Spring had come to the Mushroom Kingdom once again and the annual festival to celebrate the first flowering of the bubulbs was in full swing, with picnic tables set up all around the castle grounds for guests to enjoy a grand feast while they admired the new greenery. Colorful banners hung from the gates and towers and exquisite kites, shaped like mushrooms, stars, and fire flowers, swooped and soared through the air, manipulated by some of the Mushroom Kingdom's most skillful young kite fliers. On the main lawn, a croquet game had been set up, with Toadett, E. Gadd, and several of the Mushroom Retainers challenging Toadsworth for his title of croquet master, though it had taken some time to convince E. Gadd that it was not permissible for hm to use his new super scope, rocket powered croquet mallet. Meanwhile, on the tennis courts, those who preferred more active sports, such as Daisy and the Mario brothers, were engaged in a very different but equally competitive type of game.
Peach sighed, resting her hands on the windowsill. Her three friends must be missing their favorite tennis partner right now. Whether they wanted to play girls versus boys or couple versus couple, Peach was sure to be conspicuous in her absence. Really, it was awful of her to be hiding up here. As ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, it was her duty, and usually her pleasure, to preside over festivities like this. Luckily, there were no foreign dignitaries attending this spring because she could have seriously offended them by withdrawing so quickly.
Morosely, she slumped over onto one elbow, resting her chin in her delicate, white gloved hand. What had gotten into her? Normally, this was one of her favorite celebrations. Well, really they were all her favorites. Usually that thought would have made her giggle. Now it just made her melancholy. Nothing was actually wrong. But she felt restless, full of a strange energy, very different from the bubbly, happy energy she usually felt on the arrival of spring, with no idea where it came from or what to do with it. Her face felt hot and she fanned herself absentmindedly with her hand.
Taring herself away from the window, lest someone should look up and see her, she flounced back into her room. That was another feature of her strange condition: not being able to sit still for more than five minutes, finding herself distracted, easily bored, and unable to focus. Several times, she circled the room until, more overheated than ever, she collapsed on the bed in a froth of lace and petticoats. She had always loved her ruffled pink princess bed that she'd slept in since she was a little girl. Why did it now make her feel unsatisfied in some vague way that she could not fathom?
Feeling dizzy from the heat, (how could it be so warm, it was only spring?) she stared blankly at the ceiling for an unspecified length of time before starting to pull off her gloves, discovering to her disgust that, underneath underneath the pristine fabric, she had sweaty palms. Princesses should never have sweaty palms. It was so undignified. Going without gloves was highly improper as well. Unless she was dressing for sports, she only ever took them off in the privacy of her room. But now, removing them, did make her hands feel much better, cooler and more free. She could actually sense a breeze from the window moving across her now bare skin and saw the tiny blond hairs on her arms rise in response.
Restless again, she leapt out of bed and made her way over to the display cabinet of her treasures. This too had been a feature since childhood and now it fairly bulged with porcelain toad figurines, dried flowers and bird's nests from her romps in the gardens, valentines from Daisy and from Mario, and curios she had brought back from her many travels. Now one item caught her eyes among the riot of pinks and whites, reds, pale blues, and lavenders. It was a globe filled with water and set on a small gilded pedestal, inside of of which the figure of a girl, her long hair spread out over her arms, lay face down under a bare, leafless tree. Carefully, Peach lifted it down from its place on the shelf and, as she did so, the white and silver bits scattered around the globe were shaken up and swirled through the water. For a long time, she held the globe gently between her palms, watching the particles settle back to the ground, mantling the prone body of the girl in a pale, sparkly covering. Again, she shook up the globe and, again, she watched it settle, as she wondered what it was that had driven the girl to lie on the ground like that
Some time, a long time, there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?" she called, trying to keep her voice cheerful sounding as she quickly smoothed her hair and fumbled for her gloves.
"It's a me, Mario."
"Come in," she called, pasting a smile on her face as she pulled her gloves up over her elbows.
"Princess Peach, are you a okay?" he asked as he slipped into the room.
She made a face. "Nothing's wrong that I know of. I just feel a little...weird. I don't know." Although she still wanted to look and act flawless whenever possible, she didn't need to maintain the perfect princess routine one hundred percent around Mario. He'd rescued her and fought beside her enough times to know that her makeup would smudge and her hair get mussed in certain extreme circumstances. She still didn't want him to see her without her gloves though. "I can't explain it," she sighed. "I just didn't feel like socializing today." She cringed as she said it. Peach not wanting to socialize was a unthinkable as if she were to wear a black dress.
But Mario didn't criticize her, didn't even pry as Daisy would have done. "It's a fine," he said. "Everyone has a bad day sometime. But I thought I'd a come up and tell you the Toad Youth Theater Brigade is about to a perform and I thought you'd a like to see it.
"It's always been one of my favorite parts of the festival," she said uncertainly. "But..."
"It might a make you feel better" He held out his hand to her and she noticed, as if for the first time, that he too wore gloves though, in his case, it was only his best pair of white cotton plumbing gloves which, of course, were never actually used for plumbing. He looked so sincere that Peach felt bad making her dear friend worry so.
"Sure I'll come," she said, reaching out to take his hand and managing a smile that was, at least a little bit, not fake.
