Chapter Text
Feed!
FEED!
We...we...hunger...
More... MORE!
Infest the eyes...digest the stomach...the heart...
CONSUME!
We...we must...we must feed...
More...never stop...consume...CONSUME!
Kill...must kill...everything...
Bathe in their juices...their rot...their souls...
“No!”
A new voice? Not one of us!
“Wake up!”
Leave! She is ours! Leave, or we will consume you!
“PRINCESS PEACH! WAKE UP! PLEASE! Don't make me leave you behind!”
Princess Peach woke with a jolt, her heart beating painfully fast in her chest.
She'd had the same nightmare for as long as she could remember. Darkness. Darkness deeper than the darkest cave, more smothering than the harshest smoke, a darkness that ate away at her very soul. Voices call out. So many voices. Demanding, no, commanding her to do terrible, horrible things. Things that made her want to claw at her very ears until they bled, were shredded to ribbons so that she wouldn't have to do what they ordered her to do.
But this time, this time had been different. This time, she could feel them. Squishy, slimy, throbbing things. Seeking, digging, writhing over her skin, under her skin. Filling her nostrils with the rank scent of death and decay.
The other voice had been new as well. It had had a deep roughness to it, a sounding of sorrow and despair that had been felt more than she'd heard. It had seemed so...so familiar somehow. She could of sworn she'd heard it somewhere before, almost as if it had been from another lifetime that now seemed so far away.
'Maybe I should finally tell Mario', the embodied star mused briefly before quickly dismissing the idea.
The plumber had been working himself practically to death, trying to keep King Bowser and all the other dangers to the Mushroom Kingdom in check. It seemed like her lands were under constant threat, with new enemies practically coming from every nook and cranny of the known universe. It hadn't helped that his little brother, Luigi, had left a few years ago to pursue his dream of becoming a Ghostbuster. Personally, neither she nor Mario understood the appeal, but Mario had been the first to urge the other plumber to pursue his dreams. He'd always been selfless that way.
No. She wouldn't have been able to call herself a friend if she'd imposed her little silly flights of fancy on the exhausted plumber. They were only dreams after all, frightening though they may be. Hardly something for a Princess of the realm to dwell upon when there was so much that needed to be done.
'I guess it's time to start the day', Peach thought to herself as her bright blue eyes fluttered open. 'The meeting with the Kong ambassador needs to start at nine AM sharp, followed by Banquet of the Flowers. Wait. Was I supposed to meet with the treasurer, or was it tomorrow?'
Lost in her own thoughts, the princess gave a dainty yawn as she sat up in her large canopy bed, stretched, and then let out a horrified yelp of fear.
Toadara had been one of her oldest, most dearest servants, having served as her grandmother figure as long as she could remember. Now that she was getting on in years, the elderly mushroom mostly helped around Peach's personal chambers, tidying things up and helping her get dressed in her elaborate court gowns. Personally, the embodied star would have rathered the poor woman retire and enjoy her golden years, but Toadara wouldn't hear a word of it.
The wizened, pallid gray thing that stood by her bedside, its sunken white eyes staring straight through her, was a horrible mockery of her former friend. Squinting, Peach could just make out the slightly chubby, cheer face that had greeted her since childhood, hidden behind the sprinkling of pin mold and rot, but only just. Her clothing, normally impeccably ironed and pressed, from her cheerful bonnet, to her ruffled and beribboned dress, now hung in shambles, the filthy linen now full of holes and threadbare from use.
The creature cocked its head sideways at an impossible angle, the movements jerky and stiff, the soulless eyes continuing to look at, but not truly see her.
“Is something wrong, my dear?”, it whispered, attempting to smile, the dry scratchy voice ripe with decay. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”
Ruthlessly pushing down her nausea and seer terror, Peach desperately thought of something to say.
“Um, no... I mean, no, my dear Toadara! I just...just...had a bad dream, that's all! I dreamed that I was out with my people and I...uh...forgot my parasol! It was so bright that I was worried that the sun would harm my skin! I can't very well represent my people if I'm as red as a Cheep Cheep, now can I?”
