Summary:
Bowser was a leader. He was a ruler if you wanted to put it nicely, a tyrant if you didn’t, and a leader overall. A strong head on his shoulders and a heavy crown on his head to keep it strong.
And now, due to a long string of wacky events, he had a different kind of crown on his head. The kind of crown that was magical, and just so happened to turn you into a human(esque) princess. After so many years going in with a battlecry, it was finally time to try to get in with a disguise and a polite greeting (ew). And who responds but that Green Mario guy?
Beanpole was the perfect pawn really, close enough to know all the intel but not important enough for people to care if he spilled it! It’d be easy to con this loser, get in the good ranks, and never spend a second near him ever again.
It . . . would not be easy to do that.
Featuring: wallowing in alcohol, detailed sappy letters, an incessant need to be decently accurate with every Mario game ever, stupid words like “Incessant,” miscommunication so bad it would kill a competent person, a technical bechdel success, and the worst economic crash the Mushroom Kingdom had seen in almost a century.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Catch and Release
Bowser cautiously sipped at his drink. He was practically sweating bullet bills, leaning against a corner of Peach’s ballroom, trying his very hardest to blend in. From the various stares and murmurs being spread around, he was either failing miserably at being inconspicuous or failing miserably at acting like a princess, though he’d bet it was probably a mixture of both. Things weren’t going the best.
So.
There was definitely a perfectly logical explanation for the situation at hand.
Somewhere.
Uh. Alright. So.
It was a couple of events, actually, that allowed this horrible plan to come to fruition. First, Bowser made the choice to send a small raid into Mushroom Kingdom. He’d been really feeling the last couple of failed attempts to land a wife, and wanted to do a bit more digging into Peach as a person. You know, make her time at the castle even more enjoyable, find even better things to attempt talking to her about, and finally get somewhere with this incredibly overdue evil scheme. Somehow, the raid managed to survive (well, most of them), and came back with an assortment of trinkets taken directly from her majesty’s favorite museum.
They took stock of it all, of course. He always had anything that entered the castle thoroughly checked by magikoopas to avoid any shenanigans or explosions from happening (or at least, from being caused by outside forces). So imagine his surprise when his minions managed to nab a crown that turned its wearer into a princess. A "super crown" or something. While the presentation had been a massive bore, even he had to admit the volunteers were quite dashing post-transformation.
This, of course, gave A LOT of options to what their next move could be, and everyone was excited to tell him what they thought he should do. Maybe it could be used in the chance marrying into more power ultimately fails. Maybe he could have a Koopa befriend some princesses under the disguise, wait for something juicy to slip through the chatter, and relay the good intel back home. Maybe HE should try to befriend the princesses under disguise, and gain power in the public eye just by virtue of looking like a cool mysterious new princess. Maybe he should try seducing or kidnapping the princess AS a cool mysterious new princess, cause well, maybe she was into that.
They were getting too cocky after being rewarded for surviving, he decided, and ultimately left it at that.
Then, of course, he got his hands on an invitation to a trademarked Peach celebration party (apparently the plumbers had been existing heroically elsewhere while he’d been scheming) and admittedly, it had been quite late at night when he was reminded of it, and he’d had a few too many tasty tonics at the time. But regardless, he ended up looking at those options, saying “yes” to ALL of them, and the rest was history.
And now here he was once more, suffering greatly.
As he nursed his cup of fruity punch, he desperately wished this had been someone else’s plan so he could’ve punished them intensely after he got home. But no, it just wouldn’t do to throw himself in the dungeons for a month, as much as he wanted to. The night had gone rather horribly so far, and it was completely on him. Who knew that acting like a princess and acting like a tyrannical overlord didn’t exactly come hand-in-hand? He tried a good couple times to break the ice after his awesome entrance (as demanded by plan B), but as time went on, less and less people were dazzled by the existence of a new princess and began to actively leave him alone. Maybe he should’ve just kept his mouth shut and stayed as mysterious as possible. Maybe he should’ve listened to Kamek, who explicitly warned him of this and generally wasn’t too supportive of the entire idea. Maybe maybe maybe. It didn’t matter. All he wanted to do now was leave and get out of this stupid disguise.
In all fairness, he quite liked how he looked as a human princess. He wasn’t a mushroom person, so he wasn’t stuck looking like a clone of Peach. That was a relief to him. Look, Bowser may be head-over-heels for the princess (and that’s saying something for a guy of his weight), but he had an image to keep, and daintiness was an antonym of that, full stop. No, he still towered over the others and was absolutely ripped, and he was proud of it. The crown was also nice to him when it came to the clothes, ditching the pink entirely and leaving in all the spikes and sharp angles. He still balked at the puffed sleeves, the layers of skirts, and the ribbon , but at least it didn’t expect him to wear heels. He’d rather game over than wear heels.
The one thing that stood out ultimately was his horns, which decided for some purely vengeful reason to stay unchanged upon his head. You’d think for a magic crown to be able to wish away entire body parts (already Bowser was missing the extra balance given by his tail, and he gently prodded his shell-less back, wondering how human spines worked), it’d be able to wish away the horns, but apparently, they were just too integral to remove or something. There was no real way to cover them, so he just heaved a sigh and added a sentence to his cover story. With the types of people that came to these parties, he was sure no one would notice, anyway.
He was pretty sure people were noticing.
This wasn’t going well.
Damn those tonics.
He managed to spot Peach up on the second floor of the ball. The whole plan A was to get to Peach as fast as possible, see where things went, and either start something wonderful if he was successful in charming her off her feet, or kidnap her if he wasn’t (that was technically plan C). However, no matter how easy it was to find her, she had successfully avoided him every time. He hadn’t even been able to introduce his new self yet. If he put too much thought into it, he’d think she was doing it on purpose, so he tried to avoid thinking entirely.
She was off to the side, looking absolutely radiant. Bowser had never gone to one of these before, but he was all of a sudden sure it wouldn’t be his last. He had never seen her so dressed up before, but the sight made him swoon (internally, of course)(well, a bit externally). She had her thin, wavy blonde hair in a bun, adorned in a pink bow. Her dress was much more complex and elegant than her day-to-day one, and it sparkled when she shifted. It was hard to see from where he was standing, but he just knew her eyes matched her jewelry. The color of blue right between icy bright and deep ocean. The color of the shallow water. You could see entire schools of thoughts swimming through them when you looked close enough. They were her best feature. There wasn’t a single hair out of place or wrinkle in the fabric. Peach was bright, beautiful, and all in all the epitome of perfection. She was smiling, occasionally sipping some kind of pink drink, and talking animatedly with.
Yeah.
The main character did something that made her laugh, the tinkling sound lost in the bustle and music, and Bowser. He didn’t know. He tipped back the rest of his drink and crushed the cup (he probably shouldn’t have done that, that was metal) and he felt.
The rage that was usually pent up in him at this point just wasn’t there, and maybe that was a testament to just how bad of a day he was having. But some part of him that he was desperately trying to push into submission whined about just how . . . how pathetic this was. For a king, an overlord at multiple points, a generally big presence, and the current world record holder of Awesomest Person Ever, it was just sad how easily he could be brushed aside. Peach didn’t want him, she didn’t talk to him, she didn’t acknowledge him in any positive light, and she didn’t act like a mother. Forcing it didn’t work, only made it worse. And, to an extent, that was that. He huffed and tried to distract himself from the realization, but surprisingly, he didn’t push it away. His heart didn’t even feel as droopy as it usually did when he noticed how dumb he was acting, it just ached a little. Like acid was slightly soaking into the flesh around it. But it wasn’t like before when it would feel like he had been burned away, like there was nothing of him but a dry bones. This felt . . . kind of final.
Ugh . These dumb philosophical thoughts had been plaguing him since he last got his ass kicked by Mr. mustache over there, and this shitty party wasn’t helping them any. He’d need a good pep talk after this disaster, at the least, or else he might start listening to them. Th- this didn’t even matter at the moment. He wasn’t supposed to be Bowser right now, he was supposed to be . . . to be whatever his cover story said he was. Was there any way he could salvage this visit at least? Maybe he could apologize for acting out or something, and see if he couldn’t try again at seeming approachable!
. . . ew . . .
There was also the option of defaulting to plan C by wreaking havoc on the party and taking Peach just for the hell of it. This was around the time he usually lost control and made a scene, after all. It’d destroy anything he’d failed at building up, but as that one koopa said; maybe she was into it being a woman who got her.
Hmph. Well, maybe if he hadn’t had philosophy dampen his vibe (as it usually did), maybe he’d have some anger to lose control of . As it was, he just wasn’t really in the mood to destroy stuff, and trying to do anything evil now would just exhaust him. It’d be an easy win for the red man, and that was the last thing he needed right now.
. . .
. . .
Fuck this , he thought, and quickly went back to the buffet table for seconds.
.
.
.
Bowser was multiple cups deep into the punch (which, from how the world began to blur around the edges, either poisoned intruders or was spiked) and practicing how to properly eat a shroom delicacy by watching other people’s motions and gauging how well he acted by how many people stopped staring at him when he took notice of someone walking his way. Thanks to the poisoned punch, it took him longer than it usually did to actually recognize the guy, and by then it was too late to slip away. It was one of the plumbers, surprise surprise, the one who’s name he always forgot. Figures, since Mr. Titular was still up with Peach. He was staring right at Bowser, though. He checked himself over to make sure he hadn’t somehow transformed back into his normal turtley body without knowing, but no, he still had boobs. Thoroughly confused, he quickly took on a nonchalant pose, acting like he hadn’t even seen the weirdo. Secretly still watching.
Just as it seemed like they would actually have to interact, the plumber (who wasn’t wearing his hat, all Bowser had to go on name-wise was the color green) veered off sharply to the buffet table. False alarm. The “princess” relaxed and sipped at his punch. Mnh. Yeah, that was spiked. This was gonna absolutely destroy him tomorrow. Note to self, don’t get into alcoholism, it really isn’t wort-
“G-Good evening.”
-hhhhhhhhhh it.
Bowser straightened up, ways to greet someone flashing through his head. He settled with a sharp nod, but had the decency to respond with “Good evening,” rather than his usual “sup.”
The man (something with an L, he was sure of it) shifted slightly under the sudden gaze. He nibbled on a slice of what seemed to be a fruit tart. “I, uh, saw you weren’t talking to anyone and thought you might like some company. Some conversation.”
Bowser stiffened at the implications (Did he look lonely? Was his patheticness that obvious? No, stay cool. Stay mysterious). “Tch. What even is there to conversationalize about?” He grunted, hoping to come off as very much not in the need of small talk.
Greenie couldn’t take a hint. “Quite a bit! I’ve, uhm, I’ve never seen you at one of these parties before. O-or even at an event. You’re new around here, right?”
He refused to grant that particular question with an answer. Apparently, L guy didn’t need one.
“Well then, I’d like to introduce myself! I’m-a Luigi!” L guy (as Bowser would continue to call him in his head out of spite) reached up and attempted to tip a hat that didn’t currently exist. He failed, of course, but just gave a sheepish smile and stuck out a hand.
Bowser regaled his options. Talking to a plumber didn’t at all seem like a fun thing to do, ever, in any context. Even this one, where the only thing he had to do otherwise was pretend he looked cooler than he actually appeared and leave early the second he got bored with eating. However, all the options he’d un-smartly agreed to flickered through his head. (Connections), his brain whispered to him, (make connections. Be a spy. Get the juicy deets. Keep this experience as a semi-terrible event rather than a total disaster one. Remember that the koopas back home will never let you outlive this otherwise). To be honest, he was only half listening with no plans to foll(Alsothisislikethebestremainingwaytogettopeach)ow through dang it dang it -
This is so stupid.
Bowser grabbed the hand, shook it once, opened his mouth, and felt his brain lighten as his entire cover story blinked out of existence. Apparently, the poisoned punch was taking its toll on him. He hated every bit of this so much.
After a painfully slow moment, he breathed in and said the first thing that came to mind.
“Bows s s s sette. Bowsette. I’m Prince- ess- yeah.”
L guy just nodded and smiled. Of course he’d be the type to believe something like that.
“I knew who you were, by the way.” he added quickly, if for no other reason than to fight the concept that he needed introducing to.
For some reason, Greenie brightened up at that. “Oh! I wasn’t sure. Most people know my brother, but not so much me.”
“Mnh. Most people are idiots.”
A silence rung out between the two. Lui- L- the loser seemed slightly tortured by it, wringing his hands anxiously. Bowser sipped his drink slowly (bad idea stop drinking) and watched the plumber fidget. He didn’t make a move to continue, as he just didn’t feel like talking. Or existing. It was almost amusing, both that the guy was so affected and that he hadn’t run away yet.
Finally, Greenie managed to work up a voice again. “So, uhm, Princess, I’d like to ask, where do you rule?
He stared down a beat longer than necessary. “. . . Nah, don’t worry ‘bout stuff like that. Boring stuff like backgrounds aren’t for a party.” Whatever. It worked as an excuse.
“I’d like to know anyway. The princess- ah, Princess Peach, didn’t even mention a new princess when planning this event. We never got a debriefing!”
“Hey, I don’t wanna hear anything about briefs, dude.” It took him a second to process L guy’s massive ensuing blush to remember it was kind of odd to hear a princess say something like that. Whoops. “The reason she didn’t mention anything is because she didn’t know about it, either. I came here myself.”
“O-oh, So you found Mushroom Kingdom, not the other way around?”
