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“Chilly~!”
The snowman groaned, repressing the urge to claw his hand across his face in irritation and frustration at the sound of the suspiciously too cheerful voice of the familiar mage.
“Yes?” Chilly sighed, reluctantly turning around to face the mage, whose ears were twitching a little under his hood. From the way Magolor was bobbing up and down above the ground and the way his hands were rubbing against one another, the snowman was certain that he was very ecstatic about something. ...but what?
“I am in need of your assistance!” Magolor said, bouncing his head a little as he spoke. Chilly raised an eyebrow, suspicious of what kind of task the wizard needed him for. The last time this manipulator needed him for a task it didn’t end well for anyone, especially the mage himself. Despite the snowman’s already freezing temperature, he couldn’t suppress a chill running down his spine as he remembered the events.
“Why? And what do you even need me for, Magolor?” Chilly questioned, turning back around and beginning to continue walking away from Magolor and back towards his original destination. He was planning to take a visit to the library and find a new novel to lose himself in, but apparently plans were going to change thanks to Magolor.
“Well~” Magolor started in a singsong voice, before pausing and going into more of a joyful hum as he fumbled around under his cape for an item. After another moment of the halcandrian’s humming, he made a quiet “ahah!” and with another ear twitch he pulled out a scroll? Chilly narrowed his eyes a little. Yes, Magolor had apparently changed and was now a resident of Dreamland, but he still had tendencies of trying to take control of other establishments (more specifically Kawalski’s) and getting dangerously close to power tripping. “I had recently gotten hit with sudden inspiration to start a new project of mine! This time instead of rampaging robots or an architectural masterpiece, it’s something much more fun~! It’s going to be an upgrade to the Lor!”
Ah. So that’s what it was. Blueprints. That made more sense.
“...but why me? Surely Meta Knight or Susie could prove much more useful. They have their own ships to take care of, I’m sure they have some technical experience that would be much more fitting. I don’t know the first thing about that mechanical crap,” Chilly attempted to give the mage some advice so he would hopefully leave him alone. Instead he was met with the wizard’s ears dropping in disappointment and an anxious look on their face.
“Because you’re my best friend, dude.” Debatable. “And it’s not that mechanical! I’m planning on adding an indoor garden to the Lor Starcutter. I don’t know the first thing about gardening, and I don’t recall ever seeing you play with the weeds, so I figured it would be an awesome bonding experience to try something new together!” Magolor moved from behind Chilly to hovering in front of him as the snowman continued.
“I’ll think about it,” Chilly sighed, attempting to politely decline Magolor’s “awesome bonding experience”.
“So is that a yes~?”
Chilly felt his eyebrow’s crease a little in frustration as the wizard giggled. Either this guy was fucking with him or was extremely oblivious, and Chilly was guessing it was more towards the first option. The snowman looked back towards Magolor, whose ears were still twitching a little and his hands were no longer rubbing, but instead playing with the edge of his cape.
“...Sure,” the snowman gave in, sighing in defeat as Magolor bounced up and down, laughing and spinning in glee like a spinning top.
“Geez, you’re energetic today,” Chilly mumbled, rubbing the back of his head as he watched Magolor stop spinning and instead float above the snowman, now talking to him while floating upside down.
“Well of course I am~! My best friend has finally decided to spend some time with me!!” Magolor giggled, before continuing. “It’s either that or the caffeine currently replacing my bloodstream! I haven’t gotten a single wink of sleep since I’ve gotten this idea, heh!”
“...and when was that?” Chilly asked, not wanting to admit his concern for the halcandrian. Instead of an answer Chilly instead got his hand snatched by Magolor who started enthusiastically dragging him to only Novas know where while shouting, “Doesn’tmatter,let’sgo~!”
~ || • || ~
Magolor ended up dragging the reluctant snowman to a small gardener’s store, still extremely energetic and excited to start this project of his. Chilly tugged back his hand once the two were in the store, and Magolor seemed to not even notice that he was holding his hand for longer than he needed to and that Chilly had let go.
