Heroes of Dreamland, Book 7: Kirby and the Battle for Dreamland (OLD)

Prologue: How Did It Come to This?

From the Pen of Princess Bara of Nintendo World, Late Midautumn, Year 836:

To the 'heroes' of the point of Dreamland:

All of my worst fears have come to pass. As time went on, I kept silent, as was my place. I allowed you all to follow your current threads of destiny, I let you shirk your duties, and I never said anything about it. Even while you stood there and did nothing while the Mirror Realm grew sicker and made the Fountain of Dreams more and more vulnerable, I held my tongue. But now that the Fountain of Dreams has been destroyed, as clearly was show more and more to be inevitable, I must speak now.

What you have done, whether you will admit to being at fault or not, is unforgivable. It was your place to protect Dreamland and all of her sister realms, including Patch Land, Floralia, and like it or not, the Mirror World. But because of your own foolish hatred for your reflections, now all of the realm of Dreamland is very ill. I cannot express how deeply disappointed I am in all of you, but especially you, Kirby and Meta Knight- I have fought alongside you before, learned the sword from one of you, even, and I thought that I could assume your loyalty to our world. The fact that I actually cannot causes me much grief.

If you had done anything, rather than just ignoring the whole issue and allowing it to grow worse and worse... But no, you all just went about your daily lives as if nothing was the matter! Do not say it isn't so, I know the truth. Do not forget that I can see whatever transpires anywhere within my realm.

Thanks to you, all of our worlds may be in great danger. It is with a heavy heart that I-

Out of nowhere, my already shaking hand that holds my official feathered pen jerks against my will, knocking a bottle of ink all over the letter I was working on. Grimacing, I weakly gesture to a guard to take it away and bring me another parchment. This is not a note that I've been looking forward to writing, but as the possible threads of time grew fewer and fewer and it grew more and more obvious that we'd find ourselves in the predicament we are in today, I knew the time would come.

For abandoning their positions as heroes, the ones who were meant to be guardians of Dreamland must be named no friends to the rest of Nintendo World.

Please, don't think I came to this decision willingly. They are all my friends, and as their friend I would never wish them ill. But as their Princess, I do have a duty to uphold to the rest of my kingdom, a duty to not allow the ones who were supposed to protect one of the points to go completely unscathed by their actions.

As I said in the letter, if they had done anything to help, even just trying to figure out what needed to be done, I would not be against them at all. But the way they only continued preparing for a festival, even while some of the inhabitants of the Mirror World begged them to help... I can't believe it of them, of my friends, of my first sensei, but it must be the truth. My Sight does not lie.

Determined, I start to write again, only to suddenly grow very dizzy. Apparently I pass out, because a second later all three currently-present Elvin guards are staring down at me, worry written all over their normally-emotionless faces.

"My lady, you have not been yourself as of late," one of them murmurs as he helps me up. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

With a sigh, I wobbly sit up and look down at the ink I've splotched all down the front of my dress. "Next time, I'm just going to try with my special pen-sword. Then I won't have to use a bottle of ink." As I grab a rag and start to try and clean up my royal desk some, one of the Elves catches my still shaking arm and stops me.

Sympathetic but firm, he orders, "You should rest some before you try again, ma'am. You look like a ghost."

Grim as the situation is, I can't help but smile weakly for a second. It's still so strange to have so many people who care about me. But my smile quickly fades away as I fling the rag away from me and try to stand up. "Of course I look like a ghost, Sir Tynker. As you all know, my health is deeply tied to the health of my realm. And when one of the four populated points is practically on its deathbed, of course I'm not going to be fit as a fiddle either."