Volume 1 - First Move
Light shone down from above, illuminating the young youth shackled to a chair. He bent forward, looking down on himself. Dazzling darkness surrounded him, punctured by the chaotic light above him.
He felt lost, but he was right where he needed to be. He felt homeless, but he had a home already. The rusty chains that were locked onto his wrists chaffed his skin, and the links between the chains rattled as he cupped his head between his shoulders, just wanting it to be over.
He heard a click in the distance, and looked up to find another light shining down. The person was bound to a wheel chair, an IV drip standing right beside it. That person started to look strikingly familiar to him, and as he sat there, helpless, the wheel chair person moved in his direction.
He stared at her . . . moving closer to him. He couldn’t think at all, his brain was firing off thoughts left and right, backward and forward. His mind was in a frenzy of thoughts, and he couldn’t help it.
She appeared right in front of him, looking exactly as the day he last saw her, though . . . now she had a medicinal scent to her, as if she was a walking hospital.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth fixed in a malicious smile, and her face as clean and pure as the day he had last seen her. Her bright and shining blonde hair was dull, and her skin had taken on a shade of grey, as if a storm cloud hung above her.
He looked at her, staring at her with eyes the size of discs. She tentatively touched his cheek in a tender way and smiled at him, the edge of her mouth turning crooked.
She cooed, “It’s not your fault, Starburst. I don’t blame you.”
He tried to utter out anything, but felt nothing. He couldn’t say anything, he felt as if his throat was just . . . gone.
It’s not your fault you couldn’t do anything. It’s not your fault you let everyone down.
She cupped his chin, forcing him to look at her. “You have a home, a life to live, and a stable job.”
No, I don’t, he thought morosely.
“I feel sympathy for you.” She said, stroking his hair. That little subtle motion brought a maelstrom of emotions within him.
“Oh, you’re waking up . . .” She grinned, waving him goodbye.
No, no, no! Don’t let it end like this! DO SOMETHING!
He rattled the chains futilely, trying to dislodge from the ground as he pulled against them.
“I’m sorry . . . but goodbye . . . have a good life . . .” She kept on waving as she shimmered in the air for a split second before bursting into a cloud of white sparkly lights. Almost like a specter . . .
No . . .
He doubled over as he felt the light shining down on him contract and lessen, until . . . he was left alone in the dark-
Starburst woke up as listlessly as he slept, keeping his eyes trained on the rotating electric fan above him. Light appeared hazy through the frosted windows, and the whole view outside looked as if it was stuck in a perpetual fog.
He sat on the mattress, holding his two legs close to his body and stared right at that foggy window, at the light shining down from above. His mouth grew into a frown, his mind a tumultuous hotspot of raging emotions. He closed his eyes, and let out a long, ragged sigh.
The cold hit him first, like a freight train passing by him. Then came the shivers, and the instinctive need to pull his coat closer towards him.
The rising sun did nothing to stop the cold, only being there as a constant reminder that he had to wake up in the morning, instead of just letting him sleep in again. Clouds drifted in and out of view.
A high railing was a few paces away from him, and past that, was a scenic view of the strangely chosen name of this small town, Ponyville. He started towards the lift of the apartment complex, keeping his head pinned down to the floor, even as the lift went ‘ding!’ and he exited the lift.
He pushed open a pair of glass doors, walking towards his destination, which was just a couple of blocks down. Convenience struck again.
Wind brushed his hair, rippling his coat. Trees swayed under its gentle push, and small dots of leaves drifted past him.
Only the scraping of his shoes against the pavement destroyed this serene scene for him.
He subconsciously counted the number of cars passing by, taking his mind off of doing nothing at all. 25, he counted, and most of them were painted red.
People walked past by him, ignoring, trapped in their own worlds, sharing their worlds with others, and some just looking at their phones.
He jammed his hands within the depths of his coat pockets by the time he reached the place he needed to be. A non-descript sign stood above the door. A bell jingled as he entered the shop, and he took in the sweet scent of freshly baked cakes and other goodies in the kitchen, making his mouth water instantly.
Without uttering out a single word, a plump woman, with skin the color of cerulean appeared right out of the kitchen, with an expression of delight at seeing Starburst in the doorway.
