Author's Note: I've always wanted to write something SPM-related, but never really had any ideas. This is my absolute favourite Mario game (and one of my favourite games of all time) and it deserves so much more attention (and fan fiction) than it gets. So here's a little something for anyone who might have been wanting the same thing.

This takes place somewhere pre-game, around the time Bleck/Blumiere is searching for Timpani after she disappears, but shortly before he steals the Dark Prognosticus and attempts to destroy the worlds.

Enjoy!

Crashing Grey Waves

She was gone.

He had been searching ceaselessly, going to the opposite ends of the earth and then beyond it, into worlds unlike anything he'd ever laid eyes on. Watching the way the night sky spiralled dizzyingly, full of stars as bright as fire, when he found himself lying awake on the surface of some deserted planet, going without sleep for the third or fourth day in a row. The horrifying nightmares he suffered whenever he DID sleep, tearing up his consciousness from the inside and fracturing what little willpower he had left. Making him believe there was no hope, that he really had lost her forever.

In his first few days of searching he'd discovered a bat caught in a human's trap, and released it with a wave of his magical sceptre. Later, when dark fell and he lay on the forest floor gazing up at the stars through the veil of leaves above him, a young woman appeared from the mist and pledged herself as his servant.

Initially he'd refused, his quest being an extremely personal one, and his goal being something that he alone wanted to find. He'd never asked for company nor wished for any, but the woman was stubborn and when he woke up blearily the next morning after another nightmare-filled rest, she was still there, sitting on a fallen tree and eyeing him with unmistakable worry in her face.

After that, he let her join him, because who knew what might've happened if he'd abandoned her in the forest and teleported away by himself? Death's Maw Woods were no place to be alone after dark, and she didn't look like she was planning on going anywhere unless it was with him. Had he left her, rabid monsters hungry for fresh blood would have gotten their claws in her before the next sunrise.

'Um, wh-what's your name?' she'd asked him nervously after the two of them had vanished and re-materialised a safe distance from the forest, on a ragged cliff overlooking a bleak grey ocean. He'd looked over the crumbling precipice and thought idly that this ocean might be bleaker even than his own heart.

The name Blumiere had floated into his mind; he disregarded it in favour of another name that made itself known to him.

'I am Count Bleck,' he'd replied, tone quiet and nearly lost on the mournful sea wind.

The woman had bowed her head in polite acknowledgement, and an uncomfortable pause followed as she clearly waited for him to ask the same question in return, subsiding into awkward silence when it didn't come.

He'd let his thoughts drift somewhere far from his head as he watched the waves beating against the bottom of the cliff; heaving, rolling forwards, and crashing into the rocks with a simple, familiar noise that nearly made him forget his misery for a moment. The sound that had been going on for thousands of years, cold and infinite, soothed his soul more than anything else he'd found in his long weeks of searching.

When he felt like he might be able to speak up again without the words catching in his throat, he'd addressed the woman still standing diligently beside him with her hands clasped behind her back. 'What is YOUR name?'

Her head spun around to look him in the eyes so fast, he was a little surprised that she hadn't caused herself a minor injury. But her expression - or what little of it could be seen behind the tinted glasses she wore - was eager, almost excitable, and he felt something new stir in his chest beneath the usual melancholy thoughts. Something that seemed to sharpen reality for a moment.

'I'm Nastasia,' she'd said.

'Nastasia...' he'd replied, slowly and carefully, as if the name of the young woman he'd thoughtlessly saved from a trap was more important than anything else. And right then, it was - something deep and instinctual told him that she was going to play a part in his future.

Maybe she could even help him find HER.

Days or searching turned into weeks, then months. He wandered the worlds aimlessly and without thought for time, life, or the future. In his mind, everything that lay in front of him was little more than an empty path with the faintest gleam of light in the distance. That speck of hope that he couldn't make himself let go of, because if he let go then he would finally lose his mind along with it.

He travelled further and longer than he'd ever expected or wanted to before in his life, letting everything pass by him in a blur of dim colours. He searched without being actively aware that he was still searching, his eyes flickering behind every tree and into the pitch-dark mouth of every cave, just in case SHE might be there, hiding from the universe, keeping herself safe until the moment he found her again.

Nastasia was quiet and polite, meticulous with everything she did yet lighthearted enough to force him to crack the occasional weak smile at her offhand jokes. She was diligent, following him everywhere unless he specifically told her to stay back, and even then he would frequently look over his shoulder and spot the bespectacled woman trailing nearly half a mile behind him, worried about where he was going on his own. He expected to feel angry by how stubborn she was, but after months of travelling together her behaviour actually became something of an anchor to the real world. She made him remember, with her presence alone, that other people existed besides himself. She kept him eating and drinking and he couldn't deny that without her, he might not have even survived long enough to continue with his search.

He never spoke to her about what - or rather WHO - he was trying to find, perhaps because a part of him still believed that his quest was for him alone. Nastasia was sharp, though, and able to read past his facade better than anyone else he'd met. He wasn't sure how long it took her to work out that what he was searching for was, in fact, a person rather than a thing, but it was only about a month after their first encounter in Death's Maw Woods that she started dropping hints - asking him questions about his family, his relationships. Making it more difficult, each time she asked, for him to maintain the facade he was known for.

