FSE

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Easy, Peach, the princess told herself. She marshaled her emotions, steeled her resolve. It’s just a simple fitting for a dress. You’ve done it plenty of times. Thousands! It’s simple. Nothing to worry about. Nothing unusual about it.

“That’s right!” she exclaimed. “There’s nothing to worry about!” And with that said, she stood resolutely—and nearly toppled sideways from the unexpected weight.

Being pregnant took some getting used to.

Blushing deeply, pleased as all get-out there was nobody around to see her, Peach stood still for a moment, one hand steadying herself against her four-poster bed while the other cradled the gravid orb jutting in front of her.

Okay,” she said, sucking her breath in. “You did this once, you can do it again.”

This wasn’t her first rodeo, of course. Bowser Jr.’s parentage was obvious to anyone who cared to think about it for even a moment, though almost no one in any kingdom was crass enough to actually say it outright. The boy knew the truth, and even if Peach couldn’t acknowledge him in public, she went out of her way to mother him whenever she found herself Bowser’s ‘guest’—which was, as usual, quite often.

(In fact, ever since bearing her firstborn, she’d arranged for security around the castle to gradually lessen and for certain gaps in it to leak to the Koopa Kingdom. Quality time with her son was important.)

Caressing her front, cognizant of the egg inside—she knew it had to be an egg; Bowser Jr. had come out much the same way—she reflected on how much easier life would be were she not a royal. She didn’t mind that her offspring were inhuman; she would love them all the same, and indeed did love Junior, even if he was coming out a bit of a brat. More time with his mother might fix that, she thought, and immediately lamented the fact that she had a kingdom to attend, sapping away her time to be a proper mother.

Politics, politics, politics. Acknowledging Bowser Jr.’s origins would destroy her reputation, and despite the fact that he was illegitimate, it would give Bowser a real claim to try to put his progeny on the throne and exercise control over her kingdom. Bowser could be tender when he wanted to be and was surprisingly good to his men, but nothing told Peach that history would remember her fondly if she gave him an excuse to snatch her throne. Acknowledging their dalliances could even put pressure on her to marry him, which she had no interest in (though he was obviously keen). The other possibility, framing Junior—and the egg currently slumbering inside of her—as the result of ungentlemanly conduct on Bowser’s part, would quash those pressures, but was also a lie; it wasn’t fair to the Koopa King and would certainly destroy Junior.

Glancing down at her swollen tummy, the princess slipped a hand under her dress and shuddered at the touch of her gloved hand atop her smooth, taut belly. She moaned, slowly tracing her touch downwards, cognizant of its rounding curve and squeaking as she brushed past her sensitive bellybutton.

You just can’t control yourself, she chided. Whenever Bowser kidnapped her, he wasted no time courting—and though she had no interest in marriage, she had allowed him to charm his way into her bed more than once. It had been more frequent early on, when she had thought them incompatible—and then Junior had come along, upending her whole world. She’d thankfully laid him shortly before her rescue, and the world twiddled their thumbs and looked the other way and whistled when a strange new koopa showed up in the famously wifeless Bowser’s castle shortly after Peach’s departure, strange coincidence, funny that.

She’d been more careful afterwards, though they’d still had their occasional flings. She always took steps to mitigate the possibility of a repeat.

But nothing was foolproof. The unthinkable had happened again, except this time she had started showing after her rescue.

She’d grown steadily in subsequent weeks, grunting under the weight and making sure only the castle staff saw her up close. The right garments and a bit of distance could obscure much, but she was finally far enough along that there would be no fooling anyone without a custom-made dress.

So go do it, she thought. Stop beating around the bush. Aware that she was holding up the royal tailors, Peach took a step forward, and then another—pregnancy and heels made for occasionally ungainly going. The whole time she caressed her belly, and not just for the weight.

She had to enjoy her children’s closeness while she still could. Why oh why did she have to be born a princess?

