A/N: Lord Cornwalis here! Back again with another installment of The Once and Future Queen! Sorry it took so much longer than I anticipated. I had to finish my other story's chapter first and then I got a nasty case of Covid that kicked the snot out of me for almost two months. Recovering well, despite a lot of lingering fatigue, I wanted to get you this chapter to whet your appetite to the exciting season finale of this story. It's going to be another multipart chapter encompassing a whole lot of action, drama, and romance brought to you by both of us! That's right, double-teaming this chapter together to bring you two authors for the price of one!
As ever, if you enjoyed the story, please fav/follow and leave a review. We love hearing from people that enjoy our work and I personally look forward to everyone's thoughts on this particular chapter.
The Once and Future Queen
Chapter 13
Our Inner Demons Pt. 2
Hazy.
Foggy..
Warm...
Marco stirred gently as consciousness slowly returned, fighting through the thick brain fog that was still clinging to every surface inside of his skull. As far as hangovers went, it was actually quite pleasant; at least in his rather…limited experience. Judging from the faint glow that was transmitting through his eyelids, he judged that he had at least another three or four hours of prime sleeping-in time before his mom came knocking to get him up for the day. No matter how much he had tried to reason with her that growing teenage boys needed lots of sleep, Angie had a strict no sleeping past noon policy unless he was sick. Satisfied he had hours yet to sleep before having to get up, he took a deep breath and smiled slightly as the faint scent of strawberries wafted ethereally under the nose.
"M'smells good" he mumbled sleepily as he slid his hand out and stopped short. 'That doesn't feel like bedsheets…' he thought, his mind short-circuiting as he recognized that his hand was not, in fact, resting on a cool, soft bed sheet, but rather the gentle curve of a smooth, firm butt. 'That's DEFINITELY not a bedsheet!' an alarmed-sounding voice shouted in his head and his eyes snapped open as he jerked his head off the pillow.
Through bleary eyes, he saw her. Sprawled out on her stomach with her head turned towards him, and a thin line of drool dripping onto his plaid-sheeted pillow. Her long hair was splayed out behind her, though he noted it was pushed off to the side, exposing her well-defined back and the delicate purple wings that lay like embroidered gems against her pale skin. Swallowing hard, he continued to run his gaze down her back to the gentle swell of her modest hips and rear before they were obscured by the folded sheet.
Immediately, visions of what had transpired last night leapt to the fore of his mind: Writhing forms pressed together in ecstasy, Star underneath him, gazing into his eyes as their bodies came together over and over again in passionate lovemaking, and the feeling of pulling her tight against his chest as they both drifted off to sleep. Marco could feel his cheeks heating up at the sultry memories of their fervent evening together, but he was pleasantly surprised to find no guilt there. 'You made your choice last night, and even in the cold light of day, free from the influence of that crazy drug, you know it was the right choice,' his conscience whispered.
Smiling at his newfound certainty, he reached out and gave Star's shoulder a gentle shake. Whatever he had decided, he needed to make sure that she felt the same way now that they were both clear-headed. After all…she was technically still dating Tom, just like he was technically still dating Penelope, and if they didn't handle things very delicately, this could all blow up in their faces.
"Star," he said her name softly, shaking her shoulder slightly harder, "Starrrrr." There was no response, not even a twitch of her face as she continued to breathe deeply and evenly, a fresh droplet of drool glinting in the early morning sun. Shaking her a bit harder, he leaned in and said her name with a bit of urgency, "Star!"
"Not right now, Glossaryck, we can learn magic in a couple hours…" she mumbled into the pillow, waving feebly at him.
"I'm not Glossaryck…" frowned Marco, reaching over and again shaking her, though this time hard enough to shift her body in the bed.
"Glossaryck, why do you sound so much like Marco?" she mumbled again, though this time letting her question stretch out as her foggy brain screamed in her ear that the likelihood that it was Glossaryck playing a joke on her was rapidly approaching zero. "MARCO!" she shouted as the final gear clunked into place in her memory, and the realization of where she was and who she was with roared into her mind with all the subtlety of warnicorn charging through afternoon tea in the garden. In a flash of blonde hair, she leapt up to her knees and stared at the startled teen boy as he instinctively jumped off the bed at her sudden movement.
