Post by Jas on Jun 15, 2010 15:31:04 GMT -5
Posting this real quick, because I'll need to be off this computer soon.
Basic summary is tht it's about Tala's birthday, which technically isn't due a few months, but I didn't want to wait that long as the idea suddenly hit me like that
I apologize for the title. Man, it's lame.
But enjoy X3 Hopefully.
The minute the girl had returned to the world of consciousness, a broad grin appeared on her light yellow face. The usual time it took to go from being asleep to being awake was considerably shorter than it normally was. And it was with good reason.
She stared up at her ceiling for a minute, smiling up at it, as if it was winking good-naturedly at her. Then she held out an arm to reach for the space at her side, which left her a little confused when her hand touched naught but solid fabric. She turned her head to the side, seeing the spot beside her unoccupied. The only evidence a person had slept there the night before were a few blue strands of hair that lay upon the mattress that was Marty.
This absence of a person did not alarm her. It wasn’t very uncommon that he got up several minutes before dawn, usually to go through some vigorous morning training, for which she usually thanked. His stealthy moves served for him a quiet exit in order to let the Telarian girl maintain her peaceful slumber.
Usually Tala didn’t mind, but she felt that on this specific day, it might have been thoughtful to stay until she woke up. But as customary, she trusted her Egriadanian had a reason for his current idleness that made perfect sense. He always made sense, so she didn’t worry about it and figured she’d see him soon enough. Her demeanour being today even more enthusiastic as it normally was, the girl floated off the bed and her array of green curls danced behind her as she flew, glinting slightly as the early sunlight caught them through her bedroom window. She literally dove into her wardrobe, picking out a suitable attire for that day and quickly threw it on, before bolting out of her door and soaring straight for the cafeteria.
She had more or less expected what was coming, but was nevertheless overjoyed when it actually happened the minute she crossed the threshold of the large communal space.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!”
They called out as one.
A herd of familiar faces blocked her view from the canteen, each of them displaying a huge smile at her. There were arms and hugs and shoulder pats, laughs and congratulations and cheers. Tala was enveloped in an enormous sector hug, which she gave into immediately, her own laughter sounding through the large room as she tried her very best to return a hug to each alien who gave her one.
“You guys remembered!” she called out playfully when being pulled towards Dengeki, and laughing when the latter gave her a noogie. Out of all the beaming faces, the one of her brother appeared, his smile no smaller than those of their friends. “Kind of hard to do, isn’t it?” he said, grinning in evident amusement, “You only kept reminding us a month in advance each day.”
His sister rolled her eyes, but kept smiling nevertheless. “It doesn’t hurt to leave a subtle hint.”
“Etoile made sure we didn’t forget either,” Nebulos piped up from somewhere, which -Tala realized- was from atop her head. The small boy extended his head until it dangled upside down in front of hers, his cheeks purple with excitement, “So we couldn’t forget even if we wanted to!”
Tala flashed her brother a grin, who returned it quickly, before she reached her arms out and plucked the Luminarian off her head and placed him under her arm, carrying him as thus. Nebulos himself didn’t seem to mind at all and started laughing even more excitedly than he already had been.
It was hard to make out individual faces from the group. Sector SUN seemed to have merged together into one huge being with an range of arms that far outnumbered Nebulos’, which guided her towards their usual table. In the meanwhile, Niji was configuring colourful shapes and figures in the air as the birthday girl was led towards her seat, causing quite a commotion as they paraded through the area, leaving many of the other operatives goggling at them in astonishment.
All Sector SUN members talked to her and asked her questions, which made it quite difficult for Tala to concentrate on a single person, but she didn’t mind. The warmth that oozed from the group was one she enjoyed bathing in, especially on this day.
The laughter and cheers had not yet died out when they arrived at their table, which was decorated so colourfully it almost made one’s eyes squint upon looking at it. The surface was packed with birthday cards and gift wrapped presents. There were flowers in each imaginary colour, as well as garlands and balloons which hovered magically above the table. The whole stand was sparkling, which made Tala suspect this had been Zoelin and Cyril’s work, which had possibly gotten a little bit out of hand, though this didn’t bother her in the slightest.
As if the decorations weren’t enough, a large variety of food was presented, the majority all being her favourite ones to eat. Her orange eyes gleamed as she beheld it, while a happy green glow formed around her. She probably would have gone airborne if it weren’t for the numerous operatives having hands upon her, preventing her from doing this as thus.
