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A lot about Peach stuck out. It had been commented upon a not-insignificant amount of times. Your elegance inspires us, a letter would read, please put lemonade in the water bubblers, love from Class 3J. Or perhaps, your beauty and strength is the beating heart of the kingdom, as Toadsworth would mutter, always with an undertone of terror, as if this was reason enough to go into panic mode at the slightest hint of her discomfort. There were legends of pure voices and souls and all manner of things, which sometimes made her stick out in a way that threatened her. A dangerous way to be, frankly.
But, damn it all, she liked it. Toads would cling to the sides of her skirt when they were frightened, things would feel softer when she moved, and everything she could make so was beautiful. She wasn't doing it to make herself look benevolent, a bonus though it was. Frankly, most citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom did not seem to actively care about the nuances of good aesthetics or smelling nice or keeping a garden pristine. They'd probably realise they cared if Peach stopped her maintenance of the land, such ignored burdens being the monarch’s to bear.
But beauty was best cultivated. The most sought-after flowers never grew spontaneously. You couldn't bask in the sunrays through a stained glass window if you didn't put one there. To have joy you created for yourself, it was an assertion, “I make my world beautiful”.
In darker moments, when Peach didn't even know if she was going to be found, if her people would ever hear from her again, it was how she gained control; she could chip paint in old cages to create a heart shape or a flower, or find a pretty-looking weed in the cracks of a brick wall and put it in her hair. Pseudo-control.
It was all rather silly, unnecessary, even. Unrelatable. And no one could take it away from her.
She had a pink bunny soft toy, the size of her palm, meant to be hooked on a schoolkid's backpack. She couldn't remember when or why she got it, but it must have been as a child, since she had no memories of not owning it. A little secret, though she wasn't exactly sure why she felt compelled to hide it - she would give it an all out clean every month, painstakingly combing washing powder through its pink fur, so it would stay the same pastel shade. When Peach returned home after something awful, she’d hold it tightly in her hands, check for any imperfections, restitch weak seams. She'd put it on a shelf under a glass dome to keep dust out, sometimes give it a fake flower to hold.
It had no name.
“What’s’a her name?” Mario asked, finger pressed to the glass.
“Nothing,” Peach said. “It’s just a little toy I happen to have.”
“Mamma mia, she's’a so… pretty!”
Peach felt that it would be advised to move away from the subject. She couldn't possibly imagine Mario making fun of her for anything, even if he were to magically discover her little secret - whatever exactly that constituted. And yet.
Mario kept yammering on anyway. He was generally not a talkative guy, but today, he felt the need to comment on everything he saw, as if explaining it to a third party. Maybe her room was just that interesting.
“She’s’a so cosy there, happy with her little flower… hello little bunny!”
It was so radiantly childlike, the way he behaved, that Peach could only laugh behind her hand, diplomatically. He behaved as though breathing alone was such fun.
“I’m glad you like it,” Peach said, and then, without meaning to, elaborated, “she's- it’s always been comforting to me.”
“We should’a give her’a name!”
“Hm? Like what?”
Mario tapped his chin for a moment, then smiled slightly. “What about Momo?”
“Momo? Why?” Peach laughed again into the back of her hand.
“It's’a… I'm’a always like that name!”
“Okay, then you can call it Momo…”
Mario beamed. There was victory in it, but he seemed to believe Peach was never going to respond in any other way. Self-assured was probably the word for it, or at least close enough. He made that face a lot. Peach wasn't entirely sure what made her notice.
“And what’s’a her story?” Mario asked.
“She doesn't have one.” Peach said, matter of factly. “In truth, I don't even know when I got her.” She accentuated the sentence with a small laugh, though not because it was funny.
Mario raised his eyebrows playfully. “But what’s’a she like to do all day?”
Of course, Peach instinctively leaned into saying, Nothing, it's a soft toy. It was the sort of thing Toadsworth might respond before moving on to a “more pressing” matter.
“Well, she likes to smell roses when there are thunderstorms,” Peach heard herself explaining instead.
“Oh! That's'a just delightful!”
