Author's Note: TreesofPaper here. It's been a while since I've written anything that wasn't an essay on some dead dudes and the wars they fought. But I'm back! Just recently got into Star vs. the Forces of Evil, so make sure to correct me if you find absolutely anything that contradicts the canon. I'm serious, be as nitpicky as you can. Rated T for possible language later on and the fairly serious overall theme. Some notes at the bottom, too.Story time.
Warm light, like like orange curtains, slanted over the mountains of Mewni onto the field. Nearly sundown, the far canopies of the forests were already shrouded in a deep violet. Star and Marco waited on the wall, braving the chill breeze, along with ten other men and the king. On the grass field, just past the shiny-gunk moat, lay four animal cages. Each varied in size according to the monster contained inside; some small enough for a child, one or two as wide as Marco's living room.
One prisoner was brought out of his cell by four guards, almost amused. He seemed to be part snake, part starved man, with milky eyes and missing fangs. Not used to walking after so long in a cage, he stumbled slightly on his way to the button. Once, he might have been proud, and strong, and whole. Now he was a shell.
"For goodness' sake, Ser Damen, it's almost moonrise! The monsters should be dead already!" called out the king. A few of the guards by him chuckled quietly. Star and Marco remained silent.
"Sorry, sir!" cried the leader of the group, and prodded the snake man forward with his pike. He was a gruff man, with a misshapen beard and grave lips that he always seemed to suck in at odd guards flanked the prisoner silently, and another stayed at his back with a dog. After 30 or so meters, without warning, the group paused and stumbled somewhat. The prisoner had encountered a puddle, left over from the august rain last night, and attempted to navigate around it. This caused some confusion among the guards to the left and right, and each pushed the prisoner in the opposite direction simultaneously, causing both to fall over and the prisoner to slosh in the puddle. The dog at the back bounced with his tail wagging a hurricane, yipping madly. Out of context, the scene was somewhat comical. The leader cuffed all three over the head, reminding Marco of the 1930's slapstick comedy shows his mom loved to watch for some reason.
And wordlessly, Star and Marco turned to face each other with a knowing look turned grim, and understood that just up until now, neither of them had ever realized the gravity of what was about to happen, what it meant to destroy a living being. Here was a prisoner, not dying, but living as any one of them. They understood the maddening wrongness of cutting a life short, monster- enemy- though it may be. His heart still beat and his eyes still wept and his brains still remembered and reasoned- reasoned about such things as puddles. Even now, minutes from death, he still maintained that livingbeing instinct of self-preservation. Star and Marco looked down as one of the monsters in the cages began weeping and calling his friend's name in desperation, less than 20 meters from death. Its calling and the dog's playful barking and the snake man's sloshing drove home the distinction between life and death.
Star thought back to only an hour ago, when she'd been sent by her mother, the queen, to personally deliver a small bag of black marbles to her father. The queen had faced her daughter squarely, chin firm and eyes trembling. When you get these to your father, he will tell you to stay and watch. Know that we do this for your own good, and do not think less of us. Star had raised a finger to question just what exactly was going on, and was interrupted by: Quickly! Before sundown! Go to the north wall cannons. Say no more. The queen had left in a hurry, muttering something about how the daisies needed watering. The queen didn't have daisies.
When she'd gotten to the wall, and saw the cages, she'd frozen. The king had strode over to her and took hold of her wrist, leading her and Marco to the parapets just by the cannons. Place a nightblossom in each cannon, he'd commanded. As they loaded the small black marbles, the king explained. We haven't had a siege since my father's time, nor have we had one that lasted more than a month since his father. The citizens are starting to starve, and my spies tell me there is talk of rebellion. The king sighed, suddenly a hundred years older and sadder. I regret that this must be done at your young age, but you may face such difficult things when you are queen. War, and all its atrocities, is something you must deal with now.
Dad, what are you talking about?
I've seen you fight, my dear, and you are brilliant. Better than myself at your age, I must admit. The king chuckled sadly, face twisted. But you are too pure, too innocent to take a life. Your care for all life, beautiful and noble as it is, leaves you vulnerable as a monarch. I must teach you what death means.
I… I can't… Dad, how can you...Star had tried to run at this point, visibly shaken, but two burly guards clad in mithril and steel blocked her escape. Dad?
You must understand, doing this now as a lesson will be better than doing it later as a necessity. Lives will be saved in your reign, but only if you learn today how to deal with an enemy who will not deal with you. The last resort. The king's voice had broken slightly. He was about to corrupt his own daughter, to put so much blood on her hands. The things we do for love, he'd whispered to himself. Toffee's scouts will be executed at your word. Many of his men stand at the treeline- he pointed, and Star saw shadows shifting in the bushes- and are watching you. You cannot falter, or they will be emboldened, and their attacks renewed. We must end this war quickly. Make an example of them.
You cannot falter. Only the wind whispered now, as the snake man was marched to the button, which would trigger a fuse, which would light the cannons, which would ensure his doom, and his brothers' in the cages. Marco's grip on his partner's hand was tight and urgent. He tried to read Star's normally-cheery blank face, to no avail. He looked on with the rest.
