Chapter Two: Petals on the Floor

Mario tilted the bowl forward, scraping the last chunks of potatoes and carrots with the spoon in his other hand. The wooden spoon clattering against the cavern of clay made a pleasant, hollow sound.

"Are you sure I can't tempt you to stay the night, sir?" the innkeeper asked.

Mario swallowed and wiped his mustache with the back of his wrist. "Oh, I wish I could, but I have to be off. I can't afford to sleep until I reach the next stop."

The innkeeper's face under her orange-spotted cap showed a look of what seemed to be genuine concern. "But, sir, it'll be dark soon. The forest at night is a treacherous place. Please stay, for my own peace of mind if nothing else!"

The sky did glow orange above the black tree line out the window, and the fire blooming under the still fragrant pot was warm and welcoming, but Mario still shook his head. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I've been through these woods many times. I'm much more afraid of being late than anything that lives out there." Mario dug in the pocket of his coat as he said these last few words, and soon a sack of coins was in his hand.

Mario held out a small handful of gold for the innkeeper to take, but he opened his hand too quickly, and a single coin fell past her palms to the wooden floor. As soon as the coin clinked against the boards, a pair of yellow eyes lifted from two tables away, though the face in which they were set barely moved. These eyes saw the glinting coin roll to a stop and rattle like a cymbal on its side before taking in the white, gloved hand that pinched the small disk between its fingers. The eyes then moved to the still bulging sack as it moved back into Mario's coat and narrowed.

"Sorry about that," said Mario. He tipped his hat and made for the door.

The innkeeper stood framed in the warmly glowing doorway as Mario made for the waiting carriage. "Thank you, sir!" she called. "Be careful out there!"

Mario nodded and waved over his shoulder. Broom in hand, the innkeeper made her way back inside, which she was surprised to discover now had two fewer occupants.

"Huh? Now, where did that green gentleman go?"

As Mario climbed into the driver's seat, he didn't notice the shadow slipping into the back of the carriage. Perhaps the mare noticed the extra weight, but she gave no sign as she plodded dully away from the cozy inn.

The sun was already out of sight, but Mario could see the effect of its swift plummet past the unseen horizon as the forest became rapidly dyed in shades of red, then purple, then blue, as though each hue were being poured over the trunks and branches in rapid succession. The breeze that rushed by Mario's face was as quick and cool as a river.

Mario shivered and pressed the back of his fingers to the lantern mounted on the side of the carriage. The warmth was small, but Mario felt it radiate outward through his whole body. The glow summoned the shape and color of the road and branches out of the darkness, while paradoxically making the shadows themselves blacker and sharper.

Just as Mario lifted his hand away, he felt a small tap on the tip of his nose. He reached up to flick it away, thinking it to be the feet of some insect, when he felt another on his ear. Tiny spatters began to sound on the roof of the carriage, and an unmistakable hiss soon filled the branches above.

"Oh no." Mario wearily looked up. Above the firelit underside of the leaves and branches was not a field of stars but a solid iron-gray haze. The clouds had waited insidiously for the sun to disappear before moving into position above the forest, and now the cold rain sheared past every leaf and sizzled on the hot glass of the lanterns. The mare flicked her ears and shook her head, irritated by the sudden shower.

"I'm sorry," said Mario, "I didn't mean to make you walk in this." The road melted and rose in clumps with each of the mare's steps, and sludge clung to the spokes of the wheels. Water trailed and drooled over the brim of Mario's cap, and he reached up to pull it down lower over his face.

With that pulling motion came a sharp blow to the back of Mario's skull. Mario gasped as he felt someone kick him to the far side of the driver's seat. Disturbed at the sound and the rocking of the carriage, the horse came to a stop.

Mario squinted through the colors popping in his vision to see a green face in a black mask grinning manically back at him.

"Terrible weather to be out by yourself, huh? Can't be easy going with all that gold weighing you down, so how's about you hand it over, nice and easy, see?"

Mario breathed heavily, still wincing. "Alright, alright," he said, "I'll give you what you want. Just please don't hurt me."

The thief waited, smirking, as Mario dug quietly in the folds of his coat. However, he was unprepared for the next sensation when a very heavy and very jagged sack of coins collided with his temple. Mario hopped forward onto his feet, glaring with his new weapon in hand as the thief cringed and clutched the side of his head.