He ignored how Magolor dashed off to another section in the store, and decided to look at the other things in the store. He didn’t know anything about gardening or plants, only that you needed some decent soil, water, and sometimes fertilizer. The snowman quickly spotted a rack of soil and quickly walked over, inspecting and examining them (mostly the price, he had no idea what the difference was between any of the different brands aside from size and price). After a decent amount of time of carefully inspecting the prices, the snowman grabbed the cheapest decently sized bag! He shouted a bit from surprise, the bag of dirt being much heavier than a bag of snow would, but quickly regained himself and managed to carry it.
A quick turn around and glance behind him showed that Magolor was on the other side of the store, looking at small potted plants. Chilly sighed, hoping that the dirt would be actually useful, and started to walk over to Magolor, dragging the bag behind him. Once the snowman was actually next to Magolor, the haldandrian didn’t even notice him, too caught up in looking at the pretty plants and trying to decide what he wanted.
“...I got some soil,” Chilly said, catching the attention of the fixated halcandrian.
“Oh~! Lovely, that’s perfect! Thank you, Chilly!” Magolor hummed in delight, holding up his hand for a high five. Chilly blinked, a little surprised by that but uncomfortably high fived him.
“What are you looking at?” Chilly asked, watching Magolor take a few potted plants off the shelves and look at them.
“They’re called succulents, I think. I asked King Dedede a few questions about plants, and he mentioned something about these being very easy, even super easy to take care of!” The mage said grabbing two succulents and turning to Chilly.
“Want to go look at the seeds~?” Magolor asked, obviously still very excited and probably getting some sort of high off all the caffeine.
“Sure,” Chilly said, not making any effort to pretend to be nearly as excited as Magolor about seeds. The two fell into a short silence as they looked at the seeds, and Chilly’s eyes drifted towards some pretty looking white tulips.
“So out of all things.. why did you choose gardening?” Chilly asked, picking up a few packets of the seeds.
“What do you mean by that, Chilly?” Magolor asked, his eyes drifting from roses to some forget-me-nots. He picked up a packet to get a closer look.
“Like- why, out of all things gardening? Why not something easier like crochet or art? Hell- even learning to use a sword. You’ve never struck me as the plant kind of person,” Chilly explained, grabbing a few rose packets and looking back at Magolor, who looked slightly more… distant. His ears were pointed towards the floor and he adjusted his grip on the seed packets and succulents he was holding.
“...It’s therapeutic,” he answered, his voice much less happy and more serious.
“Huh?” Chilly asked, looking up from checking the stuff he was planning to buy and looking back at Magolor. He wasn’t bouncing anymore, he was mostly still, aside from his fingers playing with the succulents and packets a little anxiously.
“It’s therapeutic. It helps. I like control, I enjoy being able to control what I can. The theme park, it’s not just a gift to apologize for what I’ve done, but it’s… it’s something to help me. Like… maybe, just maybe if I can have enough control over what I can, I’ll be satisfied. I won’t be looking for more, itching to control the universe. So maybe… if I have complete control over these plants, I’ll be satisfied and… and I won’t scare any of you anymore.”
…
Oh.
That was…
Unexpected.
“Apologies for my ramble, Chilly. Let’s just forget I ever said that… and buy this stuff and get started on our super fun project~!” And like a light switch had been switched in his brain, Magolor was suddenly happy and gleeful again, bouncing around with his ears pointed towards the ceiling. But his ears weren’t twitching.
...maybe he should just forget what Magolor said.
And with that, Chilly followed the seemingly chipper halcandrian to the cashier so they could pay.
~ || • || ~
“And here it is~!” Magolor said, leading Chilly to the deck and showing the snowman a rather nice looking circular planter through that was curled around the mast. It matched the Lor’s general white blue color scheme and even had a few stars on the outer design.
“It looks nice,” Chilly said, dropping the giant bag of dirt, relieved he didn’t have to drag it around anymore. It felt like carrying a sack of rocks. Chilly neatly sat down the seed packets next to where Magolor set his chosen seeds and succulents.
