Chapter Text
The storm had been raging for days.
The normal tranquility of Acorn Plains was long gone. Grassy slopes that harbored abundant wildflowers were now lashed by merciless gales and enough rain to wash away a house. Branches were ripped from oak trees, landing on the ground with thumps that flattened the grass beneath them. Thunder rumbled overhead like a thousand lions roaring at once. Lightning illuminated the sky as if the Stars themselves were waging a battle up in the heavens.
Everyone with an ounce of sense was shut up tight inside their homes, watching the destruction and praying to the Mother that the howling wind wouldn’t tear their doors from their hinges. Making themselves a nice cup of coffee and curling up with a blanket.
As if everyone had those kinds of blessings.
Another branch of lightning split the gray clouds with a devastating crack, barely missing the gnarled branches of an unstable, long since dead tree. Huddled in a shadowy cave beneath its roots, a family of children whimpered and pressed closer to each other, filthy and haggard, barely recognizable as members of the Koopa race underneath all the dirt.
The oldest child, a male and only six years old, held his baby brother closer as a scattering of dust showered over them. This old, dusty hollow had not been their first choice, but none of them had rested or eaten in days, and at least it was dry.
Squelching heralded the arrival of their second oldest brother, Roy. His frame, tall and sturdily built for someone only five, was covered in mud. The vibrant hue of his yellow scales was invisible under the filth he was covered in. One spot near his thigh oozed blood, a recent wound that had reopened.
“Are they still following us?” the oldest rasped. He knew it was foolish to hope his brother had found any food.
Roy shook his head. “No. But the storm’s getting real bad. We should go before this tree crushes us.”
“Go? So soon?” A particularly skinny child lifted his head. Beside him, his tiny twin brother lay curled, coughing every minute, multicolored hair drooping with sweat. Iggy and Lemmy, only two and a half years old, both looked the part of twins with their drastic change in size being the only difference.
“What, so the weather can kill us first?” The only sister shook her head and wedged herself into the driest corner of the hollow. For only three years old, Wendy didn’t balk at saying what was on her mind. “We’re better off here.”
The oldest sighed, a hollow, dejected sound. All of them were nothing but skin and bones, alone and forced to wander the streets of towns they came across. Time and time again, doors were slammed in their faces. Time and time again, they had to resort to rummaging through trash bins or stealing from vendors. Time and time again, locals would look upon their yellow scales and spiked shells with undisguised disgust.
What did we ever do? He closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. “Maybe someone will help us.”
“ Help us ?!” Wendy’s shout was heard even above the roar of the wind. “Nobody’s going to help us, Luddy! Why can’t you see that?”
At the noise, their infant brother awoke and began to wail pitifully. Ludwig cradled him in an effort to ignore the way his heart broke further at the sound. Sweet, innocent Larry didn’t deserve this. None of them deserved this.
Memories of a past life flickered in Ludwig’s mind. He tried to hold them close, but they were like reaching for thorns, hurting more than they comforted. Gardens laden with flowers and butterflies and sweet rays of sunshine. Kindly maidservants that would sneak them sweets before dinnertime. Feather beds they would fall asleep in, curled around each other.
That life had been snatched from them a month ago. The world they lived in now was cruel and unforgiving, like a cat that toyed with its prey before delivering death.
“Shhh,” Roy crooned, taking Larry from Ludwig’s arms. The cries quieted as the hatchling curled into a sniffling, dejected ball. Behind them, Morton, only two and yet one of the largest out of his siblings, approached and stroked their baby brother’s head. The previous night, all three of them had made their closest brush with death. The shed they’d thought had been abandoned had been opened by a farmer, who’d proceeded to lock them all in his barn. Their siblings had come to rescue them, but not without injuries. Another home lost.
Ludwig wanted to curl up and scream about the injustice of it all. He was only six, and somehow he’d thought he could hold his family together. But the world had broken them in a single month. Now they were dying, and he was helpless to do anything.
