Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 2: Stars in Far Places

Prologue

Meta Knight | メタナイト

It's been well over three years since Sakura... well, for lack of better words, since Sakura left us. In that time, Dreamland has been almost entirely peaceful. It's been almost eerie, really. Over three years of no monsters beyond the occasional mob monster infestation, no villains, no existential threats to Dreamland or Planet Popstar, et al. The Mirror World has been quiet; other than bits of trite diplomacy, there's been no communication with any of the other worlds and miniature planets that closely surround our own.

After getting used to a new villainous disaster showing up and crying death to Dreamland, Kirby, and everything else good and pure every six months to two years, it's been a bit of a shock to suddenly have nothing but quiet, or at least it has been for me.

Kirby and Bandanna Dee, on the other hand, have been thoroughly enjoying the time off. They've both matured so much; Kirby's 'poyos' have become rarer by the day, it feels like, even though they're certainly still present in his daily vocabulary. I give them educational lessons on history, science, literature, and the like in the secret library almost every day, and force them both to regularly spar with me, Sword, and Blade to keep their heroic skills sharp. (I say 'force,' because neither of them is nearly as excited about it as I wish they would be.)

For the most part, I suppose I'm glad they are both getting an opportunity to just be normal children with normal children's lives. They go fishing and camping often, and spend a great deal of time exploring the nearby worlds in the afternoons; during the summers, I give them breaks from book lessons and allow them to just go about life as they will (which usually entails a lot of snack-eating and general mischief, of course).

The two of them are as thick as thieves as ever; you never find them apart from each other. Bandanna essentially lives in Kirby's house at this point, ever since the two of them kicked Tokkori, that wicked little canary with a grating bumpkin accent, out and took the small building over again a couple of years ago. I think their intention in moving there was to get away from my schooling and sparring. Unfortunately (in their opinion) and fortunately (in mine), it's only a fifteen-minute walk (or a five-second warp) from the castle to their small living space, so they haven't been able to get rid of me just yet.

For myself, though? This time of peace has been rather monotonous, if I'm being completely honest with myself. I go about a daily routine of training, sparring with and teaching the children, drilling with the Meta-Knights, reading something or other in the secret library or my room in the evenings, and that's about it. After being forced to practice constant vigilance for so long, even the pretense that all is well is so difficult to adjust to.

Of course, I still practice constant vigilance. It would be foolish for nobody to be doing so, and it's not like anybody else is willing to take up the mantle of 'Dreamland's resident worrywart,' as my missing Waddle Dee friend once dubbed me. Every day, I find myself wondering when the next threat will show up, whether the next threat ever will show up. The fact that nothing has happened for so long tends to give me a bad feeling, as if the universe is a seemingly-dormant volcano preparing to erupt harder and more horribly than it has in centuries. Then again, now that the war has ended, Nightmare is gone, and Kirby has vanquished every threat that sought to cause the Galaxy harm in the meanwhile, maybe we really have reached a sort of Pax Dreamlanda. Maybe this is the long-foretold peace I was once encouraged, decades ago, to look forward to in my future.

If that's the case, though, it's almost... disappointing, to be honest, to have fought so long to earn this empty peace. It would be easier if good things of note were happening, but they really aren't. Everything is just business as usual. There has been no explosion of culture, arts, or science on Popstar; as always, everyone is too lazy. In the rest of the Galaxy, everyone is simply too scarred, too busy trying to rebuild lives and planets that may never truly be rebuilt.