Sideribus Inlustris for Spicynoodles?
Word Count: 2323
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“You’re not supposed to be here!” MK whisper-yelled. Red Son was in his window, dressed in only his turtleneck and pants. His coat was gone, and it just… straight-up freaked out MK to see his actual shoulders. “Why are you even here?”
Red Son shushed him and looked outside warily. He jumped into the room and slid the window shut. He ducked down and peeked out the window, before looking to MK. What in the world was this crazy demon doing.
“I ran away.” Red Son whispered.
“You what?!” MK shouted. Red Son quickly shushed him again. “Okay sorry, but what?? Why did you run away?”
Red Son looked back over the windowsill and then rushed over to the bed. He jumped over it and peered over the covers just a bit. Nothing yet. He sighed and pulled himself up onto the bed.
“Mother was being overbearing.” He said, pushing MK over so that he could get a better spot to sit.
“Hey!” MK shoved him lightly. “Anyway- Why the hell is my room your first thought for when you run away from your mom?”
“Your room is such a dump, she’d never touch it!” Red Son stuck his tongue out at MK.
“Hey! I’ll have you know it’s a very nice place to live. I have all my stuff right where I need it!”
“You could achieve the same thing with a cabinet.”
“No, organizing things makes me lose it.” MK flopped back onto the bed and turned his eyes to the ceiling.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Red Son rolled his eyes and copied MK.
He stared up at the ceiling and the peeling stickers barely hanging onto it. They looked old and had a faint glow to them, the kind that looks like it was once brilliant but had faded with age. He looked at them for a few more seconds before MK noticed what was going on.
“Oh! I guess you’ve never seen those before- Those are my Super Stars!” MK leaned down and pulled a few fallen ones out from under his bed. “Pigsy got them for me. He didn’t really have any experience with raising kids, much less with teenagers, so he ended up getting me a bunch of little kid stuff.”
He turned the stars over in his hands fondly, taking in their faint glow. “He thought I wouldn’t like ‘em, but I ended up putting them up and keeping them there. They help me sleep at night.”
“They seem dumb.” He said blankly, peering over MK’s shoulder at the yellowed stickers. MK turned around and flicked him right on the forehead dot. “Hey! Don’t touch that, it’s a symbol of m-”
“Your powers, your important family, your important lineage- Blah blah blah.” MK rolled his eyes and tossed a star at Red Son’s face. “I will listen to you talk about your ‘amazing family’ if you don’t insult my actually important Glow Stars.”
“I thought they were Super Stars.” Red Son rubbed his forehead.
“Same thing.” MK sighed. “Anyway! They’re really important to me, and better than the real stars anyway.”
Red Son snorted, “No they’re not! Have you ever even seen real stars, Noodle Boy?”
“Yeah! And they’re boring and you can barely see them!” MK huffed. “Go on, look outside if you wanna be such an asshole.”
“I will go look outside at the beautiful stars, thank you very mu-” Red Son stopped talking when he got to the window and saw only but two or three stars. The North Star, Betelgeuse, and another one- no that was a plane. “What the- Noodle Boy! Why didn’t anyone tell me the stars here were subpar?!”
“They’ve been like that my whole life.” MK chuffed, reaching down beside his bed to find a- Chocolate bar! Score!! “It’s kinda boring looking at the same ones all your life.”
Red Son looked up at the pitiful excuse for the night’s sky again. God, imagine growing up with those! He thought of the Flaming Mountains, the beautiful nights he’d spent with Mother and Father there… MK didn’t have a Mother and Father, and no night sky to sit under with them!
“How come you don’t know what the stars look like anyway?” MK bit into his chocolate bar, “You’ve been here for like, a while right? Long enough to know the city layout and find the staff.”
“I spend my nights creating machines to CRUSH YOU! I don’t have time for your city’s measly stars.”
“But you have time to run away from your mom and break into my house?”
“That is different!” He rolled his eyes and walked back to the bed. He plopped down next to MK and groaned. “This place SUCKS! Has anyone ever told you that? Told you how much this place sucks?”
“I think my room is nice!”
“No, not your room Noodle Boy! I mean the city. It’s stuffy and crowded and the air gives me headaches- and then I find out there aren’t even stars!” Red Son groaned, covering his face with his hands. “There is nothing good here!”
“I’m here.” MK tried, “That has to be something, right?”
“Though I enjoy fighting you, Noodle Boy, you don’t make up for your city’s many, many faults.” Red Son huffed, looking up at the Glow Stars. “Back at home Mother and I used to watch the stars every night. She would make sure it was nice and cool with her fan, because I overheat easily, and we’d just sit and watch the sky move…”
He counted the stars on the ceiling and sighed. He missed the flaming mountains, their beautiful jutting rocks that he used to climb to the top of, the wonderful villages with the tasty food they’d give to him for free, the statue to his dad they erected…
And now he was in this stupid, shitty city. You could barely find any dirt in this place, to begin with, and none of it was wonderful sandy red. None of it kicked up when you ran or stained your clothes so Mother would get mad at you and you could spend the day cleaning your clothes. Red Son liked hand cleaning clothes, getting his hands into whatever he was working on.
“I hate washing machines.” Red Son blurted after a minute or so of getting lost in the Glow Stars.
“Well, random, but… me too.”
“You hate everything that has to do with cleaning, clearly.” Red Son rolled his eyes. He sat up and pulled his hair out of his ponytail. He shook it out and it flowed down his shoulders and shifted color every second or so like a fresh flame. “Come on, I’m gonna show you some real stars.”
