For a long time, Eclipsa and Lyros stared at each other. Lyros, on his knees, staring in horror at Eclipsa; Eclipsa, her hands clasped over her mouth, staring at the father of a young boy she murdered.

There were alarms sounding out in the distance, but Eclipsa's spell had flung them over the top of a large cliff; it would take a long time for anyone to navigate around the cliff to their position.

Star shook in her seat, unsettled by the scene.

Eventually, Eclipsa lowered her hands.

"I..." Eclipsa looked around helplessly. "This is…" She shook her head.

"I'm sorry.

I know this is meaningless to you. I know that no words or deeds I could perform could possibly even begin to make up for what I've done to you. Even telling you that I regret what I did feels insensitive, like I'm putting my need to be absolved for what I did ahead of your grief. But I am sorry."

Lyros continued to stare at her, his expression hollow. Eventually, he spoke: "...Why?"

Eclipsa adjusted herself uncomfortably. "Because I murdered your child. That's irredeemable."

Lyros slowly shook his head. "No. I mean… Why did you kill him?"

Eclipsa made a broken gasping noise, barely keeping her composure together. "There is no reason."

"There has to be!" Lyros shouted, his voice faintly echoing in the woods. "You don't… He was just a child! You were just a child! Children don't kill each other for no reason!"

Eclipsa shook her head. "I don't know what you're expecting me to say. There's no possible reason I could give you that would undo or justify what I did." She looked at the ground, and continued, "I was taught that all Monsters were evil, and that they deserved to die. I realized too late how awful that was, and how much harm it had caused, long after I killed your son." She looked grimly at Lyros. "You see the problem? In saying that, I'm shifting blame away from myself. Trying to make it seem like I wasn't really at fault. I killed your son. I did it with hatred in my heart. That's all there is to it. Anything else is an obfuscation of the truth."

They both stared at each other, once again with neither of them speaking.

"So is that what this is about?" Lyros asked, growling as he said it. "You've come to finish the job then?"

Eclipsa shook her head. "I didn't know you were the Mon―person the Queen locked up. I knew only that you were innocent and that you didn't deserve to die."

Lyros narrowed his eyes. "Really."

Eclipsa looked up at the moon, and stared at it. "Get it over with."

"What?"

Eclipsa dropped her Wand and the Mirror on the ground, and folded her arms behind herself, still staring up at the moon. "There's no enchantments on my body, no spells protecting me. Your claws are for more than decoration, right? The guards are at least ten minutes out from catching up with us. You'd have more than enough time to run away."

Lyros stared at her, his eyes bulging.

"I won't fight back."

Star gasped, realizing what Eclipsa was offering. "Wait a second," she whispered. "She definitely lives past this, right? She hasn't finished her journal yet."

Lyros approached Eclipsa, holding his clawed fists near her throat. "How did my son die?" He asked, quietly.

Eclipsa closed her eyes. "We beat him to death, using branches of wood."

He leaned in close. "Did he suffer?"

Eclipsa's composure broke, as she let out a choked sob: "Yes. He did."

Lyro's face contorted with agony, and his body shook as he stood there, his claws centimeters from Eclipsa's neck.

Then, he choked out a sob.

And collapsed onto the ground in front of Eclipsa, openly weeping.

Eclipsa opened her eyes, and looked down at him. Then, she knelt down in front of him, her face wracked with guilt.

Lyros looked at her for a moment, then continued to sob.

Eclipsa picked her wand and mirror up off the ground. "Well, if that's how it is, then… My original plan was to take you to your Ex's place..." Her voice trailed off, clearly realizing that that would have to be the mother of the Monster she killed, "… Obviously, if you want nothing more to do with me… Well, that's understandable. So… What do you want me to do?"

Lyros shook his head, his sobs quieting. "I don't know," he said, his voice faint and tortured. "I feel like seeing you… It's like losing my son all over again."

Eclipsa grimaced and turned her head away.

"I thought about it, long before today. What I would do if I ever met you. I plotted to wait for you to have children. How I would take my revenge against them. I wanted to make you suffer, the way I had. I still do."

