Ahem! Today… I'll tell you the story of the Palace of Shadow. This palace has become infamous among the people of Rogueport, but it was not always this way. Once, long ago, well before it was known as the Palace of Shadow, before even the Mushroom Kingdom claimed Rogueport's territory for its own, the palace was home to a family of monarchs. It was a massive structure taking up a fourth of the town, and it served as the residence of countless cooks, maids, guards, and, most importantly, the royal family – a king, a queen, and their beloved little princess. This family was the jewel of the ancient sea town. Their joy lifted the citizens' spirits.

Until one day the queen grew very sick. After that, the kingdom's jewel didn't shine quite so brightly. The king grew bitter, while the princess withdrew from the world altogether. It was as if a cloud of gloom had settled over the kingdom. What happened next is something that has remained a mystery to this day. At first, rumors spread around the cooks, maids, and guards, saying that the king and princess had been overheard having a heated argument.

And then… no more rumors spread. There was no one left to spread them. You see, this once-prosperous town is remembered now only for its destruction. In but a single night, the town was dragged into the depths of the earth by a terrible demon. A demon whose inky blackness could blot out the stars themselves. A demon whose name still brings nightmares to the heads of children and adults alike – the Shadow Queen.

Through her terrible powers, the Shadow Queen transformed the royal family's home into the Palace of Shadow. But eventually, as with all villains, the queen's reign was ended by a group of brave heroes. The demon was sealed away for a thousand years, until she was freed by… Well, you already know that story, don't you?

I'm not here today to tell you the story of how the Thousand-Year Door was opened. I'm here to tell you the story of one of the heroines who stood against the Shadow Queen. A heroine who was different from the others. A heroine whose bond with the Shadow Queen was closer than she could've ever imagined.

And I'm also here to tell you the story of a princess. A princess whose name was lost to history, buried beneath the earth. But could some trace of it still exist… within the palace…?

What's the earliest you can remember?

This was a question Vivian often asked the people of Twilight Town. She'd gotten all the typical answers: a playground, a smiling mother, a crib… But when Vivian asked the question to herself, the only ever answer was darkness. Maybe a dim recollection of the scowling face of a slightly younger Beldam. But mostly darkness.

Vivian watched as a group of Twilighter kids scurried past, tossing a worn, Bully-hide kickball beneath the perpetual-evening sky. The children giggled and taunted and made the occasional oink at each other (Oinking had become something of an inside joke in Twilight Town). Currently, Vivian was hidden from sight within a puddle of darkness. She hadn't felt up to putting on makeup this morning, which meant that the outside world was absolutely forbidden from seeing her face.

After a while, one of the children's mothers emerged from a nearby house and ordered them to quit the racket. Vivian found herself staring somewhat morosely at the woman. Once, years ago, Vivian had asked Beldam if the Shadow Sirens had a mother. It had seemed a reasonable enough question. After all, if Vivian had older sisters, then it followed that she also had a mother and father. And a grandmother and grandfather, maybe some aunts and uncles-

No, now stop asking ridiculous questions and do as I say! Beldam's reply stung as harshly now as it had years ago. Vivian hadn't asked again, even after her sisters' plans had been foiled and they promised to stop being mean. Vivian's adventure had helped her grow braver, but she hadn't grown that brave.

Maybe Vivian was only depressed because she was bored. She could always get a job or something. Strictly speaking, Vivian was dirt poor. Nearly all the coins her party had earned during their quest had gone into healing items and badges. If Mario's adventures ever turned a profit, he wouldn't be unclogging toilets for a living.

But truth be told, Vivian didn't need the money. She'd eaten Zess T.'s cooking for the sake of recovering HP and FP in the heat of battle, but it turns out that people made of sentient, corporeal shadows don't actually need to eat. And the Creepy Steeple didn't exactly charge rent.

