Shards of Love

The Reception

Shards of Love: REDUX!

Shard I: Foundations

Chapter III

The Reception

Five in the afternoon approaches; hundreds of celebrities and other special guests pack the courtyard. The reception's lush, regal design compares to the inner and outer appearances of the Mushroom Kingdom's massive castle in its elegance.

The Mushroom Kingdom monarchs plan on officially kicking off the reception, but the two notice one problem: Everyone arrived except for the newly-wedded couple.

"Where's Peach? And Mario?" Queen Toadstool questioned her husband, who's once again stuck in a golf hallucination. Hearing the condensed concern in her voice, the King snaps out of his happy-land.

"W-what?" he stuttered, drifting back into reality bit by bit, "She's probably... Uhh... Talking to Daisy!"

Queen Toadstool focuses her attention to the crowd, trying to see if Daisy's even present. She spots several red-spotted white Toad hats as well as Luigi, dressed in his green-and-black tuxedo. The Queen turns back towards her husband and sighs.

"I would ask Luigi if he knows where they are but... I don't know."

She sighs once again as the only response she gets from her husband is a grunt.

"Well, they better be here soon. They have twenty minutes until it's simply too late to be acceptable!"

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An hour and a half before the reception, Peach rises from her stool and plops down onto her bed. Exhaustion grips her body with a stiff, daunting hold like a stealthy shark; all she wants to do is to sleep it off, wedding dress and all.

Her wish granted without her knowledge, she jolts back into consciousness after hearing pounding on her door. Grogginess plaguing her body, the princess rolls towards the door, resulting in her falling off the bed. After a mental scolding about laziness and not opening the door, she jolts off the bed and answers the door.

"Took you long enough," Mario greeted, "Now let's go to the reception before your... *ahem*... perfectionist mother kills us both."

Though not saying a word, Peach blushes as she grabs Mario's hand. He's right, but despite inheriting that trait from her mother, Peach didn't feel any rush to arrive on time. After all, the reception's the more informal part of the entire wedding ceremony, and one must expel extra effort to mess up a gathering that has no plot-line of any sort.

They go down the nearest flight of stairs and meander through the hallways, initially holding hands before they begin playfully shoving each other. The empty hallways echo the shrieks and laughter emitted from the two, no doubt carrying the fading sound to every room between each far-reaching side of the majestic castle, including the kitchen.

Once the two lovebirds pass the kitchen, the resident chef, Tayce T., sights them as she dishes some teriyaki chicken from the pan onto a large food tray.

"Hey! You two! You're giving your mother a heart attack!"

Peach smiles and approaches the kitchen counter. Besides the chicken rests a large selection of desserts. She couldn't tell what half of them were, but after this stress-filled day, she can't help but bring up fantasies of her lounging on the bright, warm, white-sand beaches Water Land's famous for, a bottle of sunscreen in one hand and a jelly-pumped sweetened pastry in the other. However, her daydreams crash down after being swatted with an unused spatula.