Merlon had been around a very long time. Not only was it that he had grandchildren who were grown, or that he had great-grandchildren that were nearly grown. That was merely the passage of the generations and happened naturally, whether he was there or not. What marked his age was that when he looked at these people around him, he felt a marked difference between their experiences and his own.

They had been the survivors of the wars and struggles of their generations, but they knew not of how the world had shaped itself to become the way it now was. They were sucked up in the War in Blankland, but they were not aware of how a hundred years prior a battle between the Mushroom Genie and Mushroom Jeanie had created Blankland in the first place.

Bowsette, in particular, was ignorant to the forces that led her life into what it was today. Morton Koopa's thousand-year reign over Dark Land ended by one of his unwanted children, left for dead but raised by a Magikoopa Morton had cast out for his failures a decade prior. And thanks to that upbringing, Morton's youngest became Morton's strongest, a magician powerful enough to overthrow him where none others ever could.

It was all about cause-and-effect. The pathways that the past took to create the present.

And Merlon felt in a large way that their trip into the Toadwood Forest on this otherwise-sunny afternoon was one of these pathways that would diverge their world into something they had not before seen.

This was not a good decision. But it was the only one, perhaps.

The trees here were vibrant and green, but not too thick that the sun didn't come peeking out from over the canopy. It would be a nice place for a picnic. But instead they were about to make a deal with a magical being that had the power to seal Merlon's very core of power, if it wished.

No, it wasn't a demon, but it may have been worse. At least demons were actively malicious.

"I just... want... to rest..." The pink toad, the female, was a constant source of dismay form their party of eight, complaining wherever they went. Seeing as she seemed to possess no combat or navigational skills, it was unclear why she even accompanied the rest of these people. Could it be that she was genuinely a friend and wanted to help? The thought seemed preposterous, but Merlon learned never to underestimate the Mario Bros. and their odd ways.

"We're just a little bit further," Captain Toad said. "I can feel it!"

"We'd better be..." Bowsette muttered.

Merlon did not dislike being around such an attractive lady, but he found the entire predicament quite interesting. That King Koopa, Wonder to the World, Volcano's Ferocity, would have stumbled upon a simple power-up and discovered a hidden identity boiling inside of her all her life that she had never unlocked. The Super Crown was most definitely not intended for the purpose of helping one embrace one's own female gender, and there were not many of them simply out there for the taking like this, either.

The cause-and-effect that Bowsette would come to even exist... was exactly why the Earth had entered the dire state that it was currently in. Without the Super Crown, the Mushroom Kingdom would still be stable. Dry Morton would never have existed. But Bowsette would still be a depressive world leader, and Peach's new aura of determined spirit would not be as such.

He truly had been around for a very long time, hadn't he?

His magic could not predict the future. He often made it seem so, and his hobby as an oracle had been a secondary source of income for him for centuries. What it could do was allow him to see the facets of the past that had led to create the current moment, and through that he could gauge a more full understanding of what the correct action to take was. It was messy and often inaccurate, but Merlon would never have survived as long as he could otherwise.

But...

But.

All of these dealings, everything since Bowsette came to accept herself... had been unprecedented.

Never before had something like this happened. Be that it may, something like this may never happen again, he thought. The waves of the past told him that Bowsette was a true enemy, an eternal warrior with the powers of True Royalty, one that would never have a satisfied heart without the entire world in her grip. That giving her back the powers she had lost would only further that cause and bring great suffering.

She had not realized the full extent of her powers. Even Morton had failed to do that. It would be a waste to explain that to either of them, though, because it was beyond their capability to understand what their celestial blood truly possessed. If they did, it would mean the end of the world.

Nevertheless, he continued. A new reality was forming around him, and he embraced it.

The party stopped all at once. Ahead of them was a floating, glowing cloud of magical energy, in a humanoid shape with a large mushroom cap-shaped head.

Nobody said anything.

Merlon stepped forward in front of the rest and held out his hands.

And then he died.