all day if they let themselves.
Eventually, though, Meta feels a cool hand, gentle on his shoulder. “I’d best go fix up some lunch,” Kes murmurs, eyes still on the mess of a ball pit. “Nova knows he’s going to be famished, and-” Her voice lowers, whispering wryly, “-you-know-who never misses a meal.”
Oh, boy. He’d about forgotten.
Meta nods and lets her walk off into the kitchen, choosing to linger instead a moment longer on the sight of his son, still caterwauling away.
After a moment, he deigns to move to the bedroom and grab a book. He’s probably going to be here awhile.
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“I’m telling you, it’s gotta be burgers this time, if it isn’t burgers I’m going to go on strike- Oh hey we’re home.”
The door opens and for a split second Kirby notices nothing but the smell of food. He closes his eyes, takes one big sniff, and sends his playful irritation over the bond with Gooey at being wrong yet again. He’d been begging for burgers for some time now.
He gets the impression of amusement before it stalls up and a gentle wash of confusion curls over him, directed outwards at their surroundings rather than Kirby himself. Opening his eyes, he sees why.
“A ball pit?”
A ball pit that currently is bereft of about a third of its balls, scattered with no care around the floor of a living room that looks like it’s been rearranged like a puzzle game. Also, there’s water everywhere. Kirby doesn’t know why.
“Uh.”
He stares for a good minute.
He loves him a good ball pit. He is in fact banned from the burger play place because of his enthusiasm for a good ball pit, and while the kids absolutely loved him the managers thought he was a ‘safety hazard’ or something dumb like that.
He loves a good ball pit. But why is it here. In his home.
Across the way, within the bowels of the ball pit that, now that he looks, miiight be just his size – indignation-irritation-amusement be quiet, Gooey – a tiny, familiar voice comes out. Everything suddenly makes sense.
“Kirby! Gooey!!”
Tulok pops his head out in a flurry of hair and downy wings, grin wide on his face and a fire in his eyes that Kirby so loves. Affection mingles between he and Gooey both, pushed outwards to Tulok who won’t be able to feel it. Still, the grin on Kirby’s own face is more than enough to reflect it.
“Tulok! Icicle! We’re home!”
“Hop in! Hop in!! They aren’t looking, do it do it—”
“Woah buddy, give me a second—”
Kirby waves his hands to settle them both down, because Gooey’s impressions of indignant-outrage-nonono are making it really hard to think, much less process what Tulok is saying. He looks carefully at the pit, at Tulok staring at him like he’s hung the stars in the sky. Kirby probably has at one point.
He shouldn’t. The place is a mess.
It’s been forever since he’s had a good ball pit to play in. And Tulok looks happy, who would say no to that face?
He shouldn’t.
He really wants to.
Gooey, for his efforts, only sighs at the change in Kirby’s mind he gets, wordless but obvious. Not that he hadn’t tried his best to at least distract him, but Kirby isn’t one to back down when he actually wants to do something. Their parents had tried plenty.
“It’s fine, Gooey,” Kirby mutters, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. “Just for a few minutes and we’ll clean up right after! Easy!”
And that’s all Gooey gets before Kirby backs up, braces, and leaps.
Nova.
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Back in his bedroom, Meta takes his time picking out a book that he might enjoy, partly because he’s indecisive but partly because he just wants to linger and listen to the sound of Tulok’s enjoyment.
The boy had had it rough since he arrived in the galaxy. There was so much he couldn’t do, and again Meta can’t help but marvel at what a good idea this was, to bring a piece of the world in their home and let Tulok enjoy it without fear of being hurt. Even if it may be a mess eventually, it’s nothing they can’t clean up.
It really is all worth it, to give Tulok something to enjoy when he can only enjoy so much. He hardly ever hears his son sound so happy these days, not when Kirby isn’t around.
He feels accomplished. Like he’s actually done something worthwhile for once.
And then something. Happens.
He can’t describe it, really, other than it sounds like an earthquake has slammed through and rocked the house on its foundations. Everything shudders hard, a few seconds but stretching like a lifetime, and Meta has to grab the shelf to keep neither the books nor himself from careening to the ground.
Something crashes. Something pops, loudly. Meta knows immediately that it’s coming from the living room.
