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

A Ribbon of Hope for the Galaxy (and a Fluff and Taranza of Hope too)

Ribbon's POV:

Nervous, I stay seated against the wall of the Lor Starcutter's control room and fidget with the hem of my skirt while Taffy anxiously nibbles on the tip of a pen she had in her pocket. Normally I'd be absolutely freaking out with happiness to be here on this ship, the magical ship that every kid who's ever dreamed of galactic adventure has always been slightly obsessed with, but under the current circumstances, it's not quite as amazing as I'd always pictured it being in my mind. 

The 'ambassador' from Floralia, Lord Taranza, as he introduced himself, keeps floating back and forth in front of the control panels, wringing all six of his levitating gloves in worry. Occasionally he goes over to push a button or some such out of unwilling curiosity and excitement, but somehow Mags always swoops down on him like a vulture and blocks that part of the ship with himself, eyes narrowed. That is, he did up until Kirby showed up a few minutes ago, said some confusing things, and then disappeared down one of the two halls up here on this floor while Magolor descended down the ladder to find someone who could hopefully explain things better.

(Between you and me, in my mind's eye, I can actually see the pointy-eared Halcandran hugging the control panels and hissing 'my preciousssssss!' to keep Taranza at bay. Magolor really seems to love this ship, maybe even more than I love fresh bubblegumberry pie. Yes, that's actually a thing on Ripple Star, and no, you're not allowed to diss it until you've actually tried a slice.)

The adorable little envoy from Patch Land, Prince Fluff, seems to be mostly enjoying himself, except for the fact that some frequency emitting from some something in the starship's equipment is making his yarn all staticky. He looks kinda funny with a layer of raised fuzz all over him, but all of us are too wary of getting zapped by a touch from him to tease him about it. That, and none of us really feel cheerful enough to be teasing anybody.

"Why do you think they just up and took off with us aboard?" I sigh, the first time any of us 'guests' have spoken since our screaming fit was cut short earlier by Magolor's sudden starting the ship up and refusing to tell us why. "You'd think they'd want to be down in Dreamland, where it'd be easier to find whatever magical stuff needs to be found so we can fix the Fountain and everyone else's worlds."

Arms crossed, Taffeta snuggles against the wall a bit more and mutters down at her feet, "I don't know, but I've got a bad feeling about this. Too bad this isn't anything like a Fairy Forces squadron. Things'd be so much more organized, orderly, and purposeful then."

"Those things aren't everything," I remind her with a weak smile, but she just snorts and grumpily whispers something under her breath about even straightening paintings being better than this nonsense.

There's silence for a moment, but then I sigh, "I hope the Queen's okay..." When Taranza gives me a disgusted and overly-mopey look, I groan and clarify, "The Fairy Queen! When we left, she was really sick because of something she'd read somewhere, some idea that frightened her so terribly that she can't sleep or anything. She sent Taffeta and me to Dreamland to get the heroes to fix the Dimension Mirror before anything could happen to the Fountain, but I guess... I guess we were too late."

"Either that or the heroes just didn't care enough," Taffy grumps. "Whatever's going on, I'm finding myself less and less willing to believe anything those adorable, puffy little snugglepuffs stuffed with deception say."

Prince Fluff snickers a bit, but Taranza rolls his eyes and snorts, "I'm surprised not one of you has managed to see the truth of the situation. It is all blindingly simple, to a near-ludicrous point."

Confused, Fluff looks at him and asks, "What did you just say?" while his fuzziness seems to get even fuzzier. He's taking up almost twice as much space as he was earlier, with all that extra staticky 'fluff' on top.