The Sector SUN members filed around the table once the Telarian had been placed in her accustomed spot while putting her Luminarian friend down on the table, each of her friends’ faces still as luminescent as they were before, flashing her smiles and talking to her all at once, a few of them shoving their cards and presents towards her, telling her to open theirs first.
It took a while before most of the initial commotion had cooled down a bit, the main reason for this being that food was now being put inside their mouths, which made it a little harder to communicate. Nevertheless, they still struck conversation with one another, which gave Tala a brief opportunity to take a good look at each of her teammates, wanting to remember their faces on this joyous day for the days following.
Everyone was there. Her smaller friends had seated themselves upon the table, walking around on it as they went to retrieve food from the other end of the board, all this while talking animatedly. Etoile sat in front of her and was explaining something to Dengeki and Unagi, while he kept throwing his sister an entertained glance every now and then. Nalo sat to his other side, involved in a more tranquil conversation with Vibe, who nodded at something she had written down on her notepad. Zoelin was busying herself piling numerous amounts of fruit on Gylan’s plate, insisting he’d try each and every one of them. Milo-Lee was also there, talking quietly to Finnick, but displaying Tala a timid smile when she caught her gaze nonetheless. Lester sat to her side, too busy to talk as he was putting food in his mouth and Niji sat to her other side, apparently making suggestions on how she could wear her hair, though Tala was only paying half attention to her advice. They were all there.
Except for one person.
Her orange gaze wandered across all the faces for a second time and then a third, making sure she didn’t oversee. His quietness never made him stand out particularly, but after a fourth scan she was positive Masurao was not seated at the table. Tala turned her head, looking around the room to see if he was, perhaps, standing somewhere else. He was never too much into uproar and usually beheld the scenery from a few feet afar. But at least he’d been present on all her other birthdays. But now he wasn’t.
She turned her head to the other side, observing the area from this angle, but still didn’t manage to spot him anywhere. There was an odd twinge of disappointment in her stomach when she failed to see his face amongst the crowd. Then she decided to shrug it off, believing she probably wasn’t spotting him between all the people that were filing in the cafeteria. Or he was probably somewhere secluded, waiting for the tumult to ease a little and see her in private later on. That was probably it, she figured, and cleared her head of thought when she surrendered herself to the chaos of her birthday, basking in her friends’ affection for her as she began to unwrap the gift Nebulos had been holding out to her for the past ten minutes while eagerly hopping from one leg to the other.
The morning went on and it was spent in that lovely birthday bliss. Each sympathetic person Tala ran into that day was quick to congratulate her or throw a smile her way, which she was quick to return. She had spent a good amount of time opening her presents and receiving explanation on what each of the extraordinary alien items was used for. She’d had a ton of fun finding out what they did, accompanied by her friends as they cheered her on or simply watched her face light up every time she opened one of their gifts. Hours had passed doing this.
And still he wasn’t there.
Tala had assumed he’d come to find her once the cafeteria had emptied and their team had retreated to their lounge area to examine Tala’s presents. But he hadn’t. Most of her birthday commotion had distracted her from the thought, but she couldn’t help but feel a little concerned whenever there was a brief moment to let her thoughts run free. It was odd he’d missed breakfast for starters, especially since there had been such a collection of different kinds of food exhibited, an opportunity he would never let pass up. Perhaps he’d gotten ill, but she was sure someone would have informed her of this fact if he was. But no one had mentioned anything, they didn’t seem to notice he wasn’t there. Which wasn’t that much to be surprised about, since his quiet attitude never made him a very present character.
Also the fact that Niji had been accompanied by Numbuh Infinity for the past few hours unsupervised was reason to be confused. Tala had never seen them together without her steadfast bodyguard throwing warning glances at the poor, timid human.
And plus, it was her birthday. Wasn’t this reason enough for him to just be here?
She considered taking a peek inside the training room, but then decided not to. It was her birthday, she shouldn’t be looking for him, he should be looking for her instead! The idea that he found his training more important than her birthday made her grow a little crossed, and also hurt. Then she concluded that he wouldn’t. He’d never missed her birthday before, not even when they had been kids. He hadn’t missed anyone’s birthday for that matter. He’d even had a present. But now there had been nothing, not even a card with some kind of explanation or apology.