"Now, you know darn well that's not what I meant, ya lousy drip!" he complained.

"Be quiet!" Mario snapped. "My brother and I worked hard for this gold! There's no way I'm handing it over to some lowly thug!"

"Who're you callin' a thug, ya fat palooka?" the thief fumed. "The name's Popple, the Shadow Thief! And I'm takin' those coins one way or another!"

Popple swung, and Mario ducked, but while Mario's eyes were on Popple's fist, his other hand darted out with surprising swiftness to grab at the sack of coins. Mario yanked the sack backward, using the leverage to take a swing at Popple's jaw, but he yelped when he suddenly found his knuckles clamped between Popple's oversized teeth.

The next few moments were a confusing series of blows from closed hands, elbows, knees, and soles of boots, the last of which Mario realized, amidst the flurry, was what had struck him in the back of the head. Mario's teeth chattered as he tried to throw Popple off the carriage, but Popple was slick with rainwater, and every attempt Mario made to grab him only put him close enough to swipe again at the gold weighing heavily from Mario's aching palm.

As the coin sack was tugged left and right and clawed at by greedy fingers, the stitching, which had held through weeks of brushing against fingers, tables, and cloth and being frayed from the inside by gnawing gold teeth, finally burst. One, two gold coins slipped from the ripped mouth in the fabric. One clattered wetly on the driver's seat, the other's fall was cut short when Popple's hand closed around it.

Snarling in frustration, Mario grabbed at Popple's wrist, but Popple pulled the offending hand in and slammed his elbow into Mario's ribcage. Popple charged forward with his shoulder jabbing into Mario like the prow of a boat and shoved him off the carriage onto the muddy road.

More coins bled from the widening tear, plopping heavily in the mud. Mario scrambled to gather them, his fingers stirring the road, as Popple glared down at him, breathing hard.

"So, you had to play the hard way? Well, boo! Boo, I say! Well, fine! Keep your crummy coins! But, I'm takin' the horse!"

Mario scrambled to his feet, but the whip was already in Popple's hand, and Mario saw the lantern light illuminate the black tendril as it cracked against the horse's flank.

"Get!" Popple shouted. The horse whinnied in terror and took off, mud spraying from the back of the creaking wheels.

"Wait!" Mario shouted impotently as he tried to run after the quickly retreating carriage. The mud sucked heavily on his boots, and he ached and floundered as he heard the rattling of clockwork faded into the distance. A large bundle slid off the back, shaken loose by the rattling of the carriage disgorging the muck, and Mario heard the crash as metal and wood pieces scraped against each other and shattered.

The carriage was gone. The rain remained. Mario pulled himself, one step at a time, toward the fallen castle.

The rope was broken, and the cloth flapped wetly. Mario didn't want to look. Lying beside the open flap, he saw a single figure, lying with one arm stretched out of the mud. He pulled it from the road and scrubbed the mud away with the wet thumb of his glove. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw it was a knight, standing unarmed with his hands outstretched. Mario knew the rigid were built to bend as the knight beseeched the captive princess above. Now, the cogs were severed, and those legs would never move.

Mario made a sound that was half-sigh, half-groan, and the back of his neck burned at the thought of facing Luigi. All of his hard work, gone. If Mario had left sooner, like he'd said, he could've afforded to stay at the inn, and perhaps there would be no waste. At the very least, perhaps he wouldn't have run into the thief. Now, what would he say?

Mario slipped the knight into his coat pocket. Different parts of his body throbbed from where Popple had struck him, and he was soaked to the bone. It seemed even his very soul was chilled and sopping. Mario wearily thought of the distance he had passed since the inn where the innkeeper waited with her fire crackling below the pot of soup. How long would that same trip be on foot? Mario's legs ached at the very thought of it. The road, he knew, was out of the question. It would pull back against every step he took, fighting against him each time he tried to lift his foot from its grasp, until his shaking legs gave out and folded under his freezing body.

Mario turned his face toward the trees beside him. Their branches, at least, might offer some shelter from the falling rain. Perhaps waiting for the rain to stop was the answer. Would the sun rise before that happened? The idea was depressing.

Still, the tree cover seemed preferable to where he stood, and so he determinedly worked his way to the shelter of the trees.