Eclipsa took in a deep breath.

"I'm pathetic, aren't I? Given a golden opportunity to take my revenge, and I can't do it."

Eclipsa furrowed her brow. "I wouldn't know that. The only thing I do know is that of the two of us, you're the only one who refused to kill someone who wasn't fighting back." She looked back at the moon again. "There's a lot of things you could call that. Honorable. Moral. Dignified. Better than me. But I definitely wouldn't call it pathetic."

Lyros stared at the ground.

Eclipsa glanced at the torches, faintly visible in the distance, of guards preparing to ascend the cliff. "You need to get going. I don't want to have to break you out a second time." Eclipsa stood up, and began to walk away from him.

"HOLD UP!" He bellowed.

Eclipsa turned around.

Lyros stood up. "You told me you were going to escort me. That was your plan, right?"

Eclipsa and Lyros walked briskly through the forest. Eclipsa kept her distance to the side and slightly behind of him, apparently not wanting to cause him any further pain. "Is it okay for me to ask you a question?" she asked, quietly.

"What?" Lyros said, somewhat curtly.

Eclipsa tugged at her fingers. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but… How were you captured?"

Lyros continued trudging forwards, and for a while, it seemed like he was ignoring Eclipsa's question. "Why does it matter?"

Eclipsa folded her arms. "The people who captured you… I'm not sure whether they genuinely think that you abused those kids, or whether they just planned to use you as a scapegoat, but either way, they're part of a terrible Conspiracy taking place within my kingdom. I already know who abused those kids. I caught them myself. And then, because of corruption in the Mewnie Judiciary, they were found Not Guilty and set loose. You were the endgame of that plan: you would be executed, made out to be the true perpetrator of those crimes, and the Kingdom would officially close the case, leaving the victims to continue to suffer. It's all pretty easy to understand." She narrowed her eyes. "What I don't understand is why it was you. Did they arrest you in your home?"

"No. There's a river near the outer border of this province. It's the closest source of freshwater to my home, I use it to refill my canteens on a regular basis." He growled quietly. "Mewmans usually just ignore me if they see me, but this time, it was a group of Mewmans that were doing the same for their village. When they saw me, they ran screaming for a guard, and right before I left, I was arrested for disturbing the peace. The Mewman police were about to release me, after I explained what I was doing, when an emissary from the Castle showed up, accused me of abusing multiple children inside the palace, and I was transported to the village we just left."

Eclipsa looked guilty again. "That river: there's a Private Mewman School about a kilometer north of the border, correct?"

"That's right. It was around there that you..." His voice trailed off. "Normally, I get water from much further south, away from the border, but there was a mudslide this week, and I had to go further North for water than usual."

Eclipsa spoke quietly, possibly too quietly for Lyros to hear her: "it rained for a whole week before that day, 5 years ago."

"What?"

Eclipsa didn't acknowledge that he'd said that. "So you being the one they arrested was, as far as you can tell, pure coincidence?"

Lyros stopped in place. "It's not exactly a coincidence for a Monster to get arrested for trying to gather water, now is it?" He growled.

"I..." Eclipsa visibly swallowed. "I'm sorry, I meant as opposed to any other Monster. I already know they almost certainly profiled against Mewmans in favor of bringing in a Monster."

Lyros began walking again. "I suppose."

Their walk took almost half an hour, with little further conversation between them. Star and Marco ended up just watching the two of them walk for a long while, both of them trying to process what was happening.

Star got up from the floor. "Mirror, could you show me where my bed is? Keep the scene going, but light up my bed or something."

Her bed became visible, though it shimmered and was somewhat translucent. Star walked over to her bed and laid on it, facing upwards at the sky being rendered by the scene.

"What's up?" Marco asked.

"I just need a little while to lie down."

Star had a concern, one which had been lingering in the back of her mind ever since she talked to her mother about Eclipsa, and which was now being brought to the fore with Eclipsa talking about the Conspiracy in Mewnie during her time.

A lot of people were involved.

Eclipsa's mother.

