Vicissitude

by Cyndi

Bowser learns he is dying as Junior prepares for his wedding and his future. This is a story about life, death and legacies. (Sequel to Liminal Lacuna)

6. Chapter 6

Choral song credits:

"Aurora" by Hans Zimmer

"Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

"Adiemus" by Karl Jenkins (the lyrics are actually nonsense, I made up a meaning for them.)

.o

.o

Bowser's disembodied heart was brownish-red, battlescarred and heavy. It filled Junior's hand when he grasped it by the apex, the smooth muscle slick against his fingertips. The coronary arteries were as thin as the charger cable for his phone when they should've been wide enough to push a pencil through. They looked like brown rivers all over the bare myocardium.

Neil kindly trimmed off the bypass grafts, leaving their stumps sprouting off the aortic arch and the coronary arteries they attached to like branches.

Junior ran his thumb along each tiny artery. They were hard with sclerosis, their texture similar to his claws.

Strange— other than its heavy weight, Bowser's heart didn't feel any different from the everyday pieces of meat he handled.

"Junior?" Cherry yawned, "It's one in the morning, why are you up?"

He threw a towel over the heart in his hand before turning to face her. "I couldn't sleep. Um, I'm prepping his heart."

She rubbed her eyes and nodded. "I want to see it."

"You sure? It's going to look pretty gross to you."

"Mmhmm. I think I can handle it."

Junior uncovered it.

Cherry pressed a hand over her mouth and retched loudly. He draped the heart in the towel and set it on the black metal cutting board on the countertop.

"I'm okay," Cherry took deep breaths. "Maybe I shouldn't have looked. Sorry." She retched a second time. "This doesn't happen when I see other raw meat."

"This isn't your typical raw meat." Junior pointed out.

"Yeah, maybe that's it." She splashed cold water on her face at the sink. "Am I, er…am I going to be eating out of the same pots and pans you cooked that in?"

Junior kissed the top of her head. "No, we have special ones just for this. The dishes and silverware are separate, too."

"Okay." Cherry cupped her hands under the faucet and sipped. "Sorry about the gagging."

"This is a cultural practice you're not used to. I get it."

She wiped her mouth with a paper towel. "Why do you eat your dead's organs?"

"I'll explain it to you the way dad explained it to me." Junior washed his hands in the sink to get them wet. "Give me your hands."

When she did, he wiped his soaked palms on hers, getting them wet, too. She blinked and looked from her hands to his eyes.

"How does this apply to ritualistic cannibalism?"

"Easy. The water was on my hands, and I moved it from my hands to yours."

He offered her the dish towel. It was snowy white with a red Koopa family crest on both sides.

"Life is energy that comes from the universe. Food becomes energy that keeps us alive. When we die, we turn our organs into fuel to become energy for somebody else. It's meaningful because it came from someone we love, so a part of who they were stays with us, too. Not only that, if they partook before, we get whoever they bring along."

Cherry's eyes softened as she dried her hands on the towel. "That's…kind of beautiful. But what happens if they're sick with something that'll make you sick?"

"We burn the organs, boil the blood and breathe in the smoke and steam."

Junior shrugged and went on, "Not everyone goes the traditional route like dad. Koopas donate organs to science and other people who need organs, the same as Toads do. Iggy is listed an organ donor, everything but his heart, and Morton is going to donate his heart to science to study Crash."

She nodded in understanding and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I'm going back to bed. Will you be okay?"

Junior hugged her. "Yeah, I'll be up soon."

Once she departed the kitchen, he uncovered Bowser's heart and picked up the scalpel Neil left for him.

One at a time, he carved off the coronary arteries, shaved away the fat pads and excised the major blood vessel stubs. Then he sliced straight down the middle and the scalpel hit something hard.

The occluder.

Bowser had that put in after his fourth heart attack ripped a hole between his ventricles. It resembled two flat plastic buttons held together by an axel.

He said Peach dying would break his heart. Then she did, and his statement turned out to be prophetic.

Junior carved around the old thromboses and scar tissue holding the occluder in place. He found a spectacular mural thrombus in the bottom of the left ventricle, a gooey brown thing clinging to the rough trabeculations and papillary muscle from which his pale chordae tendineae sprouted. Those wiry tendons attached to the bicuspid and tricuspid valves to ensure they only let blood flow one way.

The bicuspid and tricuspid valves gaped like off-white mouths. They were huge, as big around as Junior's thumbs.

Most of Bowser's heart was inflexible scar tissue, and the worst damage done by his heart attacks showed up on the dilated, darkened, withered inner walls of his ventricles. Six heart attacks, high blood pressure, turbulent blood and time weathered this organ over the years like rivers chiseling canyons.

Junior's throat clutched. Love surged through him, like a blue shell on the Kart track. His dad was at his side, right now. He had to make him proud.

Tears filled his eyes as he sliced away the damaged tissue that ended Bowser's life and swept the pieces into a paper bag.

Once he cut off all the inedible bits, he placed garlic cloves in all four chambers, tied the heart shut with twine and laid it posterior side up in a black porcelain roasting pot.

After pouring all the blood in the vial into the pot, covering it with a lid and putting it in the oven to slow roast overnight, he washed his hands again and headed upstairs to bed.

Following dinner the next day, he took the pot out of the oven, cut off the twine and chopped the brown, roasted heart into pieces along with the garlic cloves inside it. He added water, cabbage, carrot slices, brown beans and a pinch of pepper. With a fork, he broke up the congealed, cooked blood and stirred it into the rest of the ingredients.

Then he stuck the whole thing back in the oven to marinate. The kitchen smelled like meat, copper and garlic. Once it came out, it would be ready to freeze until the wake.

Junior took the paper bag of inedible heart bits and dumped them into the lava outside. He didn't leave until he saw every piece burn away.

.o

Boom-Boom delivered the floor plan for the new castle Bowser started. He sighed dejectedly as he met Junior in the study, face solemn.

"King Bowser was supposed to look this over, but he's not here anymore, so…"

Junior accepted the blueprints. "I'll check it out."

"Pencil in whatever you want to change and I'll pass it up."

"Thanks."

As it stood, Junior saw a lot he could improve on. Braille signs outside public facing doors, tactile maps and contrasting colored strips on all the stairs for Jack. Any steps necessitated a nearby ramp, and staircases required a corresponding elevator platform for Scott. Every TV needed closed captions available for Ludwig and Black. He added a sensory room to the basement level for Lemmy and listed everything necessary to build it. There would be AEDs in easy reach for anyone whose heart stopped because, someday, Morton might need it.

After another check, he expanded the public facing bathrooms to add more disabled-friendly stalls and toilets that accommodated people from as many kingdoms as possible.

He added a sticky note to the page, stating: Follow the lead of the KC3 restrooms.

Junior studied his handiwork, nodded to himself and rolled the blueprints back into a tube. Boom-Boom dropped by later to pick them up.

.o

Cherry didn't know how she should dress for Bowser's wake, so she chose her dark gray pants suit and paired it with a red blouse, red kitten heel slingbacks and a red ribbon braided into her brunette hair.

The private viewing was for the people close to him who weren't blood family, like in-laws and the medical staff who attended him through all his heart attacks. It took place three weeks after his death, since the embalming fluids pumped through blood vessels and poured into his empty body cavity needed that long to be absorbed by his muscles and fat tissue.

Cherry expected there to be an awful decay stench by that point, yet Bowser smelled almost the same as he did in life— like brimstone, but with a faint chemical undertone similar to turpentine.

Vincent, the eerie mortician she did her best to avoid, had Bowser's throne moved aside and laid his body out in a huge nest of straw. Getting close to him required ascending the dais and kneeling.

The fireplace was lit, so the flickering flames illuminated Bowser from the side. He lay supine, his hands folded on his chest and his spiked shell propped up on an iron pole behind his head. His spiked collar was positioned on his chest between his chin and folded hands.

His royal crown, she reminded herself.

Cherry noticed they did nothing to disguise the pallor of death on his snout or the dusky tones of his once vibrant green and golden-orange scales. His features sagged slightly backwards against his skull in a way they never did in life. Whoever styled his hair and bushy eyebrows made sure they were perfect and shiny. He looked regal despite his complexion.

Cherry found a strange relief in Koopas not trying to make their dead appear asleep. She remembered the thick, matte makeup slathered on Peach's face and how it failed to capture how pretty she was.

Sighing, she let her gaze wander around the throne room.

Paintings of Bowser were brought from all over the castle and hung up on any space big enough to hold them. Nobody could look anywhere without his smug face peering back at them.

Only one space didn't have his visage glaring at them— her mom's official painting. She knew Bowser stole it, but seeing Peach's sweetly smiling face surrounded by his serious scowls almost sent Cherry into fits of laughter. It was such a "Bowser" thing to happen.

Ludwig sat at a worn grand piano wedged in the corner, the same one present in most of his childhood photos. Firelight glistened off his wavy blue hair as he filled the throne room with wistful melodies.

Cherry moved to the piano when Ludwig rolled a final chord to end whatever he played. She sat on the edge of the piano bench and looked at him when she spoke.

"How are you holding up?"

"As well as can be," Ludwig said, turning a page. The score looked hand-written.

Her eyes drifted to the shiny black and white keys. They were a palimpsest of invisible fingerprints playing melodies that echoed over decades.

"Dad wrote this book of music," Ludwig said, running his clawed hand along the page. "Every time one of us hatched, he wrote a song for us."

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "That's what you've been playing all this time?"

"Mmhmm."

"They're pretty. Whose did you just play?"

"Mine." Ludwig smiled sadly, closing the book. He reached for a thinner score in a brown binder.

"Dad wrote a song about Peach."

"Really?"

"He trashed his music room the day she died. He tore up the score, but I found the last page. I guess it fell without him noticing. I used music theory and my knowledge of how he wrote music to recreate it."

"How do you know you did it exactly?" Cherry teased.

"I don't. It's a guess." Ludwig scrunched up his nose in exactly the same way Bowser used to. She wondered if he realized he did that.

"Will you play it?"

"Yes, but I'm going to play the melody instead of sing. I don't know how to sing, and this was meant to be sung. Most of the lyrics are her name."

Cherry giggled, wiping tears out of her eyes. Typical Bowser.

The song was titled Peaches, and it sounded like love.

Mario walked in as Ludwig's fingertips shaped the last chord. He wore a simple black suit and a burgundy bow tie. His half-moon glasses scintillated in the firelight.

"Whatever that was on the piano, it-a was very nice," Mario remarked from the doorway.

Cherry decided not to tell him the secret. Black taught her the Koopa Sign for secret, so she looked at Ludwig and waggled her eyebrows while touching the thumb of her closed fist against her lips.

"I understand," Ludwig signed back.

Mario stood beside the straw nest with his hands clasped and his head bowed, just like he did by Peach's casket. Cherry joined him.

"He looks much-a better," Mario remarked.

"His kids bathed and dressed him. Ooh!" She grabbed his shoulder. "Are they setting up the banquet downstairs?"

"Mmhmm." Mario wrung his hands, his brow furrowing.

Cherry knew why. She leaned over to whisper in his ear, "Everything with his organs in it is kept in something black. They're careful to not cross-contaminate, and they aren't going to judge you if you don't want to eat it."

"That is a relief-a." Mario sighed, shoulders losing tension. He looked ahead at Bowser, nodded to himself and turned away.

An unfamiliar green-shelled Koopa Troopa entered. He gazed around through vivid sapphire blue eyes, taking in the surroundings. Ludwig leapt off the piano bench so fast it scraped the floor and rushed towards him, signing animatedly. The Koopa Troopa responded in kind, eyes lighting up as they chatted at lightning speed.

