~Birthday~

a KPC short story

 

          I dashed towards the door. The alarm ringing angrily throughout the halls.

          S' probably nothing... Vesper purred lazily.

          Probably, but with Marmanelle...  I trailed off, Vesper leapt onto my shoulder as I was walking through the door to my portal room.

          No, I set her gently on the floor.

          But, I want to come with you... Vesper whimpered, sounding hurt. You never take me anywhere anymore.

          I don't want Marmanelle to know about you, she's probably unfamiliar with the idea of an intelligent cat, I protested, I'm sorry, but you have to stay here.

 

          In Efrit's study everyone else was already there except for Marmanelle.

          "There's a couple of monsters out in one of the border villages. Tarana make a portal, I want all of you to leave now before Marmanelle get here..." Efrit glanced out into the hallway. "QUICK!! SHE'S COMING!!" Efrit hissed.

          Tarana made a hasty portal that collapsed without her instruction as soon as we were all through.

          "Hmm, sea serpents," I yawned.

          "Easy enough," Janelle shrugged, "Bruce, Levinia, and Estella can probably take care of it easy enough."

          Marmanelle popped up behind us. "Why just them?!" She snapped. "All of you neeed to be fighting!!"

          "But Estella is good with animals, hence the PAW pixie-" Fae began somewhat rudely, in Marmanelle's opinion.

          "Don't take that tone with me!! You have no right to talk like that to me! Condencing! That's what it is!!"

          "Don't you mean condescending?" Janelle offered timidly.

          "Whatever! Now someone explain to me, why you only sent three people out there!"

          "Well," I began slowly, "Lets see, Estella is Paw pixie, animals are her specialty so she's just out there for backup. Bruce is Liquid Pixie and the thing is a sea serpent, he knows how to deal with them. And whenever water is involved Levinia is useful because water is a good conductor..."

          "Water is not!! It's one of the worst conductors on my planet!"

          "But it isn't on this planet," I shrugged.

          "That's impossible, the water here is made of Hydrogen and Oxygen isn't it??" I was suspicious as to how Marmanelle suddenly got so smart.

          "Yeah, H2O... But oh! Maybe the water on your planet is pure, pure H2O is a bad conductor!" Janelle exclaimed.

          "Anyways!! I want all of you out there fighting that monster!" Marmanelle pointed to Estella, Levinia, and Bruce who were returning victorious from the shoreline.

          Thanks for keeping her busy guys, Estella grinned.

          "Wh- what?? You! Ugh!" Marmanelle dissappeared with a pop.

          "Lets go Tarana!" Heather called. "Make a portal already!"

          "Oh right," Tarana made a quick portal and we all ended up in one of the little parlor rooms that we hung out in when we were at Efrit's.

          "You know what?" Ulani asked suddenly.

          "What?" I asked, sitting down.

          "I just realized, see I was thinking that it's gonna be my birthday in three days and I'll be sixteen..." She trailed off waiting for us to draw our own conclusions.

          It took a moment.

          "Oh yeah!" Bruce stood up, "That means today is my birthday."

          "Yeah, genius!" Levinia snorted.

          "I don't really keep track of the days here," Bruce muttered.

          "So what should we do?"

          "A big party! This is a special birthday!"

          "Oh I know!!" Marmanelle burst in. We all tensed up, this wouldn't be good.

          "Know what?" Tarana asked carefully.

          "That this is a special birthday! And that you need to have big party!" She squealed.

          "Oh..." Something wasn't right here... Marmanelle looked at our stricken faces.

          "Oh, I'm sorry!" Marmanelle said unconvincingly, "Was my party supposed to be a surprise?"

          "Your party?" Bruce choked.

          "Yes! Don't try to hide it now! But how did you know that today is my birthday!?"

          "Um ah um, well, ohhh-"

          "I'm so exited! I read my horoscope today and it said that there would be a big surprise coming my way! I love the zodiac stuff it's so true! It's amazing how people can find out what you are like from your birthday, just think, there are thousands of other people just like me because they have my same birthday!! I wish I could meet one of them!"

          "It's Bruce's birthday-" Janelle began innocently.

          "-IN A COUPLE MONTHS!" He yelled.

          "Oh, that's nice..." Marmanelle eyed him disdainfully. "Only sophisticated people, elegant, beautiful, born leaders, kind, only the best people are born on April 20th, take me as proof."

          "Oh." Was the only stunned reply.

          "But you know what, I think that now that it's not a surprise anymore, I'll take over planning my party. All of you follow me to the grand ballroom. This is going to be so fun!!"

 

          A gigantic pile of balloons and crepe paper mooved. It hovered  uncertainly about six inches off the ground and then rose, wobbling slightly, to the ceiling.

          "I don't think there's enough tape in this realm to hold this monstrosity to the ceiling..." Levinia's disgruntled voice muttered from beneath the pile.

          What about my birthday!? Bruce was standing in the doorway glowering and refusing to do any work.

          Look, we'll decorate for her, make her happy, get her drunk and then leave her with some copies of us. She'll be too drunk to notice we're acting strange, I suggested.

          How do we make copies of us? Or do you just mean illusions? Janelle asked from where she was idly blowing up balloons.

          If we all put something into it we can make nearly real people, and with Estella's help we can program them to say a couple things, I replied.

          Like what? We can make them say things? Ulani asked.

          You can make them to say, yes, no, maybe, and three other things.

          And I'll give them enough intelligence, Estella began, To say the best of the six answers at the right time.