The button itself was simple. Black and round, it was stood upon a small iron pole, connected to a cord leading across the drawbridge to the parapets. The button would not kill anyone, though the snake man regarded it with the same fear a deer might a lion. No, what would kill them would be the nightblossoms. Magically engineered in the depths of the castle's magus lair, once activated, the nightblossoms would detonate. In analogy, it could be compared to a firework frozen mid-boom. It's white light would blare with the brilliance of a sun, and would burn anything not mewman within a half kilometer radius to a crisp. It lasted for 12 hours, and was advertised to be great for weddings and bar mitzvahs.
It was time. The sun had bid goodbye, leaving Mewni's two gargantuan moons to reign over the deep purple skies. Star and Marco could just make out several sets of glowing eyes at the treeline, as the king had said, watching their every move, piercing through their bones. The snake man's cuffs had been undone, and he stood placidly with his hand hovering over the button, numb to the cries of his imprisoned brethren.
The king turned away, facing his daughter as calmly as if they were eating breakfast."Give the command, Star." Indeed, the girl's legs were wobbly sausages, her mind scrambled eggs, her movements syrupy and slow. She felt something faint in her hand, possibly Marco's own, it was unimportant. You cannot falter. Star looked back at the empty streets of Mewni's slums, and thought of the children who must already be starving after so many weeks without supplies from the surrounding farms and kingdoms. She turned again to the snake man, still living, still breathing, still awaiting her word.
She whispered it at first- "fire"- then screamed it with a broken voice, for friend and foe and Toffee and Dad and Marco and Star and all to hear as clear as crystal.
Several things happened at once when she screamed "FIRE!". As her call reverberated through the air, Marco's grip tightened to a vise, nearly crushing Star's hand and making her wince. The snake man roared and furiously slammed the button down, generating a metallic bell sound that reverberated over the moatwater. And the sun returned. 12 of them, in fact. 12 nightblossoms hovered in midair, illuminating the night sky as stadium lights in the dark ages. In an instant, half a kilometer of grass under each blossom was warmed to a crispy brown, and the edges of the moatwater began to evaporate away as smoke. Through his fingers, Marco could just discern three black spots by the bank, the final graves of the caged monsters. The snake man was no more but a pile of ash at the guards' feet, together with the dog. It was night, yet it was day.
Only silence remained. The drawbridge was lowered and the gates were raised and the guards were let in, with much heavy meaningless clanging. The charred stains of what were once the living stayed in the field, Star's forced personal demonstrations to Toffee that Mewni was not to be trifled with. Then, a wave of chuckling swept the guards, as a sort of relief, a breath held too long finally released. Soon, all but Marco, Star, and the king were chattering and mingling merrily.
Under all the chatter, Star heard her father's hushed aside. His face was grave, yet full of remorse. "Know that I love you and do this only to prepare you. There are storms coming, coming soon. Not only must we deal with Toffee's siege, but unrest from our own people. If we are not to be destroyed from all sides, we must take any and all measures we can to become stronger. We cannot falter, Star. For our people, we must not falter."
Star's dimensional scissors tore a smooth rift in time and space, and she stepped through wordlessly. Marco looked back and forth between the despondent monarch, suddenly a hundred years older and sadder, and his best friend's back, illuminated now by the off-green void of the portal, as if to fix a lifelong argument with merely his gaze, to brush away lives lost with frantic hand gestures. He shut his mouth and followed Star into the hole between worlds.
Interlude 1
Where nothing existed, a figure in a robe winced. "Love, it begins." His raven-black cloth moved over the void like water. All of reality echoed around them.
Another figure in another robe smirked. "I know. I feel it. The fabric is getting weaker again." She effortlessly flexed a part of her brain, and before the two appeared a sort of screen, first rising from the floor- or at least what could pass for a floor if the space in which they stood was finite- as small white orb, then spreading its tentacles of light to form a square. The two stood together, quietly watching the children pass from the void to the street outside the boy's house.
"Take care, they may be able to hear us when they use the scissors.", one warned the other wordlessly. Both faces were lit wonderfully by the screen. Both were in silhouette, occasionally lit from any direction by random pulses of subdued neon light.
"It doesn't matter, love, they've left." the first figure sighed in his mind. "They are young. Are we sure they're ready?"
"They have to be." The screen shrank to a small white orb once more, and fell into the second figure's hands, over which, the first figure placed his. The dancing dark and light of the void swallowed them, and they became everything and nothing once more.
Author's Note: A review would be much appreciated, much more than a favorite or follow. It helps me understand my audience better, and polish my writing further.
SERIOUSLY REVIEW PLS In other news, I'd like to cite George Orwell's "AHanging" and Julian Gough's "End Poem" as some big inspiration for this chapter. You too, . This is TreesofPaper, living life for the next chapter. (that's right i'm still using that i know it's corny fight me RWBY fans)