Ludwig brought him to Mario and Cherry and signed while he spoke, "This is Nyle. He taught my dad and I Koopa Sign. He's the reason I have language."

"Oh! It's nice to meet you!" Cherry knew how to sign that. She extended her hand to shake his.

Nyle clasped her hand, bowed and touched it to his forehead, an archaic show of respect towards royalty. He did the same with Mario, albeit with a teasing gleam in his eyes.

Ludwig interpreted what Nyle signed.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't make it to your wedding, Princess Cherry, I was recovering from a bone marrow transplant."

Cherry didn't hesitate in her response. "It's no problem! I hope your cancer goes away. What kind is it, if I may ask?"

Nyle smiled, face bright, and signed with flair, "It was AML. Was. I'm in remission!"

"Yay!" Cherry pivoted her hands in deaf applause.

Mario smiled, too. He looked up at Ludwig, eyebrows raised. "I didn't know you were deaf-a."

Ludwig pushed his voluminous hair backwards to show off his silver hearing aids. That was his only response. He focused on Nyle and they resumed signing to each other.

Cherry pulled Mario away and whispered in his ear, "When deaf Koopas want to catch up, they will go into detail and tell each other all about it. They're going to be busy."

She used what little she knew of Koopa Sign to glean bits of their conversation. Ludwig closed his fist against the palm of his other hand and touched his chest with his middle fingertip, the signs for crash and heart, so he was talking about Crash.

"Come on, daddy, let's leave them alone to catch up." Cherry kissed the top of Mario's head.

.o

Junior blocked out most of his dad's viewing service, moving automatically through ritualistic motions. He hated the somber atmosphere surrounding everything.

The sad crap was supposed to be the public funeral, not this. It didn't suit his dad's style.

Bowser was never a quiet, neat sleeper. He slept on his stomach. He snored like a Kart engine, he drooled rivers and he farted loud enough to wake the dead. He didn't lay there on his back with his mouth shut and a look of peaceful repose on his face.

Visitors came and went, kneeling by the nest in quiet contemplation. Lemmy carried Scott up the steps and placed him on the dais. Scott crawled towards the nest on his hands and leg stumps. He sat down since he couldn't kneel.

"Does that hurt?" Junior asked.

"Nah. I have kneecaps and fat pads under here, they're my shock absorbers."

Scott's head barely reached Lemmy's chin when he stood on his leg stumps. Lemmy picked him up again and cupped both hands under the bottom of his shell to hold him comfortably while they gazed at Bowser in the firelight.

At Scott's nod, Lemmy carried him down the steps and placed him in his wheelchair. They hugged before departing through the stone doorway.

More visitors with forlorn faces. Jack, Black, Pom-Pom and Sienna.

Black outright sobbed when he saw Bowser. He talked out loud to him, though Junior couldn't understand a single word of what he said. For the best, it was meant for Bowser and nobody else.

Junior looked over when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"You look just like him," Black signed through tears. Crying caused him to vocalize in grunts and whimpers as he gestured.

Junior invited him into a hug, and they squeezed each other tight. Black sobbed on his chest.

Wendy led Jack to the foot of the nest, where he could use his good eye to see Bowser in the flickering firelight. Tears spilled onto his face. Wendy hugged him tight and they cried quietly together.

"He was good," Black murmured aloud, signing to make his spoken words clearer.

Junior kissed his cheek and nodded, signing back, "He was great. I miss him."

Black squeezed his shoulders and pointed to the door. He bowed before departing to look for Ludwig, his features still glistening with tears.

Bowser's hands and face were kissed and touched many times by people who loved him.

Junior's only comfort was knowing that wasn't his dad anymore. That was an empty shell, a shell he took off just as easily as the one on his back. His dad floated into the sky somewhere, partying or causing trouble— or both.

He went through the motions of thanking everyone who offered their condolences. While a lot of people got genuine reactions from him, he faked just as many.

"Try to be a little more convincing," Cherry said to him, "They're friends!"

"Why?" Junior replied. "They're only saying they're sorry because that's what you're supposed to do. Nobody really knows what to say when somebody dies. It's not like they killed him."

"Geez, Junior, you've been in a rotten mood ever since the service started."

Junior sneered. "This isn't his style. Remember how you felt at your mom's funeral? I get it now."

She sighed, "I was mad that she died and mad that nobody wanted to listen to how I felt about it."

He eyed her. "How do you think I feel?"

"Junior, I was a kid going through feelings bigger than me."

"What point are you trying to make?"

"One you don't want to hear, I guess." Cherry stood up, her face pinched in a Mario-like frown, "You can sit here and stew, your highness."

"Cherry!" Junior gasped and jumped up, now very aware of how he acted all day. It wasn't fair of him to project his anger on her like this.

Bowser used to tell him, "If you're gonna be nasty, be nasty to everyone EXCEPT your wife!"

"Cherry, wait!" Junior caught her arm, pulling her to his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm being a real ass. You don't deserve it. I'm pissed off because we're the only ones who saw how he went."

He dropped his voice low, so prying ears wouldn't hear. "It burns my ass that everybody says dying is this beautiful, peaceful, dignified thing. It's not."

Her tiny, fragile body pressed more firmly to his belly. "He wasn't conscious for most of it, Junior. Please try to remember that."

"Who do you think he fought at the end?"

"Death, maybe?" Cherry shook her head. She shrugged and squeezed his hand, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I was acting snotty at my mom's funeral, wasn't I?"

"You dumped fruit punch on me because I said you looked pretty. My dad's idea. He thought it would help you feel better."

"Figures." Cherry smiled and stepped back, gazing at him with her soft blue eyes. "I know he was pushing you onto me, but he really didn't need to. I've always loved you, Junior."

Those words were like a band-aid for his aching heart. He hugged her tightly again, nuzzling his cheek against hers. "Let's go eat."

They ventured downstairs together. Black platters displayed a variety of meals. Another table adjacent to it held more food on silver platters. Things like Cheep-Cheep strips, pasta, stews and salads. The only covered dish held squirming Birdo tapeworms, and a label on the lid told people to put it back if they partook.

Morton took the black lid off a giant platter of pierogies, sausages and finger-food meat wraps. The rich scent turned Junior's stomach over in hunger.

"Geez, how long did that take?"

"Three days of cooking and baking." Morton set the platter in the center of the black table beside Junior's pot of heart stew.

"Gosh, I thought the food was going to look like his stuff," Cherry whispered to Junior. "But you can't tell."

Junior smiled wryly, eyeing the paper thin slices of fried brain in the noodle bowl next to kabobs of baked liver chunks, spleen soup, roasted kidney strips submerged in wine and breaded lung wedges.

He could tell, but he didn't let her know.

"Just-a to confirm-a… The black dishes are made of him, right?" Mario held an empty white plate.

"Yeah." Junior pointed to the other table. "Anything on silver is regular food."

"Grazie," Mario said.

He approached the gleaming silver platters on the other table and heaped his plate with seafood alfredo, garlic bread and deviled eggs. Cherry had the same. It looked so much like the Birdo tapeworms Lemmy brought that nobody noticed the noodles didn't squirm.

If anyone ate both kinds of food, they went for the silver platters first. Nobody who served themselves off the black platters first crossed over to take anything from the silver side.

Junior scooped something out of all his siblings' dishes before reaching for his own. With every bite he took, he thought of how much he loved and missed his dad.

Roy kept shedding tears as he chewed. Pom-Pom rubbed his shoulder.

Neil arrived late and quietly dished up from the silver side only, since he wasn't family. Junior noticed Freddie, Elton and Josh behind him.

Boom-Boom sat at the far end of the table with a plate heaped in corn, salad and shrimp.

"They did him up real nice," he said between bites.

"His wedding suit looks so lovely," Stevie remarked to him in passing.

Celine and Pat sat together at the far end of the table. Stevie joined them, nursing a glass of red Koopa wine.

No one smiled during the meal. Junior looked around at everyone. They were all forlorn and murmuring quietly about what they saw upstairs.

Unable to stand the morose silence anymore, Junior slammed his palms down on the table and stood up, growling.

"ENOUGH! I can't take it anymore! Stop focusing on his death, dammit! I swear if I hear one more person talk about how nice his suit looked, I'm going to puke."

He turned his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes. "Focus on his life!"

"Junior," Cherry kicked him under the table. "Don't!"

"No," He turned to her, whispering, "I won't let this turn into a copy of your mom's funeral."

Black waved his hands around because he didn't know what happened. Ludwig signed it to him, and he ended up interpreting a lot more because Junior wasn't done yet.

"Remember that huge wooden dick he tied to the Koopa Clown Car at the wedding?"

"Yeah, because we all helped carve it." Iggy looked at Morton and snickered. "Right?"

"Yup." Morton cracked a smile. "Dad told us to cut a maple tree down and bring it to the castle, and we did that to it."

Junior looked at Mario. "Mario, what about that Kart race? Cherry and I saw it. He stuck a banana peel under your cart and you made him crash into the bushes."

"He was a joker." Mario replied, staring down at his plate. "I never would have-a known back in the days when-a we were fighting."

Lemmy and Iggy looked at each other and nodded, agreeing with Mario.

Lemmy said, "Dad was a funny guy."

"He was! Once, bought me a castle sight unseen because I asked for it." Wendy piped up. "Then, when I told him I hated it, he had it blown up. The land owner was pissed. Daddy just laughed and laughed."

"I remember his wedding toast," said Cherry with an amused grin. "Going on about how he was better looking than everybody in the audience. It was great."

A few more giggles rippled through the gathering.

Black finished chewing, set his fork down and lifted his hands to sign. Scott spoke what he signed, so Ludwig could stay focused on interpreting what everybody else said. He did an excellent job reading Black's facial expressions while conveying both the words and the tone.

"I was a nervous teenager when King Bowser called my brother and I in for an interview for a job as guards. We walked in, there he was sitting on his throne looking terrifying…"

Black held the sign to let Scott catch up, then went on.

"Jack has a spiel to explain that I am deaf and he will act as my interpreter. King Bowser put his hand up and stopped him after three words. I thought for sure that he was about to throw us both out."

Black's face lit up and he snapped his fingers, using the moment as a dramatic pause.

"The next thing I know, King Bowser is beckoning me up onto the dais, which is not royal protocol. I remember how dry my mouth was when I climbed those steps!"

He wiggled his hands, imitating his frightened shaking.

"King Bowser leaned forward to look me in the eyes and started interviewing me in perfect Koopa Sign! My jaw hit the floor. I was flabbergasted! My King spoke my language! I aced the interview and got a job as a guard. My first job!"

Black wrapped his arm around Ludwig's shoulders, signing one-handed.

"I asked King Bowser how he knew Koopa Sign, and he told me about this beautiful Koopa. We met because of him."

Ludwig looked up as Black leaned down, and they kissed tenderly.

"You are the greatest gift my dad gave me," he signed.

Black slow-blinked and shed a tear when he smiled. Ludwig mirrored the expression.

"That's all. Thank you, Scott," Black signed the thank you towards Scott. He sat down, his arm still wrapped around Ludwig's shoulders.

"King Bowser was a quick study," Nyle signed, and Ludwig interpreted it that time. "I introduced him to my college class, and he participated as if he were a deaf student, too. He chose to immerse himself in our culture for his son's sake."

He paused, smiled a little sadly and added, "He used to do keg stands at the frat parties to impress everybody. Those were the days."

"Dad did one at Junior's wedding! Hang on." Morton rifled through his phone and showed everyone a photo of Bowser balancing in a handstand atop a beer keg with the nozzle in his mouth.

Laughter smattered around the table.

"No, wait, you have to see him making Luigi do one." Morton swiped to find the video.