Fortunately, most of the spectators were already gathered around the open air theater on the south side of the palace grounds, waiting eagerly for the performance to start. So Mario and Peach were able to slip into their seats undisturbed, sitting, as she requested, on the far side of the theater from Lugi and Daisy. Daisy would chatter so and Peach just wanted to sit quietly. She smiled gratefully at her companion. Normally quiet to a fault, Mario could sense when Peach wanted to be left in peace and, right now, that was priceless. Patting her reassuringly on the shoulder he stood up and tilted his head towards the concession stands on the edge of the open-air theater.
"You a want some cotton candy?" he asked and Peach nodded, blushing. He knew her so well it was almost as if he could read her mind. A roll of fluffy, pink cotton candy was exactly what she needed right now. Moved the imaginary candy around on her tongue, anticipating its airy sweetness, she looked out at the stage, it's red spotted curtain ripping in the fresh breeze, as Mario went off on his errand. In the pit below the stage, the members of the Toad Youth Orchestra Brigade were tuning their instruments and could be faintly heard over the buzz of conversation. Sliding back into the seat next to her, Mario handed her the candy she had requested and a large lemonade to go with it as Peach smiled gratefully at him, whispering her thanks.
And just in time too for the show was about to start. In the bright sun it was impossible to dim the lights but a little toad girl, her pale green hair in tight ringlets matching her dress and the spots on her cap, shuffled into the middle of the stage and coughed exaggeratedly to attract attention. Slowly, the audience sank into silence and the girl looked around, a little scared, then blurted out, "Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Toad Youth Theater Brigade's annual spring show. Please, no flash photography." Polite laughter rippled around the theater at the joke of taking flash photos in the sunlight but the girl went very red. "Anyway, we'regladyou'rehereenjoytheshow," she stammered, not pausing for breath, and bolted off stage so fast she almost tripped over her skirt. But, before the applause had even died away, she came running back and squealed, completely out of breath, "We're doing Toadamus and Shroombee," before disappearing again.
As the curtain rose, Mario leaned to Peach's side and whispered, "It's already much a better than last year." Peach nodded absently, licking cotton candy off the fingers of one hand, which she had discreetly ungloved for the purpose, and looking out at the blank stage.
A portly toady boy, probably Hef T.'s son waddled onto the stage, wrapped in a brick print throw rug. "I am a wall," he declared, spreading his arms wide. "Look at me. I am a wall. Nothing get's past me." Right on cue, a girl and boy toad came tiptoeing out from opposite sides of the stage and proceeded to whisper around the wall who would dart his eyes around suspiciously and listen with one hand to his ear, clearly aware something was going on and, when he finally figured out what they would doing, would shoo them away with his hands...at which point, they would run around to whisper behind his back and the whole cycle would repeat.
"This is a fantastic," whispered Mario, clearly struggling not to burst into full on laughter and Peach nodded absently, straining to hear what the two actors were actually saying over the mirth of the crowd. They were, of course, Toadamus and Shroombee and they had been forbidden by their parents to marry.
"Delay, my love, longer we must not," cried Toadamus, flinging out his arm in a dramatic gesture, which was completely spoiled when the wall tried to shove him away.
"Stray my family from will I tonight," declared Shroombee in return. "But how find you then will I?"
"Meet we the old tree beneath on Shooting Star Summit and from thence to Marrymore go will we straight." They scampered off stage, while the wall stood there looking offended and the crowd clapped enthusiastically. Then the curtain rose on a painted backdrop of Shooting Star Summit in front of which stood a tree in flower, made of wire and tissue, both contributed by the Toad Youth Artist Brigade. A live (hopefully) tame piranha plant in a pot was set a short distance away, slumped over and appearing asleep. Entering cautiously, Shroombee wandered around looking for Toadamus, in the process stumbling into the piranha plant and waking it up. It snapped at her and she ran away screaming, dropping her mushroom cap with its distinctive heart shaped, purple spots. This must have been made of or at least scented with something tasty as the plant proceeded to chew it all to bits. Almost instantly, Toadamus wandered onto the stage and, seeing the chewed cap, concluded Shroombee must have been eaten by the plant. Then, in the midst of a melodramatic speech about his loss, dropped own in a dead faint while the audience roared with laughter and the plant, perhaps thinking it was being funny as well, tried to bite him but found he'd falling just a little too far from it's pot.
As the mirth swelled still further, Peach shifted uncomfortably, finding the humor almost disrespectful for some reason. The play was supposed to be funny. It was a comedy after all. But now, it just seemed wrong. Losing someone you felt that deeply about wasn't funny. Just feeling that deeply about someone period wasn't really funny either and Peach found herself almost envying Toadamus and Shroombee. They had direction and drive and purpose. None of the random restlessness driving her crazy. As Shroombee returned and, seeing the apparently dead Toadamus, launched into her own melodramatic speech, Peach chewed nervously on the end of her lemonade straw and tried not to look askance at Mario, who appeared completely unconcerned and was laughing at least as loudly as anyone else.
The great climax came when Shroombee, overwhelmed in her turn, fainted as well, falling beside her beloved as the piranha plant began to nibble delightedly at the edge of her lace petticoat, the only thing it could reach. The audience burst into wild applause as a little toad girl crouching behind the piranha plant's pot began to pull a string, shaking the tree to make the white tissue flowers rain down on the two still forms and, suddenly Peach felt her heart come into her mouth. "It's just like the scene in my snow globe," she whispered, wondering desperately why she felt about to cry.
"Eh? What did you a say?" asked Mario, leaning closer to make himself heard over the clapping.
"Nothing," said Peach sadly. "Just remembering everything I need to get done over the next few days."