Forcing down the stomach acid climbing up her throat, the golden-haired princess forced out a nervous, fake sounding giggle.
Toadara's white eyes narrowed, its black, vacant expression taking on a vaguely sinister look. “Are you sure that's all it is, my dear?”
”Yep. That's all it is!”, Peach answered back with a self depreciating shrug. “Just a silly little dream.”
The creature paused, as if listening to something only she could hear, before it turned and started for her gilded wardrobe.
“Well, I'm sure it was distressing”, it rasped, dragging its feet as if it only half remembered how to walk. “But it's time to move on. You have a busy day ahead of you, and you can't be dilly dallying about like some commoner.”
Now that she had some space, it quickly dawned on Peach that her friend wasn't the only thing that had changed. While she was still in what was undeniably her bedchambers, the large and spacious rooms filled with exquisitely carved furniture and embellished with the most lavishly embroidered textiles, it looked nothing like what she remembered from the night before.
Now, the beautiful cloth looked faded, shabbier, filled with holes and streaked with filth. The exotic woods from a hundred different lands were now crumbling from dry rot, with paint and gilt peeling from the water damaged walls. The silk carpets, once plush and soft, were matted and filled with mold and slime, the smell of which threatened to overwhelm her, while the exposed marble was caked in dirt, dust, and debris.
If she hadn't known better, she'd sworn that the rooms had been abandoned for decades, if not longer.
Not knowing what else to do, the princess did her best to keep her rising distress to herself as she allowed the rotting chamber maid to dress her. She had no idea what could have possibly happened to cause the changes she saw, but she'd been a monarch long enough to know the danger of tipping her hand too early.
“I need to find Mario. He'll know what to do”, she whispered under her breath as she forced herself not to shiver at the touch of Toadara's cold, clammy hands, buttoning up the back of her formal pink gown.
“What was that, deary?”, the creature croaked, Dark malice creeping into its formally colorless voice. “We couldn't hear you with you mumbling like that.”
“Oh! I was just...thinking that I should spend some time with Mario today”, Princess Peach hurriedly assured it, trying her best to come up with a plausible lie on the spot. It wasn't something that she was used to doing. “It's been ages since we last had tea together and we always have the grandest time!”
The rotting toad froze, cocking its head in the unsettling way it had done earlier, once again looking as if it were listening to voices only it could hear. After a few terrifying minutes, the thing smiled a rather disturbing smile, like it didn't really know how.
“My goodness, you're talkative today. Right now, it's time for breakfast. You have a busy scheduled today, but I'm sure we can find time for...Mario. Now, come along. Daylight's burning.”
Repressing the urge to curl up into a ball and scream, the embodied star followed Toadara out of the royal suite, just as she'd done every day since she could remember. Just as her rooms had been, the formerly cheerfully decorated corridor looked as if they'd been neglected for an unknowable amount of time.
Cobwebs caked the water damaged ceilings, while rotting portraits and banners covered the decaying walls. The potted plants she'd just placed yesterday in the elegant urns dotting the floor were all dead and by the looks of it, had been for quite some time. Even the plush red velvet curtains that now framed the cracked, grimy windows, had disintegrated long ago, adding to the layers of filth and rotting refuse that covered the once gleaming floor.
Her royal guards, wearing rusted, dirty armor, looked up at them when the doors opened, empty disinterested eyes staring up, at, and through her.
“Good morning, Princess”, they slurred in unison, their voices thick with the decay that showed on their brown and red mushroom caps.
“Good morning, my friends!”, Peach managed to get out, breathing through her mouth.
The horrible creatures stood, watching her, waiting, not moving, not even breathing.
Her body filled with a numbing dread, the humanoid star tried desperately tried to think of something to say. She half stumbled over to the grimy window and gestured weakly outside before forcing herself to grin.
“My! What a beautiful day! A wonderful start to a wonderful morning!”
