CHAPTER TEN – BACKGROUND

After about a half hour, Lemmy's door opened to reveal Ludwig. "Sorry if that took a while," he said when Vitani looked over at him.

She smiled. "No, it's perfectly fine. Lemmy here is quite entertaining."

Lemmy smiled at her. "Thanks! I just like having someone new and interesting around!"

Vitani got up from the bed and walked over to the door to where Ludwig stood. She looked back towards Lemmy. "Thank you for keeping me company for a bit."

"It was no problem! Come back soon!"

Vitani gave him a wink and mouthed "Don't wait forever to tell them."

He smiled sincerely at her. "I won't," he mouthed back.

Vitani walked alongside Ludwig down the hallway. "What did you dad want to speak to you about?" she questioned.

Ludwig avoided looking at her and tried to speak calmly. "Nothing, really. Just wondering how you're adjusting so far and telling me of his upcoming plans for the Mushroom Kingdom."

Vitani raised an eyebrow. "You mean you're going to attack them again?"

Ludwig stopped in front of his door and opened it. "Yes, not quite yet, but very soon." He stepped aside to let her in before following behind her and shutting his door.

She frowned at him. "It is really necessary to do that?"

"For my father, yes."

"What do you mean?"

He looked at her sincerely. "I don't particularly like going on his crazy missions anymore. I grew out of it a long time ago. Unfortunately, because I'm the oldest and first in line to the throne, he expects me to carry on his legacy. I go with him and try to act interested."

Vitani thought back to when they captured her yesterday and chuckled. "You weren't doing such a good job pretending yesterday."

He smiled lightly. "I let guard down a bit because I didn't think anyone was really paying attention to me at the time. King Dad still noticed though, and apparently you did, too."

"That's part of why I chose you as my captor," Vitani said lightly. "You seemed really disinterested and the least threatening out of everyone."

"Then you chose very wisely," he said. "I'm surprised you were even allowed to choose. It was very unlike my father to say something like that."

"I'm just glad I wasn't forced with Larry…" she whispered and shuddered.

Ludwig laughed lightly. "Even if you were assigned a captor, it wouldn't have been him. King Dad still finds him too young and not mature enough to properly attend to a prisoner. If anything, you would have gotten assigned me, Wendy, or Morton. Wendy can be mean, but if you talk about girly stuff, she'll open up to you. Morton just loves to talk your ears off. Pretty harmless overall."

"What about the others?" Vitani asked.

"Well, you know about Lemmy. Larry is a huge pervert and very immature. He thinks he's so bad and a gift to all the ladies," Ludwig said and rolled his eyes. "Roy can be the same with thinking he's super cool, but he's more a bully than anything. He does have a soft spot, but have fun getting on his good side to see it. As for Iggy, just steer clear of him for the most part. He loves to conduct a lot of weird experiments, so if you don't want to be a test subject or caught in the crossfires of an explosion, I recommend staying away."

"You have an interesting family," Vitani commented. "I can't imagine having six siblings. I'm an only child. I feel like one would be too many."

Ludwig laughed. "It does get annoying having so many siblings, but they've grown up a lot compared to what they used to be. Besides, I stay in here enough that it can feel like I'm the only one." Ludwig thought for a moment. "Thinking bad, I'd say it was ideal when Lemmy was first born and it was just the two of us. It was nice having someone a lot closer to my age to play with, even though I am still three years older. Taking care of him often fell to me, however…" Ludwig trailed off.

"What about your mother?" Vitani asked curiously. "Surely taking care of a sibling shouldn't have been your job."

"Our mother is… MIA a lot. She visits when she can, but she couldn't be around enough to take care of us all."

"What's so important that she can't take care of her own kids?" Vitani asked, slightly angered at the nerve this mysterious woman had.

Ludwig sighed and looked down. "What's more important is inconspicuously running a kingdom so as not to be overthrown."

Vitani thought for a moment. "Wait, so your mother is…" she trailed off in shock.

Ludwig nodded. "Princess Toadstool, the woman you were with before we captured you."

Vitani's mouth hung open in shock. "But how?"

"Dad never really planned to have kids, originally," he said. "He mainly captured her so that he could intimidate her to sign her kingdom over to him. Somewhere along the line, they fell in love."

"They fell in love?" Vitani asked. "When I spoke with her earlier, she mentioned that Mario guy and acted as if though she fancied him."

Ludwig shook his head. "It's an act, for appearances sake. If anyone in her kingdom knew, she would be overthrown."

"But why not have an alliance between her kingdom and this one, or even step down?"

"No one would ever accept it, and she knew her subjects are too helpless to go on without a good ruler."

"Subjects?"

"They're called Toads, and they're pretty mindless for the most part. They couldn't even get her back from here until the plumber stumbled his way into this world."

"Mario, he is not king, right?"

Ludwig shook his head again. "No, he is not. As I said, her feelings for him are merely an act, yet he still stays around her hoping one day they'll be married, or something like that. Had she not developed feelings for my father during the time she was captured, things may have worked in his favor."

"I see," Vitani commented. "What happened when she fell pregnant for the first time with you?"

"Being that they are two completely different beings with different DNA, they had never thought it was possible for her to conceive. When she told dad, he freaked out pretty bad," he said and chuckled at the thought. "But they were oh so happy about it. I was born, and together they raised me. When I was about a year and a half, the plumber showed up and 'rescued' her. She was completely heartbroken to have to leave us, yet deep down she knew she had to for her people." Ludwig sighed sadly. "It wasn't easy for me to accept that my mother raised me for so long and suddenly vanished. Dad said I cried for her for weeks, and he held me as he cried for her too. That's when the schemes began to get her back. She tries her best to help get herself captured so that she can come back and visit us, but it still isn't easy. I know she truly wants to be here with us. It was a lot easier on the others being born and her not around because they weren't raised by her as long as I was. While dad tried everything to get her back, I became the one responsible for taking care of my siblings."

Vitani wiped a couple tears off of her cheeks. "I'm so sorry… That's so sad. I hope one day she can stay here with you."

Ludwig smiled at her sadly. "It would be nice if she could be here permanently, but we're already so grown up. Her heart already breaks knowing she missed out on so much of our lives." He paused for a moment. "What's your story?"

"I wish I knew. I can't remember a thing," she said sadly. "But maybe it's a good thing I don't. I feel like where I came from wasn't such a nice place, and perhaps this was my escape."

"Some escape if you're still a prisoner here," Ludwig said softly.

"It's not as bad as it could be," she said and placed her hand on top of his.

Ludwig looked at her hand on top of his. "You still deserve to be free."

She shrugged. "Maybe this is just how things were meant to work out."

He smiled at her. "Maybe…"