Chapter Text
“So, you don’t plan on telling anyone, Esca?”
Esca tapped their fingers to the irregular rhythm of the raindrops falling past their window. For days, the sky over Dreamland had been draped in a cloak of gloomy gray clouds. Now it seemed to be shedding it bit by bit, each layer bringing an even heavier downpour. There was no sign of the rain letting up.
Their gaze drifted back to their cousin on the laptop screen – a snail grinning cheekily, his dark green eyes full of sympathy.
“No. I don’t know!” they blurted out impulsively. “I didn’t even manage to tell Mom when I visited her last month. And she’s a snail!”
“It’s okay, calm down. If you’re not ready, or if it just doesn’t feel right yet, I mean, in the end, it’s your decision.”
Someone knocked on Gorgon’s bedroom door. Shortly after, a deep but warm-sounding voice rang out: “Honey, dinner’s almost ready. It’s cucumber salad, just the way you like it.”
“I’m coming,” Gorgon called out. “Just let me finish my call with them.”
A warm tingling spread through Esca’s chest. But it feels so right!
“Sorry for the interruption. Like I said, it’s your decision, Esca.”
The call ended with kind regards to the family, leaving Esca with a feeling as if someone had sucked the joyful warmth out of them. They closed the laptop, stretched the pain out of their back, and looked up again at the unceasing rain.
***
As Esca was about to leave their room, King Dedede stood at their door, his gloved fist raised to knock. The two blinked at each other, as if they couldn’t believe the other person was standing right in front of them.
“Is something wrong, Sire?”
King Dedede grabbed Esca by the arm and dragged them toward the throne room. “There are difficult terms in my monster catalog that I don’t understand, so I need ya cleverness to, well, understand them,” he reluctantly explained on the way.
There could have been worse reasons why King Dedede was disturbing them on their only day off.
The throne room looked, to put it mildly, like a disaster zone. Half-empty chip bags and fast-food containers were scattered all over the ground. The smell was a mix of Kawasaki’s kitchen and ‘rotten for too long’.
“Sire, you really should– ” Esca stopped themself just in time. King Dedede knew he had a problem; they didn’t need to remind him of it.
If King Dedede had heard them, he didn’t react. Determined, he stomped up to his throne, where the mentioned thousand-page monster catalog lay open. Esca had trouble not tripping over King Dedede’s long royal coat as he pulled them along.
“Not using your tablet today?” Esca asked as they looked down at the thick, almost prehistoric-looking catalog.
“I’ve been struck by a touch of nostalgia today.” King Dedede picked up the catalog and flopped down onto his throne. “Anyway, I want ya to explain to me what the monster Jendaswappu can do.”
“Let’s see.” Esca found the relevant description and read it silently. After a few lines, they felt the blood drain from their face.
“That terrible?” asked King Dedede.
“It swaps biological genders.”
“Huh?”
“It says here that Jendaswappu changes the biological gender of those it touches. It’s a Class One monster, so not particularly strong, and if you want my opinion—”
“Did I ask ya?”
“Well, if you don’t want my opinion, the customer reviews say it’s absolutely useless. It also costs 15,000 D-dollars, which isn’t exactly a lot, but since you’re always broke –”
“Huh?”
“What is it, sire?”
King Dedede stared at Esca; his brain was clearly in the process of racking through the information. After a long pause, he finally said, “First of all, since when do they have customer reviews, and second, I only understand monster.”
“So, you’re not interested?”
“Hey, didn’t say that! Explain the monster to me so even a Waddle Dee can understand.”
“All right. Do you remember the monster Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright?”
King Dedede narrowed his eyes as if trying to recall a memory. “How long has it been?”
“A while.”
“Nope, then I don’t remember.”
“Well, Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright was that massive monster with the sun and moon scepters that split everything apart. You know, the one that swapped our heads and split Kirby into, well, two Kirbys.”
“Male and female,” King Dedede proudly corrected something that didn’t need correcting.
Esca held back a sigh. “Anyway, it’s—”
“Wasn’t that the time I imagined what a female version of ya would look like? That was weird.”