Except it wasn't. The beautifully manicured gardens were gone, replaced with a wild maze of dead and dying flora, corpses of rotting animals, and broken masonry. Sickly mushrooms in all shapes, sizes, colors, and in varying stages of decay, covered everything, topped by a gray sky that appeared for all the world to be inconsolably weeping.
“We...we should...uhhh... have a castle wide party to celebrate”, she added quickly, hoping to cover her momentary lapse. “Everyone works so hard to keep our beautiful land up and running. Don't you think they deserve to have a little holiday?”
Princess Peach wasn't an idiot. She knew full well that she had a reputation for being an air headed aristocrat. Part of it came from the fact that she was, by nature, a cheerful and bubbly person, who always looked on the bright side of things. The other part was a carefully created image that had helped her in the past, both at the negotiation table and during her frequent kidnappings. Even her friends were none the wiser, although it broke her heart to keep them in the dark.
Although they never uttered a word or even looked at each other, Peach was sure that the three Toads were communicating with each other in a way she didn't understand. She found herself scarcely breathing for several terse minutes until the vacant, disinterested looks reappeared on their putrid faces.
“What a grand idea, my dear”, intoned Toadara, her white sunken eyes staring slightly off and to the side. “I'll see to the arrangements immediately.”
Knowing she had to keep up appearances, the blonde-haired monarch chatted about this and that as they walked toward the royal dining hall, each room that they passed through looking as decrepit as the one they left.
If what was going on was a ruse somehow, it was a definitely good one. There was no easy way to fake the air of desolation her castle gave off, even with the help of magic. Every room, every feature, every blemish that she remembered was reproduced in distressing detail.
No.
This unfortunately was her home and whether she liked it, or could explain it or not, this was no trick.
Soon they reached the royal dining hall. To her surprise, the room was in severe disrepair, even compared to the rest of her castle with parts of the outside wall and most of the large ornate windows completely destroyed. It was as if a war had been fought here, and not the ornate dinner she'd had the night before.
The long richly carved banquet table held bowls and platters of food, long since rotted to unappetizing sludge and covered in colorful molds and fungus. The stench was indescribable. Her throne like chair had been pulled back, waiting for her at the head of the table along with a bowl of green and black mushrooms that let off a sickly glow while they pulsed to the rhythm of a disembodied heartbeat. A thick glass of sludge and what looked to be a plate of putrid cake completed the meal.
Gritting her teeth, Princess Peach used the slight of hand that Luigi had taught her to send the grotesque fungi from the spoon at her mouth to the rotting heap of refuse that was piled around her seat in large unappetizing heaps.
“So yummy!”, she said sunnily, although none of the Toads in the room seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention towards her.
What was left of the roof above her exploded.
Peach gasped in horror as Bowser in his giant Clown Car, flew into the room. She started to rise from her seat and froze in mid motion. While it was undoubtedly the Koopa King in all of his spiky shelled glory, he looked very different from the way she'd last seen him.
The giant turtle's was leaner, longer, more draconic looking in both body and face than he had been, making a far more imposing figure than he had before. The wild red hair on his head was longer, fuller, with another thick tuft on the end of his long sinuous tail, the shell more of an oval to hit his new, more muscular shape, with larger, more wicked looking spikes at the center of each scute. But the most striking difference was the hopeless, unbelievably exhausted look on his pebbly green skinned face.
“Thank the Seven Stars”, Bowser rasped, his deep red eyes filling with sheer relief. “You're still alive.”
Swooping down, the giant turtle king grabbed the princess around the waist in one swift practiced movement, just fractions of a second faster than her people. Opening their mouths impossibly wide, the royal guards roared in rage, a sound that sent icy chills down the embodied star's spine and a debilitating stab of pain to her brain.
The sound grew louder and more shrill as the other Toads in the castle and throughout the city took up the scream, as if they too were somehow aware of what had just transpired.
“Fuck me”, Bowser growled in his deep masculine voice as he wrested with the controls of the flying craft. “FUCK ME! They shouldn't have gotten... Not yet... FUCK! Doesn't matter now, I guess.”
