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"Have you ever been left when you should've been loved?
Has there ever been a time when you stayed, but you should've run?
(...) Now, I don't know what it's like to be you
You don't know what it's like to be me
What if we're all the same in different kinds of ways?
Can you, can you relate?"
- "Relate", Joel & Luke Smallbone
/
This planet was so much like Earth, it made Mario’s head spin if he thought about it too hard.
The little green plants under his boots were grass, clover and flowers. The tall trunks and rustling leaves that bordered this clearing belonged to trees, although he couldn’t have said what kind. He could hear insects buzzing, and distant screeches from what he really hoped were birds and not pterodactyls. Even the pebbles he and Peach had been kicking around looked like regular Earth pebbles, small and gray, with a tendency to get into your shoes.
If he closed his eyes, he could have been in Central Park back home.
Well, not really. Central Park didn’t have dinosaurs, talking or otherwise. It had joggers, dog walkers, tourists snapping pictures, parents pushing strollers. It had skyscrapers along the horizon. Underneath the smell of earth and growing things, you could still smell the traffic on the other side of the walls. He never thought he’d be homesick for gasoline.
From the look of it, he wasn’t the only one feeling out of place. Peach had stopped kicking pebbles and slumped down on the grass, parasol unfurled like a shield overhead, her pink gown crumpling around her. She looked smaller and more uncertain than he’d ever seen her.
“Ready to talk about it?” he asked quietly, the only helpful thing he could think to do.
She shot him a look.
“Or not,” he said, settling down on the damp ground beside her.
They sat together in silence for a while longer, watching Yoshi, Luigi and the rest of their team work on patching up Starfox’s spaceship. Mario should probably go give them a hand. He was a plumber, not an astronaut, but there had to be something he could do. Just … not yet.
“When - if - we find Rosalina,” she spoke up suddenly in a small sharp voice, “What do I even say to her? Hi? Nice to see you? I know you tried to abandon me when I was a toddler, but now I’m here to rescue you whether you like it or not?”
With every few words, she yanked up a handful of little white flowers that were growing in clusters nearby. Dirt streaked her satin gloves and landed in clumps on her dress. Her eyebrows were set into the same determined line she’d used when throwing that casino boss’s thugs around like bowling pins. Mario had a feeling, though, that this battle might be even tougher for her than that one had been.
Then her words registered. “She what?”
“She let go of my hand.” Peach’s hands moved with furious precision among the pile of flowers in her lap. “She sent me down a warp pipe. What else would you call that?”
“But … ” It didn’t seem possible. Not just because Mario was biased and couldn’t imagine anyone not loving Peach. “But if you were that little, how can you be sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said tightly. “I remembered from the moment I saw her face on that poster. Now I know how I ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom … it’s because my own family didn’t want me.”
A quiver came into her voice, breaking up the brittle layers of anger. She dropped her flowers, clutched the handle of her parasol with both hands, and held it so as to completely hide her face.
“How could she do this?” her muffled voice came from beneath the silk.
Mario’s hand hovered inches away from her bowed shoulders before he drew it back.
How could he fix this? He had no idea. The thought of Peach falling through one of those mad pipes as a little kid, lost and alone in an alien dimension, was almost unbearable. It had been bad enough for him and Luigi as adults.
Also, Mario had only let go of Luigi’s hand by accident. He’d never have done it on purpose. Their family didn’t work that way.
Mario thought of their father, the one person who had ever made them feel even a little bit as unwanted as Peach must be feeling right now. The old man hadn’t even meant it that way when he’d scolded him for starting their own business. He’d been trying to protect his sons the only way he knew how, from the poverty that crouched like a wolf at the door, just waiting for them to let their guard down. There was a saying in the old country, though: In bocca al lupo, crepi il lupo. When you’re in the mouth of the wolf, may the wolf die.
Some risks were worth it.
A scared parent - or older sibling - might not see it that way, though.
Deciding not to crowd into Peach’s space under that parasol, Mario picked up the flowers she had dropped. She’d been weaving a crown with them. He and Luigi and their cousins used to do the same thing when they’d played together in the park.
“Eh, now … ” he began, somewhat awkwardly, trying to remember how this whole braiding thing worked and how to bend the delicate stems without snapping them. “Those are all good questions. You’ll have to take them up with Rosalina. I’ll tell you what, though … ”
“What?” She peered out from beneath the parasol with red-rimmed blue eyes.
“If she’s got any heart at all, she's left some of it with you.”
“You think so?” she whispered. “Then why … ?”
“If it was me, there’s only one reason in this world … in any world … I’d even think of doing that to Lu,” he said. “And it’s to keep him safe. You already know what the Bowsers and their type would do to get to one of you. Imagine what they’d do for you both.”
Peach shivered, as if the Ice Flower she’d hidden inside her bouquet before her forced wedding had left a touch of frost behind. Mario wished he hadn’t brought it up.
“I wasn’t safe,” she said. “And neither is she right now. We’re stronger together, not apart. You and Luigi taught me that.”
“Well, Princess,” said Mario, “You can tell her that yourself once we’ve found her. And we will find her - I promise.”
He tucked the last loose stem between the last cluster of flowers. Some of the petals had fallen off, others were bruised, but it was still a crown. He held it out to her with what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
“Oh, Mario.” The smile she gave him in return was more than a little unsteady at the corners as she settled her headgear one-handed. “You just never give up, do you?”
“Nope. Must be something we got in common.”
Her shaky smile strengthened. She rose to her feet, brushed off her skirts and gloves, and held out a hand to help him up. She tucked his hand into the crook of her arm, held her parasol over them both, and led the way to the starship.
Luigi was going to rib Mario for ages when he saw this. Never mind. That’s what family was for, after all - to be there for each other, even if they showed it in the strangest ways.
He would do everything he could to give Peach and Rosalina the chance to learn that.