“Yup, And I gotta keep a cool mysterious vibe if I’m gonna do anything like this. So! No backgrounds. Not yet, at least.” not until he could remember it again, at least.
“Well, I suppose that makes sense . . .” The koopa had to smother a snicker as L man literally scratched his chin to think. His body language was so constantly (dweebily) overexaggerated that Bowser could practically read the guy’s thoughts out loud. “How much do you know about Mushroom Kingdom?”
He flushed slightly and barely stopped himself from drinking more. “Enough not to piss off the citizens. That’s good enough, for now.”
As another small pause rang out (this time significantly more uncomfortable), it struck him suddenly that he wasn’t exactly being the best conversationalizer. This was bad, since he was usually really good at being the best. And also bad because he kind of needed this to succeed. Just because Bowser would rather be deshelled than continue . . . whatever this was, didn’t mean he was allowed to be subpar while doing it. He managed a tight-lipped grin. “What, ya got info or something?”
Relief spread on L-the loser’s face. “Oh, yes! I’ve lived here for quite a while, so I could tell you anything you need to know!” The human jerked his hands inward, potentially to make a pose. He was still holding a plate of tart, though, so instead what followed was the equivalent of a stumble with his arms. Ah geez. Poor guy was so used to being sidelined that he was developing NPC habits.
“What if . . . I was from a bad kingdom?” he half-joked, half-subtly threatened, half-genuinely wondered.
“. . . Then I wouldn’t mention any weaknesses. Still, it doesn’t hurt to learn the culture of the people you’re fighting. I don’t think bad kingdoms exist, though, just bad people. And you don’t seem bad to me!”
Hah.
“That’s cute.” he mumbled with the full intention of not mumbling out loud. The blush returned slightly. Whoops.
A thought struck Bowser then. A stupid one, surely fueled by the punch and not his actual brain. One he probably shouldn’t follow through on without ah fuck it. “I don’t need mushroom talk right now, not without falling asleep. What about you, though?” he asked, laying it on a bit thick.
The blush returned fully. “Me?” he squeaked.
“Yeah! What does the great Luigi like? What’s he do? What’re his stories? Consider me picked.”
“Er, piqued?”
“Yeah whatever.”
It was an ingenious plan, really (or rather, as ingenious as a plan could be in his state). He already knew all there was to know about Peach, all gotten tediously and with lots of frustration since she wasn’t willing to just tell him a single cent about herself. Maybe he could push for the logical stuff of the scheme, learning how to get in with the princesses and all that, but even though Bowser was just standing still, the world around him swirled sickeningly. He barely cared about logic when he was sober, anyway. But butter up the guy? Charm a man, let him talk your ear off all he wanted, and no matter whether you soaked in a single letter of his monologue, he would be on your side. It usually worked when people did it to him , after all, so it would definitely have to work on a plumber. Especially one as forgettable as Greenie.
He’d thought a Super brother would take any chance to boast about his endeavors, and ramble about stories that may or may not involve his turtle self in third person. That even a dorky one like Greenie would be the type to chase a spotlight with that surname. Imagine him when the guy paused for a moment, then rubbed the back of his head like he was ashamed or something. “. . . I’m not really all that interesting. If you want exciting stories, then you should go to my brother. He’s a-”
And yeah no the wimpiness was starting to grate on him. “If I wanted to talk to him, don’tcha think I'd be talking to him already? Sheesh, have some confidence in yourself.” That might’ve been a bit harsher than necessary, but it was also targeted at Mar-man, so it was justified in his eyes.
“Sorry . . .”
Frustration bubbled in his chest, turning his throat painfully dry and sending him into a small coughing fit. For the sake of the party (and for his cover story), he decided not to push it. “Well?”
“Well . . .” Oh, more hesitating, great- “I was wondering if . . . if you’d like to have a tour? Of the castle? Or, just, of the general area. Um. So you won’t get lost. And we can keep talking that way. It’s- It’s a bit loud in here.”
Bowser was well acquainted with the general area of Mushland. He’d raided the place more than enough to know how to get around the castle. Though, he’d always been in a hurry whenever he was there. Not breaking and entering might let him sneak around a bit more, learn a bit more about Peach. Or at least pretend he was currently capable of doing such a thing. He didn’t know how well he could walk at the moment, really. But it wouldn’t do any good to let the public know that.
And then he peered down and actually looked at the guy he was talking to. L guy was looking off to the side, but kept peeking back at him (also blue, but not as pretty. Not as many thoughts, at the very least). There was a large splatter of red on his face, like he'd accidentally fallen into a cherry dessert. He swayed back and forth gently, digging his shoe into the polished stone floor. Having finished off his plate a bit ago, he was reduced to picking at the fabric of his gloves. To top it off, his entire body was leaning forward a little, anticipating the answer (Bowser was vaguely aware that he had been thinking for well more than a couple seconds at this point). The koopa had never seen a pose so exaggerated in his life, and he wasn’t young. It was pathetically bashful, filled to the brim with anxiety, and honestly it
Oh.
Greenie had the hots, huh? For little ole him?
Oh he could use this to his advantage.
Damn damn damn that fruity punch.
“Sure,” Bowsette said coolly. She once again crushed the (once again metal ) chalice in her clawed fist and cracked a mean, pointy-toothed grin. “General area works fine. Let’s ditch this place. Show me the way, Greenie.”
The smile deepened as she watched the Luigi’s confidence wither away as quickly as it grew. But then, he straightened up again and gave a small smile back.
Huh.
They then ditched that place.
.
.
.
The next time Bowser was able to meet up with consciousness, he was sprawled on his bed, back at the castle, alone, sometime in the morning, and with a killer headache that didn’t hurt so much as it pushed against his skull, generating second-hand throbbing pain. On the table near him was some kind of potion and a bowl of brothy soup, both of which he downed happily. He shifted to stretch as gently as possible, then paused as something crinkled under him.
Bowser picked up the note, squinting to read it through the dim lighting and the (steadily declining) headache-induced vision blur.
He was pretty sure it was that, then, that made him read out L guy’s mailbox address, a question to meet up for tea, and a fucking smiley face instead of what it supposedly actually said.
What in Jaydes' name was up with this guy.
Principessa,
I hope you enjoyed the ball as much as I did being with you! How do you feel about meeting up again for tea? Or coffee, if you like that. Address on the back if you want to keep writing :)
Luigi
After the rough start, he decided to spend his technically-still-breakfast in complete solitude. He just didn’t feel like moving, that’s all. It wasn’t the fact that most of his royal planning division was waiting with bated breath for his results. It wasn’t. Nope.
Ugh. He really really didn’t wanna have to explain this.
Bowser wasn’t the type to have alcohol-induced amnesia. Then again, he wasn’t the type to actually get affected by alcohol in the first place. It normally took quite a bit more than a few chalices of whatever did him in to just break into tipsy territory. But apparently , being in the smaller body of a completely different species meant that the effects of a presumably good evening resulted in . . . this.
He couldn’t remember much of anything after a certain point, and absolutely nothing after something to do with the green Mario guy (Luigi , his brain muttered, and he told it to shut up). He could piece together enough to figure that apparently his princess act was convincing, but it bothered him that he had missing patches of memory. For all he knew, he had already made himself seem suspicious. For all he knew he spilled the whole plan. For all he knew - and it was something to really dread - he humiliated himself in front of the guy! Not like it mattered, but it definitely mattered because it was a matter of dignity! Everything was all up in the air. It was too much to even think about working through. So after a good couple minutes straining his mind, trying to pop the memories back into existence, he flicked away the note and pulled the covers back over his head. The easiest option.
And that was where he stayed, drifting in and out of a post-sleep nap. Apparently he’d been out late if it was this easy to fall back asleep.
.
.
.
The next time he properly woke up, Bowser quickly realized that a simple broth was not enough for a king his size, if the way his stomach felt caved in said anything. That, and the terrible aftertaste combination of morning breath, mushrooms, and whatever else (something like rotting fruit?) was finally too gross to withstand. Maybe if he was being tortured he’d deal with it, but he was already feeling more than tortured enough at the moment and didn’t want to feel worse.
With a grumble that matched his stomach’s growl, Bowser finally left his wallowing hollow (bedroom). As he stepped through the unnecessarily gaudy doors marking his bedchambers, he turned to the nearest guard. “Check this for traps or whatever,“ he muttered, then tried to leave as fast as koopaly possible. It wasn’t fast enough to prevent overhearing the guards’ reactions after reading it, though. The small gasps and confused whispering grated against his ears.
Throughout his morning (early afternoon for the rest of the castle) of finally tidying himself into a semi-decent state, he was almost bothered quite a few times. Not actually, just almost. Many castle workers started towards him, but very few attempted to speak once they got a good look at his face. There was nothing like the King Koopa signature scowl to both avoid and answer any questions that could have been asked. Only the ones with less than a whole brain thought that it would be worth their time or safety to engage.
Halfway through Bowser’s “breakfast”, his peaceless thought was suddenly broken as the heads of his army came battering through the dining room doors.
They all pushed and bickered at each other before finally standing in a line. The koopa, Corporal something, saluted and spoke first. “Sir! The council humbly requests for a written follow-up on the Super Crown scheme sir!”
“Yeah! P-please . . .” echoed the Private, saluting as best as a goomba physically could.
Bowser glared at each of the trio. “I’ll have a report at the meeting, okay? So be patient!”
“Eee! S-sorry! B-but the meeting was three hours ag-” The Corporal’s voice wisely broke at the extra dose of signature scowl being served his way. “A-alright! At the meeting! Roger that!”
The three then stood there, still saluting, growing more and more obvious in their unease.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Ah, I’m n-not sure, sir!”
Bowser rolled his eyes. “I’ll talk to Kamek about it, okay? Now scram! I’m eating!”
The two sprinted away without a moment of hesitation. The third one (the sergeant) looked at him for a bit longer, before an exaggerated snap of the teeth drove it away.
(“I-I think we did a great job!”)
(“Promotion for sure!”)
(“. . .”)
(“Wait, what was on what lett . . ?”)
Bowser shot up from his seat at the fading voices, but luckily for them, the trio had scurried out the door just in time. Smoke trailed from his mouth and nose as he grumbled under his breath, shoveling down his meal as quickly as possible. Rumors spread far too quickly here. He should probably start learning the names of the problem citizens to get that nipped in the bud.
Throwing down his fork (feeling upset enough to want to chew it into molten metal), he decided his state was more than semi-decent enough to deal with the day. Stalling any longer would just make the peanut gallery even more unbearable than it already was.
If he was stomping hard enough to add an extra crack or two in the tile, that was nobody’s business. He was the one who paid to have them repaired, after all.
As Bowser reached his location, a final paratroopa chose to brave the king’s wrath, infernal letter in hand. “Your nastiness. We have checked the note over. There seems to be no sign of magic or manipulation.”
He didn’t really know what to do with that information. “Fine.”
“Have fun with it, your evilty!” it said with a quick salute, then bolted away.
“Oh you-!”
He really should start learning names.
Bowser barged into the room, half-desperate just to get away from all of that . He huffed and threw the door closed, only having the forethought to catch it right before it could slam. Kamek didn’t like having his door slammed shut. If nothing else had been drilled into him as a ‘ling, then that had.
For a few moments, he kinda just stood there angrily, assuming something would have been actually done to acknowledge his presence (or at least his wrath). But the magikoopa just sat there, shuffling papers by the light of a blue candle. Kinda reminded him of getting in trouble as a kid, but he shook off that thought quickly. Guilt took away the anger, and he’d much rather be angry than guilty.
Then, after another moment of relative silence, Kamek turned around and swiftly hit him with a bolt of magic. Bowser let out a very totally manly yelp at the sudden sting and watched purple leftover smoke puff out from where he was hit.
Kamek nodded once. “Hmm. Good.” Turning back around, he continued on as though nothing had just been done at all.
“Hey- Kamek! What was that?!” he shouted, trying to wave away the smoke. This totally wasn’t helping his mood.
“My sincerest apologies, your grouchiness. I was ensuring the results of a spell I cast yesterday, checking for potential leftovers. It seems like the mushroom people aren’t stooping to anything too horrible then.”
“L-leftovers?!”
Kamek finally looked back over nonchalantly. “Oh, anything that might have been left on you. Trackers, magic, that kind of thing.”
Bowser snorted. “Have you seen those guys? They’re wimps! What could they do?”
“Never underestimate your enemies.”
The king paused at the sudden seriousness, then crossed his arms. “I estimate them just fine! Don’t leftover me again, got it? I am not stolen treasure, so don’t treat me like it!”
Kamek just sighed. “I believe the term we agreed to use publicly was ‘borrowed foreign items.’ And don’t complain, this is basic procedure for anyone sent out on a mission. You happened to fall asleep after most of it, so I figured I would let you rest.”
“Well, we’re not in public. And that still means you’re treating me like a goon, so I’m still offended.”
He scoffed. “I would not have let a goon sleep.”
“Also, you missed something, so there.” Bowser showed off the crumpled note, waving it in the air.
“No, I discovered that. It was thoroughly checked and considered clean.”
He blinked. “So . . . I didn’t have to get it tested this morning?”
“I figured you would have wanted to keep it. I’m . . .” Kamek shuffled his robes in an attempt to stifle a giggle. “Your carouseness, you seemed to have enjoyed yourself quite a bit.”
Not again , he thought, dragging his hands across his face. “Oh, Grambi.”
“I’m just saying . . .” Kamek half-sang, completely unaware that he was now on the top of the list of problem citizens to deal with (though knowing him, he was probably at least a little aware).
