[Mari]

Peach nodded thoughtfully in response to Rider, considering her schedule for a moment. "It seems I'll have many visits to make. What's your favorite flavor of cake? Mine is strawberry~" Peach remarked and went on to ask. In all honesty, she had a tough time improvising anything in cooking. She was not the type of woman that should be trusted to cook without a cookbook at the ready. After a moment's more consideration, however, she came to a realization. She had a brilliant idea! "...Oh--And Rider? If you have some time, how would you feel about coming with me to bake that cake? We could bring it to Amitie together!" Peach would finally offer.

[TheSpatialWeeg]

"Um...chocolate's my favorite, although strawberry is pretty good~" Rider replied, taking another sip of her tea. She soon set the cup down and stared at it, seeing as she had nothing to say...at least until Peach made a special offer. She was kind of taken aback by it. Peach, a princess, asking her to help with baking a cake for Amitie?! The smol girl was...surprised, to say the very least.

"U-u-umm...I...think I could help...? I-I mean, I kinda know what sweets she likes the m-most, but I can't bake..."

...That's what she says, at least.

[Mari]

Peach giggled a bit at Rider's response, but she seemed unfazed. "That's alright. I can teach you! I bet Amitie will be really impressed when you tell her you made your own cake. Maybe we can make a ...chocolate strawberry cake~! I'll have to see if there's a recipe in my mother's cookbook..." Peach replied, holding out one of her evening gloved hands in offering.

[TheSpatialWeeg]

The whole premise was pretty tempting for Rider. Baking a cake for her friend and not messing that up for once? It sounded great. The smol took Peach's offer, signalized by her holding Peach's hand in acceptance...though it was still covered in her sleeves. The grip felt...very soft.



"I...feel a bit more confident in doing this now..." Rider commented. "I still think I may mess up a bit, though...could you warn me if I do anything wrong, Ms. Peach...?" She asked, flashing a little smile at the princess.

[Mari]

Peach would quickly yet calmly nod in response to Rider's question, standing up and gently brushing off her dress to make sure all it's folds fell back into place before offering Rider her gloved hand. The soft fabric of her evening gloves was very thin and fitted to her body "Absolutely! I'll make sure we make a cake you can be proud of. I promise." Peach would softly reassure. "I have a secret path back to my castle we can take~ I think you'll like it." she went on to offer. It sounded like a long journey, but Peach was talking like her castle was just next door...

[TheSpatialWeeg]

Rider tilted her head a bit once she heard Peach talking about a 'secret path' to go to her castle. Granted, a secret path sounded nifty, but why would they take that instead of the normal route? Was the castle far from here? Needless to say, the little girl was a bit put off by the idea. Still, she didn't question it.

"O-okay. Lead the way, please!" Rider said, holding Peach's hand a bit tighter than before as she lifted herself up from the table. She seemed to take a moment to glance at her dress to see if it got got any accidental tea stains...did it...have any?

[Mari]

Peach hesitated a moment to inspect Rider's dress. Sure enough, there was a little tea stain on it. "Oh--...We can take care of that while we're visiting. Do you have a spare change of clothes..?" Peach would ask curiously. Being who she was, she obviously had something she could give Rider if she didn't. Peach then lead the much smoler girl to a rather cute hand painting of her castle. At first glance, it looked like any other painting. One could touch it and nothing would happen, jump into it and break it. But... It seemed to react to Peach's presence in particular, the colors smoothing and rippling like water as she reached out to place a hand upon it. "It's right through here~" Peach explained before gently guiding Rider into the painting portal.

...The moment they stepped through it would be like having a veil lifted before their eyes, before which was the foyer of Peach's Castle. The place was looking a bit cleaner than when the princess first reclaimed it, but there were still a lot of improvements needing to be made. The princess began leading Rider up the stairs on their trip to the kitchen. "Welcome to my castle! I hope it's not too dark."

[TheSpatialWeeg]

Oh? She actually had a tea stain on her dress? How embarrassing! "U-um...I don't have spare clothes...s-sorry..." Rider answered the question, hiding her face in shame for a brief moment. As they came across the painting, Rider tilted her head in curiosity as the princess did...something to it. As they went through the painting (which perplexed the smol), Rider would find herself onto the foyer of Peach's castle.  Needless to say, the little girl was surprised as to how they got there.

