Peach never liked to really have these serious talks with Ashley, it made her feel like she was Ashley's mother and that made her feel old. She preferred to play the role of a cool big sister, they would have fun playing tricks on people, Peach would teach her a little something about magic, and just in general be the friend Ashley never wanted to admit she wanted. Of course while some part of her had to admit she liked the admiration, at times Ashley's affection could be as scary as Princess Bow's.
She remembered when she had invited Sammi and Zelda over to her mansion, she locked them in the mad piano room. Sammi to this day still curls up into a ball whenever event the word piano was said in any context. It took a lot out her adviser Old Bird to convince Sammi to not legally mandate the destruction of all Pianos in the entire galaxy (Which unlike Peach's universe refers to much more then a single planetoid...discussion of astrophysics were always weird between their two worlds). Sometimes she does wonder if she should just get rid of that infernal thing, but the boos really do like that thing for some reason.
Ashley was very clingy to the gothic princess, and Peach was not ignorant of this fact. Peach was effectively her only friend (well besides Red, though she treats him more like a pet) and Ashley was paranoid of losing her. While Peach liked the kid, she did also like to have adult friends too (well okay Sammi and Zelda being called adults in anything but a physical sense was a bit of a laugh,) and eventually she managed to instill that idea into her head. Peach tried at various times to get Ashley some other friends her age, but that play date with Daisy's kid was a bit of an unmitigated disaster and that time she set up a play date with that 9-Volt kid...well Peach had to pay several thousand blue coins in replacing Nintendo memorabilia (That was also the day Peach learned 9-volt mother was possibly the scariest individual in the world and living with ghost for most of her life she had good authority to declare that.).
Peach knew Ashley had a worrisome history with social skills when she took the little witch to be her “ward”. Ashley was effectively banned from all schools in Diamond City after an incident where she turned one of her teachers into a spoon and adamantly refused to turn her back. Only reason she never faced more serious charges was because of her minor status and maybe Wario threw a little gold the politicians way to let this go. (Even before Wario started his micro-game corporation, Ashley was an associate of his who provided some magical assistance back when Wario more actively antagonized Mario.)The greedy bastard always did have a bit of a soft spot for his “employees”, heck before Peach met the girl Wario had even bought a spooky mansion for Ashley to live in (Though Peach knew having a house infected with ghost really brought down a house's value and Wario was actually rather good at haggling.).
With her parents being gone, the only interaction with other people Ashley ever got was whenever Wario cooked up some crazy scheme to get more money. Otherwise the little witch more or less isolated from the world before they met. She could understand why the witch would be threatened by a new kid she was looking over, especially when Peach did make little Samus look like a little fangirl of her. But that did not mean she approved her attempted hexing though, Peach had to suck it up and for once act like the guardian she legally was of her. They were going to have this long overdue talk and nothing in the world was going to prevent her from doing this.
As Peach opened the doorknob her eyes were treated to an unexpected and almost disturbing sight. Ashley's normally rather dark and spooky decor was replaced with more pastels, silk, and frills then she ever saw in Sammi's room. For a moment Peach had wondered if Samus was somehow involved, but the bounty hunter never seemed like the kind of person to retaliate in such indirect way. However her eyes spotted Ashley with a manic smile on her face, a smile that reminded Peach disturbingly like Sammi's smile whenever she wanted to drag her to do something really fru fru.
“OhlikeomgIamsogladyoucame,Iwastotallygoingtogolookforyoubutthenyoujustcameintomyroomlikemagic!” Ashley said quickly and incoherently as she was trying to push a desperately struggling Red down into her cauldron.
“Wha…?” Peach just said here mouth agape.
“Madam Peach you have to get out of here, a potion blew up in mistress's face and now she changed..and she wants to do this to everyone...aghh!!!” Red shouted before he was finally forcibly dunked into the bubbling pink liquid.
Taking some quick sniffs, Peach recognized the brew concocted. “Little Princess” it was colloquially called amongst potion brewers, and judging by the fact even smelling it was putting a faint image of rainbows into her head it was particularly potent. She was probably planning to use this on Samus in some weird scheme to stay the “favorite”. At this potency she would not turn back to her normal self with time, it would require an outright antidote to be made. However getting this hyperactive Ashley to willingly take an antidote would not be easy.
”Note to self, start actually looking at what books she borrows from the personal library. This potion is contraband in most kingdoms, especially mine. Who knows what other dangerous concoctions are in that book she got this recipe from” Peach thought to herself.
“I Feel so happy and I want to share this feeling with everyone! I got enough potion for you, Samus, and all of the cute little boos that live here.” Ashley said with a giggle.
“Ah Shit...uh look why don't you step away from that cauldron and we could go out and get uh ice cream or something.” Peach nervously said, hoping Ashley would take the bait so she could send her live in personal hazardous waste disposal team she hired to get rid of this potion (Living with hundreds of mischievous boos, and little girl with a hobby of potion making kind of that a bit of an unfortunate necessity of life)
“Ooh ice cream does sound good right now..But later this is much more important.” Ashley decided, quickly filling a bottle with the bright pink liquid.
Before Peach could react Ashley quickly threw the bottle of Little Princess over to her legal guardian. After a brief moment to think at the next baseball tournament she should recruit Ashley to be her pitcher, Peach….
Mon Jan 18 13:38:47 2016
4 comments Last updated: Sat Aug 18 18:58:01 2018