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Bowser Jr. pulled his orange blanket tighter around himself as he traversed the dark halls of the castle. His tiny claws clacked on the stone with each step, and his breath puffed out in chilly clouds. His fangs clattered together, and he was shaking so hard he was nearly having seizures.
He hated the bitter temperatures brought with the cold season. There was no escape from it, neither inside or out. Why couldn’t they just heat the whole castle? His little cold-blooded body couldn’t take it. He whimpered as his tail, hands, and feet started to go numb. In such conditions, he desired the warmth his papa offered, which was part of why he chose to brave the frigid halls. The other part… well, he had something he wanted to ask. Something that had been confusing him for several weeks.
Luckily for the young dragon-koopa, Bowser’s room and his own were in close proximity. The walk had barely taken over a minute; any longer and he probably would’ve frozen.
Junior stretched up to reach the handle of the colossal green door, but he ended up needing to jump to twist it. The door cracked open slightly, but it wouldn’t budge from there. Junior landed and threw his full weight into pushing. The door dislodged from its position, ice chips clinking onto the stone. A wave of heat and steam rushed out, seeping into Junior’s scales and chasing away the chill. He smiled, gathered his blanket, and entered the room.
His papa’s bedroom was clogged with smoke, though it didn’t bother Junior’s lungs one bit. As a fire dragon-koopa, he was immune to its choking effects. Loud snores rumbled through the room, originating from the giant bed that was in the very back of the room. Junior’s smile grew larger. Papa!
He shivered as the freezing hall air started to creep into his papa’s room. The little prince shoved the door shut, drawing his blanket around his shoulders once again. He approached his papa’s bed, eyeing the giant lump under the red covers. It was his papa, he knew, attempting to escape the bone-chill.
Junior leaped up on the bed, a relatively easy task considering the padding was only three feet high (the bed was ground-level). He was practically nose-to-nose with the lump under the blanket. He purred, and his tail perked. He crept around the lump until he found his papa’s head, the only thing exposed from under the blanket. He was sleeping on his stomach, his head tilted to the side. Smoke drifted out his open mouth with every bone-rattling snore.
Junior knelt down in front of him, leaning closer. He poked Bowser’s nose with a tiny claw. “Papa.” Bowser snorted, and his eyebrows crossed as he twitched. He turned his head away. He sighed. Junior scrambled around. “Papa.” He rose his voice as he poked Bowser’s nose again. “Papa, wake up!”
Bowser groaned. His eyelids fluttered before they slowly peeled open. Junior beamed. Bowser’s ruby eyes were dull with sleep, and his jaws stretched in a massive yawn. He closed his mouth with a strong exhale, creating a hot breeze that ruffled Junior’s unkept hair. The child giggled and crawled closer to his papa’s head.
Bowser’s eyes trailed up to gaze at his son. “Why’d you wake me up?” he moaned. “You know you’re always welcome to sleep with me.” He yawned again, shifting to lay with his back to Junior. He tugged the blanket. “Stop waking me up.”
“But Papa…” Junior came around to face Bowser. His smile had dropped to a serious frown. “I wanna ask you something.” He pawed at Bowser’s muzzle, as the Koopa King had started to drift off.
“Ugh… fine. What do you want to ask?” Bowser drew an arm out from under his blanket to rub his eye.
Junior fidgeted. He grabbed his own blanket and drew it around himself. “Papa… are we evil?”
A weight almost seemed to lift off his chest. It had been something he’d started to wonder after he’d heard Mario accuse them of it. He had attempted to dismiss it but it kept coming back. It whispered in his ear, and made his thoughts wander. He had tried as he might, but he’d been unable to find an answer. He didn’t think he was bad, but he knew that he and his papa did things that would be considered evil. Did that automatically make them both evil? Especially since Bowser often boosted that he was… but Junior just didn’t feel it. He thought he’d know if he was… but he just didn’t. He hadn’t been able to find a clear answer, as everything clashed with each other. His only option had been to ask someone who knew everything; his papa.
Bowser’s eyes widened. “Well…” He let out a long sigh. He pushed himself up, his sheets falling off his body. He sat with his foot pads touching, scooping up Junior and setting him in his lap. Junior craned his head back to stare up at his papa’s face. It was blank, his eyebrows knitted together as he stared straight ahead. Junior twisted his head around to follow his papa’s gaze, but he couldn’t spot anything of interest.
“Papa?” Junior pawed at Bowser’s plastron, his tiny claws scraping against the armour. The noise startled his papa, and he tiled his head down to gaze at his son. Why isn’t he telling me? Did his papa not have the answer? No way! Papa knows everything! Maybe he thought that Junior wouldn’t be able to handle it. “I wanna yes or no.” Junior placed a hand on Bowser’s plated stomach, a smile creeping onto his face. “I can handle the truth, I’m a big boy!”
“Alright…” Bowser let out another sigh. He was silent for another minute before he spoke, “Junior… good and evil are weird words.”
