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Shards of Love: REDUX!
Shard II: Revelations
Chapter IX
Home Sweet Home
Peach and Mario exchange wide-eyed stares at each other, neither of them expecting to see the other. The former didn't know how to think of the situation. Sure, she's excited to be back home, in the security of her own castle surrounded by friends and family, but Mario standing in front of her, shocked yet unhinged, irks her. Not only didn't he rescue her, but from his lack of tire, he didn't even try.
No matter the time, place or circumstance, Mario always took the opportunity to rescue the Princess. From rescuing her during their vacation in Isle Delfino to saving her in her own castle, Peach's security always depends on him. But, knowing he didn't this time leaves quite a fishy smell to the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Mario will spew out his own excuses for why he didn't rescue her, and she yearns to make up excuses for him inside her head. She wants to believe kingdom affairs or other issues kept him occupied, rather than him… Well, remaining indifferent towards her security.
"Peach!" Mario beamed, "You're back!"
"Why yes, I'm back, no thanks to you!" Peach grumbled, looking away at Mario's welcoming gaze.
The red-clad plumber shifts, feeling uncomfortable with the situation. Then again, what man wouldn't be after he didn't even attempt to save his own wife?
"I… Well, there's issues," Mario admits, still shifting, "It's about your parents."
Her parents! Throughout her journey home, their disappearance slipped her mind! She knows trouble awaits her parents—she knows them well enough to figure they'd never leave their Land without prior planning—but she doesn't know their current conditions, where they are or why they're gone. Then again, Peach tends to overthink minor issues; maybe her parents went on a last-minute trip to escape their busy lives.
An entire believe-deny cycle continues flowing throughout Peach's mind as she thinks up many different possibilities of safe, alternate locations of her parents. Around her eleventh possibility, her thoughts cut out as her entire body starts quaking. She's been lost in thought to the point where she didn't even notice Mario shaking her.
"Hello? You there?" the plumber questioned, continuing to shake her. She snaps back into reality and, in shock rather than disgust, pushes Mario away. Without a spoken word, she looks at his face before glancing back to the ground.
"I-I can't believe this," Peach voiced after an eternity of silence, the realization of her parents disappearing pelting her like heavy stones, "Where could they be?!"
Mario puts an arm around Peach, bringing more comfort and courage to the princess. She fears for her parents, but from the gesture, she knows she won't be alone in her search for them.
"We'll find them," reassured Mario as he walks her into the castle, "But for now, you should change out of that dress now. That thing's destroyed!"
Peach glances down at her ripped, stained wedding dress. Considering she traveled through three treacherous lands in it, she considers the condition of the dress to be quite excellent. Perhaps the dress will represent her marriage: even though tough times threaten their marriage and their togetherness, not even the most ruthless conditions will be able to tear the entire thing into shreds. Or, so, she hopes.
But then again, what about if either one of them threatens their marriage, even if unintentional? Her dress survived the elements during her pursuit, but all this could've been prevented if only Mario came to save her from Bowser's grasps. With the thought in mind, Peach rolls her eyes before muttering her rebuttal.
"It wouldn't be destroyed if you saved me, you dork."
"Hey!" Mario protested as Peach turns away from him, "I was helping with the case of your missing parents!"
Without another word, Peach turns away from Mario and trudges upstairs to her room. She's stressed about her parents, just as she stressed over everything else the past few days, but her sore legs remind her to rest first. Perhaps a nice, warm shower will wash away both the grime and the worries from her.
Peach snatches a thick, pink towel from her closet before taking off the wedding dress. She breathes a huge sigh of relief; she didn't mind the dress, but relieving herself of a supposed-hours long dress she was forced to wear for over two days makes her feel free. A sort of freedom she never experiences other than the days she races or does other sports.
Wrapping herself in the towel, Peach makes her way towards her personal bathroom. Despite her being gone, a faint yet satisfying smell of bleach lingers throughout the bathroom; with the senior servant, Wooster, in charge of cleaning the castle, her servants always clean her bathroom every workday, even during the times she gets kidnapped. She's always thankful to have the world-class servants she does, but even the clean-loving Peach thinks they overachieve with their cleaning efforts. Either way, she's still happy whenever the pink shower curtain and rosy rugs greet her, as well as a sink stuffed with organized make-ups of all sorts, and today proves no exception.