Meta – Meta Knight – has been through a lot in his years. He’s fought demon beasts of countless types. He’s battled Dark Matter. He’s witnessed the near destruction of the universe at least three times now.
He wouldn’t tell anyone but Kes and his closest friends, his brothers, but he’s been through a lot and he’s got the mental triggers to prove it.
So, when he hears and feels these three things in quick succession, something in his mind. Changes. Adrenaline rockets and wings flare and he tears out of his bedroom, talons scraping the doorframe, damn near tearing it from his hinges in feral desperation.
Something is in the living room. Tulok is in the living room. There are no other thoughts.
Such is his fervor, the terror and the rage that drive him and turn his vision red, that when he reaches the living room it takes him a very good minute to actually register what’s going on.
…
Had it been anyone else, Meta would have gone and jumped them already.
The place is a mess. Balls are everywhere, all over, certainly not where they should be on the floor. A lamp is knocked over. The furniture is soaked through with frost and melt where some have wedged into the cushions or otherwise landed in a heap.
Gooey, there near the door, is busying himself picking up what he can, and when their eyes meet, he has the decency to offer him an apologetic look as he sweeps three into the hold of his tongue.
And then. There is Kirby.
Meta hadn’t seen the kiddie pool when he came in, and fast it becomes obvious why. Where the pool was, now there is only Kirby, sitting on the floor where the pool used to be. His wings are obscured, and Meta is pretty sure that that might be the pool, somehow, but he can’t know for certain.
Meta can’t read his expression, doesn’t bother trying to, gaze instead zeroed in on the child in Kirby’s lap who only looks nothing short of giddy at the turn of events. Flinging balls and ball-remnants up into the air, he laughs and swings back, glancing up at his brother eyes bright as stars.
“Again! We gotta do that again!”
Kirby, silent, looks his father in the eye, and just. Smiles. Weakly.
…
Meta is amazed that he hasn’t had a heart attack yet.
“Kirby.”
This boy, this adult, this god-slaying Warrior of prophecy who’s saved the universe a dozen times, who wields Galaxia and the Star Rod and whatever else mythical weapon or object that defies comprehension. This man who has looked death in the eye and won, more than Meta ever could.
His adult son.
Meta reaches up and, slowly, pinches the bridge of his nose. Hard.
“Kirby.”
Kirby wordlessly sets a now-silent Tulok down on the floor and gets up, shaking a wing to get the sad pool remains off as he takes the walk of shame to face his father’s ire. His eyes are downturned, his expression drawn, and well he it should be, Meta thinks.
“What. In sweet Nova. Were you thinking.”
The tone is deceptively calm, frigid enough to make Kes proud, and by the way Kirby cringes, he knows it too.
Meta continues. “You realize you’re an adult now, right? A grown man? Twenty-five years old? Not five? Large for your age and too big for a kiddie pool? Meant for kids?”
Kirby doesn’t speak. Meta wouldn’t let him if he tried. “Do you still need your parents to keep after you? To tell you right from wrong? Constantly? Do we need to treat you like you’re five?”
At Kirby’s wordless shake of his head, Meta huffs, tempted to bite and tell him that it certainly seems that way, but refraining. He’s better than that, and it looks like Kirby’s at least gotten something through that head of his for how cowed he looks.
Meta sighs, longer, slower, grounding. When he speaks, his tone is calmer. “Go buy another pool. We got that for your brother, to keep, and now he needs a new one. Just! The pool this time. No toys.” They really don’t need another mountain clogging Tulok’s closet.
Wordlessly, Kirby nods. He leaves without a sound, quite a feat for someone like Kirby, and Meta thinks his words might’ve actually gotten through to him for once. Kirby actually looked regretful, fancy that.
Everything is quiet in the time that Kirby is gone, and part of Meta relishes the silence. Everything is set slowly back in order, balls picked up, melted ice mopped and soaked from the furniture. Gooey makes no gesture for attention, eyes down, and Tulok, likely sensing the atmosphere in the room, sits on the couch and doesn’t move.
He almost wants to feel bad. This was supposed to be a good day for the boy.
Almost.
It’s as Kes is finishing up lunch – Kes, who checks in on the scene and looks entirely unsurprised – that they hear a noise coming from outside. A motor running, distantly, tires? Gooey perks up, eyes focusing.