“We can’t just stop and give up,” he said halfheartedly. “Maybe we’re all alone, and maybe everyone’s against us. But we have to keep going. Something good will happen.”
“Like what? Like Larry dies?” Roy asked flatly. He continued to caress the hatchling, who’d begun to whimper and squirm from inside the rag he was swaddled in. A couple feet away, Lemmy’s fragile body was being wracked by coughs that tore from his chest. Ludwig beheld it all, the last embers of hope flickering out.
“Face it,” Wendy said despairingly. She rubbed her streaming eyes. “Nobody’s going to find us.”
Ludwig could take it no longer. Blinking away tears, he rose shakily and staggered out into the rain. The wind almost knocked him off his feet, as if he were nothing more than a moth. Rain pounded against his bruised, dust-covered scales, washing them clean. Really, he had no idea what he was searching for. Maybe some spirit waiting to deliver him and his family into an afterlife. Wouldn’t that be a mercy. Shielding his eyes against the downpour, he gazed beyond the ancient tree to find something vastly different from more hills, more trees, more farms.
A shallow valley was scored into the earth before him. But past it, the grass fell away after only a few feet, replaced by dark, rippling rock as though it had been liquid once and had hardened. Further on, it formed mountains whose peaks glowed orange and spewed dense clouds of smoke. The rainclouds above Ludwig were a foreboding deep gray, but they looked friendly in comparison to the thick, black blanket tinted a hellish shade of red that covered the sky beyond.
It seemed so terrible it didn’t quite seem real. Like a gate had opened and a portion of hell had spilled out, a stain on the mortal world.
Nestled in between those mountains was a looming, mammoth of a structure, too neat to be a natural landform.
“What kind of place is that?” Ludwig jumped, finding that his siblings had followed him outside. Even tiny, fever-stricken Lemmy had gathered the strength to leave the hollow and cling to his twin.
Roy trudged forward and peered at the dark mass. “That’s definitely not a mountain,” he said. "Someone's out there."
“That could mean people are there,” Morton said hopefully, always looking for the silver lining in spite of everything. “Maybe they could help us?”
“Are you crazy, Morton? People only ever want to hurt us."
Lemmy started wheezing again, his frail body looking like it could give out at any moment with each cough. “Maybe we should try,” he whispered, his voice raspy as Iggy’s bony arms held him close.
Wind howled around Ludwig, making rain stream from the sodden tips of his deep blue hair. He sneezed, then realized faint light was coming from the structure. Light meant someone was home, if the locals' habits were any indication. The wind quieted just for a second, and Ludwig realized that Larry had fallen silent. Looking over his shoulder, he found the hatchling’s striking blue eyes fixated straight ahead, right on the mystery building.
Ludwig shook his head. We can’t go there. It’s too dangerous.
Larry’s gaze slid to him, innocent and challenging all at once, as if saying, What do we have to lose at this point?
There was always something to lose. And yet, their parents were gone, their home was gone, and they would last another day at least.
“We should go.”
Ludwig’s siblings stopped arguing abruptly and stared as if his blue shell had suddenly turned pink. He was never the one with the risky, crazy ideas. He was never the one who schemed to steal from market stalls or sneak into warehouses to escape bad weather.
“But whatever’s in there could kill us,” Iggy protested, stating what everyone else was clearly thinking.
“It’s our only choice,” Ludwig replied grimly. This was their last shot, assuming they even had enough strength to travel much farther. “We’ll die out here anyway. What do we have to lose?”
His family swapped glances he understood well enough. All we have left is each other.
This is our only chance.
The rain and thunder fell away. Suddenly, Ludwig was in his old room, in his mother’s lap, clutching her soft robe. You are a wonderful oldest brother, Ludwig, she’d whispered in his ear. One day you will lead your family when they need you, when your father and I aren’t here.
But you and Dad will always be here, he’d protested, burying his face in the crook of her neck. She always smelled like the roses and lilacs she tended in her gardens.