Marco blushed as he drank in the sight of a naked Star kneeling on the bed in front of him. Even with hair tousled into a nest of snarls and knots from sleep and their rather…vigorous activities of the night before, she was an absolute vision. And he couldn't help but grin at the reflected flushness in Star's face alongside her blue eyes darting furtive peaks down his body as he stood there fully in the nude. "Uhh, good morning?" he said, feeling incredibly self-conscious.
Star merely squeaked slightly, before reaching for the covers to pull up them in front of her exposed body. Finally seeming to regain her senses, she spoke up, her voice slightly unbelieving at the words coming out of her own mouth, "Pegasus feathers…did we?" She watched as he nodded his head slightly and felt a giddy, nervous warmth blossom in her chest. "I love you too, Star." The sublime, nearly rapturous memory of Marco uttering those five wonderful words in the middle of his moon-drenched bedroom reverberated in her head and for a glorious moment, she felt like she could fly right off that bed then and there.
But then, she fell back to Earth. Unhelpfully, her mind brought up Reynard's words of warning that he'd given her the moment she'd started dating Tom three years ago. "A man will say just about anything when he's trying to bed a woman. Honeyed words. Promises that will never be kept. Anything and everything will be offered if only the lady would assent to let a gentleman whet his wick." It had been an uncomfortable talk, especially since it was so out of character for her usually somewhat roguish cousin and now she felt that same sense of dread creeping up her spine.
Feeling his self-consciousness threatening to boil over, Marco stooped to collect a discarded pair of gym shorts and hoodie from the floor before quickly slipping into them. But still, he couldn't take his eyes off of Star as she seemed to smile to herself and nod, before letting it droop into a concerned frown. Approaching the bed cautiously, he sat on the corner and waited for her to look up. "Do you remember what I said last night?" he asked as he gave her a reassuring look.
"We both said a lot last night…" Star smiled thinly as she folded her hands in her lap to pin the blanket to her naked front.
"Exactly, and I wouldn't take any of it back for anything," he said, reaching for her hand. Grasping it lightly, he continued, "So…we need to figure out our next steps."
Opening her mouth to answer, Star nearly jumped out of the bed as two sharp knocks rang out from the door that led to the hallway. "Are you two decent?" came the very familiar voice of Angie Diaz, and Star felt her blood run cold as she and Marco shared a panic-stricken look. 'Shit shit, where's my wand?!' she thought frantically, looking around for wherever her wand might have landed during last night's frenzied efforts to undress one another.
"Just a second!" shouted back Marco, standing up quickly and joining in the search for the missing wand. Circling the bed as Star looked on, he scanned the room, not seeing any glimmer of the wand's telltale light purple color, nor its white feathered wings.
"Marco Ubaldo Diaz, you open this door right now young man," came the now much less patient sounding voice of his mother through the door, followed by several more insistent knocks.
Fully panicking now, he knew his mom wouldn't wait much more than a couple of seconds before opening the door herself. So in a desperate bid to make things look not quite so incriminating, he grabbed the remnants of his button-up shirt and quickly tossed it to Star to throw over herself before straightening and frantically attempting to flatten his mussed and messy hair. "C-Come in," he managed to say, cringing at the guilty stutter in his voice that was sure to tip his mom off to everything he and Star had been doing the previous evening.
Slowly, the doorknob turned and he watched with bated breath as the door swung inward partially and his mother's auburn-haired head appeared through the gap. She had a neutral expression on her face, betraying neither anger, nor disappointment, and Marco had to force down a sense of wild excitement that maybe, just maybe they might be able to talk their way out of this without the world ending.
"Good morning, you two," said Angie, her face still unreadable. "Star, would you mind if I borrow my son for a few minutes? His father and I have some things to discuss with him." And there it was; the hammer about to fall and shatter the delicate illusion of certainty that he had so tenuously held in his hands. Resigned to his fate, he shared a demoralized look with Star, who looked close to panic herself as she nodded meekly at Angie. "I'll try not to keep him too long," he heard her say as she opened the door wider for him. Turning back his mother, he willed his legs to carry him forward, making his way towards the hallway and sparing Star a quick glance to mouth a silent, "I'm dead," to her.
Following without another glance, Marco closed his bedroom door behind him with shaking hands and padded softly behind his mother as she walked downstairs to join his father at the dining room table. 'Well, I'm dead…' he thought, noting that there was already a mug of Mexican hot chocolate waiting for him at his seat. Clearly, this discussion had been planned in advance by his parents, and he doubted after the events at the tournament, that he would be getting off lightly.