Then maybe he’d just forgotten. Which, truth be told, made her heart sink even more. But that couldn’t be true either. If he had attended to all previous birthdays, why should he miss this one?
But he still wasn’t there and his absence stood out to her like a touchable invisible person, who was sneering at her from a distant corner. This thought made her frown, and she was grateful for the distraction her birthday party served her. She didn’t want to ruin her teammates’ efforts by sitting around and being grumpy. Which is why she didn’t ask anyone for the reason of his absence either, not wanting to spoil the moment if she could. So she just joined in on the fun they had, putting thoughts of her boyfriend and his reasons for being gone aside, though her wonderings did their best to penetrate her consciousness whenever they had the opportunity.
Then noon came around and there still had been no sign of him anywhere. Tala couldn’t deny the glumness that she felt now as she floated towards the cafeteria for lunch. She made sure not to portray this feeling as she went on, and kept smiling to every person who sent one her way.
She was quite puzzled. He hadn’t shown up anywhere, not in a single room that their Sector area hosted. You could be sure he showed up in the lounge area at least once during the day, but she hadn’t seen a glimpse of blue fur anywhere. The Telarian girl felt a little frustrated and also a little angry. If he wasn’t going to be around couldn’t he at least have left a note somewhere? She’d even used a spare moment to head for her room an turn the covers of her bed over five times to see if she had perhaps missed a message he’d left there. But there wasn’t.
With mixed feelings, Tala entered the cafeteria for the second time that day, her birthday crew right in tow. They headed back to their table, on which the decorations still lay happily and beaming with a colourfulness she could not share. New food had been spread across the tabletop and all operatives eagerly found a spot around the table, reaching out to put food on their plates.
The Telarian girl was the last one to sit down, after casting another look around the area in hope to find connection with a green gaze that felt familiar. But as she had expected, she didn’t find it.
Not feeling very hungry, but wanting to join in on the festiveness nonetheless, Tala settled down upon her chair and made to reach for a bowl of pasta, before she noticed something on her plate that wasn’t supposed to be there.
A small sheet of paper.
Figuring it was a stray or late birthday card, the green haired girl took the paper from the plate and flipped it over to read the message.
It wasn’t a birthday wish. It didn’t even have her name on it. It only said a few words, written in her native language.
Give it ten seconds.
Tala goggled at the sheet.
She was oblivious to the happy chatter around her, just like her friends didn’t seem to notice she was reading the card, all too caught up in their blissful emotion. She kept staring at the tag, looking utterly mystified. She recognized the handwriting in an instant, it just didn’t have the message on it she had expected it to have. She was so perplexed that the meaning of the words didn’t even seem to get through to her at first.
That was, until, a horrified scream bellowed across the room.
As one, each single operative present in the room lifted their head in surprise, all trying to locate the source of the shouting. A ruckus began to develop in the distance, apparently at one of the tables. The large amount of people were blocking the view of where things seemed to be happening. There were more screams and shouts, most of them belonging to girls’ voices and the there were deeper, surprised and frightened roars from boys. People started yelling and some started laughing.
Sector SUN all craned their heads, trying to figure out what was happening. Aliens were standing atop tables and those who were able to fly, flew. Tala was one of them. Holding firmly onto the card, she hurried to levitate off her chair and her enlarged eyes ran across the room, trying to make out the location of the turmoil. She had barely done so, or people started to stumble to the sides, apparently clearing a path for someone who was heading for the exit, screeching frantically. It sounded oddly muffled.
It wasn’t until the crowd around Sector SUN’s table had made way for whoever was coming that they got a clear view of what was going on. And when they did, Tala’s jaw dropped.
There came Mercedes, her usual elegant stride now replaced by a very clumsy jog. However, the only reason to recognize this person as Mercedes was because of the long, overperfect blonde hair that whipped behind her as she stumbled. Where her face was supposed to be now was what seemed to be some kind of living plant. It had tentacle-like vines latched across the beautiful face and seemed to ooze some kind of purple goo, which was splattered all around the girl’s head and shoulders.
Mercedes kept screeching and yelling, trying to tear the plant away from her face, but her efforts only seemed to have the opposite effect on the entity on her face. She kept shrieking for Divad while she struggled to find the exit, her eyes covered with the rather repulsive looking plant. Soon enough, her boyfriend appeared, but seemed to be more enraged and gobsmacked rather than helpful. As did most of the people observing the scene, as no one made any attempts to guide the girl outside.