They were walking along a deserted beach on a winter's morning when Nastasia, following an uncomfortable silence that she'd kept up for the last two hours, finally jumped in and asked him the one question he'd been dreading ever since they met.

'So, um, Count... who IS this person you're looking for?'

He lifted a gloved hand to tilt the brim of his top hat downwards an inch or so, the shadow of the massive headpiece concealing any emotion that might have shown in his eyes. Nastasia was walking on his right side, and the burning orange orb that was his monocle-free eye gazed down at her from behind the shadow, piercing, questioning.

'Why do you want to know?' he replied at length, his tone neither cold nor warm, flat nor sharp. It was just a sound, a monotone expressionless sound that seemed to echo on the cold air despite its quietness.

'Uhm, well...' Nastasia faltered momentarily, but the hope that started to rise in Blumiere's chest quickly faded when she added, 'Because I could help you, more than I already do, if you told me. All this time I've been helping you to search for someone, but I've no idea what we're meant to be looking for.'

Her words fell flat against the crashing of the waves and the shrill keening of the salty wind. Blumiere had no answer to give - none that he felt comfortable enough to give. Thoughts of his quest, which had, despite Nastasia's presence, been an ultimately solitary one, overwhelmed his mind until he wanted to ram his hat down over his eyes with enough force to tear the material. His hands twitched at the strangely inviting prospect of inflicting some physical harm, if not upon himself or Nastasia, then upon something inanimate and painless.

The urge slowly dissolved along with the his razor-sharp thoughts, and like a cool dark tide he felt himself enveloped by the monotone sense of peace that had followed him around for weeks on end. It was an unfounded peace, but it was an escape from all the emotions that might hurt him, leaving nothing but the shadowed figure of something in a cape and a top hat wielding a sceptre capable of tearing reality apart.

The part of his mind that still thought of himself as Lord Blumiere had become null.

He was Count Bleck, and he would find her. And if he couldn't in the end, then there was no more reason for him, Nastasia, or anything else in this cruel universe to exist. He would obliterate it all, and stand there watching the ashes fall upon his own dying body, a mask-like grin frozen onto his face.

His soft, mirthless chuckle made Nastasia jump, and he saw out of the corner of his eye her face turning up towards him, worry written across all her features.

'A-are you all right?' Despite the fear in her voice, he somehow knew that she was genuinely concerned for him, and was not considering running away. She'd seen the madness that lurked at the bottom of his soul and still cared enough not to run, even though she must be able to see that he was turning into a monster.

Shuddering, he pulled himself back from the edge and lightly tilted his hat forwards to shield his eyes, letting his hand linger on the velvety white brim, the sensation reminding him of home and everything familiar. Beside him, Nastasia's solidly reassuring presence reminded him of his purpose in life, making sure that, even if he ended up going mad and destroying the world, he would always remember who he was doing it for.

'I apologise, Nastasia,' he said, his voice rolling across the empty beach - calm, but with a slight edge. 'Someday, if things work out, I will tell you everything about her. For now, however... I am happier not thinking about it.'

The young woman just looked up at him for a while, long enough to make the Count shift uneasily and reach up to adjust his cape out of habit. Then he saw her breath cloud in front of her, a misty white vapour, as she let out a deep but quiet sigh. 'It's a SHE, then?' she murmured. 'I had a feeling, but...'

He was confused, and he was rarely confused. 'Does it matter?' he asked. 'My priority - no, my purpose - is to find her safe and well. I do not care what I have to do to accomplish that...' And that was where he trailed off, because for the second time that day the frightening possibility bore down upon him - what if he never found her? What then? He was no longer the man he'd once been. Lord Blumiere wouldn't hurt a fly; even before he'd met HER and learned about the kindness of the human race, he had never enjoyed war or violence of any sort.

Lord Blumiere wouldn't have contemplated unleashing his grief-stricken rage over the world and tearing apart everything he'd once thought beautiful. But maybe, he thought with a hint of a humourless smile, Count Bleck would.

'Count?' Nastasia asked, her voice timid but strangely powerful in the silence that had preceded it. 'Um, are you completely sure you're all right?'

He rolled his sceptre between his gloved fingers and thought he could feel the simmering magic that lay beneath the twisted, enchanted wood. In that moment, with Nastasia's words hanging in the air between them, he allowed himself a few seconds to remember Timpani's face. Her laugh, her smile, her gentle voice as they'd conversed on starlit evenings right under his father's nose. Her expression of worry when he woke up after his fall down the cliff, and her tenderness as she'd nursed him back to health, in spite of the harshly disgusted way he'd first spoken to her.

He reminded himself exactly who he was searching for, and why he was searching for her.

'Yes,' he replied at length. 'Thank you for asking, Nastasia. But Count Bleck is fine.'

Count Bleck will fracture the fabric of the universe if it tries to take his love away from him.