“Mm, I agree,” Peach laughed. “Every morning when she wakes up she picks a different brooch to wear.” This was nothing more than improv, settling on the idea solely because the tiny heart-shaped button on the bunny's chest was the first thing she caught at a cursory mid-sentence glance.
Mario either didn't notice this or didn't care. “How sweet! And what's’a she like ta-do in her free time?”
“Oh, she's a very busy bunny-person,” Peach nodded importantly. “She works very hard at her job. Not much free time.”
“What's’a her job?”
“She's… I don't know. But she's very busy.”
Mario only nodded with a focussed look on his face. “Oh yeah. Very busy! I’m’a see that! She looks’a diligent!”
The silliness of this became considerably more obvious to Peach at this final exchange, and she found herself laughing quite hard. Mario, in turn, laughed, though whether he was doing this in agreement or just because he liked laughing was unreadable.
“I’m’a think she's’a cool,” Mario said, facing Peach, though looking at her dresser, rather than directly at her. “Stylish.”
“Stylish?”
“Oh yeah. She's’a stylish.” He didn't elaborate.
There was a somewhat awkward silence, though Peach could tell she was the only one who felt it, and she was quietly grateful. Was it awkward if neither party was particularly fussed? She'd never really thought about it. She used the space to consider it now.
“What's’a she like to do when she’s’a not working? When she’s’a tired and wants’a relax.”
Peach blinked. “Are you still talking about the soft toy?”
“Yes, about Momo.” Mario corrected her.
“Momo likes…” Peach cupped her face with a hand. “I think when she's tired, she likes to make the world beautiful, maybe.”
It was a rather stupid sentence, Peach realised, the sort of vague mental sentiment she would typically leave in the oven for a few more moments to make sense of before saying it. Or she would ninety-nine times out of a hundred, maybe, because this time she didn't. Clearly.
Mario looked at Peach directly now, and she got the sense he was trying to figure something out. Probably whatever she meant by that.
Eventually, he said, “I like that a lot.”
A beat.
“I love that.”
Another beat.
“Do you want…” Peach smiled a small smile. “... Something… Um…”
She trailed off, blushing a little at her own lack of words. She had gone to say “a tea,” but they had literally just finished doing that, so she had no clue why she had begun that sentence. The sort of slip-up she'd had wiped out of her at age seven.
Mario didn't answer at first, probably because Peach hadn't even asked anything, and Peach noticed the silence was not awkward this time either. Miraculously. Peach did feel the urge to say something, but that which tugged her was some different force.
“I take very good care of her,” she announced, unprompted. “I wash her every month and fix any little little split and mark.”
Mario smiled his normal smile. “I’m’a notice!”
“What?...”
“I’m’a not see you do it,” Mario clarified, “but it’s'a clear she's’a loved! Because she's’a so beautiful, and you make the-”
He stopped very suddenly.
“She’s’a look… well-looked-after,” he concluded.
Peach could only stare back in not-well-hidden surprise. Mario straightened up a slight and added “which is’a excellent!”.
Ha, ha, of course, thank you for clarifying that much, Peach thought, through her continued stunned state. She knew something had come very, very close to being said. And it made her jumpy, in her chest and stomach, even if she didn't know exactly what that something really was. Mario was not one for big words, and he struggled with the language on occasion. She probably imagined it.
He smiled warmly, deciding that was a conversation well done, and shifted his attention once more to the dresser behind her, one she'd caught herself nearly leaning on.
“What's’a that for?”
Peach cleared her throat. She would not be so bold as to assume Mario had one, though she would also not be so bold as to assume Mario quite literally didn't know what a dresser was for, meaning there was some other motivation to his question.
“Don't you know what a dresser is?” She responded. A little to the point, perhaps needlessly harsh, but he'd live.
Clearly, as he didn't seem too perturbed. “I dunno, what do you do with it?”
There was something fundamental to the question. In his voice, emphasis on any particular syllable was relatively rare, another quirk Peach had noticed and failed to recall when she had.
