Prince of Penance

Chapter 2: Birthdays Are For Children


As Gruffi predicted, the party didn't go as well as was originally planned. But Gusto alleviated everyone's fears by appearing not only at the party, surprised as drilled, but in good spirits and seeming good health. Grammi did have to waive Gusto's right to blow out his cake and Cubbi did it on his behalf instead. No need to spread his sneezing germs to the entire Glen.


To make manners worse, Gruffi could feel his own headache creeping up, and he hoped, prayed it wasn't the cold. Tummi wasn't eating half as much cake as he normally did, so Gruffi wondered if he was sick as well.


And like the 'birthday' boy he was, Gusto immediately opened the biggest present first, the box from Gruffi.


"Wait...wait...oh wow!" he opened the box, and within..."A box within a box! Gruffi, you're a genius!"


"Very funny!" Gruffi complained. "You can at least used that to clean up the mess of your stuff around here."


"Sure thing Gruffimundo!"


The sea shells from Cubbi were well recieved, and Gusto immediately decided to use them in his art. Tummi's ship model, a replica of the boat which they rescued Gusto in, complete with sails, brought a tear to Gusto's eyes. "Three years and counting..."


Zummi presented his box with a flourish and Gusto put a hand to his forhead.


"No wait, don't tell me, let me guess. Paint?"


"Well, yes, in fact," Zummi looked a little deflated. "No explosions this time!"


Gusto laughed, and was very grateful for the paint. Despite what Zummi said, Gruffi wasn't completely convinced the paint wasn't in any way magically enhanced, and decided to steer clear of Gusto when he was painting for the next little while.


Sunni's gift produced a sort of gasp of shock from almost the entire room, and Gusto's jaw dropped right to the table.


"Um...surprise?" she said bashfully.


"Sunni!" Gusto said in awe. "Its...I don't believe it!"


It was a stuffed dragon. A little stuffed green dragon in jewelled velvet cloth with a forked tongue that spouted red and orange ribbons of flame. It had button eyes and wings and brought very real tears to Gusto's eyes.


"Well," Sunni coughed. "I knew you liked dragons, and Gruffi told me about that stone dragon you carved and I thought it was a good idea...do you like it?"


"This is the best gift anybody has ever given me EVER!" Gusto said, astounding the group by hugging the dragon to his chest tightly. "I had a toy dragon just like this when I was a cub, though mine was a wooden one on wheels...Thank you Sunni!"


Now that intrigued Gruffi. Gusto never said anything to anybody about his childhood. In fact for a long time Gruffi had been convinced that Gusto had lost his memory when his ship crashed and...


Now something came back to Gruffi's head that he hadn't thought of at the time when they themselves crashed on the island. As Gusto put away his presents into the box, Gruffi thought back to Gusto's words about how the island came to be floating in the middle of a hole in the ocean.


"Well one day I came here to paint on the beach, the next day the beach was gone..."


If Gusto had only been on the island to paint, how did his boat end up all the way up on the island where it was with a big hole in the middle of it?


But these questions had to remain for another time. Right now Gusto had put all his gifts, but the dragon, into the box Gruffi made, and stuck the dragon on top of his head.


Better than a hat I suppose. Darn, and I was hoping he'd use that box for other things. The more junk we give him the more stuff he has that piles up everywhere!


"I'm going to have to start building you boxes on a weekly basis, where are you going to put everything I wonder..."


"Don't worry Gruffi, I'll start cleaning up my stuff soon," Gusto said immediately, helping himself to some cookies. "And my waterfall too..."


"Oh really?" Gruffi said sarcastically. "And just why is that?"


"Because," Gusto said, with a soft sad sigh, like inspiration had hit him, and passed, without any art to show for it. "I've decided I'm moving out of the waterfall. I'm getting into my late thirties you know. Now's as good a time to do it as any."


"Well its about time I say!" Grammi said starkly. "You nearly freeze to death every winter in that stupid cave. About time you settled down like a regular Gummi."


But there was a sadness in Gusto's eyes that Gruffi couldn't quite place. A sort of yearning, as he looked around the room. And something dark, lingering, as if in the back of the room in some dark quiet corner.


"This is the best party I've ever had. You are the best friends a Gummi could ever ask for!"


"Aw, Gusto, you know we love you," Sunni said coyly, and kissed his cheek.


Cubbi went 'bleh' and threw a cookie at her, which Tummi promptly caught in his mouth. This started a game in which Tummi had to catch food objects thrown in the air, and whichever Cub threw the most successful catches would be the winner. The winner was Cubbi, who continued playing the game even after Sunni got bored with it.


"Can we have some music? And maybe some dancing?"


"I think I'm going to bed soon," Gusto said, and then sneezed. "I'm not feeling too good."


"You and me both," Gruffi grumbled, pushing his gummi berry pie towards Tummi, who didn't seem so sick after all. "All this crazy weather has given me a headache."


"Oh not you too!" Grammi complained, putting a hand to his head. "Well I guess there's no help for it. To bed both of you. In fact I think its time everybody cleaned up and retired, its getting late and I still have to clean the kitchen!"


Only Cubbi argued, he liked staying up late for parties because usually he had to go to bed before everybody else. But Gusto promptly grabbed his gifts up and headed off to bed.