“Yeah, Sire, you’ve got it. Anyway, Jendaswappu is an earlier model of Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine. We all know what a disappointment it was, so the weaker Jendaswappu—”
“Ya still haven’t explained to me how it works! It touches someone, and then what? Does that person suddenly become female?”
“How should I know? Do I look like the person who sells it? I’m not wearing sunglasses or a suit, and I’m not getting paid for explaining either. Why don’t you just call the guy from customer service, Sire?”
“I tried that. All I got was a robotic voice saying, ‘Hello, this is AI.’ I don’t know any AI. So, I hung up. I want that old chatterbox back. He was funny!”
“It’s a good thing servants aren’t replaceable like that.”
“Did ya say something?”
“No, Sire. Just, ‘Let’s move on.’” Esca closed the catalog and placed it on the throne. “How about I make you some ice tea? The farmer delivered fresh watermelons this morning.”
“I don’t want some iced drink, I want a monster! And I want it without having to download an app, sign up, click through useless terms and conditions, and scroll through a thousand pages of AI-made descriptions.”
“How about I get my laptop and we look at the offer on their website? The pictures are a bit bigger there, too.”
“Fine by me.”
Esca nodded and turned to leave when King Dedede said, “Ya’re hidin’ something from me, aren’t ya, Escargoon?”
Esca flinched, and not just because the sound of the name hit them like a slap. King Dedede was unusually perceptive. “I’ll get my laptop, Sire.”
With those words, Esca scurried off as fast as their snail legs would allow.
***
Esca sat on the armrest of the throne and clicked through the listings on Nightmare Enterprises’ website. “They really do use AI for everything these days. The pictures look so fake, just like the descriptions and reviews. But somehow, I’m not surprised; they’ve always been the most corrupt in their capitalist society.”
“Hmpf. So, what about the monsters?”
“Oh, right.”
Esca patiently went through the offerings on Nightmare Enterprises’ AI-packed website with King Dedede. But no matter what amazing and innovative monster Esca suggested, it quickly became obvious that King Dedede wasn’t really listening. He had his head propped on his hand, looking bored, as he kept glancing to the monster catalog.
“Is there anything on the website about Jendaswappu?” King Dedede interrupted as Esca was describing another monster to him. Esca ignored him.
“Type Jendaswappu into the search bar.”
Esca obeyed the command robotically. “No results, Sire.”
“Ya sure ya didn’t mistype it?”
“I entered it correctly. See for yourself. There are no results.”
“Strange.” King Dedede picked up the catalog. “Seems like it only exists on paper.”
“It’s probably no longer part of their lineup. That means even if you wanted it, Sire, you couldn’t order it. You should just forget about it.”
“Why are ya so insisting?”
“Insisting, Sire?”
“Ya keep avoiding and changing the subject.”
“I thought you wanted to order a monster to mess around with? There’s a nearly endless selection right in front of you; you just have to pick one.”
“Yeah, I want a monster, but I also want to understand how Jendaswappu works.” King Dedede massaged his temples with a frustrated sigh. Over the years that Esca had served their king, they had learned what that expression meant: King Dedede was trying to make himself understood, but lacked the words and the mental capacity to do so. Back then, that had often led to outbursts of anger on his part. By now, the two of them had found a way to deal with it differently.
“What do you want, Sire?”
“It kinda made me curious. But I don’t get it.”
“What do you not get?”
“I don’t know! Somehow none of this makes sense. I don’t get the monster, I don’t get this gender thing. What even is biological? Can’t ya explain all this to me in a way I can get it?”
“I don’t know if I’m the right person for that. Why don’t you ask someone who is knowledgeable about the subject?”
“But who– ” An idea lit up King Dedede’s face. “The book guy!”
“Who? Oh, you mean Biblio. Yeah, he probably sells a few books on the subject, but that wasn’t really what I– ”
“Come on, let’s go!”
Esca barely managed to close their laptop and set it aside before King Dedede grabbed them by the arm and dragged them toward the garage.