The rain didn't drum quite so heavily, but the drops that jabbed at his neck and shoulders haphazardly were torturous in their own right. In the open remains of the road, the ache was at least constant. Here, in the blackness of the trees, Mario felt his body tense as his skin anticipated each drop. And the touch of the drops offered no relief, only causing the skin to shudder as if pricked by a needle.

At least the ground was firmer. Mario crunched through the wet rags of the fallen leaves as he rubbed his hands against his shoulders. Mario looked ahead and saw a particularly large tree, its boughs full of vein-like branches reaching into solid bouquets of leaves. Mario knew it foolish to stray too far from the road, but the potential cover of that tree was too tempting to resist. Mario hastily made his way there.

The drops did come smaller and less frequently here. Mario rubbed his hands together and blew hot air into his palms, willing the warmth to spread up his arms. He looked up, not expecting to see anything but more trees but willing to take in any sight that might distract him from the inescapable ache.

Where the trees above would have met the sky, Mario thought he saw stone.

Mario squinted. It was stone. Cutting through the tops of the trees was a flat edge, too flat to be natural. In the darkness, it stood black against the gray sky.

Mario stared. He had passed this way many times and had never seen any sign of a building in this spot. He looked around and saw no road leading to it. It was inexplicably there, a looming presence that disregarded any soul's need for explanation.

Mario couldn't take his eyes off that single line against the sky. He didn't know what kind of building it was. It was so dark and so far off the beaten path he doubted anyone would be there. Whatever presence might have once inhabited that structure had probably long since abandoned it. Still the thought of a sealed roof overhead was enough to compel his steps toward that distant edge.

It was farther than it looked. Mario felt himself slipping and stumbling over the many detritus in his way, the roots of trees, cracked sticks, half-dug burrows, and moss-covered stones. He didn't notice the vines slithering by his feet, and the drumming rain drowned out the faint snarling emerging from behind the gleaming fangs between white lips. Mario didn't look down to see the monsters cowed by the driving rain but kept his gaze fixed on that line, afraid, perhaps, that if he moved his eyes away, he would lose it amidst the surge of the forest.

Eventually, touched only by rain and dirt and stuck-on leaves, he arrived at the front of the structure. It was a wall, rising high above his upturned head. Mario didn't have to walk long along it before he came to an ivy-coiled gate. He peered through it.

Between the creaking bars, he saw a magnificent castle rising into the gloomy sky on the other side of a ragged courtyard. The rain falling over its pointed roofs and looming towers made it shimmer with a kind of white haze. Ornate statues stood posed and curled all up its frame, and their shapes caused the castle's silhouette to appear bizarrely more organic than the trees surrounding it on every side.

Mario stared. It was all too much to take in at one glance. If a single wall was inexplicable, this was impossible. Perhaps Popple had hit him too hard, and now his brain was swimming with phantoms. Perhaps that also explained the nonsensical thought that next popped into his head, which was, "I bet Luigi would love to draw this."

Mario rattled the bars of the gate, but it held firm. He felt drawn into that distant castle, lured as if by a beckoning finger. To see such a strange and beautiful sight and simply walk away, he knew, was impossible for him. A life could not continue unchanged after coming across something like that. He had no idea what he would find inside. He knew only that if he did not see, he would spend the rest of his life wondering, and this he was unwilling to do.

Mario looked around, searching for a way inside. Nearby, a tree stood with its branches reaching over the top of the wall. If the castle were still occupied, such a thing would probably have been trimmed, the tree shooed away as all living things must be. But now the tree was such an open path, it might as well have been a key.

Mario approached the tree. His hands were on its rough trunk when he suddenly stopped. Though as he did so he felt a twinge of distaste, as always, he now thought of Waluigi. Waluigi had said something about a castle, hadn't he? Yes. Not yesterday, but often. The beast lived in a castle, he said, and all the men who entered…

If Waluigi had asked (and he had), Mario would have said (and did), that the very idea of a castle in the middle of the forest was itself ridiculous, let alone a beast inside. But, now, here was the castle. Could it be? Was a beast, in fact, waiting inside, teeth bared, claws drawn, its belly echoing? Mario felt a chill, not in his skin or bones but in the pit of his stomach. He stood at the base of the tree, undecisive.

