Chapter Text
One year later
Warbotdorf had a nagging feeling of imminent death — or is that recent death, he wondered — from a fire-belching capital “D” while having searched for an amulet? A fading memory, as if of a dream, of having run into corpses identical to him, though with various differences in their equipment.
Shaking his head to clear it, he looked around.
At first, looking around, he suffered the impression of standing at the end of a road, almost as if there were another image hiding behind what was in plain sight — well, certainly there's a forest, at any rate. Instead of a road though, when he looked again, he found that he stood next to a small closed mailbox in an open field west of a white house with a rubber mat lying by its boarded front door. There was a brass lamp here, and a sign leaning against a pile of pebbles and small stones. To the west, as well as to both the north and south of the house, narrow paths wound through the trees. He could hear a gurgling stream to the south.
Taking inventory, he found that he carried only a pouch containing a yellow towel, a single silver zorkmid coin, and a punched admission ticket.
Ticket number 1729 113
Seat 10F2C
Acme Building Auditorium
What a dull number, and this ticket doesn't make much sense. It's all so hazy.
Putting it out of his mind, he opened the mailbox.
Sonic wandered into Zelda's dressing room as she was making the final adjustments to her outfit. Though married in fact, this day she had insisted upon: she would see Peach married before the world, and make it known to the far corners; it would be fluffy, it would be cute and girly, it would be Peach's day before all.
He stopped and stared.
“Dress blues... and full battle rattle,” he observed, smirking, “Seriously? P's idea ta dress ya like that, huh.”
He sniffed the air.
“She even gotcha ta take a bath — wit' soap — an' put on that spiced cologne she got'chu fer Nayrufest, huh? Damn!”
“I swear — if you laugh, I will wring your scrawny neck where ye stand.”
She grimaced at the thought of being seen like this, and he grimaced in sympathy.
“Don't even think o' takin' a hike. Fer one, yer a'ready hitched; fer two, I'd have ta kill ya then. An' then P'd kill me, no question there. An' then wit' all the blood 'n' the screamin'... just not pretty, huh?”
She was uncomfortable. Moreover, it was embarrassing. The armor was clean. Neither dents nor rents, not a single blemish. Polished to a mirror surface. There wasn't a hint of sweat about it, not a speck of blood to be seen. It was chased with four different kinds of gold, for Nayru's sake.
Sonic proffered a flask, which she snatched gratefully.
“Maybe not enough ta get'cha wasted, but I smuggled it in figurin' ya'd prob'ly need some'n fer yer nerves — an' hey, lemme get some too, when yer done. Between the two of us, if this goes off without a hitch or a few bodies, it'll be a miracle.”
“Cheers — what's in it?” she asked, as she unscrewed the cap.
“Eh, my own concoction. 'bout four parts Bailey's, two or three cherry Heering — 'cause ya like that shit in particular — a part or two o' Kahlúa, an' a couple o' dashes o' Malibu. Then I tossed in some two hunnert proof, just ta be sure.”
“Heady shit,” she replied.
“L'chaim!” he nodded.
She looked at him imploringly.
“What if she says no, man?”
“Dude, that ain't gonna happen,” he reassured her.
“Aye, but what if ? I mean, she's had a year off of the road. She could've seen enough and come tae her senses!”
“Z, if that was gonna happen, she'd'a left yer sorry ass way the fuck back. 's OK; chill.”
“And if any speak out against this?”
“Simple. We kill 'em 'til they're deadski,” he paused and cocked his eyebrow, studying her, “am I gettin' through fi' by five here, man?”
Zelda found herself in the horns of a dilemma, and turned away for a moment to compose herself.
“Z, 'sup? Y'a'ight?”
Her head bobbed, but that was the entirety of her response.
Sonic smiled and nodded, “P's civilized ya, huh. 'scool. We can just mangle 'em, or even keep it to excruciatin' pain, man.”
She laughed a little at this.
“Ja, that might be for the best, since I might find myself on the couch for the entire honeymoon, otherwise.”
“An' stop scratchin' yer crotch, man. P'll ripya a new one, she catches you pullin' that shit at the altar,” he said, glancing at his wrist as if to check a watch, “You could try throwin' on some underwear, maybe — 'swhat they make 'em for, y'know. G'head, ya got time, long as the Gnomes ain't stolen 'em.”