More mirth sprang up when Luigi coughed out foam. Bowser clapped his hands in the background, guffawing. He gave Luigi a towel and slapped his back, causing him to spit out more foam. Daisy rushed over to pat his mustache with a napkin.

Mario almost choked on his tea. "Poor Weeg!"

"Hey, remember when we gave him a bath when he was in intensive care?" Iggy swallowed and wiped his mouth.

Lemmy bounced in his seat. "He scared us with a fart! It was so loud!"

Roy grinned through his tears. "That one reeked!"

"It shook the floor!" Larry laughed with his fork stuck in a piece of shrimp.

Wendy rolled her eyes, "You boys are disgusting. It was funny, but disgusting."

Celine dabbed her mouth with a napkin and fidgeted with her gold locket. "If you'll excuse an old lady for being crass— King Bowser used to tease Pat and I mercilessly. We threatened to have sex on his dead body if he died on our watch, and his response was, 'promise?'"

"He did it to you, too?" Freddie leaned over to see her. "I got that response when Elton and I made the same threat!"

"Yes!" She laughed, taking Pat's hand, "If I was twenty years younger and didn't have these janky old knees, I might have gone for it."

"How old are you?" Larry raised a brow.

"Seventy-seven, young man!"

"We can always use the swing." Pat covered her mouth with a napkin. Celine smiled cheekily at her.

Freddie and Elton doubled over, howling, hooting and flapping their wings.

"He used to kill me at blackjack," Jack said, raising his glass as if in a toast before sipping. "I think he counted cards. He was so damn good."

"You, too?" Black signed. "He cleaned me out!"

"He was a nightmare at poker, too," Boom-Boom said with his mouth full.

"Dad taught me how to swear in Koopa Sign just so I could tell off an uppity classmate. I was five, and I made that other kid regret messing with me." Ludwig signed and spoke at the same time. He smiled, eyes softening. "He took me out for ice cream after. I remember that whenever I eat vanilla ice cream."

People began to call out different memories. Some made the whole table roar in laughter.

Junior sat back and smiled. The knot of pain in his chest compacted into a hot sphere, but it was a good pain, like stretching a cramped muscle. He imagined his dad sitting at the empty head seat, pounding the table and laughing with everyone else.

Finally, this was the memorial his dad wanted. One where people talked about how he lived instead of how he died.

Junior reached to his side and grasped Cherry's hand under the table. She met his eyes with tears welling in hers.

After dinner, he noticed Roy wasn't at the table. He found his older brother upstairs, sobbing next to the straw nest where Bowser lay.

"All those heart attacks, I thought all of 'em were gonna end with this," Roy choked out, shoulders quivering. "It ain't gonna be the same without you, dad!"

He took his sunglasses off and buried his head in his folded arms, which rested against the straw.

Junior climbed the steps and laid a hand on Roy's shell. Roy wilted against him, his whole body wracked by heaving sobs.

"I didn't want to know when you called, but now…it's eating me." His voice cracked as he sobbed through the question. "Did he struggle at all in the end? Was it like the first one, with the gulping and his eyes rolling around?"

Junior stared ahead into the flames, where images of Bowser flailing, roaring with foam-flecked jaws and gasping for his last breaths rose up like unwanted ghosts.

Cherry said Bowser wasn't fully 'there' for that, and it was his only comfort.

"No," Junior whispered, "He looked me in the eyes, Roy. He smiled that little smile he had just for us, and he said, 'love ya, brat.' Then his head fell backwards over my arm and that was it."

Roy's warm tears dripped onto Junior's shoulder. He sniffed several times, nearly choking on his own snot.

"O-okay…I-I can live with that. I hate that I can't call him up on the phone or message him. He was always right there."

Junior rubbed the back of his older brother's neck and swayed him side to side.

"You okay, Roy?"

"Trying to be."

Junior chuckled softly and kissed his cheek. "You can't hurry grief."

"Boy, that's the truth!"

It took Roy a few minutes to collect himself and step back. He yanked a dishtowel out of his shell and used it to mop the tears and snot off his face.

Tiny claws clicked on the floor outside. Lemmy appeared in the flickering firelight, eyes overflowing and nose running.

"Hey, little bro." Roy slid his sunglasses back on. "Coming to see dad one more time?"

Lemmy nodded as he ascended the stairs to reach the dais. He climbed onto the nest, kissed Bowser's cheek and put something small in his massive hands.

As he climbed down, he began to bawl in earnest. He sat on the floor and pounded both fists against the sides of his head.

"Aww, Lemmy. Need a tight hug?"

At Lemmy's nod, Roy picked him up against his shoulder and nuzzled their cheeks together. He carried him out of the throne room while patting his shell to provide him the stimulation he sought by punching himself. Lemmy's wailing faded with distance.

When Junior peeked into the nest, he noticed Lemmy's glittery gold ball in his hands. The same ball he left with him in intensive care. Junior glanced at the door and hid the ball in Bowser's hands.

As he watched the firelight flicker over Bowser's features, Junior realized how thin his hair was. The light hit just so that his scalp showed underneath his quiff.

"You knew you were going to die when you woke up that day, didn't you? You knew it was the last day of your life, and you carried on until you couldn't anymore." Junior whispered.

He remembered Bowser standing on the drawbridge by the Koopa Clown Car, and how he walked out there unaware of what was about to happen. There were papers all over the study floor that morning, and he took them out to ask why. They ended up cast aside again, forgotten.

He remembered his dad holding him tight, his hands caressing his hair and trying his utmost to soothe and protect him from the horror to come. Just like he did during his other heart attacks.

Bowser signed a DNR because he knew it would spare the trauma of seeing him hooked up to machines, sitting in limbo and waiting for him to live or die.

No Koopa alive with Crash survived as many heart attacks as he did. Maybe none would ever again.

Junior went on, wiping his eyes. "I guess the thing I regret is not knowing how short your time was. I'm glad I got to be there for the last twenty four hours you were here, but it was hard to watch. All you tried to do was protect me from it until you couldn't anymore."

He kissed him between the eyes and settled his cheek against his dad's shoulder.

"I love you so much, dad. I miss you. I wish you were alive."

Grief came in waves. Junior didn't fight the tears, he let them fall. They were the slow kind, silent and agonizing.

The straw crackled, Someone else laid against it. Junior opened his eyes to Iggy resting his head on Bowser's chest, too, looking at him. Reflections of the fireplace glimmered across his oversized black glasses frames. His green plume of hair spanned the width of Bowser's shoulders.

"Having a hard time, Junior?"

Junior nodded, sniffling.

"Me, too." Iggy patted his arm with a heavy sigh. "Ludwig doesn't remember dad's lullaby because went deaf before he was old enough to remember much. Got me thinking…"

He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. "Most of my kid years are a blur because of my seizures. I have to look at them through videos other people took. It's weird to see things you were there for when you don't remember any part of it. Hatch-day parties, fights with Mario, fun things dad and I did. Seizures wiped 'em out like tears in the rain."

Iggy sat up and took his glasses off. His voice cracked when he said, "I looked through dad's phone, and he has videos of me on the floor having TCs. I'm shaking, and he's rubbing my arm. My legs are covered in my pee and crap, and he's telling me he loves me. I'm screaming and freaking out because I'm postictal, and he's reminding me that I'm safe."

He sniffed as tears dribbled onto his snout. "And I wasn't there for any of that. I don't remember it from my own point of view. I didn't get to experience him like everybody else did."

Junior sat up and scooted over next to him.

Iggy began to cry in earnest and painful sobs heaved his shoulders. "Dad took a lot of videos because he knew I wasn't gonna have those memories. It's like he tried to give 'em back!"

"He did." Junior draped an arm around Iggy's shoulders and leaned against him. "He was really good at loving us, Iggy, and he never let us forget how much he loved us."

"Y-yeah. I miss him!"

"Me, too."

Junior wished his crying jags helped release the pain broiling inside him, yet the void never shrank.

.o

By tacit accord, nobody paid too close attention to who collected what wake food as leftovers. Regular food could be thrown away, Koopa wake food had to be consumed. That meant keeping the leftovers and eating them until they were gone.

Morton's dishes produced a lot, so everyone had some in their black plastic containers. Junior didn't watch what everybody else took.

Cherry knew what Junior's container held. Junior covered it with foil and kept it well away from the other food for her comfort.

Everybody gathered in Bowser's throne room to look at him one last time. The fire in the fireplace burned low, so he was dimly illuminated by gentle embers.

Black cried softly. Jack shed tears as he slipped an arm around him.

Junior kissed his dad's frigid cheek and walked out. He knew watching how everyone else said goodbye would claw at the void still gaping inside his chest.

The nest was arranged on a curved metal gurney. Vincent would sweep off the straw and return Bowser downstairs to the morgue. There, Bowser's body was going to be undressed, his armbands and collar put back on and his chest crushed by a hydraulic press. Then he would be placed in his shell, folded up like a garment, and sealed inside with molten gold.

In ancient times, Koopas used boulders for crushing. A press did the job more neatly, without any bones piercing through scales.

Junior went downstairs after the press ran. He found Lemmy's glittery ball sitting on a table, so he placed it in Bowser's massive hands and held them pressed together while Vincent bound him from wrists to forearms with thick twine.

"Do you need extra hands?" Junior asked.

Vincent half-smiled, eyes softening. "You're so kind, dear boy. Can you hold his foot for me?"

"Of course."

Junior held Bowser's heel as Vincent wrapped the twine around his thigh and calf, tying the leg in a bent position. The same happened on the other side.

Vincent guided Bowser's thick legs upward until his feet pointed out, as if he crouched. He brought his tail up between them, using the V of his bound arms to hold it in place.

"Here comes the tough part. You have to push his cervical vertebrae into his body cavity, like yours does when you retract into your own shell. Hold the back of his head, and lay your hand on his forehead. You'll have to push hard."

Junior breathed in, reminding himself that dead bodies felt no pain. He cradled the back of Bowser's head on his left palm, cupped his forehead with his right, and pushed it downward.

Bowser's head sank right in below the edge of his shell.

Junior realized he would never see his dad's face again outside of videos and photos. This was the last time he got to touch him, and he used it to prepare his body for the grave.

Leaning over, he kissed Bowser between the eyes, pressed their cheeks together and smoothed his gray hair back.

"I love you, dad. Blue shell."

He didn't want to let him go, but he forced himself to step back.

From the side, no part of Bowser was visible above the rim of his shell except the tips of his toe claws and his nose.

Junior nodded to Vincent and left the morgue. He didn't want to see Vincent take a plaster cast to prepare for the molten gold pour later.

Lemmy waited upstairs, gnawing on the ends of his claws with his needle-like teeth.

Junior kissed the top of his tiniest brother's head. "I put your ball in his hands. It'll be with him forever."

Nodding, Lemmy rubbed his eyes. They were puffy and red from all the crying he did. "Thanks, Junior."

As they stepped into the hallway, Junior heard Bowser's familiar bass laughter issue from Lemmy's phone. He looked down at the screen in time to see his grinning dad straddle the giant phallus he tied to the Koopa Clown Car and strike a pose.

"Sexy!" Iggy scream-laughed in the background.

"Mine's bigger!" Larry hollered, snorting.

"Dad knew he was dying, didn't he?" Lemmy put his phone away, face solemn. "I think about the last few months a lot, and he lived like he knew it was going to be over for him soon."

Junior patted his shell. "We take life for granted too much, don't we? It's funny how it changes when we know we don't have much time."

"Yeah, and you have Crash like he did."

"So do you."

"But mine is really minor! Yours is fourth degree. You got stents! Neil says you'll have a normal long life, but…" Lemmy clenched his fists and stopped walking.

Junior halted mid-step. "You're afraid I'll die young anyway?"