Forcing himself to continue forward, Marco sat down with all the finality of a condemned man in an electric chair. Instinctively, his hands curled around the warm mug, desperate for its reassuring heat in the face of the steely glares of both his parents. Opening his mouth to speak, to explain himself, to do ANYTHING, he was surprised when Angie held up a finger for silence.
"Marco, before you say anything, know that your father and I aren't angry. Merely confused and a bit… Disappointed. We had a long conversation yesterday with Queen Moon about her decision regarding Star and Penelope, so you can imagine our shock when we heard your, erm, activities last night with Star…"
He wanted to disappear from the face of the Earth and was sure both of his parents could feel the heat radiating off of his beet-red cheeks. He already knew from his mom's question before entering his room earlier that she knew at the very least that Star had come over and was likely in a state of undress. But this new piece of information was the first time he had a definitive answer that they knew exactly what he and Star had gotten up to last night.
"Mijo, I thought we discussed this and you told us you were going to make una elección?" asked his father, looking unusually grim, though Marco noted that his eyes kept darting back to Angie, who was watching him closely as if worried he might say the wrong thing.
"Dad, I am making a choice," answered Marco, nodding emphatically. "It's not the choice I thought I was going to make. Heck, I even surprised myself last night. But I realized that if I'm honest with myself, it's always been Star that I wanted to be with. Penelope and I had some great times, but we're just not right for each other."
"Honey…" said Angie, looking torn between happiness and maintaining her air of parental authority.
Interrupting whatever she had to say, Marco pressed on, the confidence in his voice increasing by the moment. "Both of you told me the last time we talked about this that you'd trust me to do the right thing, and last night I thought I had. I was going to just be single and stay Star's guide so we could at least still be friends. It was the fair solution to everyone involved. And it was the solution that would have left me miserable…" He sighed, pausing as the feelings of loneliness and guilt from the hours he spent in his room alone after coming home from the tournament rolled over him like a wave.
Letting his gaze drift over to the stairs sitting just over his mother's shoulder, he saw a flash of blonde hair quickly disappear. It was strangely reassuring to know that Star was there, just out of sight, listening closely to what he had to say and it proved just the push he needed to get over the lump in his throat and continue. "But then when Star came over last night, we talked… Like, really talked about things," he said, going into a somewhat modified retelling of his experiences at the Geode Club last night. How they had been magically forced to confront their inner feelings and fears. How both of them had found that the one thing they seemingly couldn't live without was each other.
It was difficult at points to maintain his composure. The feelings from last night were still so raw inside, but he knew he had to tell them now or risk losing some of the depth of his experience to the fog of memory. He was certain, now more than ever, that the "I love yous" he and Star had shared last night had been the most genuine and heartfelt moment of his young life and was desperate for his seemingly skeptical parents to understand his decision.
When he'd finished, he blew out a breath and looked at their faces, feeling a small smile tug the corner of his mouth at their much-softened expressions. "Mom, Dad," he continued, feeling encouraged, "Star and I figured out that we were both making ourselves miserable by trying to make relationships work with people that we couldn't give our hearts to fully. We were putting everyone else's happiness and expectations above our own and we realized that wasn't fair to us." Marco straightened in his chair as the words left his mouth. The looks he was getting from his parents seemed to be brightening by the second and he realized finally, that he wasn't facing the figurative other shoe as it dropped on his head. He was simply sitting with his loving parents, whose only concern was that he was making the right choices for his happiness.
"So you two have talked about things, and Star wants the same thing?" asked Angie, shooting her husband a dirty look when she heard him mutter a quiet, "gracias a Dios." Shifting in her chair she fixed her son with a long, searching look before nodding. "Honey, I'm glad you're making the right choice to be honorable with your relationship. Your father and I both think Star is a wonderful girl and a great fit for you, but Queen Moon made things quite clear yesterday, and I want to make sure the two of you know what you're getting into here. Something tells me it's going to take a lot to change that woman's mind."
Marco could feel some of the relieved joy filling him drain out at his mother's reality check. 'What if Queen Moon forbade him from seeing Star again once they announced their intention to become a couple? What if she fired his parents from being her and River's guides because of his choices? What would Tom do when he found out that Star and he were dating and she was about to end their relationship?' Uncomfortable questions swirled in his mind as he envisioned some very unpleasant things, mostly involving a trip to the burn unit at the very best. Sighing, he answered the best he could, "We… haven't worked out all the details yet, but please, can you keep what happened last night a secret? Star and I need to handle this delicately, and if word got out before we were ready…"
"I understand and I'll keep quiet, as will your father," she added, glancing over to Raphael, who was looking positively ecstatic at the news. When he nodded his assent, though not without his face looking crestfallen, she turned back to Marco. "But," she held up a warning finger, "if I see you going back on your decision, or leading either Star or Penelope on in any way, I WILL tell Queen Moon. Understand?"
