"Are you getting ready in there?" Bowser's mother called through the door to her son.
"Yeah, just combing my hair." He replied from his room. He wanted to look perfect for his evening with Princess Peach.
"Make sure you look nice. This is very important!" His mother warned, hoping that Bowser would not only look but act presentable for his evening with the Koopa that he had been arranged to marry.
"Yes, yes it is, mom. Thank you." Bowser said hesitantly, surprised by her support. In the past his mother had disapproved of his attempts with Princess Peach, but perhaps she was finally coming to a place of understanding.
"Don't be bossy. Remember to chew with your mouth closed. And don't go on and on about yourself-pretend to be humble!" She advised. Her chest felt tight with nerves for the evening. With their family, things never went according to plan. Especially when those plans involved her eldest. But now the evening appeared to be going perfectly...
"Ok, you've helped enough, thanks." Bowser called back in a tone of dismissal. The last thing he needed was a list of his least appealing character traits.
"Alright, I'll go," she announced. "Good luck!" Then she walked down the hall to her bedroom, praying wildly to the Stars that the evening would go well for her son.
Peach's hands flew lightly across the piano keys, tickling them with each touch. And the instrument laughed in response. She was working on a piece entitled "Of Salamanders" by one of her favorite composers, Edward MacDowell. Though she cringed at the occasional mistakes that she made, she was proud to be progressing through the difficult music. When she came to the end of the piece she let her hands float delicately off the keys, so they hung suspended above them like ghosts. Goosebumps prickled her arms, which was biological proof that she had done well. Her teacher first complimented her phrasing and musical expression, and then pointed out passages that needed more practice. Peach spent the rest of the lesson carefully applying her instructor's criticisms, playing the piece again and again until it soared off her fingers.
She left the studio feeling contented with her work and eager to return home. For the first time in weeks she had a free evening all to herself, and she was hoping to spend the night leafing through her old diary. The book seemed to sharpen her existing memories and bring forgotten ones back from the recesses of her mind. Peach's older sister, Rosalina, had mysteriously disappeared from the Mushroom Kingdom when Peach was barely a teenager. Since that time her parents had been searching endlessly for their missing daughter, leaving Toadsworth to run the kingdom in their absence. But if Peach could somehow locate Rosalina, then maybe they would return to both their kingdom and their abandoned daughter... She was so lost in thought that she didn't see the large object hurtling towards her from the sky until it was almost too late.
She screamed and jumped away just in time to avoid a collision. Her heart was racing from the near-impact, but when she realized who was driving the flying car, it stopped in her chest.
"Bowser?!" She asked, incredulously. As far as she knew, he was still in the emergency room with one limb drenched in pain medicine and the other in the grave.
"The one and only!" He replied with a grin.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in a hospital?" Peach asked, her pitch raising.
"The only way to find out is to come with me." He declared as he swung open the door to the clown car.
Peach hesitated for a moment, considering her options. If she refused, he wouldn't stop pestering her until she joined him. But if she went willingly, she would be rewarded with a comedic and exaggerated account of Bowser's escape...
"You know I can't resist a good story," Peach noted, as she delicately stepped into the vehicle.
Together they flew off into the night, Bowser's voice blending with her laughter as she left her previous plans for the evening behind her. But soon an unfamiliar landscape streamed beneath the car as they rocketed through the sky. Peach had assumed that they were heading towards his castle, but instead of the darkly barren twisted tree branches that clawed up from the earth of the Darklands, she saw lush jungle foliage sprawling beneath them.
"Where are we going?" She inquired.
"I thought that you might be hungry, so we're going to get some dinner. I've heard rumors that the kabobs in Jungle World are the best ever, so we'll try them and see if it's true." He explained.
"That does sound good," Peach confessed. She was surprised and slightly confused that they were going out of their way to eat. In the past when Bowser wanted food, which was approximately every two hours, he bought it from drive-throughs and gas stations to save time while driving. Suspicion rose quietly to the back of her mind. Was this some sort of trick?
