Sakura's POV:
Early next afternoon:
With a tired sigh, I lean back against the wall of the Starcutter and close my eyes, hoping to grab a few minutes' rest before we arrive via inter-dimensional travel at our first destination. I woke up this morning feeling exhausted, which probably means that I time-traveled last night. You know, I wouldn't mind all this so much except for the fact that (as far as I can tell) all of my time trips are entirely pointless. It seems like I'm time-traveling just for the sake of time-traveling and not actually doing anything in any of the places I go to. If I was actually fixing time anomalies or helping people out or something, that'd be one thing. But the way that I seem to be dragged around through time with no purpose... it really doesn't seem right. I mean, why on earth would the Ancients design a type of being that gets flung around time for no reason?
Anyway... Just because I'm not always in the present doesn't mean that's not where my thoughts should be right now. Since Meta and I remembered last night about our Dark copies being free to go crazy in Dreamland, our master plan got changed slightly. Instead of us helping my mom unpack her things into her rebuilt house on Star World, Magolor's going to take us and drop us off on Popstar. Then the remaining people onboard the good ship Starcutter will go and get all of the moving stuff worked out while me, Meta Knight, Shadow, and Kirby will get the bozos taken care of in Dreamland. Bandana Dee might be coming with us too, but he hasn't decided yet. I personally hope he does.
Making a face, I groan just a second later as I realize that this means that my first trip to Star World in forever has just gotten cancelled (or at least postponed) yet again. Ah well... I'm sure I'll go back there one day in one time or another. The chances of me never ending up on the Planet of the Star Warriors ever again are pretty slim.
Just then, someone gently knocks at the wall next to me. "Sakura-chan?" my mother's voice asks quietly. "May I speak to you for a moment?"
Nodding slowly, I open my eyes and look over at her as she sits down next to me. "Sure, Mom. What do you need?"
Frowning, she looks off into space for a moment to gather her thoughts and then turns back to me. "How exactly are you planning to keep keeping your time-travel a secret? The others are bound to notice sooner or later, especially if you make plans with one of them but then strangely vanish or if you disappear for longer than a few hours."
Shuddering a little bit, I murmur, "I know. But I'll just have to do my best and hope that it keeps happening in a subtle way like it has been lately. I don't want them to know. It's not just that I don't want them to worry anymore, I don't think. The more time goes by, the more I don't want them to know because I don't want their pity. I don't want to be seen as 'different,' you know?"
Sighing, she turns away again. "You sound so much like your grandmother. She never told anyone aside from my father and I about her being a Time Traveler. Even when people asked her about why she wasn't around so often or why she missed things she'd agreed to help with, she refused to tell them. She didn't want pity or to be seen as anything other than what the others around her were."
"Sounds like me and Grandma would have gotten along well," I joke with a weak smile. "I know there's a 'but' in there somewhere. What happened?"
After smiling a bit at my goofiness, my mother grows serious again, almost sad. "More than one of her friendships was ruined by her stubbornly refusing to ever let anyone know the real reason she was gone, and instead choosing to make lame excuses like 'I forgot' or 'I didn't have the time.' And then one of her best friendships, the one between her and her sister, was ruined forever when my aunt finally found out that she was a Time Traveler but had hid it all those years. They shared everything with each other, those two. And the fact that my mother had hidden this from her... Well, to put it simply, it hurt my aunt's feelings very much. They hardly ever spoke again after that. Of course, not much time at all later, my mother quit ever returning to her home.
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Heroes of Dreamland, Book 6: Kirby and the Fountain's Fate (OLD)
FanfictionJust when the heroes start to think that maybe the trouble's all over for now, they're reminded that not all is right in Dreamland or the Mirror World thanks to a couple of Dark beings who have had plenty of time to plot and plan and grow extra bitt...