"What!" Me and Stella both said in unison.
"That's right, it is I, the Queen of the night!"
The woman said proudly, smiling with sharp pointed teeth. Her smile was so infectious the entire room giggled and so did she.
"You're…" I trailed off.
"You're the kidnapper…?"
"Huh?" The music and the dancing stopped all at once.
"Yeah Stella, kinda hard to say this but we are so dead." Stella turned pale as a ghost and fell over, dying from shock. "At least she won't feel it." A tear fell down my face.
"What are you two talking about? I'm no kidnapper. Did you guys follow me because you thought I was the one doing the kidnappings?"
"Well yeah, and it makes sense why they haven't been stopped by your ability yet. That's because it's you doing them."
"Why would I!" Paukena took a step back, then readjusted herself. "Well… I guess I'm proud you guys were kinder than I expected." The music resumed and she sat on her throne. "Bring me the cake."
I laid Stella down and walked the cake over to her. She opened it, the cake flew and sat on a table that puffed from an orange light.
"Good, you didn't eat any. It wouldn't have been a severe punishment for it. Just a limb or two." She giggled too bright to really mean that. "I'll tell you this now about the disappearances since you want to know. The way my ability works, Humbled Dominance, is by loving my citizens and the requited love they show me. That's why when I met you the other day, I asked if you even liked Fayha and when you said you did you were considered one of my citizens. I did leave my important duties just to make sure you two weren't doing anything I didn't know of in my country. The way you two appeared was suspicious enough to make me watch you two."
"What does this have to do with the disappearances?"
"Humbled Dominance lets me know my citizens' whereabouts and actions. So when I can't tell if a crime has been committed that only means they aren't my citizen, or worse than that… They're stronger than me."
"So when we saw you a week ago… That was because you hid yourself from all your citizens so you could attract the culprit?"
"Yes, but I just ended up with two cute fire dragons instead, not an evil kidnapper."
"So we ruined your attempts?"
"Not exactly, I was also testing my little pumpkins here. I've practiced this for a long time, but this is the first time I put everything into making them. Go talk to one right now, they are all alive and uniquely themselves." She gestured to the crowd of giggling pumpkins.
I stood up leaving the unconscious Stella. There were tons of pumpkins. One sat quietly in the corner. It had slanted eyes and a small smile.
"Hey there, what's your name?"
"It's Jack-o…"
"Are you alright?" This pumpkin didn't have a body, it was just a normal talking pumpkin.
"Yeah…"
"Awsome."
"Well… I just got here…"
"Mmhm"
"And well you see I don't have a body…"
"I see."
"I chose not to but…"
"Yeah?"
"You see I haven't been able to move my ribbons much…"
"That sucks. So you can't do anything?"
"Yeah… and Paukena had given me this cool coin to get a treat…"
"What coin?"
"It's under my leaves…"
"Where does it go?"
"To the candy machine of course, but I can't put the coin in…"
"Here, mind if I pick you up?"
"No…?" I picked him up and looked around.
"Alright Mr. Pumpkin, where is this candy machine?"
"Oh! It's near the door." The pumpkin chirped.
I walked him to the door where I found the machine. I grabbed his coin and held it with his ribbon. Then I inserted the coin and gently made him turn the dial. The machine hummed and orange light glinted around it before puffing a round jaw breaker out.
"Oh my! It's so pretty."
"Where do you want me to put it?"
"In my mouth of course."
I grabbed it and brought it up to the pumpkin's small smile. The jaw breaker just barely didn't fit.
"Oh… I'm sorry Mr. Pumpkin."
The pumpkins eyes squinted slightly as its mouth opened a little more to get the jaw breaker.
"Nice job."
The pumpkin said something muffled by the candy. I walked him to his seat and sat him down. His face had a warmer look to it. Its ribbon barely lifted to wave bye.
Walking back over to Paukena she smiled brightly.
"That was sweet. If I was a little girl again I'd do the exact same thing."
"You made them?"
"Kinda, I did do the steps to bring them to life, but they are themselves because they have consciousness. Though I did add a hint of mischief into all of them. Tehe."
"Wow… isn't that like egoswords?"
"I thought about it, and I think maybe not. King would have already invaded and took over my country if they were the same."
"King… he's been in Festival at least once right? To take an egoweapon?"
"Of course he has."
"What does the pumpkin Queen think of the King of egoswords?"
"Well I'm the Queen of the night, but… he has a point. Mila's fight with him is wrong on the stance of using egoswords as weapons. But King is wrong for taking land that people lived on for years for his ever growing nation of ego weapons."