“You creatures are crazed when it comes to gossip, you know that, right?”
“Oh I don’t know. It was just nice to see our mastermind in such high spirits. Though I must admit, your choice in companionship was rather surprising.” He raised an eyebrow at the king, who currently just felt like he should have stayed in bed a bit longer.
“Believe me, It wasn’t my first choice. Or my choice at all.” Bowser muttered under his breath.
There was a small pause as Kamek shuffled around some papers that were probably important but were definitely boring and thus were extremely unimportant. Then a quill was pointed at him. “So? What happened? I must hear what you did at the party! If for no other reason than to assist in writing the report.”
And Bowser.
He.
Hm.
Shit.
He closed his eyes and started trying to quietly strain his mind for a proper answer again. Honestly it was starting to seem like blunt forcing memory recollection actually just made his memory worse.
“What is the matter, your timidity?” Kamek asked from the darkness (beyond his eyelids).
He squeezed his eyes shut-er. “I’m trying to think of an answer.”
There was a long pause.
“. . . Don’t . . . don’t tell me you forgot . . . you didn’t, did you . . ?”
After another tender moment of silence, the magikoopa simply let out a deep, long sigh. Bowser finally gave up and looked over to find Kamek rubbing a hand to his temple. Somehow, that was the worst thing he could have done.
“I thought those days of overt drinking were behind you . . .”
The king flushed. “Hey, I didn’t mean to get drunk! I didn’t have a boozy drink all night!” Kamek gave him a deadpan look. “I didn’t!”
Kamek heaved another sigh and waved him off tiredly. “I will begin searching the library for a memory recollection spell at once. Just . . . tell me what you can remember.”
And he did. All three thousand-something words of it (though with his way of speaking and unwillingness to embarrass himself, he managed to shorten it down to a brisk two thousand). And by the end of the approximately seven minute tale, Kamek was staring at him with an expression that definitely had a lot of feelings and emotions in it, resignation and concern the most recognizable, but mostly just ended up looking like he was mere seconds from attempting to overthrow the throne purely to keep such malarky from ever happening again.
“ . . . So I’m really not sure why things happened how they did at all, but now Greenie here seems to think we’re besties!” He slapped down the note one final time. “I don’t even know why I stuck with the guy in the first place! And I didn’t even get to talk to Peaches once!”
Eventually, resigned concern won out. “Your forgetfulness, I must say that it’s very likely the Green Mario didn’t speak for entirely pure reasons.”
“Heh, I know. He seemed very interested in Bowsette, if you catch my drift.” Bowser smirked, taking the one smidge of pride that he could.
“Wha- no, I- you named yourself Bowsette ?!”
The smirk was wiped away quickly. “Yeah. I’m Bowser as a chick. Bowsette. Made sense at the time.”
“Didn’t we decide on- I . . .” another sharp huff. “This only proves my point. It’s more likely that he was sent over by the princess to “scope you out,” as it were. To see whether you were a real princess or a ruse.”
“Well, he seemed fooled enough,” Bowser mumbled,
Kamek began to busy himself by scribbling some notes down on his paper. “We don’t know that. Who knows what he might have caught onto, what he might be saying to the Princess at this very moment. That note could be a trap, or else a bluff. Or-”
“Ugh, I got it already. The plan bombed! Fine! Who cares!”
The murderous glare was back. “In any case, it’s far too late to back out now. Bowsette is now a living person in the eyes of the Mushroom kingdom, and it’d look especially bad if she just disappeared while in our care. Bad in a way we can’t control, that is.”
The king crossed his arms, feeling entirely like he should have stayed in bed until hunger consumed him. “Thought you said no one believed the disguise.”
“I said we don’t know. I ask that you not put words in my mouth.”
“Fine.”
Kamek tapped his quill on the paper, and looked at him fully. “Lord Bowser, if I may, the best thing to do would be to send a reply to the Green Mario. If he was truly sent by the Princess, then you might have the chance to fully turn her off of your trail and continue to use this disguise for the future. Perhaps it could even eventually fulfill your original plan.”
He thought for a moment. Let the concept sink in. And Bowser felt the anger drain from his body, because what Kamek had just said was good, sure, but he could make it awesome.
“Alright! No! Yeah! I can work with this!” He clapped his hands together. “No, this is fine! This is great actually! Greenigi’s part of the inner circle, isn’t he?! That means I can totally use him to get to Peach! All right!’
“Yes, that is what I-”
Bowser ran over to the desk and began ransacking it. “Find some fresh paper! I gotta write a letter!”
Kamek just brought a hand to his temple once more, looking on with a resigned concerned murderous expression. As was his usual expression.
.
.
“No, don’t put an exclamation point there. It’s too much.”
Sigh. “Of course, your petulantness.”
“For your safety, I’ll be ignoring whatever you just said.”
.
.
.
Lou Luigi,
Tea sounds great. I had a lot of fun and would love to talk some more. Do you have a place in mind? Return address on the back (I’ll explain!)
- Princess Bowsette
.
.
.
Bowsette drummed her claws against the table. A steaming teal cup of some milky drink (that just so happened to be the first drink on the menu) sat unattended in front of her. The cafe that had been chosen was quaint, snug, a bit too on the nose. Cozy wooden tables and cute spiral pillars and all that. The fact that the whole place was shaped to look like a Toad’s head brought on a lot of questions about mushrooms and toad anatomy that frankly would be too much of an emotional spiral to even think about thinking about right then, but otherwise it was fine enough. Definitely suited far more for the Mushroom Kingdom than her awesome place, but fine enough.
It was also filled with an unfortunately large handful of Toads. Good thing she had picked a table in the corner.
Okay. Okay. Okay. This would go fine.
She (It was easier to stay in character by switching pronouns) had somehow gotten the crown to give her a less extravagant outfit through a mixture of magic, threats, and technical loopholes. One that fit the plan better, and didn’t poof out nearly as much. Still kept the horns, though, stupid thing. She hated looking human, but since she had to, it would’ve been nice to look 100% human, y’know? Still the king here! Never under-deliver!!
The koopa hunched over, mumbling lines under her breath in between swears as she waited. No forgetting the plan this time around. It would be fine. Definitely. The only way she could fuck this up is if she somehow tripped and the crown fell off. Which- well. Don’t jinx it.
She gently pushed against the crown to see if it moved. Thankfully, it didn’t. They should’ve probably tested that first. Oh well.
Finally, Luigi slid into the plush green booth across from her, setting down a small platter of cookies (close enough to the center of the table that she wasn’t sure if he was offering to share or not) and a purple mug filled with something sickeningly green. Because of course he’d be the type to actually like leaf water. Then he curled up on himself, staring a hole into the table, apparently trying to phase out of existence.
They sat just like that for the next 3 minutes. Unmoving, or just about.
For her part, Bowsette hadn’t really planned to be the instigator of . . . whatever this was. She had planned for L guy (Luigi)(shut up) to be as into her as he hazily was in her memory. That he would end up asking all the questions and she would have her practiced answers, and she would have her practiced questions that he would give all the answers to and then there’d be just enough trust for him to think they were friends and he’d allow him easy access into the castle where he would immediately befriend Peach and have a lovely time together and Bowser would eventually betroth- ah.
The point was, Bowsette (and Kamek for that matter) had prepped for the meat of the meal. She hadn’t even considered the . . . appetizer(?) of the conversation.
For his part though, she had no idea what was going on. Wasn’t Greenie at the very least the nicer one of the two? Between it taking a super long time for the thing to show up (20 minutes of waiting, and she had already been 10 minutes late on arrival) and the way he was currently sitting there like he was in a torture chamber instead of a cafe, a very bad feeling was beginning to creep up. That maybe something had happened after all, and whatever it was, it had completely curdled his kindness.
They continued to just sit there.
Dude wasn’t even eating anything. Just was fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves. It’d be a waste if he didn’t at least try his food before it got cold.
Well, not like she was sipping from her cup either. The drink was disturbingly beige.
So they sat.
Doing nothing.
This seemed counterproductive.
Or just neutral, since nothing was happening.
Neutroproductive.
Either way it needed to change quickly.
Never one to pass up the challenge of silence, Bowsette cleared her throat as softly as she could. “So, uh . . .”
Greenie (Lu(shut up ) practically jumped in his seat from how hard he flinched, bumping the table and causing his cup to clatter. Apparently she wasn’t soft enough, though she had a feeling a flutter flapping its wings would’ve probably caused the same reaction.
“Geez, no need to freak out. Just because I have sharp teeth doesn’t mean I bite!” she pointed a finger to her wide, sharp smile.
He didn’t seem all that amused, still keeping his eyes locked to the floor.
With a small scoff, she dropped the grin. “Hmm. Tough crowd.”
Bowsette grabbed her mug and idly swirled the drink around. She was quickly forming two potential conclusions about whatever happened at the Peach party to cause this totally unjustified fear (fear that would be totally justified in any other situation): Either she had revealed her cover horribly or done something painfully embarrassing and the plumber had managed to remember it (more simply, she had either exposed herself or exposed herself), or, Luigi was the one who had fucked up massively and was currently simmering in a state of sober regret. Either option could be possible honestly, but she was banking on the latter being true. Peach would’ve probably forced him to show up on time.
She clanked her mug back down (sparking another slight jump) and heaved a sigh, deciding right then on her next plan of attack. “So, since this is gonna be just a total awkward shitshow otherwise, I’m gonna be completely clear with you about this. No hiding it. I don’t remember much of anything that happened at the party.”
That finally let Greenie relax. Dude must’ve really embarrassed himself. “You- you don’t?” He asked shakily, finally looking up at her.
“I mean, I know that I was there, and I know that I met you, and I know that we probably did some radical non-weird shenanigans together that made you want to be best buddies and all that. But I don’t remember it.”
“Ah.” for once, his face was unreadable.
She looked around, leaning in and dropping her voice low. “If you, uh, if you remember at all, do you know what happened? Did, I, uh . . . was I weird or anything?”
The plumber waved his hands with a nervous laugh. “No, no! You were cool!” He took a sip of his tea. “I remember it, I didn’t drink anything. It was f-fine. I-a, heh, I took you on a little tour around the castle. We just walked around and-a t-talked about a bunch of stuff.”
“What kinda stuff?” she probed.
“Just, ah, just a bunch of little stuff.” he said lightly, then stopped talking. Like that was enough of an answer at all.
When it became obvious that Greenie wasn’t gonna start up again, Bowsette half-rolled her eyes and motioned with her hands for him to continue. His face pinched and he spent a longer moment looking as though he was begging for his cookie tray to somehow save him.
“Well, uhm, You wanted me to be a tour guide, so a lot of it was that. Some icebreakers, a few p-personal things. Talking about other people, about reputation, and . . .” Luigi blushed slightly. “And a lot about me. Uh, I’m not sure why, it just kept tur- showing up. A-and, well, that’s about it.” After another pause spent staring down the guy, he shrunk back into himself, floundering (whoops, overdid it). “Uhm, I guess at one point we went into the library and-a looked up the biggest word in the dictionary to try to, ah, to pronounce it correctly in one go.”
She blinked. “. . . did I?”
“No, b-but neither did I!”
“And you thought that was worthy of giving me your address?” she asked with a snicker. Greenie (Lshut UP) awkwardly laughed along with, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Well, I . . . It was just . . .eh-heh . . .” He shrugged jerkily. “You were nice to me. A-and you were new. So, I just figured . . .”
Bowsette frowned. “Everyone’s nice to you. They kinda have to be.”
“You didn’t have to. Most people don’t stick around after introductions, you know. Just a bit of small talk and that’s it. You didn’t have to do anything more than that. I’m- I’m happy you did, though. It was n-nice spending the night with you . . .” The last half was mumbled just loudly enough to be audible.
Whatever. That was good enough for hi- for her. Finally letting up on the interrogating, she stole a cookie and leaned back (Bowser had finally decided it was close enough to the center to count as being an offering. While he was trying to stick to the act as hard as possible, and part of that was having manners for once, well, wouldn’t it have counted as rude to not take one if they were being offered? Exactly. Checkmate). “Well, that’s good to know. I’m glad I wasn’t shitty to be around, heh.” Ignoring any light glares being given to her, she paused to take a bite, marking the cookie as hers. Kept her mouth closed while chewing and everything. “To be honest, I wasn’t planning on getting drunk at all. I don’t even know what did me in, I can’t remember.”
The response was nearly instant. “It was the punch. It’s made up to look innocent, but there is far too much alcohol hidden in there. I’m almost convinced they make it like that to prank the new guests. Like a hazing ritual.” It was spoken with such confidence that Bowsette paused in her chewing without even thinking about it. She hadn’t even noticed she was staring again until Luigi turned a bit pink, taking a cookie of his own.
“Ah, I was kind of in the same boat as you the first time I went to a Mushroom Ball. Me and Ma-my brother both, though he wasn’t as affected since he was out and about. I didn’t really want to socialize, so I ended up spending most of the night with the food, and I got completely wasted as a result.” Instead of eating his cookie, he just broke it into smaller and smaller pieces as he spoke.
“Aw, and no one was there to take care of you?”
His cheeks flushed just as much as his face darkened. “Well, there was someone . . . it didn’t go anywhere, though. So.”
“Hopin’ things’ll be different with me?” she asked, baring her teeth in a smile once more.
Luigi didn’t even hesitate at the sight. “No. I just had a nice time, and I- well . . .”
“Well?”