The entire Mewnie Artificer's Guild.

Important members of the Mewnie Judiciary.

Based on the stuff with Lyros, a number of members of the Mewnie Royal Guard.

And countless other people.

This stuff all happened more than a century ago. Surely all of it was over, and it wasn't stuff she had to worry about anymore, or ever in the future right?

… So how did she learn about the Mirror in the first place?

Marco had asked her that question weeks ago. And even now, she still didn't have an answer to that question.

Wait.

"Mirror," Star said suddenly, "how did I first learn about you?"

The message appeared in front of her face. "THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS DEVICE WAS IMPLANTED INTO YOUR HEAD VIA ASTRAL PROJECTION. THIS DEVICE IS UNABLE TO ANALYZE THE SOURCE OF THIS ACT OF ASTRAL PROJECTION, DUE TO CORRUPTION IN THE DATA."

"What did it say?" Marco couldn't see the text from where he was sitting.

Star narrowed her eyes. "Astral Projection. So basically someone―and how much do you want to bet it was one of the surviving Artificers―found a way to astrally project the knowledge into my head." She groaned. "That's what all this is. We're the culmination of this awful conspiracy."

Marco raised an eyebrow. "Wait, aren't all the Artificers supposed to be in Mewnie? How would they have Astrally Projected all the way to Earth?"

"I mean, we're hardly the only people to use Dimensional Scissors..." Star's voice trailed off.

Didn't Janna say something before?

About a cave on Earth?

What if...?

Star suddenly heard Lyros speak: "There it is."

Star sighed, rolled off her bed, and looked up at what was unfolding.

A thatch hut jutted out of the side of a hill. Candle-light was visible from outside.

Eclipsa consulted the mirror briefly. "We should be well outside the legal borders of my kingdom. Not that…" She averted her gaze. "I'm not pressed for time right now, but if you don't need me for anything else..."

Lyros held up one of his fists. "Wait here for awhile." He walked up to the hut, and rapped on the door, while Eclipsa leaned against a tree, barely visible from his position.

The Monster that answered the door was clearly the same species as Lyros, but she was different in notable ways. Her claws were longer than Lyros', but also thinner. Her skin was a different color, and she stood a fair ways taller than Lyros. Her face conveyed substantial shock. "Lyros. Why… What are you doing here?"

Lyros looked to the side. "These definitely aren't the circumstances I wanted to see you again under, but..." He looked directly at her. "Rina. I'm a fugitive, and I don't really have anywhere else to go."

Rina brought a claw to her mouth. "I..." She looked up, and saw the outline of Eclipsa against the tree. "Who's that?"

Lyros gulped. "She's not here to hurt us. She saved my life."

Rina stared at him. "Why would she be here to hurt us?"

"Because… God, how do I explain this..."

Eclipsa approached them, her face, looking somber, was now illuminated by the light from within the hut.

Rina gasped. "You…!"

"She's Princess Eclipsa."

There was a brief moment where they stared at each other. A second later, Rina bared her teeth, snarled, and leapt at Eclipsa, forcing her down into the dirt.

Eclipsa's facial expression didn't change, and she didn't fight back.

"You murderer!" Rina yelled out, her claws centimeters from Eclipsa's neck, much like Lyros had done earlier.

"Yes. I am." Eclipsa didn't change her expression.

Changing tack, however, Rina retracted her claws. "Lyros. Why. In the hell. Would you bring her here?"

Lyros glanced to the side. "Because I couldn't bring myself to kill her. Even after what she did to us, I… I couldn't."

Rina let out a dry chuckle. "So you were going to make me do it instead."

Lyros shuffled uncomfortably.

"Of course."

Eclipsa closed her eyes. "I'm not going to stop you. You have every right."

Rina scowled. "We actually have no rights, as far as you're concerned."

Eclipsa didn't say anything.

"Lyros said that you saved his life. Why? Is this some kind of cosmic joke?"