Junior tilted his head. “They are?” That didn’t make sense. Good was good and evil was evil? Right? Good was favoured and was about helping everyone else, selflessness and all that, and evil was frowned upon and was stealing and kidnapping and being mean. It was simple, really. He explained this all to his papa, finishing it with, “I don’t get what you said.”
“Uh…” Bowser rubbed his face. He wrinkled his nose and licked his chops. “It’s kinda like… the words don’t exist. Nobody’s perfect. We all do things that are evil, right? I mean, look at Mario. He’s good, right? The hero.” Bowser growled. “He’s not all good. He comes and hurts me. Hurting someone else is evil, but nobody cares because it’s me. Koopas are hated because of something that happened lots of years ago. Way before I hatched. Dunno why everyone’s still so wrapped up with it.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t remember. I just know there was a lot of death. Ask Kamek.” Bowser sighed. “That happened, and now the world think’s it’s okay to throw me under. Or any of us. So Mario can try to kill me, and everyone cheers, but if he even talked smack to a toad, he’d be shamed for it. Mario’s worse than I am.”
“Mario’s a bad man,” Junior growled.
“All I want to do is find some happiness. Is that wrong?” Bowser sniffed. “Yeah, I kidnap Peach, but I never hurt her. I’ve never killed anyone. But Mario has. He’s killed lots of my soldiers, and he wants to kill me, but I ain’t letting him.” He sniffed, puffing a bit of smoke out of his nose. “Saying either of us are good or bad is stupid. I think you’re a good boy, but you’ve done ‘bad’ things. Nobody ever really fits either of the words.”
“So everyone is good and bad?” Junior scratched his head. All the words Bowser was saying were starting to get confusing. His papa had never used so many to educate him. Or, maybe it was that the words didn’t really exist. Yeah, that made more sense. You couldn’t be both, could you?
“Yeah, but the world’s crazy about it being so one-sided.” Bowser huffed. “It’s black and white to them, but lemme tell you a tip, son, everyone is a shade of grey.”
Junior cocked his head. “No, you’re yellow. And green. And red. Everyone has lots of colours.” He threw his arms out wide. “The world has a bunch’a colours!”
Bowser snorted a laugh. He gave a little purr and patted Junior’s head. “Forgot you’re only four. I meant the whole everyone is good and bad thing. Kamek says the… uh, space between good and bad is grey area.”
“Oh. Grandpapa is weird.” It was probably because he was so old. “So… we’re not evil?”
“No. Like I said, we do bad things, but we’re not awful.” His lips curled up a little to show his teeth. “I’ve meet creatures worse than even Mario.”
Worse than Mario? Who could possibly be— ooh. “Like sledgehammer guy? Or the ugly green lady?” He remembered the stories his papa told him. Those two had sounded scary. He shivered.
Bowser growled. “Like them.” He pulled Junior against his stomach. “They’re gone. I helped take down Sm— sledgehammer guy and Mario took out the ugly green lady. I think they deserved what they got, but that’s probably what everyone thinks of me…” His lids fell a little. “It’s not the same,” he muttered. He shook his head. “All you need to know is that we’re not evil. I just want Peach to make me— us happy again. How’s that so bad? Mario’s the one who tries to keep us apart. He’s more evil than I am.” He met Junior’s eyes and purred. “And you’re my good boy.” He brought Junior up to his face to nuzzle his cheek.
Junior giggled and pressed into the affection. They weren’t evil. That was great to— Wait a minute…“But Papa,” Junior said, pulling away. “If nobody is good or evil, then why do you say you are?”
Bowser’s face grew dark. He lowered Junior to his lap. He flashed a bit of his teeth. “I have my reasons, Junior. It’s nothing you need to worry about, okay?”
“But—”
“No ‘buts’, Junior.” Bowser shook his head. Then, an enormous yawn split his jaws, enticing one, though much smaller, from Junior as well. “It’s time to go back to sleep.” He shifted Junior so that he rested in the palm of his hand, easing his body onto the bed. He laid on his side, and he placed Junior against his chest, nudging the little prince’s blanket over to him. Junior grabbed it and tucked it around himself, and Bowser drew up his own sheets. He laid his head on his giant pillow, his eyes slipping closed. “G’night son,” he sighed.
Junior snuggled up against his papa, scooting up to be closer to his head. “Night, Papa. Love you.”
Loud snores were the reply.
Junior giggled. Silly Papa! He yawned, his eyelids slipping closed. His question was answered. Good and evil didn’t really exist, so how could they be either or? And both was impossible— or maybe that was the black and white thing Bowser had talked about. That was weird, too. Oh, well. His papa thought he was a good boy, and that was enough for him. Bowser loved him, even if he had passed out before he could say it. He purred, turning around and pressing his face into his papa’s warm chest. A low purr rose in his throat. His papa thought he was a good boy, and that was enough to satisfy his curiosity.
At peace, the little prince soon fell asleep to his papa’s heat and snores.