ANOTHER CASTLE
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
Peach counted the clouds as they turned grey outside.
She made a mental list of just many lightning bolts struck down from their ominous formation as the rain pressed down on the land surrounding the castle.
In time, she hoped the rain would continue that it would flood the barren moat and give everyone a place for which to bathe and play. It must be awful not to have such pleasantries, to be surrounded by so called 'comforts' of smoke and fire, but her captor would persist on his stubbornness.
She wondered just how much further Mario had left to travel, when last she heard, he had reached World six. He had taken the short way 'round this time, a trip provided by a thrust from an almighty cannon. The landing may have been as unpleasant as it was already undignified, but she doubted he would ever show any sign of injury or insult.
Mario was always of a bright and boundless disposition, which always brought such delight to her in these bleakest of phases. She would fret, she would worry, but she would do her utmost to conceal it and approach these days with grace and civility. She had not been born from a family of cagey wasps.
A loud yell called her attention, the sounds of frustrated scowling and the patter of frantic, nimble feet, a loud stomping could be heard to pick up shortly thereafter, resonating throughout the chamber, coming ever so closer, and closer, strongly worded of complaint bellowing forth, formerly identifying the culprit to Peach all too clearly.
There was commotion in the castle.
Peach disembarked from her glances outside of the castle tower, and quietly tapped on her padlocked chamber door, knowing the cause of the stomping was parked right outside of it.
"What's happened?" she said.
There was a pause of silence, interrupted only by heavy breathing and the scarcest cooling of palpable temper, and then came an answer.
"It's Junior" came the voice, itself most weary and humble. A surprising turn given the being behind the voice had in many instances been full of braggadocios bluster, his ego very much left unchecked, his common sense placed firmly at the door.
Peach was taken aback, but only for a moment, then she realised this was very much going to be a matter with which she was to be party to, and she had to be ready.
"Tell me everything" she said.
Ten or fifteen minutes ticked by. Peach, having been informed of what had happened, was let out of the chamber and escorted to another room in the castle, the one that she'd had heard been so thunderously slammed and sealed just a while before.
She knocked on the door.
"It's me. What's the matter?"
"Mama Peach is that you?" called out the fragile, crackly voice.
"Let me come in and see you" she said.
The locks on the door could be heard to turn, and the chamber door was opened from the inside. Peach entered the room, pitch black and deeply uninviting. She waited for her host to greet her with a warmly lit candle.
It eventually came, as Bowser Junior sat on the edge of his bed of skulls, his legs kicking the wind frantically.
"Your father is very worried about you" Peach said.
"What does he know of other's worries? He's only ever concerned with the compromise of his own ambitions" Bowser Junior responded with the bitterest resentment.
"You're one of his great ambitions, you can be a mighty ruler, but he sees in you the call to be a better one"
"He's got an awful long way to go. He doesn't know what's keeping me awake all my days" Bowser Junior revealed.
"Is that why you seem so tired? You can't sleep?"
"What is sleep if not the reminder of conscious oblivion persevering Mama Peach?"
Peach smiled, this was a challenge.
"Do you worry that if you go to sleep, you will be consumed by this manner of oblivion?"
"I try to sleep, and I find myself travelling to lands I've never been to, I meet people I've never seen, I say and do things I can't muster up the strength to try...and the questions persist, why do I think of another life? Other worlds? What does it say about I feel living in this one? I fear the oblivion because any random day it could take me and leave me there, on the farthest side, away from everything I've come to cherish. Away from you Mama Peach"
Peach perched herself down on the bed and gathered Bowser Junior up in his arms.
"Be still and steady little one, the farthest side is nothing to fear, it is simply another castle in which you dwell, a private room you find inside of yourself, everything is possible in a dream, but to make it possible, you have to undergo the trials of life, you seem to have a grasp of that, you wish to live through the trial, but there are not always direct answers, only verdicts. Going through the passage of sleep allows the mind to come to much clearer conclusions, and you awaken refreshed not just in body, but of sound mind"
Bowser Junior rubbed his eyes wearily, feeling faint, his spark of stubborn aggressive energy dissipating. Sleep suddenly seemed more inviting.
"One last thing Mama Peach, why would I dread something like oblivion if all it is passage to another land?"
"Dread is often a question that gives us a little nudge, letting us know there is something to discover always in the land of the living, and we must not take that for granted. Not ever, not until we've experienced everything it has to offer"
She rested Bowser Junior's head onto the hardened rock that served as his pillow and draped a nearby blanket over him.
"Your mind will always have millions of questions, but sometimes you will also invite in words that remind you everything can be alright too. Would you like to know what those words are?"
Bowser Junior, however, had already fallen asleep. Peach chose to recite those words anyway, calmly whispering in Bowser Junior's ear.
"You are beautiful. Think those words every day, don't even hesitate. Something is making me say that to you, something in the universe, on the farthest side, is compelling me to say that, that surely, surely, can only mean greater things can be revealed to you, if you keep it all in balance. Work, rest, play"
She kissed Bowser Junior gently on the forehead and left the chamber, Bowser and his guards were waiting to escort her back to his chamber.
"He'll sleep" she assured him.
"How are you able to do it?" asked Bowser.
"Do what?" Peach asked.
"Remind him he's not a monster" Bowser answered.
Peach folded her arms and gave him a warm smile.
"Some monsters are bigger on the outside than they are on the inside. Look at how you take care of him; look at who you sent in to look out for him. Someone like that, giving him the freedom to laugh, to cry, even to pick on you or my friends, giving him agency, there's a heart to that, he should be thanking you, as I want to thank you"
"Thank you for what?"
"Reminding me that I'm a mother"
She tensed up as she slowly walked away from Bowser Junior's chamber.
"If only I could remember giving birth to him"
"Suppose when your plumber comes for you, you'll forget all about it and about us" Bowser spoke, a trite sorrowfully.
"That's not true; you don't have to ignore us. I'll always invite you over for a Kart race, or a Mario Party, I'll even bake you the cake, though that depends on whether you agree not to cause trouble"
"Oh I will" Bowser replied
"Yes, I wish you weren't like that, but I've realised long ago you shouldn't try to change people. Only they can do that"
"So long as you don't change" said Bowser, Peach was visibly moved, she beckoned him to kneel down slightly so she could tenderly kiss his cheek and stroke the furry strand of red hair on his temple.
"I wonder a great deal about many things, but I suppose, for us, that's another time, a distant land, something for our dreams, the farthest side...and another castle"