Fire-Flower Field
“There’s a huge universe out there, with a lot of galaxies.” Peach turned to look out at the stars and fire flower field. Mario turned with her. He didn’t know what to add to that. So, he rocked on his heels and admired the scenery. Toad had been playing the flute and it added to the moment. In the back of Mario’s mind, he wondered if the song was a love song from the toad people.
He hoped his silence didn’t weird the princess out. He blushed and cleared his throat. “Sooo… uh how do you use these flowers.” He bent over to touch the flower like the princess had.
“WAIT!” Mario jumped back at her outburst. He looked at her wide eyed. Her face was wide eyed as well. “You’ll burn!”
“But, but, but.” He bumbled.
“I know but I have eaten the stem before.” Mario looked at her confused. She bent down and blew out a fire flower then picked it. “Once you eat the stem your body will be able to handle the power that comes from the flower.” She pulled the head off of the flower and handed Mario the stem. He looked up at her unsure. Then back at the stem. Then he looked at Toad who gave him a quick nod. He looked back at the stem.
He gave a sigh and grumbled. Peach looked at him expectantly. He opened his mouth and lightly put the stem in and bit down.
His mouth exploded with stinging. His eyes started to water. “AH!” He spit the greenery out. Peach and Toad burst into laughter. Peach doubled over and toad slapped his knee. “Ahhhh!” His mouth was burning! He stuck out his tongue and tried to fan it off.
Peach gave Toad a high-five. “Aha! She got chu man!”
Mario could hardly pay attention to their ribbing; he danced around trying to cool off his mouth.
Peach pushed Toad to go ahead and help the poor man. Toad dug around in his pack and got out a jar of white liquid and offered it to Mario. Mario in turn backed away from the little mushroom man shaking his head and hands.
“It’s just milk man! It will help the spice.” The toad held up the jar again.
Mario reached for the jar only to stop halfway. “MILK FROM WHAT ANIMAL!” He jerked his hand away.
Toad and Peach exchanged looks. “A moomoo.” They said at the same time.
Mario looked even more distressed. “What’s a moomoo? You mean a cow?!?”
The two Mushroom Kingdom residents looked at each other confused. “What’s a cow?” Toad asked.
Peach came in to explain. “A moomoo is a big round black and white animal that eats grass and produces milk for its young. A moomoo.” She flipped her hands around as if it was obvious.
Mario swiped the jar out of Toads hands. “Ya well, we call those cows were I’m from!” He got the lid off and chugged the milk. He immediately felt better. His mouth would sting every once in awhile, but it was bearable.
Toad hopped up to Mario. “She got you good! Fire flower stems are the spiciest thing in the world! It’s a delicacy in some places!”
Mario looked at him incredulously. “People eat that willingly?!”
“Yeah! Yeah! You know that desert place we got some supplies at? The one with the upside-down pyramid? The first time I was there they showed me how to make fire flower stems into a sauce!”
That made sense to Mario, it was like hot peppers. And that place reminded him of old pictures of Mexico from his history textbooks. Except for the pyramids. This place was just a mash up of everything.
“It’s a really interesting process actually….” Toad continued to ramble on.
Peach slid up to Mario. She chuckled and nudged him. “Sorry, I just had to.”
Mario wiped the sweat off his face. “You better watch your back princess! If you ever come to Brooklyn, I might have to get you back!” He chuckled goodheartedly.
Peach gently grabbed his wrist. “I’ll be sure to never eat anything you hand me.” She softly pulled him toward the nearest fire flower.
Mario let himself be guided by the princess. “Aww… no, you gotta to eat the food there! It’s some of the best in the world!”
Peach held his hand close to the head of the fire flower. The magic caught hold of his hand and quickly dispersed though his body. He looked down at his now red overalls and white shirt. he twisted in front of the princess. “Not bad, eh?” He held his hand out flat and a fire ball appeared. He stared at it in wonder and made it dance around his hand. “We may have good food in Brooklyn, but it is nothing compared to the magic youse got here!” Mario threw the ball of fire but didn’t pay attention to where he was throwing it.