“Hey! Tulok! C’mere!”
Kirby.
Tulok is up immediately, a rock out of a slingshot, and Meta doesn’t react fast enough to stop him from sprinting to the door and flinging it wide open. He stares, takes one breath, and screams, and Meta sees why quickly.
Their yard has been converted into a whole inflatable funhouse. That’s all he can think, staring out at the scene.
It’s one of those slides you only see during festivals and outdoor events, stretching fifteen feet high with an inflatable ladder on the side for people to climb barefoot. The bottom dips into an absolutely massive pool, one filled to the brim with balls, as well as other inflatable toys. The engine pumping air into the entire thing rumbles off to the side, the noise he’d heard earlier, and down the road, a truck fades into the distance. The toy store name is branded onto its carriage.
Beside the pool, Kirby stands on the tips of his toes, whistling and waving his hands.
“Tulok! In here!”
“Kirby!” Meta shouts to be heard over the air pump and Tulok’s yelling. “This isn’t what I meant! When I said a pool, I meant--!”
“I know!” Kirby grins. “See, I thought about it at the toy store! I thought, if an adult can’t sit in a kiddie pool, if I’m not allowed, why not get an adult pool! It even comes with a slide, look!” One arm swings wide at the mentioned slide. “It works! Admit it!”
Meta. Is at a loss for words.
Tulok books it. Has already booked it and is letting out the mightiest of war cries as he dives in, no care for the summer heat, for the weather, for anything at all. Kirby follows him with a bellow that scares the birds from the trees fifty feet away, wings spread wide as he cannonballs right in. Grabbing a toy shark and making a beeline for the boy shrieking as he swims away, Meta is completely ignored.
“Kirby…”
“You all should join too! Come on! It’s made for like eight people!”
He really should say something. He really should.
Gooey enters his vision and sinks quietly into the pool. No expression but calm content on his face as he scoops up a tongueful of balls and pelts them in Kirby’s direction and is assaulted in kind.
Meta watches it all with something like mindless awe, a sense of bemusement at just what his life has become. He has no words.
“Meta.”
And there comes that touch to his shoulder, cool and calm and grounding. Kes is smiling, calm, knowing, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
Kirby is…a child at heart. Had always been, and always would be. It grates on his nerves enough to make him pull teeth, but Meta has to consider himself blessed for the fact.
Kirby has done a lot for them. He’s faced things Meta couldn’t ever dream of and somehow, he still came out of it so positive. Not like Meta, Meta Knight who had faced only a fourth as many monsters and found himself broken for the trouble.
Being childish, it can be so frustrating. But it’s not always bad. It can’t be, after all is said and done.
He’d rather his boy be immature than anything like his father.
Kirby shouts, and this time, Meta lets himself go. Lets Kes’ hand slip from his shoulder to his hand so they can join them, at least for a little while.
They have time.
Living with a pair of Leos from South Nova does come with its share of challenges. Pop Star isn’t what anyone would call a bastion of lava and heat by any means – it’s no East Nova, as Teacher might’ve said. Still, South Novans weren’t exactly made for heat at all.
That was true enough for Kes, his dear sweet wife who complained fiercely of the mild winters and would absolutely shank him if he so much as nudged her towards the door on a pleasant summer day.
It was doubly true for Tulok. His little boy, his baby although he certainly wasn’t a baby or toddler anymore, feisty and fierce like his mother and full of vinegar in the way only kids were. Feisty, and very much a big brother’s boy, and therein is the problem.
Kirby likes to adventure around. He’s been all across the galaxy at least five times in just as many years, sightseeing if not having to save the universe for the sixth time. And when he’s home, he’s usually out patrolling, or just goofing off who knows where. And Tulok wants to be just like him.
And it’s such a shame because Tulok can’t. Not as young as he is, as frail as he is. So many times Kirby has gone out to do something and Tulok couldn’t come because it was either too dangerous or just too warm. So many crying fits, so many tantrums. Fatherhood is hard.
So, all told, this is probably one of the parents’ better ideas. If it goes well.
“Tada! What do you think, icicle?”