But as the car descended upon a posh yet secluded restaurant, Peach's inhibitions left her. A smile inadvertently curled on her lips. Although the evening had not gone as she had anticipated, she was not disappointed with the changes. The game that they'd been playing all their lives returned to her again as it always had, but it no longer felt familiar. New textures pulsed just beneath the surface, almost palpable as she and Bowser stepped through the establishment's front door, leaving the game, for a moment, in their wake.
Bowser could barely contain his giddiness as he flew home from his evening with Peach. A sporadic highlights reel of their final moments together played through his mind, starting with the end of their meal.
"So... Are you taking me back to your castle?" Peach asked long after they had finished eating.
"Not unless you want me to." He said easily, relishing the look of surprise on her perfect face. She gaped at him, speechless for a moment before he continued. "As much as I would love to beat the stache out of that plumber, I can't go to the hospital again. Not today. I'll make up for it in our future brawls, but in the meantime I have to recover from the last one."
"How uncharacteristically smart of you," Peach muttered, the shock worn away to reveal her biting humor.
"You're too kind, Princess," he acknowledged sarcastically, flashing her an over-the-top smile in return for the compliment.
His brain skipped ahead to another snapshot, this time to a moment in the car on the way back to the Mushroom Kingdom.
"Those were delicious kabobs, definitely the best that I've ever had," Peach confessed as they careened through the sky, soaring above the border between Jungle World and the far reaches of Mushroom Gorge.
"I think we can do better," he declared. "I won't rest until we agree that we've found the best kabobs in the whole universe."
"What about your plans for world domination?" Peach teased, her blue eyes twinkling.
"It can wait. I won't be able to conquer the galaxy without the highest quality kabobs fueling me!" He joked.
"Well, then for the good of the galaxy I will never admit that we've tried the best ones." She vowed spitefully.
"I guess we'll just have to keep tasting new ones forever." Bowser reasoned.
"I guess so." She agreed, as she flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder.
Again his memories surged forward, bringing him back to when he landed outside of the servant's entrance to the castle.
"Right here is perfect, this way I can sneak in without being noticed," Peach explained.
Bowser got out of the driver's seat and opened the car door for her. She gracefully stepped down from the vehicle and onto the grass, facing him.
"As I said maybe three hundred times tonight, thank you for the present." He said earnestly, looking down into her blue eyes.
"I'm just happy you're alive. I was so worried about you." She admitted.
Then she walked forward and gently wrapped her arms across his waist, grazing his chest with the side of her head. His heart beat wildly, and his thoughts spasmed and stalled. But he responded automatically, leaning down and crouching slightly so that they were closer to the same height. He dare not wrap his arms around her, both out of shock and the fragility of the awkward embrace.
"Thank you," she whispered softly into his ear. Then a moment later she pulled away. She left through the door behind her as if nothing had happened.
Only while flying back home did Bowser realize that she never clarified her gratitude.
But he didn't let it bother him. The evening had gone more than well, far better than he had ever expected. His head felt fluttery and light, and for the first time he was fairly confident that he would prove his father wrong. His heart was flying, joy flooding through his veins-
"Bowser Koopa, what do you have to say for yourself?!" His mother roared, waiting for him in front of the garage. His lovesickness instantly drained from his body, replaced by dread. Her tone was one that he was very familiar with, and meant only one thing: he was in deep trouble.
A/N: Unfortunately, in the near future I will not be able to update as frequently as I have been this past month. I was recently hired at a second job, and I must put my work in higher priority over my writing. However, I could never forget about you guys! Fret not, I will continue writing and posting chapters the best I can, but I'm sorry it won't be as regular as it has been. Thank you (maybe for the three hundredth time) for each and every comment, follow and favorite! Feedback is always appreciated, and it honestly makes my week. You all have been more than wonderful to me. Thank you. Much Love, Guardian.