“Dearie, what are you doing standing out there?” she asked, wiping her hands off with a dirty and arguably oily cloth, “Isn’t it cold?”
Though the cold seeped through his vest, and he felt as if he was shielding himself from a hurricane, he still shook his head, saying, “I don’t mind it. It isn’t bothering me all that much.” He stepped in, shutting the door behind him. The pin drop silence of the shop as it was now, broken only by the two of them, had always made him feel calm.
It was different in contrast to the radiant light that shone from everyone’s faces as they chatted their lives out in the shop, never thinking about the future, as if they never had any problems to deal with in their lives. It irked him to his very bone.
So much so that he stayed away from large pods of people, a problem that the Cakes had never quite figured out, but never questioned.
“Where’s Mr. Cake?” He asked, after noticing that the husband of this woman was nowhere in here at all. Was he running late or something- but that wasn’t possible, it was Mr. Cake! Did his wife arrive earlier than he did?
Did it have something do with Starburst? Did it?
“Oh, nothing of that sort, dear,” Mrs. Cake answered him, noticing the look of worry that passed by his face. “He just went out to buy flour, we ran out of it last night. He’ll be back in no time soon.”
“Right.” He replied, feeling silence fill the void between their conversations. There was nothing left to say, at that point. He walked past her, brushing past her pink hair that resembled the tip of cake frosting for him, up to the counter, sat on a stool by it, and stared at the ticking clock right above the window.
At this early hour, there was no point in doing anything. Something drove him to come here early, every single day. Maybe, just maybe . . . this intoxicating scent of pastries . . . the lovely married couple and their bombastic baker . . . reminded him of home.
-
He stood in front of a rustic house, a place he unfortunately remembered vividly of. He was in a dream, he knew that, and yet he felt as if the house in front of him was actually solid, as if it really was there, and not just some figment of his imagination.
A monotone grey replaced the blue sky above him, and the ground he stood on was a featureless black. With tired legs, he took his first step towards that house, shimmering brightly against the colorless background behind it. The gate and wooden fence disappeared with a flash as he soon as he touched them.
Unfazed by this, he walked on.
The once modest lawn was now flat and devoid of anything. Nothing was living there at all. He walked past it all, entering the house. The creak of the door moving in sounded deeper than what he expected. The atmosphere in here was darker, everything stayed exactly the same, exactly as it was when he left.
As he subconsciously made his way to the living room, everything behind him started fading out of existence, as if it had not been there at all.
“. . . no . . . can’t . . .” He heard a faint voice coming from behind a door. The same door that led to the living room. The wind in his head starting picking up, raging like a tornado as he approached the door, reaching out to grab the handle autonomously.
He held the door handle, and with a firm twist, entered the living room.
“Starburst? Hey, Starburst!” He heard a snapping sound, which drove him out of his self-induced trance instantly. He blinked twice, holding his forehead to shake off that blurriness that was beginning to muddle his mind.
He heard some chatter in the background, but he blocked it off as he retreated into his mind, trying to assess the situation desperately . . . despite it really being him staring at a clock for a couple of minutes with deadpan eyes.
“. . . hey, you in there?” The familiar, perky baker of the Sweet Shoppe asked once more, her words finally getting through to him.
“Huh?” He uttered out, escaping the confines of his mind to the real world. “Y-yeah. I’m in here.”
“Great!” She clapped her hands together, “because we have a whole lot of orders to fill!”
He looked around in confusion at the still desolate shop. It had been a few hours since he’d arrived, and when Pinkie had entered the shop, he had been stuck staring at the clock over the glossy window.
“But there’s no one here.” He said.
“Exactly! We have to be prepared if anybody comes in here with a . . .” She spiced up the word with a flourish of her hands. “. . . major order for us to fill!”
“When has that ever happened?”
“Who knows? It might happen soon.”
He thought about the likelihood of that happening, even for a moment. Besides, he was feeling sort of restless. Pinkie’s ecstatic nature must’ve been infectious.
He never thought a nerd like himself could ever feel restless.
“Right then . . .” He let out a heaving sigh and stood up from the chair, feeling his butt equalize itself to the surrounding air pressure with a barrage of pins and needles that stretched down to his legs.