Icicle, because recently Tulok has entered a phase of being ‘too cool’ for ice cube, blinks blearily out at the scene from where his blindfold had been unceremoniously flung off. Meta brandishes his arm at the same time Kes, perfectly on point and maybe rehearsed, out into the living room.
Tulok stares, wide-eyed at the scene.
The entire living room has been shuffled out of the way to make room in the center for a truly massive inflatable kiddie pool that sits almost doubly as tall as Tulok himself is. Bright blue, decorated in all kinds of little designs, it’s an absolute bargain that Meta was certain was bound to catch the boy’s eye. A rubber mat is laid out underneath, stretching across the expanse of the living space, completing the piece.
The entire pool is piled high with little balls, a veritable mountain that looks like any child’s playhouse. They come in all different shapes and sizes, different colors and patterns, each one eye-catching in their own way, but by far, the star-shaped balls take up most of the pool. That was partly Meta’s idea; stars are practically sacred in their house by now, if not for their symbolism, then simply because it makes Tulok think of Kirby, and Kirby is pretty much the second coming in his eyes.
When Tulok does little but stare for an increasing stretch of minutes, Meta nudges him gently. “Why don’t you take a closer look? There’s something special about them!”
And when Tulok tiptoes over to get a closer look at Meta’s wink, he finds that they exude a cold that is by now terribly familiar to him, from the freezer, from his mother. They are, in fact, frozen.
Tulok is quiet for maybe all of ten seconds, the only sign of his outward emotion coming in the form of bristled wings and steady tapping of a star-shaped rubber ball covered in a sheen of frost.
And then he lets out the worst shriek that Meta has ever heard in his life, and the boy goes flying.
It’s kind of comical, really, the way he scrambles and jumps from the edge of the pool right into the pit. Several balls go flying, landing with broken frost and ice across the rubber mat lain just for that purpose. There’s gibberish that Meta doesn’t bother parsing, muffled within the mountain that is Tulok’s new home. Tulok is gone. He is non-existent. There is only the ball pit and its ball pit monster now.
Kes is quiet, as Kes is often wont to be, an observer of celebration and tragedy where words will do her no good. The smile on her face, though, is bright, warm as a summer’s day, and her eyes look at him with a fondness that makes him lose his breath for its intensity.
It had been her idea to freeze the balls over some, to give Tulok a bit of extra comfort in these balmy summer months. It had been her idea to even fill the pool up with rubber balls in the first place, caught by the discount toys at the store just a week ago.
Meta knew why well enough. There’s a burger joint they go to for a kid’s meal by the hospital whenever Tulok is especially well-behaved during his clinic visits, one that’s decked out with a truly massive play area with a truly massive ball pit. Tulok had always itched at the bit to dive in every time they went, careless for the much bigger children or the sheer size of the pit that was bound to get him lost in the first three minutes.
He never could understand why Meta hadn’t allowed him to, no matter how much he cried or begged.
Neither Kes nor Meta said it, but it did hurt, watching him forced to play on something a little gentler within their view so nothing happened, if he were allowed to play at all. He always wound up angry, like he did every time Kirby had to leave and he could never go with. They’d even debated stopping the burger place trips all together, just so we wouldn’t be forced to sit there and watch.
Well, he thinks, grin small but no less bright, it won’t be a problem now that Tulok has his own ball pit to play in.
Another peal of laughter rings out, louder than Meta has heard in some time. Definitely one of their better ideas.
They linger for a few minutes, content to just watch Tulok as he has the time of his life unfettered by any annoyance at his lack of brother or the limitations of his body. They could both stay there all day if they let themselves.
Eventually, though, Meta feels a cool hand, gentle on his shoulder. “I’d best go fix up some lunch,” Kes murmurs, eyes still on the mess of a ball pit. “Nova knows he’s going to be famished, and-” Her voice lowers, whispering wryly, “-you-know-who never misses a meal.”
Oh, boy. He’d about forgotten.
Meta nods and lets her walk off into the kitchen, choosing to linger instead a moment longer on the sight of his son, still caterwauling away.
After a moment, he deigns to move to the bedroom and grab a book. He’s probably going to be here awhile.
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“I’m telling you, it’s gotta be burgers this time, if it isn’t burgers I’m going to go on strike- Oh hey we’re home.”