"Night everybody!"


"Night!"


Gruffi couldn't believe how tired he was as he crawled into bed. His bones ached. The things he did for his family. At least Gusto would be coming to stay with them at last, no more going back and forth.


Now why, of all things, did this very thought, suddenly bring butterflies to his stomach?


Must have got that bug...Gruffi decided, rubbing his belly, and curled up to go to bed.


-seperator-


Gusto rolled over in bed, and blinked. He couldn't sleep. The party had brought about mixed emotions in him and thoughts that he couldn't quite keep from rolling around his head.


How old AM I?


Something about the party today had triggered memories from his past. Sometimes his memory was as clear as crystal, as when he had been given the dragon by Sunni, and remembered being a cub. Others, such as his birthday, were obscured. But why?


Am I really almost fourty years old? Or maybe in my thirties still?


Time had been something he had counted almost to the exact day on the island; in fact his calenders were works of art. Yet none of his calenders showed any signs of a birthday, or any other dates of any import.


Maybe I never celebrated birthdays...


But that was preposterous. Totally. He could remember as a child having parties. Cakes, ice cream, gifts, dancing, The Family all around him laughing.


The Family. He remembered them. He could remember his mother, her perfume that floated around her in a cloud of lavender, and his father in stately attire, and his sister...


His sister...How he remembered her. She was beautiful and wonderful and loving. Her fiancee, his brother-in-law, had been a predatory lech whome she had been betrothed to at birth. Prince Jenka, not really a Prince in his own right, rather married to his sister the true Princess of Monteray.


Oh! He remembered now. The times his sister would come to him crying, begging him not to tell their mother and father, showing him the bruises, and the binding marks on her body that only could be magical in nature, evil magic of Jenka, evil magic that hurt her, bent her to his will.


Magic that Gusto had sworn he would discover the secret of himself, and summon it to destroy his brother. Magic he had sought in every book and every library.


How...how am I remembering this now? Is it cause of the dragon? Because my sister gave me that wooden dragon so many years ago?


Gusto could still see in his mind the Council before him as plain as day. The crimes he had committed, which brought pangs of pain and remorse to his belly. All the people whose lives he was responsible for, the innocents, his brethren and friends.


All my fault, all my fault! I deserve my fate! I deserve to be fed to a monster!


This woke Gusto upright, and he broke out in a cold sweat tears and shaking that would not subside. He had thought seeing his sister's body covered in those painful marks of bondage had been horrific. But nothing had ever prepared him, could ever prepare him, for the horror of the kraken, his worst nightmare, his greatest fear.


Is...is that all there is left? Is that what's gonna happen to me? NO! It can't be! I'm a peasant now, a simple peasant! Just Gusto Gummi! No one will recognize me now! I can hide here forever and no one will find me, ever! But...would they?


He curled up in a ball, but the night terrors and the memories had broken through his brain like lightening bolt to his skull. The migraine would not subside, the illness from yesterday and the fever were apparant.


I'll have to leave, thought Gusto sadly, feeling the tears in his eyes even now. I know the Council will try to find me, to feed me to that thing. But I have to keep that from happening. I have to keep moving. I hate to leave here, hate to do this to my friends but...I won't even take Artie...No, I have to leave, alone. Like the coward I am.


He knew that sleep wouldn't come tonight. Not now. He reached for his stuffed dragon and held it to his chest, wanting the days of his childhood back more than anything. Wanting for all the world just to be 'Gusto' and not Prince Augustus the Third, the Mad Magical Artist of Monteray. No, just Gusto, he was safe in Gummi Glen. For now.


I'll stay for a little while longer, then I'll move. I have to at least give them all a chance to say goodbye. That's the least I owe to my friends who have given me three whole wonderful years of freedom.


This helped bring his heart some peace and he laughed, wondering what Gruffi would think if he knew that threadbare, bag-of-bones artist Gusto was really a Prince.


And why suddenly was the thought of Gruffi knowing this so vitally important that it brought butterflies to his stomach?


Must be Grammi's cooking. Or this flu. Ugh. I need some tea.


He got up, brushed off the feeling in the back of his mind that there was something else he was forgetting, and made his weary way to the kitchen.


This was going to be a long night.


-----Kay, Trying not to put too many important details in each chapter that there is nothing else to put in later chapters. If its confusing, well, its supposed to be. Heheh. Don't worry, the action will pick up eventually, I just like to set the tone of the family setting and all that.

In this story the family is as follows:

Gruffi: Patriarch, and faster father to Sunni and Cubbi

Grammi: Matriarch, older than Gruffi and foster mother to Tummi.

Zummi: Around Grammis age, (according to one episode the two of them played together as kids.) Sort of the family wizard and loosely related to the other two.

Tummi: A relative of the above Gummis, fostered to Grammi as a kid. Its my thinking that a lot of Gummis used to live in the glen, but died for one reason or another. In the middle ages fevers and illnesses were pretty worse than we know them now and the black plague and all that. Maybe the adults around Gruffi and Grammi's age with kids died and the remaining clan took in all the orphans.

Cubbi and Sunni: brother and sister fostered to Gruffi, who is a distant relative.

Gusto: Well, the antihero of this story obviously, and thats all I'm saying. ;)



Hope this clears things up for you.-----