Carnations and mums by the thousands adorned the walls and pillars of the cathedral, with cascades of baby's breath, a profusion of lilacs and calla lilies, and small accents of so many other flowers offsetting them in carefully positioned areas. Zelda had seen to it that the lilacs and lilies were particularly prominent, recalling Peach's love of them that day in Freeport.
Peach's dress was simple but beautiful, framing and highlighting her, a bouquet of pygmy piranha plants114 nipping at one another. The veil hanging from her tiara stood out as a declaration to all.
Zelda wore a more formal version of her ranger outfit, with minor pieces of decorative armor to provide accent. Her heart already pounding, it skipped a beat when Peach hove into view, the world dimming around her as Zelda's focus narrowed to only Peach.
When Peach reached the altar, she leaned over to Zelda and whispered “You look too serious, as if you were ready to kill someone.”
Zelda gave her a quick peck, reaching to embrace her, but Peach rebuffed her gently, “Taffeta, darling, taffeta!”
“I shall indeed wreak grievous bodily harm on any who threaten this moment. Also, you sound like Sonic.”
“Oh, you're so sweet! Bloodthirsty, but sweet. Honey, we're already married. There's nothing to fear.”
“Mine!” Zelda smiled, “But this day is yours, and I'll see no one ruin it for you — is that Paloma? Or Obsession?”
Peach knew what that meant, and smiled warmly, looking forward to the evening.
“Obsession,” she replied innocently, “why?”
Zelda's only response was a deep, frustrated growl from the back of her throat.
The reception was held at The Abundant Crop of Hostesses.
Peach discovered very quickly just what made this Zelda's favorite tavern. There were quite a few Usamimi and several species of Nekomusume. There were also Nýumphē (notably Thrakṍn Dryuades and Naïádes)115 — not to mention moe Lamiai, haughty Mycenæan Hărpia116, Kéntauroi117, Mermaids118, Faunæ119, Drider-like Arachnoi dominae (at least a couple of whom were six sheets to the wind on cappuccino), Fairies, sylphic loli Doppels120 and Slimes (none of either seeming to have any interest whatsoever in clothing), and several extremely overly-friendly Dragons in humanoid form, among others; there were even a few Kyuklōpes, a couple of Dark Clowns121, and a two-headed Ogress. Then there were those who seemed to be fungal, or mineral-based, or Golem-bot, or... the selection was as dizzying as it was astounding.
She also finally discovered that the horned girl in Freeport had been a Succubus122, since there were several present. She'd had no idea that there were so many species represented in the capital, though she supposed that it stood to reason. Some of the hostesses served drinks and canapés, and some engaged in conversation and dance with the guests, while others... others seemed to be serving themselves up. She wasn't entirely certain as to whether the place were a huge tavern or a high-end brothel, or possibly an ongoing piece of performance art; in the end, she suspected that it was a little of each. She brought her thoughts up short, though, when they turned to the question of the Ogress.
Daisy had an absolute ball exchanging a host of scry resonances and cell numbers with every species that she could find, disappearing several times to powder their noses together.
Zelda sang Nobody does it better ; Peach completely broke down at this, bawling her eyes out. Even Sonic found that there was something in his eyes.
When Peach then sang True colors, Zelda barely managed to stay put and hold herself together.
When Peach's song was done, Sonic leaned in to Zelda and whispered “Be most excellent to each other, and party on dude.”
Zelda stood before Peach in the imperial apartment. Whatever news Peach had, Zelda was eaten up with angst. Peach hadn't been intentionally mysterious, but hadn't said a word as they'd closeted themselves away.
Peach looked into Zelda's eyes with a powerful mixture of emotions, and said simply “I'm pregnant!”
The world telescoped for Zelda, lurching three feet to the left even as she found herself a speck of dust ground between the fingertips of a Titan.
Gray, cold, silent.
Time spun in place as she suddenly existed, disconnected from everything.
Random abstract observations floated into her awareness without thought or volition.
Hamster wheel noises.
Floating peacefully. Tranquility.
Cold nose. Why is my nose cold? Feels... mentholated.
Can't think...
Something. Someone.
Words?
...words...
Faeck. It happened again. Walk away. Don't talk, don't ask, don't listen. Run!
Time ratcheted forward.
Zelda paused, gathering herself.
“Who's the faether?” she asked quietly, her voice tight, barely more than a whisper.
What the faeck are ye doing? Why are ye still standing here, ye idiot? Ye know what's coming. Lies. Lies and more damned lies, and insanity and bullshit.
“You are...?” Peach said, confused concern evident in the tremulous note of her voice.
