Heroes of Dreamland, Book 6: Kirby and the Fountain's Fate (OLD)

~Other Time~ The First Attack on Star World

Petal's POV:

With a quiet sigh, I adjust my gloves and my simple communications headset before pulling my standard-issue dark brown cloak around myself for warmth. Gloves... bleh. I've never liked them that much, as far back as I can remember anyway, but arguably, they do keep your paws warm and make life a little easier in some ways, I guess. Besides which, it's GPC protocol that all cadets and officers wear gloves as part of their uniform. All right, I suppose, if that's what they want.

It's a biting cold Latewinter day here in Chivalry Province, and there's snow falling from the sky in flakes that are almost big, fat, and fluffy enough to call miniature snowballs. It's very cloudy today too, which makes all of the light seem kind of filtered. All in all, for most people, it's a dreary sort of day, but personally, this is the kind of weather that I like almost the very best. The only way it could be better, I think, would be if it was sunny in spots while the snow was still falling.

Yes, I know; I'm a strange person. By Latewinter, most Star Warriors, especially those in the more agriculturally-inclined provinces (like Chivalry here) are sick of the snow and ready for spring to return. And sure, even I agree that the cold gets a little bit old and that the warmth, sunniness, and life of spring is wonderful and worthy of rejoicing over, but there's a magic and familiarity to snow that I feel from no other sort of weather. And besides, you have to admit that snow is beautiful. The sparkliness, the purity, and the satisfying squeak-crunch it makes when you walk on it... It's beautiful.

Shaking myself out of my reverie, I turn back to the small group of landed starships, one of which I'm standing right next to. It's not really mine. After all, I'm not out and about enough to warrant having my own ship. This particular star-shaped spaceship isn't painted a bright color like everyone else's are, since it doesn't really belong to anyone.

Normally, each cadet chooses a color for their ship to set it apart as their own. Here in the group right now, for example, there's Officer Stellar's starry-yellow ship, (the cadets picked that color and painted it for her; they chose starry-yellow because she's our 'Stellar' leader, badum tss), a cadet's light-blue ship, another cadet's grass-green ship, and 'my' ship, which is a plain steel-gray model. I have to admit; the best part about not having my own ship is that I always get to use the fresh-off-the-line shiny new ones that no one's claimed yet. This one's been used so few times that it even still has that crisp, clean new-ship smell.

"Third Officer Petal. I trust you're not daydreaming? Because this is certainly neither the proper time nor the proper place to be daydreaming."

Without a second's hesitation, I straighten up so I'm standing at attention, although I don't let go of my cloak. It's way too cold for that. "Of course not, Officer Stellar; just meditating on the task ahead, I guess you could say."

Snorting a little bit, the head officer of the Galactic Peace Corps looks back down at the radio set in her ship. She calls it the wireless, although I have no idea why. According to the people I've asked about it over the years, it's an Honesty and Chivalry Clan thing. "Well, cadets, this is definitely a new one. We've been getting claptrap about 'monsters' since before Third Officer Petal showed up, and you all know that about a year ago these supposed 'monsters' started doing things like ruining crops and knocking over currently-vacant buildings.

"While I still say it's a bunch of teenagers 'fighting the power' or whatever other nonsense, there's a claim that this time, the 'monsters' have done some real damage. Seeing as how we got a distress signal like this just last week only for it to turn out to be a prank call, (from, guess what? teenagers,) I'm rather dubious as to whether this is going to be anything, either. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.