Eclipsa opened her eyes. "It's certainly not a funny joke. It's actually quite terrible, one where hundreds, possibly even thousands of innocent children have been brutalized, one of which by my own hands. I think saving your husband, and meeting you now, is the punchline: I've spent the last half a year trying to prevent those abuses, but now, my own sins have caught up with me, and I'll die here, having accomplished nothing." She paused briefly. "It's actually a very well structured joke, even if it's not funny at all."

"You didn't answer my question."

Eclipsa glanced at Lyros. "He was accused of a crime he didn't commit, one which my mother was going to have him executed over. He would have taken the fall for the real perpetrators, whom I've been trying to bring to justice. I decided to save his life, both because I'm trying to reduce the innocent bloodshed in the world, and in the hopes that learning about why he got arrested might give me a better picture of who my enemies are. And it certainly has: I bet those Guards didn't even take those kids to the hospital."

Rina stared at Eclipsa, then slowly lifted herself off of Eclipsa. "Well, you're in luck. Because I can't kill you either."

Eclipsa sat up. "You certainly could."

Rina glared at you. "I mean I won't. Unlike you, I don't kill people who aren't fighting back."

Eclipsa folded her arms around her knees. "That makes something you and your ex0husband have in common."

Rina snorted, then looked at Lyros. "Alright. You should get inside. Do we trust that she's not going to rat us out?"

Lyros looked at Eclipsa. "Like we said, I was already arrested and jailed before she broke me out. Any motivation she has against us couldn't have led to this moment."

"I suppose."

Lyros walked into the hut.

"Well?!"

Eclipsa looked up at Rina, who was standing at the door, holding it open.

"Are you just going to sit there?"

Eclipsa hugged her knees. "I'm mostly just trying to work out which sick god decided I deserved to live. After what I've done."

Rina sighed, then whispered something unintelligible to herself. She then stared at Eclipsa for a few more moments. Eventually, she sighed again. "Would you like some tea?"

Eclipsa blinked at her. "What?"

"I'm rescinding the offer if you don't get up now."

"I might be an idiot," Rina began, "for doing this. Inviting a murderer into my home. But you did save Lyro's life, and you didn't have to." She set the cup down in front of Eclipsa. "Whatever else you are, both intrinsically, and towards us, I can't overlook that. I have principles, and if I don't uphold those principles, then I'd be as bad as you."

Eclipsa nodded, and sipped the tea quietly. "This is good."

Rina looked at her for a few moments, then walked to serve tea to Lyros, who was sitting in a different room.

When she returned, Eclipsa set the tea down. "Your name is Rina, right?"

"Yes."

"I have no right to ask this of you."

"What?" She asked, curtly.

"Could you tell me about your son?"

Rina's eyes widened to the point of bulging.

"I knew nothing about him, not even his name. The Mewman agents who covered the incident didn't report on who he was, and the reporters didn't bother either."

Rina set the tea pot down, and walked off. Once again, it wasn't clear whether she was ignoring Eclipsa or not, until she emerged into the room again, holding a binder.

"His name was Minos."

She slapped the binder down, hard, on the table in front of Eclipsa, and walked over to a tub in the corner of the room, and began cleaning dishes.

Eclipsa opened up the binder, and started at the beginning. A young Monster, resembling its parents, but without any of the claws or distinctive teeth.

Eclipsa blinked at the first picture: "It's a Girl!" splayed across a banner hung behind the happy parents.

"There's a banner in this first picture―"

"He was assigned female at birth."

"Oh."

"What does that mean?" Marco asked, unaware of the meaning behind those words.

Star was about to answer, but the mirror interpreted it as a request: "MINOS WAS A TRANSGENDER BOY. RINA'S PHRASING IS A DIRECT AFFIRMATION OF THAT FACT."

"Oh." Was all he managed, his eyes lit up.

"When did he come to you about his identity?"

Rina scrubbed at the dishes, not making eye-contact with Eclipsa. "It would have been when he was about ten. He explained how he felt like who he was was all wrong, how people kept making assumptions about him because they thought he was a girl, and that he didn't really want to be what people expected him to be. Lyros and I were confused at first, but we talked to a few doctors, and they explained a lot to us about Gender, and we realized that all we really wanted was for our son to be happy with who he was. So we helped him transition."

