Luigi laid eyes on the wrecked castle again, on day 3 of his search. He had enough food if he rationed it but, having noticed a refrigerator spread through all the rubble, he decided to restock with the salvageable stuff on what he'd already had. When he drew close to it, he realized it was an icebox, and the ice didn't melt a single droplet. He'd heard that the old koopa were a great magician, and supposed this is what earned him the title. Nevertheless there were a scant few things in there he'd want to take, until he opened up the bottom drawer and found all four magic mushrooms, in perfect condition. Those would definitely be going in his bag.

He turned to look at the ocean, an island 16 dozen miles away glimmering back at him through the dim dusk light. The map said that that island was about a third of the way to his destination, Isle Delfino, and that another third would get him to DK Island. He kept that piece of information in his mind so that he made sure never to go and accidentally dig up old memories for the old ape and his son, who would be somewhere around 12 by now.

Nevermind that now. He took the sailboat and dragged it into the water by the rope, unfurling the sails and setting course for the island's port city, the appropriately named Rogueport.

Bowser groggily came to, eyelids not cooperating. She didn't want to wake up. But eventually, those blue eyes opened, looked at the hands splayed out in their vision, and upon seeing their small, feminine shape realized that the last three days happened. The bed was too comfortable to be the castle's, anyway. Sitting up, the glass of water that the snifit provided helpfully went down in a single gulp, clinking against the wooden nightstand, her hand and arm much nimbler than before, at the tradeoff of being a lot weaker.

Bowser then realized that he had been thinking in his new female voice naturally, without any effort. It just felt strange, but... kinda good? Like he could be someone new, or at least a new version of himself. But he wasn't someone new, he was Bowser, nearly-sixty-year-old! Sixty isn't new at all. But then... it wouldn't hurt anyone to think in that voice, either, would it? The face looking back in the mirror didn't seem to think so.

Just before any deeper thought could come, Snifit came along and dumped a pile of papers on the foot of Bowser's mattress. They had decided that while Bowser lay low, they should get some documents set up for the former king. Thankfully, Snifit knew just the guy to get legitimate documents made, so it was only a day before all the paperwork found itself at the foot of this hotel bed, ready to be typewritten.

At least typewriters were nothing alien. The old days were starting to look more appealing. Time to get that shell on and get to work.

It was annoying and the process made him feel like burning the entire stack of papers

For a name, Kooplisto came quickly enough; that had been the identity the koopa had assumed, and changing it now would be suspicious. Date of birth required math, which sucked. That's what the accountants were for! Still, the former king persisted and in no way whatsoever enlisted Snifit's help in finding out what year it was 24 years ago–1965–instead opting to enlist the help of an electronic calculator instead.

It was less judging.

Sex? Well, the six Koopalings would be a resounding "yes", but that's not the question at hand. Time to stop beating around the bush, Bowser supposed, circling in the letter F with a little hesitation, but also a little eagerness. And feeling... relieved, maybe even a little bit naughty? It was such a small thing, but it had a strange impact. Every time a form had asked, the M got circled like clockwork, but the former king had always had a strange curiosity with circling F, and now it's happened...

It was... surreal. But also very real and in a way liberating.

All those moments spent curious, those nights as a kid spent wondering what it'd be like to be a girl that were kept tightly secret–not even Princess Peach knew–and now Bowser had all the answers. Maybe this is a little less of a disguise than originally thought? Maybe...

Just a tiny thing made all the difference.

Getting past it took enough time that Snifit came to check up. Right, something about paperwork for an ID.

"Me? Distracted? Nope! I'm just thinking about how to answer these dumb questions."

He seemed to buy it.

"Hey, before you go, I need to get it off my mind that I hate being who-knows how far away from my kids. I've been trying not to think about them, just focusing on getting used to this new body and laying low until I can reclaim the Kingdom, but... I would put all that on hold for a decade if I could spend that decade with them. I just hope that wherever they are, they're safe. You understand, right?"