With that, he fell silent and tensed up once more, and Bowserette couldn’t help the flare of frustration that churned in her stomach at the sight. Things had been going so well! They were just . . . well, they weren’t talking about super important stuff just yet, but she’d had him in a great spot! He was about to spill! What happened? She checked her hands quickly, but they were still fleshy. Was she not being nice enough? This was like the nicest she could be!
The plumber took a second cookie and dunked it into his mug. “Uhm, so, why . . . why me?”
She frowned at him. “Whaddya mean, why you?”
“I-I’m just . . . I’m-a just wondering why I was the one you chose to stick with. Was there . . . any purpose behind that?”
And that was a question she was asking herself, too. It had an answer, sure, but that answer had been made entirely unavailable by memory loss. She strained her head for that answer again, any hint of one, and attempted to cover it up by taking a swig of her stupid tea. It was probably something along the lines of "his brother was Peach’s favorite little nimbi,” but that seemed a bit . . . not enough. Not satisfying of an answer. He stared at the subject in question, who hadn’t quite sat back in his seat as much as he had shrunk away. Then Bowser – shit, Bowsette – Bowsette clunked down her mug with a grimace.
“I’d tell you if I knew, but I really can’t remember. I s’pose it was just that . . .” And she thought of all the citizens that congratulated her on that stupid note, and shook that verbal thought away. “Wait, from what I remember, you were the one who walked up to me . Why’d you do that? Did Peach ask you to monitor me or sum’n’?”
Luigi shot up instantly. “No, no! I just wanted to greet you properly. As I said, you’re new around here. And, well, it didn’t seem like you were talking to anyone at the time, so . . . “
Vague memories of guests smiling far too wide while slowly backing away flashed in her mind. She crossed her arms. “Hmph. I- I was probably just finished with a major conversation, thank you very much.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sure of it.” The plumber smiled, and it wasn’t too wide at all. “And I thought, at-at the time, after spending the night together, I thought maybe you’d like to have a friend.”
“I think . . . that’d be nice.” The concept of friendship with a plumber was laughable, but the lie slipped out easily anyway. Too easily. Maybe something had been done to her after all.
(She didn’t notice it, but Bowsette smiled back, in a way that wasn’t chompy but was just the right size.)
She shook her head. Stick to the script. “You wanna do re-introductions now that I’m not all messed up?”
“Ah, if you want.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m-a Luigi. I’m a protector of the Mushroom Kingdom”
The koopa took a long drink from her mug (lukewarm but overall pretty good), went through her lines one more time, and steadied herself for the most convincing performance she could possibly muster. Alright. Just say it how you practiced. Koopas don’t fail. Ya got this.
Eat bones, or whatever nerds say.
“My name is actually Princess Burnadette, from, well . . . from the It’s-kind-of-complicated Kingdom.”
“A- huh?”
“It’s a long story. I’m sure you were going to ask anyway though, so I might as well tell the tale.”
Luigi (Greenie, damnit) looked at her with wide eyes, and finally, things were back on track. “I’d been wondering.” He said simply, drinking his tea.
The tall tale began.
“My kingdom is currently under attack.
I live in a smaller kingdom a ways away, on an island. You probably don’t know about it. It’s pretty far into the ocean, and it’s honestly a pretty small place, so we don’t have that many tourists. We kinda just hang out on our own, it’s great.
Well, we were just hanging out, until we were invaded by a neighboring kingdom. Turns out we were part of a large assortment of islands that were all chumming it up together, and no one thought to include us. Turns out, people thought we were mysterious and weird in a bad way, which I mean, that is how many people would describe me, but to use that to exclude my whole kingdom? Rude.
Well, turns out, the fact that we were radio silent for so long made our neighbors think we’d skipped town, and they were coming over for the chance to nab our territory. ‘Course, they apologized the second they saw us, but was I gonna let that slide? Two full attacks against the dignity of my island, not to mention all the damage they made just from showing up unannounced? Fuck no!
So, we fought. Our tiny set of troops against theirs. They had that whole colony against us at first, but then a few of the kingdoms noticed the whole audacity of the situation and started making treaties with us instead, which was a really nice change of pace for a lot of reasons. If anything good comes out of this, it’ll be that we finally have more places to import goods from than just the mainland. Like do you know how expensive some of that stuff was? Good riddance.
So at a certain point, we’re on equal grounds, and making more of a ruckus than doing any sort of damage. You know, the kind of personal feud that was probably gonna end up being tradition in a few decades? But they’d learned their lesson and we’d gotten into the- the vine, so all-in-all we were doing great.
And then we weren’t.
Well, turns fuckin’ out there was an underwater kingdom under our islands. Like a really big one. And they weren’t happy with our little spat, so they decided to start teachin’ us all a lesson. On the good side of things, the islands have put the fight on hold entirely, and we’re back to being one big happy group again, now with my kingdom in the mix. But that’s really just a silver lining in a massive storm. We’re being utterly steamrolled right now. I mean, we’re lucky to have the support we have, but it ain’t looking pretty.
I’ve been kidnapped once already, and that led to a whole event that was very annoying, and long story short I ended up getting hurt during the rescue. I’m fine now, but until things cool down, I’ve been brought to the Koopa Kingdom for my own safety.”
“Oh, yeah! You said they owed you!”
Bowser blinked, jolted out of the moment. “I- y-yes. I did. And I said that because of that. Mhm.” Nailed it. “But yeah. You understand now why revealing personal information in a public ball might have tipped off those enemies to my whereabouts, right? I mean, they’re a big group, who knew if they’d show up to a Peach Party if I was able to worm my way in?”
Luigi chewed on his tea-soaked cookie, nodding to himself. “So that’s why you acted how you did. It must’ve been nerve-wracking to come all that way over here with a war over your head just to not remember what secrets you might’ve spilled.”
She grimaced slightly. “Yeah. My nerves were certainly wracked.”
The plumber hesitated for a moment, looking away again. “Well, you didn’t say anything that made me suspect you were a princess in hiding. You were with me when you were the most drunk, so you were probably sober enough to keep that secret.”
“That’s good,” Nodding a bit stiffly, she then took another long drink. Monologuing in this form led to an unnaturally scratchy throat, apparently. Her hand shook slightly as it moved. Maybe her nerves were still quite a bit wracked at the moment.
“Ah, i-if you might need any more help with the fight, I could see if the Mushroom kingdom could lend a hand. If not them, then at least I’d be happy to help!” He smiled brightly again, completely unaware of how Bowsette felt like her body was slightly short-circuiting between the extreme giddiness of having such a stupid plan actually work and the utter disgust of working with his arch-nemeses in any capacity.
“O-oh, don’t worry about it. It’s a tough fight, but we aren’t gonna lose. We don’t lose. It shouldn’t be much longer until the attacks are over, and then I’ll return home.”
“Are you sure? We’re very good at protection!”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Yeah, no need to tell me. “I’m sure. Thank you, but we’re good for now. Seriously, we don’t lose. Plus, we already wrangled the Koopas into lending some help. You guys aren’t all that nice on each other, are you?”
“We could settle differences if the need is strong enough.”
“The need isn’t. If we need more help, we’ll ask for it. Capitch?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Okay.” he said simply, then fell quiet again to take a long swig of tea. At least the pause lacked most of the tension from earlier. Phase 1 of Plan E - make sure Luigi Greenie won’t jump out a window at the mere sight of me: complete. She sat back and crunched on her cookie. Normally she wasn’t at all a shortbread kinda guy, but this was some damn good shortbread.
Now to phase 2 - schmooze until things started happening. And with the success of the monologue, it wouldn’t be hard at all to keep up the streak!
Okay. Well. Uh.
“You like this place?” Bowsette asked.
“Hmm? Oh, yes. I come here often.” Luigi answered.
And that was it.
Well, shit.
Luigi wasn’t nearly as expressive as she attempted to remember. Once the anxiety had eased away, he was a lot more in control of his body. At the moment, he looked more like he was having a deep conversation with the cookie tray, furrowed brow and all. Definitely a much better upgrade than practically sobbing at it. Made perfect sense, of course; the charm of a guy like her was hard to resist, after all. Whatever either of them had done at that dumb mushroom ball, it basically didn’t matter at all anymore! Though it would’ve been nice to know what actually had been said to give the guy such a heart attack.
Now that he was looking (and not for the sake of interrogation), Greenie had also changed clothes for the casual occasion. Sure, it was just a green button-up instead of a green shirt, and regular jeans instead of jean overalls, and he kept the stupid hat, but he ditched the gloves, and at least it wasn’t his entire weird hero-plumber outfit. The king could appreciate that. The other one would’ve definitely kept his entire schtick up, probably did every day from dawn to dusk. That was truly unappreciatable. This, however, was properly appropriate. Was she staring again?
“Oh, ah, the Princesses asked about you.” Luigi began, and the sudden noise caused Bowser- ette to jump in her seat for once. In an act of almost-karma, she barely managed to keep a hunk of cookie from falling down the wrong tube.
“Did they?” Through gritted teeth and a smile too strained to seem truly sunny, she spoke as calmly as she could manage.
If Greenie noticed the sudden tension, he didn’t make a move to quell it this time. “Yeah. I just thought you’d want to know, I didn’t tell them you called yourself Bowsette. They, ah, don’t really like the King Koopa, and I wasn’t sure how they’d take it.”
And the sudden tension was gone. “. . . Really? You did that?”
He looked away, fiddling with his sleeve cuffs again. “Well, yeah. Not to be offensive or anything-”
Huh.
“No, that’s good actually. I wasn’t” supposed to use it “It wasn’t” a planned thing “It’s just a nickname, really. You spend enough time in a castle, the people in it start to like ya. And when you’re with a buncha strangers, it’s nice to use a name that strikes a little fear into their hearts. As I said, The name’s actually Burnadette, though you can keep calling me whatever you like.“
“Whichever one you like more.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care. Alternate ‘em, if you can’t pick. That’s what works for-” and she bit her tongue almost to the point of drawing blood to stop it from continuing on and turning her cover story into flat out fiction. The deed had been done all the same.
“For?” Luigi asked, taking his turn to lean in and stare curiously. Fuck.
Bowsette shoved her cookie into her mouth as a stall, scrambling for an answer. It took until the last gulp to decide on a response. “Forrr Bowser’s kids. When they choose to poke their noses out of hiding. Which isn’t often, mind you, I barely ever see them. I don’t know.” Mumbling the last part, she cursed her voice for being so uncertain-sounding.
For his part, Greenie just continued to smile, Not a single ounce of suspicion rested behind his deepish blue eyes anymore, which was a suspiciously fast time for a turnaround. “I don’t mind hearing about your time at Koopa Castle, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Worried? Hah! Not about that. Just didn’t think you’d wanna hear about your mortal enemy chumming it up with me, that’s all.”
“He’s not my mortal enemy. He’s the Mushroom Kingdom’s mortal enemy. It’s different.” he said, like it was that simple, before downing the rest of his drink. He said a lot of things far too simply, she noticed.
“Whatever.”
They settled back into silence at that, working through the rest of their orders. Bowsette made sure to show good manners by only stealing the second-to-last cookie. When she notice the silence slowly growing awkward again, she looked over to find Lui- Greenie! Greenie beginning to twist at his sleeves again. Contemplating something. And she decided then, that if anything was gonna come from this, she would force some confidence into the guy. Even if it would take shoving a Dry Bones spine down his throat. “Spit it out.” she said, maybe a bit too harshly.
Greenie pointedly kept his eyes away, watching the waning cafe crowd. He coughed. “S-so he’s been making . . . advances on you?”
Wh.
What.
Oh that was. That was priceless.
She tried not to laugh, really she did. But when she started trembling from the effort, Luigi looked at her with such worry that it just broke her. Maybe it was rather unmannerful to burst out into hysterics the way she did. Toads were staring, and if she cared at all about the opinions of Toads it would be deeply embarrassing. But Grambi was it funny! She barely managed to keep herself from banging the table as it was, there was no way she could have kept the rest of it in.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she cackled, which had never happened before. Koopa tears always steamed away. As her guffaws trickled into giggles, she touched the water lightly from where it lightly stung her skin. It left a little droplet on her finger. Weird.
She grabbed a napkin to wipe at her face, still giggling a little. “As if! No way man, he’s too busy makin’ . . . makin’ goo-goo eyes at your princess to care about little ole me.” And wasn't that the truth.
The whole time she’d been laughing, Luigi had been watching her with an expression she wasn’t able to quite place due to the tears in her eyes. Now that the cafe was suddenly silent, he seemed to snap out of it, looking around and blushing a vibrant red. He gripped the sides of his hat, sinking into his seat and whimpering apologies. “Well you said you were ‘chumming it up,’ I wasn’t sure what that meant. I’m sorry Principessa, I didn’t-”
Bowsette leaned into her booth, happy as a clampy. “Calm down, beanpole,” ( Luigi) “you’re fine. Nah, ‘strong and awesome’ apparently isn’t his type. Not like I wanna be his type at all. That would be . . . a really weird power dynamic. Eugh.” She may have some narcissistic traits, but she wasn’t that bad. “I’d never date the guy that’s saving my kingdom’s ass, anyway. Too . . . transactiony.”
Downing the rest of her very beige drink in one gulp, she continued on. “That’s a lesson right there to remember: don’t date your underlings, or anyone who owes you that much. If you’re gonna fall for someone, do it with someone of equal status. You gotta be responsible with your power, cause if it doesn’t end well, it won’t just end badly. It’ll be newsworthy.” she shivered. “There are very few things that are both newsworthy and good.”