“. . . let’s get to work.” He ended, taking his first step to the kitchen, and almost keeling over from the pins and needles to his legs.
The kitchen in the Sweet Shoppe looked just like any other kitchen in any other bakery in any other town, in any other city, and in any other country, if you added a much more homely feel to it.
That was the feeling Starburst got when he and Pinkie were cleaning up the kitchen after a day’s worth of baking.
“Well, that could have gone better.” Pinkie said, wiping off patches of flour that dried on her apron with a dirty rug.
“At least the whole kitchen wasn’t covered in flour again.” Starburst murmured, throwing cracked egg shells into the trash and putting on a pair of oven mitts, all the while mulling over the complete silence in the shop.
It was already 10 in the morning, on a Saturday. Usually there’d be people rushing in to buy their pastries, and Starburst would reluctantly act happily towards the patrons, but till now, there was a complete lack of people. Mr. and Mrs. Cake for example.
When Pinkie arrived, the married couple immediately had a call from some friend over at the neighboring city of Canterlot. In a hurry, while struggling to carry two babies at once, they entrusted the Sweet Shoppe over to Starburst and Pinkie, more so to Starburst.
They were anxious, he could tell, with the bombastic baker around with her electrifying personality that could power up an entire city but the explanation that Pinkie gave him spoke otherwise.
“That was one time!” She retorted, dropping the rug, and pouting her mouth.
“One out of many.” He glanced over at her with a sharp expression. He could’ve come up with umpteenth examples, such as last Tuesday’s reckless adventure, Thursday’s mishap, and so on and so forth to prove himself right.
After some thinking, Pinkie gave in, “. . . fine, you win. I’m never good at this!” She still pouted, but picked up the rug again in defeat.
He felt a sick sense of satisfaction fill up in his gut, and said, “Though, you do beat me at baking amazing pastries.”
“Thanks!” She piped up, expecting to hear more from him, instead getting nothing but silence in return. Starburst headed over to the oven, opening the door and pulling out the tray of steaming hot taro pies from the oven carefully. He pulled out his oven mitts and set them on the marble countertop.
“Ooh, they already look so delicious!” Pinkie stood beside him, looking at the small, golden outer shelled, rectangular taro pies on the tray with delight.
Starburst touched the surface of one of the pies and retreated his finger at the burning sensation. He hissed in pain and waved his finger, trying to cool it down.
Pinkie giggled, getting a tissue paper from one of the drawers and handing them to Starburst. “Here silly. You should learn to be more careful.”
He thanked her, locking his gaze onto a now interesting looking open drawer, avoiding looking directly into her eyes, and took the tissue paper, picking up a taro pie and blew on it.
He bit into the pie, and felt like he was on cloud nine, no, higher than even cloud nine. He felt as if fireworks were going off in his mouth, his taste buds were literally buzzing with charged satisfaction. The fact that it was still hot enhanced the flavor of the rich taro within the pie.
“Tastes good, doesn’t it?” She gave him a knowing smirk, raising her brow in a prideful manner.
“Yeah, it does.” Starburst agreed, swallowing the taro and finishing it within a handful of bites. “This can sell, Pinkie. Where did you learn to make taro pies?”
“The Internet. You’d be amazed with how many recipes you can find on the Internet. I just adapted the taro into a pie, and this was the result!” She ended with a wave to her creation, and she added a gleeful smile with it.
“Yup.” He licked his fingers clean. “This can really sell.” He wiped his fingers on the hem of his jeans.
“Want to put this on display?” Pinkie asked, already putting on her familiar blue oven mittens, emblazoned with her ‘mark’ as Starburst liked to call it that was frequently associated with Pinkie.
“Why not?” He said, knowing that the taro pies would sell out faster than the time they had tried coconut shavings on a cupcake, or the time they had put lime instead of lemon in their merengue pie. The merengue pie incident was an eventful day to say the least.
“Yes!” She whooped, carrying the tray in her hands and bounding over to the display cabinet outside, bouncing her hips slightly to what looked like an imaginary song in her head.
He grinned, wiping off a smear of butter from his cheek. She was so full of cheer and pep . . . and rightly so. He had seen her juggle twenty cupcakes, plus her pet baby alligator, he had seen her heading over to the Sweet Shoppe with her friends, chatting animatedly towards them.