"H-Huh?! ...H-how did...that...--" Rider began to ask before noticing Peach going to the kitchen. She hurriedly followed her in order to not to lose her. As she did so, she looked around in order to take her new surroundings in. The castle...looked like it has seen better days, but it was impressive how the damage was...relatively minimal compared to the ravaged wastelands that existed.

[Mari]

Peach hesitated a moment, stopping to let Rider catch up with her and turning to address her. "I think I can find something for you to wear. All of the paintings in the castle are portals! You can see where they lead by looking at the picture. Unfortunately all of the kingdom's power stars that power them have been stolen, and I have the only one left. So when I'm not around to activate them, they don't work..." Peach lamented, taking a detour down to her room. She made a point not to rush so that Rider wouldn't have to either. "Someday I'll get some new paintings commissioned. I want to try making a painting of Sarasaland to see if it can take Daisy home." Peach explained idly as she lead Rider inside. She began searching through a chest near the balcony filled with clothes she had worn when she was younger. Unsurprisingly, they were all pink.

[TheSpatialWeeg]

Rider was going to interject on Peach just nonchalantly giving her a pair of new clothes, but ended up not doing so. “T-thank you again, M-ms. Peach…” she stuttered instead. She didn’t want to sound like she didn’t appreciate it, but the princess was doing a lot to someone she just happened to meet. Did she leave that strong an impression upon Peach…?

Regardless if she did or not, the smol girl followed Peach to the princess’ room after listening about how that magic painting worked. “That...sounds pretty nice.” she commented. “Are those power stars...recoverable at this point, though? It'd be a shame to lose those magic paintings forever..." 

[Mari]

Peach stopped what she was doing to address Rider's question. It was certainly a good one. She flashed back to the terrible fight they'd had to endure in Star Haven for a chance at saving the castle. ...Truly scary stuff. She hoped Rider would never have to face anything that awful... Peach moved over to Rider and gently slipped a pair of fingers under the neck of her blouse, fishing out a lovely necklace she was apparently wearing underneath it and taking it off before gently holding it out to Rider in offering. It had a star shaped pendant upon it's base and understandably smelled a bit like Peach's true-to-name perfume. "Here... Can you hold this for a moment, Ms. Rider~?" Peach requested, waiting for Rider to accept the necklace before gently tapping the pendant. A tiny burst of love magic sprung forth from her finger in the shape of a softly glowing pink heart and the pendant itself began to glow with a warm pink light.

A moment later a magical map of Li would be projected into the air by the pendant, not unlike a hologram. It was difficult to distinguish which landmasses were which as they were nothing more than green splotches of color, but at least a hundred little glowing twinkles of yellow light marked the locations of ... something. There were also a few weirdly colored marks and the map would begin slowly rotating to settle upon a tiny pink star on the map. "...The pink one is me~" Peach explained, gesturing to it helpfully. "Princess Daisy, Princess Rosalina and brought back these maps from Star Haven, a special place high in the sky where the stars live. The yellow ones mark here our missing stars are. All that's left is for us to go find them~!" Peach went on to explain as she returned to searching for some clothes for her guest. "One day we'll turn the castle into a place that brings hope to everyone on Li~ But it's going to take some time... We'll need at least ...30 of them before the castle starts to resemble its former self." Peach went on to explain, pulling out a lovely smaller princess dress and examining it. It was, of course, pink. After a moment, however, she would bathe it in a shower of sparkles that turned it a nice shade of green. She then held out the dress for Rider to see. "It's been a long time since I wore this. Ehehe~ Does it seem like something you might wear, Ms. Rider?" Peach asked.

[TheSpatialWeeg]

Rider looked at Peach's necklace in curiosity as the princess asked to hold it for her. Of course, the moment the map materialized, she looked at it in awe. Sure, the map itself didn't look anything special in itself, but...it came from a necklace, that was amazing! Peach soon began to explain how the map worked and how she got it. Huh, so they were recoverable after all!

"W...wow, there's a lot of power stars to recover..." Rider quietly commented. Then, her mind suddenly flashed back to Peach saying something about commissioning new paintings...and according to her, they'd need 30 stars to at least repair the castle...and there were apparently hundreds of those Power Stars...Could she make...