She then remembered that the place was still completely silent other than her, and Greenigi was still trying to suffocate himself with his hat. “You done?!” She called out to the watchful crowd, attempting to bare her fangs the way she usually was able to. And that was enough for the cafe to return to its bright bustling self again (though it wasn’t lost on her that much of the conversation now was about her. Maybe if she had her Koopa teeth they’d be better about that).
She then also remembered that she was having a conversation about the hypothetical of dating herself (himself? Her normal form), which was not something that was any kind of good or comfortable. “Anyway, there really isn’t anything wild about it. I’m mostly left alone, I’m not allowed to be at any boring important meetings unless they’re about my island. The koopa kids are busy with their own things, though they have stolen me for a day or two. Otherwise I just kind of wander and wait for updates. Any questions?”
For the most part, Luigi seemed to recover once the noise was back up. He unfurled himself and took one of the crumbled up cookie pieces he broke apart earlier, still avoiding her eyes. “Ah, Can I- Can I hear about the days you were stolen? By the children, n-not the kidnapping.”
And she was back in the game. “Only if I get to hear some stories back. It’s not fair that I have to give you all the deets of my life without expecting some in return.”
“I- ah, well . . . I already told you quite a bit at the party.”
“And I don’t remember it. If you flubbed a joke or said something you weren’t s’posed to, this is the perfect time to right those wrongs and tell me the best version you can muster!”
“ . . . What do you want to hear?” Luigi asked, looking back up to her, a tentative smile on display.
“Hmm . . . Tell me some stories from your time as a koopaling. Humanling? Whatever. Trade some child stories for some child stories. If that’s too embarrassing you can bring up stories ‘bout other people, like Peach if you want. How’s that?”
“I can do that. You’ll have to hear about my brother, though.”
She leaned in, her trademarked grin surviving the transformation. “I’ll survive.”
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“Your transformagesty! You seem to be in high spirits!”
“That’s because I am! Guess who’s a recognized person in the eyes of the Mushroom kingdom?”
“They believed the backstory?”
“I was the perfect princey-paysa with that beanpole! We’re so off the radar that they’re basically on another planet!”
“My, you’ve grown so much . . .”
“Hey, don’t get sappy with me!”
“What about it? Pretending to be a princess to get those plumbers off our trail? You’ve learned from the master! Let’s just hope this streak keeps going.”
“. . . Oh Grambi, this is gonna last a while, isn’t it?”
“If you want to get any useful knowledge out of that Super Crown, then yes, it will. You’d better get used to that form quickly, your alter-royalty.”
“You’re gonna have to get better with those, Kamek. I’m off.”
(“. . . well, let’s see YOU with a thesaurus, huh? Grumble grumble . . .”)
Bowser twirled the crown in his claws as he walked. His golden reflection glinted back.
“Huh. S’pose I will.”
Hey Luigi Greenie,
I know I should probably wait for you to send something other than that basic confir okay about the coffee thing, but eh. I wanted to write something. Just a heads up, this letter is gonna be a lot more caz, since you seemed to be fine with that. No royal editors this time, just me and a pen. Pens are the best kinda writing tool, because you get to show off how good you are at writing! Not to brag, but I basically never make mitakes.
Aaand now I’m writing about pens. Which is very boring. I’ve never been a letter kinda guy. Fun fact. But you’re just gonna have to deal with that, okay? Anyway, I’ve been doing whatever. The worst part about being in another kingdom’s care is that it’s boring as underwhere and I can’t do anything about home. You know, I did a lot with the fighting, planning and strategizing and stuff. But I can’t really just keep sending THEM letters all the time. Planning is very time important! It would be too late by the time I got to them! It sucks! Is this how kidnapped people feel? I should write some apology letters.TOThe island people we were originally having a spat wtih. There was a kidnapping era. Wasn’t pretty. Not importnat.
Basically I just wanted to say hi, and I’m wondering if there’s anything going on with y with anyone in general, maybe a party I could crash? Maybe a cool place we could crash? Maybe a door I could crash? That last one I meant literally. If you have a door or something I could smash into pieces that’d be cool. I’m so bored.
Piece out,
- Bowsette
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Principessa,
Hiya! I don't mind being informal, I think that's fine. The whole point of writing letters is that formal manners don't really need to happen, right? Not that I'm gonna be impolite, but. Yeah, being “caz” is nice.
I I suppose I'll be the one to teach you how to be a pen pal, I guess! Huh, first I was your tour guide, and now I'm your pen pal teacher! If you want me to be. I used to love sending letters back at home, and I had a I used to have a few pen pals here, too, though I am a bit rusty. It hasn't been It's been quite a while since anyone really needed to see my writing, so forgive me if I accidentally offend you. That's a downside of letter-writing, you just can't tell if you've upset your pal or if something got misunderstood, and then there's all the time between letters of stewing before those wrongs get righted. if they do at all.
But that just means we'll have to be extra clear about our meanings! I like to use little faces to show what I mean by a sentence, how I felt at the time. See? :) That might be a good idea to use in the future, if you want!
My offer about helping your kingdom still stands, just so you know. I wouldn't know much about strategizing like that, heh. The meetings are never engaging enough for me to get into it, you know? Though I do know a lot about boredom as a result XD! There really isn't much in the way of crashable events right now, as you put it. As for me, well, I suppose I could still count as a tour guide, because I know of a few really nice places in the Mushroom kingdom if you want to see that. I also know some spots in Sarasaland if you don't.
I know you mentioned you didn't like reading history because it bored you. I have a place in mind to challenge that, if you'd like to go with me sometime.
ah and I'm doing okay righnow so do't worry aobut that
Sincerely,
Luigi
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It’d been a while, and things had been happening just as much as they really hadn’t.
Of the things that were happening: the letters came in consistently now. They tapered in at first, and still were a little shaky. But the fully named (badly named in his opinion) Princess “Burnadette Carapace” from the “Inkjet Isles” and Luigi Mario from the (equally badly named in his opinion) “Brooklyn” were becoming officially acquainted.
It was . . . odd.
They didn’t really write about much, so far. They talked about small things, things going on in their lives, stupid little day-to-day events. Only sharing bits about Burnie’s totally real homeland if they were agreed upon by the council. Kamek constantly emphasized the importance of patience here, and as much as he wanted to rush into it just to be contrary, he knew better. Anyone who thought he might not know better was at risk of getting charred, actually. The king always put 110% into anything he did, and for the sake of his reputation he was going to make this scheme work! There was no other choice. So instead, Bowser channeled most of his impatience into being the most patient, normal princess he couldn’t be.
This, of course, resulted in almost complete inaction when there wasn’t a letter to write, and a total slog of false politeness and boring tidbits to wade through when there was. It wasn’t like he cared at all about Luigi’s happy encounter with a Toad (apparently there was at least one citizen in the Mushroom kingdom that liked the green plumber more than the red), or the recent valiant battle between Luigi and a wiggler over the territory of his garden (the wiggler had won this time, taking multiple just-ripe fresh veggies. Luigi was considering moving onto the “next step of pest control”, though it was hard to tell whether that was a joke or not). But he forced a written smile and just managed to survive it without snapping every time. That was a nice thing about letters, Bowser noticed. It didn’t matter how you acted when you got one, because as long as you played nice in the fine print, no one was around to care about your actual feelings!
So far, besides a few snippets of information Bowser hadn’t already managed to threaten various people into discovering for himself, they were coming up pretty dry in terms of usable information. Again, plenty on Luigi, and a lot of that info was being neatly recorded on a roll of parchment somewhere in case blackmail/trickery/groveling was ever needed in the future (as if he would ever need to grovel to that guy). But nothing else, really. He wasn’t even talking much about the red man for some reason, always flitting around the subject when asked, so there wasn’t even a positive there!
Peach was mentioned often, but for the sake of keeping cool, not too often. Princess Burnadette just wanted to learn more about those other princesses after a lifetime completely sealocked, that’s all! This was her first time on the mainland, all she really knew about it was from the messengers and deliverycreatures that clunked onto her island’s harbor, and most of those guys were seadogs anyway! She just was curious of the world! Maybe she was a little lonely from being stuck under heavy protection all the time, and it’d be realllll nice to talk to some other princesses and, like, bond over that or something! Right? Yeah!
How long had this been going on so far, anyway? A month?! Come on, can’t things go any faster??
There was also the topic of solidifying the actual existence of Burnadette. Which mostly boiled down to unending paperwork, forged or otherwise, focused on creating a fictional island among a fictional colony of islands in a fictional land that may or may not be in the World Map that they actually resided in. A point was made during a meeting with the royal planning division (see? He went to those sometimes!) that it would be smarter and more believable if his fake small kingdom was in an undocumented area of the galaxy. At the very least, it would take a bit longer before anyone could realize they were so undocumented that actually they didn’t exist at all.
But otherwise?
Nothing.
Besides all the things that were happening, absolutely nothing was happening.
The memory spell was at a total bust. Mostly because, as far as they were aware, such a spell didn’t actually exist. The books were all blank even after re-checking, and the closest they got to any kind of solution was Junior brightly reminiscing on the time he helped beat up Iggy to shock his brain back to normal, or at least the closest to normal it could be. Kamek shifted away as the tale was told, staring adamantly at the wall. That solution was quickly tabled.
Which left him still completely unaware of how that stupid night went. And while it wasn’t all that upsetting of an issue anymore, it still left him with an entire patch of information, fake or real, that he would only be made aware of by slipping up about it. Which meant Bowser was going to be forced to fail at being a princess a good handful of times just to glean enough to appear normal.
Joy.
And besides that, there was nothing more to do. Bowsette was practically pushed to the sides besides the basic upkeep required to keep her seeming alive and well. In the meantime, Bowser busied himself with the basic upkeep of his kingdom (moreso than usual at least), mostly just to keep himself from cracking under the pressure of boredom and frustration. It was going . . . well, it was going.
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Burnadette,
Hiya Principessa! How have you been at the Castle? I can't imagine how difficult it might've been to adjust to the temperatures over there :O! I mean, coming from an island, you're probably used to a much mor very different climate, and every time I've been there it's always been a very dry heat. One time I even put myself at risk of heat stroke from getting too close to those lava pits! Just remember to stay hydrated, and make sure they're treating you properly, okay? Just because you're a guest doesn't mean you can't request things!
You've been writing quite a bit about wanting to talk to some other princesses while you're “visiting,” I noticed. Well, a friend of mine will be hosting a sports festival in a few weeks, and she just so happens to be a princess herself! We spoke about you the other day (don't worry, I didn't spill too much! She just knows of you as a friend) and she'd be happy to block off some time to talk with you! The location is a bit farther than the last time we met up, but it hopefully shouldn't be too far. with :)
I have some resources in place to make the trip fast, if you say yes. I've placed a separate letter with the information in the envelope. Let me know if you'd be interested in, well, crashing it!
You don't have to join the competition to show up, of course. There's some other events going on that we could do in the meantime, to really enjoy the day. If that's what you want! It just seems like a lot of fun.
Sincerely,
Luigi
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Phase 2 - Schmooze until things started happening?
Donezo.
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“WHY would I need sunblock, Kamek?!”
“Your Crispiness, the testing we did came to the conclusion that-”
“Clusion, snoozin!”
“-While your humanoid skin may withstand the sun's rays, you are still at risk of significant sunburn!”
“We live in a volcano land! I'm not gonna get burned, I'm literally the king!!”
“The sun gives off ultraviolet irradiation!”
“Literally so does lava!”
Kamek scrunched his face up and finally tossed aside the bottle. “Who taught you that?” He grumbled, just loud enough to be hearable.
“You did.” Bowser grumbled right back, smugly pretending that he didn't just make a guess that turned out to be right. His head slumped against his hand as he considered faking another yawn, and his eyes flicked back to the time.
They were in some room somewhere in the castle, it didn't really matter which room, just that he was antsy to be out of it. At least it was decked out in the superior koopa sort of decor. None of that swirly fuzzy Mushroom kingdom nonsense.
The clock, for example, had fancy hands shaped like spikes, winding patterns leading to precise sharp points. Its backing was off-white, with roman numerals signifying its age. There was even a little hole with a gold border right at the center, so one could see the gears inside, which was always something to appreciate. A polished dark red frame, elegantly shaped with gold detailing, and a dusty gold pendulum that swung hypnotically. Just a sliver of what made home feel like home.
That's definitely why he kept looking at it.
Lounging on some cushy chair, Bowser spun the stolen crown around a finger, half-observing as his advisor fretted about and packed for him. The spats between them were his only commentary. He just couldn't keep any focus.
The second hand moved at a strict pace. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-
Peeling his eyes away, he caught sight of the item next on the list and balked.
“Oh, pul-lease! You are not putting that in there!”
Kamek turned to glower at him, stuffing what might have been The Ugliest looking water bottle Bowser had ever seen into his travel pouch. “I can tolerate your inevitable sun poisoning but I will NOT tolerate your Droughtesty being dehydrated at a sports festival!
“I'll be fine! I'm not even participating!”
“This is not the time for petty refusal! Your limits have been entirely untested in regards to other countries! You will be in a completely different body in a completely different climate with plenty of people watching and- WHAT?”
Just as the clock began to clang the hour, a goomba cautiously waddled in. Bowser was on his feet faster than he could process.
“My Lord, royal advisor,” it bowed (or, well, nodded). “Th-the Green Mario is at our doorstep claiming that he . . . w-was . . .”