She’d chuckled, then scooped him up in her arms and carried him over to his bed. His tiny fingers had held hers as she’d pulled the blankets over him. Of course. But siblingship is different. You will protect them, and they will protect you. When you have lost everything else, you will have them.
The bed faded, as did the face smiling down at him. The loss crashed over Ludwig like a waterfall, stealing his breath away. He fought the despair. Right now, he had to be strong.
“Going is what Mom and Dad would want.”
His siblings went silent. Even the fevered brother had stopped coughing. They bowed their heads, thinking of the life they’d left far behind them. To do what they were about to do, they would have to let go of it completely.
Ludwig didn’t have to ask again. A new determination shone in the eyes of his siblings, their unspoken agreement.
Inside his castle, Bowser sat by the window and stared out the window, where raindrops ran down the glass. He knew the hurricane from Sparkling Waters wouldn’t last long on the mainland, but the edges of it were causing a storm as far as the Darklands, his kingdom. It had been raging yesterday when he’d returned home, battered and bruised from a humiliating defeat against some upstart plumber. Now he was in his private chambers as night fell, settled in a velvet armchair in front of a fireplace.
Though his pride refused to let him admit it, he was technically sulking.
Enveloped in the orange glow of the fire, he looked away from the window and watched the flames devour the pieces of wood. He dragged his gaze to the sprawling map above the mantel, past the Seven Lands and to the rolling, grassy hills of the Mushroom Kingdom. Why had he been defeated? What was he missing that Mario had? He had an entire army, for Stars’ sake—so why had he lost?
Bowser sighed, anger fizzling out like a spark at the end of its fuse. He knew exactly why. His army as of late was not exactly united. Soldiers squabbled among themselves, pushing and shoving for promotions. Commanding officers abused their power in petty ways, anything from lording their power over cadets in training or bullying servants into cleaning their quarters. When actually asked to fight, the Koopa Troop had lacked the necessary unification and paid for it.
The sound of someone rapping the door pulled Bowser from his thoughts. “Come in,” he said, trying hard to keep the sigh from his voice. Sighing was certainly not kingly. He sat up straight and arranged himself in a regal manner.
A hunched form paused in the doorway before stepping into the light. “Your Majesty,” Kamek said quietly, bowing.
Bowser blinked, surprised to see his chief advisor and healer at this late an hour. Kamek’s white-trimmed blue robes were peppered with darker spots as if he’d briefly been subjected to the downpour outside. “What’s this about?”
“One moment.” Something like guilt flickered in Kamek’s expression, but he turned away before Bowser could confirm it. Kamek, curiously, beckoned to the empty doorway. When it stayed that way for several heartbeats, he added softly, “Please, little ones. I promise you’ll be safe.”
After another long moment, a young face slipped into view, framed by locks of dark blue. The child’s black eyes found Bowser’s and widened with fear before he ducked back out of sight.
“Come on,” Kamek urged gently. “King Bowser won’t hurt you.”
The child showed his face again, followed by another, this one gifted with a wiry frame and haphazard strands of hair in three different colors. With more of Kamek’s encouragement, eventually six Koopa children were walking inside on unsteady legs. They stopped behind Kamek and refused to go further, some clutching his robe as if he were their lifelong guardian.
Bowser assessed them: there were five males and a single female, all very young. It took him a minute to notice a seventh child, a male hatchling so emaciated the tattered rag he was swaddled in must have weighed more than him. He lay in the arms of the male who had first glanced into the room, so still he didn’t seem alive at first glance.
“What happened?” Bowser’s voice came out taut with rage he hadn’t known was building. No child should ever have to wear that many bandages. No child should ever look that thin. And yet, here these Koopas stood. He dug his claws into the velvet armrests of his chair. Whoever is responsible should be punished.
“The sentries at the outpost on the northwestern border found them collapsed outside,” Kamek said quietly, looking over his shoulder at the pitiful children behind him. “I was there to talk with the healers. We brought them in and tended to their injuries. They just woke up this morning. They say they’ve been all over Acorn Plains with barely any food or rest.”
