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Magolor was silent as he moved up the ramp into the Lor, stepping up to the door as it hissed open.
The meeting had gone… about as well as Magolor thought it would.
It still hurt.
Bandee was right, of course. Despite all they’re quirks and leniency, they often were despite how much Magolor loathed to say it. They had every right to be absolutely furious with him, and every right to point out that his lack of social skills didn’t serve as an excuse. It’s not his fault he doesn’t do apologies! Well, never learned to do apologies. He supposes it’s a good thing he’s learning now.
They deserved better.
Yet, despite the absolute verbal reaming of a lifetime, it was… good to see them again. They were taller than him now, and much more extroverted. Much more sure of what they wanted, no longer a pushover like they had once been. Working with Meta Knight so often probably does that to a person, and also probably gave them the chance to practice that nasty glare they had given him. But seeing them again had been a whirlpool of grief mixed with joy, more than it had been with the others. Among all his regrets, losing Bandee was among the largest, no matter how much he tried to make it seem otherwise.
His best friend. Even more than he had allowed Marx, Kirby, or any of the others before. Despite everything, he had missed them. Though, he was too much of a coward to admit it outloud.
This is most likely the reason why he had simply let them go at him. Magolor was never one to let someone get under his skin, but that never meant he’d just let someone else get the last word in. Perhaps if he was still younger he would have fought back, would have made it even worse.
But he had just stood there. He stood there while Bandee screamed at him about how horrible a person he is for what he had done, about how could he possibly sleep well at night knowing he was tricking them all, about having the guts to turn on them after everything they had done for him, and then having the nerve to try and come back and apologize. Their face contorted red with anger, tears cascading down their face as they poked an accusatory finger into his chest.
Magolor wanted to say something, anything. A voice yelling at him to retort with an insult or to tell Bandee that he wasn’t like that anymore, that he changed. Why couldn’t they see that? It would do nothing but stoke the fire more and would most definitely have led to an even bigger fight but at least he would have left the argument with some kind of pride.
But he really had just stood there. Hands clasped in front of him, head bowed as he took accusation after accusation and insult after insult. He didn’t know what else to do, was there anything else he could have even done in that situation?
In the end, he had waited until the other had run out of steam to try and talk. Try being the key word. Bandee had cut them off with a very sharp bid to leave, that they weren't ready for whatever he had to say for himself.
So he left.
And after making the somewhat slow journey back to the Lor, they had collapsed into the pilot seat, looking over the calculations and blinking lights the ship had to offer over its screen. This is why he preferred technology, he had thought. Technology was logical and easy to dig around in to find the solution to whatever problems it was experiencing. People were emotional, considered you best friends, and absolutely dressed you down if you betrayed them.
Okay, maybe the last point was logical. And perhaps he was a bit emotional or illogical, but that thought had made him angry, so he stopped it there.
…Living on popstar really had made him soft. But perhaps, that wasn’t so terrible. His life before was dull, incredibly so. Wake up, eat, do some calculations, set a course for somewhere, eat, practice his magic, eat again, and go back to sleep. Nowhere in his routine did friends have a place, he had none, so there was no point. He knew how to be cordial of course, but nothing deeper. He also supposes having Marx as a first “friend” hadn’t really helped either.
He thinks getting to popstar and meeting Bandee and the others was certainly a step in the right direction though. Meeting all of them had definitely been a blessing, something he would never get over throwing away. No matter how much Kirby, Meta, and Dedede said they understood, that maybe they hadn’t quite forgiven him but were willing to give him a second chance, it still felt awful. A problem unsolved.
However, he was nothing if not a problem solver. So he'll wait. He'll work on himself no matter how much it hurts his pride to admit or to do so.
And perhaps earn his opportunity to right the wrongs with Bandee again.