The thought of Waluigi made him stop, but it was also what made him move again. At the thought of Waluigi's mocking face and derisive laughter, Mario scowled. If he could see Mario now, cowering at the base of his tree while dripping like a caught fish, he would howl with laughter. The idea of being cowed out of anything by Waluigi was enough to make Mario dig his heels into the wood of the tree and hoist himself upward. There was no beast. Perhaps Waluigi had come across this very castle on one of his hunting trips and had made up a story about it. Yes, that was it. Mario climbed.

Luckily, the branch reaching over the wall was thick enough to support Mario's weight without breaking, and Mario stepped gingerly all the way to the end as it gradually sagged toward the cobblestone below. The branch was bent at an easy slope when Mario's feet slipped off the thinnest tip and he landed with a crouch on the other side of the wall. Free of the forest overhead, Mario felt the rain pound heavily on his neck and back, but he saw the shimmer on the roofs of the castle and hurried forward. If the rain was bouncing off the roof, it wasn't getting in.

Mario reached the heavy wooden door. He raised his hand to knock, thought better of it, and pulled on the brass knocker. To his surprise, the door opened, a slow creak its only resistance.

Mario stepped inside and looked around with awe.

If the outside was ornate, then the inside was outright lavish. A huge staircase directly in front of him curved up into a huge vaulted ceiling that seemed the same height as the iron sky outside. The marble floors shined like ice, and the gargoyles that sat perched all along the castle walls had also taken up their residence in here, their wings pressed up against columns, their tails wrapped around the pillars on which they crouched. The red velvet carpet was soft as a freshly cut lawn under Mario's feet as he moved deeper into the entrance hall.

It wasn't really any warmer inside, but it was definitely drier. Mario whipped off his hat and twisted it his hands, squeezing a torrent of rain into the rug. He felt himself dripping as he walked over it. He slapped the cold hat back onto his head and continued forward, unable to keep his eyes or head still.

He didn't really feel up to the staircase at this moment, so he passed to its right and came to a long hallway. On one side was a row of suits of armor, the helmets all different shapes and the plumes all different colors. On the other side was a wall hung with paintings, many of which were larger than the suits. Mario turned his head from left to right, unable to decide which to gaze at. The paintings were a riot of color blues, greens, oranges, and pinks, depicting many different scenes, dogs running after ducks across a pond, ships sailing out of busy ports against a burning sunset – or was it a sunrise? – upturned baskets spilling out with fruits Mario had never seen before. Though the subjects were mundane, the color, size and skill were enough to make the images seem as fantastic as any fairytale.

As for the armor, though the spears held in the metal hands were all identical, each suit was unique enough to be a work of art in its own right. Over the surface of each plate were etched tiny, intricate designs of vines, leaves, and creatures whose outlines glimmered even in the low light, and the crests on each shield were remarkably bold, lions and flowers and brimming cups surrounded by borders of every color. Mario again found himself thinking of Luigi, who always had to take his references from books he couldn't understand. What would he say if he found himself in here?

Mario didn't stop to take in any of these wonders. Much as he didn't want to miss a single detail, he also was impatient to see more. His eyes drank in every in huge, restless gulps.

Suddenly, very softly, underneath the sound of Mario's footsteps on the carpet, he heard what sounded like a soft creak. Mario turned and looked behind him. Nothing in the hall was moving, there was nothing new there, but he saw that one of the helmets several placed back was turned in his direction. Mario eyed that helmet nervously. Had it been facing that way before? Mario was sure they had all been facing the opposite wall.

Mario slowly turned his head back and kept walking, his head more still then it had been. He heard the creaking sound again. He turned back. Now two helmets were turned in his direction.

Mario kept moving down the hall, his eyes fixed on those helmets. They had all looked empty. No, they hadn't. He couldn't tell. The eye holes were all shadowed. He had just assumed they were empty. His feet kept moving as he silently dared the helmets to do the same.

"Turn back."

The whisper came right above his ear. Mario pivoted in the direction of the voice and found himself looking up at one of the suits of armor. Was his helmet turned down at him or was it still facing the wall?

"Turn back."

Mario jumped. This voice had come further down the line, back from the way he had come. He looked and saw a third helmet creak slowly in his direction.

"Turn back."

