A Sneaky Present

Peach wasn't dumb...., gullible but not the air headed blonde some people thought she was. But she had a weakness the big monster King had abused time and time again, to the point he was some what impressed he kept getting away with it, even though it shouldn't work.

The princess was just the biggest sucker for gifts.

"Alright..., here's what we do Kamek." Bowser growled, not noticing the small amount of light coming from the book and the low volume giggles coming from it.

"Princess Peach! We got this in the mail for you!"
Peach looked up from her tea before gesturing the Toads to walk closer. Good servants but far too panicky and prone to needing orders. The mushroom people were extremely kind though so she didn't mind the extra attention they needed some days. The pair walked over with one carrying a pink box with a white ribbon. It was a rather small box too, barely taking up any room on the table they put it on.

"Oh... what's this?" Peach asked, looking the gift over.

"We don't know!" One of the toads exclaimed, "But it was addressed to you so we thought we'd better come and show it to you."

"It came with this too!" The other toad spoke up, wearing a far more work related outfit than his fellow. A light blue uniform with a small cap on top of his shroom head. A post master or mailman Peach thought as she picked up the card he was offering to her.

"A thank you gift for the best princess ever, as a way of saying thanks for all your hard work, and your new public library. Signed an Admirer." Peach read aloud as she put the card down.

"HRMPH. Sounds like a trick." Toadsworth muttered as he took a sip from his own cup. Peach brushed him off as she opened the box.

"If it is...., Bowser is slipping." The princess said as she pulled out a green tome, "Normally he wouldn't send something like this..., it would have just turned to smoke or blinded me...., or tied me up. Hmmm...." Peach voiced her thoughts as she looked over the tome a bit before slowly cracking it open. She turned a couple pages before turning back to the start.

"Most of the pages are empty... a Journal of some kind? Or maybe some sort of bibliography?"

"What makes you say that princess?" Toadsworth asked before Peach passed the book to him.

The elder toad cleaned his glasses a bit before taking a closer look at the gift. There were only three pages that had writing; something about three women or lasses from another time and place by the looks of their written stories. Sweet looking lasses too, but it was strange to see wholesome looking girls in a book that had a padlock on it.

He was quite certain it was a trap, even still. Or at the very least some sort of prank or perhaps even... lewd material to shock the Princess. Or make fun of her when the library was operating. Some little toad finding a foul book like that would have a been such a PR nightmare. This just seemed like a harmless book to him, though too many things had been seen as friendly gifts only to bite them in the butt later.

What he, and the Princess didn't know was that the tome, and the imps inside, had sensed the type of 'owner' they were going to be given to. And being rather sly, the trio had disguised the entries and pictures to be a bit more... wholesome. Gone were the more... provocative poses and description and in their place were more 'accepted' stories. At least for now.

"Perhaps I should research this more before putting it in the library. Or perhaps ask Daisy and Rosalina about it during our next meeting." Peach said as she took a sip of her cup.

"Throw it out I say." Toadsworth muttered as he put the book to the side, "I don't trust it."

"Toadsworth you don't trust the flour I used to make a cake two days ago." Peach answered with a sigh.

Toadsworth was only doing what he thought was best but overprotective and too careful were..., lesser words to describe the Toad. She reached over and picked up the book before rising from her seat, straightening her dress a bit.

"Let me just take a look at some of our records, see if I can't place where this book is from first. If there's anything wrong, I'll call Mario to take care of it." Peach said as she walked away.

None in the room noting the small simmer over the book's cover.