Traipsing through the halls of the castle, quiet save a few servants who had been expertly trained not to look at their princess’s growing roundness, she passed into the fitting room.

The tailor did not protest her lateness, but she felt a need to apologize for it nonetheless. As she did so, the array of toads set themselves up around her, and soon enough the room was filled with swatches of cloth, whirring machines, measuring tape.

Peach was used to the team of tailors seeing her at her most intimate, but she couldn’t help but blush and let out a small “oh!” of surprise as the toads peeled up her skirt, revealing her pale globe of a belly and the lacy magenta panties covering her delicates. “B-be gentle,” she said perfunctorily, as if any of the royal tailors would dare manhandle a princess, a pregnant princess at that. The toads gave noncommittal grunts of acknowledgement and changed nothing about what they were doing. Peach’s blush burned deeper as she felt the tape wrap around her tummy, squeezing out an exact circumference; she tried not to squeal as she felt tiny hands on her rump, measuring the extra curves that motherhood was gifting her. She blushed deeper still as her thighs and breasts were given the same treatment.

She stood there in her heels and her pristine white stockings and her opera gloves and her crown and her unmistakably fertile belly, swollen and heavy with a koopa egg, and despaired at the elephant in the room, the fact that everyone in the castle knew just what had happened, what she had allowed to happen, she had let Bowser knock her up—again—and now it was on them to keep her secret.

I wish it didn’t have to be secret, she thought desperately.

As the head tailor politely asked her to step out of gloves and stockings and she complied, showing off bare arms and legs, her mind turned to thoughts of Junior and to the egg slumbering inside of her.

She loved them. Both of them—yes, even the one whose name and face she didn’t yet know. She was their mother and she wished desperately she could raise them and be happy for and with them, but—!

But you’re a princess, she thought wearily. Your family is your kingdom, and you can’t let Bowser stake a claim in it, regardless of how many times he’s staked a claim in you. It just can’t be done.

One of the toads coughed and Peach realized that one of her arms, which were to be held over her head as they continued their measurements, had drifted low to caress her tummy. She reluctantly lifted it again, feeling somehow robbed of precious time with her little one.

Mommy loves you, she thought desperately, as if it could reach the little creature sitting snugly inside of her. Please know that she does, she will always love you, she loves you so much…

“…Princess? Are you alright?”

Peach blinked, coming out of a haze of thought. The fitting room team was looking at her and she realized that her eyes were budding with tears.

“Y-yes, I’ll be fine,” she said, and wiped her eyes. One of the toads muttered, aghast, that he must’ve accidentally pricked her with a pin.

“You did no such thing,” she answered without turning her head. “Be well.”

The fitting resumed and she forced her emotions into line. There would be time for a pity-party later, if she insisted on being so weepy. And besides, it wasn’t like she had abandoned them. Whenever she was Bowser she always made special time for Junior (who was always eager to be with his mother) and part of the reason she’d established the cross-kingdom racing and sports events featuring celebrities—such as, say, royalty—was to give her opportunities to enjoy her son’s company without worrying about the whole ‘kidnapping’ rigamarole.

And besides, those sporting events serve a real diplomatic role, she said. Two birds, one stone, just like a real stateswoman.

The toads by now were cutting out huge swatches of cloth the same pink color that she favored, and she watched them with appreciation, marveling at their precision. By now the measuring was done, and she was free to lower her arms again. She immediately started caressing her gravidness.

Was it wrong that she… liked this? She liked the sensation of being with child. She liked waking heavy, enjoyed the intimate sensation of carrying another life within her. At night she stroked her belly and sang it a soft lullaby. And perhaps it was because both of her pregnancies thus far had been koopas snug and secure in their eggs, but there was no movement to distract her—only a familiar, omnipresent, warm, comforting weight. She suspected that were it not for her station, she would have happily been one of those mothers with half a dozen kids by the time she was thirty.