He wondered why the goomba started shaking then, only to see a puff of smoke billow into the air and realize he was scowling, stomach churning with a fiery frustration. The little voice that had been course-correcting any thoughts about Luigi in his head was currently bitching about respect and honorifics for a guy he ultimately did not care about.
He frowned at that. That wasn't natural. Maybe he should have the royal doctor check him out for stowaways. The last time he had a naggling feeling like this, it turned out there was a whole colony of losers not paying rent in there.
With a cough from Kamek (who was looking more confused and annoyed than anything), Bowser huffed, pushing the rest of the smoke out of his system, and de-wrinkled his glare. If there was still a bite in his tone, that was nobody's business.
“His name’s Luigi, pipsqueak. Nothin’ else. Learn it quick, ‘cuz it’s a part of my plan that he becomes a dear acquaintance, and I won’t have that messed up by some twisted tongue. Kamek, crown me. It’s time.” He barked the last sentence, straightening up to attempt some level of hierarchy.
“Of course, my Queen.” Kamek deadpanned. Bowser pulled a face.
“Eugh. Don’t like that. Don’t say that again.”
“Of course, your Dryness.” Kamek deadpanned harder, like he was rolling his voice instead of his eyes.
The royal king barely fought off the urge to stick out his tongue.
“Bah!” waving them off, he speedwalked through the door, slapping on the crown and only stumbling a little when the transformation hit mid-stride. Bleh. She’d never get used to this. The only good thing about being in this human-esque form was the fact that her legs were longer, enough that it made up for her shorter height. It didn’t slow her down in the end, which is just how she liked it.
Speedwalking became jogging, jogging became running, until all the castleworkers knew was that there was a very large horned woman absolutely booking it through the halls and knocking over anyone who happened to be in her way. There was no reason for her to be so quick to the door. Nor for the way her cheeks turned upwards well before she needed a fake smile. That was odd too. She'd have Kamek make that doctor's appointment soon.
(The abandoned goomba turned and raised an eyebrow at the magikoopa in question, jerking its head/body at the long-empty door their ruler had all but sprinted through. Kamek simply shrugged.
“His Dastardlyness is an enigma. That's how I get through it.” He replied to the silent question.)
Finally, she turned a corner to see her target standing nervously, because of course he would figure out how to just exist nervously. His eyes darted wildly, but when they finally landed on her they immediately crinkled into a smile.
Heyo Luigi!” Bowsette shouted, maybe a bit too loudly, but that was okay. Slowing down, she went to keep talking but was rudely interrupted by her body’s vested interest in breathing. That was not a short distance to run.
Luigi, in all his manners, didn't seem deterred in the slightest as his friend doubled over and wheezed. “Bow- ah, Principessa! Y-you’re dressed well!”
She paused the panting to look up. “I am?”
Moving her gaze from the ground to her body, she realized that the compliment was accurate. The crown had a forethought fore-er than her, turning her normally too-puffy too-impractical dress into a short black tennis piece. Though her choker remained, her cuffs had become sweatbands. And they didn't even have to threaten it this time! “I am!” A sudden thought made her gasp a little, her hands flying up to her head. Were they gone?!
. . . No. The horns remained, though one had a scrunchie on it. A giggle from Luigi meant her disappointment had been visible, though he looked a bit lost. Which was good! She quickly took on a casual pose, attempting to wrap the scrunchie into her hair. “Of course I'm dressed well."
Luigi just giggled louder. “Sei carina,” he muttered under his breath, and Bowsette may not have understood what that string of syllables meant, but even h-she could tell that it meant something. Her cheeks flushed, embarrassed.
She fumbled, still trying to tie her hair. “You're also dressed, uh, appropriately!” and he was. Green Bean(try again) Green Beanigi was in a sporty green polo and blue athletic shorts, and if it wouldn't have made her a complete and utter hypocrite, Bowsette would bring up the fact that he seemingly wore the same two colors 24/7. The dumb hat was replaced with a visor, and he had armbands of his own, green and white ones.
Burnadette was suddenly struck with the urge to clink armbands together. But that was weird and uncool. So she didn't. Was anyone else weirdly on edge right now?
“I am,” Luigi responded, and for a second the princey-paysa thought she had asked that question out loud before she remembered what was going on. Not much time had passed. Get it together, girl. (I'm girl now??)
Bowsette physically shook her head to prevent another thought spiral, and brought her medically concerning excitement back full-force. “Well. Now that we both are aware of our appropriate outfits . . . You ready to blow this snow cone stand?”
Luigi tapped a finger to his cheek with a fake little hum, like he was actually considering it. “Hmm, I guess. It wouldn't make sense for snow cones to survive in this climate, anyway. They'd all melt.” Then he smiled up at her. “I think a melted snow cone stand deserves to be blown up. Don't you?”
It was Bowsette's turn to laugh. “What does that even mean?! You're in a mood!”
“So are you!”
“I'm just excited, I-” Her hands had become stuck to her head via scrunchie, but she couldn't let him know that. She chewed on her lip for a moment, looking down and away. “ . . . I've never done anything like this before.”
The lie came out smoothly, though she supposed it was technically true. Bowser had never gone out for a fun day with a friend before. So maybe it counted.
Luigi moved from his spot being consumed by the wall to stand right by her, looking up with a grin. “I promise it'll be fun.”
And with a look like that, confidence that strong. Bowser knew for sure it was going to be a snow-cone-stand-grade blast.
“MADAM!”
The two jumped away just as the magikoopa swerved in on his broom. She opened her mouth to give a piece of her mind, but was immediately stopped with a fierce look. Right. Burnadette barely knew this guy. She placed her piece of mind back in her brain where it belonged, and rose up to be all proper.
“Y-yes, Koopa kingdom's royal advisor Kamek?”
Kamek looked at her.
(What? That was smooth!)
Finally he sighed and held up her forgotten travel pouch. “Your bag, Ms. Inkjet Isles’ princess Burnadette. You forgot it in your haste.”
“Gimme that-” she just barely managed to untangle a hand in time to yank the satchel over and onto her shoulder. Then she put the haughty tone back on. “I- ah, thank you. You are excused.”
Kamek looked at her for a moment, before shooting a bit of magic right at her head. Burnadette yelped, and suddenly found her other hand was no longer tangled in the scrunchie. She patted the ponytail for a moment, before growling.
Completely unfazed, he nodded to her friend. “Have a good day, Mr. Luigi. I wish you both a pleasant time.”
Bowsette did not hiss as the elder retreated. Luigi chuckling at her not-hissing almost made her spit at him too, but she caught herself in time. It was fine. She was fine. Luigi wasn't laughing at her, they were just both in moods.
She took a breath to get the feelings out, then turned to him. “Ready?”
“Si.”
“See what?”
He laughed. “Let's go.”
And so they went.
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The trip was ultimately quiet, and to Greenie’s word, it wasn't long. The human’s little green car was fast enough that it felt like no time at all before the skyline began to tower. The only annoying thing was just how adamant the guy was about abiding the law. If Bowsette focused on it she would get upset, so she spent most of the trip zoning out.
Honestly it really wasn't that bad. It was nice to just sit back with another presence and do nothing together. The last time she had just hung out with a friend was . . . Woof. It had to have been with Chippy, and even then they were more occasional acquaintances than anything. Before that it would've been a meeting or something with a few other leaders, the Boo Woods and Bobomb Factory. But that was when she was a much younger Koopa, back before things started getting serious. Nowadays most events Bowser attended were usually just spent in a loud corner with his family. Anyone who stumbled over usually weren't there to be friendly.
Not that that was bad, necessarily. He loved his kids, and Kamek . . . Well, they certainly had a close relationship together (he raised him from an egg, of course he loved him too). But it wasn't the same as spending time with someone a little closer to his own age.
Bowsette blinked as the car rolled to a stop. Must've been dozing off in between all her musings. “Are we here?”
Luigi smiled and shook his head. “This is as far as we can go on land. Now it's just a plane ride ride over.” then he stopped, and his cheek went a shade lighter. “Oh, scusi, I really should've asked if you were okay with heights first!”
She waved him off, lying through her teeth. “My first time in the air was being transported to the Koopa Kingdom. I thought it was really fun, to be honest.” Thinking flying was fun was not a part of the lie, of course. Flying was sick.
“Oh, good! I can't believe I didn't ask . . .”
She shrugged. “No harm done, so don't worry about it.”
A short walk and some basic vetting and customs later, they were on the edge of a cliff next to a row of planes. Luigi pointed. “This will be our guide, Roksanne. She'll make sure we get there safe.” Bowsette followed his finger to a roketon already settled in a red plane that, while still squat, loomed over the smaller blue models. It was certainly accommodating. Roksanne waved a little yellow hand.
He leaned in, going up on his tip-toes to fake a whisper. “Most other tourists have to use hot air balloons, but I got them to give us a faster ride.”
Bowsette frowned a little, but nodded. (Aren't those guys from Sarasaland? Is that where we're going? Why's Peaches doing an event there? Maybe I should be asking more questions), she thought as they piled into the plane. But that was neither here nor there, and eventually they were lifted off.
“So, ah, how’ve you been?” Luigi asked idly, voice easily able to carry through the air and the puttering of the engine. “I can't believe I haven't asked that yet.”
Bowsette shrugged. “I’ve been whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“Yeah. That’s my answer for you. Not much has happened yet so I can’t really say I’ve been good, but creatures don’t tend to want an answer like that. So that’s my compromise.”
“I like that. I think I’ve been whatever too.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Then why’re you in a mood?”
“I'm just happy we're doing this! You think I wouldn't be happy to spend time together?”
“Well, kinda, yeah.” Luigi looked at her head on, and she scrambled. “Shit. That was supposed to be an inside thought.” thankfully she hadn't said the second half of that thought out loud, that she still wasn't entirely sure he hadn't been sent to spy on her and was just doing this out of obligation.
He took her hand in his and spoke with a sincerity that she did not deserve. “Burnadette. I wouldn't ask you to come with me if I didn't want to be around you. Okay? You're a very lovely woman who has gone through a lot, and I've been thoroughly enjoying being your penpal. I don't know why you think people wouldn't want to be your friend, but that's not how it's gonna go with me, okay? And-”
“Yeah yeah, I got it, I got it!” Bowsette interrupted in a kind of shouty way. Her face felt like lava, and that in itself was super embarrassing, which made her heat up more in a horrible blushing cycle. The urge to fling herself out the plane right then was extremely tempting, but that would count as running away. Koopas didn't run away.
Was she always this easily flustered? No, no, couldn't be. She was smarter than that. It must be the crown. Yeah. The crown made her into a chick, so she was feeling chick emotions. Such as being embarrassed over getting complimented. Yeah.
The conversation fell then, with only the engine hum breaking the tension. Bowsette tried to breathe in the salted air, but after being so thoroughly embarrassed, it was like her skin didn't fit on quite right anymore. In a metaphorical way. She was still disguised, but it was like there was a spotlight on her, noticing all the little details that weren't the cool, confident, best parts of her. She couldn't stop picking at her skirt with her free hand, to get the weirdness out.
Oh. They were still holding hands. She let go right when she noticed.
Bowsette popped up, definitely not desperate to stop being the center of attention. “Hey Luigi, uh, why's it called Brooklyn and not Brook Land?”
Luigi had apparently not been looking at her deepest fears like her brain was assuming. Instead, he'd been watching the horizon, and turned back over. “Hmm?”
“I mean, I get Brook Land. It’s a land with a brook. Just like how the Koopa Kingdom is a kingdom with koopas in it. That makes sense. My kingdom? They have bloopers right under the waterline, which give off jets of ink when they're scared. But your letters always add in a y that has no business being there, and kick out the d, and make it Brooklyn. What’s up with that?”
Luigi thought for a moment, eyes squinting in concentration. “Hmm . . . if I remember correctly, it was named after a place with a brook, and they wanted to make the new place special-sounding. I don’t really remember that well, though. I haven’t been there in a while.”
“Really?” She asked, then immediately regretted it when his face fell. “Uh- I- I mean-”
“I know what you mean. It’s.” He sighed. “It’s pretty far away. Ever since I got here I haven't been able to go back. There's no way to get back, at least not right now. We've looked.”
Oh. Bowser hadn't known that. That was new.
He'd just thought the bros had settled down one day from another part of the World Map for the sake of being protectors and of being a pain in his tail. That they had settled down because they wanted to be here. Not because they didn't have another choice. Almost all of his knowledge on them were on how to defeat or push through them for Peach. And, well, Luigi's gardening drama these days. He hadn't known about origins. It hadn't ever mattered before.
“That really sucks, man.” Bowsette said earnestly.
Gree(nope)Luigi gave a little half-smile. “Ah, you would know, wouldn't you?” and, oh yeah, the cover story Bowser made up to be evil would know, wouldn't she?
She felt a little sick, stomach churning as if she had eaten a saccharine dessert. (Nice going dude,) Her brain rattled. (Try to fix the mood and only make it worse, huh? What a sad conversation.)
No, wait. You could only lose a conversation if you let it end badly. She still had this. Third time's the charm, right? Just bullshit a little!
“I like rocks.” Burnadette said suddenly, then hesitated to make sure this was actually the direction she was taking their convo. “Uh, I mean. Where I’m from, my islands. They had special rocks there. Something about the waves bringing really rad materials inward. We had- uh, uh- we had some cave systems, like in the island. They were. Uhm. they were really pretty.”