Eclipsa clutched her chest, again looking deeply guilty.

Star looked at Marco, at his wide-eyed expression. Is he tearing up?

Eclipsa continued to flip through the pages of the binder. "There's a lot of drawings of birds in here." She flipped ahead, towards the middle of the binder. "He wanted to be a Zoologist?"

Rina froze in place, holding a plate, her lip quivering. "Yes." She said quietly. "We found anthropology books and eventually found books more specific to Zoology. It's possible he just liked looking at the diagrams of wild animals, but it made him happy." Her voice got faint as she finished talking.

Eclipsa closed her eyes.

Rina shook her head. "It wasn't much. We never would have been able to afford the schooling necessary for him. I don't even know a school on this continent that would take one of us in. We would have had to send him across the sea, and the money to do that… We would have never given him what he needed." She sighed. "We were rotten parents."

"You gave him more than enough."

Rina stopped again, and turned to Eclipsa, whose face had gone sullen.

"You cared for him and nurtured him. You supported him when he had a crisis of identity. Even if things went badly, you would have been there for him, helping him be strong, and kind, and noble. Just like the two of you." Eclipsa shook her head violently, tears running down her face. "You didn't fail him. You just had the misfortune of living in a world with someone like me in it."

Eclipsa gasped and began trying―and failing―to suppress her sobbing.

Rina stood up, and sat at the chair across from Eclipsa. Her face livid.

"Alright, listen up, Princess Eclipsa," she said, her voice getting nasty on speaking Eclipsa's title and name. "Lyros said he couldn't kill you. Did he tell you why?"

"H-he said he wasn't strong enough," Eclipsa said, trying to rein in her composure.

"Uh huh. I suppose that's how he would frame it." She glared at Eclipsa. "I've met a thousand, thousand killers in my time, kid. Mewman, Monster, it never made a difference. You know what they all have in common? Because there's a lot they don't have in common: Some of them feel regret, some of them feel pride. Some of them did it in self-defense, some of them did it because they liked the rush. Some of them did it with precision killing machines, some of them did it with their bare fists, some of them did it with their horns, some of them did it with their teeth, some of them did it with their guile.

But they all have one thing in common: they all have an excuse. No matter how pathetic or terrible or meaningless, they start their story with some kind of explanation about how 'they didn't have a choice', or 'they were asking for it', or 'you'd have done the same thing in my place'. And it's all bullshit. Lies they tell themselves so that they can go to jail, or go home, and tell themselves, even if they don't think they're a good person, that they're at least not a bad person. It's sycophantic and narcissistic and disgusting.

So let me ask you a question: when Lyros asked you 'why did you do it'―and I know he asked you, because it's the same answer I wanted to rip out of you―what did you tell him?"

Eclipsa thumbed at the teacup. "There was no reason."

Rina nodded. "But that's not the truth, is it? Not the whole truth."

Eclipsa looked directly at Rina. She didn't look angry. "It's the important part of the truth. I could blame it on my Racism, or I could blame it on my culture, or I could blame it on my upbringing, but lots of people in my kingdom had all those things too."

Rina folded her arms. "You were going to let us kill you. I could tell from the look in your eyes."

"Because I don't deserve forgiveness. I don't deserve absolution."

Lyros could be heard, standing in the hallway. "So what about all that stuff going on in your kingdom? Were you just going to die, and let more innocent people suffer?"

"I already made things worse!" Eclipsa shouted, balling up her fists. "Just by meddling with things I didn't understand, I did nothing to save those kids, and I've given their Rapists ammunition to fend off further accusations against them!" She lowered her voice. "I've done nothing good, and everything bad. Letting you kill me would have given you your revenge, and saved my kingdom from me."

Rina sighed. "Well, if that's how you feel..."

She lept up from the table and threw Eclipsa down against the floor, once again holding her claws close to Eclipsa's neck. "If you really, truly have nothing left to live for, then I'll grant you the mercy you didn't give my son: a quick, painless death. So how about it, Princess? Is that all there is to you?"