Her special talent was making people happy, he understood that from the numerous times they’d to work together under one roof.
Yet what did he have? A home, a job with one of the world’s most caffeinated person's on the planet, and . . . nothing else beyond that. It was as
if his life was just one big full stop after the ‘and’.
There was something in his life that he was good at though . . . something that he was afraid to go near to, yet was scared to let go off.
“Hey, Starburst!” Pinkie called out from outside the kitchen. “You going to help me put these other taro pies in or what?”
He shook himself out of his morose thoughts, visibly and metaphorically, and spoke, “Yeah, I’ll be there!” He exited the kitchen, walking briskly.
His coat rumpled, stained with flour and butter, his hair swayed gently and his eyes locked onto the pink skinned baker behind the counter, brushing past a door on the way out.
Lamp light shone down on the young youth, sitting on a stool behind a counter, keeping himself awake from the daze that he was beginning to slip into.
The two of them were left alone in the shop, until the sun was beginning to set, and the word called evening was beginning to become a reality, when every customer was just about finished with their order or until they had finished whatever business they had come here to accomplish.
Starburst kept drumming his fingers on the countertop, sounds from the kitchen occasionally snapping him out of his lethargic daze, bringing him back to a reality where he worked at a Sweet Shoppe with a pink skinned, cotton candy haired perky baker that was currently making up new recipes by herself.
He had left alone because it was Pinkie’s ‘thinking’ time, as she called it, where she basically used whatever leftover ingredients that were in the fridge and basically made a new recipe from that.
It was beginning to sound like a frenzy inside there, a maelstrom of flour, butter, food coloring, and vanilla extract. He shuddered at the thought of what was going on inside there.
He glanced at the clock, muttering it out under his breath as if he wanted to confirm it for himself, “5:55p.m.”
Only a few more minutes, he thought, glancing down at the distressed black coat sitting on his lap. A few more minutes left before I can go back home and rest . . . before the next day calls.
For a while, the sounds within the kitchen became even quieter, and quieter, dying down by the second. Eventually there were no sounds at all left. Was she done already?
“Hey, Starburst!” He heard Pinkie call out, a pink-skinned hand shoving the door leading to the kitchen open and holding out its palm. “Mind passing that jar of coconut shavings under the counter?”
He raised a brow, but did as he was asked to.
“Thank you!” She said cheerfully, and slammed the door shut, resuming the frenzy once more.
He glanced once more at the clock and muttered under his breath once more, “5:57 p.m.”
He stared at the clock, feeling as if he could move the minute needle by frightening it into moving to the twelfth minute. He tapped his feet impatiently as if time would move faster if he was even more impatient.
Starburst’s drumming on the countertop was in sync with the ticking of the clock, and as he continued drumming, the clock continued ticking.
If he drummed faster, he would be out of sync, which he did not want to be.
“5:58 p.m.” He muttered under his breath, tapping his foot even more impatiently, increasing steadily with volume to the point where Pinkie could’ve heard it, and started tapping her foot as well.
“5:59 p.m.” Was he really doing it? Was his bending time and space to his will with the power of his foot and finger tapping?
The final seconds ticked ever closer, closer, closer, closer, closer . . .
“6:00 p.m.” He muttered, standing up from the stool, putting on his coat, saying goodbye to Pinkie behind the kitchen door, and walking right out of the shop, sparing a second glance behind him to see whether she had come out of the shop. She hadn’t, but that was normal.
His shoes scraped against the pavement. Starburst kept his head down and studied the ridges and grooves within them with faked interest, anything to get his mind flowing. Grey clouds drifted across the sky, blocking the radiant orange beams of the sun as it silently began to end its journey across the horizon. He was worried that the clothes he had left out to dry would become wet when it started raining, and if he didn’t reach home fast enough.
Yet he barely increased his pace, thinking of it as nothing more than a trivial matter.
Why was it trivial? Did he consider it to be nothing? Did he think that they weren’t worth his time?
He walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, even as the first signs of rain begin to drip down his coat, matting his jet black hair so that it clung to his forehead.
He walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked as the rain started drumming against the pavement, and people scurried into office buildings, restaurants, and under umbrellas to avoid it.
