An Unwelcome Visitor

The early morning hours prior to the arcade opening were the most peaceful in Sugar Rush. The Roster Race was long over and the competitors of the day were out in their homes and garages, fine tuning their karts and thusly were not on the roads causing all sorts of cacophony. Naturally, King Candy's personal Kart was being tended to by Sour Bill and the finest mechanics the kingdom had to offer, so his highness was able to enjoy this calm before the storm when the arcade would open and the races would dominate the day.

Standing on a balcony overlooking the entirety of the kingdom, he anticipated the day to come. Being chosen by a player, tearing up the track, leaving his pint-sized adversaries in the dust, and of course, winning. The thought of all the trophies and accolades he'd be getting was what truly got his pixels electrified. Being the best racer in the arcade made all the pressures of the monarchy worth it.

As he strolled along the open air walkway he spied a blue flash out of the corner of his eye. Quickly turning, he saw nothing in the spot where he could have sworn it had been. Shrugging, he turned back and resumed his morning saunter. Two steps further though and another blue flash occurred, this time right beside him.

Snapping his head around, he saw her sitting on a banister. She tried her best to hide the surprised look on her face, instead creating a smug façade, as if she had intended to end up there when she had glitched.

"Top'o the morning to ya, King Cranky-pants." She grinned.

He stammered, trying hard not the choke on his rage which was growing steadily into a boil.

"What are you doing here? Glitches are explicitly forbidden from being in the palace! Guards! Guards!" The usual royal protectorate was currently safeguarding the King's kart while it was being maintenanced. There were guards positioned around the castle, but it would take some time before one should arrive if they were within earshot of their monarch's cries. He turned back to continue his scolding. "What is the meaning for this outrage?"

"Eh, I used your bathroom." She stated plainly, jumping down from the banister, glancing about the room whilst ignoring his obvious expression of surprise and disgust.

"You, you what?! How dare you defile the royal commode? It will need to be completely sanitized now, you know."

"Well, whattaya want from me? I'm a little kid; I've got a tiny bladder." She held her thumb and forefinger just barely touching, as if to illustrate the tininess of the aforementioned organ. "And this might be a surprise to you, but people aren't exactly inviting me in to use their facilities. I was nearby, nature called and it was either the royal potty or your majesty's flower garden."

The king paused, calming as he mulled over her logic.

"Well, I suppose, given the options…Wait a cotton-candy-picking minute. Is that why my sugar azaleas have been wilting?"

She only gave a sheepish grin and decided to change the subject.

"Azaleas are overrated these days anyway. So, aren't you gonna give me a tour?"

She turned and started wandering down the hallway leading deeper into the castle. The king gave chase, wondering what was taking his guards so long to show up. He managed to dash ahead of her and block her path.

"Didn't you hear me? You are not supposed to be here. So be gone with you, shoo!" Although a ripple of binary momentarily obscured her features, he could see her stare at him stubbornly. When she didn't budge he tapped his cane loudly, as if the noise would spook her off like she was some annoying bird.

"Is this how you treat all your guests?" She asked calmly. Her smirk only widened when he once again lost his cool.

"You are not a guest! You are the exact opposite of a guest! You are an intruder! And you will be handled as such once my GUARDS get here!" His voice raised on the word 'guards', since it had become apparent they hadn't heard him the first time.

Not threatened in the least by the idea of the guards coming, she side-stepped the king and continued her self-guided tour of the palace. Viewing the many candy-crafted bits of art that lined the hall, she made humming noises to mimic the intellectual types who frequented fancy museums. There were suits of armor made from hard candy shells, a mosaic of the king made of jelly beans, a lollypop coat of arms, a white chocolate bust of the king, woven licorice tapestries of mythical unicandycorns, and many, many large portraits of the king, far more flattering then she felt he deserved.

"I'm starting to notice a pattern here." She said gesturing to a stained sugar-glass window depicting, who else, but the king. The light from outside shined through the window, leading her attention to a large set of white doors across the hall. She stared at it momentarily, a distortion of blue code blipping through her. It was obvious by its shear size and grandeur with its butterscotch button gilded borders and red ribbon candy handles that this door led to somewhere important.

The King, who had been following her, praying she wouldn't touch anything while keeping an eye out for his frustratingly incompetent security detail, noticed where his trespasser's eyes had landed and sprinted to cut her off. But she was already running for it, seeing his horrorstruck face as proof that some great goodies must be behind that door. With a hop, skip and lucky glitch that carried her across the room, albeit to the far right of the doors, she got her little hand around the knob just as the king slammed his hand against the door to bar her from opening it.

"Stop right there!" He commanded. "You are not to cross this threshold!"

"Whatcha got in there? Your boy-band record collection?" She smirked, hand still on the mint-candy knob.

"It's none of your business." His voice was a seething hiss.