Flush with the sensation of motherhood, she almost didn’t register the head tailor’s request for her to step forward and try on the new gown. He had to repeat it, slightly louder, before she blinked and stepped in.

The toads threw on the dress and she had to admit—they were the royal tailors for a reason. Perfectly calibrated for her new curves, the dress was flattering and fashionable. Better yet, a subtle flow of cloth on the front, as well as a few accessories, hid her belly bump almost exactly. You had to almost be looking directly at it to tell. Sure, it was a bit flashier than she usually liked—besides her crown, Peach typically only favored earrings and a modest brooch. But it was a price to pay for keeping secrets.

“Looks good,” the head tailor said. “Princess?”

Peach opened her mouth to approve and found herself saying something else: “Can it be… snugger around the—the t-tummy area?”

The head tailor raised an eyebrow. “I… erm, yes, princess.”

Suddenly feeling an urge to defend herself—which was foolish, she was royalty—Peach babbled out, “Sometimes the—the b-baby is active, and I… would hate for it to be visible…”

The assorted toads gasped. Never, never had she verbally acknowledged her state to anyone, regardless of how obvious it was or how it motivated the creation of this very dress. But the head tailor seemed mollified. “Ah, of course, I can… yes, I understand, princess, of course.”

As he busied with a new, snugger fit of the same dress, Peach almost blushed at how much of a lie it was. Her baby didn’t act up at all—the little thing was secure and safe inside an egg! But the toads didn’t need to know that, and they also didn’t need to know the real reason:

I want my baby to feel like it’s being caressed even if I can’t hold it at the moment.

It was a silly sentiment, perhaps, but one she was desperate for. As the toads busied themselves, she leaned back, stroking her belly, feeling the egg settle slightly lower inside of her. As they worked, an idea alit:

Currently, the plan was to invite Bowser to ‘abduct’ her a week before her projected laying date, giving her time to have the baby and feed it before her usual rescue. But perhaps that need not be.

Gestures of goodwill between the kingdoms… what could be a grander gesture than ‘adopting’ a poor parentless koopa and raising it in the palace with her? Giving one of her people’s ancestral enemies an adoption by mushroom royalty? Could she… could she get away with that? It would be nakedly transparent, even more so than Junior’s parentage—Peach, returned from another sojourn with Bowser, suddenly only seen at a distance for several months, wearing different and more voluminous clothes near the end, and then suddenly she is living life as normal again except now she’s ‘adopted’ a koopa who, if Junior was any indication, would look just like Bowser himself.

Oh, it would be so obvious. But then, the kingdoms tolerated a lot from her and Bowser’s strange relationship. Perhaps they would tolerate this as well.

She stroked her belly, luxuriating in the sensation of its fullness and almost imagining that the weight pressed back, though it was impossible. “Maybe,” she whispered to the little life inside of her. “Maybe I can be your mother after all.”

The toads’ work skipped a second, scarcely more than a heartbeat, before they resumed, and Peach almost giggled. She was being quite cavalier today—but then, this would be as overt a step as she had ever taken.

Feeling positively ebullient, she smiled at the thought. She’d had to cast off her desired role as mother for an inherited role as princess… but could she wrangle a way to be both? Would that be okay?

No, don’t ask questions, she thought forcefully at herself. You’re royalty; make it okay. She lived in a world of wish-granting stars, of spirits, of such radiant and magical things. Was it selfish, was it too much to ask, for this one little happiness? For her to care for her children without endangering her nation?

The head tailor finished his alterations and as they slipped the dress over her, Peach whispered the word on her lips: “Mother. Mother. Mother.” Every recitation emboldened her, made her more convinced that she would keep her child at the palace, she wouldn’t surrender it to Bowser, she would keep and love them at her side, just as she should have with Junior. “Mother.”

The dress settled into place, holding her belly tightly, a never-ending caress from her to her child, and she smiled. Mother.

It was a perfect fit.