The door opens and for a split second Kirby notices nothing but the smell of food. He closes his eyes, takes one big sniff, and sends his playful irritation over the bond with Gooey at being wrong yet again. He’d been begging for burgers for some time now.
He gets the impression of amusement before it stalls up and a gentle wash of confusion curls over him, directed outwards at their surroundings rather than Kirby himself. Opening his eyes, he sees why.
“A ball pit?”
A ball pit that currently is bereft of about a third of its balls, scattered with no care around the floor of a living room that looks like it’s been rearranged like a puzzle game. Also, there’s water everywhere. Kirby doesn’t know why.
“Uh.”
He stares for a good minute.
He loves him a good ball pit. He is in fact banned from the burger play place because of his enthusiasm for a good ball pit, and while the kids absolutely loved him the managers thought he was a ‘safety hazard’ or something dumb like that.
He loves a good ball pit. But why is it here. In his home.
Across the way, within the bowels of the ball pit that, now that he looks, miiight be just his size – indignation-irritation-amusement be quiet, Gooey – a tiny, familiar voice comes out. Everything suddenly makes sense.
“Kirby! Gooey!!”
Tulok pops his head out in a flurry of hair and downy wings, grin wide on his face and a fire in his eyes that Kirby so loves. Affection mingles between he and Gooey both, pushed outwards to Tulok who won’t be able to feel it. Still, the grin on Kirby’s own face is more than enough to reflect it.
“Tulok! Icicle! We’re home!”
“Hop in! Hop in!! They aren’t looking, do it do it—”
“Woah buddy, give me a second—”
Kirby waves his hands to settle them both down, because Gooey’s impressions of indignant-outrage-nonono are making it really hard to think, much less process what Tulok is saying. He looks carefully at the pit, at Tulok staring at him like he’s hung the stars in the sky. Kirby probably has at one point.
He shouldn’t. The place is a mess.
It’s been forever since he’s had a good ball pit to play in. And Tulok looks happy, who would say no to that face?
He shouldn’t.
He really wants to.
Gooey, for his efforts, only sighs at the change in Kirby’s mind he gets, wordless but obvious. Not that he hadn’t tried his best to at least distract him, but Kirby isn’t one to back down when he actually wants to do something. Their parents had tried plenty.
“It’s fine, Gooey,” Kirby mutters, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. “Just for a few minutes and we’ll clean up right after! Easy!”
And that’s all Gooey gets before Kirby backs up, braces, and leaps.
Nova.
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Back in his bedroom, Meta takes his time picking out a book that he might enjoy, partly because he’s indecisive but partly because he just wants to linger and listen to the sound of Tulok’s enjoyment.
The boy had had it rough since he arrived in the galaxy. There was so much he couldn’t do, and again Meta can’t help but marvel at what a good idea this was, to bring a piece of the world in their home and let Tulok enjoy it without fear of being hurt. Even if it may be a mess eventually, it’s nothing they can’t clean up.
It really is all worth it, to give Tulok something to enjoy when he can only enjoy so much. He hardly ever hears his son sound so happy these days, not when Kirby isn’t around.
He feels accomplished. Like he’s actually done something worthwhile for once.
And then something. Happens.
He can’t describe it, really, other than it sounds like an earthquake has slammed through and rocked the house on its foundations. Everything shudders hard, a few seconds but stretching like a lifetime, and Meta has to grab the shelf to keep neither the books nor himself from careening to the ground.
Something crashes. Something pops, loudly. Meta knows immediately that it’s coming from the living room.
Meta – Meta Knight – has been through a lot in his years. He’s fought demon beasts of countless types. He’s battled Dark Matter. He’s witnessed the near destruction of the universe at least three times now.
He wouldn’t tell anyone but Kes and his closest friends, his brothers, but he’s been through a lot and he’s got the mental triggers to prove it.
So, when he hears and feels these three things in quick succession, something in his mind. Changes. Adrenaline rockets and wings flare and he tears out of his bedroom, talons scraping the doorframe, damn near tearing it from his hinges in feral desperation.
Something is in the living room. Tulok is in the living room. There are no other thoughts.
Such is his fervor, the terror and the rage that drive him and turn his vision red, that when he reaches the living room it takes him a very good minute to actually register what’s going on.
