I was inspired by something Morton said in Paper Jam, but it's not necessary to have played it to read this fic at all.

Crossposted to Ao3

Morton's size can be a bit troublesome. He's the second youngest (not including Bowser Jr.), yet also the second largest. Roy seems to have this obsession with being the physically largest koopaling, and will discreetly stand next to Morton to make sure he's still taller. Which is to say, not discreetly at all. He is very obvious about what he's doing, but Morton just chuckles and uses the moments Roy is focused to talk to him about everything and nothing.

Sometimes, Morton feels as if how large, and strong, and totally handsome he is actually skews what his siblings and sort-of-dad thinks of him. He is strong, and he LOVES it, but…. He just doesn't understand why he can't be both super tough and powerful and… and sweet? Obviously, Roy would have a cow if he ever figured out that his big tough work-out partner was writing poetry on the side. Anyway, Morton reasons to himself, poetry is private! As much as he really…. really wants to share it with his family, there's something almost thrilling about keeping this one thing to himself. Sometimes he wonders if he should keep more of his thoughts to himself…?

Haha! No way!

Keeping things to himself is way too hard! What's the point of doing something, if nobody finds out? It's almost as if it didn't happen! Plus, Morton is extremely interesting, everything he does is a tale waiting to be told. When he learns a really interesting fact, it is essential that everybody within the castle grounds hears about it immediately. Far be it from him to deny his family what they want to hear!

Poetry is a different story. The thing of it is, poetry sounds so much better when read out loud. Morton can read what he writes in his head all day long, but it will always sound like it's missing something. Missing his beautiful voice. Morton has a secret place he goes when he wants to read his poetry out loud. It's in the castle courtyard, take a left at Bowser Statue #356 and keep going until the piranha plants start to snap at your ankles. Morton never worries about the feral fauna, because he brings them snacks, so they're all friends. Actually, he really likes the lethal plants, they always listen to everything he has to say! Which is a lot! Morton has so much to say all of the time.

Morton is sitting in his secret hideaway right now, a pencil in his claw and a small journal resting on his knee. Occasionally, he taps the rubber eraser to his chin, a thing he's seen Ludwig do when thinking about his music. Morton's not quite sure if it actually helps anything, but he probably looks really cool and intelligent doing it and that's what matters.

The warmth of the Dark Lands feels heavy on his shoulders, sometimes the heat feels too oppressive even to him. "Aha!" The burly koopaling says with inspiration, writing as he speaks, "the heat's real hot… uhmmm…." Perfect. Now what. Maybe something that rhymes? Sheesh, rhyming is hard. Hm… "the cold is not!" He laughs, quite proud of himself for that one. He has no idea what most of what he writes means, but it sounds fancy. When it comes to poetry, Morton has learned, it doesn't have to make sense. In fact, the less sense it makes, the more smart it seems.

Morton gets sucked into his poem, a very rare moment of vocal-related silence covering his secret area.

Eventually, he throws his pencil in the air in unbridled glee! He's finished, and he has a really great feeling about this one too! This poem might be his best work yet, he's proud of it and hasn't even read it out loud! Morton clears his throat, and is about to begin when the pencil hits him in the head. Ow. He sends the pencil an offended glare. "Tch. After all we'd been through," he mutters. He closes his eyes and thinks back to the moment he got that little pencil…

And remembers that he got it from a box this morning. This was the first time he'd ever used it? He actually doesn't care about the pencil at all, it turns out! Morton does what any self-respecting koopaling would do in this situation and snaps the pencil in two and tosses it to the piranha plants. He feels very good about what he did for a few seconds, until coming to the heart wrenching realization that the pencil was the only one he had brought. Also, that was kind of unnecessary and rude! Morton was trying to get better about thinking before doing. It was… a process. "Sorry, pencil," he mutters awkwardly. "I, er, I dedicate this poem t'you."

Once more, the large koopaling clears his throat. "Ode to Pencil," he was just testing out the name, and he likes how it sounds. Naming a poem is always the hardest part. Taking one more deep breath, he carefully reads his words off the page.

"The heat's real hot, the cold is not.

My pencil keeps writin', my brother's prob'ly fightin'.

Poetry is really cool, anyone who don't like it is a fool!

It's still hot out here, and that's okay

'cause, I am cool anyway!"