He walked, and walked, and walked, and walked . . . thinking of nothing else but these thoughts, because he couldn’t think of anything else, because he needed to remind himself of who he was:
My name is Starburst Galaxy. I’m 17, and I live alone.
I was once a pro-shogi player, a game which I’ll probably never play again.
I’m perfectly content with my life so far. I’m . . . satisfied . . . with my life so far.
END.
Chapter 2
The cold chills of the late morning seeped into his skin, despite the fact that he wore a coat, which was a pointless effort. He was afraid that his coat might fly off into the wind as well, he struggled to hold on to it. His hair was being tousled by it, as if it were a mother tousling the hair of her child.
Walking to and fro somewhere would seem monotonous to the average person, but not to the oblivious Starburst, who paid no heed to any other distractions . . . other than the occasional cars that passed by, which by the way, were 25 today. Though most of them were an aquamarine now.
The sun still rose, casting cascades of red, orange, and yellows down upon all who were there, shading their skin in a deep purple. A child holding the hand of his mom. An old man reading a newspaper that was slowly fluttering out of his grasp.
All of them were shaded in that purple.
The people around him . . . were ignorant of that fact. As if they didn’t care at all. They were still radiating that joyous light from the day before, and the day before that . . .
How were they so good at it?
Pushing those thoughts aside, he twisted the doorknob open, struggling to stop and smell the homely scent of freshly baked pastries every time he entered the shop.
He bounded over towards the counter, pulling up a stool by it, and sitting on the stool.
He glanced over at the clock. 1 hour since opening time. He was subjectively early. Silence still greeted him, and he wasn’t worried at all. He certainly did not have drop of perspiration bead down his forehead.
The Cakes were still in the city of Canterlot . . . unexpectedly. Their friend must’ve been real important to risk handing over responsibility of the Sweet Shoppe to the two of them.
Pinkie was . . . today was a Sunday. She usually came at around 11 . . .
The clock ticked by, hitting the eleventh hour mark. No sign of her entering the door.
In fact, there was no sign of anyone, actually.
This is just a repeat of yesterday then. I should’ve come here around 1:20 . . . why didn’t I come here around then-
The bell jingled, and the door opened, letting in a gust of wind. He stood up, anticipating the stranger to be Pinkie. He was dead wrong to be frank.
“You . . . aren’t Pinkie?” Starburst said, his tone laced with moderate disbelief.
The two men that stood in front of him resembled twins to him . . . albeit one with a slightly different appearance than the other. They wore pinstriped shirts, a pink bowtie, long white jeans that stuck to their waists, and what resembled a sort of halved apple badge on of their chest, the other of a full apple with a part of it missing.
But despite all that, the thing that attracted him the most were their facial hair, surprisingly. He found the red moustache of the yellow skinned man distracting, and he found the plastered smirk of the other yellow skinned man off setting.
It took only a few minutes for him to realize that without Pinkie around, he needed to run the show.
“H-hello, welcome customers!” Starburst said, faking cheeriness and putting on a half believable smile. “What can I get for you today?” His hands hovered over the display cabinet, ready the minute the two men chose their order.
“We’ll have . . . a case of the Sweet Shoppe to go.” One of the yellow man spoke.
“That’ll be $12.99 . . . wait, what?”
“You heard me right, employee of this well-established café! Soon, I and my brother are going to turn this dump, into the second branch of ‘The Flim Flam Brothers’ Everything Under the Sun Emporium!’” the man beside the other one who spoke, said.
“Oh . . . well then,” Starburst gave them the kindest smile he could muster, before pointing to the exit. “Please leave, before I call the cops.”
That seemed to stun the both of them for only a minute, before they regained their composure.
“You meant that as a joke, right?” The mustached man laughed, patting the back of his brother. “This young boy right here is a riot!”
“I’m serious.”
That again, stunned them for only a moment, before they picked up their imaginary bags, and left the premises, before the both of them said in unison, “We will never forget this day! We will return!”
Starburst closed the door in their faces, muttering, “Yeah, whatever.” under his breath.
Those two hadn’t seemed like potential customers anyway, in fact, they seemed like a bunch of hype-men riling up an audience, or a bunch of auctioneers riling up the bidders.