Peach hangs the towel on the rack before turning on the faucet; to her content, a warm, steady stream of water sprays from the nozzle above. Testing the temperature with her hands and finding the water warm enough, she gets into the shower. The first thing she does is lather her hair in her favorite coconut shampoo; her thin hair combined with the dry air of Dark Land and not washing it for two days felt as if she wore a wig made of hay.
After shampooing and conditioning her hair for perhaps the dozenth time, Peach feels more content with just standing in the shower. As each stream of water collides with her skin, she feels the effects of a tasking journey washing away. She's glad to be back in civilization, joyous to be sleeping in her own soft bed again, and happy to have warm, running water—although Bowser's castle also has running warm water, it'd be too awkward to even disrobe there, let alone take a shower. She'd never do that, especially with the likes of Bowser and his 'Emperor of Eavesdropping' son Larry.
By the time Peach declares herself done, vast clouds of steam rise above the water, and every muscle of her body loosens and regains its elasticity. Now craving nothing but a nice lie-down session in her bed, Peach shuts off the water, grabs the towel and dries herself. Towel wrapped around her once again, she makes her way back to her bedroom and collapses on the bed, feeling the sudden urge to sleep, not even bothering to change into fresh clothes.
As she lays, she ponders about Mario. Her parents. Bowser. She shivers at the thought of the latter's name. Is he going to come back to get her? Is he planning to "sell" her? If he wasn't, why didn't he guard her up like he does every other trip? Is this "sale" connected to her parents' disappearance? And what if the truth's there in this Koopa Lore stuff?
Perhaps she'll never know the way that koopa thinks.
Not that she wants to; that's dangerous territory.
Far from both the Mushroom Kingdom and Dark Land, Bowser lands his doomship in a vast, yet empty parking lot. The landscape proves foreign; many types of plants not native to the Mushroom Kingdom dot the land, exotic sounds of birds tweeting ring in the air and, unlike Dark Land, the merciless afternoon Sun beats down upon the land's denizens.
Not only was the land exotic, but the people too. Many different colours of toads, yoshis, birdos and koopas stroll around in a busy shopping centre not far from the parking lot. Of course, his doomship's buyer appears no different: a middle-aged, blue-shelled, purple-scaled paratroopa. By the formal, professional attire the paratroopa bears, he appears to be a sort of bureaucrat rich enough to buy the entire Koopa doomship fleet with his own pocket change.
"Well, the trip was long, but I'm here," Bowser reported to the paratroopa.
"Why, welcome here to Dinosaur Land," the paratroopa greeted, "Is this the doomship?"
"Yes. And your name is… Marcin, right? We talked a few hours ago?"
"Indeed it is, sir," Marcin confirmed before gazing at the doomship, "Mind if I check her out?"
"Go ahead."
After the confirmation, Marcin walks to the stern of the doomship, putting one hand on the ship and pressing against it. Satisfied, he moves towards the bow and repeats the process.
"My, she's one sturdy ship, if I do say so myself," Marcin commented before fluttering up to the top deck of the ship, opening the door present and disappearing inside.
'Hopefully, all my top-secret docs aren't on this ship anymore,'Bowser thought as he waits for the paratroopa. Of course, there are conditions Bowser should fear about more, such as the purpose Marcin will want a war-sturdy, yet "slower" doomship, in relative terms. However, Dinosaur Land's more of a neutral land consisting of city-states in terms of Mushroomer-Koopa struggles and, other than the skirmishes between foreigners, not much violence occurs. Plus, one rebelling doomship will far from hurt the Koopa Kingdom's dozens of advanced doomships, nor will it make any dent in the Mushroom Kingdom's air fleet.
However, Bowser does have his Klown Khopper in the doomship; he'll need to take that out before Marcin flies off with it.