“Thank you~! I’ll open the bag and we can both pour it in,” Magolor giggled like a child on Christmas, before holding his hands out and summoning a much smaller version of his sword. The snowman watched curiously as Magolor sliced open the bag with ease, and let the magic sword disappear.
Chilly grabbed the bottom right of the bag and Magolor grabbed the bottom left, and the snowman and halcandrian worked together to dump the heavy sack of dirt into the trough, making a small mountain of dirt in the planter.
“Now I think we just spread it out, dig some holes to move the succulents and seeds in, water it, and we're done,” Chilly said, starting to slowly spread the dirt around in the planter.
“I can’t wait to examine it’s growth,” Magolor hummed, spreading the dirt around and leveling it on the opposite side of the planter. “It’ll also just be super nice to have a bit of Pop Star with me while traveling. This place is really amazing.”
“If you plan to do traveling with these things, you might want to see if you can create some sort of atmospheric bubble so the plants don’t die,” Chilly suggested, genuinely enjoying just spreading the dirt around and talking with Magolor. It was nice and surprisingly peaceful.
“Oh, that’s a superb idea! I’ll have to see if Susie would be willing to help with that~!” The mage laughed, his ear twitching again.
“That does sound like a fun project,” Chilly chuckled a little, before feeling something vibrate. “Oh- hold on a second, somebody’s calling me,” Chilly said, grabbing his phone and turning away from Magolor, who’s ears dropped a little but nodded.
Magolor continued to spread the dirt on his side and pat it to make sure it was perfectly leveled as he heard Chilly mumble on the phone to somebody. They didn’t talk for long, thankfully, so when Chilly put the phone away Magolor’s ears perked up a bit in excitement.
“Ach- sorry Magolor, but I got to go for a little while… Kirby wants to have a picnic and you know you can’t say no to Kirby,” Chilly joked, anxiously rubbing the back of his head anxiously as he explained.
“Ah…” Magolor sadly said, expression dropping as well as his ears. He looked down at the dirt sadly for a second (honestly a little envious that Chilly got invited, since Magolor never got invited to anything; he always asked first), before looking back at Chilly with a more obviously forced smile. “It’s alright, Chilly~! Go have fun with Kirby, I’ll continue working on the garden.”
“Alright, Magolor. See you later,” Chilly awkwardly said, before beginning to walk away. He was… honestly a little surprised that the mage hadn’t attempted to talk him out of it. Well he didn’t have much time to think about it now, he had a picnic to prepare for.
~ || • || ~
Well the picnic lasted a lot longer than expected… and it was now night. Chilly sighed as he made his way into the Lor and started heading towards the deck’s entrance. He knew it was most likely that Magolor had already finished the garden but part of him was hoping that he didn’t so that they could work on it together. So, the snowman continued towards and…
He didn’t really expect what he saw but it wasn’t all that surprising.
Magolor was asleep by the planter, wrapped up in his cape. Chilly couldn’t help but chuckle as he walked to the unconscious halcandrian. “The caffeine finally wore off, huh?” The snowman said to himself, and took a glance towards the planter. There was no progress done since he left. Shaking his head a little, Chilly carefully did his best to pick up Magolor without waking him. Surprisingly, Magolor was lighter than the sack of dirt.
The halcandrian stirred a bit and mumbled something completely incomprehensible, but thankfully didn’t wake up. “Come on, let's get you to bed,” Chilly said, holding him and starting to carry him off the deck and went off to find his bedroom on the ship. As the snowman carried the halcandrian, he couldn’t help but think about the events of the day.
He had fun. It was surprisingly pleasant, even if he was a little suspicious of Magolor for the first half. The snowman opened a door, and thankfully, there was a bed in the room. As he was setting the mumbling alien on his mattress, he thought about what he said. About his true motive with gardening. It was… a little unsettling, but if Magolor was telling the truth… that meant he was genuinely trying and struggling to be better. And as Chilly pulled Magolor’s blankets over him, he genuinely hoped that the gardening would help Magolor a little.