capicola · 11mo
This is from a fanfic I'm working on, but in the case of MetaDede what if King Dedede instinctively warms the pufflets (or if you prefer, the egg.) under his brood-pouch? Like, when they're first born the pufflets are drawn to heat, and while resting up against Meta Knight is nice they find out Dedede's even better! So, in traditional penguin fashion, King Dedede will quite literally sit on his children to keep them safe and warm. Meta Knight doesn't know this at first so when enters the bedroom and doesn't immediately see the babies he'd look around with worry that turns to fear and then ask "Dedede, where are the babies?!" to which King Dedede, not looking up from his book, would lift a single foot to reveal a couple of nice-and toasty pufflets who'd let out happy peeps, pyos and poyos at the sight of Meta Knight.
YES I've thought this exact thing 😭
My zoology loving ass can't look at that dork without thinking about all the penguin facts I have swimming around in my head. Unfortunately, not all of those facts are wholesome (penguins are a bit uhm...do people still say "sus"? :| ) but by far the cutest things about penguins are how they act with their young. The brood pouch is such a good example, that combined with borbs being so r o t u n d gives us such obvious material, I'm surprised more people haven't talked about it.
He didn't even know he had this instinct until the horblets arrived lol. He's got the warmest tum in Dreamland, so those buns get toasty (he does it to Kirby sometimes now too). He can also walk while they're in there -- catch Dedede roaming around the castle with a funny gait because he's carrying the borblets all around. The only thing is that he forgets to tell Meta Knight that he started doing that, and one day Meta Knight calls him all freaked out like "WHERE ARE THE BABIES?!" oop ( ._.)
And on days when Dedede is busy, Meta Knight can wrap them in his wings.
Brood husbands <3