I told ye so. Now move. Get the faeck out of here. It matters not if she's pregnant, or merely has cause to think so, or is just faecking lying to faeck wi' your head. Leave. NOW.
Zelda pinched the bridge of her nose in a long-suffering look.
“Peach, I don't know how to tell ye this, but it doesn't work that way.”
“There hasn't been anyone else. I just thought that my wishes to bear you children had finally been answered, though I still wanted to wait a few weeks first, to be sure.”
Wishful thinking she says. Oh aye, uh-huh. Dude, seriously, you're a faecking idiot, now let's go! Door. That way. Move.
“Right. Precisely what makes ye think that this is the result of wishful thinking?”
Really? You're gon' do this? You're really gon' faecking stand here and swallow whatever shite she faecking feeds you, eh? Really?!? Fine: faeck me.
“Well... you remember the intermission of the three day festival?”
“Intermission. Do ye mean the second day — the fertility day — of the three holy days of Nayru?”
Peach thought about this for a moment and nodded, and explained that she'd been in their chapel, thinking aloud of how she was doomed to fail Zelda in this one respect...
Within the minute, Zelda tore out of their room with Peach in hand, leaping around and screaming “I'm gon' be a faether — or... something!” a huge grin beaming from her face as she started tossing fistfuls of her cigars at everyone.
“Yokatta! ” Ruru squealed in excitement, and burst into animated chatter with the Fridays.
“A Grumpy Crypt Kitteh, huh?” Tails mumbled to Sonic, engrossed in their current past time, “Well, Mordenkainen's Adorable Binky won't cut it then — and my Wand of Magic Red Dots needs to be recharged... I'm going to use my plus-three Frank's Crufty Cheeseburger, blessed by Ceiling Cat!”
Sonic looked up from their game of 7r0115 and Flame-Warz, books and papers and polyhedral dice strewn about (or at least it was a game of sorts, using the most powerful information processor available: their imaginations), liberally interspersed with a variety of snacks and drinks — and one of the cats, a huge Siberian-striped Savannah Coon named Mister Fluffykins, asleep on the corner — and pinched the bridge of his nose in a long-suffering look.
“Yeah. Z? I dunno how ta tell ya this, but...”
It wasn't much later that Peach found herself in a moment of extremely uncomfortable conversation with a chambermaid. It had all begun because Zelda had insisted that a pack of experts of every sort descend upon their suite in order to thoroughly overhaul it for pregnant queens and newborn babies, but with this conversation's veer due to her having become pregnant and just how one does that, Peach had lost track of all that had preceded the moment as she found her attention focus narrowly on just the one utterance ringing through her head, a continuous echo, growing louder and looming large in her mind.
“I'm sorry your Imperial Majesty, but there is no one in the entire palace who doesn't know when you're... having intimate relations.”123
She sought out Zelda immediately, imploring her to recall the royal renovator and remodeling architect (and begging that they shop for more tapestries that very day, as a stopgap measure) — and this after all of the remodeling had finally been completed to install electricity, scrynet-friendly intervision, and indoor plumbing.
“Ach, lass, yer a hot mess, aren't ye?” Zelda sighed, shaking her head fondly as she gathered her things for their excursion.
Peach smiled winsomely at this, sidestepping the issue neatly by asking “Have I ever told you how much I love your reacquired accent, now that you've been home awhile?”
One month later
“Peach, Squishy-poos, did ye get the pic that I just sent?” Zelda called from the next room, wearing a wicked grin, a sheer negligee, and what amounted to a few pieces of string.
Peach stared at her pad, tilting her head sideways to get a better view of what was displayed on the screen — a look of mixed lechery and aghast cringing shock, as the realization came to her.
“Yes... and so did everybody else!”
“Accursèd technology — smart-scry my ass!”
“...and what an ass it is...” Peach replied quietly, getting up from the desk and wandering into the other room with lust in her eye.
It's good to be the queen...
One week later
“What—?” Sonic began, but Zelda was already listening to something else. Feeling something else. A presence — a very powerful presence.
When she looked to him, a silent conversation flashed between them. Eyes narrowed, he jerked his chin to Tails, the pair bracing Peach as Zelda left the room, stalking the 'something.'