"Completely," said Marco.
"Now, why don't you go back upstairs and go tell Star she can stop worrying. Your father and I will make us all a nice big breakfast and we can enjoy a meal together."
Without another word, Marco watched as his mother stood up, walked over to his side of the table, and bent to pull him into a tight hug. Reaching up, he returned the hug, feeling the last of the unbearable tension he had felt since she'd knocked on his door earlier that morning falling away before a second set of arms belonging to his father joined in on the mutual embrace.
O - O - O - O - O - O - O
'Why can't we catch a single break? It's like the universe doesn't want us to get together!' thought Star angrily as she paced back and forth in Marco's bedroom. She'd retreated there after getting spotted eavesdropping and was currently waiting for Winnie to finish listening to the rest of the Diaz's conversation. She was a magical creation that Star had thought up of on the spot the moment she'd closed his bedroom door behind herself. Too embarrassed to continue to try and listen in herself, she figured that if she heard about their conversation second hand, it wasn't the same as snooping. As far as excuses went, it was flimsy at best. But she was grasping at straws here and even justifications so thin, that even Janna would look funny at them, looked like compelling arguments if they didn't leave her in the dark about what was going on downstairs.
"Well, what are they saying?!" she demanded, looking at the cone-shaped creature currently latched to the side of the door.
"Hold on girl, they're not done talking yet!" it answered.
"Well just gimmie the gist! Marco's mom didn't sound mad, but my mom can be realllllly mad before she actually sounds mad. One time when I accidentally knocked an antique chandelier off the ceiling, my mom grounded me for a week. But did she sound mad? Nope! Sounded like she was ordering afternoon tea," said Star, speaking unusually fast, her voice sounding tight as she continued to pace.
"Girl, relaxxx, you're rambling. Everybody knows you're mama's scary. But this Marco dude's parents sound totally reasonable. Have fai-Oh, they just stopped talking."
"Quick, quick, gimmie the details before he gets back up here!" ordered Star, her excitement and anxiety spiraling.
"First we gotta talk about your complete lack of chill right now because it is not an attractive look, girl…"
Padding back up the upstairs hallway, Marco paused as he laid his fingers on the cool metal of the doorknob to his room. He'd have expected to be ambushed by a jubilant blonde-haired princess after what she must have heard him tell his parents, but curiously, she was nowhere to be found. Shrugging, he twisted the knob and tried to step in, only for the door the smack into Star, who seemed to have found her wand and summoned some kind of purple, sparkling listening cone she had pressed up against the other side of the door.
Landing squarely on her butt, she looked up at him, her cheeks burning red. "I-I-I wasn't trying to listen! I was just…admiring…the…er, wood grain on your door!" she managed to stutter out as he tried not to break out in a huge grin at the scene. She had kept his hoodie on, but retrieved her pink pants from last night and the megaphone-like contraption she'd summoned was still giving its opinion on the things it had heard downstairs.
"That Marco guy sounds like a real sweetheart, hun. Definitely a keeper if he communicates with his parents that well," it announced, oblivious to his presence in the room now.
"Riiiiight…" he said, cocking his head at her.
Frantically, Star pulled out her wand from the hoodie pocket she'd stashed it and unsummoned the traitorous magical creature with a poof of pink smoke. When it had dispersed, she found herself staring up at a silent Marco, his face straining to keep a modicum of seriousness. Giving him her most innocent look, she took his proffered hand to help her stand up before dusting off her clothes.
Watching Star awkwardly busy herself with anything she could to not have to look him in the eyes, Marco finally felt the last of his composure slip away, and chuckling, he tried to catch her gaze. "Star, relax… My parents are thrilled we decided to get together."
"They ARE?!" shouted Star, her whole aspect immediately shifting. Gone was the look of uncertainty, and back was her usual smiling visage as she bounced on the balls of her feet before throwing her arms around Marco in a bone-crushing hug. "YAAAAAAY!" she squealed, picking him up in her arms and spinning them both around before placing him back on the ground, an ear-to-ear grin splitting her face.