Slowly she took her hand off the knob, only to suddenly grab the knob of the left door and start to pull it open. He jumped forward and pressed his weight against the door, closing it with a bang. He saw her slip around him, going again for the right door. He flipped around and this time held his hands against each door, catching her in the space between. He might have squashed her there if not for the fact that he was holding his body away from her. She knew he thought of her as a filthy abomination, which was why she had been so confident he wouldn't make any attempts at restraining her himself to kick her out of the castle, he'd never lower himself as to touch a Glitch.

"That will be enough of that!" he barked. His furious shout at such close proximity startled her to the point of glitching. Her code sputtered and to both their surprises, she fell backwards through the doors themselves into the very room he had been so adamant to keep her out of. Gasping, horrified at his misfortune, he grabbed both knobs and threw the doors open in time to see her getting to her feet and taking a good look around.

They were in the throne room. She craned her neck to behold the vaulted ceilings, ornate wall carvings and chandeliers. Her mouth hung open in amazement of the glowing gumdrop sconces, the glittery curtains and long carpet spanning the length of the impossibly long room.

"Whoa…" she marveled. Her eyes rested on the throne, or half of it, since the king's royal kart also served at its seat and it was presently in the royal garage. "This place…it's so…so…"

He felt his feet rooted to the ground in sheer terror. She was NOT supposed to be in this room. He knew he had to get rid of her NOW. Carefully, as not to be noticed, he snuck up behind her and raised his cane, poised to strike as hard as possible. If she says 'familiar'…

"Pink."

He dropped the cane, arms still up in the air, mouth wide open in surprise. This was the expression she saw when she turned to him.

"W, what?" he stammered.

"It's really…pink." She gestured to the vast amounts of pink; the curtains, the carpet, the tiling, the gumdrops, it was all varying shades of pink.

He relaxed, but only enough to let his arms return to his sides. He tugged his bowtie nervously.

"It's not pink, it's salmon. I wouldn't think an uncultured urchin like you would know anything like that."

She shrugged, not buying it.

"Whatever you say, Pinkie. If that's what floats your root beer. I used to be into pink, not so much these days, but honey, this place is drowning in it. You should really hire a redecorator." She paused to consider a few options. "Now, if I lived here…"

"YOU DON'T!" His voice loudly echoed off the white chocolate walls. This gained him her full attention. She stared, gaping at the volume he had just produced. His face had taken an odd pale shade and his left eye twitched violently as he glared at her with heaving breaths of anger.

She had intended to push his buttons, but this extreme outburst was unexpected. She quirked her head to the side with a curious consideration. Another shiver of visible code distorted her as she observed him.

"Uh, a little tense, are we?" she asked.

Realizing how emotionally exposed he had become, the king cleared his throat, adjusted his jacket and straightened his crown to resume an appearance of authority.

"You don't live here, obviously." He repeated calmly, as if his outburst had never happened. "And thusly you have no right to make comments on my interior decorating choices.

"Your highness, we heard yelling. Is everything alright?" A pair of sandwich cookie guards came running in from a side entrance, spears in hand. The king gave them a cold and disapproving glare.

"No, things are not okay. This intruder could have done me bodily harm." He gestured to the girl now quietly trying to sneak away. "What took you so long? I hope it was because you were busy cleaning the cream filling out of your ears."

The guards charged at their target and she dashed away towards one of the staircases that banked the sides of the throne room. They pursued but got tripped up on the stairs as she hopped up onto the railing and slid down, getting behind them. Seeing them tangled up on top of each other she let out a laugh and waved at them.

"Well, it's been fun gentlemen, but I can see myself out from here. Toodles!" Running as fast as she could before the guards could get their round bodies up again, she got through the main doors and disappeared from sight.

"After her!" The king demanded as they finally got to their feet. "Make sure she's no longer in the palace! Make sure she's miles from here at all times from now on! If she's ever seen on these premises again, the guards responsible will be tossed in the fungeon!" He let out an exhausted sigh as they scrambled out to continue their pursuit. "Honestly, I'm going to need aromatherapy or something after all the stress she's caused me. My nerves are frazzled."

The guards searched high and low, but found no sign of the Glitch within the castle walls. She was already skipping down the road towards the Royal Raceway, hoping to sneak a good hiding spot to watch the day's races from. While she hadn't intended on getting caught during her visit to the palace, the look on King Candy's face certainly made it all worth it, even if it meant she had lost her ability to "water" the Royal flower garden every now and then. She had always known the King was a wacky fellow, but today's encounter had cemented the idea that he could very well be down right unhinged. Vanellope made a mental note not to directly approach him again if possible.

She also made a mental note that Taffyta Muttonfudge owned a flower garden.

The End

[Author's notes: You can blame Sara Silverman for this one. I got the idea while listening to the audiobook version of her autobiography, "The Bedwetter", which I would totally recommend if just to picture Vanellope being the one to tell the story.]