Mercedes was blocked from view when it finally seemed to get through to Divad he had to help his girlfriend, and dragged her towards the exit once he’d gotten hold of her perfectly manicured hand, which was also covered in goo and made him cuss out loud.
People kept looking after them, all of them craning their heads or floating higher in the air to get a closer look. Tala was still gaping at the exit, utterly perplexed at what had just happened that she even seemed to forget to laugh. Her eyes the size of saucers, she didn’t tear her gaze away from the door until someone called out to her.
“Happy birthday.”
The voice was quiet and demure, but still managed to carry itself audibly across the din.
Tala whipped around, searching and locating the owner of the voice, who was looking up at her, his hands resting casually in his pockets while his tail gently flicked behind him. Her mouth still agape, Tala stared down at him, looking disbelieved.
Masurao watched her, being quiet for a second as his face revealed nothing. Then he looked down and withdrew something from his pocket. When he opened his fist, it contained something that looked like a few purple beans.
“Supergrowth Tentacle Weed,” he said calmly, as if he was presenting a biology lecture in front of a class, “Should be kept at a distance when moisturized.” His fingers closed around the seed again and disappeared back into his pocket. He looked down at where the beans had disappeared to for a moment, before he looked up at Tala again, whose face was still stuck on startled. Watching her for a second, Masurao’s neutral expression seemed to shift to one that hinted guilt.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there this morning,” he said, twitching his mane a little, momentarily casting his eyes down apologetically. “It took me a while to get these. Then I had to find an opportunity to put these in her drink. I tried it during breakfast, but didn’t manage to. So I head to wait until lunch and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise by-“
He never managed to finish his sentence for at that exact moment, the boy was tackled to the ground, his eyes widening a little as the air was pushed out of his lungs. Exhilarated laughter rang in his ears as he felt his body being enveloped and compressed in one of the tightest hugs he had ever received.
THE END
-------
And I like the idea of Tala's eccentricness/prankness rubbing off on Masurao a little bit
All characters mentioned rightfully belong to their awesome Panda Warrior!
Basic summary is tht it's about Tala's birthday, which technically isn't due a few months, but I didn't want to wait that long as the idea suddenly hit me like that
I apologize for the title. Man, it's lame.
But enjoy X3 Hopefully.
Happy Birthday Tala
The minute the girl had returned to the world of consciousness, a broad grin appeared on her light yellow face. The usual time it took to go from being asleep to being awake was considerably shorter than it normally was. And it was with good reason.
She stared up at her ceiling for a minute, smiling up at it, as if it was winking good-naturedly at her. Then she held out an arm to reach for the space at her side, which left her a little confused when her hand touched naught but solid fabric. She turned her head to the side, seeing the spot beside her unoccupied. The only evidence a person had slept there the night before were a few blue strands of hair that lay upon the mattress that was Marty.
This absence of a person did not alarm her. It wasn’t very uncommon that he got up several minutes before dawn, usually to go through some vigorous morning training, for which she usually thanked. His stealthy moves served for him a quiet exit in order to let the Telarian girl maintain her peaceful slumber.
Usually Tala didn’t mind, but she felt that on this specific day, it might have been thoughtful to stay until she woke up. But as customary, she trusted her Egriadanian had a reason for his current idleness that made perfect sense. He always made sense, so she didn’t worry about it and figured she’d see him soon enough. Her demeanour being today even more enthusiastic as it normally was, the girl floated off the bed and her array of green curls danced behind her as she flew, glinting slightly as the early sunlight caught them through her bedroom window. She literally dove into her wardrobe, picking out a suitable attire for that day and quickly threw it on, before bolting out of her door and soaring straight for the cafeteria.
She had more or less expected what was coming, but was nevertheless overjoyed when it actually happened the minute she crossed the threshold of the large communal space.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!”
They called out as one.
A herd of familiar faces blocked her view from the canteen, each of them displaying a huge smile at her. There were arms and hugs and shoulder pats, laughs and congratulations and cheers. Tala was enveloped in an enormous sector hug, which she gave into immediately, her own laughter sounding through the large room as she tried her very best to return a hug to each alien who gave her one.