Bowser couldn’t take his eyes off them. The fire of rage cooled abruptly, and only pity was left in its place. Where were their parents? “Come over here,” he said softly, rising from his chair to sit on the plush carpet before the fire.
The children hesitated. Most of them looked towards the male with the dark blue hair, as if he were the leader. The child glanced at Bowser uneasily, searching his face for anything threatening. When he found nothing, he took a cautious step forward and kneeled on the very edge of the edge of the rug. His siblings clustered around him, warming themselves by the fire and squeezing the fluffy folds underneath them with admiration.
Bowser respected their choice to remain wary, as much as it broke his heart. To be so young and so cautious reflected poorly on their lives so far. His eyes strayed to the nearest child, and what he saw made him go still.
Now that their backs were turned, their shells were entirely visible. Each one was a different color, and each one was spiked.
Only Koopas with royal blood in their veins had that trait. Firebreath would manifest later, around age five. Even more confusing, their shells were not divided into plates of carapace, like almost every type of Koopa regardless of bloodline.
So half royal… and half something else entirely. How was that possible? The royal family kept detailed records of any related members, even distant ones, but only the closest had spiked shells.
“What are your names?” Bowser asked them, thoughts racing. There had to be an explanation, like some obscure royal’s elopement or secret affair. Both instances caused enough damage to one’s reputation that they almost never happened.
The child cradling the infant swallowed visibly. It took him a few moments to work up the courage to speak. “I’m Ludwig,” he said in a voice that shook. One by one he spoke the names of his brothers and sister. The infant was Larry, the sturdy, dark-skinned male was Morton, the solitary female was Wendy, the especially scrawny child was Iggy, his fevered twin was Lemmy, and the stocky brother was Roy.
Bowser listened to each name before asking another question. “Where do you all come from?”
Watching the fire, Ludwig shuddered like a seer beholding a future massacre. “We don’t know. It feels like we’ve been on the move forever.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
“It’s all a blur.” Ludwig’s voice was now barely a whisper. “I—I can’t remember anything…” He stopped, tenderly brushing aside a stray strand on his baby’s brother’s forehead.
A fresh wave of pity washed over Bowser. “What about your parents?”
Ludwig only stared back blankly. "Our... what?"
"Your mother and father," Bowser pressed, completely lost for answers when Ludwig just shook his head. Even is he was an orphan, how could he just not remember any parents at all?
Now all the children were watching Bowser, a few shaking like they expected to be killed. Kamek moved closer and offered comfort. Little Larry appeared to be aloof from his siblings’ fear, gazing at Bowser with the boldness and innocence of someone too young to understand tiresome things like protocol and etiquette. Too young to understand the importance of his spiky shell. Bowser’s attention shifted to Ludwig, trying to recall what his own life had been like when he’d been that age.
It came back to him in a cascade of loneliness and sorrow. His only parent had been his father, a stern king who’d cared far more about the affairs of his army than his only son. Of course, as the heir to the throne he’d never worried about being hungry or homeless. And yet, during meetings and banquets and other important occasions when they’d actually been in the same room, he’d watched his father from his little throne, hoping for just the smallest of smiles. The tiniest bit of proof that he was loved.
But Bowser had never received one, not in all the years before he’d inherited the throne.
But I guess a bad parent is better than no one at all.
“Haven’t you found anyone willing to help you?” he asked the children, trying to bury the memories.
Suddenly Wendy looked away from the hearth, all shyness gone. Her blue eyes shone with their own fire, fueled by spite. “Oh yes, we’ve found plenty of people,” she practically spat. “Called us demons, tried to kill us.”
“Who?” Bowser demanded with just a hint of fury in his tone. If any of his subjects had dared inflict this kind of pain on children…“Koopas like you and me?”