Snifit didn't know how to answer, but he inched a little closer to hear her out.

That was a talk she needed to get out during which she definitely did not cry even once, but the paperwork called.

Place of birth would be kind of tricky, because any villages small enough to host a member of her—er, his...? species without anyone knowing would be small enough that he wouldn't memorize it by heart. Quickly, he made something up. Koopa Village. It sounded plausible. The complete illogic of how a village known to house and made up entirely of koopa hosting a young, unauthorized member of the rarest species of koopa, and somehow keeping it a secret for 24 years and counting completely went over his head as he decided that's the backstory he'd go with.

Sure. Though thinking of herself as male just felt... alien now. Even saying an example sentence out loud didn't feel like she was talking about herself.

Uh... that didn't seem like a good sign, was it? Maybe not... but what would realistically be the harm? The kingdom was many things, some of them unapologetically bad, but sexist it was not. Even those mushroom guys, the so-called "good guys", rated worse off on that metric. It was all so much to think about, so to stop thinking, she decided to just push on with the paper and think of herself as female, whether or not it really applied, at the very least to get used to the character of Kooplisto. It was a pretty smart move if she could think so herself. And she could, because she owned the damn place.

Well, the method acting was a good idea, anyway. The paperwork was another story—seven pages of documents to fill out, and she was only on the fourth question. Of, like... a hundred and five. A few of which were invasive or brought up bad memories.

Her confidence wavered around the time of the questions asking about certain female biological happenings, which hadn't happened yet, and she really wasn't looking forward to. But she was just tired of thinking about it, and decided to postpone the impostor feelings until after the paperwork was done.

Finally done. At least fifteen of those questions felt downright violating. She grabbed the stack of papers, slammed them down on the table in the lobby, and walked back to her room.

Bed. Now.

She threw herself on it, eyes half open and shell still on, utterly annoyed with the system and with the world. Time to start feeling conflicted about herself and face a few realizations! Hey-yeah!

Snifit could see that something was wrong. The door to Bowser's room was still wide open and the big lug was slumped on the bed, moping. Wanting to be at least a little polite, he decided to take the paperwork to his inside guy first.

Everything looked to be in order after a quick unofficial review, so he gave one last look into the open door and left, feeling oddly pitious.

The walk to Depue T.'s office left him alone with his thoughts. Bowser seemed to be acting rather... oddly. Less cocky than expected, and surprisingly introspective and humble. In all fairness, any introspection was surprising when it came to Bowser, but it almost seemed like the old king had a couple preconcieved notions fundamental to his worldview challenged. He even noticed him taking great care of maintaining the inn. That... wasn't like him at all, he thought, and he would like me to let you know that he didn't mean so in a way that would allow one to think his head was stuck in the ninteen fifties. It was just odd for Bowser to be doing any of it, male or female.

Well, he was already at the front door of the town hall, might as well just get it all delivered.

Luigi laid eyes on land, the city of Rogueport. While it might take another day to get there, he had enough resources to get there and stock up.

Hopefully, Bowser isn't there. If he is, Luigi didn't know what to do. Probably ask him kindly to pretend he never saw him. Unless he was planning an attack, in which case he would muster up the will to fight him off.

Bowser, for her part, was still in the middle of her identity crisis, but was getting hungry. So it was time to get up.

She looked around for her shell for a little bit before realizing she still had it on, and sluggishly got up to find something to eat, the floor under her creaking with every step.

The fridge was empty. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but it still came as one. Guess she'd have to go out to eat. She called out to Snifit that she'd be leaving, and got no reply. Again. So she'd be going no matter what now.

She had her mind thinking back to her kingdom as her body grabbed her cloak and tied it onto her neck, her feet carrying her out of the building and towards the west end. She barely passed three doors down before she smelled something, namely onions and beef, that drew her into a dimly lit building, the inside of which was lit with only natural morning light drifting lazily in through the empty window frames, a mural painted on a yellow accent wall depicting a young human woman with some flowers in her hair being serenaded by a man in a fancy suit with a large hat, which reminded her of one of the nearby kingdoms. They had quite similar design sensibilities, which seemed odd -- but with that warp pipe there, it wasn't too out of the question for one world to have influenced the other like this.

