A Birthday Party for Molly

[Gildarts]

Gildarts smiled in the mirror as he wiped a damp towel over his cheek, where a giant red smudge had sat idle as it cracked and dried with his moving expressions. In the mirror and forming behind his eyes, the memory of what had just occurred -the best squirt gun fight ever- flowed together at first in slow motion, then it sped up.

Molly at first was using him as a giant shield, then, she dove between his legs, aiming as she slid like a runner at third base stealing home. Grass stained into her white clothing like a new dye stain and Molly hit her perpetrators -colors green and gleaming silver- square in the chest, marking them a victorious purple as Gildarts was splattered with various royal colors. He was starting to look like a jumbled up herald when two more flanked them from the side. They were outnumbered and this was war.

Instinct set in and exploded within Gildarts. He knelt down and trained his finger non-stop on the trigger as he aimed at all four of them in a line, their torsos lined up nicely as Gildarts’ stream of dyed water smeared across, marking them as Molly had, as though they were his territory.

Uck! You’re getting all messy, he’d remembered Mal say.

”That’s kind of the point and part of the fun,” Gildarts reasoned back.

FOOL! This is war, you can’t bet hit, not even by rainbow colored water, you must prevail, or you’ll disappoint me with your lack of power. she sneered.

”I’m not here to impress you, and you’re in my head, stuck observing whether we both like it or not, lady. Gildarts grumbled with thoughts as he and Molly went into hiding behind a few trees. The park lead into a small fraction of the Tangled Greens’ forest. Another perfect place for a fight. Or was it?

I’m serious, mage, if you don’t stop getting your flesh disgustingly dirty I am going to… I’m going to…. I’m going to SCREAM!

That was truly good incentive. Gildarts didn’t really like loud noises and it was something she’d never done before. Whether the Prime liked it or not, a water balloon landed perfectly on his head, splashing him over with white paint and leaving him with a sort of ghost-slash-blank canvas look.

That is IT! she shouted sounding more like a naggy wife than a parasite living in his brain, though to be honest, he couldn’t see much of a difference when he thought about his ex-wife.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

The Malefactor let loose a roar like no other, shattering Gildarts’ constraints on his own mind. His hands immediately reached for the side of his head, aiming around his ears and squeezing them tight. Then, Gildarts couldn’t help it, but a shock-wave of energy was released, as though his brain were in some way trying to release the pain.

Down fell the nearest tree that he and Molly had been hiding behind, it had broke itself into little cubes and rained them from above, startling the other team of squirt-gunners. But that wasn’t all.

A fragment of Gildarts’ magic had it an innocent bystander. Webbing of light cast along the hobbit’s skin and an expression of fear seized him. Suddenly, the humanoid creature was no more and Molly’s jaw had fallen to the ground, letting flies in.

“Gildarts! Did you…” her voice whimpered, “Kill him?”

The Prime’s ears were still ringing, and well, things had gotten blurry, his vision smeared blonde pigtails in front of his face, he saw her lips move but didn’t hear her voice. He didn’t hear anything over the high-pitched pain he felt. Her expression was one of concern, and even fear. She hadn’t stepped back though. Gildarts still blinked, not knowing or realizing he’d even released any magic.

“Gildarts? Gil! Y-you can’t have.. It was just a game…” Molly said slowly, before she heard a higher pitched squee falling from above. Then she was surrounded by a chorus of them. Molly looked up and the hobbit had been separated into a miniature army of the already little folk. He wore the same clothes, though it was a collective “they” of about three-hundred. They were still floating gently from the sky.

“Huh?” Gildarts looked around and then to Molly, rewinding her lips and attempting to read them, “No, he’s fine, it wasn’t that kind of magic.”

The prime had explained nearly nothing, especially why it had happened, “Gildarts are you okay?”

“AHHH!” the little hobbit’s voice shouted as he looked down to his hands and realized the opposite of his only wish had been granted. “CURSES ME, this is worse than Mordor.”

“Mordor? What do you even know about it!?” another one of the little hobbits, mind you, still identical, spoke back.

“HEY! We can use this to our advantage, let’s get some water balloons and win this bloody thing!” a new hobbit shouted and pointed at the giant Prime, wishing to take its revenge.

“Yeah, I should be alright, just had a severe migraine hit me,” Gildarts explained. Not entirely a lie.

“You don’t need to sit down, old man?” she said with a smirk.

“HA! It should be easy to cover these little guys with our colors, let’s hit them with all we’ve got!” Gildarts said as he used his stream of blue as a hose and sprayed down the fresh sprouts of hobbits peeking up fresh from the soil. They were small, numerous, and pesky.

They began to climb Gildarts, one slapped a water-bomb on his cheek and caused a big-blood red explosion as more of the little hobbits got behind their squirt-guns like they were giant cannons or tanks and it took two alone to push the trigger back, and a few more to aim it.

“FIRE I SAY, FELLOW HOBBITS!” one was in command as he stood above the rest.

“LITTLE HOBBIT, GET MORE BALLOONS, YOU, MOUNT THAT BIRD AND DROP AN AERIAL. WE CAN WIN THIS! WE’VE SPENT OUR WHOLE LIVES BEIN’ SMALL THIS AIN’ NO CHANGE FELLAS!” He shouted with intensity.

“Gildarts above you!” Molly warned as her index pointed above, these crafty little buggers were going to make quick work of them, if they didn’t do anything.

Gildarts smirked, he saw a whole line of the hobbits already somehow lined up on the branches above him, they were perched there like little birds and their knees were wobbling as they were about to drop their eggs, however this time the target was Gildarts.

They all landed with a layered rainstorm of SPLAT!

Molly looked at Gildarts’ hair, it had lost its zest and vigor and wavered in multi-colored, volume dampening spray.

Suddenly, there was an eruption of laughter. Molly hugged her sides and began a hearty laugh that originated deep in her stomach, next the white poodle, the hobbits and any other participating witnesses. The best part was Gildarts’ expression, though it was somewhat ambivalent, the dye dripping from his blank expression made it appear as though Gildarts himself had been annoyed with the goop. Well, the voice inside his head was annoyed, and nagging him, but the outside could only see his expression, which had fallen since the rain of their rainbow squirt-gun fight, the last attack.

Gildarts snapped out of his oblivious aloofness and looked at them all, all three hundred and seven of them. The hobbits were chiming in a high-pitched buzzing noise, their laughter was true though, and some of them were laying on the ground with their legs kicking in the air.

The mage snapped his fingers and a great light flared in front of them. The hobbit was resumed to his natural form and frowned as though he were disappointed, “Oi! Whatcha do that for? I finally had me some friends!”

This time, Gildarts started to laugh. He’d never heard that one before when he’d used that magic, he walked over to the halfling and smacked a big splotch of rainbow dye on his back, “You’ve got one now.”

The Prime smiled at the memory and recalled how the shorty’s face had beamed after that. Gildarts was happy and not even a towel made of lava would wipe the smile off of his face.

“Gildarts, you coming? Next is pin the tail on the dragon! But like, it’s a real dragon!” Molly smiled and grabbed his steel hand, “Come on!” Her bright smile lit Gildarts’ deep and hidden darkness as he let her lead him to their next party celebration game.