Lemmy nodded, tightening his jaw. "You and Morton."

"Junior and me, what?" Morton came out of the bathroom.

"You have Crash like dad." Lemmy twirled his left wristband by pushing against a spike. "Neil found it later than Junior, so what if you die like dad?"

Morton's expression softened.

"Sometimes I worry about that. It's why I work out and get checked every two years. So far, everything looks good. I'm not going anywhere soon, Lemmy." He patted Lemmy's shell with his massive hand. "Okay?"

Lemmy latched onto Morton's leg. "Okay."

Morton fist-bumped Junior, grinned and carried on walking with Lemmy going along for the ride. "Hey, everybody, come see this weird growth on my leg!"

Junior rested a hand over his chest as they turned the corner into the dining room. His heart— something Bowser worked so hard to protect ever since he was little— beat strongly under his palm.

.o

Cherry wiped sweat off her brow after she and Mario swept all the straw into the fireplace, causing the flames to flare to life again with a dry, woodsy scent.

"Still can't-a believe it." Mario shook his head, blue eyes fixed on the spot where Bowser's body was only half an hour ago.

"That he died?" Cherry leaned on her push broom.

"He told-a me about his heart-a problems, and then he had a heart-a attack before my eyes."

"I remember. You threw up because he did."

Mario rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Are-a you okay, Cherry?"

She sighed, laying her broom down. "I think so. I'm worried about Junior. I hope he relaxes once Bowser is buried. Did you—"

"Signed and accepted." Mario smiled. "I consider it a peace-a offering between our kingdoms."

One of the cleaning Goombas came in. She brought her Goombalings with her, and they hopped around eating up the bits of straw that didn't get swept into the fire.

Cherry picked one up and cradled him in her arms. Boys had thicker eyebrows than girls, even as babies. The little Goombaling squeaked and nipped the front of her dress. She chuckled, setting him down to let him enjoy his straw treat.

"I think-a Junior will be a great-a king," Mario used his broom to pull more loose straw over for the Goombalings. "And you will be a great-a queen."

"Like mom." Cherry's expression softened.

So did Mario's. "Yes."

High heels clacked on the brick floor.

"Found her!" Wendy called up the hallway. She marched up the stairs with her gold bangles jingling, took the broom out of Cherry's hand and set it aside.

"We're having girl time. Right now. You, me, Pom-Pom, Sienna, kitchen."

"Go on." Mario said, unbothered.

Cherry kissed his cheek as Wendy took hold of her hand and towed her down the steps, into the hall and down another flight of steps to the ground floor.

"What's up?"

Wendy sat her at the table and waved Pom-Pom over. Pom-Pom came with a crystal decanter of something, and Sienna set glimmering rocks glasses on the table.

Wendy clunked ice cubes into each glass, filled them halfway with dry purple Koopa wine, added a squirt of vodka, dumped in pink mango juice and topped it off with club soda.

Pom-Pom chopped a peach into four chunks, tossing away the seed in the middle, and Wendy splashed a piece each into their fizzy cocktails.

"Here. Drink first and eat the fruit after." She pushed a glass towards Cherry. "Go to any Darklands bar and ask for a Princess Peach cocktail, and this is what you get. It's named after your mom."

"That's pretty cool!" Cherry accepted the cold glass, her fingers leaving streaks in the condensation on the outside.

She sipped cautiously. At first, there was only an alcoholic burn and fizz. Right behind that, a chilly, tangy sweetness, like a wintertime rainbow poured over her tongue.

"Oh, it's good!" Cherry exhaled.

"I told you she'd like it." Pom-Pom raised her glass.

Sienna drank half of hers in one gulp. She was the largest Koopa woman at the table, so it wasn't surprising.

"Morton seems to be at peace about this. He gets upset and cries, but he's not distraught. What about Roy?"

"Roy is off and on. Sometimes he wants to talk about it, and sometimes he's inconsolable. Wendy?"

Wendy curled her lip and toyed with the side of her glass. "It's been hard. Daddy was always there, and now…it feels wrong."

She took a hearty drink. "Cherry, you and Junior saw it happen, how are you doing?"

Cherry gulped a mouthful and placed the glass down without banging it on the table.

"I never saw someone die before, and it's someone I care about, so that made it hard. I, um—" She almost spilled the beans that she knew for months, but pulled it back at the last second, "He didn't look well the day he collapsed, so I had a feeling he was about to have another heart attack. I hate that I was right."

It occurred to her how much keeping the truth under wraps for others' benefit ate away at Junior's conscience. Now it nipped at hers.

A lump clutched her throat. She sniffled.

"The last thing he did was look up at Junior with all the love he had in him, and then it was just…he was gone. I saw the light go out of his eyes."

"Like a candle going out," Sienna murmured.

"Yeah," Cherry agreed, voice cracking. "Exactly."

Wendy teared up. Pom-Pom reached sideways to hold her hand until her composure returned. Sienna did the same for Cherry, and Cherry welcomed the comfort.

Taking another sip, she went on, "Junior is a mess about it. The damn news conferences don't help by making him relive it, either."

"Oh, hell, those reporters are everywhere. I got hounded walking out of my place way out in the middle of nowhere! I used my fire breath to scare them off, and I'm not one who likes to breathe fire. It stains my lipstick." Wendy squeezed her eyes shut as she drained her glass and ate the peach quarter.

"Okay, I'm starting to feel a little drunk, and the rest is gonna hit later. Do you know what we need?" She looked around, "Beauty therapy. Stay put."

Pom-Pom revolved her glass, causing the ice to clink.

Once Wendy moved out of earshot, she said, "Wendy is compartmentalizing, but she's struggling, too. I don't think she realized he was going to die so soon. It hit her out of nowhere."

"I relate. I was angry when my mom died," Cherry sighed. "It was sudden and unfair, the kind of thing you never imagine happening to somebody."

She only drank half of her Princess Peach cocktail, and already the buzz warmed her blood in a pleasant haze.

"Dad was nonfunctional for months after. Auntie Daisy pretty much became a surrogate mom to me while uncle Luigi took care of my dad."

Those first few months after Peach died weren't months Cherry liked to remember. The anguish on her usually jolly dad's face didn't fit him as a person.

"That is hard to go through when you're little. I'm sorry." Sienna said as she crunched ice between her sharp teeth.

"Auntie Daisy took care of me. I cried and screamed at her about everything, and she let me rage it out. I owe her a lot for that, because I was a mean, angry kid for six straight months."

Sienna set her glass down with flair. "Queen Daisy is great! She lets Serrated stay free in whatever hotels we want when we tour there."

Cherry smiled, sipping her drink. "I saw you guys during your Maelstrom tour. Great show!"

"Thanks!" Sienna flipped one of her braids backwards off her shoulder.

"Too bad I didn't get a chance to talk to Queen Daisy more at the wedding. She seemed fun." Pom-Pom drank her last mouthful and ate the peach chunk in the glass.

Wendy bustled back in carrying a translucent pink backpack, plopped it noisily on the table and unzipped it. Inside, various colorful cylinders in haphazard piles.

"We're all doing our claws— or nails. What color do you ladies want?"

And Cherry thought her nail polish collections ran out of control. Wendy's bag looked like she robbed a store and bolted!

Her eyes went straight to the metallic red. She plucked it out, read the color label and grinned. "Cherry Chrome!"

Sienna laughed, "Red is your color, girl!"

"I like…" Pom-Pom chose something glittery purple. "Passion Plum. Ooh."

Cherry finally finished her drink and ate the peach quarter. It absorbed all the flavors, so the surprise shot of it sent delightful chills up her spine.

"Smoking Sienna. Oh, damn, I'm there." Sienna held up a bottle of iridescent golden brown similar in color to her spiked shell and scales.

Black passed through, paused and backed up to see what they were doing. Before anybody could do anything, he pulled a green bottle out of Wendy's bag, waved his hand with flair towards it like they did on TV commercials and set it back where he got it from.

"Black!" Wendy tapped on his shell to get his attention and signed one-handed, "I'll paint your claws if you want."

"No, thank you. I'll smear it if I try to talk." Black signed back, laughing.

He kissed the side of Wendy's head and continued on his way into the kitchen. Jack, Junior and the rest of the Koopa siblings were gathered there to wash dishes.

"Gods, he's hilarious." Wendy chose her color. Watermelon Surprise, a shiny shade of pink leaning towards red.

"Did you see him and Ludwig go off into the hedge maze at Cherry's wedding?" Pom-Pom shook her nail polish bottle.

Cherry giggled, now fully settled in the heavy alcohol buzz. "Junior did, I was schmoozing and missed the fun."

"Oh, pff. Ludwig and Black get hornier than they already are when they drink." Wendy shrugged. "So that sounds like them."

In the kitchen, Black emitted a deep growl Cherry never heard before. The gathering of guys erupted in guffaws and howls as he hefted Morton over his head.

"That's nine hundred pounds of Koopa!" Roy yelled.

"Damn!" Iggy shrieked.

Black set Morton gently on his feet again and bowed dramatically.

Ludwig licked his prominent front tooth. Black met his gaze with a wink.

"Tch, boys," Wendy waved her hand, "Anyway, back to our discussion— Cherry? We haven't heard your naughty tales yet."

"Well, there isn't much to tell yet. But Junior and I almost did it in a closet before the wedding." Cherry unscrewed her bottle and discovered claw polish brushes were almost as wide as her nails. She only needed one stroke to paint them.

"Wait, what?" Wendy jiggled her bottle, making it rattle. "Who started it? You, or him?"

"We both did. He was excited and his stuff popped out, and he got all embarrassed. It was cute. Then Bowser caught us before we got any further."

It wasn't something she would confess sober. Everybody at the table knew it.

Wendy dropped her voice low, "Jack is incredible in bed. He's not afraid to throw me around and bite me. When he talks dirty to me with his growl voice, ooh, I'm gone."

Sienna giggled, dashing the brush across one claw. "Morton likes it when I bite him. Sometimes I bite his nose to get his attention and he gets lovestruck. It's adorable."

Everyone looked at Pom-Pom, who fluffed her blonde ponytail. "Roy likes to put his tongue in places I won't mention. I do it back, so…heh!"

Wendy cackled and pointed to Cherry, "And you?"

Cherry's cheeks heated. "Junior was shy about it. I had to give him a safe word before he relaxed enough to get on with it."

She smiled, shaking her hand to dry her nails quicker. "But once he got going? I finished before him."

"Ahh!" Pom-Pom giggled, rocking back in her chair. "You're so tiny, and you took all of him?"

Now drunk enough to not care anymore, Cherry nodded. "I think he rearranged my insides a little bit. That isn't a complaint."

Wendy, Sienna and Pom-Pom erupted in mirth.

"Gosh, Morton is slow at the start and speeds up as he gets randier. The way he says my name when he's almost done is just…whew!" Sienna fanned herself, spreading gouts of nail polish scents into the air.

Pom-Pom cupped her hand near her mouth and stage-whispered, "Roy is a moaner."

"So is Jack." Wendy giggled, peeking over her shoulder to make sure the coast was clear, "Especially when I put him in my mouth!"

"Junior does that. 'Oh, Cherry, oh, Cherry, faster!' His voice makes me sweat. It's so sexy."

Pom-Pom cracked up. "Wow!"

"You go girl!" Sienna chirped.

Wendy cackled, closing her claw polish bottle.

They were all a bit intoxicated, and what might've been a scandalous conversation turned into laughter and blown-off steam. Their chatter wove around the loom of their love lives and how much fun they had. Cherry enjoyed the much-needed catharsis from the doldrums of the past few weeks. When they parted ways with their claws and nails all prettied up, she gave them hugs and thanked them for the girl time. Wendy got the longest embrace of all.