He sat back down on the stool, and waited. And waited.
If someone had looked through the window of the Sweet Shoppe then, they would have noticed a 17-year old boy with unkempt hair, dozing off with his head squarely in the middle of his palms.
The sun would have shone through the window, awakening the poor youth, but instead, he slept on further.
So much so, that it was through the jingling of the bell that he woke, and the sounds of numerous people entering the establishment, ignorant of the boy sitting on the stool, ignorant of the fact that he had slept off just moments ago.
“Whuh-huh?” He murmured, wiping his tired eyes and feeling pins and needles immediately as he moved one inch.
“Ow, ow, ow,” He muttered once more, feeling pins and needles invade his legs, and looking with shocked eyes at the crowds of people swarming in . . . and at a familiar cotton-candy haired girl amongst all of them.
“Pinkie?” He managed to say – and after all this ‘he’s’, thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be any ‘he’s’ after this - as she managed to push her way forward, and out of the throng of people that were starting to thin now as everyone made a beeline for the best seats, namely right by the godly AC. As he took one glance at Pinkie, he couldn’t help but feel . . .
“Starburst?” She sidled into the counter, panting furiously, her appearance disheveled and unorganized.
“Hi. Why so late?” He asked as she drew up another stool and sat on it, wiping beads of sweat that were beginning to drip down her forehead.
She panted before answering, making a wide flourish to the still open door with still hungry customers that were beginning to pile on each other and or being stuck.
He stared at the congestion and stood up, bringing along a jar of melted butter.
“It’s a really, really, really long story. Isn’t it hot outside today? I think it’s hot outside today. I’m sweating everywhere!”
He commented back, right as he smeared some melted butter on the sides of the door, making sure that it was lubricated enough, “It’s hot? I came in just a few minutes ago, and it was a bit windy then.”
“Well . . . it is kind of windy. But the heat is masking the cool breeze!” She tapped the stool that she sat on lightly.
“Heat doesn’t mask a breeze. It can’t even mask a breeze.” He reminded her, pulling the unfortunate customers out from the small, and narrow door which was never meant to hold this much customers in. Each and every one of them thanked him as they walked by him towards the counter, some just to hang around the place and sit anywhere they wanted.
“So?” She asked, raising a brow and pouting. “The wind did mask the breeze.”
Starburst sighed, pulling the last customer and closing the door with a soft bang, cutting off the rays of light that once shone through the open space.
“It doesn't, Pinkie. Look, I shouldn’t be standing around here explaining this to you,” He placed his palm on the countertop and leaned on his hand. “I should be standing at that counter, receiving orders, while you bake pastries in the kitchen . . .” He looked up, thinking at how he phrased that sentence, and added, “I apologize with how I phrased that sentence.”
“Don’t worry! I’ll be making and cracking new recipes and pies in no time!” She shot up like a rocket from her stool, skipping over to the kitchen doors in an exaggerated, but admittedly cute, fashion.
He grinned and mouthed out, “Of course you will.”
He faced the line of people, eagerly waiting for what they had come thousands of miles for, a huge un-understatement, and sat down on the stool, his fingers hovering over the buttons of the cash register.
“Who’s hungry?” He asked, unintentionally riling them up and causing them to cheer out loud.
“Here’s your order. Thanks for coming, have a nice day!” He thanked the previous customer, giving the other customer a split second glance before moving on to the next.
“A quiche, with extra cheese.”
He nodded fervently, picking out a quiche instantly from the display cabinet and pressing buttons on the cash register.
“$6.99.” He said, “with extra cheese.”
He handed over the order, taking the money and keeping it in the cash register, moving on to the next, and moving on to the next, and moving on to the next, until their orders were just a blur and he only muttered out ‘Thank you’
Hours passed by. The clock ticked by, the AC spewing out magnificent cool air, and the lamp above them both casting down a warm shade of yellow on him, despite it not being night at all.
Orange light shone through the window, signifying the time of day it was now, and how much time had passed by since he had come here, at a somewhat early time for the Sweet Shoppe.
“How long has it been?” Pinkie asked, stepping out of the kitchen, and he could look in anticipated shock as she came out looking brand new, as if her earlier look was just a short phase.