As soon as the Twilighters were safely out of sight, Vivian emerged from her Shadow Veil and drifted towards home. Actually, despite the name, Vivian found the abandoned steeple far less creepy than her previous place of residence. Before, the Shadow Sirens had lived in a house – or the remains of one, at least – in the ruins beneath Rogueport. It was especially unsettling now that Vivian knew exactly how those ruins had come to be. Brr… And besides, the Creepy Steeple was full of Boos, so it was a lot less lonely. Most people were scared of Boos, of course, but Vivian didn't mind them. She could kind of relate, really.

Back in the ruins, whenever Vivian had wandered above ground, the people of Rogueport had been terrified of her. Living shadows had that effect on people. But that'd been before the- the, um… the- y'know, the… the transition. Nowadays, it was pretty hard to be scared by the adorable shadow witch with the stripy hat and the cotton candy hair.

Vivian drifted through the steeple and towards her bedroom. She greeted any Boos she passed, but most of them hid their face the instant she looked their way. Another trait Vivian could relate to…

Eventually, Vivian reached her destination. After checking for stray Boos, she shut the bedroom door behind her and undressed – which, in Vivian's case, meant only removing her hat and gloves. She couldn't help but breathe a content sigh as she took in her room. It was far nicer than her last bedroom, that's for sure. There was plenty of open space for her bed, her dresser, her poster of the Great Gonzales shirtless…

But the piece of furniture that commanded Vivian's attention the most was the dresser's mirror. Vivian retrieved her makeup kit and set to work putting on her face. Vivian might not have had much money, but she had plenty of makeup and cute outfits. Most of it had been donated to her by an overly enthusiastic Madam Flurrie. Vivian supposed this was another reason she might need a source of income, but she wasn't really sure it was worth holding down a job solely for the sake of buying fashion accessories. She could afford that stuff by hitting her head on a brick a couple times.

Vivian did the finishing touches with a thin line of yellow lipstick, and then she inspected herself carefully. She'd gotten a bit chubbier now that her adventuring days were over, but all in all Vivian was cute as ever. Her body was composed of the same shifting shadows, colored in with dark purple marker, and her hair was the same shade of pink as always, done with colored pencil. Vivian absently straightened a crease in her hair before moving on from the mirror – an act that involved spinning her entire body on its axis.

Vivian was hardly even conscious of her two-dimensional nature, though. To put it simply, when you live in a world made entirely of paper, you kinda stop noticing after a while. In Vivian's world, "paper" was basically a synonym for "matter."

A few months back, there'd been a strange incident in Decalburg in which the town was suddenly sucked into the sky. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt, but afterward the townsfolk had all sworn up and down that their entire world was actually contained within a three-dimensional storybook. Said storybook existed in a three-dimensional world where hardly anything was made out of paper, and the book was kept in the castle attic of a three-dimensional Princess Peach. But Vivian wasn't sure if she believed this. The idea that all of reality was held inside a fragile little book… that their whole world could be snuffed out by someone lighting the book on fire or flushing it down the toilet or something? Kinda morbid. Then again, Mario and Peach had insisted it was true, and Vivian was inclined to trust everything Mario said.

After all, Mario had been the first person to ever be truly kind to Vivian. The first person to act charming and interesting and have big, strong arms made tough from years of lifting plungers… legs strengthened from years of jumping… and that mustache. Ohhhhh, that mustache. Vivian could practically feel it tickling her lips.

"It's-a me, Mario!" A fat Italian man sprang out from behind the bedroom curtains. "Vivian, let's-a go on a date!"

"Wha-?" Vivian promptly tripped over herself, sending makeup cases every which way. She knelt down to retrieve them, and when she looked back up, the smiling Italian man had been replaced by a grinning Duplighost. "Doopliss." It wasn't entirely clear if Vivian had any facial features behind her curly bangs, but it certainly sounded like she was rolling her eyes. "That's not funny."

"It would be if you coulda seen your face!" Doopliss erupted into another fit of howling laughter.

Like all Duplighosts, Doopliss appeared to be nothing more than a cheap Halloween costume, a plain white bedsheet draped over a young child. However, pieces of the fabric appeared to have been cut out to form a spooky face. These peepholes betrayed the fact that there was no child beneath the sheets, only a dim, blood-red glow where the eyes should be. Of course, what distinguished Doopliss from his spectral brethren was the trademark party hat on his head. "Freak-in-a-sheet" was one of the more charitable names Beldam had called him...