Mario ran, not back where he had come, past where the knights had moved, but further toward the end. As he ran, he heard a rapid succession of metal scraping on metal, and he knew all the helmets he had admired were turned after him in a line as he sprinted down the hall.

"Turn back! Turn back! TURN BACK!"

Mario came to a door and slammed it behind him. He panted hard with his back against the door. He had heard ghosts sometimes haunted this forest, but he had never seen them. It was possible that this was their idea of a hilarious prank, but either way, he was in no hurry to go back down that hallway.

Mario looked around the room he now found himself in. This one was smaller than the ones that came before it, though no less grand. A carved mahogany table stood surrounded by tall, carved chairs. One chair alone looked more expensive than the horse and carriage Mario had rented combined. On one wall was a portrait of a mountainous landscape, and a dull chandelier hung above, magnificent in spite of the cobwebs.

Mario walked deeper into the room, looking around more nervously now. He heard a soft whisper, along the floor, voiceless this time as though a breeze had sighed against his feet.

He looked down and there, just behind the feet of the table, was a pink flower petal.

Mario bent to look. It moved and settled softly, as though it had just blown in. But blown in from where? There were no windows to the outside, and Mario felt no draft moving across his wet skin. The soft pink stood out even in the shadow of the table, comforting in its gentle brightness.

Mario heard another sigh, so soft he felt it more than really heard it, and looked up in time to see another petal settle just beyond the opposite doorway. Mario approached where the petal had fallen.

"Hello?" he said, as he poked his head around the doorway. He saw nobody, but further down the hallway, he saw another petal flutter into place.

"Is someone there?" Mario asked. He followed after the petal. "I don't mean any harm. I just need help!"

As Mario approached the third petal, he saw once again that there was nobody in sight, but around the corner, another petal appeared. The petals continued to fall, one after another, in a soft, floral trail. Mario knew he was being led somewhere, and sometimes he could hear something scurrying just out of sight, but always by the time he reached where the sound had been, there was always only the petal.

At last, a petal blew into view outside a room where light seemed to be spilling. Eyes wide, Mario followed.

Several petals lay like a pebbled path to the base of a small side table. On the table stood a vase full of pink roses. Petals were strewn all over the surface of the table, surrounding a single bare stem, which lay on its side beside the vase. Behind the vase and table and the armchair beside them was a roaring fire.

Mario felt the warmth reach him even before he ran to the fireplace. With a sigh of relief he sank down to the floor in front of it, not even bothering with the chair. He closed his eyes, enjoying the flickering of the light over his face, and the warmth pressing in on his wet frame.

He opened his eyes and looked around for whoever had led him to this spot, but there was no one. As his eyes wandered, he spotted a teapot and a cup of tea that had been hidden behind the flower vase when he entered. He reached up and touched the surface of the teapot. It was warm, too.

Mario was abruptly aware of how dry and sore the back of throat was, but the sight of the teapot made him suspicious. His mind worked, weighing the pros and cons as he peeled off his soaked jacket and lay it out in front of the fire. He lay his hat beside it and looked up at the tea pot again. Finally deciding that dying of poisoning couldn't be worse than dying of thirst, he poured himself a cup and drank it rapidly so he couldn't change his mind.

He burnt his tongue, but the tea itself was delicious. He tasted honey. Mario spent a moment clutching the hot tea cup in his hands before taking another sip.

After a moment spent waiting to be poisoned, Mario finally allowed himself to relax. He didn't know who had lit a fire, poured him a cup of tea, and then left, but he didn't want to miss them in case they returned. And besides, the fire felt so wonderful. It was strange that he didn't simply melt in front of it, like candle wax. It was tempting to sink into the chair and fall asleep in front of that fire, but strangely enough considering all he'd been through, he didn't feel sleepy at all. In fact, he felt wide awake. Mario frowned down into the now half-empty tea cup he was holding. Was it possible this particular kind of tea had an energizing quality? Strange.

Mario twisted where he sat to set the tea cup back on the table.

A second later, it had rolled to the floor and shattered.

It was not clumsiness that caused Mario's hand to knock into the cup and send it clinking over the saucer but a sudden jolt through his entire body. Over the soft crackling of the fire, he'd heard a distant bellowing roar, so enraged it seemed almost to be in anguish. Mario had reacted before the sound had reached his brain, and as the monster's cry echoed inside his skull, he saw the stain slowly spreading over the carpet.

