"-stupid wind, stupid rain, ruinin' my ride's--GRAAHHH!!" Claws scramble for purchase against the soaked muddied ground, creating a hydromill of sludge and grass. A thunderous crash echoes through the dense wooded marsh as the draconic koopa skids down the overrun hill, further away from his airship still bent and smoking from the previous crash. "...FUCK."

"This is just GREAT!!" He grips, pulling his shell unstuck from the dense clay-like muck. He can FEEL the mud starting to stick underneath his shell. It will be hell trying to wash it off once he gets out of this piss bucket.

The wind feels bitterly cold against his thick hide. It must have rained days before because he can still taste the icy petrichor on his tongue, nulling any sparks that threaten to spill from his maw. It's getting dark quickly. He doesn't want to wade deeper into this swampy wasteland, but all the other buildings he'd run into before were overgrown and flooded. Catching hypothermia before calling for rescue would just make Kamek nag more than usual. He already knows the magikoopa will lecture him about "running off" and crashing his new ride (it was the weather's fault, not inattentiveness) but would really panic if he caught a cold too. Yes, he knows he's acting childish, but that doesn't stop the anger or the ache. He'd just wanted some peace after another soul-sucking meeting with his counsel; the Darklands wouldn't survive much longer without a Super Star. The older counselmen keep nagging him to marry - but who would? After the clusterfuck the last king caused, and the whole Peach debacle, who would actually be willing to marry him? Was it too selfish to want someone who'd actually care about his nation? His son? To have a partner that actually loved him?

"What is with this place, anyway?" He grumbles, pushing aside tall weeds from his path. Strangely, the deeper he wades into the marshlands, the more the rain seems to die out, but he can't focus on that right now. The sun is setting and he needs shelter soon. "Huh?"

The dense brush suddenly opens like a fence, revealing a picturesque water bank. A lake, crystalline and mesmerizing against the sunset's hues, far more beautiful than the grey and brown hodgepodge of slurry and sediment he'd been toiling through for hours - prettier than Peach's gardens!

"What is-?" He's cut off by honking noises. Snapping his head toward the corner of the lake, he spots a group of big white birds nestled in foliage. Their presence baffles him, as he hadn't noticed any animals in this dump so far - part of what had been creeping him out.

Shaking off the bafflement, he turns to find shelter that isn't rotted through, thinking about how he'll miss tucking his son in tonight. But before he can leave, a strange sound stops him.

**Crackle...*

"Huh-!?" Nearly slipping from shock, he catches himself and gapes at the group of swans.

Or one in particular.

As dusk settles, a transformation begins. Like the crackle of burning wood chips, a spark settles in the midst of the bevy as one amongst them shifts, changes, and grows, surrounded by glittering gold that alights her feathers.

He can firmly say he's "used to" magic's presence - what happens when your surrogate father is an ostentatious Magikoopa like Kamek. So he can definitively say: that bird has magic, and it just turned into a girl.

You startle as a ruckus disturbs your flock. You coo at them to settle, standing up higher in the lake waters to see what happened. In the far corner of the bank, a large spiky turtle has fallen on its face in the mud, cursing loudly as it pulls itself up with mud still sticking to its horns.

The turtle guy looks directly at you and says: "Did it hurt when you fell from the nest of perfection?!?"