Mario blocking the doorway interrupted Luigi's cheerful whistling as he entered the living room to check on Kamek. "Hey, what gives?" Luigi craned his neck to see what Mario was shocked still about. It turned out to be Kamek standing on his feet, leaning against the recliner similarly frozen in place.
"What are you doing?" Luigi chided, pushing past Mario. "Haven't we been over this?" He stood in front of Kamek, arms crossed. "Geez, you're almost worse than Mario when he's sick."
Mario huffed. You try to rescue Peach while feeling under the weather one time...
Undeterred by Luigi's scolding frown, Kamek met it with a scowl of his own. "Have you forgotten we're trapped here?" he snapped in a hoarse voice, pointing out the window to the snow still swirling outside. "And I'm the only one of us with the ability to get us out? It's already been days; we've wasted enough time as it is. Besides, I for one am tired of staring at your idiot faces all day."
Mario and Luigi shared a considering look. Kamek had a point. Kind of. Not really. But Kamek was just as stubborn as they were, and arguing wasn't bound to get them anywhere.
So Kamek ended up amongst his stacks of books once again. This time, though, he was wrapped in blankets and sitting next to Mario, since the library was chillier than the living room. With a box of tissues by his elbow and a mug of tea nearby, it was like he was back at the castle, doing research at the peak of flu season.
Well, aside from the presence of the Mario brothers, that is.
Still, Mario was warm and willing to keep reheating his tea (though he had to keep sending him off to get books lest he vibrated out of his skin from sitting in one place for too long), and Luigi was quiet enough and eager to bring snacks when asked (though his constant hovering was still quite irritating). It was almost kind of pleasant.
Mario smiled at him.
"I said almost...!"
Poring over what he'd written, Kamek knew he was close to having what he needed to solve the puzzle on the panel. If only this last rune wasn't giving him so much trouble...!
Luigi peered over Kamek's shoulder at his spread of notes. "Hey, that one kinda looks like one of those Bubbles from space, don't it?"
The L'il Cinders? Yeah, it kinda did.
Kamek pushed them both away from his workspace (he didn't need both hairy menaces in his personal space, thank you very much) and reviewed his notes. As it turned out, they happened to be on to something with that comparison...which meant he'd been in search of the wrong reference for the past hour. He rested his forehead against the table for a moment. Mario patted his shoulder sympathetically.
With this unexpected breakthrough and a final flourish of his pen, Kamek jumped up in excitement. "I've got it!" he crowed and immediately regretted moving, his head pounding and stomach churning. "I'm...I'm fine." He waved off Mario and Luigi's concern. "What's important is that I can open the panel now. We should go."
Or they could stay until Kamek felt a little bit better.
Kamek grumbled, but the room was still spinning...
When Kamek regained his bearings, the three of them headed over to the trap door. Kneeling in front of it once again, Kamek tapped the runes with purpose; as he finished the sequence, the whole panel lit up, and they heard the click of a latch. Mario grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, revealing a stone stairway leading down into darkness.
Carefully, Mario led their descent, wreathing his arm in flame in an attempt to light the way. Kamek followed, definitely not clutching Luigi's shirt to stay steady on the uneven steps. Luigi brought up the rear, anxiously humming in the darkness.
"Would you stop that?" Kamek snapped at him.
Luigi hummed more frantically. Kamek grimaced.
The stairway opened into an equally dark and musty room. Mario held his arm up, trying to figure out where they were. He sure wished there was a better source of light in here...
One by one, torches on the wall lit up, casting an orange glow to the room. "I found a light switch!" Luigi explained, hand pressed to a panel on the wall. How convenient.
The room they found themselves in was small. Covered in dust. There were old wooden shelves filled with trinkets and baubles lining the walls. Of them, a snow globe caught Mario's eye; the snow inside was spinning and whirling furiously, even as the globe itself sat perfectly still. Inside sat a familiar cabin, resting on a mountainside. He showed it to Kamek, who studied it with a thoughtful expression and brushed a hand against its base, in which more runes were carved. The runes lit up.