…
Had it been anyone else, Meta would have gone and jumped them already.
The place is a mess. Balls are everywhere, all over, certainly not where they should be on the floor. A lamp is knocked over. The furniture is soaked through with frost and melt where some have wedged into the cushions or otherwise landed in a heap.
Gooey, there near the door, is busying himself picking up what he can, and when their eyes meet, he has the decency to offer him an apologetic look as he sweeps three into the hold of his tongue.
And then. There is Kirby.
Meta hadn’t seen the kiddie pool when he came in, and fast it becomes obvious why. Where the pool was, now there is only Kirby, sitting on the floor where the pool used to be. His wings are obscured, and Meta is pretty sure that that might be the pool, somehow, but he can’t know for certain.
Meta can’t read his expression, doesn’t bother trying to, gaze instead zeroed in on the child in Kirby’s lap who only looks nothing short of giddy at the turn of events. Flinging balls and ball-remnants up into the air, he laughs and swings back, glancing up at his brother eyes bright as stars.
“Again! We gotta do that again!”
Kirby, silent, looks his father in the eye, and just. Smiles. Weakly.
…
Meta is amazed that he hasn’t had a heart attack yet.
“Kirby.”
This boy, this adult, this god-slaying Warrior of prophecy who’s saved the universe a dozen times, who wields Galaxia and the Star Rod and whatever else mythical weapon or object that defies comprehension. This man who has looked death in the eye and won, more than Meta ever could.
His adult son.
Meta reaches up and, slowly, pinches the bridge of his nose. Hard.
“Kirby.”
Kirby wordlessly sets a now-silent Tulok down on the floor and gets up, shaking a wing to get the sad pool remains off as he takes the walk of shame to face his father’s ire. His eyes are downturned, his expression drawn, and well he it should be, Meta thinks.
“What. In sweet Nova. Were you thinking.”
The tone is deceptively calm, frigid enough to make Kes proud, and by the way Kirby cringes, he knows it too.
Meta continues. “You realize you’re an adult now, right? A grown man? Twenty-five years old? Not five? Large for your age and too big for a kiddie pool? Meant for kids?”
Kirby doesn’t speak. Meta wouldn’t let him if he tried. “Do you still need your parents to keep after you? To tell you right from wrong? Constantly? Do we need to treat you like you’re five?”
At Kirby’s wordless shake of his head, Meta huffs, tempted to bite and tell him that it certainly seems that way, but refraining. He’s better than that, and it looks like Kirby’s at least gotten something through that head of his for how cowed he looks.
Meta sighs, longer, slower, grounding. When he speaks, his tone is calmer. “Go buy another pool. We got that for your brother, to keep, and now he needs a new one. Just! The pool this time. No toys.” They really don’t need another mountain clogging Tulok’s closet.
Wordlessly, Kirby nods. He leaves without a sound, quite a feat for someone like Kirby, and Meta thinks his words might’ve actually gotten through to him for once. Kirby actually looked regretful, fancy that.
Everything is quiet in the time that Kirby is gone, and part of Meta relishes the silence. Everything is set slowly back in order, balls picked up, melted ice mopped and soaked from the furniture. Gooey makes no gesture for attention, eyes down, and Tulok, likely sensing the atmosphere in the room, sits on the couch and doesn’t move.
He almost wants to feel bad. This was supposed to be a good day for the boy.
Almost.
It’s as Kes is finishing up lunch – Kes, who checks in on the scene and looks entirely unsurprised – that they hear a noise coming from outside. A motor running, distantly, tires? Gooey perks up, eyes focusing.
“Hey! Tulok! C’mere!”
Kirby.
Tulok is up immediately, a rock out of a slingshot, and Meta doesn’t react fast enough to stop him from sprinting to the door and flinging it wide open. He stares, takes one breath, and screams, and Meta sees why quickly.
Their yard has been converted into a whole inflatable funhouse. That’s all he can think, staring out at the scene.
It’s one of those slides you only see during festivals and outdoor events, stretching fifteen feet high with an inflatable ladder on the side for people to climb barefoot. The bottom dips into an absolutely massive pool, one filled to the brim with balls, as well as other inflatable toys. The engine pumping air into the entire thing rumbles off to the side, the noise he’d heard earlier, and down the road, a truck fades into the distance. The toy store name is branded onto its carriage.