"You're my sister, too," Wendy said in her ear.

"Sisters from different misters," Cherry teased back.

They smiled at each other.

Junior found her after everybody else left, and he immediately noticed her metallic red nails.

"Beauty therapy with Wendy?" He pointed out.

"Yup." Cherry kissed his cheek. She was still tipsy from their cocktails. "How're you doing?"

Yawning, he covered his mouth and rubbed the back of his head, mussing up his reddish-orange hair. "I'm exhausted."

"Did the whole crew take off?"

"Yup. It's just us and the castle staff now."

Cherry nodded, placing her hand in his. "How are you really?"

Junior pulled out a chair and sat at the table, cradling her hand in his.

"I just looked at his face for the last time. I'm never going to see him again. I'm never going to touch him again. I'm never going to—" He choked up and pressed a hand over his eyes. A mournful croaking noise rose in his throat. It sounded like the cry building up inside him since Bowser took his last breath.

Cherry let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him bury his face against her chest.

He sniffed, his voice muffled by the cloth fabric. "When I was a little kid— this was right after dad's second heart attack— your mom told me being tough means you cry if you have to and carry on after."

"Mmhmm, I got that talk, too."

"What do you do if you start and can't stop?"

Cherry caressed his hair. It was long now, the lengthiest strands passing his topmost shell spike. The advice Peach gave her rang in her ears as if she stood there and spoke it aloud.

"You take little tiny steps forward when you can. I'm here if you need somebody to be tough with you."

Whatever Junior tried to say next was too garbled. He clung to Cherry's dress and cried like his soul wanted to flee his body.

She rubbed the back of his neck and held him tighter. He couldn't be there for her after Peach died, and that wasn't either of their faults, but she was here, now, to help him through losing Bowser. Somehow, that eased the ten year old ache in her chest.

"I love you, Junior," Cherry whispered. "Cry as long as you need to."

His tears soaked the front of her dress all the way through

.o

Bowser's public funeral service was to be held in the KC3 due to its central location, massive size, access to public broadcasting equipment, and Ludwig got to arrange the orchestra and choir how he wanted.

News networks broadcast a map of the funeral procession for anyone who wanted to see Bowser's shell pass by. The airship would drop everybody off on the southwest coast, and from there they were going to process around the city's outer perimeter before heading straight inward to the KC3. His exit followed the same path in reverse, ending on the northeast coast of Koopa City. There, the airship would retrieve everyone and fly them out to his burial location.

Junior mentally prepared himself for the long limo journey. Everyone had to be up and moving three hours before sunrise. Koopa funeral processions always began at dawn.

He slept amazingly well, as did Cherry.

"Ludwig arranged the whole thing?" Cherry said over a breakfast of toast, Bowser bacon and scrambled eggs.

"Every bit, top to bottom." Junior said with his mouth full. "Ludwig likes to plan things, and he's good at it."

Vincent polished Bowser's shell and spikes to an iridescent shine. Gold plated steel rivets held the gold seal on the bottom of his shell. It was engraved with the Koopa royal crest. Bowser rested on a velvet cushion atop an elaborate silver trolley with eight handles— four on each side.

Junior watched several Koopa Troopas, Hammer Brothers and Goombas roll the trolley up the ramp into the airship. Between his bodily mass and the gold sealant, he weighed over a thousand pounds. It took a lot of minion-power to move him. They wanted to do it without Junior's help, a last act of devotion to their fallen king, so he stood back and let them.

Capaldi waited at the top of the ramp, his face even more severe than Junior remembered. When Bowser's shell passed him, he saluted, spread his Paratroopa wings and turned on his heel to head inside.

His blue shell made Junior smile fondly.

A spunky new yellow shelled Koopa Paratroopa came out as Capaldi went in. She almost tripped down the ramp in her haste to bow in front of Junior.

"Whoa, easy!" Junior steadied her. "You are…?"

"Captain Whittaker, your majesty!" Whittaker saluted, spread her wings and clapped her brown boots together. "Thirteenth graduate of the High Clouds Academy. I will copilot the ship until King Bowser is laid to rest, and then I am taking over as the pilot. This will be Capaldi's final flight."

Junior nodded. She wasn't much older than him. So young, so nascent, so excited for a new beginning.

"I leave the airship in your hands, then. Capaldi wouldn't choose you if he didn't think you were up for it."

"Oh, brilliant," Whittaker couldn't hide her smile. She bowed again, her eyes tearing up. "I should get going. Thank you, sire, I'm sorry about the loss of your dad."

Junior saluted her and watched her amble up the ramp until she vanished into the open hatch.

The airship's fiery orange lights remained off as a sign of respect. Only its white warning lights were lit to keep air traffic away. Aircraft weren't allowed over the city until the airship cleared the airspace.

Cherry got dressed while Junior oversaw Bowser's safe loading onto the airship.

Koopas liked black, red or gold for most formal events, so, out of respect for their culture, she chose her knee-length dark red sheath dress with a long sleeved black lace overlay. She paired it with comfortable black ballet flats, black mushroom stud earrings and a plain gold tennis bracelet.

The nail polish Wendy let her borrow gleamed on her fingernails as freshly as when she put it on two weeks ago. Remarkable.

She styled her dark hair into a high ponytail held up by a simple black clip, kept her makeup simple and made sure to choose waterproof eyeliner and mascara.

Junior wolf-whistled from the bathroom door. Cherry smiled at his face in the mirror. "I'm almost ready."

"You look perfect."

"Even the mornings when I'm barely awake with scraggly bed hair?"

"Cherry, you look the sexiest you can look with bed hair."

"Junior!" Cherry laughed.

"What?" He kissed her cheek as she closed the mascara tube. "You know I'm right."

"You look sexy first thing in the morning, too." She cupped her hand under his chin and kissed him. "Are you doing okay?"

Junior's expression sobered. "I'll feel better when it's done and he's buried. Kind of feels like we're in limbo with him, you know? They moved so fast with your mom."

"Toads bury their dead as soon as possible after someone dies. Dad chased you away before the public part of mom's funeral, but it lasted all day until sunset and we buried her the following morning."

Cherry yawned as she poked through her lipsticks until she found an appropriate matte red.

Junior gave his hair a quick one over with the brush. He pulled it up into a topknot ponytail using a black band.

"The motorcade is going to take a few hours."

"Yup, I'm ready for that." She looked up and ran her hand over his topknot. "Are you?"

"I hope so."

"Is it going to be cold out there?"

"It might." He backed out the door to check the nightstand clock. "Wear that pretty black coat you have."

Cherry nodded and retrieved the coat he spoke of, a warm velvet number with the Mushroom household crest on the glittery red buttons.

Junior turned to the side with an enormous catlike yawn, unaware of how much he looked like his dad when he did it.

Her heart jumped. She smiled fondly and shut off the bathroom light.

"Let's go."

.o

Faint light shone on the violet eastern horizon. Stars bejeweled the sky. Darklands citizens gathered around the cement barricades set up along the beach. Salty sea air blew off the ocean as it caressed the shore in roaring, frothy waves.

Distant Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas gathered in clusters around motorcycles bearing Bowser's flag. They would leave first, the tenebrous rumble of their engines heralding the oncoming motorcade.

Applause erupted as the airship trapdoor lowered the trolley holding Bowser onto the trailer bed of the red, silver and blue truck that would transport him.

Rivets kept the gold seal on the bottom firmly in place. Lights flashed off the engraved Koopa royal seal. He was lowered so his head end faced the rear tires— for his funeral, one last time, he would face his loyal subjects as he did seated on his throne.

Hammer Brothers secured his shell to the trolley using ropes wrapped in green velvet, and they attached the trolley to the trailer with chains. That thing wasn't moving anywhere.

Junior eyed the long nose semi truck approvingly. His dad would've loved the flame design around the grill.

Optimus Prime proved the union of two lands already. Optimus was a Darklands brand, most known for its emergency response vehicles, and Prime, a notable Mushroom Kingdom manufacturer of cargo transport vehicles.

Koopa Troopas draped purple velvet sheets around the trolley and trailer to make it fitting for royalty.

Boom-Boom poked his head out of the semi's driver seat window and waved at Junior.

"Hey."

"Hi, Boom-Boom." Junior nodded to him in greeting.

He spotted Jack next to the gigantic black stretch limousine, while Black sat in the driver's seat. They donned their formal gold Sledge Brother helmets with the red Koopa crest on the back.

Jack wore dark sunglasses with red frames, and switched out the plain white marshmallow tip on his cane for a gold one.

Cherry leaned into the driver's side window to kiss Black on the cheek. He gave her one back.

Jack jumped a bit when she did the same to him. He laughed. "Whoa, hello!"

"Whoops! I thought you saw me coming."

"Nope. These aren't prescription glasses. Everything is a blur, and it's still dark." He tapped the tip of his cane on the ground with a decisive click. "At big events like this, it's safer for me if other people assume I can't see anything."

"Sorry." Cherry blushed.

"Nah, it's fine. I promise not to trip you." Jack pointed at the limo. "I'm driving, by the way."

Junior made a face. "Yeah, into the ocean."

"We're going there, right?"

They snickered.

The interior of the limo had jump seats around the entire cabin, velvet red upholstery and enough room to fit an army.

Junior eased inside and took the spot closest to the driver's side rear tire.

Ludwig sat in the front driver's side seat by the partition window, looking like he hadn't slept properly in weeks. He wore an all black tuxedo with coattails and a satin gold butterfly bow tie, looking like the maestro everyone knew him to be. His eyes drooped as he yawned.

"Tired?" Junior signed.

Ludwig wiggled his fist up and down in the affirmative.

Cherry ducked across the vehicle to give him a hug and kiss.

She asked, "Did you sleep last night?"

"Barely." Ludwig said aloud. He rubbed the inner corners of his eyes and reached under his hair to switch off his hearing aids. "I intend to sleep here. Wake me when we arrive at the KC3."

"Okay. Ack!"

The whole vehicle rocked from Morton wriggling past Junior's legs.

"Oops." He caught Cherry before she fell and pushed her forward against the seat next to Ludwig.

Junior patted his brother's dark brown shell. "Hey, Morton. Where's Sienna?"

"She's in the orchestra, so she went ahead to the KC3 to get set up. Same with Scott."

Morton chose the back right corner seat where he could spread out a bit while he sat.

Cherry planted herself next to Junior and smiled sweetly. "I'll sit here until everybody gets in. Be my anti-squish protection?"

His eyes crinkled exactly like Bowser's when he laughed. He put his arm around her and playfully smooshed her against his side. "Sure, how about I smash you a little first?"

"Eep!" Cherry leaned against him. "Well, now I'm squished properly."

"Coming in. Make room." Wendy's familiar alto voice cooed outside. She hopped in wearing gold spike heels, a three-layered necklace of gold beads and a gold bow tying her reddish-pink hair back in a low ponytail.

"Wendy!"

"Cherry!"

They embraced and kissed each other on the cheek.

Lemmy arrived sporting black ear defenders and a squishy red ball clutched between his hands. Cherry held out her arms in a hug offer, but he declined. He looked around with tearful eyes and squeezed the ball he held.

"Hey, Lemmy." Junior beckoned to him. "Need a squeeze?"

Lemmy climbed into Junior's lap and practically disappeared into his tight bear hug.

"He's off his routine, that's hard for him," Junior whispered in Cherry's ear.

Lemmy gave her his hand to hold.

Ludwig's head fell forward as he dozed off. A deep sleep, judging by his slow, rhythmic breathing. Junior snapped a photo on his phone and texted it to Black.

Black texted back. He is beautiful.

"You smell like dad," Lemmy murmured.

Junior stuck his phone backwards into his shell. "I do?"