Just as she gave up, accepting the convo was a bust, Luigi tilted his head. “Were they the sparkly kind of rocks, or the layered kind?”
“Oh, the layered kind. I had to learn about them a bunch as a kid. Sedi-centery, or something.”
“Sedimentary.”
“Oh, shove it.” She gave a light glare, and her chest felt a little light when he laughed. Success!
“They were a source of great pride where I was. We don’t have trees the way you guys do, so those rocks were proof of a long-standing island built for generations.” Bowsette let her face go a little wistful at the end for a finishing touch, then grinned. “Now you.”
Luigi blinked. “Now me?”
“Yeah! You’re the one who invited me, but you’ve been pretty quiet. What's something you like?”
He shuffled a little. “You already know a lot of what I like. Gardening and cooking.”
“Yeah, but I want to know more than the surface level. I-” and she silently applauded her use of payback by staring down right back at him. “I want to be friends. And I really liked telling stories like the last time we hung out. But I get it if I'm being pushy-”
He coughed, cheeks a little pink, and her smile widened. “No, I-uhm. My favorite color is yellow.”
That made Bowsette pause. “Yellow? Really?” she gave him a look over and (while ignoring the hypocrisy) waved at his color scheme.
“I know it doesn't seem it, haha. My favorite color used to be green, and it's not like I dislike it now. This green, it's kind of my whole identity now, anyway. How would the toads respond if the green Mario was yellow one day?” He laughed, but Bowsette didn't find it funny. “Green looks the best on me, anyway.”
“. . . But . . ?”
“You know the guy that was nice to me during my first Peach party? I think I mentioned him the last time we spent time together.”
The one that didn't ”work out,” whatever that meant. “Yeah.”
“While we were still talking, or penpalling together or whatever . . . He sent me a yellow rose. Magicked to never die. I'm still not sure how all that works.” Luigi rubbed the back of his neck, his smile wavering a little.
“He was one of the first people who was nice to me specifically. And it was right when I needed it most, too, since I had just found out we didn't have a way to get back home. It made me feel like I had a purpose here, even if it was just to keep your roommate from destroying the world.”
The sick feeling in Bowsette's stomach grew a little stronger, a cloying churning. “Right, yeah . . . He seems like a good guy.”
“Seemed.” Luigi said, with a tone that begged to not be pressed.
Instead of pressing, she awkwardly nudged his arm. “I'd tell you my favorite color is black, but it's not for any particular reason. I just think it's the best.” and just like that, the cloudy expression that had been crawling over Greenie's- over Luigi's face melted away.
He laughed a little. “That's fine too. What's your runner-up color, then?”
“. . . I think yellow, too. For your story. But also, specifically gold, because it's shiny.”
“But you wear so much silver!”
“It's steel, and I just wear it cuz it's a lot harder to melt steel than gold . . .”
For the rest of the trip (which at that point wasn't long at all anymore), the conversation started and ended lightly. Just some actual checking in, nothing any deeper than the letters they sent each other. It was nice, and before either of them knew it, the plane landed, Roksanne was waving them away, and they were walking towards a foreign town in a foreign country that no version of Bowser had ever really explored. She took in the sights greedily.
She didn't quite remember what section of Sarasaland they actually were in, but it was almost surprising how unlike a desert it was. Instead of dunes or sandstone riddling the place, the whole terrain was just one big flat rock that stretched on seemingly forever. She could see miles away, faint forests and cities just barely obscuring the horizon.
And the town they were entering was much the same way. Short geometrical buildings that were overwhelmingly beige and gray from the rocks built into the walls. The only refrain from the sun were from a few canopies that stretched over the pathways. Large garlands of flags joined them. Creatures of all shapes and sizes walked the streets, and shouts and laughter rang into the air. It was very . . . festive.
The breeze billowed past as they walked, pushing Bowsette’s skirt around. She discreetly checked under just to make sure the crown had given her privacy shorts (it had).
Luigi was quiet as they walked through the town, opting to join her in enjoying the view with big eyes and a bigger smile. They passed a restaurant that would've looked like any other house if not for the sign and the smell wafting out, and Green’s blue eyes lit up bright as stars.
She realized she'd been staring when they locked eyes. Looking away quickly, she brushed off her idiocy with a fake-cough. “We can go there later, when we're not being expected.” She said, like it didn't mean anything so don't look that closely. If Luigi made an expression at that, she didn't see it, and she adamantly did not see any more of his expressions for the rest of the walk.
At last, they reached the sports center. Courts filled with sand and grass (magicked to stay alive but still that sickly dehydrated color) dotted the land. Vendors shouted out delicacies and children played with safety-proofed balls in their own playground area. Though there wasn't a stadium per say, people filed in appropriately by height, and it seemed to be working quite well.
Luigi gave a little gasp suddenly, and ran ahead to meet the Princess.
Who was yellow.
And Bowsette stopped in her tracks.
Because.
Th.
That wasn’t Peaches.
That was one of the other ones. Tiger Lily or something.
. . .
Bowser may be stupid.
Bowser might be really stupid.
As his friend began to talk to the imposter, he almost felt dizzy from the shock, because. Because Bowser just might be really really stupid.
Did I seriously get so pinholed into my plot that I forgot Sarasaland had a princess?!?
(Yup.)
The two finally noticed Bowsette's stopped tracks, and retraced their steps to her. The princess more skipped, and stuck out a hand.
“Hiya! I’m Princess Daisy, ruler of Sarasaland!”
She looked at that dainty gloved hand with eyes that were starting to dry out from being held open so long, and tried to gulp her heart back into her chest. With a deep shakey breath, Bowsette grabbed the hand for a firm shake and tried to stop reeling. “I, I’m . . . I’m Burnadette. Hi.” she almost winced from how unsure she sounded. So uncool
Daisy grinned and let go to punch her arm, too light to hurt but too hard to be buddy-buddy. “From Inkwell island or something? Don’t worry, I’ve heard alllll about you!”
“Daisy!” shouted Luigi from somewhere beside her. It was nice to know he heard it too, but that reassurance was dulled by the tsunami of cold anxiety that hit the koopa's brain, cause, what did THAT mean?!
Burnie hid her nervousness with a scoff. “You obviously didn’t hear enough, sister! I’m from the Inkjet Isles, thank you very much!”
“Heh, yeah I know. I’m just messing with ya! Though I can’t remember for the life of me where it’s actually located! Wanna show me on a map later?”
she fought not to grit her teeth. “I-I’m trying to be a little discreet about my whole . . . situation.”
“Awh, but that doesn’t mean I can’t know where you live, can I?” she leaned in, tilted her head, and gave a smile with a bit too much teeth. “I mean, it can't be that discreet if you just gave me the place's name, right? I was only guessing!”
And the way she looked at Bowser filled her body with ice and her brain with alarm bells. She knew very well from all her time on and off this planet that that was the kind of look of someone who could think critically, and with full offense, her evil plan kind of hinged on nobody being capable of doing that. Her mind raced to suddenly combat the difficulty spike, suddenly needing to plan three times as hard. Every thought was tinged with(what did she know? What did she know? What d)
It was then that Luigi appeared in Bowsette's vision with a very forced smile. “Principessa Burnadette, would you just give me a moment with la mia amica fastidiosa?” his voice was an octave higher than usual.
“I don’t know what you just said, Greenie, but sure.” She mumbled, trying to fight through the freeze response. She wasn't feeling too good anymore.
Princess Fireflower’s eyes flared at the same time that Bowsette's inner weirdo voice spoke up. “His name’s-” (His name's-)
Luigi grabbed her dainty gloved arm. “Daisy. Please.”
Daisy stopped, huffed, then let herself get tugged away. As they left to probably bicker (as the tone that echoed from their “moment” was one of not anger, but disappointment), Bowser took a moment herself to take a deep breath and try to stop sweating so hard. (You're fine. You're fine. Get back in the zone).
Bowsette could work with this. Maybe.
Daisy was kind of an enigma to the Darklands. She was more forgettable than the Greenster- than Loo-ee-gee, and that was saying something. But it was less forgetting out of purposeful disrespect and more from the fact that Bowser just didn’t interact with her. One attempted kidnapping early on (while bitter and pissy from not getting Peach) ended up so unsuccessful that he and his troops had flown home fast, tails between the legs of those who had them. Bowser couldn’t stop retching molten glass for a week afterwards, from how much sand had been kicked into his face.
(The nervousness of his tactical team [Kamek, mostly] that the Mushroom kingdom would “take inspiration” from Sunshine and her brigade was so intense that the brothers’ being made official protectors rather than just happenstance heroes was almost a relief. Almost. Nowadays Bowser just threw up lava after being dunked in it.)
He could’ve taken that desert defeat as a challenge, if it had actually mattered. But it was honestly more of a rebound kidnapping than anything serious. The failure lead to a nice destructive tantrum in his castle to de-bruise his ego before he was back after Peach and her extremely painless kidnapping sequences. And Sarasaland had faded away in his mind besides the occasional plea from Bowser’s people to pursue a trade deal that never went anywhere.
He still heard Princessarasa. Not “heard of her,” he heard her. Any time there was a sports event that he could shoulder his way into, she would be running around almost nonstop. Bright, chipper, and louder than anything. If he hadn’t literally just been reminded of her name, he probably would’ve messed up and blurted out his personalized version, that being “Princess Annoying.”
Was that rude? Well, duh. But was it earned? As far as she was concerned, yes.
With a final deep breath, Bowsette finally fell as calm as she could manage. She thought through everything and if nothing else, she could handle it. She was chill now. Severely on edge and close to a nervous break, but chill.
Just in time, too. Bickering apparently over, the two friends finally strolled back into speaking distance. Daisy smiled, but there was a lot more steel in her eyes than before.
“Sorry for my behavior.” She said simply. It might've been as regal as she was capable of. Maybe they were both close to a break.
“No probs.” Bowsette replied all cool like it hadn't even bothered her a little bit.
“No, I mean it. I shouldn't be asking such questions, even if they are perfectly understandable questions to ask.” Luigi coughed and shuffled, and Daisy suddenly yanked her arm aside. The smile became even more plasticine.
“I know you two are probably here to just watch the event, but I thought, as a proper apology and a way to really know each other, we could maybe take a walk around the kingdom? There's a nice pathway to follow nearby, and a lot of citizens use it to stretch their legs after standing so long.”
Bowsette shrugged. In her mind, a disturbingly Kamek-sounding voice chided about your different body in a different climate, but she ignored it. There was no need for a doctor this time. That was a voice that she'd been well acquainted with for most of her life, and had ignored it for just as long.
“Sure, why not?” she said with a smirk.
The real princess nodded. “Perf! I'll go do a last check in to make sure my heads have everything in control.” and she spun on her tennis shoe and bounced away.
Bowsette took another deep breath. Despite the heat, she was shaking a little. Chick emotions again, probably. Normally Bowser could keep cool no matter what.
“Heads?” she muttered.
“The lords. She has four.” Luigi piped up, just enough for Burnadette to remember he was there. She spun on him.
“What did you tell her?!”
The human raised up his hands in defense. “I just told her your story! That you're a princess from the isles seeking refuge at the-the kingdom!”
“Well she seemed real assuming!”
“I don't know . . .” He sighed. “Daisy has a bit of history with the . . . The Kingdom, and she's friends with someone who has struggled often with . . . With your host.”
Greenie (Lu(shut the fuck up) looked around anxiously as he almost whispered the pseudonyms. And even though logically she knew that there was literally no reason why he would since it technically wasn't hers at the moment, it still hurt a bit to know he was embarrassed of even mentioning her kingdom like that.
“She thinks you were a spy, and qualunque cosa faccio I cannot get through to her. I thought I had gotten it dealt with when I set this up, but obviously not. I told her to knock it off. Mi scuso molto.” he finished.
Bowsette thought for a moment, trying to think critically herself. While it was nice to know her friend trusted her enough to spill secrets now, everything he just described was literally exactly what was happening to the T.
Which. Shit.
There was no way she could let the scheme die this early and this pitifully. Not when they still had so much info to learn and so many bridges to build. The goal was still Peaches, and this laughable attempt at a replica would not do! Koopas never underdeliver!!
That did mean she would have to pull off the bluff of a lifetime. Heh, that'd be fine. She was the Koopa King. She could do it.
“M’kay.” Bowsette said with a nod. She went to grab a little fan she had seen Kamek pack her, but only then realized her pouch was missing. Must've left it in the plane, or the car. That would probably be fine.
They both watched the festival from a distance. Grunts and cheers represented every battle that raged on. Sports balls thudded and rackets cracked, each sound echoing in such an open terrain.
She had this.
.
.
.
There was a slight issue in her attempts to have this.
Burnadette was used to humid heat. This was a fact. Probably. She had totally lived her entire life on a little island (in space) with presumably no AC, and allegedly found no issue with the setting. Maybe there were cosmic winds, maybe the waters were stagnant and steaming every hypothetical morning. Burnadette was apparently fine with it.
Bowser, too, was used to humid heat. To an extent. If the castle got too dry, it made his shell and horns turn dull and flaky. Not looking his best always messed up his mood, not to mention the moods of his kids (who also liked looking their best), and all in all it ruined literally everyone’s day. No, despite how correct Luinbean was about the Koopa kingdom’s bone-dry weather, Bowser liked humidity. At the very least, he liked lava-heated baths that turned the air steamy like a sauna. They were so refreshing.
Bowsette, however, was not used to anything. And she was NOT feeling refreshed.
