"This is troubling…" said Yoshi as he looked down at his defeated tongue. "What shall become of my licking career?"
Dr. Mario examined the limp extremity. He caressed the buds with his thumbs to test their flavour reception. He sighed and set the slimy proboscis down on the ground. "It's-a over for him Yoshi…" he said remorsefully.
Luigi and Toad hugged one another and cried. Yoshi held his head in shame. "I should have never ran over it with that Zamboni…" said the green dino.
"What will he do now, Doc?" asked Luigi as sizable wads hailing from the mucus membranes leaked out from his nasal orifices like emerald tongues born from the kernel of a fallen warrior. He sniffed inwards to recall his deadly duo.
"We can only but await a cure," said Mario. "I ain't got no other remedy."
"Life has met a standstill…" said Yoshi. He wound up his tongue and reinserted it into his mouth. He patted his own nose in sympathy. He then patted Mario's physician-like nose and then proceeded to Luigi's and Toad's.
Toad gasped and realised he was lacking the correct article amid his countenance. He turned his face away and wept quietly to himself.
Yoshi was astounded Toad's predicament. Ergo, he took Toad and placed him on his saddle. When Toad asked what was transpiring, Yoshi sweetly shushed him and the two rode off into the sunset. Mario and Luigi watched with loving eyes as Yoshi rocketed off towards acceptance.
"Why?" asked Toad.
"I told you not to worry," said Yoshi.
"My glory, whence will we quell our suffering by our own means rather than rely on miracles?"
Yoshi skid to a halt as they approached the cliff. Yoshi set Toad down and pointed off toward the charming world below.
"Aye, 'tis quite a splendid sight, innit?" said Toad as he reached into his rear pocket and pulled out his designer xylophone and got to work composing a relevant melody for their current setting.
Yoshi nodded in affirmation. "I wish this day would end, yet I also wish the antithesis of said statement." Yoshi turned to Toad, dropped his dead tongue from his gullet and started scooping the earth.
Toad looked up tearfully at his friend, keenly aware that the decision had finally been made.
"Yes, Toad, we needn't revisit the pangs of an incurable accident," Yoshi said as he set his tongue into the hole. "It is a finished deed. All life returns to what it once embodied… thus is the great circle of life."
Toad watched as Yoshi released the final bits of negligible rock from his grasp and onto the area where the hole was once located. "Toad, have you the knowledge as to why we bury our beloved?"
Toad shook his head. He felt his heart pounding as he took in Yoshi's wonderful brains.
"We bury as a means to fill the void, the void introduced into our realm through the negative insecurities that both precede and follow the loss." Yoshi stood up straight and rose his heads to the skies. "I am once again whole."
"Aye," said Toad. He took his xylophone and set it upon the disturbed sediment. Yoshi smiled at him and Toad smiled back. The two the jumped off the cliff and soared back to the Mushroom Kingdom on the wings of a mighty eagle.
THE END