He used the same brimstone scented soap Bowser did, so it didn't surprise him.

Larry sprayed gold streaks into his hair and combed it up into a Mohawk. He almost fell on his face entering the limo. Wendy prevented him from landing in Ludwig's lap.

"Good morning." She pulled him over to sit between her and Morton.

"Morning. Sorry." Larry rubbed his eyes and relaxed into the seat. "Didn't get to bed till eleven last night. Had to do an emergency bypass for somebody on blood thinners and it was a mess. Stopped the heart attack, though, so win-win."

"Did they have Crash?" Wendy asked.

"No, just a run of the mill plaque buildup." His expression sobered. "I feel like I avenged dad, though. I stopped somebody else from dying of the thing that killed him."

Wendy rubbed his shoulder when he sniffled.

"Dad saw you do it." Morton nudged Larry's leg with his foot. "He's up there bragging about it."

"Someday," Larry's eyes hardened, "Someday, I'll cure it. And if I don't, whoever comes after me will."

The limo shook again when Roy wriggled his way in, followed by Pom-Pom. After all the greeting hugs and kisses, they sat together in the front passenger side corner, with Pom-Pom taking the spot next to Ludwig.

Ludwig never twitched, he was out.

Iggy appeared off-balance as he heaved himself inside. He must have taken his Depakote within the last hour. One side effect he consistently experienced when it first hit his system was vertigo.

Roy steadied Iggy. "Hey, Iggster, you okay?"

"Yup." Iggy accepted the aid and dropped onto the seat between Roy and Morton, causing the whole limo to shake.

Something was different about him. Junior had to look three times before he realized Iggy used something in his hair to lay it down in a ponytail instead of a plume sticking up off his head.

Cherry slid over to give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. Lemmy waited with his hand extended until she came back to hold it.

"How're you doing, Lemmy?" Junior asked.

"I'm okay." Lemmy used his thumb to play with Cherry's gold tennis bracelet.

Junior nuzzled their cheeks together. "Good."

Jack crossed in front of the limo to get in the passenger side. Black twisted around in the driver's seat and waved at the partition window until Junior met his eyes.

"We're going to move," he signed.

Nodding, Junior signed back, "Thank you. We're ready."

"Is Ludwig still asleep?"

"Yes." Morton, Wendy and Junior signed at the same time.

"Good, he needs it."

Black pointed out the windshield and turned around. He suction-cupped his phone to the dashboard where it was in his line of sight. The onscreen map showed GPS coordinates tracking the funeral truck and the limo.

Distant roars cut through the quiet. Black got a text, which he answered with a thumb up emoji.

Junior couldn't see past the truck ahead. Judging by the noise, the bikes took off.

The truck engine rattled to life in a clatter of steam, its red brake lights piercing the dimness. Black started the limo and the quiet engine only rumbled a little.

"Ludwig is so out of it." Roy smirked, snapping a picture on his phone.

Cherry held out her hand. "He didn't sleep much last night. Let him be."

Iggy rubbed the back of his head. "I didn't either. Anybody care if I nap?"

"Not at all!" Pom-Pom leaned forward. "Here. Switch seats with me."

They timed the trade just right. Seconds after Iggy settled, the limo eased into motion behind the truck. It didn't take him long to drift off. His head fell backwards instead of forwards, so he snored almost in time to the engine's purr.

Morton took a picture of them both and added text to it. "There are two kinds of sleepers."

He texted it to everybody. Snickering broke out around the limo cabin.

"Dad would've done it." Morton said by way of explanation.

"It's good that he's getting sleep." Larry stretched his legs out. "He's more likely to have seizures if he doesn't sleep. The one he had right before dad's hatch-day was scary. Lemmy and I had to keep stimulating him to breathe until he started moving around on his own."

Lemmy lifted his head. "He hasn't had any more since that one. Don't jinx him."

"Guys, hush." Wendy spread her hands between them.

Pom-Pom twisted to peer out the window behind her. "Here comes the crowd."

More and more people appeared along the barricades to get a last glimpse of their fallen king. Paratroopas flitted above, never crossing beyond the line created by the barricades.

Dawn's first rays broke across the milky sky as the funeral cortège made its way onto the road. Alpenglow limned the northern mountain peaks. The semi's hydraulic brakes pop-hissed. Grit crackled in the limo's spinning gold hubcaps. The ride became smoother once asphalt replaced sand.

Throngs rushed to the side of the road. Some took photos, a lot threw flowers. Junior saw some of them weeping.

"It was like this for mom." Cherry whispered.

Junior slipped his arm around her. Lemmy squeezed her hand and Wendy clasped her other hand.

"The people loved our parents. This is the best way they can show it now."

"They're going to be our people." Junior murmured, watching an enormous bouquet of multicolored wildflowers explode against his dad's shell and spill blossoms onto the trailer below.

Here and there among the gathering, news cameras watched from white cherry picker platforms.

Thrown flowers grew more frequent as the procession entered the western edge of Koopa City, where beachfront businesses and homes stood like twinkling silhouettes in the brightening dawn. Black had to swish the windshield wipers a few times to clear plant matter off the windshield.

Across the way, Ludwig's hands moved. Sometimes he signed in his sleep. Often gibberish, but that time he touched the thumb of his open hand to his forehead and let it fall back onto his knee.

Lemmy scooted sideways towards Cherry. "I'll have your hug now."

"Sure!" Cherry spread her arms for him.

Junior let Lemmy go. He gazed out the window as the churning, white capped ocean disappeared behind sparsely-lit buildings.

The world wasn't the same without his dad.

.o

Sunlight glinted off the tops of skyscrapers. Most of the city remained in shadow due to its proximity to the Darklands volcano. Bowser's funeral happened on the one late summer day of the year where the sun appeared rise from the volcano.

Somehow, that seemed fitting.

Flowers thudded against the limo as constantly as rain. Black had the wipers running slow to keep his visual field clear. He wasn't bothered because he didn't hear the clunks and thuds.

Multicolored blossoms festooned Bowser's shell as they piled up between the shiny spikes.

Junior checked his phone, where he followed the funeral cortège via the same GPS program Black used. It gave an estimated time of arrival.

Iggy's biggest seizure trigger besides lack of sleep was excessive activity during the first thirty minutes after waking. When the timer reached sixty minutes, Junior sent Lemmy over to nudge Iggy awake.

"Huh?" Iggy yawned, "We there?"

"One more hour." Lemmy perched in Iggy's lap. "We're keeping you out of the seizure danger zone."

Iggy's expression softened. "Thanks."

Beside him, Ludwig slept on, unruffled.

.o

Not even limo doors were safe from Black. The jolt from the slam woke up Ludwig, who stretched and reached into his hair to pull his hearing aids out. Behind the flat silver mic housings, the ear molds were clear with tiny plastic speakers on the tips.

"You slept deep for three hours," Iggy signed to him.

"I needed that." Ludwig signed back one-handed.

He changed his batteries and pushed his hearing aids back in until the silver microphones were flush against his auricles.

Black poked his head into the limo cabin and offered Ludwig a black thermos. The coffee inside still steamed as if freshly made.

"Sorry, there is no cream, I made it in a hurry," he signed.

"It's okay." Ludwig gestured. He tipped the thermos to his mouth and gulped at least half of it.

Junior laughed. He knew Ludwig liked his coffee, but he never saw him drink it like that!

"Isn't that hot?" Cherry winced.

Ludwig lowered the thermos and exhaled steam. "Extremely."

Black wheeze-laughed, kissed him and accepted the thermos back.

He signed, "I'm going to help unload King Bowser for the procession. There is no hurry, the service is in an hour. We're ahead of schedule."

Nodding, Ludwig pulled him close by the chin for one more kiss.

"I love you," he mouthed.

Black's I love you, too was an audible whisper because he breathed while he mouthed it. Then he backed out and managed to slam the cabin door hard enough to shake the vehicle.

Iggy rocked backwards in raucous laughter.

Ludwig flinched. "Black is hopeless with any sort of door."

.o

The public KC3 doors closed at eight o'clock sharp. No more people were permitted entry into the auditorium and would have to watch the service on the giant screens stationed all around the lobby and the outside of the building. This prevented people from trying to scoot past the royal funeral procession in search of seats.

There weren't any more seats left anyway. The place was packed. Standing room only along the walls. Same applied to the lobby.

Voices murmured everywhere, the susurrus of life reverberating through the acoustically perfect auditorium.

Weeks of practice with a stone Koopa shell sculpture heavier than Bowser's came down to the ceremony about to unfold. All the goofing off in the limousine seemed light years away from the atmosphere inside this building.

Roy and Morton guided Bowser's shell through an elevator stationed between the lobby and the auditorium. Someone cleared off the flowers thrown on during the cortège and piled them up in the front and back. The trolley had eight handles and needed to be low to the ground for Lemmy and Wendy. It took some finagling, but everybody found a comfortable position.

Hanging on a loop above Bowser's shell was his royal club, the torch and goblet he assembled the day he took his throne. The gilded cylinder had spikes at the tip.

Junior and Ludwig took their positions at the front as the oldest and youngest. Iggy and Lemmy were behind them. Larry and Wendy situated themselves on the third handles. Roy and Morton stayed in the rear.

Pom-Pom remained at Roy's side, holding his hand. Cherry waited beside Junior with her coat draped over her forearm. She patted his elbow when he teared up. He flashed her a wry smile to show he was okay.

Red, gold and black velvet drapes lined the auditorium walls.

Onstage, the waiting choir was arranged on risers in four wedge-shaped groups, each wedge further subdivided in two by railings. At the tips of the choir wedges, a children's choir stood fidgeting on semicircular risers. Junior wondered if one of the little Koopa Troopa girls was Janet.

Every choir member wore shiny gold robes and circular pendants containing digital tuners. Just like the tuners everyone clipped to their instruments in the orchestra. Each vocal section had an assigned color, judging by the LED lights.

Rather than a single massive screen, there were three medium-sized screens set up on glossy black pillars in between the choir sections.

Junior couldn't tell what color the choir members' shells were, but he knew which ones were Paratroopas because the robes allowed their feathered wings to protrude.

He spotted Scott sitting in the first piccolo spot with three instrument cases next to him. Like the choir, the orchestra wore gold robes. Scott draped his wheelchair in the same gold fabric, so he looked like a gilded waterfall.

Sienna, who wrapped gold ribbons around the tips of her box braids, took up her position behind the timpani.

Junior looked again at the choir and blinked upon noticing familiar faces.

Celine, the sole soprano in the front of her wedge section, sat in a red transport wheelchair with Judy and Pat behind her. Stevie was in the fourth row of the alto two section. Elton— who had glittering gold tinted glasses matching his robe, stood in the second row of tenors next to Freddie. Josh and Neil were among the baritones, fifth and sixth row. Finally, Blue and Crimson took up the two back corners of the basses, as if they didn't want to draw too much attention by being in the front. Their wild hair was combed back similar to Iggy's.

Also in the choir, a huge Sumo Brother sat in the middle of the tenor section, and there was a Fire Brother bearing a white eye patch behind Neil.

Lemmy sniffled audibly. Cherry gave him tissues from her purse to dry his eyes.

"I'm okay," he whispered. "There's eight hundred and ten people in the choir. I counted."

"You counted all of them that fast?"

"Uh-huh."

The lights dimmed. Not as much as for a performance, yet enough to indicate the ceremony was about to begin. Silence fell over the auditorium like a curtain dropping.

Lakitu swooped through, shaking a gilded aspergillum full of seawater to symbolize the tears shed by the Darklands kingdom. He soared back to front, including over the choir, returned to the center and circled the perimeter. Everyone felt at least a drop hit them.