Hiddid, the kingdom of Egoswords. The name of the state obviously gets its name for the increased amount of living weapons. Not just that the only people allowed in there are egoswords whose rights are currently fought over. For some reason. Then there's the King of egoswords, King, who is a full dragon and hated by Mila. His country hasn't been around for as long as Mila, Kalmic and Fayha. It's recently popped up after taking over land from Noxstave. The army of Hiddid is strong but extremely small. That man, King, has single handedly taken land and established a country. If he finds an egosword, or hears one has popped up, he will personally show up and confiscate it. On very rare occasions will he show up and decide you can have it. No matter where you are in the world, he'll be there to kick your ass into submission. There are plenty of stories online of him beating the crap out of someone before taking a weapon.
"Have you personally talked to him?"
"Yeah, he showed up and beat the skin off of one of my citizens, even pro- ficiently defended himself from more people while using a string of bunting. Haha it was kinda funny looking back at it. But of course I had to step in and stop him."
"What did he do?"
"He flashed his golden horns, grabbed the egoweapon, and teleported away. He's cute for being a big 'ol strong war starter."
"Wow. Have you met the other Kings and Presidents? Like from Mila and Kalmic?"
"Of course I have. The president of Mila, Yeal is kinda scary. She's thousands of years old yet never ages and can predict the future and change it, and the child of the current Kalmic Queen was my best friend."
"Was?"
"When I was young she had gotten days hero protecting me…"
"Oh no… I'm sorry"
"She wanted to be lazy more than anyone else and I dragged that part out of her haha. She would have loved this country I've changed from the crude King."
"You call your own father the crude King?"
"He was, and I love him for it. ANYWAYS!" Paukena slammed her throne. "Enough with this sad talk it's a banquet, and tonight my children will be released onto the streets of Feasival. Not just here though. All over Fayha."
"That's awesome. I love these guys."
"I'm glad you do. This is my action against the kidnapper. Happy pumpkins everyone will love and so will I. With them I'll be able to watch everywhere and protect everyone!"
"That's awesome!"
"Absolutely it is! Here, wake up Stella. Let's watch it from the castle."
We teleported to the castle Paukena running with her long dress flowing as we ran behind her. We ran past Jace who was exercising in the room before. His face was dumbfounded. We got to the giant pillar and she held both of our hands before jumping up. The ceiling opened up for us. I saw pretty rooms, pumpkins filled them, studies with books, balconies overlooking the capital, and at the top one cute pumpkin stuffed bed room with rows of pumpkin dresses and a family photo.
The photo on her wall was of the crude King Āpala, with his signature scar across his forehead. White hair with beads and jewelry scattered within it tying up at the back of his head before falling down his neck. Dark skin and a sharp smile brighter than even Paukena's.
Then there was a woman holding onto a young Paukena who was still in a much smaller pumpkin dress. The woman had light brown hair that went to her shoulders with bangs and dark brown eyes. Her face was warm, flushed and comforting. The rest of her skin was pale and held a soft smile. She was a whole head lower than Āpala, touching each other's sides.
Then there was another white haired child. He was beaming just like his dad. He stood between his parents. My quick glance at the photo I instantly recognized him. He was the baker at the restaurant. He wasn't that much older than Paukena looking, meaning he wasn't a tired old man. He was lazy. The white hair was just genetics.
Paukena hopped out onto a balcony and stairs sprouted around the castle to the very top. We followed them and sat on the edge of the castle.
Looking down, me and Stella got noxious. Paukena hopped to the very edge, hanging her body over and looking down.
"Get ready. It's about to start. Hehe." She kicked her feet.
As if an infection entered a body, pumpkins came out of alley ways, buildings and the castle and started messing around. The people were immediately on edge ready to fight these guys.. Then they must have relaxed to the strangely comforting pumpkins that were accepted into the night life of the city. The name of the night Queen was also spread around the city. Fireworks shot out from the castle, Paukena had this grand entrance planned for a long time. Guards had been previously informed of the pumpkins, and Paukena said she spread rumors about talking pumpkins throughout the city for a couple of days.
"It's both incredible and great." Paukena's eyes shined and the fireworks glinted off her eyes. This morning I fought the reason fireworks are banned, yet the country still uses them. It's like a traditional thing here now.
"Hey, Heo." Stella whispered.
"Yeah?"
"You remember learning about Paukena's speech when she became in charge of this country back in world history?"
"Yeah. Wait, in her speech she did talk about her friend."
"Kalmí the thirtieth. A princess who died from hero syndrome."
"She said she'd prevent things like that in the future, and look at this, isn't this just preventing another tragedy?"
"It is… In a very festive way."