Morton closes his book and nods, as if agreeing with praise he can only hear in his head. "Yes," he says to himself, "that was awesome."

"It really was!" a voice calls out from on top of Bowser Statue #356. It's just Lemmy, but Morton still shoots to his feet and hides the book behind his back anyway. He feels sweat begin to prickle at his brow – subsequently that sounds like a great line for a poem, and now regrets breaking the pencil more than ever.

"Hey, Lemmy," he says "what, uh, what are you doin' up there. I-I thought you were inside, y'know? Weren't you an' Junior gonna have one of those art jams. Inside? Inside and not out here?" Morton really wasn't expecting this! At least it's only Lemmy, he likes Lemmy. Well, Morton loves all of his family, but Lemmy is generally pretty nice, even if he doesn't listen to half of what goes on around him. Honestly, Morton has attempted to tell Lemmy some really cool information he learned about circuses so many times, but his older brother is always staring into space. Figures Lemmy would finally focus on things he said at the precise moment Morton didn't want the attention! I mean, really, you gotta figure the little guy SHOULD pay attention to things he cares about instead of beginner private poetry?

Lemmy hops down from the statue, shocking his brother out of his reverie, and sticks the landing. "We were," the short koopaling starts before getting distracted by a piranha plant spitting out a piece of a pencil. "Um." He tries again. "We were, but the Big Guy found out Junior didn't do his chores hee hee!"

"Aw gee," Morton says, momentarily distracted, "Poor shrimp… he's been getting' away with it for the past few days too." The brutish koopaling rubbed the top of his bald head in dismay. "Shoot. Now I owe Roy." His brother shoots him a sympathetic look, which reminds Morton of the real problem at hand; er, claw. Morton Koopa Jr has been caught writing poetry!

Oh, what will his siblings say! Morton may enjoy what he writes, but Ludwig can stick his nose up at its roughness…. He thinks about Wendy complaining about having better things to do, and Iggy straight up laughing in his face. Larry will never let it go and can possibly start swiping his books to mock him with… and Roy. Morton can't even bring himself to imagine what Roy would say, but he shivers. Roy could-

"Wooooah, there, Morty!" Lemmy calls out, interrupting what Morton swore was simply his train of thought. "What's with all the negativity, bro?" The talkative koopaling's been speaking his thoughts out loud again.

It is something that happens fairly often, believe it or not, so Morton isn't too embarrassed. He can't help but be a little self-conscious when it came to his inner thoughts. This doesn't mean—"Heavy question, my bro,"- Morton is going to pass on an opportunity to talk. "Probably 'cause all it's all true! You know exactly what I'm talkin' about. Whenve-" But he gets cut off again.

"Won't know 'til you try," is Lemmy's response, he's seemingly losing interest in the conversation with each passing second. Morton huffs.

"Whatever," he says and makes an attempt to look somewhat threatening, "they ain't gonna find out 'cause you won't be telling them anything!" Lemmy seems more interested staring up at the sky than acknowledging his brother. Morton loses his posture and begins to fidget with his claws. "Lemmyyyyy," he whines, "I'm bein' serious, I don't want you tellin' anyone anything."

"Okay!" Lemmy says, suddenly. It seems too easy to Morton, but he isn't about to complain. Lemmy gets distracted all the time, but he's not much of a liar when it comes to family matters. Lemmy is as much of a koopaling as the rest of them are, though, and can be known to cause a bit of mischief. Maybe Morton will press his brother a bit more to make sure he understands how serious this is to him!

"Just Okay? You promise you're not gonna rat on me, bro? 'Cause, I'd be really upset if you did!" Morton waves his arms around, hoping lots of arm movement would increases his older brother's chances of paying attention. Fortunately, it does! Lemmy follows the movement with one of his eyes! Unfortunately, what he's following is the book Morton had completely forgotten he was supposed to be hiding.

"Your secret poem stuff's in there?" Lemmy asks as he hops closer to his brother. Morton holds the book out of reach, which is much more difficult than it sounds; even without his ball Lemmy is extremely skilled at hopping and climbing up spiked koopa shells.

"W-W-Hey!" Lemmy is now sitting on Morton's head, but he makes no effort to grab the book again. Maybe he stopped caring? "Big bro, big bro, did'ja know you're on my head now?" Morton's never been very good at the whole 'balance' thing, and stands very still to ensure Lemmy won't slip and grab on this his hairs. Morton hates getting his hair pulled!