“Huh-? What do you me-” MK was cut off as they were surrounded in roaring flames. He screamed as he felt the bed underneath him leave and the world shift. He was weightless for a moment before fell on his ass into the dust of the Flaming Mountains. He yelped as he roughly hit the ground. “What the hell, man?!”
Red Son was standing and gently dusted his clothes off. He pointed to the sky snd looked up. “Stars.”
MK rolled his eyes and looked to the stars. They weren’t doing to be all the impressive, they were just balls of gas- Oh wow…. MK’s eyes go wide as he looks up at the night sky. There were so many colors.
The purple, blue, and spotted yellow of a nebula that split the sky, the red that washed itself over the horizon, the black that faded in and out between nebulae, and the light blues of thousands of stars. He could barely take it all in.
Red Son took a seat next to him, resting his head on his knees. He looked up to the stars, then back to MK’s amazed face. He chuckled as MK started to point to a few like a little kid.
“Those are the Azure Dragon of the East. That one’s Jué. There’s Kàng, Dī, Fáng, Xīn, Wěi, and Jī.” Red Son pointed to the stars as he named them. “Over there’s the Black Tortoise of the North, the White Tiger of the West, and the Vermilion Bird of the South.”
“Woah…” MK was amazed, shocked by just how beautiful the stars were when you can see them. “They’re beautiful.”
Red Son looked at MK, his voice quiet. “Yeah. They sure are.”
“Do you have a favorite? I like the bright one right there!”
“That’s Běijíxīng, The North Star.” Red Son hummed. “My favorite is Dǒu Xiù…”
“The Dipper is a good one, yeah! I’ve heard of all of these, but I’ve never seen them before.”
They fell into a comfortable silence, MK taking in the stars and Red Son staring at MK in the light of the moon. The wind picked up, keeping them cool in the hot air of the Flaming Mountains. Red Son scooted closer to MK, placing his hand right next to the other boy’s. He almost placed it on top MK’s when-
There stood his mother, arms crossed and face set. MK jumped and hid behind Red Son, peering over his shoulder at the angry princess.
“Red Son!” She leveled him with a glare. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I- I-” Red Son looked around. “I am having a- a civil discussion with the Noodle Boy.”
“A civil discussion about stars? One that includes bedroom eyes?” She raised an eyebrow and MK sputtered.
Princess Iron Fan rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him up. “Come on! We’re going home. You almost scared me and your father half to death! You know how he gets when he doesn’t know where you are!”
“W-wait for me!” MK rushed to his feet and trailed after them as Princess Iron Fan dragged Red Son down the mountain.
“Running away and with the Noodle Boy no less?” She gave both of them a withering glare. “I’m disappointed in you!”
“Sorry, Mother…” Red Son rubbed his arm, looking down at the reddish sand under his feet. Princess Iron Fan sighed and stopped dragging him.
“It’s alright, just… let’s go home now. Your father is worried sick.”
“Yes of course! You disappeared in the middle of the night and we couldn’t find you until you stepped foot into my territory!” She hit him lightly on the head and started down the mountain again.
MK had to jog just to keep up with her walking pace. “Why are we heading down the mountain, Mrs. Princess Iron Fan Ma’am?”
“It’s too windy up there.” She hummed. “I could end up in the wrong spot.”
MK pulled his notebook out of nowhere and wrote that down. Red Son looked over to him and rolled his eyes.
“Mother, the Noodle Boy is collecting intelligence in order to defeat us in ba-”
“I’m still mad at you.” She cut him off.
She stopped suddenly and MK bumped into Red Son. He got a growl for his troubles and flicked Red Son again. Red Son’s hair sparked and he was just about to start yelling when his mother picked him up and wrapped them in wind.
MK landed face-first onto the fire escape, “Ow! Shit!”
“Language.” Princess Iron Fan said calmly, setting Red Son down.
“Mother! I can stand!” Red Son griped. “I’m not new to teleportation!”
“Well, I am!” MK forced himself up and leaned against the wall. “Give a guy a warning!”
MK groaned and slid into his room. He stretched out and then waved as Red Son and Princess Iron Fan were obscured by her winds.
“Hey, Noodle Boy!” Red Son called over the roar of the winds. “Now that you’ve seen the real thing, are your dumb ceiling stars still ‘better than the real stars’?”
“Yeah!” MK called back. “They’re still better!”
The fight had been difficult. They always were, the Noodle Boy was getting craftier and craftier with his fighting moves, and was impossible to get a hold on. Damn kid was slippery.
Red Son pulled himself up off of the ground and cracked his back. He was supposed to say something about how he’d be back for more, how he’d kill the Noodle Boy and help his parents conquer the world! But right now he just wanted to go home.
He raised his hand to start some magic, but stopped when the Noodle Boy called out, “Hey wait! I got something for you!”
“I don’t want whatever terrible peasant thing you have for me!” Red Son looked behind him anyway.
MK was digging into all his pockets like a mad man or someone who’d lost his car keys at the grocery store. Red Son rolled his eyes as MK reached into his left jacket pocket and pulled out- a packet of ceiling stars?
He presented them to Red Son with a smile that shone like the sun. Red Son swiped them from him and examined them with a scrutinous eye. He looked to MK then back to the packet a few times.
“What kind of joke is this?” He snarled, his hair sparking.
“It’s not a joke!” MK shook his head and sighed. “I thought you’d like them! You missed home, and you can’t be sneaking out every night, so I thought they’d help!”
Red Son raised an eyebrow and looked down at the packet. He shifted on his feet a few times before blushing a bit.
“T-thank you…” He said quietly, before disappearing into his flames.
When Red Son remembered the packet he’d slid in his pocket, he looked at it for a moment before putting them up onto his ceiling. He arranged them into the constellations he saw at home and then flopped back onto his bed.