Eclipsa stared, a resolute expression on her face.

Rina, through narrowed slits, glared at her.

Lyros stood in the hallway, his face turned away.

"Really. After all these years, all you really are is some pathetic, incompetent little girl?"

Eclipsa continued to stare at Rina.

Then, for a fraction of a second, she glanced to the side.

Rina blinked. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Eclipsa asked, her voice trembling.

Rina scowled and made an exasperated noise. "You goddamn fool." She pulled back her claws. "You were going to let me kill you without at least saying goodbye to him?"

"To… whom?"

"Your lover, obviously."

Eclipsa stared above Rina. "It's not a 'him'. It's a 'her'."

Rina blinked once again, then grinned, then broke into a raucous cackle. "Of goddamn course." Then, retracting her claws, Rina punched Eclipsa in the face―hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to cause injury.

"Ow!"

"You remain a goddamn fool, Princess. Fine. Her. You were going to die without telling her goodbye?"

Eclipsa turned her head to the side. "She'd be better off without me too. My mother would never allow me to marry another girl, and even if she did, I doubt my reign as Queen would last long if I took a wife."

"Again!" Rina yelled, delivering blows to Eclipsa's face, "You! Are! A! God! Damn―"

On the last blow, Eclipsa reached up with her hand, and caught Rina's fist.

Rina leaned in close. "If all you want is to sit here feeling sorry for yourself, and being a useless sack of shit in the process, you could do that somewhere else."

Eclipsa closed her eyes.

"Do you love her?"

"It doesn't matter."

"DO. YOU. LOVE. HER?"

"Yes!" Eclipsa yelled. "Obviously!"

Rina leaned back, her expression sharp. "Would you do anything, no matter how hard, to make up for what you did to our son?"

Eclipsa's eyes widened. "Of course. But what could possibly―"

"Zip it." Rina stood up, and reached for Eclipsa's hand. Eclipsa took it, and Rina pulled Eclipsa to her feet, grasping Eclipsa's hand firmly. "What I didn't finish saying before, is that despite everything that all killers have in common, there's one thing that makes you different from every other killer we've met. Two things. The first is that you're goddamn royalty, which means you have power and influence the likes of which any godless killer could only dream of. The second is that deep down, I can tell: there's a burning instinct inside you. One that drives you to protect the innocent, and punish the wicked.

Now, cards on the table: that's a good instinct to have. I know few that have it. But there's a problem with that instinct. The same thing that drives you to try to take down powerful people, to protect the innocent, is the same instinct that drives you to self-flagellate for all the shitty things you've done in your life. And honey, since you're someone who has, at the very least, done at least one very shitty thing in her life, that instinct is going to get you killed," she added, narrowing her eyes. "Before tonight, I would have been happy to let you destroy yourself, but now that I've seen you, I've realized something. Letting you die like that means that our son really die die for nothing. That's unconscionable. And I think we can do better than that.

So here's the deal, Princess. The people you're up against: they're bad, bad, people, right? Magnitudes worse than you, from the sound of it."

"Yeah. They're at least worse than me." Eclipsa said.

"I figured. So here's what you're going to do: you're going to make them pay. Not just for those kids anymore, but for us too. Find a way to make the world a little less shitty. They dragged my ex-husband into this mess, so they're our problem now, too. And if you really, genuinely mean to make up for your sins, then you'll do this."

Eclipsa's eyes widened. Then, her face became resolute. "I will."

"I need to hear you say it."

"I will make those Artificers pay for what they've done."

Star noticed that Lyro's ears perked up as Eclipsa said that.

"I want to hear you say that you won't let yourself die, no matter what, until you've done this. You won't uselessly throw your life away, to us or anyone else like us."

Eclipsa placed her hand against her chest. "I swear, I will not breathe my last breath until it's all done."

"And I want you to swear," Rina looked very somber as she said this, "that when you're Queen, you'll do everything in your power to never, ever, let anything like what you did happen again."