The fire continued to pop. Mario shakily raised himself off the floor and into the chair. The cushions sank sweetly under him as he rose to his feet and peered over the back of the chair. Nothing appeared in the dark hallway behind the door, but as he listened to the pounding in his ears, he heard the roar, shorter but sharper, almost like a bark. The bark of a dog chained and starving.

Mario felt a tug on his pantleg. He jumped again and looked down to see the flower vase was now perched on the arm of the chair. It tilted a porcelain face up toward him under the bouquet of roses.

"It's time to go!" it said anxiously.

Mario stared. The face was small, anxious, the voice high and feminine like that of a young girl. "You-? Talk-?" he stammered, staccato.

"There's no time!" the flower vase begged. "Please, come with me!"

It – She – took his hand in a porcelain appendage that wrapped around his fingers like a leaf. Mario felt cool clay. A distant crashing sound, something heavy breaking on a hard floor, reached his ears. The flower vase hopped from the chair to the floor, and Mario didn't resist as it led him back out of the room.

She may have had arms and a face, but she had no legs, and she moved down the hall with a heavy hopping motion. The flowers rustled and shifted with every bounce, and Mario felt himself propelled forward in jerks.

"What-? What are you!?" Mario finally managed to gasp.

"My name's Toadette," the flower vase said, "and I'm sorry, but we really have to go! They told me to keep a lookout!"

"Lookout for what?" Mario said. But, he already knew.

"There's no time to explain! Keep running!" Toadette the flower vase pulled him back down the path he had fallen. Rose petals kept fluttering by his feet, some from his strange companion, some lifted back from the floor.

Meanwhile, the distant sounds were drawing steadily nearer. Each crash was closer, each roar louder. Mario thought he could hear each rattle of the throat from which the roar emerged. Too soon, another sound joined the cacophony, a gently rhythmic clicking, as of sharp talons on marble.

When they reached the room with the table, Toadette let go of Mario's hand and pushed his calf toward the opposite door. "I'm slowing you down!" she shouted. "You can make it from here!"

"Wait! What'll happen to you?" Mario cried.

"I'll be fine!" Toadette was frantic. "Just please go!"

Her plea was so desperate that Mario ran. Toadette with a burst of effort, shoved the door shut behind him.

As soon as she had done so, a long, serpentine body slipped into the room, so quickly it was though it had been poured. Livid blue eyes narrowed at Toadette, who shrank back against the door, her strange hand to her mouth.

"Mistress! Please forgive me, but he was lost out in the rain! That's all! Please don't hurt him!"

The beast didn't wait to hear anymore. In one motion it was along the wall beside the door, which was flung open with a violent force that barreled Toadette forward, headless of her futile attempts to dig her base into the carpet. The door stopped halfway across its arc, too soon to shatter Toadette against the opposite wall, but the gap was wide enough for the end of the tail to whip through the door as Toadette cried out in despair.

The door was within sight when Mario heard a skittering just behind him along the left wall. Plates of metal rained down behind him, and suddenly there was a crash right before his eyes, and he had to skid to a stop as the suit of armor crumbled to pieces across the floor in front of him. Chest plate, spaulders, empty, hollow-eyed helmet all cluttered to the floor behind the rolling spear. Mario looked up and saw the beast slither to the floor and raise itself to meet Mario's gaze, a snarl building in its throat.

Mario was shaking as he stared back. As with the paintings and the castle itself, he took in the beast in a gulp, each detail crowding out the one before it. Its face was long and reptilian, its bared teeth jagged and stained, its body long and thick as the trunks of the trees soaked in the rain outside. A pair of horns curled over the blue eyes, their whites gleaming. In the low light, the hard, cobbled scales shone with the dull color that Mario had seen just under a candle flame, the orange light shining through the wax as it melted. As it snarled, advancing in imperceptible degrees in the way of animals, it lay a single clawed foot into the surface of the chest plate in front of it, and the talons pierced through that armor as if it were parchment.

Backing up slowly, Mario seized the fallen spear and whipped the point toward the Beast. Its eyes narrowed.

"You don't even have a weapon of your own?" it whispered. "You won't last nearly as long as the others." Its voice was low, dangerous, yet unmistakably feminine.