She found that something in the next room. An ancient wombat wearing a simple cotton yùyī and bamboo dǒulì, and clutching a wood staff — a shakujō — covered in runes, several sūtras dangling freely from the rings of its pinial. Gold and silver on indigo silk, or artistic ink on bone white paper, they caught the eye without being jarring. Aside from being clothed, he looked fairly normal, albeit somewhat tall for a wombat, but somehow he just seemed to have wrinkles and a long wispy beard, just as he seemed to be blind, though he clearly wasn't. Everything about him presented as if he were about to fall asleep, but he was clearly the presence that they had sensed.
She ran through multiple simulations instantly with no success; while neither of them had made more than a few subconscious microscopic twitches, she could sense that she had no chance whatsoever of defeating him in combat. Each of his motions was slow and deliberate, yet utterly fluid and absolutely perfect in economy and utility. He blinked slowly and bowed a fraction of an inch in acknowledgment.
His every movement was so slow as to be glacial.
Be he a Sloth in Wombat's clothing?
She couldn't be sure, but she could swear that his eyes twinkled just then.
Peach burst in, and Zelda interposed herself immediately.
“Shīfù Lǎorén! Nín hǎo ma!? Zuìjìn zěnme yàng, yéye?” Peach cried out, bouncing with excitement.
“Pīchi-sama, dai-ichi ōjo no O̅kami — magomusume-tan,” the corners of his eyes crinkling as he replied calmly, “Hai, domo. Watashi wa genki desu. Ogenki desu ka?” his tone expressing clear familiarity and warmth as he blinked very slowly and inclined his head toward her. Zelda imagined that had he written it out, it would have been in a beautifully curled hiragana, thick and thin strokes flowing and merging — she could almost hear it, aside from a tinge of katakana to Peach's name and title.
“Princess?” Zelda inquired, glancing backward with a raised eyebrow, her tone implying that she was wondering just when Peach had intended to mention these language skills and precisely how she knew this intruder.
“Ohh! Kare wa chou kawaii desu〰!” Ruru exclaimed, hovering around him in circles. He smiled at this.
Zelda could see how Peach would be drawn to him. He was cute and fuzzy — hell, he looked like a giant Teddy Bear in a bathrobe.
“I... don't...” Peach broke off for lack of words.
“Did, didn't, do again,” the Wombat supplied for her, his eyes on Peach, then returning to Zelda, “Only a rare love indeed acts in so foolhardy a manner. This is good.”
“Zelda, everybody, please let me introduce to you Shīfù Lǎorén, an immortal and my oldest friend,” Peach began, “Jiā yéye, permit me to introduce to you Empress Zelda, my wife, Ruru, on your shoulder playing with your ear, and Sonic and Tails, my family — and our daughter, soon,” Peach said, laying her hand gently across her belly with a smile. At just over eight weeks pregnant, it was a bit too early yet for her baby bump to show much, but she was still thrilled and fiercely proud.
Shīfù Lǎorén tilted his head slightly to each in turn, resting slightly longer and more paternally when his gaze came to Peach's pregnant belly.
Sonic glanced at Tails, “An Immortal Wombat, huh? Wait'l Kitana gets a load o' this one.”
“Pīchi-sama, your chi has grown. This is also good. Now, cast yourself outward,” he said without further preamble, bobbing his head vaguely upward.
“I can't,” she replied, “not anymore, I mean. Not now, not like this.”
“Look through me,” he instructed.
Legions dying, fire and destruction, a sweeping darkness swallowing the lands, insane perversions of mechanism and nature, myriad possibilities leading to the same conclusion, an octahedral tower of silver and obsidian and a shining brass cube at the center of it all. Behind it marched a beautiful woman, a terrible woman, a halo of spikes surrounding her head, magenta-lavender skin clashing painfully with turquoise hair.
Peach's face became ashen.
“The box is here?” she asked, already knowing the truth of it.
Again, Shīfù Lǎorén tilted his head slightly.
Sonic took this as his cue.
“So, this box. Maybe not such a good thing, huh?”
Peach could only stare in horror. “A Cenobite plague. Cenobites are... demonic things. Neither good nor evil, they serve only the box. Daemon hunts those who seek the box. The Lament Configuration. It's a three dimensional sliding puzzle box, the worst of many; one configuration brings eternal paradise, all others...” she shook her head.
“Daemon is... She's a fanatic,” Peach continued, picking her words as if she were walking through a minefield, “Like Shīfù Lǎorén and me, or Zelda, she's a Power. Where we seek not to interfere, she uses all within her grasp to purge the worlds of certain artifacts. The Lament Configuration is one of those artifacts.”
O ~~~ O