The pathway was more of a hike up a very rocky hill than any kind of road to “stretch legs” on. Daisy had picked it for a “more scenic view,” and Bowsette in all her stubbornness had refused to back down. And it was killing her.
She had no idea how long they'd been walking, but it was far, far too long. Her tiny human heart felt like it was trying to break out of the prison that was her ribcage as she dragged herself along. One would think that all of Sarasaland would be the dry, comfortable heat of the desert. He thought that, at least. But no, apparently that kind of weather only graced itself in the Birabuto and Chai kingdoms. The Easton kingdom was a humid hunk of rock with no shade in sight.
And they chose to do sports here. Grambi.
Bowsette took a moment to especially glare at the backs of her compatriots, who were chattering on as if this was easy. Neither had even broken a sweat, which, she supposed that made sense for the Sarasaland native. But she would've appreciated Luigi being miserable too, so that it wasn't just her looking weak! What happened to treating your guests right?!
Daisy muttered something, and Luigi giggled. Ugliness pooled in Bowsette's stomach. Which was stupid. Maybe Luigi just laughed at everyone's jokes. That was fine. She was fine with that.
Even just being in her dress felt too hot. Since she was a Koopa at heart (and usually body), she wasn't used to wearing clothes. But at the same time, her visible skin felt dry and hot from being in the blazing sun, and the last thing she wanted was more of that. And then there was the wet.
That was the one thing that had really been tearing at her mental state, just how wet she was. Bowsette was wet. Don’t take that the wrong way, she was objectively grossly wet. Her face was wet, her arms were wet, her legs were wet. The fabric of her white collar had gone an unsightly gray from where it stuck to her chest. She was wet. And she hated it.
Koopas didn’t really get wet. At least, not easily, and never for long. Their bodies just changed to match with the weather. They didn’t drip. That was unbecoming.
The feeling of sweat drying off of her skin made it itch and ache, and oh how she wished to have her scales back. Maybe these were tears. Maybe her body was crying from just how fuckin sucky it was to try to hike in this weather. Maybe if she somehow survived this, she could go somewhere cool and her body would stop crying. Maybe if she had to stay out here much longer her face would start crying too.
Daisy took a moment to look back at Burnadette’s sopping pitiful form, and giggled. It immediately made everything worse.
“I thought you’d be used to this kind of heat, being on an island and all!”
The horned woman rolled her eyes and scoffed, though it came out more like a gasp. “It’s not that big of a place, and I haven’t had the time to be active recently. You know, with being stuck away from my home and all.” her annoyance was only subsided by the pure joy of spotting the town in the distance. The sooner this hike was over the sooner she could sit down somewhere cool and be quiet with Luigi again.
Daisy tapped her chin, kind of like how Luigi did sometimes. It wasn't nearly as endearing on her. “Hmm. So why is it that a dinky island like yours would even have a princess in the first place? I mean, if it’s so small, what’s even the point?”
Bowsette fought the urge to bare her teeth. “Call us old-fashioned, but even reasonably-sized islands like mine need leaders. And I just so happen to be the one with the crown.”
Princess Annoying did not fight her own urge, smiling hard enough to warrant being punched in the jaw. “Didja make it yourself?” she asked extra-syrupy.
“I- no! It was . . . it was given to me. I earned it" All truths, through technicality. "And I don't like that tone."
“You don’t have to.”
Luigi groaned then, looking back with a stormy expression. “Daisy. Stop.”
Burnadette only noticed then that they had stopped walking, and barely fought back a whine. They'd been trudging for so long that her vision moved for her, making the town seem so much closer. She just wanted to go home.
Daisy turned her teeth to Luigi “What? I'm just talking! Is it that bad that I want to know more about your new friend? Princesses don't grow from trees!”
“You know what you're doing.”
“I'm not doing anything.” she said cooly, and that seemingly set both of them off.
Bowsette was too hot for this. She was fed up, and wet, and in a mood that felt all-consuming, and the sight of the town (which for all she knew could just be a mirage) made her desperate for freedom, and all she wanted was a drink. She stared at the two humans as they quarreled and her thoughts drifted to just how amazing a glass of mango juice would be right now.
Mango juice . . . yellow . . . yellow rose . . . Hmm. She looked at the Sarasaland princess. Yellow dress . . . “seemed” like a good guy . . it didn’t go anywhere, though. . . Is Daisy . . ? Was it Daisy . . ?
Not like that'd be a bad thing. Nothing wrong with being your true self. But it would explain a few things if they were, well, past penpals. Burnie had just assumed that they didn't talk anymore. That wasn't an off thing to assume. Right? Certainly fought like they probably shouldn't be talking anymore. But it was just. . . just an interesting turn of events that she didn't have any strong opinions towards. If it was even true. Which it might not be!
Bowsette shifted from one leg to another, willpower slowly being crushed as she was forced to wait. Ugh, it didn't look like either of them were going to stop. And regardless of her brain and its conspiracy theories, she actually really did want a drink. So she plastered on a miserable expression (that honestly had probably already been on her face), focused her bluffing abilities, and barged back into the conversation.
“Look, Princess, I know you don't trust me. I wouldn't either. But-”
“That's all you have to say. Thank you!” was the sharp reply.
“Daisy, stop it!” Luigi snapped, at a level harsh enough that Sarasagirl gaped at him.
Bowsette took her chance. “I know you don't trust me, but I really did want to meet you. I wanted to be friends. I really haven't gotten to meet too many people here, and you know. At home we were isolated, and then we were attacked. And I know you want to keep Gr-Luigi safe, but I promise I'm not going to be trouble. And I just thought . . .” And she stopped then, because Daisy was looking at her with cold eyes. The kind that said I don't believe you.
“Why'dja stop? If you need tips, you could be laying it on thicker.”
Luigi buried his face in his hands. “Oh my god-”
“Excuse me," said a new voice behind them all.
Bowsette turned to bark at whoever the new loser was-
And then found herself on the ground, a girly shriek ripped from her throat at the sight of the giant talking tarantula.
It jumped back, then rolled all of its eyes. “Tourists,” it muttered, before continuing down the path. It passed by Luigi and Daisy, latter of whom was doubled over in hysterics. Laughing at him.
Stupid fucking chick emotions. Never would a king be scared by a fucking kumo.
Bowsette gaped for a moment, blood rushing as the panic ebbed. Her face burned hotter than anything a sun could radiate. And then he began to cough, harder and harder as his guts began to flare with a burning anger so hot it felt like his stomach was just as sunburnt as his skin.
When he looked up, Luigi was watching him with a concerned, almost helpless expression. It didn't mean anything.
Bowser broke.
He staggered to his feet, pushing out his air until the cough subsided. A trickle of smoke escaped his lips as he shouted.
“That’s IT!!!”
Daisy straightened up herself, a smug little smile still stuck on her face that Bowser so deeply wanted to claw off. Instead he pointed a human finger at her chest.
“I am SICK of your SHIT! All you have done is be awful just because you think it doesn't matter! Well, then fine! You don't like me, I don't like you!”
“Wow, that's the first honest thing you've said today!” And Bowser reeled back, barely fighting the crackling urge to cough again.
He drew himself up to his full human height, puffing out his chest. “Princess Daisy-”
“What?!”
“-I challenge you to a duel!”
And Bowser pointed to a tennis court in the distance. One of the ones with sand on the ground.
Greenie went slack-jawed, but Daisy's face clouded for just a moment. Then, she nodded.
“Fine.”
“FINE!”
And they stomped to the court together, which luckily wasn't actually a mirage. The rest of the hike barely took a moment when fueled with pure competitive hatred, but he didn't have the right energy to feel relieved about it anymore.
Luigi went with Daisy, not with Bowset, speaking a lot of that made up language he liked to use sometimes. Daisy kept on responding like she knew what the words meant, which was another point in favor of that stupid theory. And he didn't even care, he really didn't, because it didn't matter. He snatched a tennis racket and began to set up.
He noticed his transformed body wasn’t even crying anymore, skin finally dry. That meant it was as strong as he was. He stood up straight, fighting the way his vision swayed in the process. There was no reason for the way his stomach lurched and burned, so he pretended it wasn't happening. The observers didn't even blink at the impromptu session; it was against the princess after all, and any free game was good entertainment.
He would not lose. He was a Koopa.
The umpire blew a whistle, and Daisy served. He clenched his racket and smiled.
Bowser had this in the bag.
.
.
.
Bowsette woke up to rain.
The onsite medical tokotoko would soon report that Princess Burnadette lasted a fierce seven minutes locked in battle before heatstroke finally did her in. Lord Biokinton had used his cloud to cool her down until she regained consciousness.
She didn’t say a single word.
They put her under a little canopy pointed in the direction of the events, and she didn't say anything. Every time she started thinking about it, and she felt the kindling in her body crackle, she took another sip of water; someone had given a cup to her, maybe it was Luigi. Either way, it kept her calm and rational. Or at least as rational as she could manage for the moment. And she didn't say anything about it.
The water made her start sweating again. She didn't say anything about it.
The day passed on. She didn't say anything about it.
Luigi came over and told her they could leave now. She didn't say anything.
Daisy walked up as they stood to leave.
Bowsette had no idea what anyone was thinking. She was too tired to think. Tracking faces and tone and body expressions and manners, putting on facades full of details that had to be right, it was all so hard. She was an awful spy. This plot was a joke.
Daisy opened her mouth. “I-”
She said something.
“You work my energy away in a land I’m not used to on purpose, insult me and test me endlessly on the war I’m suffering through, and then when I’m exhausted, steamroll me in front of a crowd. I’ve been utterly humiliated.”
The princess grimaced. “Now look here, I just-”
“You’re smart.”
Whatever words Daisy was going to say were gone. She almost looked shocked (which, if Bowsette wasn't tracking faces anymore, meant she was probably really shocked). The Koopa princess continued. “That was very smart of you. If my enemies showed half that smartness, they’d get a lot longer in life before I crushed them.”
Luigi patted her arm lightly. “I-eh, I think she’s still a little under the weather.” His cold fingers left little prints in her skin that took a moment to disappear. Was that sunburning? She ignored it.
Burnadette looked at the other girl straight on. “I won’t underestimate you again, Princess Daisy. Believe me, this was just a fluke. Next time the fight’ll be a lot more interesting.”
They looked at each other for a good moment. Then, Daisy nodded. There wasn't any steel in her gaze. “. . . I better see it, Princess Burnadette.”
She waved them off with a “Bye Luigi! Get back safe!” And then finally, Princess Sunshine was gone. Good fucking riddance.
They didn't speak for a very long while. Not in the town. Not in the plane ride back (though Luigi thanked Roksanne for the both of them, and collected Bowsette's pouch back from lost-and-found). It was only when they got back to Luigi's little green car that he spoke up.
“You would’ve liked Muda kingdom a lot more. It’s a lot more tropical, and, ah. There aren’t any kumo there. No spiders.” He seemingly would've kept speaking up if she didn't start furiously shaking her head.
“Please. Don't.” Bowsette stared out the window so hard that it felt like her eyeballs were at risk of popping out. She gripped her skirt so hard her fingers went numb. It was hard to breathe, trying to keep the smoke to a minimum. She was so miserable and pissed off over the day that it was taking every bit of her power not to start screaming at the top oh her lungs right then.
Luigi listened, and didn't for the rest of the drive.
The quiet was nice.
Two extremely grumpy individuals eventually parked outside the lava castle, just as the sun started lowering itself down to the horizon.
“We're here.” said Luigi with a bit of his own bite. “I'm really sorry it went like this.” he muttered.
And Bowsette almost sneered, still staring out the window. “It's not your fault.” (Even though you let all that happen. Even though you introduced us. Even though you invited me. You fought for me but it still happened). “I should've expected it, really. I forgot for a moment that people don't like me.”
Greenie bristled. “That's not . . . It's not just you, with her. She's . . . I'm pissed off at her, too. I thought she was going to be nice when she extended that invitation. I thought, at the very least, she was going to trust me.”
Crossing her arms, she kept her voice neutral. “Sounds like she doesn't trust either of us.”
“She can get quite protective, and she has that horrible illness where she believes that being protective makes you the smartest person in the room. Her and my brother both. And it's nice, sometimes, but dios mio, I wish they would just listen to the words I'm saying one of these times!”
Luigi shouted the last few words with a lifetime of venom behind them. It was kind of nice to see him so angry. Knowing they were both miserable made her a little less miserable.
Burnadette nudged him. “Let's not go to Sarasaland next time.” And the look Luigi gave him after made her feel even less miserable.
“You still want a next time?”
“Sure. People don't like me, and people don't trust you. But you like me, and I trust you. So as long as we aren't introducing anyone else. . . I think that'd be fine.” through the anger she found it in her to grin.
“Grazie.”
“Yahtzee?”
“Thank you.”
She continued to sit there. “I'm sorry for pouting most of the tournament.”
“It's fine. We can make up for it next time.”
“I'll write you soon, okay?”
“I can't wait.”
It was only as Bowsette waved goodbye at the castle gates that her stomach growled, and she realized they didn't even get to try that restaurant together.
What a shitshow.
Her mood plummeted back down to zero all over again. The second the green car disappeared from view, he ripped off the crown and threw it to the ground. Ignoring the shouts of the guards around him, he stomped away.
Bowser trudged into his royal chambers, slamming the door especially hard behind him. He shrugged off his pouch, and as he did, it happened to open slightly.
He caught sight of that awful water bottle. Condensation dotted the side, completely full.
And Bowser began to break things.