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

~Present Time~ Searching; It's Always Dark(Sakura)est Just Before the Dawn

(several hours later, early evening:)

Kirby's POV:

Tummy rumbling, I groan and slam another book shut. "C'mon, guys. We've been here for hours now, almost ever since lunch! Can't we at least take a break to eat already?"

Nodding in firm agreement, Magolor drops his current book down on the reading table he's at. "Kid's right. I'm starving over here too."

"I'm not hungry at all yet," Sakura comments absent-mindedly with a shrug, buried deep in some book, before muttering, "Amethyst, give up on Sapphire already. He's obviously too interested in Diamond to even notice you." Blushing suddenly, she corrects herself as she puts the book down and tries to ignore a glare from Meta Knight, "I mean, obviously nothing about Fancy Free or Tick-Tock Clock or maps to those places in here. Might as well give up on it now, before I end up wasting precious hours of time on something entirely unhelpful."

Snorting in disbelief, Meta Knight exclaims, "And just how long have you been reading that instead of actually helping?" After a second, he picks up her shyly-tossed-away book and reads the title. "'A Gem of a Romance, the 231st Fluffy Romance Novel' by Froufraw McPufferson? I had hoped- er, I mean, thought that she was one of the people who had gl- er, sadly passed away in the war."

Rolling her eyes with a laugh, Sakura disagrees, "Nope, sorry. Last I checked, unlike the only 50 books that were out when I discovered the series in River Village, there's now over 300. I'm still trying to catch up."

"I knew I should have burned those books I stole from you," Meta Knight mutters as he turns back to his book, which probably actually has stuff that might help in it. "Maybe you wouldn't still be reading such nonsense."

Smirking, Sakura wisecracks, "At least my literary obsession doesn't have pictures on every page."

Meta Knight flushes under his mask and clears his throat but doesn't say anything back, pretty much ending the whole conversation.

After looking weird at them both for a long minute, (where's River Village and when has Meta Knight ever stolen books from Sakura?) I finally give another heavy sigh, hoping someone will actually notice the poor, starving-to-death hero over here and do something about it.

With a giggle, Ribbon murmurs to her book, "You really haven't changed a bit, Kirby. Every single time we got to a good spot without monsters, you made us all stop for a picnic, remember? Poor Dedede probably doubled in weight over that trip... That sweet little Waddle Dee looked a bit pudgy by the end, too. Well, pudgier than he already was, I mean. Luckily for me and Adeleine, you ate all the extra food before we could get to it." A moment later, she looks up. "Speaking of Adeleine, how's she doing? I've never met anyone who had half her artistic talent, even among the Artist Fairies. Addy really could bring art to life like no one else."

Blushing, I murmur, "I don't remember eating that much back then..." and then receive smirks or cough-covered snickers from several people. "Well, I don't!" Turning straight to Ribbon, I go on, "And I'm not sure what Adeleine's been up to lately. I know Meta Knight said she helped during the Final Battle against Nightmare and that she made it okay, but I haven't seen her since."

"I wanted to go help during the Final Battle," Ribbon sighs, "but I'm not a Guardian Fairy and stuff, so I couldn't."

Speaking for the first time in hours (the first time since Sakura flew into the library and just barely managed to stay out of her reach and avoid getting hugged to death because of her 'darling wings'), Taffeta shrugs, "I was part of a Fairy Forces squadron sent to protect Nintendo City during the Final Battle, but thankfully I didn't see any combat action. I'm a Guardian, sure, but I'm more of a peacekeeping type, I think."