Koopa Troopas marched up the aisle holding their spears aloft. They fanned out in front of the stage to stand guard. Boom-Boom trailed them carrying a litt golden torch. Jack and Black followed Boom-Boom bearing flags displaying the royal Koopa crest— Jack held his flag in one hand and swung his white cane in graceful two point taps with the other.

At the end of the aisle, they turned sharply to face the back of the auditorium, gave a shout and banged their metal flagpoles down onto the tile floor with a decisive clang.

"Make way for the King!" Jack bellowed.

Black yelled it too as he signed in wide, swooping gestures. Only his signs were understandable.

Ludwig pointed to Junior.

"Make way for King Bowser the First!" Junior shouted.

Each of his siblings repeated the chant.

Sienna struck the timpani in a heartbeat rhythm that vibrated Junior's chest. A white spotlight above the stage illuminated Bowser's shell.

All eyes capable of sight looked tearfully at the auditorium entrance. People sobbed audibly.

Junior rested his hand against Bowser's shell. Frigid, a far cry from the warmth of life.

At the next timpani beat, Junior and his siblings guided the trolley up the long aisle towards the stage. Cherry and Pom-Pom split away to sit in the reserved seats.

Mario, Luigi and Daisy were at the end of the aisle. They bowed as Bowser's shell passed.

The soft whirr of the trolly wheels became a metallic rumble when they crossed onto a metal platform. Gears turned in a series of clicks and the platform rose to level with the stage.

They continued onward, down one small ramp and up another until everyone stood together on a rectangular dais covered in purple velvet. This positioned Bowser's shell exactly in the center of all the musicians, as if the choir section wedges sprouted from it.

The spotlight followed the trolley and stayed fixed on it once it was in position.

"Wow, his shell is giant," one of the kids whispered to his neighbor.

"Turn," Junior whispered. In unison, he and his siblings faced inward towards Bowser's shell.

Ludwig stepped off the velvet dais. His conductor's podium was on a platform suspended from the ceiling by metal cords, and he accessed it via a ladder.

Once in position, he finger spelled letters and the orchestra tuned accordingly. The choir hummed the notes respective to their sections.

Between them, the screens came alive with images of multicolored waveforms vibrating over sparkling ultramarine water. Iggy's work, no doubt.

Ludwig picked up his baton, lit it and touched the remote. A white dot blinked on the bottom of the central screen. He held his baton overhead and twitched it back and forth in time with the blinking dot. His tail swung in opposition to the baton as he sought the tempo with his body.

Finally, Ludwig gestured to the pianist. She played a chord. Whatever would come next was to be sung a cappella.

He gave the choir the first downbeat. They broke into a unison pianissimo hum. It startled Junior how eight hundred and ten people could create a sound so soft.

Ludwig guided them with small, precise movements, like a painter whose canvas was silence. Then his gestures opened wider and the choir became an immense wall of harmony. He directed through his whole body. His facial expression, his hand movements and the way he made eye contact with individual singers.

There were screens in the back of the auditorium, showing the stage and the visualizer, so the soldiers facing away wouldn't be left out.

Ludwig tilted his body to the side and raised his arms as if throwing something skyward. The choir's sound grew, the increasingly complex harmonies filling in and rising like a cry to the Great Beyond.

At its height, all the Koopa Paratroopas spread their wings. They were arranged throughout the choir to form the Koopa crest in a feathery white wave. Even the kids were on it, their four tiny pairs of wings forming Bowser's teeth.

Junior's eyes welled over. Tears slipped out from behind Roy's sunglasses. Morton's lower jaw quivered. Larry stared straight ahead, eyes glistening. Wendy let out a sob. Lemmy wiped his cheeks with the tissues Cherry gave him. Iggy sniffled as quietly as he could. Ludwig had glistening streaks on his cheeks.

Out in the audience, Daisy hugged Cherry while she wept on her shoulder. There wasn't a dry eye in the auditorium.

Wendy couldn't keep it in. Junior hugged her while she sobbed against his chest.

He handled the song until the last part, where the whole choir returned to the pianissimo hum. Celine struggled to stand with both hands on the rail in front of her, opened her mouth and produced unearthly high notes, like a mourning wail in controlled, sung form.

Junior cried as hard as Wendy. All he saw behind his eyes were Bowser's final moments of thrashing and gasping, a vision he spared the world from imagining.

Wendy's claws dug against his biceps. He enfolded her in his arms. They clung to each other, oblivious to being on live broadcast TV.

"Daddy," she whispered, "Ju-ju…"

"I know," Junior murmured back.

Morton squeezed Roy's shoulder.

Celine's voice faded away as the choir hummed a final chord.

Ludwig flipped his left hand over in a cutoff gesture and lowered the baton. He smiled through his tears and signed to the choir, "Beautiful, thank you."

Wendy backed off and wrung her tears under control as Ludwig climbed down the ladder. Junior pulled him into a tight hug.

"That was incredible," he signed.

Ludwig kissed his cheek and murmured in his ear, "They gave it life for dad."

The Koopa siblings bowed towards Bowser's shell in unison and filed off the stage to sit in the reserved front row seats.

Roy absolutely fell apart in Pom-Pom's arms. She held him while he sobbed with his face hidden against her neck.

Cherry was still inconsolably buried in Daisy's shoulder, tightly clutching the hand Mario offered. Junior leaned over, wrapping his arms around her so she felt embraced from both sides. She reached back and gripped his thumb. He knew she relived the same awful image he did.

Cherry shifted to cry on Junior's shoulder. He gave Daisy a faint 'I got this, thank you' nod. She pressed her hand against his.

Whatever makeup Cherry chose stood up like a champ to her crying. Not a single speck smudged. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, wiped her nose, and shot Junior a sheepish little smile. He kissed her cheek to let her know she need not be sorry.

Junior found himself blocking out most of the funeral service. Everything left him so emotionally drained, the opposite to how he felt after his wedding, that he almost missed his cue to go up and speak.

When he got to the podium to the left of center stage, he looked at the notes he so carefully crafted on his phone and put it away. They didn't encompass how he felt.

There were no Koopa Sign interpreters at the event. Instead, every spoken word appeared on the screens throughout the building as subtitles.

Nobody else talked about this, so he did.

"I was four when my dad had his first heart attack, and then I got diagnosed with Crash, too…"

Junior detailed those terrifying, traumatic years without mincing words. As harrowing as his tales were, the meaning behind it all came clear to him when a Koopa Paratroopa in the audience bent to get something off the floor and his blue shell caught the light.

"…between the stents, and bringing Cherry and I together, dad's goal in life was always to take care of my heart. He knew his was broken, but he made sure mine wouldn't be in more ways than one."

Tears stung in his eyes. "Nobody likes to think of how fragile life is, or how suddenly it's gone. If I learned anything from all of this mess, it's how important it is to love people while they're here."

He glanced sideways at Bowser's shell as it glistened under the brilliant spotlight.

"The last thing my dad did in his life was look me in the eyes and say, 'Love ya, brat.' I watched the light go out of his eyes. I held him while he died. There is nothing— no greater act of love— than to hold somebody as they die. It changes you. It makes you appreciate life more. Don't let that be the moment you think of all the things you wish you said to somebody. Say it now. Go home and say those things today."

The tears in his eyes skittered onto his cheeks. He sniffed, wiping them away.

Luigi looked at Daisy and said something. Her expression softened when she kissed him gently between the eyes. They clasped hands.

"Mommy, I'm sorry about the coffee cup!" One of the kids in the choir shouted.

In the audience, a yellow shelled Koopa Troopa blew her daughter a kiss.

"I love you, always," Ludwig signed to Black, who was just out of sight beside the stage. Whatever Black signed back, it brought a smile to Ludwig's somber face.

By the time Junior returned to his seat, most of the people in the auditorium had something to say to someone next to them.

Ludwig approached the podium and said, "I was nearly two when I lost my hearing to an ear infection…"

He took his hearing aids out, held them up and inserted them again.

"…so I do not have the memory of this lullaby that my siblings do. However, dad sang this to all of us when we were little. I don't know how to sing, so this is the best way I can perform it for him. Feel free to sing along if you know this one."

Ludwig ascended the ladder to his conductor's platform, touched the remote and waved his baton above his head to catch the tempo. At his downbeat, the choir sang the most beautiful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow Junior would hear in his life.

Many voices in the gathering joined in. Some off-key, some in perfect harmony. Morton had the Darklands News station playing quietly on his phone, and the live broadcasts all over the Darklands showed the citizens singing, too.

Everybody wanted to sing Bowser to his rest.

Tears poured onto Larry's face as he tried to join in. He broke down halfway through. Iggy hugged him tight while he bawled on his shoulder.

Cherry moved over to embrace Morton when he began to sob so hard his whole body heaved from it. Pom-Pom sang it while holding Roy, who cried more than he hummed.

Junior scooped Lemmy into his arms as soon as he heard the first sniffle.

Daisy, Luigi and Mario held hands while singing along.

Wendy sang at the top of her contralto voice, smiling through the tears.

Scott had a beautiful piccolo solo in the middle of the song. His fluttery notes soared over the strings and woodwinds.

"If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow…why, oh why, can't I?"

A lot of people cried. Junior wiped tears out of his eyes. He thought about the time in the morgue, when Larry sang it as they prepared Bowser's body. The song sung by all of the Darklands carried that immense love.

Lemmy's bawling took on a frantic pace. Between the change in routine, the stimulating environment and the powerful emotions, he was beyond his capacity to cope anymore.

Junior carried him out a side door leading behind the stage where cameras wouldn't witness the brewing meltdown.

Lemmy dug his claws in when he tried to put him down, so he bear-hugged him while he cried it out.

"Breathe," Junior murmured, taking a few deep breaths himself and slowly letting them out. "I miss dad, too. It's okay, Lemmy. We'll be okay."

Lemmy calmed down once he wasn't surrounded by so many people. Junior got him water from the cooler in the hallway and listened to him gulp every drop.

"Feel better?"

"No. Dad's dead, that feels like shit."

Junior laughed at the unexpected cuss word. "You're right! It feels like shit."

Lemmy squeezed his ball and climbed down. He wiped his blotchy, tear-stained face dry. "I'm okay to go back out now."

When they emerged, Ludwig had his arms up in preparation for another musical piece. Junior noticed Scott holding an old wooden recorder instead of his little green piccolo.

The children's choir filed off their risers one by one to stand in a circle around Bowser's shell. Each held a small lit brown candle with a gold cup at the bottom to catch the melting wax.

Ludwig cued the strings first, followed by the pianist and percussion.

Pat knelt next to Celine's wheelchair instead of letting her struggle to stand again. Ludwig established eye contact, smiled and gestured towards her.

Pat opened her mouth and musical syllables tumbled out over the orchestra.

"Ariadiamus late, ariadiamus da, ari a natus late adua…"

Celine joined in, taking the lower notes in the two part harmony.

"Aravare tue vate, aravare tue vate latea."

They looked at each other and repeated the line again, smiling into each other's eyes before refocusing on Ludwig.

It took Junior a few repetitions of the opening line to realize Ludwig wrote this song in native Koopa. He took the phonetic pronunciations of their growls, snarls and hisses, and turned them into something anybody could sing.

Even more incredible, it was poetic!

The kids harmonized with the adults. They held their candles aloft, mouths open as they sang to their fallen king.

Sienna struck the cymbals with her claws as she beat on the bongo drums set up next to the timpani.

The whole choir burst into song, four part harmony coming from all corners of the stage.

"Anamana coole rawe anamana coole ra. Anamana coole rawe akala! Aya doo ayeh!"

Violin and cello bows juddered across strings. Ludwig's gestures were bouncy and percussive. He pointed to Scott while moving his baton like a sewing needle through cloth, telling him when to crescendo and when to diminuendo.