Now confused and terrified almost beyond the ability for her to cope, Peach slid down the side of the Clown Car to collapse on the floor and clutched her knees to her chest. She didn't know what Bowser wanted with her and at that point, she didn't really care. Home had become a literal nightmare, with her kingdom destroyed and her people having met a fate that was worse than death. There was little the gigantic male could possibly do to her now that could possibly be worse than that.
The two flew in silence until the Koopa King glanced back at her petite huddled form and slumped wearily, letting out sigh that sounded closer to a bitter sob.
“I wish you'd wake up, Princess. I-I don't...don't know how much longer I can keep doin' this.”
The dragon-like turtle's heartfelt words made the embodied star feel as if she'd been drenched in ice water.
'Wake up!'
Words from a half remembered dream.
Finding a reserve of strength she didn't know she had, Peach slowly looked up, her sluggish thought whirling in her head.
What was he talking about? What did he mean? While she knew many would think her stupid for trusting her greatest enemy, Bowser had mostly taken good care of her when he'd kidnapped her in the past and had kept his word once it was given. Besides... At this point, what else did she have left to lose?
“Wh-what do you mean?”, she rasped hoarsely. “Bowser... I'm scared.... Something's wrong. With the world. With...with me.”
Then, to her horror, Princess Peach found herself crying and unable to stop.
Bowser was at her side in an instant, gently running his sharp white claws as best he could through her long, matted, dirty golden hair.
“Oh, my Gods... Is that you, Peach? Can you hear me? Are you still in there?”
'What an odd thing to say'
The thought came unbidden to the embodied star, causing her to giggle hysterically as it snapped her out of her spiral of panic and despair.
Raising her blue eyes to meet his red, Peach had to quickly look away at the show of pure naked joy and warm compassion.
“Yeah. I-I think so”, she stuttered, uncharacteristically unsure of herself. “I woke up today and-and-and-”
Leaning in closer, the gigantic draconic turtle gently nuzzled her face and hair with his soft, cat-like nose, in a clear gesture of comfort and love.
“Shhhh, shhhh, princess”, he murmured kindly before getting back to his large clawed feet. “I promise I'll explain everything once we're in decon back at my castle. It's gonna be a lot to take in, an' from the look of you, you need time to process what you're already been through.”
Peach fought hard to push down the sudden stab of annoyance and indignation she felt at his words. She was a princess after all and she wasn't used to being talked to in such a dismissive manner! But as much as she hated to admit it, Bower was right. She'd been though a lot and truth be told, it was all she could do to keep from screaming and never being able to stop.
Using the slightly pitted metal walls as a brace, the princess managed to slowly get to her feet and looked over the side of the flying vehicle, resolutely ignoring the look of concern and pity the turtle king directed her way.
The lands below barely resembled the ones she remembered, with the once beautiful forests now filled with dying and rotting flora, fauna, and decaying ruins, all of which was covered in sickly fungi of a type she wasn't familiar with. As she fought to take everything in, a movement caught her attention from down below. A blue skinned yoshi, a dinosaurian race that preferred to live wild as their ancestors had, burst from a copse of mushy looking trees.
The creature keened mournfully as it scratched at the rotting mushrooms that had just burst from its colorful skin, running behind the high flying Clown Car as if desperate to reach the vehicle before it flew out of view. Suddenly it leaped, not coming anywhere near touching distance, and landed hard on the putrid ground where it gave one last groan of despair, collapsed and then lay eerily still.
Shuddering hard, Peach stumbled backwards and whipped her head over to look at Bowser who did his best not to meet her horrified gaze.
She was done.
The embodied star couldn't take any more. Half collapsing, she curled up into as tight of a ball as she could managed and wept.
As if from a great distance, she heard the gigantic draconic turtle start to hum, a comforting soothing song that the princess could almost remember. Now feeling comforted and safe, she let herself fall into a deep, mercifully dreamless sleep.