1 - Adrenaline

"Ready, Marco?" Star asked excitedly.

Marco turned to his best friend. Her blue eyes were wide, the pink hearts on her cheeks practically glowing. In the moonlight, her long blonde hair seemed almost sparkly. She adjusted her red, demon-horn headband, then faced front once more, gripping the metal bar of the roller coaster cart in front of her.

Star, being from Mewni, a magical kingdom in another dimension, had never been to an Earth carnival before. Marco was appalled; so, of course, when a travelling fair came to town, Star begged him to take her, and he instantly agreed.

However, he had forgotten that Star was Star. The moment they had arrived at the carnival, as the sun slipped below the horizon, Star laid eyes on the biggest roller coaster they had- Demon's Falls.

Marco had never been much of a roller coaster person. After all, he was known as the "safe kid" at school for a reason. Star was his polar opposite- anything crazy, daring, and completely insane was right up her alley.

Somehow, Star had convinced Marco to go on the roller coaster with her. Star had claimed the cart in the very front of the ride (of course), and after she and Marco sat down in the cart and fastened their seatbelts, a feeling of dread grew in Marco's stomach.

"Marco, Marco, it's starting!" Star squealed.

Marco gulped, gripping the handlebar built into the cart. He was absolutely terrified.

The roller coaster began to move across the metal tracks agonizingly slow. He could hear the click-click of every gear as the wheels of the coaster chugged forward.

Marco was thrown back in his seat as they began to crawl up a very steep incline- so steep, it was almost vertical. He clenched his fists tighter on the handlebar.

"Ah," Star sighed, sounding perfectly relaxed. Marco glanced over at her. She had taken her hands off the handlebar, tucked them behind her head, and was leaning back in her seat, eyes closed. She looked perfectly content.

"Star- are you serious?" Marco choked out. "We- We're going to be falling to our doom-"

"Our doom, Marco?" Star snorted in laughter. "You're always so dramatic. This will be fun!" Her eyes snapped open and she turned sideways in her seat to face him. His face was pale and nervous.

Star rolled her eyes. "You see, Marco, this is why you're the "safe kid." If you can't even handle a roller coaster-"

"I can handle it," Marco scoffed, insulted. "This is going to be a piece of cake."

"Oh yeah?" Star challenged, raising her eyebrow. "Then why are you still holding onto that handle like it's your lifeline or something?"

"Because it is my lifeli-" Marco started to protest, but stopped immediately. Star was right- he did act like a wimp sometimes.

"I can do this," Marco breathed, partly to Star, partly to himself. He forced his fists to unclench, slowly letting go of the handlebar.

"See?" he said to Star, hands trembling slightly. "I'm doing it!"

But Star was facing front again. "It's happening, Marco!" she cheered.

In dismay, Marco realized that she was right. They had reached the top of the roller coaster's metallic hill.

The coaster stopped moving for a moment… just long enough for Marco to get a look at the drop before him. He gulped audibly, doing everything in his power not to hurl up the cotton candy he and Star had eaten as dinner.

And then they began to fall.

The coaster plunged downwards, Marco's stomach dropping into his toes. He squeezed his eyes shut as wind ruffled his brown hair.

He could hear Star whooping and shouting in pure joy to his left. He envied the way she could actually enjoy the ride, instead of being utterly terrified.

Finally, after an immeasurably long amount of time (at least, it felt that way), the roller coaster slowed to a stop.

Marco cracked open his brown eyes, just to make sure they were safely on the ground, adrenaline still pumping through his veins. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the worker managing the coaster waving them off the ride.

Marco and Star unbuckled their seatbelts and stepped off the coaster. It took everything in his power for Marco to stop himself from jumping up and down in relief when his sneakers hit the cool, dew-soaked grass.

"Wasn't that so much fun?" Star gushed.

"Uh… yeah," Marco tried weakly. "So fun."

"Ooh, Marco, look!" Star tugged on the sleeve of his red hoodie. "It's a picture booth, Marco, a Demon's Falls picture booth! I bet they took pictures of us as the roller coaster was falling! Come on, let's go see!"

She dragged Marco to the small, wooden stand in front of them. They walked up to the counter of the small booth. A woman was sitting on a chair inside the place, a computer in front of her.

"Can we look at our pictures from the roller coaster, please?" Star asked politely.

"Sure," the woman answered, sounding bored. "What cart number were you?"

"One," Star responded eagerly.

The woman typed something into her keyboard, then swiveled the computer monitor around so that Star and Marco could see the image on the screen.

Marco cringed as he looked at the picture. It was a photo of him and Star, sitting side by side in the cart. Star's arms were up in the air, her blue eyes shining. She was beaming, her blonde locks flying up in the air behind her.

Marco, on the other hand, had his eyes tightly closed. His face was tinged with green, his mouth twisted into a sort of frightened grimace. He had fisted his hands in his hair, due to the fact that Star had made him take his hands off the handlebar right before he dropped, and, all in all, he looked absolutely awful.

Star burst out laughing as she looked at the picture.

"We'll take it!" she blurted to the woman.

Marco groaned inwardly. Star would never let him hear the end of it. Knowing her, she would probably hang the picture up on their fridge, where he would be forced to look at it multiple times a day, just to torture him.

"Five bucks," the woman told star.

Sighing, Marco dug the cash out of his back pocket and handed it to the woman. She pressed something on her keyboard. There was the faint sound of a printer running inside the booth. The woman reached down to somewhere out of eyeshot and returned holding a printed copy of the photo.

"Here you go," she said, handing the picture to Star.

"Thanks!" Star said brightly, skipping away. Marco had to practically jog to keep up with her.

"Marco," Star giggled as they walked away from the booth.

"Not a word, Star," Marco warned her. However, he couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face. "We both know that picture was awful."

Star snickered at that. "Too bad you don't get a do-over," she sing-songed.

Actually…

"You know what?" Marco said, stopping in his tracks. He grabbed hold of Star's empty hand, the one that wasn't holding the dreaded picture. "A do-over is a great idea, Star."

"Wait… seriously?" Star blinked. "You'd do the roller coaster again?"

"Why not?" Marco replied. Now that he thought about it, it really hadn't been that bad. He began to lead Star back towards the Demon's Falls.

Star couldn't help but grin. She would do the coaster a hundred times in a row, if she could. Who knew that Earth carnivals could be so fun?

Marco grinned as well. Maybe it was just the leftover adrenaline talking, but he was excited. This time, both Star and Marco would look great in the picture- Marco would make sure of it.