“You guys remembered!” she called out playfully when being pulled towards Dengeki, and laughing when the latter gave her a noogie. Out of all the beaming faces, the one of her brother appeared, his smile no smaller than those of their friends. “Kind of hard to do, isn’t it?” he said, grinning in evident amusement, “You only kept reminding us a month in advance each day.”
His sister rolled her eyes, but kept smiling nevertheless. “It doesn’t hurt to leave a subtle hint.”
“Etoile made sure we didn’t forget either,” Nebulos piped up from somewhere, which -Tala realized- was from atop her head. The small boy extended his head until it dangled upside down in front of hers, his cheeks purple with excitement, “So we couldn’t forget even if we wanted to!”
Tala flashed her brother a grin, who returned it quickly, before she reached her arms out and plucked the Luminarian off her head and placed him under her arm, carrying him as thus. Nebulos himself didn’t seem to mind at all and started laughing even more excitedly than he already had been.
It was hard to make out individual faces from the group. Sector SUN seemed to have merged together into one huge being with an range of arms that far outnumbered Nebulos’, which guided her towards their usual table. In the meanwhile, Niji was configuring colourful shapes and figures in the air as the birthday girl was led towards her seat, causing quite a commotion as they paraded through the area, leaving many of the other operatives goggling at them in astonishment.
All Sector SUN members talked to her and asked her questions, which made it quite difficult for Tala to concentrate on a single person, but she didn’t mind. The warmth that oozed from the group was one she enjoyed bathing in, especially on this day.
The laughter and cheers had not yet died out when they arrived at their table, which was decorated so colourfully it almost made one’s eyes squint upon looking at it. The surface was packed with birthday cards and gift wrapped presents. There were flowers in each imaginary colour, as well as garlands and balloons which hovered magically above the table. The whole stand was sparkling, which made Tala suspect this had been Zoelin and Cyril’s work, which had possibly gotten a little bit out of hand, though this didn’t bother her in the slightest.
As if the decorations weren’t enough, a large variety of food was presented, the majority all being her favourite ones to eat. Her orange eyes gleamed as she beheld it, while a happy green glow formed around her. She probably would have gone airborne if it weren’t for the numerous operatives having hands upon her, preventing her from doing this as thus.
The Sector SUN members filed around the table once the Telarian had been placed in her accustomed spot while putting her Luminarian friend down on the table, each of her friends’ faces still as luminescent as they were before, flashing her smiles and talking to her all at once, a few of them shoving their cards and presents towards her, telling her to open theirs first.
It took a while before most of the initial commotion had cooled down a bit, the main reason for this being that food was now being put inside their mouths, which made it a little harder to communicate. Nevertheless, they still struck conversation with one another, which gave Tala a brief opportunity to take a good look at each of her teammates, wanting to remember their faces on this joyous day for the days following.
Everyone was there. Her smaller friends had seated themselves upon the table, walking around on it as they went to retrieve food from the other end of the board, all this while talking animatedly. Etoile sat in front of her and was explaining something to Dengeki and Unagi, while he kept throwing his sister an entertained glance every now and then. Nalo sat to his other side, involved in a more tranquil conversation with Vibe, who nodded at something she had written down on her notepad. Zoelin was busying herself piling numerous amounts of fruit on Gylan’s plate, insisting he’d try each and every one of them. Milo-Lee was also there, talking quietly to Finnick, but displaying Tala a timid smile when she caught her gaze nonetheless. Lester sat to her side, too busy to talk as he was putting food in his mouth and Niji sat to her other side, apparently making suggestions on how she could wear her hair, though Tala was only paying half attention to her advice. They were all there.
Except for one person.
Her orange gaze wandered across all the faces for a second time and then a third, making sure she didn’t oversee. His quietness never made him stand out particularly, but after a fourth scan she was positive Masurao was not seated at the table. Tala turned her head, looking around the room to see if he was, perhaps, standing somewhere else. He was never too much into uproar and usually beheld the scenery from a few feet afar. But at least he’d been present on all her other birthdays. But now he wasn’t.