Eclipsa opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Rina interrupted her.

"I know, more than anyone, that the world is a cruel, chaotic place, full of miserable, hateful people, and that no one person, no matter how powerful, can destroy all the evil in the world. But you can do your part. What happened to our son didn't have to happen. It wouldn't have happened if your people understood the evils inherent to their attitudes towards us, and had worked to scrub it out. So promise me that you'll work to do that."

Eclipsa said, quietly, "I swear, as Queen, I will enlighten my people. I will show them there's a better way forwards. I will show them that they don't need to hate you, or anyone like you."

Rina stared at Eclipsa for about a minute, while Eclipsa held that pose.

"Good. That'll do."

Eclipsa's composure broke. "There is a problem though. The trial ended finding them―"

"ZZZZip!" Rina made a dismissive noise with her mouth, and made a dismissive gesture with her fist. "I don't want to hear it. The details of how you're going to do it don't matter much to me." Rina crossed to the front door, and kicked it open. "Now get out of here. I think you have a lot to get done."

Eclipsa nodded.

As she passed Rina, Rina grabbed her shoulder. "If I ever see you again..." At first her tone was threatening, but she then turned away from Eclipsa, "and you've kept your promise, at least to the spirit of it, then you'll be welcome in this house again."

Eclipsa made a small gasp, and nodded to her. "I will remember that."

"But if I find out you've taken our hospitality for granted, I will kill you. And I won't be counting on you refusing to fight back, either."

"I will also remember that."

"Farewell… Your Highness."

Eclipsa stepped out of the house, and the door closed behind her.

Star leaned back. "Alright, so I think that's everything we needed to see here. Mirror, we can turn the scene off."

Several seconds passed. The scene was still playing, with Eclipsa looking back at the house, before turning to make her way back into the kingdom.

Star blinked. "Uhh, Mirror? Are you going to―"

"Princess!"

Eclipsa turned back towards the house again, and Star saw that Lyros had emerged from it. He quickly sprinted up to Eclipsa.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Back inside: you said a word I recognized. You said you would make those 'Artificers' pay for what they had done. That's the word, right?"

Eclipsa raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Why?"

"This isn't… It's not conclusive or anything alright? But there's stories that I've overheard. Merchants that pass through the tavern."

"What kind of stories?"

"Out―WAY out, in the Outerlands, there's a canyon. Every few weeks or so, a large group of Mewmans all gather out there, in the canyon. Always wearing blue robes, and the merchants who refer to them say that they call themselves 'Artificers'."

Eclipsa tilted her head. "That's a long way to go from the kingdom. What do they do out there?"

"No one ever knows. But sometimes..." Lyros looked disgusted. "Sometimes they have children with them."

Eclipsa balled up her fists. "Thank you for telling me. That's useful information to have."

Lyros nodded. "If you're really sincere, then… Good luck. I really mean that, despite everything."

"Thank you."

Lyros turned and walked into the house.

Eclipsa fished the mirror out from her person. "Mirror. When is the next such meeting that Lyros described?"

"THE NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEETING WOULD TAKE PLACE IN 6 DAYS."

"Who all is going to be there?"

"EVERY SINGLE ACTIVE MEMBER OF THE MEWNIE ARTIFICER GUILD, FROM ACROSS THE KINGDOM."

"Interesting."

The scene suddenly cut, and Star and Marco found themselves in Star's bedroom once more.

Star picked up the mirror, which had text written on it: "THIS DEVICE WAS IN THE PROCESS OF ANALYZING DATA, AND AS A RESULT, EXPERIENCED LATENCY BETWEEN RECEIVING YOUR COMMAND AND EXECUTING IT. THIS DEVICE HAS MADE ADJUSTMENTS TO ENSURE THAT NO SUCH DELAY EVER OCCURS AGAIN."

Star chuckled. "Well, it kind of worked out."

It suddenly dawned on Star.

"Every single Artificer, in one place." She turned to Marco, who seemed to be putting things together in his head too. "Do you think…?"

Marco hugged his knees. "The Iris Experiment."