Her pink puffy hair still stayed pink and puffy, and her smile still stayed bright and jovial.
“Three hours.” He answered, tapping the countertop absentmindedly, his bottom feeling numb from how long he had sat down there.
“That long?” She exclaimed.
“Time flies fast when you’re actually doing something.”
Pinkie nodded understandingly at that statement, twirling her hair also absentmindedly. “That’s true.”
“Looks like the last customer of the day is about to come through.” He said, staring at two human like figures bounding over to the entrance of the Sweet Shoppe at a brisk pace.
“Yeah . . . how about I stay out here for once?”
“Here? At the counter?”
“Yeah! I bet it gets boring when the customers have to look at your gloomy face all day long.”
“My face does not look gloomy!” He defended, exasperated.
They were interrupted by the clinking of a bell, followed by the appearance of two suddenly familiar looking people in the doorway of the Sweet Shoppe. The orange light from outside shone behind them, casting the both of them in a veil of darkness.
“We told you that we-”
“-would return!”
The two brothers, or twins, said at the same time, stepping into the establishment, and except for one of them, Starburst wasn’t surprised to see Flim and Flam enter the Sweet Shoppe.
“What are you two doing here?” Pinkie demanded furiously. Her hands were tight, and she looked about ready to pop out her party cannon and blast the two brothers out of the Sweet Shoppe in a burst of confetti.
“We said-.”
“-that we would return-“
“-and so here-“
“-we are.”
“When the both of you came here the first time, you didn’t really talk in disjointed sentences.” Starburst commented on their little ‘performance’.
“That was just us staking out the competition!”
“Now, we begin our ultimatum!”
“Ultimatum?” asked the two employees in unison, one out of extreme curiosity, the other out of single-minded boredom at the two brothers.
“Yes!” It was then that he noticed the bulky package underneath the arms of one of the two brothers, the one with the red mustache, and as they both slowly unraveled what was inside, he wondered what would’ve happened if he had just walked out of the shop right then and there, and didn’t have to participate in this ‘ultimatum’ of theirs.
“Behold, our ultimatum!” The two brothers yelled out in unison, and Starburst stared in fear at what it was, Pinkie looking at it with a confused expression on her face.
Sitting right there, in the palm of their hands, was a wooden board, with two smaller boards jutting out from opposite sides of the wooden board itself. What he held was the one thing that he had hoped never to see again. A shogi board.
END.
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What's a paulownia?
A paulownia is a small Southeast Asian tree with heart-shaped leaves and fragrant lilac flowers.
The paulownia is widely known for its regenerative power, being able to successfully regrow from their roots after harvest, ability which granted it yet another name: Phoenix Tree. This also ties into a Chinese Legend that a Phoenix would only land on a Paulownia and even then, only if a good ruler were in power. It also cannot thrive in the shade of other trees and lastly, while its seeds, seedling, roots and mature trees are susceptible to rot, its wood
I have reviewed this HERE.
Hmm, definitely not a bad beginning. There are many question marks floating around and the boredom of Starburst was emphasized a little too much for my taste, but I must admit, you have my attention
You do justice to inventive descriptions and your style reads well, with an occasional unclear or too vague sentence sneaking in. Also, FIMFic allows you to split the story into chapters, so why have two of them crammed into one?
Your grammar and spelling is good too, there are only a few recurring issues I'd like to point out.
First, the puncuation symbol for aposiopesis (some people also call it ellipsis) are three dots with no spaces inbetween - like this ...
Second, remember that numbers break the attention of the reader from the story - simply because they look differently than normal letters. So, it's better to write numbers by words. (Exception can be some codes and such, but that's not your case probably)
Last is the direct speech. Remember that when a speaking action follows, the direct speech shouldn't end with a full stop (.) but a comma (,) instead.
A few examples:
It should be:
Should be:
And that's all I wanted to say. If there is anything unclear or you have additional questions, feel free to ask.
Have a nice day!
*he had last seen. You're using past-within-past form here
So the rule, as Everfree has hinted at, is to start lowercase (and comma instead of a period at the end of the direct speech) whenever the sentence following it cannot stand alone. She asked/said/etc, is always such a case, even if there is more afterwards. So this needs to be "she asked ..."
*persons Also there is a redundant line break.