"Don't you know it's rude to sneak into a lady's bedroom?" Vivian hurriedly retrieved her hat and gloves while she waited for her cheeks to cool down. "And aren't you supposed to be with Flurrie's theater troupe right now?"

"Yeah, but their new play is based on the time Mario saved the Sticker Festival." Doopliss shrugged, an act which caused his sheet to bob. "It sounded super dumb and boring, so I decided to head back to the old homestead for a while. You been keeping my room tidy? Taking care of my bird?"

"Um, sure." Technically, setting that poor parrot free counted as "taking care" of it. "Don't you have anyone else to bother?" Vivian wasn't Doopliss's biggest fan after what he did to Mario. Unfortunately, Doopliss's family had owned the Creepy Steeple for generations, so he wasn't about to move out, and Vivian's sisters seemed to like it here, so Vivian was basically stuck with him. Well, Vivian supposed she could always move out herself, but the mere thought of living alone turned the pit of her stomach ice cold.

"No one cute enough, no." Doopliss gave a painfully unsubtle wink before finally heading for the door. Vivian's face went crimson in spite of herself. Doopliss was being facetious. He had to be. He must've noticed that Vivian's hair was a touch too thin at the top of her head and that her hands were slightly larger than they ought to be and- and her voice was a note too deep and-

"Man, it's kinda dull around here," Doopliss remarked right before shutting the door behind him. "I oughtta take a vacation one of these days..."

That snapped Vivian out of her funk. Of course, it was so obvious! She threw her hat and gloves back on, then ran downstairs. Well, it'd be more accurate to say she floated downstairs. Vivian didn't have legs so much as a single shadow-tendril that tethered her to the ground.

After rushing past a few Boos and ducking through some trapdoor shortcuts, Vivian emerged into the kitchen. Back before the steeple had been abandoned, this was where Doopliss's ancestors had prepared the grape juice and crackers for every Sunday service (That wasn't a part of the Duplighosts' religion or anything. They just liked to snack).

As Vivian had suspected, her sisters were still floating by the dining table. Marilyn had spent the past half-hour trying to feed Beldam a bowl of hot soup, but Beldam wasn't exactly cooperating.

Vivian couldn't help but get butterflies in her tummy every time she neared her sisters. The family resemblance was unmistakable. They were all three shadow-people with faces hidden behind their bangs, and they even all had matching hats and gloves, with Marilyn's and Beldam's sporting yellow and blue stripes respectively. She'd been dressing out for years now, but Vivian still felt a swell of euphoria from being allowed to wear the same clothes as her sisters. They looked adorable together. "Shadow Beauties" really would've been a more apt name than "Shadow Sirens," but Vivian had given up trying to push the issue.

The only major difference between the sisters was that Vivian was of an average body type, whereas Beldam was rail thin and Marilyn was… healthier. Age-wise, Marilyn was the middle-aged one, Vivian was the cute young one, and Beldam was the wrinkled hunchbacked one. It was a classic mother-maiden-crone dynamic – though unfortunately, the Winkybunion sisters had totally stolen the Shadow Sirens' thunder in that department.

Beldam snorted at Vivian's arrival. She'd been a bitter old lady for as long as Vivian could remember, but lately, this trait had become more pronounced than ever. Beldam was no longer thin, she was skeletal. Her gaunt face was barely visible beneath her hat anymore, and she was so hunched over that her nose practically dragged the ground. Vivian hated to admit it, but the only reason Beldam was acting marginally less horrible was because of the looming threat of physical violence from Vivian's new friends. They'd defeated Beldam's mistress, after all, so what chance did poor old Beldam have? Evidently, that realization had sent Beldam into a spiraling fit of depression and suppressed rage. Beldam had spent the entirety of her millennium-long life trying to open the Thousand-Year Door and unleash the apocalypse. Without that, she'd simply let herself wither away to nothing.

