So, this is very different to anything I've really published before but I'm super excited to finally share it. I would like to give credit to the MarioLore Tiktok series by LoveBunny and DinoGraveyard, as they were what inspired me to start writing this fic. However, I would like to express that while this is inspired by their work, it is not based on it and it will ultimately tell a very different, separate story to the universe they have created. This will be a fairly long multi-chapter fic and, as long as everything goes according to plan, I'll be publishing a new chapter every Thursday. Of course, I don't own any rights to the Mario franchise or any different interpretations of it. Enjoy!

Storytellers always like to tell the same tale- damsels in distress, terrible cursed monsters, tall dark towers of imprisonment, and knights in shining armour. And audiences always love to listen to them; the stories of daring rescues, blushing brides, and love at first sight. Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom was no exception to that rule. All her life she had been told these very stories and dreamed of a life just like in those grand tales. However, as she soon will learn, life is no fairytale. Sometimes, the greatest story is the one you least expect but the one you get to tell yourself.

To an outsider, the life of Princess Peach was one of love, luxury, and ultimate security. She was an only child and therefore the sole recipient of her parents' affections, as well as the obvious heir apparent to their thrones. She appeared to have everything a girl could ask for and more. However, if anyone ever actually spoke to Peach- although few did, viewing her royalty as something to be gazed at from afar rather than something to be close and familiar with- they would learn the true and altogether different story of her childhood. While her father had doted on her as a baby, her mother had been less than happy with her. From the moment Peach was born, her mother was disappointed that she wasn't a boy- the son she desired and a 'rightful' heir to her and her husband's power. As the years went by, and it became clear that Peach's mother was unable to conceive another child, her disappointment at Peach's existence only grew. Nothing she did was good enough; from her first painting she had proudly shown her parents when she was just 3 years old, all the way up to the way she had put ribbons in her hair on her 21st birthday, nothing Peach ever did was the way her mother wanted. At first, Peach's father had tried to comfort her and had admonished his wife's words to her. 'She's only a child' he would say in her defence. But as she grew older, Peach found her father taking her mother's side more and more frequently. All day, every day, all she would hear from her parents was how she needed to sit still, stand up straighter, be more graceful, smile more, smile less, and on and on they would go. She felt little comfort from most of the servants either, who would simply rush around her hardly even making eye contact, for fear of invoking her parents' wrath if they so much as breathed incorrectly. The only one who had even dared to speak to Peach had been Toadette, who had been a simple kitchen maid around the same age as Peach when they had first arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom. A bond akin to friendship formed between them and, upon seeing this, Peach's parents hired them to be Peach's personal maidservant, possibly in the hopes of keeping Peach more firmly in line. The two had spent many long nights together talking and comforting one another, both feeling very isolated and alone in a world that expected them to look and act a certain way but always knowing they could never quite fit in no matter how much they tried. But they took solace in each other's presence and, for Peach at least, that was comfort enough.

What little true joy Peach could find in her life almost always came in the form of her closest, and practically only, friend Daisy. Princess Daisy had first arrived at the Mushroom Kingdom palace just days before her 7th birthday, alongside her parents who were distant cousins to Peach's parents and were paying them a long overdue visit. From the moment they met, Peach and Daisy had become inseparable. The two played together for hours in the palace gardens every day, told each other secrets they would never tell anyone else, and made a promise to each other that they would always be the best of friends. When it came time for Daisy to leave, Peach had cried for hours and locked herself away in her chambers for an entire week. Since then, Daisy's parents had visited the Mushroom Kingdom every summer, always bringing their daughter with them and both the princesses counted down the days every year until they would see each other again. Those summer days spent with her friend were some of Peach's most treasured memories and formed the basis of the friendship they still had to this day. Although, Peach's fondest and most treasured memory of all was the day Daisy had come to her a few weeks after Daisy's 19th birthday and she had asked Peach to be her maid of honour at her wedding. It had been an arranged marriage between Daisy and a local lord of a similar age who had recently inherited his parents' estate, Luigi. He was technically the youngest of two brothers, but the other had gone missing years before and was presumed dead after their parents had disowned him, leaving Luigi as the sole heir to the entire estate. Daisy had been overjoyed at the prospect of marriage and Peach had been just as happy for her. The wedding ceremony was a beautiful affair of golds and greens and it was the only time Peach could remember seeing both her parents smile. That wonderous day was now a memory of nearly three years ago and Peach was beginning to feel she may never get to experience the same happiness her dear friend had felt when walking down the isle.

That was until a letter had arrived with an enclosed invitation to a ball being held at the castle of King Boo of the Koopa Kingdom. Peach knew as well as anyone the rumours that surrounded the Koopa Kingdom and its ruler like a dark cloud. The mysterious King Boo, a man notorious for his handsome looks, wild parties, and lavish lifestyle. But also a man very few knew anything else about, aside from the fact that he had ascended to the throne nearly twenty years ago at the innocent age of 18 after his parents were killed in a fire and, during those twenty years, he had never once taken a bride. Instead of a queen, next to him stood his younger brother, Prince Bowser. Very little was known about him either, only that he had been placed under a dark curse as a child and now had great horns on his head and fangs instead of teeth; everyone in the kingdom feared him, supposedly even his own brother. But Peach had never truly believed such rumours, knowing nobles' love of gossip and drama. Now, as she stood alone in her chambers and held the invitation in her hands, an idea began to form in her mind. She would do anything to escape the iron grip that her parents held around her, even for just a single night, and this invitation was the perfect excuse. And, given that King Boo was still yet to marry, she could use this as an opportunity to get close to him, maybe even woo him... It was a long shot by far, but at the very least, it was a night of entertainment away from her parents. And at best, it was the possibility of becoming queen and heir to a kingdom five times larger and more powerful than that of her parents. Plus, what did she have to lose?