Lemmy giggles and leans forward to make his own form of upsidedown eye-contact. "Yep! I like it up here!" The smallest koopaling pats his younger brother's mostly bald head. "Roy always gets mad when I try sittin' on his head, but you never do!" Little Lemmy stands on one foot, acting as if Morton's head was a rubber ball! The burly koopaling laughs, which jostles his brother's footing. Morton is worried for all of two seconds, before Lemmy does a cute little flip and lands directly in Morton's arms. He didn't even realize he was holding his arms out!

Morton is extremely impressed. "That was so cool!" He's way too big to do any cool tricks himself, watching Lemmy is always a treat. Even if it's a bit dangerous, Morton knows his older brother knows what he's doing. If not for his shell, the little guy would probably be as light as a feather.

From his new position, Lemmy is in perfect book viewing position and he's able to see the title for the first time. "What's that say?" He asks, pointing to what he meant. Reading was never really his strong suit, not that Morton's handwriting helps anything.

It's not bad handwriting by any means, it's the opposite actually. For whatever reason, Morton picked up cursive from Kammy and now his writing is prettier than hers. "Oh," Morton says, beginning to blush, he's never read his journal's title aloud and now he's regretting what he calls it. "It's uh, oh boy. It says 'There Isn't Poetry In Here'…"

Lemmy laughs, positively gleeful. "But-But there is!" He lightly whacks Morton's arm in mirth. "That's so funny! It's a trick! How cute!" Morton can't help but grin back, his brother's exuberance is so contagious.

"Guhuhuh… Yeah. Thought it was kinda clever."

Lemmy squirms around until Morton gently sets him down, he gives his little brother a super wide grin. "Your poem thingy was clever too!"

"O-Oh! You did?" Morton is glad he had set Lemmy down because he may have dropped him in shock just then. "It is, um, a work in progress," Morton says bashfully, he knew Lemmy wouldn't tease him about writing poetry in the first place, but he really hadn't expected Lemmy to compliment it out of nowhere.

"I liked it! I liked it!" Lemmy sings, hopping around from foot to foot. Once again, Morton begins to mimic his brother and starts hopping too. The ground seems to shake a bit, and the piranha plants, now finished menacing what had been a pencil, start to nip at the koopalings feet. This only spurs the two of them to dance even more vigorously.

Fortunately, Morton is very good at double-tasking. By which to say, Morton can talk no matter what he's doing. "Aw, gee, Lemmy, thanks." He says, eyes shining. "I think now'd be a good time to head back inside, wouldn'cha say? Not that I'm not havin' a grand time movin' my feet, but I'm gettin' tired and-and I'm all outta snacks for our friends here. I'm also out of snacks for me, now that I think about it. I'm startin' to get a little peckish. Do you think dinner's soon, Lemmy? Oh, you're not gonna tell anybody about the poems, right? I'm glad you liked 'em, but I wanna tell everyone on my own time. Wow, I'm.. I'm really gettin' tired. Aren't you, bro?"

Lemmy, of course, is a being made completely out of energy, and he shakes his little head. Morton guesses he's having fun? It would be more fun to Morton if he wasn't running out of speaking air. Also, he's thought about dinner, and now food is the only thing running through his mind. He should write a poem about food actually. "Lemmy, I'm gonna," he takes a second to catch his breath. "I'm gonna write a poem 'bout food sometime. I'll tell it to ya'." The smallest koopaling cheers and it really warms Morton's heart. At least, he's hope its gratitude that's warming his heart and not some sort of exercise based chest pain.

Yikes.

Morton decides now is the time to bid his brother a farewell, as it seems Lemmy is quite content dancing with the plants and may continue to be for who knows how long.

Morton feels good, he's not all that upset about Lemmy finding out about his poetry. In fact, he feels even better about his writing than ever before. The only thing disappointing is Morton didn't manage to keep a secret for longer than a month, but… secrets are boring anyway. As long as the word doesn't get out, which it won't Morton trusts his older brother, he will have all the time in the world to practice his writing.

Heck, maybe he'll even write a poem Roy'll be able to enjoy.

Thank you for reading!