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Waking up in Dreamland was never fun for Shadow Kirby (who had since begun to go solely by the epithet, in light of the revelation there was a… brighter copy of them trotting around), but they made do. They sat up from their disgustingly bright bed and marked another hatch on a sheet of paper apparently called a “calendar” (why there were so many pages to this parchment when you could fit so many hatches onto one page was a fact that Shadow was not particularly keen on learning). They looked out their window to hear unruly and unusual sounds: “birds chirping” and “gentle breezes,” as such alien sounds had been described to them.
It was unusual, clunky, and terrible. The usual sounds of morning in the Land of Mirrors were much more rhythmic, guttural; representative of the fight-or-flight nature of all existence. The first sounds would be quaint thunder that rumbled the rocky earth below them, with the dark night opening into a dark gray day; the second was the loud, vocal complaints of the typically sore, battle-worn Dark Meta Knight (who had refused to just drop his name like Shadow did theirs). With an emotionless, dry chuckle, Shadow heard the yells of their more hotheaded companion (presumably having challenged his brighter doppelganger to yet another duel to earn his full name).
Preparing for the day was depressingly simple for Shadow. Change clothes, drench themselves in “cleaning” water, and then meander in the technicolor Dreamland. Everything was bright and, well, wrong . The natural pallets of grays and blood-reds were superseded by such a wide range of useless and retina-searing colors that Shadow felt disgust so much as looking too hard at the sky (which here had adopted some odd color that seemed like an off-tint gray. They were likely told what this color was by one of the denizens of this disturbing planet, but they had never thought to remember it—It was a mere distraction from their ultimate goal of returning to the safely life-threatening Land of Mirrors).
The lackadaisical nature of Dreamworld felt deceitful to Shadow, like every brush of “grass” or every crunch of “leaf” was a dangerous opponent taking advantage of Shadow’s unpreparedness. Unprepared their ass ; they would defeat any hideous monster that dared challenge them in this brightly-colored nightmare landscape.
Shadow sat themself down on a disgustingly bright log situated in a disgustingly bright forest and hummed to themselves. They had to look distracted so that the definitely-real challengers of this definitely-a-trap planet would try to challenge them to combat. And, true as day, the first arrived. It was obvious—a crunch of “leaf,” as aforementioned, was a dead giveaway that something was crawling from behind. A “twig” snapped under footfall. Fists clenched, Shadow turned to see—
Their brightly-colored doppelganger. They had won the moniker of “Kirby” fair and square, after besting Shadow in a fair and honorable duel. Kirby stared at them with a puzzled expression, as Shadow looked them up and down. They had always found it odd, Kirby’s choice in fashion. It was… bright. An easy target. And yet, its color was most striking, completely foreign to Shadow; it was best described as the color of an old cut; dried blood.
“A-are you okay?” asked Kirby in a curious tone, their eyes directed at the balled fists of their darker copy. Shadow just scoffed: “I was expecting an opponent. It was just you.”
“I see,” Kirby said, a stiff shrug and a tone of concern in their voice. “May I sit here?” they asked, motioning to a mossy patch on the log that Shadow was sitting on. As they opened their mouth to tell them to get lost, Kirby simply sat down.
“Why did y—”
“I knew you were gonna say no,” Kirby admitted almost immediately. “And, I also know that you should be saying yes.”
“And why would—”
“Because you need help?” Kirby answered in a questioning tone. It was a statement, but it was also an offer.
“I do not,” was Shadow’s emphatic response, asserted with a huff and a crossing of their arms.
“I see,” the bright copy said, clearly not believing Shadow. “I’ll just stay here, then. The option’s there.”
Shadow was about to answer with a defensive “I do not need your help,” but then they stopped, staring at their knees as they took a deep, hitching breath:
“I’m so f—” they caught themselves about to cuss, and amended it for the sake of their brighter clone: “I’m so scared.”
“You can swear around me, you know,” Kirby offered after a moment. “I know you were going to say ‘fuck’ there. It’s a bit of stress relief. Don’t censor yourself.”
Shadow found the oddity of the perky Kirby swearing without hesitation to almost take them out of their emotional state, but returned to it almost immediately:
“Well, Kirby, I’ll have you know that I’m fucking terrified. ”
“Why?” they asked in response, not in a tone of questioning but in a tone more like an annoying child: the useless question of “why is that” on a long trip.
“Because… everything is different; scary.”
“The Land of Mirrors messed with you,” Kirby offered.
“No,” Shadow said with a huff, “it’s here that’s messing with me.”
“Because you feel like you don’t have to run?” the dried-cut-colored Kirby surmised quickly.
“How did—” Shadow began, before sighing another deep sigh. “I guess. It’s unnatural. Running is natural. Fight-or-flight, or whatever.”
“I much prefer rest-and-digest myself,” Kirby added. “But seriously, Shadow Kirby—”
“Shadow. I told you, you earned that title. You caught me when I slipped up. You beat me.”
“You can’t build yourself off of winning or losing, Shadow. I… I respect your choices, but you’re better than your failures or successes.”
“Not in the Land of Mirrors.”
“ Exactly ,” Kirby said immediately, automatically, as if instantly knowing what they had meant.
“H-huh?”
“You need to realize that… that that fucked up place isn’t the normal, Shadow. It gets better, you don’t have to run and hide or fight any more.”
“I…” Shadow began, trying to formulate thoughts as they felt bitter drops of something stain their legs, run down their cheeks. Tears, they knew that much. But tears only came when you got cut by a sword or twisted an ankle, right? Why were they crying now? They suddenly felt a tugging at their side, as Kirby pulled them towards them.
Shadow yelped in fear, knowing that they had slipped up. They had shown emotion to the enemy; they had slipped up and now they would pay. There would be a knife in their chest any second now, they knew it, they knew it. God, this was how it ended, with an unjust duel. Of course it would, of course—
They felt a pressure on their back. It grew and soon they felt a foreign emotion. They had heard it described once before. Like a gust of wind from inside. Relaxation, or some other soft and useless Dreamworld-ian word that didn’t need to exist.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Shadow asked uselessly against Kirby’s shoulder, to which they just patted their shoulder uselessly. They then wrapped themselves tighter around Shadow. The sensation was… unique; not even particularly bad. They felt almost tranquil. Too soon, the encounter ended.
“A hug,” Kirby said in a normal tone. “D-do they not do those in the Land of Mirrors?” they asked, disbelief and mild shock ringing in their voice.
“Not that I know of,” Shadow admitted. “Glad that it doesn’t. I-it’s stupid. Useless.”
“We both know that you were actually relaxed for once.”
“N-no,” they rebutted weakly, wiping the slowing trickle of tears from their eyes.
“Look, I can’t help with all of this,” Kirby admitted after a healthy laugh, “but I know I can be a shoulder to cry on. If you ever need to talk, I’m here, okay? And others are too, I promise.”
It was wrong. Shadow felt scared and confused and almost alone, but they sighed, they looked Kirby at the bridge of their nose (never having been keen on eye contact) and nodded weakly: “Alright.”
In their Lord-knows-how-many years in life, there was one common phrase Shadow had heard throughout their time in Dreamland that they had never used, much less heard in the Land of Mirrors. They looked back to Kirby as they got up and started walking away.
“Thank you.”