Mario fought to keep the point steady. "What others?"

"The ones who came before you. All of them, hoping to skin me, mount me, thinking themselves heroes. What about you? Do you still feel brave?"

Mario shook his head furiously. "You're wrong!" he shouted. "I didn't come for anything like that! I just wanted to get out of the rain!"

"Liar!" the Beast snarled. It lunged.

Mario emitted a cry as he thrust the spear forward. The Beast turned only slightly to turn its face away, and the tip plunged toward the Beast's neck. Mario watched in horror as the tip bounced off the surface of the scales with a ringing sound.

He thought he saw the Beast grin as it coiled back with its fangs bared. Mario jumped, and the spear clattered to the floor as the Beast surged by underneath his feet. He landed on his side on the Beast's back, and rolled as the rest of its hard body slid underneath him. He found himself back on the carpet amidst the clutter of armor, dazed.

The Beast's tail whipped into Mario, knocking the wind out of him as he slammed into a still upright suit of armor. It collapsed like a deck of cards over him. Mario straightened amidst the pile that had once resembled a person and found the coat of arms sitting halfway in his lap. Before him, the Beast turned, its eye fixed on him. Its body tightened like a spring, and Mario had less than a second to prepare. As the Beast lunged again, Mario raised the shield horizontally from his body, the pointed bottom held out like the point of a lance.

He felt a shockwave rip through the surface of the shield and slam his back into the wall as the Beast gave a cry of pain. Mario dared a look. The Beast was writhing, gritting its gnashing teeth, as its tail coiled and jerked sickeningly. He had drawn no blood, but he had felt only a soft kind of resistance as the tip of the shield had jabbed into the soft scales on the Beast's chest. The armor on its chest, he realized, was thinner.

Mario didn't risk a second blow. Dropping the shield, he waded desperately through the pool of metal and managed to free his legs. The Beast looked up to see him running for the entrance hall. A feral sound that was almost a scream escaped from between the Beast's teeth before it darted forward.

Mario grabbed a spear from another knight, pulling it down to the floor with a cascade of bells. He pointed it back and up as the Beast crawled from the floor back to the wall. Held back by a spear that now knew its target, the Beast streamed past Mario and sank its claws into a neck not of flesh but of stone. The neck of the gargoyle mounted to the base of the pillar just above shattered, and Mario realized the trap too late as the creature fell onto him.

If a hammer held by a giant had swung down on his body, Mario doubted he would be in any more pain. The stone that slammed him to the floor bruised and scraped and squeezed and kept squeezing, pressing the air from his lungs and stomach with agonizing slowness. He heard a crack that he knew was not the stone, and a searing pain shot through the right leg. Tears came to his eyes as he gasped, sucking in breaths full of white powder that coated his mouth and throat and made him cough. He felt the wood of the spear pressed painfully against his ribs. The stone has missed his head and neck, so he was able to lift his face to see the Beast slip to the floor before him, its face grimly satisfied.

It pulled its head back, its open mouth rumbling.

Yet again, his brother's face surging into Mario's mind.

"Luigi…!"

AN:

Yup, that was Daisy. Make no mistake, an exuberant girl like her doesn't grow that personality overnight.

It was out of Mario's hands, anyway. He had no choice but to get out of the rain because if he didn't get dry, he'd be completely useless.

In case you don't know what I just referenced, do yourself a favor and search "Phelous Beauty and the Beast" on YouTube. I guarantee you will have fun.

Bet you guys weren't expecting Popple, huh? Cursed Popple calls you fat and steals your horse. The idea of Mario needing to seek shelter in the castle because of a mugger actually came from the Bevanfield version of Beauty and the Beast, in which the Beauty's father is attacked by a highwayman, unlike the Disney one where he loses his way because he's an idiot. If you get a chance to watch the Bevanfield version, do yourself a favor and don't. Seriously, it's probably the worst version of the story.

I changed the cover image from a yellow rose to an orange one, since I did a little research into rose symbolism and found out that yellow roses actually symbolize platonic friendship, whereas orange can represent passion and romantic love. Also, Luigi fans might associate yellow roses with Peasley, and orange is more Daisy's color.

Your reviews have been wonderful! Please keep posting them! Ciao!