Royce's Random Thoughts

Ali meets one of her heroes, sorta.

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"Aunt Ali, are you okay?" Moni asked, her eyes widening in surprise. She'd seen Aunt Ali happy, laughing, and cheerful. She'd seen Aunt Ali excited on more than one occasion. She'd never seen her youngest aunt almost vibrating with barely contained glee.

"It's Hydragon," Aunt Ali whispered, her golden eyes wide with excitment, looking up at the hundred meter high mechanical construct surrounded by a cage of scaffolding, as workers with gravity cranes applied the outer coating of pseudoskin scales.

"It's just a robot," Moni countered. "I mean yeah, it's a big robot, but it's still just a..."

"It's Hydragon," Aunt Ali interrupted. "A real, life size Hydragon, right here on Greenholme." She hopped up and down on her footpads briefly, ears totally erect, paws clasped together as she out a little eeeeeee sound.

"Should I leave you two alone?" Moni asked. Unsurprisingly given her aunt's current state, the sarcasm went right over Ali's ears.

"It's Hydragon! It's gonna walk out of the water, onto the beach, and right through Shore Town! It's going to be the best day ever!"

Aunt Ali had, Moni reminded herself carefully, a childhood that could be politely characterized as completely shitty. And it only qualified for that much if you left out the nightmare inducing bits that she'd heard secondpaw from Aunt Salli and Mom. Despite Aunt Salli's opinions, she wasn't enough of a jerk to burst her younger aunt's obvious happiness, even over something as silly as a giant imaginary robot lizard. "I bet it's going to look spectacular," she said.

"Eeeeeee!" Aunt Ali repeated. She finally took in a breath, trying to calm down. "I wonder if they'll let me flee with the rest of the extras when they film it marching through town?"

"That's a thing?" Moni asked.

Aunt Ali nodded quickly. "It's the best thing!"

Fandom is weird, she concluded.