And so, despite their harsh treatment over the years, Vivian and Marilyn were genuinely worried for Beldam. Marilyn had basically taken it upon herself to become Beldam's personal nursemaid – hence the bowl of Cucco noodle soup she was currently forcing down her big sister's throat.

"Marilyn? Beldam?" Vivian drifted towards the table, making her voice as sugary possible.

"What do you want?" came Beldam's reply, followed by "I mean, what can we do for you, my lovely?" after a nudge from Marilyn.

"Well, I feel like we've all been a little restless lately," said Vivian, idly curling a strand of hair around her finger. "We don't know what to do with ourselves, and we're getting cabin fever cooped up in this steeple all the time. How would you feel about going on a vacation? It'd be just us Shadow Sirens spending quality time together!"

"Ooh! A vacation?" Doopliss poked his pasty white head through doorway. "I'm an honorary Shadow Siren! Can I come-?"

He was met with a simultaneous reaction of "No!" from Vivian and Beldam and "Guh!" from Marilyn.

"Aww…" Doopliss slinked off down the hallway, head drooping.

"So what do you think?" Vivian turned back to her sisters. "Doesn't that sound fun? Twilight Town is so gloomy. We should go somewhere sunny like Sarasaland or Isle Delfino-"

"No, I hate traveling." The violence of Beldam's reply sent her into a coughing fit.

"But- But Beldam-" Vivian was taken aback. Great, now she had to fight to keep her lip from quivering. "If you would only give it a chance-"

"I don't want to give it a chance!" snapped Beldam, sitting up from the table. "We're shadows. We don't belong in the sunlight, of all places!"

"Guh!" said Marilyn. She, um, wasn't the most articulate of the Shadow Sirens.

"I am NOT sulking, Marilyn!" Beldam swung her arm, spilling hot soup all over the carpet. Marilyn cried out and impulsively ran for some paper towels, leaving Beldam free to float for the exit. As she was leaving, she muttered, "We weren't created to go on vacations..." under her breath.

Vivian's purple ears perked up. "Really? Then what were we created for?"

"Never you mind that!" The door slammed shut in Vivian's face. For a moment, Vivian simply stared at it. Then she took a breath, wiped her cheeks, and went over to help Marilyn clean up the mess. Dang it, Vivian had just put on this make up. She didn't need to let herself mess it up so quickly...

All Marilyn could offer was an apologetic, "Guhhh..."

"I'll be alright, sis." Vivian sighed. All things considered, that'd gone quite well. In the old days, Beldam would be dishing out the nastiest punishments imaginable right now. Like, this one time, Beldam had forced Vivian to scrub the entrance pipe to the Pit of 100 Trials until it no longer smelled like death. Vivian's arms still ached at the thought of it (No, Beldam's punishments had never involved physically abusing Vivian. If they had, Goombella would've lost her mind and absolutely refused to let Vivian keep staying with her). But somehow, even if they hadn't been forcing Beldam to be nice now, Vivian got the feeling Beldam no longer had the energy for punishments.

Still, though, that last comment Beldam had made… Well, Beldam may have often accused Vivian of being a ditz, but that comment had really gotten Vivian's gears turning.

The underground ruins of Rogueport were eerie, but the aboveground town put Vivian even more on edge. The number of pedestrians out on the streets made her head spin. Vivian's every impulse told her to hide in her Shadow Veil, but she'd never reach her destination if she spent all day hiding. She had to suck it up and keep moving.

Funnily enough, Vivian was more concerned with her social anxiety than with the fact that Rogueport boasted the highest larceny rates in the Mushroom Kingdom. In fact, the only Bandit that Vivian had bumped into had sped right past her (Meanwhile, in a nearby alleyway, Swindell the Bandit was lamenting the fact that Vivian's billfold was empty).

It was a thankfully short walk to Vivian's destination. The sewer's exit Warp Pipe let out right next to the building. And Vivian had remembered to write her name on the inside of her hat, which for some reason was required to use the pipe out of Twilight Town.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Vivian pounded somewhat impatiently on the door. It was made of solid cardboard, so it was slightly more percussive than regular doors, put you still had to knock pretty hard to make any sound. One of the many drawbacks to living in a paper world.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," came a small voice from the door's other side. "Keep your knickers on. Working a doorknob isn't exactly easy when you don't have any arms or-" The door swung open. "Oh, well if it isn't Miss Vivian!"