The question. “I… use it to store things… jewelry, things like that. I feel like I use it the same way most people would…” Mario hummed. Another tug in her speech. “...Toads never really seem to understand it, though.”
“Toads? Why not?”
“They're not… aesthetically inclined souls.”
She'd never said that before. She probably should not have. Mario made a sound of understanding, similar to one you might give when somebody explains a difficult concept to you in a way that finally makes it click. Peach smiled in a manner that, she hoped, conveyed at least some lack of seriousness. She had done well to practice her “oh, did I win?” face, but she also hoped Mario picked up what she was putting down. “I'm joking but I'm not”.
“It is why they look up to you,” Mario said.
Peach smiled proudly.
“I'm glad you think so. Sometimes Toadsworth would tell me it was excessive…”
“Yeah, but he’s’a always just say stuff.” Mario responded bluntly.
For such a basic response, it was surprisingly perceptive. Peach tried to do the laughing-into-the-back-of-her-hand thing, but she couldn't keep it delicate enough, betraying her agreement.
“And pink is your favourite colour?” Mario asked.
“Of course?!” Another expression that probably could have done with some refining before being spit out. But this time, she felt there was no way Mario didn't know that. Granted, like with general aesthetics, or just the desire to look nice, it was not as though Peach had much opportunity to talk about it, the concept of a “favourite colour” not a commonly understood one among the-
Something clicked. He wasn't literally asking whether or not it was her favourite colour.
He's asking me to talk about myself.
“It’s easily the best,” Peach grinned. “It can be calming, or energetic, or even melancholy, depending on which one you use. But it is always, always beautiful. And very flattering.”
Mario nodded, that focussed look taking over his face again.
She continued. “This shade, you see?” She held some of her dress sleeve between her thumb and her index finger. “It's brilliant stuff. There's class, but there's also fun to it. It communicates approachability, even in regality.”
Mario made another hmm! and Peach hoped he was following, because nobody had given her the chance to be listened to about this in a long time and it was sort of hard to slow down.
“Some people think the castle rooves are red. They're actually a very, very deep reddish-pink,” she winked.
“You’r’a put a lotta thought into this,” Mario said.
“Yes. And I don't think it's useless or vapid,” she said, “you have to choose to make the world beautiful! And it will make people happier, and inspire them, even if they don't realise it.”
Again, the sense that she had really ought to think about how to word this in a more restrained way nagged at her brain, but she paid it less mind. She could tell Mario didn't really care. Quite the opposite.
“Exactly!” Mario smiled. “I’m’a think you're right.”
Peach exhaled and put on a mock-affected air. “Of course! I've been saying this for a long time!”
They both laughed, and Peach’s hands rested on the dresser itself, which she was now leaning on, and not near her face. She tilted to one side, leaning her body on one leg, the way she avoided doing normally.
“I'm’a always think you're…” Mario trailed off. Peach leaned towards him, hand off the dresser now. “That you-”
He stopped there and simply grinned, that little content one with his eyes closed which, again, Peach had committed to memory at some point without her knowledge. She couldn't tell if he had once again decided to abandon what he was saying mid-thought or just felt it complete as is.
Peach was wondering whether she should ask him to continue this time or just let it go as she shifted her balance again and she noticed, entirely without warning, that she had been holding Mario's hand that whole time and had not even noticed.
Mario had. That's why he was smiling. That's why he'd suddenly shut up.
“Oh!”
She said it quietly, did not move. Mario didn't react. Why would he? She had clearly reached and clasped onto his hand at some point. In the midst of discussing colours, and taking the choice to beautify your world.
The silence, again, was not awkward. It was warm, actually. It felt like Mario was still listening to her. Perhaps asking another question in the quiet.
He gave her hand a little squeeze and swung it a bit as he abruptly said, “do you want ta-go do’a something?”
“Like what?”
“I’m’a not sure. We can go on’a walk. You can tell me more’a things about colours.”
Peach squeezed his hand back and there was another tug in her chest, and she giggled. It was not the sort she was meant to do. She sounded far too excited.
It made Mario smile wider, so that was fine. “That sounds fun.”