"Olly?" The muffled voice of Peach asked.

He felt her hands touch his side and gently shift his position. She shook him a few times until he began moving on his own. He opened his eyes, facing the princess as she towered over the side of his bed.

"Hnn...?"

Peach had let Olly use a spare room as a place to sleep for the time being, as he didn't feel right going back to the Origami Craftsman's house yet. Olivia had stayed with Mario and Luigi.

"I want to show you something!"

Olly sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Well, you sound excited. What's got your folds crinkled?"

"First, you might want to eat some breakfast. Today's going to be eventful."

"Ooh, do tell. Now you've gotten me interested."

"I'll tell you on the way. Let's go."

They started down the hall.

"So I found out that there was an event scheduled for today, but I didn't know that until later and planned the Origami Festival for yesterday. The Toads were starting to take down the decorations when I realized that we could use this!"

Olly sat at a chair, Peach sitting across from him. A red Toad entered, took one look at Olly, and exited without hesitation.

"Turns out, we aren't allowed to invite our past selves anymore for fear of 'timeline disruption' or something, so we have a few open spaces. Do you and Olivia want to join us?"

"It would be easier to decide if you told me what you're going to do."

"It's a kart racing tournament. Whoever wins gets an advantage in the next tourney."

"Oh, neither of us know how to drive!"

"I can teach you! We have until the afternoon, and you learn really fast!"

Olly smiled.

The Toad returned with sunny-side-up styled eggs with toast and bacon. Olly thought it smelt delightful.

"Thank you, Toadguard." Peach bowed. She faced back to Olly as Toadguard exited. "Do you want to?"

"Yes! Of course! It sounds fun, I get to learn something, and it'll distract me from yesterday!"

"You two may even get special karts too, that's what happened with the Inklings and Link."

"Who?" Olly picked up his fork and began stabbing at the yolk of the egg. He started stirring the egg parts together as Peach talked.

"Oh! I guess you don't know Link. He's an old friend of Mario's. They've been doing heroics for about the same time!"

"Hm." Olly carried the bacon with his fork and stabbed it into the defeated egg. "Okay then. So, about this race..."

"They want a new cup. Whoever wins the tourney gets to decide the theme of it."

"Cup?" He took a bite of the bacon.

Peach nodded. "It's a race term for a um...It's four races, and when you win those races, you get a trophy."

Olly swallowed, almost choking on the heat from the bacon. He cleared his throat. "A trophy, you say? That'll surely prove-ah! My bad." He corrected himself quickly, clearly not wanting Peach to know his thought.

"Oh? What's wrong? Prove what?"

Olly choked on his toast. "So you heard that." Toadguard handed him a cup of orange juice, and Olly took a sip of it. "It'll prove my loyalty to your kingdom, of course."

"Huh? How?"

"If I do your little," he moved the fork in a circle, "race, then it'll show the Toads we're allies, right?"

"Um, sure! I think that'll work! That's actually a really good idea!"

"Oh? Really?"

Peach nodded and stood. "The sooner the better, so let's head out!"

"But you haven't eaten yet," Olly stated, worried.

"I'll eat later." She gently grabbed his hands. "Come on, this might take a while. We better start now!"

Peach had led Olly to an empty road with a single kart sitting near the starting line. It was grey with the circle bearing no insignia.

"This is the kart we use for practice. It belongs to nobody in particular so..." She had come over in a kart of her own, pulling up next to the kart. "Take a seat."

Olly went from her kart to the vacant one. The seat wasn't very comfortable, but yet still cozy enough. His feet didn't even hang over the side.

He wiggled his legs. "I can't reach."

She giggled. "Not to worry, we have something special built into the karts for people like you."

"What?"

"See the red button by the steering wheel?"

Olly pointed at it. Peach nodded, and Olly pressed his hand against it. The car's engine grew to life.

"Woah."

"Mhm! And that stick thing controls it."

Olly pointed to the gearshift, but Peach told him it was in front of that one. Examining it told him that forwards was to increase speed and pulling it back were to decrease the speed.

"So you'll want to-"

He hadn't realized she was going to walk him through it and pulled the handle the entire way forwards. The kart shot forwards and crashed into a wall. Peach drove over to Olly, holding his crown; as it had fallen off when the kart went out of control. Olly put the handle back where it was and coughed out smoke. Peach handed his crown back to him, and he replaced it on his head.

"Oww..."

"Olly, you need to be more careful! Save that energy for the race!"

"My legs...my entire spine...I'm in pain."

"Can you walk?"

"My entire nervous system...Oww oww..."

Peach picked him up from under the arms and gently placed him on the ground.

"Oh, so small..."

The king rose not much higher than her knees, being surprisingly small for his age. Peach assumed Olivia was around the same height, possibly shorter. His crown added to his height, but it didn't make much of a difference.

"I knew you were origami, but I wasn't expecting you to be so tiny!"

Olly's face turned red. "Hmph...Mentioning how tiny royalty is can be disrespectful."

"Don't mention it, right. Sorry."

Olly floated from the ground, flinched, and fell back down. "That's not good."

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I might have actually broken something..."

"You have bones?"

"And very fragile ones, at that." Olly winced. "I won't do any good in this condition...Peach, I require your help."

Peach carefully scooped him up. "How did you even crash?"

"I wasn't expecting it to go so fast when I moved the handle..."

"Olly, that handle controls the speed. All the way forwards means full power."

"I learned that in the most terrible way."

"Mario'd know how to help you. He broke his arm once."

"Really? What happened?"

"A battle with Bowser. Let's see, it was a few years ago. Bowser was trying to wed with me against my will."

Olly nodded a few times as Peach explained. He always loved hearing stories, and this brought him back to when the Origami Craftsman read Olly stories of Mario's epic battles against Bowser and other forces of evil.

And he couldn't help but smile.

Author note: I finally did it! I finally finished the cover for this story! The Vellumentals were soo hard to do (people who can draw them have my respect now lol) and the coloring was insane, but it's finally done! The next cover to be done will be the one for Folded Kingdom, but I'm going to give my hands a break first lol. (Specifically my finger. Owie...)

I have no idea why, but I like this AU more than my main AU (House of Memories, The Puppet Master, and Legend of the Oni) so House of Memories MAY be deleted and this'll become my main AU. I'm still in debate over it since I put so much thought into HoM, but (if you want to) you can read it before December because I told myself I'd make up my mind about it by then.

In the meantime, Team Big Man for the win! (Shiver and Frye literally bullied him, so now I hate them. He deserves better. HE CAN COLLAB WITH WHOMEVER HE CHOOSES!)

Stay Fresh!