Princess PeachCrossover origin story

Act I — The missing crown becomes everybody’s problem

Peach set her crown on a clean shelf before helping the staff reorganize the meal. Elaborate courses became simpler dishes. Unworkable plans became jobs people could actually finish. The musicians, briefly unemployed while the reception was delayed, carried vegetables from the storehouse with varying levels of professional resentment.

For a little while, the kitchen improved.

Then the crown disappeared.

The chamberlain called for the doors to be closed. The noble announced that a thief must be found before the guests learned of the scandal. Staff who had spent the afternoon trying to rescue his banquet suddenly found themselves treated as suspects in his preferred explanation for its failure.

Peach asked everyone to remain where they were, then retraced the last few minutes. A tray had moved past the shelf. A sack had split near the pantry. A young porter had carried damaged goods into the courtyard. Nobody remembered touching the crown.

The noble proposed searching the servants’ rooms. Peach asked whether he intended to search his own first. His concern for thoroughness became more conditional.

Outside, the first guests arrived. The musicians stopped carrying vegetables and began playing a cheerful piece that did nothing to improve the atmosphere inside.

Act II — A smaller mystery beneath a larger embarrassment

The cook remembered the tray catching the edge of the shelf. The porter remembered something falling into the open sack beneath it. He had not inspected the sack because he was already being shouted at to clear the floor.

The crown was probably in the courtyard among the rejected deliveries. The problem was that the noble had ordered those deliveries removed to conceal the evidence of his unpaid accounts. A cart had left the gate several minutes earlier.

Peach could have sent a formal party after it. Instead, she borrowed a plain cloak and went with the porter, who knew the road and the driver. The chamberlain objected to the appearance of the arrangement. She suggested that he use the waiting time to improve the appearance of the truth.

They found the cart at a bakery below the hill. The driver had been attempting to exchange the rejected sacks for usable stock. One torn sack sat on a bench, spilling white powder around a very recognizable gold edge.

The baker had not taken the crown. She had been waiting for someone to explain why a royal ornament had arrived inside a delivery the castle still refused to pay for.

Peach brushed the powder from the gold. The porter looked relieved enough to need a chair. The baker folded her arms and asked whether anyone intended to discuss the actual flour this time.

Act III — A banquet with fewer decorations

The castle’s debt was settled before the replacement ingredients left the bakery. The noble objected to the amount until Peach asked whether his centerpiece had been paid for in advance. It had. He found the comparison difficult to improve through explanation.

The banquet began late, with simpler food and a story the host could no longer control. Peach thanked the kitchen staff publicly. She thanked the porter by name. The baker received an invitation and a seat where the noble could not avoid looking at her.

The enormous centerpiece remained outside because it still would not fit through the door. Guests admired it on the way in, which turned out to be an entirely adequate arrangement. Several remarked that the less elaborate meal was the best part of the evening.

The chamberlain asked whether the incident might be omitted from the official account. Peach said that depended on whether the account intended to describe what happened. He began a new draft.

Later, the cook noticed a faint trace of white powder in one corner of the crown. Peach left it there until the end of the meal. A small imperfection seemed preferable to another hour spent pretending that everything had been immaculate.

The noble’s banquet survived. His reputation for effortless grandeur did not. The staff considered that an excellent exchange.

Peach departed the next morning with clean gloves, a recovered crown and a basket from the bakery. The porter waved from the gate. Behind him, workers were carefully dismantling the centerpiece into pieces small enough to be useful elsewhere.