Not long after Bowser's thought, Marcin bursts out of the doomship's main door, a content expression engraved on his face. With a nod followed by a smile, he gives Bowser a two-thumbs-up as he approaches the king.
"She is absolutely splendid, sir," the paratroopa complimented before adding, "I reckon the clown car up there on the top deck's yours, no?"
"It is. I'm using that to return home."
Marcin nods his head before giving Bowser a folded piece of paper. The king unfolds the paper and glances at it. The paper acts as a sort of envelope for a legible cheque written in his name by Marcin, while the actual contents of the paper displayed two copies of a sort of document for the ship purchase. Bowser signs one copy and hands the signed copy, as well as the doomship's keys, to Marcin, while Bowser pockets the cheque and the unsigned copy.
"Well, the deal's finalized," Bowser mentioned, offering a stretched hand to the paratroopa. Marcin shakes Bowser's hand in return.
"Nice doing business with you. You should get that car of yours," reminded Marcin. Without another word, both get on the doomship, both satisfied with the moves they did. While Marcin activates the doomship, resulting in rumbling and roaring on all sides of it, Bowser starts up his Klown Khopper and flies away before the doomship manages to get off the ground.
Well, Bowser's not sure how the doomship will be used; it's not like a paratroopa will need a flying machine. However, if the doomship's used for evil against his kingdom, one lone ship won't prove sufficient.
Peach wakes up during the night moaning, mentally preparing herself to be in Bowser's guestroom wearing a wedding dress yet again. However, to her infinite relief, she instead wakes up in the comfort of her own, happy-pink room, and instead of a wedding dress, she only wears a towel around her body. Her heart skips a beat; learning modesty and etiquette from her parents, she never slept in the nude, even if no one else will be in the same room.
However, her hearing's so focused on her heartbeat that she didn't hear the shuffling that occurred on the other side.
"Wow, it's one in the morning. Good morning to you too," the voice stated, startling Peach even more.
After her session of mini heart attacks, Peach looks down on the other side of the bed and spots Mario. She must've passed out—towel and all—after her shower, and since they're married, Mario now sleeps with her…
She scolds herself for the thought of ultimate stupidity; of course he does, that's how marriage works!
"Ugh, sorry," the dainty princess responds, "I'm just not used to… Well…"
"Waking up in your own bed?" Mario smirked.
"That too," she giggled, "But not used to other people either. Especially… Umm, without my nightgowns on."
"Don't you and Daisy sleep with those off at your slumber parties?"
Peach and Daisy have slumber parties all the time, at least once every other week. Some nights, they'd do girly stuff like fingernail painting and gossiping, while other nights, both go complete tomboy by playing sports or going to the gym. However, the way the two of them fall asleep almost remains constant. Being more conservative, Peach insists on sleeping in at least some type of clothing, while the more edgy, adventurous Daisy almost always sleeps commando. At times, Peach tries to also sleep without clothes, but the mere thought of Bowser or his kids kidnapping her during the night always shuts off such ideas before they could bud.
"Bowser prevents me from such things."
Mario nods at the statement. Nothing else needs to be added; both of them know how Bowser would react to such… Sleeping patterns.
"You know," Mario continued on, "I have part of the army looking for your parents. It's been almost two days since they disappeared, so the minimum time to call for help passed. They'll be safe and we'll find them. I promise."
Nothing but gratitude fills Peach; she's too thankful to even speak. For the first few seconds, all Peach can do is lay back down and wrap her arms around Mario. She questions whether just a towel will be sufficient in snuggling with a man, but considering they're married to each other, it's more than okay, and probably even encouraged.
"Unless you want me to cancel that order."
"N-no! You can keep them searching," Peach reassured, still holding onto Mario.
"Done."
"Thanks, Mario," Peach managed to say after her massive wave of emotion, "I love you."
"You too," Mario whispered to her as he puts an arm around her.
Peach has worries—and she'll admit that—but with her arms over Mario and his over her, every negative feeling drains away from her. All she can feel is the connective power between the two of them, between the two people who not only want but need each other in order to fully function. That feeling itself will always be larger than any worry Peach will ever have.