Toad jumped up and out of the way just in time. “HEY! WATCH IT!” Mario gave an apologetic smile and Peach laughed.
After their meal that was cooked up by Toad, they all laid down on the grass to sleep for the night. The fire flower power kept him warm even though there was a slight chill in the air. Mario laid on his back looking up at the tree leaves against the sky. He could feel a pair of eyes on him. He twisted and saw Toad staring at him laying on his belly, face in his hand, and feet lackadaisically swinging in the air.
“Soooooo……” the enthusiastic mushroom started. “Do you like her?” He shifted his eyes between the princess and the plumber.
Mario panicked and looked at the princess’ back that was turned to him. “She’s asleep dude.” Mario gave him a look and hand gesture that said, ‘how can you tell?’
Toad ignored the look. “Do you like her?” he asked again.
Mario squinted his eyes at the little man for a minute then answered. “She’s nice…. A little crazy but this whole place has been crazy!”
Toad waved his hands “Yeah Yeah Yeah everyone says she is nice…” he adopted a suave tone “But do you like like her?”
“What do you mean? Like a crush?”
Toad could hardly contain himself. “YEAh Man!!!”
Mario shushed the exuberant toad for fear the subject of their conversation would wake up. Toad quickly put a hand over his own mouth. But raised his eyebrows at Mario asking him to answer.
“I just met her.”
“So!?!”
“So, I would need to get to know her more. There are steps to these things. Haven’t you ever had a crush on someone?”
Toads face got serious. “I have dedicated my whole life to the journey of discovering new and exciting foods.”
“Right right you were a chef at a…uh family-owned café” he rotated his hands as he recalled what Toad had told them earlier in the trip. “And now a ‘world traveling food adventurer.’” Mario put in air quotes. “Whatever that is…” he added quietly. “So, you’ve never had a crush?”
“Nope. never. That’s why I gotta know from my best friend what is it like?”
Mario vaguely gestured his hands around as if that would explain it. Toad gave him a disappointed look. “Look I don’t know how to explain it!” He crossed his arms and turned back to the leaves.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” Toad blurted out accusatorially.
Mario flipped over and pointed a finger at Toad. “Yes! I’ve had a girlfriend! She was the student body president in high school and 3 years older than me.” He said defensively.
Toad loved where this was going. “Oh oh oh! What was her name?”
“Pauline.” Mario grumbled.
“What happened?”
“She went off to collage and eventually became the mayor.”
“WHAT no way!?” Toad exclaimed.
Mario shushed Toad again but then continued. “Yep.”
“Have you had a girlfriend ever since?”
Mario frowned and waved the question off. “Nah, got too busy.”
“Oh? with plumbing?”
“No. Me and Luigi had many different jobs before we were plumbers. Delivery boys, we were even dog walker there for a moment, waiters for a small local Italian restaurant, we were janitors at a boxing ring, we worked at a cement factory once, we tried to be mail men but that didn’t work out, we worked at a bottling plant once but broke too many glass bottles, we built cabinetry, our last job was construction workers and then we said ‘You know what? We are sick of working for others, let’s work for ourselves!’ that is when we became plumbers.” Mario heard a soft sound. He looked up and saw that Toad had fallen asleep and was now curled up in a ball.
Mario smiled, now he could sleep without being pestered. He laid back on his back getting ready to sleep when he heard. “What is high school?” Mario sat up quickly to see Peach had turned toward him.
His cheeks burned red and not from the fire flower power. “Eheheh….. how much of that conversation did you hear?”
“All of it, I wasn’t asleep.” She stated simply. Mario wanted to crawl in a hole. “I know what school is but is high school a special thing or what?” Peach was either unfazed by the crush talk or was blatantly ignoring it in order to get her question answered.
Mario took a deep breath. He decided he would also ignore the fact that Toad thought he had a crush on the princess. “So high school is just school that you go to when you turn 14…” he begun to explain.
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Author's notes: I just wanted this scene a little bit longer.