Luigi cried out in shock behind them. In the center of the room, a pedestal also lit up its runes in kind. Above it, a palm-sized glowing ball hovered, intensely lighting up the room.
Mario poked it. He yelped, sucking his finger. That stung!
"What kind of rune anchor is this?" Kamek squinted at it, perplexed. He caught Mario stretching his hand to the ball again out of the corner of his eye. "Stop that!"
It took Kamek a moment to figure out what to do, between absentmindedly smacking Mario's hand away and Luigi whistling nervously right by his ear, but finally, with the flick of a wrist, the ball bloomed with a soft chime, revealing a small sprite with tiny wings and wearing a simple dress. It was hard to discern any other features with how much fae glowed, but the trio could still tell fae were fast asleep, snoring quietly as they all peered at faer.
"Someone should wake faer up," Kamek said aloud.
"How?" Luigi scratched his head. "Should we just shake faer awake?"
"It can't be that easy, can it?"
Mario shook faer awake. Fae stirred with a yawn.
"Oh, hello," fae greeted them when fae finished blinking the sleep from faer eyes.
"Yes, hello," Kamek replied. "Sorry for waking you, but do you have anything to do with the magical blizzard outside? Maybe you have a way to stop it so we can leave safely?"
The sprite didn't look like fae were listening to him. Fae flew up, flitting around their heads curiously. Fae stopped in front of them with a considering pout. "Hmmmm...Did you have fun?"
"What? No!"
"...Actually, I think I kinda did."
Kamek gawked at Luigi in disbelief.
It was an interesting change of pace, Mario had to admit.
Kamek sputtered. "Of course you would say that; you weren't the ones who'd fallen ill!"
The sprite floated into Kamek's field of view, studying him. Kamek eyed faer, wary and annoyed. A self-satisfied smile bloomed on faer face. "Hurray~!" fae cheered, twirling in the air. "Okay, goodbye~!" Fae waved and vanished in a cloud of sparkles. All the runes in the room went dark.
The three stared at where the sprite vanished, baffled. What were they to do now? Out of the corner of his eye, Mario noticed the snow inside the snow globe had stopped swirling around. On a hunch, he herded everyone back up the stairs. Outside the sliding door windows, the world was still — the snow had stopped falling! Seemed like the sprite made the storm stop after all.
"Finally, we can get out of this stupid place," Kamek sighed in relief, making his way to the door.
"Already?"
"What do you mean 'already'?" Kamek turned around. Luigi was grinning at him.
"Figured you'd want to grab some of those books from the library first," Luigi said innocently. Mario waved a tote bag he'd gotten from who-knows-where around, also grinning.
Kamek squinted at them. "This feels like a bribe."
"It's not!"
"You're not very good at looking convincing."
Luigi grinned wider.
"...I'm not going to go easy on you the next time we meet for any of this."
Of course not.
"Glad we all agree."
The bag was only so big, so Kamek had to carefully choose which books to take with him. When he finished stuffing the bag, he took out his wand (which he'd evidently been too sick to think to use while they'd been trapped here) and cast a flurry of spells on the bag itself. By the time he finished, he was swaying where he stood; Mario caught him as he sank to the floor.
"Hey, don't go and undo all our hard work," Luigi sternly said.
"...Sorry."
After gathering all their things and foisting a spare jacket onto Kamek with a mild amount of fuss, the three stepped through the front door for the first time in days. Tall snow banks were strewn about, fluffy and glittering white. Mario took a deep breath of the cold mountain air. It was good to be outside again.
Behind them, a chime rang out. They spun around to be faced with an empty cliffside, no cabin in sight. Kamek patted his sack of books. They were still there. He sighed in relief. Kamek's jacket didn't go anywhere either, which was even better.
Mario and Luigi admittedly weren't sure what to do now that they were finally outside. Kamek, meanwhile, started walking away from them both. They were in the middle of trying to quickly figure out how they could escort Kamek back to the lodge without making it obvious they were escorting him when they heard voices crest over the snowbanks. Those voices belonged to Bowser, coming up the path towards them, and Bowser Junior, perched on one of his father's shoulders. They were slowing down every few steps, peering around the small mountains of snow, searching for something.