          Just then Marmanelle waltzed in.

          "So how is my party coming? Good... Good..." She wandered around inspecting our jobs. "The cake people will be here any minute! I want tables up here for when the cooks get here with the Beany Beef Stew!" Marmanelle made exaggerated gestures to make her orders clear.

          We sighed and set to work. The job was finally done and guests started arriving. Only the snobiest of nobles and those who hated the KPs for various reasons seemed to have been invited.

          I'm gonna start making the copies under a newmoon sheild, I called, Come tell Estella what you want them to say.

          Shut up, go away, and I hate you! Ulani exclaimed.

          That's nice, uh huh, and sorry, Janelle said.

          Bruce glared at Marmanelle, You're really stupid, Fu** you, and I'm drunk.

          Eventually we got all the copies made and set them loose. We stayed around for a minute just to make sure they were working.

          "Oh hello there Bruce, do you mind if I call you Bruce instead of using your title?" A snobby noble woman asked a bit flirtatiously.

          "Fu** you!"

          "Uh! Well!!" The woman turned away.

          "Liquid Pixie!" Marmanelle approached, "What are you doing!?"

          "I'm drunk."

          "I guess so! Stop now do you hear me?!"

          "Yes."

          "Waaaait... How did you get drunk? There's no alchohol here!"

          "I'm drunk."

          "How did you get drunk!?"

          "Yes."

          "What does that mean??"

          "You're really stupid."

          On the other side of the room some people who thought it would be fun to try to torment a pixie approached Janelle and Levinia.

          "Hey there faeries," One of them sneered.

          "Sorry," Janelle's copy said followed closely by Levinia's:

          "I don't talk to idiots so go away."

          "Ooooh! Grouchy!" One of them laughed.

          "Uh huh."

          "Go away or I'll rip your head off!" Levinia's copy snapped.

          My copy wandered up to the group, and seeing some non pixie people talking to pixie people, exclaimed wildly, "The food is poisoned!!" And staggered around clutching it's throat.

          You're gonna get in trouble for that one. Levinia snickered.

          I'll just tell her I was allergic to something, I shrugged.

          Nice touch, making your face turn purple, Janelle observed.

          It's not supposed to turn purple... I mussed.

          Let's go already! Bruce growled impatiently.

          We hurried out of the room.

         

          "So what should we do?" Phaedra yawned. We were lounging around in Bruce's awesome party room.

          "I don't care as long as Marmanelle isn't here," Bruce sighed.

          "I can't belive you two have the same birthday!" Ulani laughed.

          "So much for astroloy," Levinia repled lazily.

          We did fun stuff all night that would be boring to describe, so I'll skip to the next morning.

 

          "MOON PIXIE!" My maid, Amelia, burst into the room.

          "What is it 'Lia?" I asked tiredly.

          "It's ten o'clock and Marmanelle is really mad! She wants to see all of you!" Lia exclaimed breathlessly.

          "I bet I can guess why..." I muttered as I dragged myself out of bed. Suddenly our stunts last night didn't seem quite so funny.

          I finally stumbled into the dining room.

          "So youre alive?" Marmannelle all but shrieked sarcastically.

          "Yeah..."

          "Do you want to explain last night?" She hissed.

          "Um, how about you tell me exactly what happened and then I'll clear up any questions?" I suggested. Luckally Marmanelle was really dumb and at the moment, angry.

          "You told my guests you had been poisoned, turned purple, collapsed, and desintigrated!!"

          Oops, we must have done something wrong in making mine... I muttered.

          "Well, I ate something I was allergic to, and I couldn't breath, and I panicked. So I used a cheap transportation spell Tarana gave me a while ago..." I lied quickly.

          "And where did you go?" Marmanelle asked crisply.

          "To the infirmary, or I tried to but somehow I ended up in my room instead."

          "Then why weren't you in there when I checked??"

          "She told you it was a cheap spell," Tarana jumped in, "She was weak too, so it took her hours just to transport to her room."

          "Oh..." Marmalade still looked suspicious. "And why were you liquid Pixie swearing at people? And what the hell did you get drunk on!? There was no alcohol at my party!"

          "I um, the punch was upsetting my stomach so I conjured up a drink of my own... I'm Liquid Pixie so you know... I can do that...?"

          "You shouldn't have done that without my permission! All of you were so rude last night! You almost ruined my party..." Marmanelle looked like she was about to cry. I almost felt sorry for her but pinched myself when I realized I'd been drifting off to sleep.

          "We're very sorry Marmanelle," Janelle ducked her head, she didn't like to lie, even to Marmalade. "We were all a bit drunk... Bruce gave us some of the stuff he conjured up."

          "Is that supposed to explain why Flame Pixie, you blew up into a little shower of sparks that lit the crepe paper on fire?"

          "One of my spells went wrong and I blew myself out the window so fast that no one saw me! I spent the night unconcious in a hedge," Phaedra nodded emphatically.

          Heather waved her hand quickly and some twigs appeared in Phaedra's hair.

          "Oh, I see," Marmanelle replied carefully.

          "Did we do anything else wrong?" Janelle asked.

          "No- no I don't think so... Just, never come to one of my parties again!! NEVER!!" Marmanelle ended yelling and stormed out of them room.

          "See look, you're safe now!" Ulani exclaimed to Bruce.

          "Allright! I'm not allowed near Marmanelle on my birthdays!"

~The end of this particular little story~