She turned her head to the other side, observing the area from this angle, but still didn’t manage to spot him anywhere. There was an odd twinge of disappointment in her stomach when she failed to see his face amongst the crowd. Then she decided to shrug it off, believing she probably wasn’t spotting him between all the people that were filing in the cafeteria. Or he was probably somewhere secluded, waiting for the tumult to ease a little and see her in private later on. That was probably it, she figured, and cleared her head of thought when she surrendered herself to the chaos of her birthday, basking in her friends’ affection for her as she began to unwrap the gift Nebulos had been holding out to her for the past ten minutes while eagerly hopping from one leg to the other.
The morning went on and it was spent in that lovely birthday bliss. Each sympathetic person Tala ran into that day was quick to congratulate her or throw a smile her way, which she was quick to return. She had spent a good amount of time opening her presents and receiving explanation on what each of the extraordinary alien items was used for. She’d had a ton of fun finding out what they did, accompanied by her friends as they cheered her on or simply watched her face light up every time she opened one of their gifts. Hours had passed doing this.
And still he wasn’t there.
Tala had assumed he’d come to find her once the cafeteria had emptied and their team had retreated to their lounge area to examine Tala’s presents. But he hadn’t. Most of her birthday commotion had distracted her from the thought, but she couldn’t help but feel a little concerned whenever there was a brief moment to let her thoughts run free. It was odd he’d missed breakfast for starters, especially since there had been such a collection of different kinds of food exhibited, an opportunity he would never let pass up. Perhaps he’d gotten ill, but she was sure someone would have informed her of this fact if he was. But no one had mentioned anything, they didn’t seem to notice he wasn’t there. Which wasn’t that much to be surprised about, since his quiet attitude never made him a very present character.
Also the fact that Niji had been accompanied by Numbuh Infinity for the past few hours unsupervised was reason to be confused. Tala had never seen them together without her steadfast bodyguard throwing warning glances at the poor, timid human.
And plus, it was her birthday. Wasn’t this reason enough for him to just be here?
She considered taking a peek inside the training room, but then decided not to. It was her birthday, she shouldn’t be looking for him, he should be looking for her instead! The idea that he found his training more important than her birthday made her grow a little crossed, and also hurt. Then she concluded that he wouldn’t. He’d never missed her birthday before, not even when they had been kids. He hadn’t missed anyone’s birthday for that matter. He’d even had a present. But now there had been nothing, not even a card with some kind of explanation or apology.
Then maybe he’d just forgotten. Which, truth be told, made her heart sink even more. But that couldn’t be true either. If he had attended to all previous birthdays, why should he miss this one?
But he still wasn’t there and his absence stood out to her like a touchable invisible person, who was sneering at her from a distant corner. This thought made her frown, and she was grateful for the distraction her birthday party served her. She didn’t want to ruin her teammates’ efforts by sitting around and being grumpy. Which is why she didn’t ask anyone for the reason of his absence either, not wanting to spoil the moment if she could. So she just joined in on the fun they had, putting thoughts of her boyfriend and his reasons for being gone aside, though her wonderings did their best to penetrate her consciousness whenever they had the opportunity.
Then noon came around and there still had been no sign of him anywhere. Tala couldn’t deny the glumness that she felt now as she floated towards the cafeteria for lunch. She made sure not to portray this feeling as she went on, and kept smiling to every person who sent one her way.
She was quite puzzled. He hadn’t shown up anywhere, not in a single room that their Sector area hosted. You could be sure he showed up in the lounge area at least once during the day, but she hadn’t seen a glimpse of blue fur anywhere. The Telarian girl felt a little frustrated and also a little angry. If he wasn’t going to be around couldn’t he at least have left a note somewhere? She’d even used a spare moment to head for her room an turn the covers of her bed over five times to see if she had perhaps missed a message he’d left there. But there wasn’t.
With mixed feelings, Tala entered the cafeteria for the second time that day, her birthday crew right in tow. They headed back to their table, on which the decorations still lay happily and beaming with a colourfulness she could not share. New food had been spread across the tabletop and all operatives eagerly found a spot around the table, reaching out to put food on their plates.
The Telarian girl was the last one to sit down, after casting another look around the area in hope to find connection with a green gaze that felt familiar. But as she had expected, she didn’t find it.
Not feeling very hungry, but wanting to join in on the festiveness nonetheless, Tala settled down upon her chair and made to reach for a bowl of pasta, before she noticed something on her plate that wasn’t supposed to be there.
A small sheet of paper.
Figuring it was a stray or late birthday card, the green haired girl took the paper from the plate and flipped it over to read the message.