Kamek also noticed them and worried about whether Bowser Jr. was bundled up properly in this weather (he was) before spotting his magic broomstick propped up against Bowser's other shoulder. "My broom!" He stalked up to them. "Give it here!"
Bowser raised an eyebrow. "What, not even a 'hello'? Or a 'how generous of you to come searching for me in this cold yourself, almighty Koopa King'?"
"The sight of you braving the world beyond the lodge's hearth of your own volition for the first time since we've arrived has me weeping in pride, my Lord," Kamek drawled. "Give me my broom."
Bowser rolled his eyes, half-throwing-half-dropping the broomstick to Kamek, who barely managed to catch it.
"Where've you been anyway, Pops?" Junior piped up as Kamek inspected his broom for damage. "You were supposed to meet us for dinner days ago!"
"Oh, I just got caught in the snow," Kamek said, getting on his broom. He floated to Junior's level. "It was...admittedly a slight miscalculation on my part. I apologize."
"You'd better be sorry." Bowser scowled. "Since when did you make bone-headed mistakes like that? I could barely get the rest of the Troop to do anything useful, with how worried they were."
"Yeah, those losers at the lodge wouldn't even let Dad go outside to find you!" Junior snickered at the memory. "Even when he threatened to torch them!"
"Hey, you're making it sound like I was worried! Because I wasn't!" Bowser burst out with a strained laugh of his own. "I knew the old man wasn't gonna be done in by something that stupid."
"I appreciate your faith in me, Your Defensiveness," Kamek replied, deadpan.
Seeing as Kamek was in pretty good hands now, Mario and Luigi decided to make their exit. Unfortunately, their attempt to sneak away was thwarted when Luigi's foot got caught on a rock hidden by the snow. Although Luigi was able to stay on his feet thanks to a quick pinwheeling of the arms and Mario grabbing the back of his collar, they ended up catching the others' attention.
"Hey," Junior shouted, hostility overtaking his face, "what are you doing here?"
"Mario! Greenie!" Bowser stomped his foot. "Gah, you're lucky you caught us at a bad time; otherwise we'd have totally clobbered you both!"
Oh good, Kamek thought. He was worried they'd try and pick a fight; he could hardly do much magic when it was so cold out here. "I suppose we're retreating then," he mused, pulling his jacket tighter.
"For now," Bowser grumbled, turning to leave.
"Hold on!" Luigi cried out before they got too far. Bowser's impatient glare made him almost regret speaking up, but he pressed onwards despite it. "...Keep an extra eye on Kamek, will ya? He hasn't been feeling too well the past few days."
Kamek glowered at Luigi. He opened his mouth to deny being sick. He sneezed.
Faster than Kamek could fly out of reach, Bowser put a hand on Kamek's forehead (although it was more like a finger or two, given Bowser's size). Kamek bore the motion with resigned frustration. "Hey, you are sick!" Bowser exclaimed. "You never get sick!"
Given how Kamek apparently was in the habit of hiding his illnesses, Mario was only half-curious about how Bowser had never caught Kamek at least a little bit under the weather after all these years.
Junior frowned at Kamek. "Dad says you're not supposed to hide when you're sick."
"Erk." Kamek froze, deer in headlights, and Bowser decided to use the given opportunity to pluck Kamek right off of his broom. Kamek squawked and flailed as he was lifted, but then Bowser had him held in an arm against his other shoulder and there was nothing he could do about it. He did manage to keep a grip on his broom, though.
"Are you implying an awesome king like me can't take care of his own subjects?" Bowser scoffed at the Mario Bros. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Yeah," Junior added, "we can make Pops take the gross medicine just fine, thanks!"
Kamek groaned, head in hands.
With a "see you never, losers", Bowser ambled down the mountain. Junior blew a raspberry at Mario and Luigi as they vanished around the corner.
And so, the Mario Bros. were left standing in the snow. Mario elbowed Luigi, a grin on his face. Luigi shoved him back, laughing. The two of them headed down a different path back to the lodge.
The sun sat bright in the cloudless sky.