Beside the pool, Kirby stands on the tips of his toes, whistling and waving his hands.
“Tulok! In here!”
“Kirby!” Meta shouts to be heard over the air pump and Tulok’s yelling. “This isn’t what I meant! When I said a pool, I meant--!”
“I know!” Kirby grins. “See, I thought about it at the toy store! I thought, if an adult can’t sit in a kiddie pool, if I’m not allowed, why not get an adult pool! It even comes with a slide, look!” One arm swings wide at the mentioned slide. “It works! Admit it!”
Meta. Is at a loss for words.
Tulok books it. Has already booked it and is letting out the mightiest of war cries as he dives in, no care for the summer heat, for the weather, for anything at all. Kirby follows him with a bellow that scares the birds from the trees fifty feet away, wings spread wide as he cannonballs right in. Grabbing a toy shark and making a beeline for the boy shrieking as he swims away, Meta is completely ignored.
“Kirby…”
“You all should join too! Come on! It’s made for like eight people!”
He really should say something. He really should.
Gooey enters his vision and sinks quietly into the pool. No expression but calm content on his face as he scoops up a tongueful of balls and pelts them in Kirby’s direction and is assaulted in kind.
Meta watches it all with something like mindless awe, a sense of bemusement at just what his life has become. He has no words.
“Meta.”
And there comes that touch to his shoulder, cool and calm and grounding. Kes is smiling, calm, knowing, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
Kirby is…a child at heart. Had always been, and always would be. It grates on his nerves enough to make him pull teeth, but Meta has to consider himself blessed for the fact.
Kirby has done a lot for them. He’s faced things Meta couldn’t ever dream of and somehow, he still came out of it so positive. Not like Meta, Meta Knight who had faced only a fourth as many monsters and found himself broken for the trouble.
Being childish, it can be so frustrating. But it’s not always bad. It can’t be, after all is said and done.
He’d rather his boy be immature than anything like his father.
Kirby shouts, and this time, Meta lets himself go. Lets Kes’ hand slip from his shoulder to his hand so they can join them, at least for a little while.
They have time.
-The End-
Artist Comment:
September 1, 2022
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KIRBY YOU BIG DORK!!!! But the best dorky BIG BROTHER EVER!!!!! 8D
Just because Kirby is an adult, it doesn't mean he's lost his childish air. (Like most of us here, I'm sure. XDDD I know I'll never give up my plushies, video games and love for all things cute and fluffy~!) His boisterous, impulsive antics may irk Meta from time to time, but in the grand scheme of things, he's glad his son will always be a child at heart.
And just a small FYI for those who don't know about Kirby and Gooey. They share a special way to communicate. (As seen in the story above) It's been briefly mentioned here. And then revealed why they're able to communicate in such a way here. But in a nutshell, Gooey does NOT talk. He and Kirby are easily able feel each others emotions, and then able to translate what they're feeling to the other. Kirby is the only one who is able to understand Gooey without issue. It's been a while since Gooey made an appearance, so I just wanted to mention it to refresh ya memory~ ^o^
--
The AMAZING literature written for this illustration was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess)
September 1, 2022
-----------------
KIRBY YOU BIG DORK!!!! But the best dorky BIG BROTHER EVER!!!!! 8D
Just because Kirby is an adult, it doesn't mean he's lost his childish air. (Like most of us here, I'm sure. XDDD I know I'll never give up my plushies, video games and love for all things cute and fluffy~!) His boisterous, impulsive antics may irk Meta from time to time, but in the grand scheme of things, he's glad his son will always be a child at heart.
And just a small FYI for those who don't know about Kirby and Gooey. They share a special way to communicate. (As seen in the story above) It's been briefly mentioned here. And then revealed why they're able to communicate in such a way here. But in a nutshell, Gooey does NOT talk. He and Kirby are easily able feel each others emotions, and then able to translate what they're feeling to the other. Kirby is the only one who is able to understand Gooey without issue. It's been a while since Gooey made an appearance, so I just wanted to mention it to refresh ya memory~ ^o^
--
The AMAZING literature written for this illustration was commissioned by my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess)
Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
