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Bowser Junior sat on the edge of his bed of skulls, his legs kicking the wind frantically.
Peach, on another of her regular stints as prisoner, approached him in the room, carrying a glass of chalk white milk and a fudge cake with decorative pink icing.
"Your father is very worried about you" she said.
"He has every right to be” Bowser Junior said, a bitterness in his delivery.
Peach understood everything. Bowser Jr had been having bad dreams, he had heard too much commotion about death and what awaits you on the opposite end of it.
He was afraid, believing some uncanny, otherworldly and god-like force, bigger in majesty and concept than all who those who dwelled or orbited the Mushroom Kingdom, would have the final say in how he would be judged.
He needed reassuring.
Peach perched herself down on the bed and gathered Bowser Junior up in his arms, she said "Be still and steady little one, the farthest side is nothing to fear”
Bowser Junior, held by Peach in her arms, says “It…it isn’t?” , Peach nodded.
Peach nodded as as she cradled the fragile Bowser Junior, “It is simply another castle in which you dwell” she finished.
She kissed Bowser Junior gently on the forehead and left the chamber, his father Bowser and his guards were waiting to escort her back to her private chambers.
“He’ll sleep”, she said, reassuring Bowser.
As they walked down the corridor, Bowser asked “How are you able to do it?”
Peach, surprisingly chipper for once, asked what he meant.
“Do what?” she said.
“How do you remind a monster that he isn’t one?” Bowser replied.
Peach paused and gently stroked Bowser’s face, love in her eyes.
"Some monsters look bigger on the outside than they are on the inside”
Peach held Bowser’ s clawed hand as she led him down the corridors.
“You want to know something?” Peach asked.
"What?” Bowser asked, confused.
Peach smiled back at him, gently kissed him on the forehead, and said “You and I would make great parents in another castle”
As the guards continued to lead her away, Bowser was left to ponder if the otherworldly force his son feared, one that loomed large in majesty, wasn’t quite content with dwelling on the other side.
Maybe it was already here.
Maybe it was her.
A little slice of heaven, dwelling peacefully in hell, Judging everyone around her.
And finding that, despite all of the great evil plaguing this world, something good from it must come.