“No, they were short, with really big, spotted heads…”
“Toads,” Bowser snarled, making the children shy away. Dismayed, he reached out to them in apology. “It’s okay. But remember this.” His voice took on the cadence of a growl. “You are Koopas. You are strong. Toads called you demons because they fear you. Each of you is worth a hundred of them.” Even as he said it, he thought, You are royalty. I’ll raise you to be part of my army.
And someday, you’ll all be able to take your revenge.
“They can have the empty royal suites,” he told Kamek. “They can stay here.”
“Really?” Ludwig raised his head, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Yes.” Bowser beckoned him closer. This time he came with pause and even let Bower cup his chin with both hands. Poor, young child. He deserved so much better. “From now on, this will be your home.”
And anyone who dares hurt you will die at my claws.
“Thank you,” Ludwig breathed. Shiny trails slid down his cheeks, made bronze by the firelight.
Emboldened by their brother’s actions, the other children crept closer and crowded around Bowser, offering their own fervent thanks. Bowser nodded absently in response, meeting Larry’s eyes once more. The hatchling blinked slowly, then extended one little hand. Bowser met it with one finger, fearing his own huge hands would crush such a delicate thing.
“May I hold him?”
He hadn’t realized the desire had slipped out in the form of a question until the children turned their heads to stare. He was further surprised when Ludwig wordlessly passed his baby brother over, expression full of trust. Larry didn’t squirm as he was lifted, only beheld Bowser with eyes that seemed wider than the moon.
Bowser carefully pulled the dirty rag away and replaced it with the silk covering on the end table beside his chair. No infant in his care would be dressed like a peasant. Larry wriggled a little in the fabric, cooing as if admiring its softness. He would be reared in the shelter and luxury of his castle—and learn from Bowser himself. How to take down an opponent far larger than him, how to travel undetected, how to trick his enemies into delivering themselves right into his lap. Someday, he would rise to the highest ranks of the Koopa Troop.
But for now, he deserved to have a childhood.
Bowser carefully returned Larry to Ludwig’s waiting arms. Ludwig’s tensed shoulders instantly relaxed as the familiar responsibility of his baby brother settled on him again. “Do you know your last names?”
Ludwig considered. “No,” he said timidly. “Some of us have middle names I remember, but no last one.”
Another odd, missing memory of theirs. Strange. Why would only their last name elude them while their middle and first names did not? “If you are asked, your last name is ‘Koopa.’” Bowser reached down to pat Larry’s head, as if dubbing a knight. “Larry Koopa.”
Ludwig watched in silence, exchanging glances with his siblings. In their eyes he seemed to find approval. His siblings straightened and craned their necks to look up at Bowser, already loyal soldiers awaiting command. From purpose stemmed courage, determination, and loyalty. Bowser gently ushered them all closer, like a hen gathering its offspring under her wings. They leaned against him, some dozing while others stared up at him with wide, trusting eyes.
They could be more than soldiers, a corner of his mind whispered. You haven’t yet married or had any heirs of your own.
“What will you tell the court, Your Majesty?” Kamek asked softly, as though his magic allowed him to guess exactly what his king was thinking.
All of Bowser’s dreams retreated at the words. In the eyes of the court, he couldn’t pass them off as his children, let alone heirs. The traditions that encircled such matters were ancient and revered enough that even he couldn’t hope to change them: only blood children could be heirs; nieces and nephews could only claim the throne as a last resort; there should be no more than one heir at a time.
But Bowser would ensure they found a place. The marble tablet the Laws of the Throne were etched on was only a tablet, so old Koopas no longer spoke the language it had originally been written in, and it would not stop him from taking in these children.
“This is your kingdom now,” Bowser told them, taking the same gruff tone his father had used the few times he’d deigned to speak to his son. “You will honor it one day, and make it proud of you.”
Six little faces nodded back, young but deadly serious. Larry only watched, ever silent, and yet, Bowser could have sworn he saw the hatchling’s head bob just a fraction of an inch. A promise written in the smallest of gestures.