***
“You know, you could just look it up online,” Esca said as they drove down to Zeatown in the limousine. The roof offered only limited protection from the pounding rain, and Esca had to keep wiping their face. The windshield wipers were running nonstop.
“I don’t like the internet. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to type into the search bar. The local shop is better. At least they give ya proper proper advice there, unlike that treacherous company did.”
“But do you even know exactly what you’re looking for, Sire?”
“A book.”
“And if you don’t find one?”
“Then we’ll head over to Curio.”
“He’s an archaeologist. I don’t think gender studies falls within his field of expertise.”
“Isn’t it all the same? Science is science!”
As someone who had studied the natural sciences, Esca would have loved to protest loudly, but instead they focused on the street. King Dedede also fell silent, and shortly thereafter they reached the village.
Only a few Cozies were out on the street in the dreadful weather. They cast curious, somewhat skeptical glances as they stepped out of the limousine. King Dedede had brought a single, large umbrella, opened it and, surprisingly, invited Esca under it.
Esca used the large figure at their side to shield themselves from the Cozies’ stares. Since becoming King Dedede’s servant, they had learned to come out of their shell more. But that didn’t mean they would ever get used to the queasy feeling that accompanied them when others looked at them.
Esca always had the feeling that the people were seeing a different snail than the one walking down the street.
***
“You want a book about genders, Your Majesty?” Biblio, the bookseller, stared at King Dedede – and Esca – in disbelief before leading them to a display. “Just by chance, we ordered an educational book a while back. The internet said, this LG-thing – ”
“LGBTQIA+,” Esca corrected him, but their words fell on deaf ears.
“ – queerness and gender are the latest trending topics in modern society, alongside Race and Disability, you know, all these things that young people call ‘woke’. Apparently, though, that only applies to the big cities. In our little village, nobody’s interested in that sort of thing. Here, everyone knows they’re male or female.”
Esca pulled a sour face, before quickly hiding it. Biblio pulled the book in question from the back shelf of a bookshelf full of educational policy works. It had already gathered a thin layer of dust.
“Nevertheless, it was an engaging read. Of course, I had to read it before selling it in the store, just to make sure there’s no content harmful to our youngsters. You never know with stuff like that. I do think it’s important that we educate kids about sex these days, but all this talk of so many new genders must be terribly confusing for them. I’m so glad we didn’t have to go through that.”
“Yeah, thanks, nobody cares about your opinion. We’re buying the book. Goodbye.” Esca snatched the book from Biblio’s hand, left the money on the counter, and ran out of the store.
Outside, Esca leaned against the storefront, catching their breath. The rain had intensified and was pounding on the narrow awning of the bookstore. The noise competed with their loud breathing and their pounding heart, which throbbed disgustingly in their ears. They pressed their hands over their mouth to keep it all to themselves.
Once they had calmed down, they realized that King Dedede hadn’t followed them. Maybe he was still looking for a comic.
What just happened?, Esca wondered.
Why had they reacted that way? They had long since gotten used to the many comments and remarks over the years; in fact, they had long since stopped being bothered by them. What had changed in the last few months that they couldn’t handle it anymore? Was it because they finally knew what a snail they were and had always been? Would everything be better if they just kept pretending they didn’t exist?
No. They weren’t the problem. The village was. The Cozys and their rigid ways of thinking, which left no room for diversity.
They were the reason Esca didn’t tell anyone here. Not even King Dedede. Not even their mother, since she’d also grown up in the countryside and wouldn’t understand. The only exception had been Kirby. But Kirby rarely said more than “Poyo,” so Esca had nothing to fear.
If anyone ever found out, Esca would lose too much. Their job. Their friends. Their home. Everything. All at once.
Ultimately, it's your decision, Esca, their cousins' words rang in their ears.
It isn't, replied the voice in their head. It never was.
Esca looked down at the book in their hands: Gender: Simply Explained!. The title felt like irony. Nothing about it was simple.
Even if they explained it, no one would listen to them. No one would understand it or them.