They had stopped at a Barrel Baron off Toad’s Turnpike to get some gas for the car, but Peach had tasked Bowsette with that, and she and Toadette went inside to use the restroom.
What, they just assumed Bowsette didn’t have to pee? She was a human too, you know! No, she didn’t have to pee. She still didn’t want to stand around here in the musty air pumping gasoline.
Bowsette wasn’t sure what the normal gas price was in the further reaches of the Mushroom Kingdom, but fifteen coins a gallon seemed absurdly high. All the insurrections in various places in the Mushroom Kingdom were really hurting the economy, and that rat Lumpy had apparently taken control of most of the kingdom’s oil reserves thanks to business deals with the dissident regions. Shiver City was the lone holdout, but the mayor there had been fervently requesting more autonomy.
Bowsette and Peach would be going to Shiver City fairly soon, though. They’d deal with him soon enough.
Ugh, though now that it would be such a public event she wasn’t sure she could do any strongarm intimidation tactics. She could like, arm wrestle people for good deals or whatever, but no beating up was going to be allowed, that was for sure. Bowsette really wished Peach had been a little bit more covert about it and just hid away the search of the Generals as some sort of vague diplomatic goodwill tour. That way them going everywhere might have attracted some GOOD attention too, ya know.
Ah, whatever. Peach’s mistakes were incredibly minor when compared to her own. She was never going to be able to outrun hers, try as hard as she did.
Bowsette remembered what Mario had said about accepting the actions she took for their good effects and not for the negative ones. she wasn’t actually sure she should believe that. It seemed too... easy, somehow.
Soon, Toadette came outside, holding some Standard Chocolates and a Wild Elixir. Was she planning to absolutely pig out during this trip, or was she going to share that? Because Bowsette didn’t mind some junk food at all, herself...
“Hey, got something for me?” Bowsette asked. The tank in the Royale was full so she put the gasoline nozzle back in its holder and cracked her knuckles for a job well done, because that was a good thing to do when jobs were well done.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Nope. All mine,” Toadette said. “I need my energy!”
“You’re so lame. I... I don’t have any coins.”
Toadette shook her head. “You’re the King... Queen... Lordess... whatever of a whole kingdom! No way you’re broke.”
“I WAS,” Bowsette corrected. “Now I am a bum. And as for my title, Lordess is like, my general overall thing. For my ruler status I used to go by Queen a lot, but now I’m honestly starting to prefer King Koopa again. Is that weird if I’m a girl?”
“Why would you go by King? That’s a bit weird.” Toadette unwrapped her first chocolate and began gorging on it.
Bowsette leaned against the hood of the car and tried to think about her line of reasoning. “It’s a stronger term, maybe? I mean, I can’t say I wasn’t pretty sexist in the past, but I think even now Queen is more referring to.. the King’s wife, rather than the iron-fisted ruler of a nation. I think anyone should be able to be King, even if it’s a girl, and the girl’s husband has to have some lesser title like Archduke or whatever. I’m the King so I get to make up the rules.”
“It does sound pretty cool. You think if you and Peach got married that you’d still be King, or she’d be King?”
“Hey now, don’t get so forward about that. We haven’t even...”
Toadette narrowed her eyes. “I know you two. I know you’ve talked about it by now.”
“You are really getting the wrong idea here!” Bowsette yelled. “We certainly aren’t that far ahead to be able to be talking about anything like that!”
“What are we not ahead on?” Peach asked. She had come out of the convenience store as well and was sipping on a Super Soda. Her hair was also now up in a bun.
“N-n-n-n-nothing!!!” Bowsette’s face flushed and she got in the back seat immediately.
Toadette climbed in too and nudged her as she munched on her chocolate. “She’d be the King, right?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Shut up.”
Peach seemed utterly confused, but she was in a better mood. Bowsette was an adult and could admit that she would probably marry Peach in a heartbeat given the right circumstances, and had kidnapped the woman enough times to do exactly that, but this time was a bit different. She didn’t want any stupid word like “marriage” ruining this before it started!
...And yeah, she’d probably let Peach call herself King in that case.