The smell of the food echoed around as she looked around, a pair of koopa talking over their individual plates. This was the place, she decided. No questions. The line in front of her, easily six people long, seemed to agree. The chatter in the air left a rousing mood and the atmosphere easily transported her back to the nineteen-thirties.

Before she knew it, she was in front of the line. Not knowing what to get, she asked what it was the koopa had.

"Chimichangas. Always a favorite, and seeing as you're new here I think it would be a good introduction."

She rummaged in her cloak for the change, a 50-coin piece and another 12 coins for a Chuckola Cola, dropped it on the counter, and when it was ready she found herself unable to think very complex thoughts at the smell emanating through the plastic bag, nodding her thanks.

It was like an entirely new world opened up to her. The crunchy outer shell, the green and white sauces, the tomatoes... she normally hated tomatoes, but they were awesome here! What kind of magic was going on in those kitchens?

Sesmingly before she'd even started, she was done writing down all of the day's events, the clack of the metal keys against the rolling drum a steady rhythm. Time to devise a plan to get the kingdom back...

Luigi's eyes floated across the ocean, and he was utterly sick of it. The crashing of the waves and the rocking of the boat only held appeal for so long; after that, it was simply the same old background noise. Reminder that he had nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit and occasionally adjust course. The jourmal he had brought with him was nearly a quarter full now, empty when he had started, all filled with thoughts and ideas designed to keep him sane, remind him of his world, of Brooklyn and the Soviet Union and of the world as it was in 1983. Who knows, maybe things have changed in six years, or maybe they haven't.

Would anyone still recognize him when he came out the other side of the pipe, after nearly long enough to be declared legally dead? For sure, they had stopped looking many years ago, his mind flashing images of the elderly Segales wracked with guilt and worry, the same guilt and worry that haunted him at the idea they had believed their sons dead for years, the guilt that tinted his whole life for this last half-decade and change.

He steeled his resolve, pushed those thoughts down to his stomach, and stretched his hands out to reach the wheel, picking himself up off the floor. Rogueport was only a few hours away at this pace. He'd make it to dry land.

Bowser was getting frustrated. She couldn't come up with a great plan like she usually could! The most likely culprit, the having lost her kingdom and her vast resources and manpower, fluttered around in her mind, but she didn't feel like that was quite adequate.

Maybe part of it.

Instead, she sat at her typewriter, chewing on a pen cap, and decided to write down whatever words she could think of in the rough order she thought them. Maybe something would come to mind.

Starting with the "her" business. She was female without a doubt, but a woman?

That's a question and a half. Maybe she wasn't traditionally feminine, not that that had a whole lot of meaning to the Dark Kingdom, but then neither was Clawdia and she sometimes felt like they were two bodies for the same soul.

And when she was ever in a group of men? Not once did she even consider them similar to her, let alone in the same category, whatever category that was. But then that would be natural, wouldn't it? So why did she feel more innately similar to her female soldiers, workers, and citizens at large? And why did she never feel hesitant to help Wendy with things she'd feel strange helping one of her many boys with, as much as she loved them all equally?

So many questions that all vaguely gestured in a direction that seemed increasingly likely. But even that had issues -- everything she'd heard about the topic, admittedly all of it decades ago when she had just ascended, painted it as an overwhelming distress, especially with, well, certain features. But that distress rarely, if it ever did, seemed to come from it; furthermore, she was dreading what they might bring in less than a month's time. Yet she cringed internally whenever she was ever given a gendered compliment, and she was never quite happy with her appearance, even if she liked being big and brutish.

What was going on?

Bit of a heavier chapter. I can't guarantee constant comedy, but Bowser will go back to her old self in due time. And it is Bowser, Kooplisto is just a pseudonym.