It wasn’t a birthday wish. It didn’t even have her name on it. It only said a few words, written in her native language.
Give it ten seconds.
Tala goggled at the sheet.
She was oblivious to the happy chatter around her, just like her friends didn’t seem to notice she was reading the card, all too caught up in their blissful emotion. She kept staring at the tag, looking utterly mystified. She recognized the handwriting in an instant, it just didn’t have the message on it she had expected it to have. She was so perplexed that the meaning of the words didn’t even seem to get through to her at first.
That was, until, a horrified scream bellowed across the room.
As one, each single operative present in the room lifted their head in surprise, all trying to locate the source of the shouting. A ruckus began to develop in the distance, apparently at one of the tables. The large amount of people were blocking the view of where things seemed to be happening. There were more screams and shouts, most of them belonging to girls’ voices and the there were deeper, surprised and frightened roars from boys. People started yelling and some started laughing.
Sector SUN all craned their heads, trying to figure out what was happening. Aliens were standing atop tables and those who were able to fly, flew. Tala was one of them. Holding firmly onto the card, she hurried to levitate off her chair and her enlarged eyes ran across the room, trying to make out the location of the turmoil. She had barely done so, or people started to stumble to the sides, apparently clearing a path for someone who was heading for the exit, screeching frantically. It sounded oddly muffled.
It wasn’t until the crowd around Sector SUN’s table had made way for whoever was coming that they got a clear view of what was going on. And when they did, Tala’s jaw dropped.
There came Mercedes, her usual elegant stride now replaced by a very clumsy jog. However, the only reason to recognize this person as Mercedes was because of the long, overperfect blonde hair that whipped behind her as she stumbled. Where her face was supposed to be now was what seemed to be some kind of living plant. It had tentacle-like vines latched across the beautiful face and seemed to ooze some kind of purple goo, which was splattered all around the girl’s head and shoulders.
Mercedes kept screeching and yelling, trying to tear the plant away from her face, but her efforts only seemed to have the opposite effect on the entity on her face. She kept shrieking for Divad while she struggled to find the exit, her eyes covered with the rather repulsive looking plant. Soon enough, her boyfriend appeared, but seemed to be more enraged and gobsmacked rather than helpful. As did most of the people observing the scene, as no one made any attempts to guide the girl outside.
Mercedes was blocked from view when it finally seemed to get through to Divad he had to help his girlfriend, and dragged her towards the exit once he’d gotten hold of her perfectly manicured hand, which was also covered in goo and made him cuss out loud.
People kept looking after them, all of them craning their heads or floating higher in the air to get a closer look. Tala was still gaping at the exit, utterly perplexed at what had just happened that she even seemed to forget to laugh. Her eyes the size of saucers, she didn’t tear her gaze away from the door until someone called out to her.
“Happy birthday.”
The voice was quiet and demure, but still managed to carry itself audibly across the din.
Tala whipped around, searching and locating the owner of the voice, who was looking up at her, his hands resting casually in his pockets while his tail gently flicked behind him. Her mouth still agape, Tala stared down at him, looking disbelieved.
Masurao watched her, being quiet for a second as his face revealed nothing. Then he looked down and withdrew something from his pocket. When he opened his fist, it contained something that looked like a few purple beans.
“Supergrowth Tentacle Weed,” he said calmly, as if he was presenting a biology lecture in front of a class, “Should be kept at a distance when moisturized.” His fingers closed around the seed again and disappeared back into his pocket. He looked down at where the beans had disappeared to for a moment, before he looked up at Tala again, whose face was still stuck on startled. Watching her for a second, Masurao’s neutral expression seemed to shift to one that hinted guilt.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there this morning,” he said, twitching his mane a little, momentarily casting his eyes down apologetically. “It took me a while to get these. Then I had to find an opportunity to put these in her drink. I tried it during breakfast, but didn’t manage to. So I head to wait until lunch and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise by-“
He never managed to finish his sentence for at that exact moment, the boy was tackled to the ground, his eyes widening a little as the air was pushed out of his lungs. Exhilarated laughter rang in his ears as he felt his body being enveloped and compressed in one of the tightest hugs he had ever received.
THE END
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And I like the idea of Tala's eccentricness/prankness rubbing off on Masurao a little bit
All characters mentioned rightfully belong to their awesome Panda Warrior!