You'd be forgiven for thinking the man at the doorway was a gigantic Dried Shroom wearing swirly glasses, but he was actually an elderly Goomba. Professor Frankly's face lit up as he ushered Vivian inside. "What can I do for you, little lady?"

"Oh, I'm not sure, really. I guess I was just..." Vivian glanced away, face flushing. "...wondering who I was, exactly. You're a scientist, right? I was hoping you could help me figure it out. I've never met any other shadow-people besides my sisters." Actually, Vivian had gotten all exited thinking Mario was a shadow-person when she first met him, but it'd turned out he was just your average everyday human being who could jump super high and had his body stolen by a Duplighost. Garden variety stuff.

"Ah, yes, the search for identity! One of the core tenements of philosophy." As he spoke, Frankly sifted through the piles of books on the floor to reach a small kettle of tea. Professor Frankly's house was a pitifully small, enclosed space, every cubic inch of which was covered in volume after volume of scholarly research. There was, however, a tiny piece of the house reserved for a stove top, upon which rested some boiling water. It just hadn't been visible in the original video game because of the fixed camera angle and stuff.

Frankly offered Vivian a cup, which she accepted. Vivian had once asked Goombella how exactly Goombas were able to hold things without any limbs, but Goombella had said she tried not to think about it too hard.

"The questioning of identity is an integral part of adolescence." Frankly nodded approvingly as he sipped his tea. Vivian sipped hers, too, then made a face and stealthily poured the rest into a nearby potted plant. "Why, I remember when I was a lad, bemoaning my status as a lowly Goomba, draft-dodging my way out of Bowser's army. In fact, this one time, I-"

"Does that mean you know what species I am?" cut in Vivian. "Do you know who created me, or if I have any other family, or-?"

"Oh, yes, that." The question seemed to shake Frankly back into reality. "Well, Miss Vivian, as fate would have it… I HAVE NO IDEA!"

Vivian promptly performed an anime-style face fault.

"I'm an archeology professor," Frankly continued. "So unless you're actually an ancient fossil, I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you. Of course, in my studies of the Thousand-Year Door, I've often wondered how Beldam came into the Shadow Queen's service, but Beldam's refused to answer any of my questions." He gave Vivian a hopeful look behind his swirly glasses. "You wouldn't happen to know how your sisters met the Shadow Queen or how they came into possession of her map, would you?"

Vivian picked herself off the floor, then shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm so much younger than Beldam, and she'd been trying to open the Thousand-Year Door for my and Marilyn's entire lives. Beldam never answers my questions, either." Vivian clutched her temple. "The farthest back I remember, we were living in the ruins beneath Rogueport." She let out a heavy sigh. "Sorry for bothering you, Professor. I guess I'll be on my way..."

But before she could make for the door, Frankly blocked her path. Vivian got the idea that he would've put a hand on her shoulder if he actually had any. "Now don't be too hasty, Miss Vivian. I may not be able to help you… but I have a colleague who can."

The tissue paper waves flapped violently in the winds. The sea was exceptionally stormy tonight (Unbeknownst to the residents of the paper world, there was a slight draft coming from the three-dimensional Princess Peach's attic). But Vivian couldn't let her fears get the better of her. No matter the size of the waves, she had to get to Toad Town. That's where she would find the answers to questions she'd been asking herself her entire life.

Vivian felt guilty about using her Shadow Veil to stowaway on a ship, but she didn't have time to save up money for a ticket, and she didn't want to trouble Admiral Bobbery. Within the dark dimension of the Veil, Vivian took a steadying breath. She desperately wished that Mario, Goombella, and the others could've been here, but Vivian had to learn to stand on her own. She could do this. She could do this.

And so young Vivian set sail for Toad Town… blissfully unaware of the horrifying revelation awaiting her.