Scott's wooden recorder notes offered sunrises and endless light.

Junior took hold of Cherry's hand and kissed it. She caught his eye, smiled and returned her attention to the stage.

The music built up into another cymbal crash and an explosion of voices over Scott's recorder.

Celine and Pat came in again, their soprano harmonies carrying over the rest.

"Yakama yamaya kaya mema. Aya coo ayeh mena."

They sang the last line through a key change and repeated it until Ludwig brought them to a bone-shaking final chord. He thrust his arms down and the abrupt silence was louder than thunderclaps.

Junior sat there, looking slack-jawed at his siblings, Cherry, Luigi and Mario. Did that really happen?

Roughly translated, the song meant:

"Life begins, life ends. Alive, hatch life into our bones. Let us love forever. Let us love forever, father. Bellies of flames. Bellies of fire. Bellies of flaming blood. All for you. Honor and praise to our king. All our love for you."

The children's choir blew out their candles and held them up again, the trailing smoke wreathing around Bowser's spiked shell like a spirit departing. Then, one by one, they returned to the risers.

Ludwig kept his arms up, holding everyone in silence.

Junior ascended the stage, took the royal club off the loop and held it overhead. Tears streamed down his face as he twisted it apart into a torch and goblet again and held them overhead, symbolizing the end of Bowser's reign. They would go into the ground with him.

Ludwig lowered his hands. He blew his musicians a kiss and signed something to them. Junior couldn't see since his back was turned. Ludwig climbed off the platform and approached the podium.

"I want to thank these wonderful musicians for lending their talents to this service. You honored your king. Most importantly, you honored my dad. He would be proud. Thank you, sincerely."

At Ludwig's wave, Junior's siblings got up and made their way to Bowser's shell. They took the same positions as before.

Junior blew kisses to Celine, Pat and Judy. They waved. Celine reached under her wheelchair to take pills and wash them down with water. He blew another one to Stevie, Elton, Freddie, Josh and Neil.

Wendy kissed Bowser's shell. Her dark red lipstick left a mark.

Bowser's soldiers filed out the same way they entered. All but the ones holding spears— they lined either side of the aisle and crossed their spear tips over the center.

Silence fell over the auditorium for the recessional, so Junior almost leapt out of his shell when Sienna struck the timpani in the same heartbeat rhythm as the entrance.

Junior helped turn the trolly on the velvet dais. His siblings moved with military precision, guiding it down the shallow ramp, up the steeper one and onto the elevator platform.

The spotlight stayed on Bowser's shell during its journey down the aisle. Nobody talked, the sole sounds were drum beats, sniffles, camera clicks and occasional coughing.

Only when Bowser's shell left the spotlight did the auditorium erupt in applause.

Thirty minutes later, the departing truck and limo were met with the same triumphant applause. The spiraling northern journey took everyone through business complexes and homes. People dropped flowers from the rooftops and balconies of apartment buildings. Others rushed to the barricades lining the streets.

By the time they reached the airship pickup point, Bowser's shell, the truck and the limo were utterly doused in flowers.

.o

Mario stood in awe as a massive airship platform covered in straw lowered Bowser's shell into the earth with perfect surgical precision. He noticed the relucent gold torch and goblet Junior opened at the funeral ceremony nestled in the straw. The platform broke away when it touched down, leaving the four rattling chains to withdraw.

Bowser was laid to rest at Peach's left-hand side, the same place he sat every day he visited her grave for the past eleven years. A gold statue would commemorate him in six months to a year, same as her.

Mario allowed it as a peace offering between their joined kingdoms. He paid for the grave marker— a slanted black stone with a gold plaque identifying him— and the statue currently being sculpted.

The moment Bowser's shell settled into its final resting place, his children threw their heads back, spat flames skyward and roared in unison. They picked up the eight shovels laid out for them, approached the brown pile of earth at the foot of the grave and went to work burying him.

Wendy sobbed the whole time. She turned to Jack, the muscular Sledge Brother with the white cane and black ponytail, and he embraced her.

Junior gave Cherry his shovel and let her scoop soil into the grave. Lemmy carried Scott up the hill on his back, with Scott still wearing his trailing gold robe from the funeral service, and they somehow wielded a shovel together. Jack and Black took their turns, followed by Pom-Pom and Sienna.

Luigi and Daisy opted to stay near the bottom of the hill. Koopa Troopa guards and Toad guards were posted around the perimeter, both for ceremonial purposes and to keep curious visitors from bumbling into the burial.

The titanic shadow of the airship shrank as it departed. Whoever had the helm flashed the lights on the sides, and all the Koopa Troopa guards saluted.

Puffy, bloated clouds dotted the sky. A passing one sprinkled rain on the funeral gathering.

"Ugh, dad!" Junior scowled at the sky, "Do that on the sun, not us!"

Cherry laughed as hard as she cried. Whatever it was, it had to be an in-joke between them.

Junior walked away to sit on the edge of the hill apart from the others. Mario approached and eased himself down next to him in the grass, looking north at the distant mountains.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Huh?" Junior glanced at him with an arched eyebrow so much like his father that it was like looking decades back in time. If his voice had been a rough bass instead of a silky baritone, he might've feared Bowser rose from the dead.

"Back-a when Peach died, I acted rashly. I took-a Cherry away to separate her from-a you. She wouldn't give up on-a seeing you again, so I brought her home."

Mario fidgeted with his gloves. "I hurt you to hurt Bowser, and that wasn't-a fair. I'm sorry, Junior."

Instead of anger, Junior blinked and returned his focus to the horizon. The breeze blew errant strands of his hair.

"You could've kept that to yourself."

"Yes, but your funeral speech-a compelled me. Regrets are terrible things when they fester."

"You're right." Junior grasped Mario's shoulder with his massive, clawed hand and pulled him against his side. His hands were as huge and rough as Bowser's.

Mario's heart leapt into his throat until he saw the young Koopa grin roguishly, all sharp teeth. "Cherry and I got married, and I love her more than I can say, so don't worry about it. It's so old now the water under the bridge is all dried up. Let's leave it in the past."

Mario laughed, his wrinkled face crinkling further. "I'm sorry for-a jumping on you, too."

"Hey, don't push it." Junior teased him.

They chuckled together before sobering. Mario sat up straighter to avoid the back pain later. He wasn't sure how to approach the next subject, so he blurted it out.

"I've been-a following the news reports."

"Yeah?"

"I'm not somebody who-a pries, but Cherry told-a me what happened when Bowser died, and that's not the story you're telling."

"Oh." Junior exhaled smoke through his nostrils. "Don't spread it around, okay? I'm sparing everybody the nightmare of it. You, me and Cherry are the only ones who know."

Mario extended a hand. "Yes, and I respect-a that, but— Junior, if-a you need to talk about it with somebody who wasn't as close to it as you were, I'm all-a ears."

A change came over Junior's demeanor. His russet eyes welled up as they lost focus. "Did you ever watch the surveillance video of how Peach fell?"

The unexpected question took Mario aback. He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. "No. Never."

"Dad did. I saw the thumbnails for it on his phone. I guess he had somebody lift the footage and get the coroner's reports the day she died."

Junior sniffed and the tears in his eyes trickled onto his cheeks. "Now I understand how helpless he felt watching her. He watched because he couldn't be with her like I got to be with him."

Mario's forehead wrinkled. He took his glasses off to wipe his eyes and slid them back on.

"I wanted to leave the room when he was gasping. I had the choice. I could have." Junior's nostrils flared. "I stayed and held him because I love him, and I know he would've held me, too."

He looked over at Mario with eyes full of eerie wisdom. "You didn't get to make that choice when it happened to Peach."

Mario shed a few tears as he nodded. "I had to make-a peace with the lack of a proper goodbye. I'm glad you were spared that."

Junior smiled shakily through his tears. "I'm sorry that you weren't."

He looked over his shoulders, wiped his eyes and said, "Looks like the cavalry is done."

Mario rubbed his nose. "Let's-a go. I have lunch fixed for everyone."

Pain shot through his lower back when he moved to stand. He scrunched his eyes shut. "Oof, I'm-a getting old!"

Junior chuckled and gave him a hand up. "Yeah, you're an old fart."

"Hey!"

"What? You walked into that one."

"Touché."

Their tears sparkled away into laughter.

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Junior appreciated the lunch Mario made for everyone. He wasn't half-bad at cooking Koopa cuisine, if his Cheep-Cheep kabobs were anything to go by.

Pom-Pom, Cherry and Daisy sat together in deep conservation about fabric. Wendy and Sienna joined them.

Daisy laid her hand on Wendy's wrist. Wendy nodded her head.

Junior smiled at watching their new friendship blossom.

At the end of the table, Black sat across from Luigi, teaching him the basics of Koopa Sign.

Luigi watched him sign a few times, blinked and held both his hands out. "Wait a minute here. This looks-a familiar! I took—" He fingerspelled it, "—ASL—" —and resumed speaking, "in college. The deaf folks in outside-outside USA use it. Gimme a sec to remember something. Um…I'm rusty."

After a moment, Luigi slowly signed, "Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Luigi." He finger spelled his name.

Black let out a shocked noise and signed back at lightning speed, "Wow, it looks like Koopa Sign!"

He grinned, pivoting his hands in deaf applause before going on, "What is this ASL you speak of?"

Luigi scratched the side of his head, messing up some of his salt and pepper hair. "Can you sign slower?"

Black let out his wheezy laugh and obliged. "Sorry, I get excited when I find new signers. What is ASL?"

Luigi did his best to explain. Apparently, the difference between this ASL from outside-outside and Koopa Sign was how they counted, due to humans having five fingers and Koopas only having four.

Ludwig sat off to the side by himself, sipping coffee from a beer mug, because Toad coffee cups were far too small for a Koopa.

Roy and Morton washed the dishes together. Morton accidentally crushed a tiny cup in his fist. He glanced around before dumping the pieces in a trash bin. Two seconds later, Roy smashed a saucer with an audible crunch. He froze, staring at the jagged white bits on his palm while Morton laughed at him.

Iggy sat down by Ludwig and showed him something on his phone.

Larry gave Mario a very deep explanation of Crash that had the little plumber looking shell-shocked.

Jack's cane tapped up the hall and he rounded the corner with a mischievous smile.

"Hey, Jack! What's up?" Junior asked.

Jack switched his cane to the pencil grip and approached. He whispered in Junior's ear, "Lemmy and Scott found the hall closet."

"So?"

"They're blowing each other's backs out."

"Okay, you're telling me this because…?"

"They're not being quiet. They're almost as noisy as Black and Ludwig." Jack laughed, making his way around the table by running his hand along the edge.

"What's-a wrong with my hall closet?" Mario asked.

"Nothing." Jack lifted his sunglasses to wink at Junior.

Not a minute later, Scott rolled his wheelchair into the dining room with his robe draped over the chair backing. Lemmy perched across his lap, his arms wrapped around his neck. Their faces were still flushed and they gave off a faintly salty scent.

"At dad's funeral lunch, really?" Junior crossed his arms.

Scott smirked and nuzzled Lemmy. "We're busted."

Lemmy flapped his hands and grinned sheepishly. "Scott looks so sexy in gold, I had to kiss him!"

"And one thing led to another…" Scott rumbled, his deep voice practically a purr.

Junior grinned and high-foured both of them. "Dad would think it's hilarious. Did you clean up after yourselves?"

"Clean up?" Lemmy blinked.

Scott's face blanched. "Uhh…"

A harried Toad burst into the dining room and whispered something to Mario. Mario rushed off with him.

"Oh-a no! How did it get sticky?"

Lemmy and Scott looked at each other and cackled.

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