"Excuse me."

"Hey, what're you—"

"Excuse me."

"Hold on, little fluffy, why don't you—"

"Excuse me."

The little Waddle Dee pushed through the crowd of his kin. He'd heard that there was a really powerful hero here. His name was Kirby, or at least, that's what everyone said. He'd gone on lots of adventures all over Dream Land, and some of them had even been interplanetary or galactic. He could transform himself simply by inhaling an enemy attack, the enemy, or sometimes even a simple object like some ice cubes. The Waddle Dee couldn't imagine what that must look like; breathing in an attack must hurt somehow, but then why would he bother at all? It had to be something different. Supposedly Kirby also flew around on a Warpstar all the time. Quite different from the norm; Warpstars were leftover items from another planet mainly used to get to secret areas. Not many people actually harnessed them and rode them around.

The mobs of Waddle Dee jostled the child around, but he kept pushing on toward where he thought Kirby would be. What would Kirby look like? He was supposed to be really powerful, but most people said he looked really innocent and adorable. A few of them said that he looked like a Waddle Dee. So would he be a pink Waddle Dee? He really would stand out in a crowd, then; what an abnormality. He was supposed to have big feet, too. A normal Waddle Dee's feet were small, so if Kirby's feet were bigger, that...that'd look pretty funny, actually. One of the tribe elders said he'd get wings someday when he got older, too. And he could inflate himself to float for now...how would that affect his image?

A pink, big-footed, winged, Waddle-Dee-looking thing was pretty weird, actually. Even with blue eyes.

Oh yeah. His eyes were supposed to have stars in them, too. Supposedly you could only see them when he was thinking deeply about something or he was really excited. The Waddle Dee thought this was cool. Who else had eyes with stars in them that would light up? Kirby probably never got lost in the dark for too long if his eyes lit up. The image that the Dee already had of Kirby got quite a bit stranger when he added glow-in-the-dark eyes to the picture. The imaginary Kirby jumped onto a Warpstar and flew into the sky.

Nope, not really the most menacing image in history. No wonder evil villains took him for granted—with an appearance like that, who wouldn't? The Waddle Dee shook his head; it wasn't fair to judge him on his physical looks. Wasn't it the actions that made the person? Kirby had certainly pulled a lot of remarkable feats; if he just looked weird, he wouldn't be as talked about as he was. Kirby was a genuinely nice, friendly person who was willing to help whoever needed it. That was a respectable quality. The Dee was surprised that Kirby hadn't dropped dead already from all the help he'd given, no matter what its magnitude. And everybody made fun of him because he had a habit of oversleeping? When you looked it at from that perspective, it made a whole lot more sense.

Kirby was also supposed to sleep in a dome-shaped house with star-themed decorations. Star curtains, star blankets, star doorknobs and window-handles...what was Kirby's relation to stars anyway? It seemed quite strange. The Waddle Dee supposed he'd asked him when he ever met him—if he ever met him, and if he got to talk to him. He hoped that Kirby didn't have mind-reading powers so he wouldn't see the mental image he had of him. How far were the limits of Kirby's power? He seemed pretty strong already...and who knows how many stories about him hadn't reached the Waddle Dee children yet? He could be boundlessly powerful beyond their comprehension—and perhaps even his own.

The Waddle Dee hesitated. Keep going, and find out what Kirby was really like? Or wait, and preserve the perfect fantasy of the hero a little longer?

The Dee tripped and fell on his face, knocking into someone else. Thinking it was one of his kin, he was slow to push himself up. Then a paw tapped on its shoulder, and the child looked up. In front of him, shielding the others from bumping into him, was a circular pink beach-ball-looking thing with short paws-or-arms and big reddish-pink feet. It had deep, sparkly blue eyes, blush marks, and a concerned smile on its face. The Dee took the paw offered to him and pulled himself into a standing position. He brushed the dust off of his cheeks and nodded gratefully to the stranger.

"Oh, thank you. What's your name?"

The pink ball flicked his paw along his cheek, and little stars flew off from his paw. His eyes flashed ocean blue, and the Dee could see a little star-shape flicker in them.

"My name's Kirby—Kirby of the Stars. Pleased to meet you!"