Remember how last chapter I said that our heroes fell asleep? Well, sort of. Timpani and Blumiere had spent the past few hours recovering, so now their sleep schedules were screwed up until the following night.
They had gently woken Bowser and told him to claim the bed, which he did without complaint. They then took his spot on the recliner.
Timpani knew it was one of those nights. They could sit together in the recliner and enjoy each other's presence silently and ignore the things that needed to be said. Or they could acknowledge they needed to talk and say some things that needed to be said. If just let go, the subjects would eventually fester into a problem.
So Timpani got up and quietly got some mugs and withdrew some hot chocolate packets from her pack. She took some water from a barrel in the kitchen that Mario had pointed out earlier in case someone got thirsty in the night. Blumiere used a bit of his magic to boil the water quickly and quietly, allowing his wife to make them the warm drink without waking anyone.
He knew what was about to come, so he savored his hot chocolate. Once they were both done, he knew, the conversation would start.
The conversation came too soon for his liking, but he knew he needed to get it over with.
"What happened?" Timpani asked, leaving the answer up to him.
"A great many things, my dear. A great many things…"
"After the Boo got me?" she offered some elaboration.
"No one could reach you… I was the only one who had the range to, but it all happened too quickly. You got slammed against a wall and your arm's glow faded. I remembered you saying once that it was an indication of the health of the user, and I feared the worst… perhaps 'feared' isn't correct…"
"I remember. Instinctual magic?"
"Yes… it hurt, not knowing if you'd be okay…"
Timpani placed her hand over her husband's. "You overexerted yourself with that amount of magic."
It wasn't a question, but Blumiere nodded anyway.
"I told the others you'd explain the glamour spell you placed on yourself… I did not say the reasoning, but with this bunch, the question why is inevitable."
Blumiere kissed the top of her head. "I know, my dear. I shall deal with that when the time comes."
Timpani nodded. "There's another thing we need to talk about."
"The return of my home realm." Blumiere's face contorted, disliking the idea of associating 'home' with that godforsaken place.
"Well, more of the book, actually," Timpani clarified, "there's not really much to say about the Necrealm coming back."
Blumiere frowned. "That's the truth. The book… I don't have much of an explanation or even a hypothesis for."
"Rosalina and Merlon did say they didn't know if time was stable… perhaps Luigi in the future gives it to Fracktail?"
Blumiere shook his head. "I'm not saying I don't doubt the optical receptors on that ancient robot, but the prophecy books do have a strict set of rules. The Light Prognosticus will only react if the Dark is being used, and only if the end is not yet to come. Both will speak in rhymes and riddles, usually only able to be deciphered by one person or the subjects after the event has been foretold. But the most stable rule is that each subject will only be addressed by one name unless they are part of the group. Luigi will always be the 'man in green', just as Mario will always be the 'hero of prophecy', or Yoshi the 'loyal friend'. It cannot be Luigi who will take the book."
Timpani nodded in understanding. "Perhaps its someone the others know… they mentioned a 'Sonic' but they didn't really go into detail about how they met him."
Blumiere pulled her closer. "We all have our secrets, my dear."
"Hm. I just hope they don't come from behind and bite us." Timpani closed her eyes. There was probably only an hour or so until the others woke up, so for now, she was just going to enjoy some quiet time with her husband.
"I hope that as well," the Count murmured, closing his eyes as well.
A/N: Hey, things needed to be explained and I thought I thought it was an okay transition.
What I wrote about prophecies is true, for the most part… every one I've read has addressed someone by their 'title', so to speak. Like how Mario was always addressed as the 'hero of the prophecy' because that's what the book said.
Also, the reason behind the weird printing of the books: Merlon says he's trying to translate the book for Mario during the game. But assuming he had it for years and studied it for as long as he had it, wouldn't you think he'd know a good 85-90% of the thing before Tippi even took Mario to Flipside? So I thought the reasonable explaination is that there were already a few pages, and that Merlon was waiting for the other ones to appear to be translated (because I'm also assuming that the language has changed over time).
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own ideas.
(Current length: about 49 pages and 17,905 words in MS Word.)