Could she make a painting that would allow her to travel back to Primp Town? The smol began to ponder about the possibility of that or asking Peach about making one of these so that she would return home, but...wouldn't that sound like taking advantage of Peach's good will? She...she didn't want to come across as selfish! Rider would soon be brought back to to the real world as Peach showed her the substitute clothing: a small princess dress. It looked just like Peach's, only green. 

"U-um, I...think so! I...never imagined I'd wear something like this, to be honest..." the smol girl said before extending her arms to Peach, sort of signalizing for her that she could give Rider the dress so she could change. After a brief moment, however, she decided to go through with the question. "...Ms. Peach...I...I don't want to sound selfish, but...i-is it possible to create a painting to Primp Town? ...M-my homeland, if you're curious..."

[Mari]

Princess Peach gently folded and handed Rider the dress, only to find herself face to face with a rather worrying question. Normally she wouldn't find this cause for concern. It was an easy question with an easy answer. However, there was some...nuance here that might be missed at first glance. It occurred to her that when she'd arrived back at her own world here on Li, it had been destroyed. If Rider went back to hers... what was stopping her from experiencing the same pain Peach had gone through upon arrival back at the kingdom? For a rather long moment Peach considered her answer, unsure how to approach the topic. "...That's alright. Any question that comes the heart cannot be that selfish." Peach reassured the smaller girl. "It might be hard to find someone who can make a painting of that, unless you know anyone. But I'd be glad to pay for its creation. Just... promise me that you'll let me come with you when we test to make sure it works, okay?" Peach would go on to explain and request. If Primp Town was on Li, there was a good chance it hadn't aged well. If it wasn't, who knew what her portal would do? Peach had never really thought of Li as a separate world, as she'd never passed through a portal to get here. The idea of escaping was a new one to her.

[TheSpatialWeeg]

Rider picked up the princess dress as Peach began to answer her question. Oh...so she had to find someone who could paint Primp Town...She imagined one of those drawings made by her friends wouldn't work. Regardless of this, Peach said she'd pay for it assuming Rider ever found someone who would paint her a Primp Town painting. The princess would soon ask Rider to promise bringing her to the painting for a test once (or rather, if) the painting would be created. "...This is the minimum I can do for you...after seeing what you're doing for me...I promise I'll call you." Rider reassured.

The smol looked at the dress before acknowledging a closet right next to them. Huh, there was a place to change clothes and she didn't even notice. Guess her mind was too filled up with other things on her mind..."...I'll try out the dress. Be back soon...!" Rider said to Peach before going in the closet, doing the necessary precautions as to avoid any prying eyes...if there was any.

Soon enough, Rider would pop out of the closet, wearing the princess dress Peach gave her. Judging by how she was blushing, she seemed a tad embarrassed to show up like this. The dress fit the bab perfectly, and since there was no large sleeves to cover the girl's arms, Peach was greeted a pair of soft little hands instead. "U-um...how do I look, M-ms. Peach?" Rider asked, turning around for her to see multiple angles so that could help her verdict.

[Mari]

Peach thanked Rider with her eyes when the other made her a promise. She was a good girl. Her teacher and this Amitie fellow must be a good crowd. Peach's half circle walk-in closet wasn't very big, being filled with spare dresses for the most part, and it didn't really have doors at either of the two exits. It did, however, have a little curtain that could be pulled closed. Thankfully, no one was creeping in the area. Not even any big bad koopas. As much as Peach wondered whether Rider would be able to get the dress all zipped up without any aid, she obviously knew better than to follow Rider in there. As much as this was her own private room, Rider needed a bit of privacy herself. When she returned Rider would be greeted by a playful gasp of surprise and a giggle on Peach's part. "Oh~! You look positively lovely, Ms. Rider. Like a real princess~ Just like I did when I was your age!" Peach replied somewhat lightheartedly, crouching down to get a better look at the smaller girl. "With some gloves and earrings, I wouldn't be able to tell us apart~!" Peach went on to joke, deliberately ignoring things like Rider's horns and hair color. "More importantly though, how do you feel..?" the princess finished by asking. She was a bit curious as to whether Rider preferred those long sleeves, especially with such cute, seemingly normal hands!