Panting slightly, Marco smiled back at her and nodded, "Yeah. I'm not certain how much you heard, exactly, but they're glad we're finally choosing to be together."
"Winnie didn't get around to telling me what she'd heard through the door yet when you walked in," frowned Star.
"Winnie? That thing has a name?"
"Marco Diaz!" said Star, sounding scandalized, though still grinning, "All my magical creations have names."
"Sorry," he held up his hands, "I'm still fairly new to this whole magic stuff." Leading her back over to his bed, they sat down together and shared a moment of contented silence before Marco decided it would be best if he addressed the elephant in the room. "Sooo, about your mom…"
To his surprise, he didn't see Star's grin droop even a millimeter. Instead, she laid a light hand on his shoulder and shook her head gently. "Oh my sweet, naive, beautiful Marco, you let Mama Star handle her mom. I've been getting in trouble since I was a toddler, and in a week, she'll have some new crisis," she said, emphasizing her point with air quotes, "to deal with. Besides, my dad loves you and despite what a poophead Mom can be at times, I know she likes you a lot too."
Despite her confidence, Marco wasn't so sure that things would go anywhere nearly as smoothly as Star was predicting. He could vividly remember the barely restrained mix of embarrassment and anger on the queen's face when she had come to collect Penny after her outburst at the tournament. Something told him that it was going to take more than waiting for Queen Moon to become distracted for her to accept his and Star's newfound relationship status. But then, a thought struck him. A troubling, familiar thought that the jubilation of a moment earlier had done an excellent job of pushing from his mind, 'Queen Moon is going to be a pushover compared to Tom and Penny…'
"You trust me right?"
Her voice snapped him out of his "Marco moment," and he looked up to see Star still smiling at him. "With my life," he answered, knowing that she'd saved his bacon more than once in the last couple of months.
"Then don't worry, I'll handle my mom," she waved dismissively. "You know who the real problem is going to be right?"
"Tom and Penny," they both said together.
"Yeahhhh, that's gonna have to be handled…delicately," added Marco, reaching out and squeezing her hand. When she squeezed back, leaning in and planting a delicate kiss on his lips before nodding, he continued, "Look, we both have our issues with Tom and Penelope, and I know this break up is gonna suck for everyone, but I don't want to hurt them. So let's try and find the best way to let them down gently."
"Yeahhhh, I'd rather not get slapped again by Penelope if I can help it…" grumbled Star.
"And I'd rather not spend a couple of weeks in a burn ward, so let's try to do this as easily as possible."
"Maybeeee…" She paused as idea after idea flashed by in her head. She wasn't perfectly sure about Penelope, but she knew Tom was going to take this hard… Very hard. Putting their heads together, she and Marco spent the next ten minutes discussing various plans and locations to break up with their respective partners as gently as possible.
"Panucci's?" suggested Star.
"Nah, too flammable," said Marco, shaking his head and trying his best not to think about his second favorite pizza place burning down.
"The mall?"
"Again, same issue only bigger…"
Star paused, trying to think of a semipublic place without imminent risk of burning to the ground at Tom's ire. Butterfly castle was out for sure. If her mother got wind of her plan to make things official with Marco before she was able to sit down and talk things out with her, she'd be lucky to see Marco again before she turned twenty. Suddenly, a memory of something she'd said to Tom at the tournament the other day. "Marco and I are going to hang out with Janna and some other friends in a few days," she'd told him at the time. Maybe that was the key. Furiously, she thought, turning the problem over and over in her mind until finally, the solution came to her.
"I know how we can do this!" she shouted, springing to her feet and looking excitedly at Marco.
"How?"
"Okay, so you know how we want to mitigate any potential blow-ups?" She waited until he'd nodded before powering ahead, "Welllll, why don't we do it at the park? We can go there with everybody and find a quiet time alone and do it there. It's not super public like Panucci's or the mall, but we'll still have our friends nearby in case things get ugly."
"The park?" He cocked his head, not quite sure if she was serious or not, and trying to keep the incredulity in his voice to a respectful minimum. "You do know what happened last time we were at the park right? What if he's still there?"
"Well luckily, you just so happen to know two gals that are pretty slick with magic," she giggled, pulling out her wand and twirling it one-handed to leave a trail of purple sparks hanging in midair. "Besides, Janna and I kicked that thing's butt before, we can do it again!"
Marco didn't answer for a moment. While it was true that they'd beaten the demon before, it had not been the one-sided ass-kicking that Star seemed to think it was. It had been harrowing seeing some of his deepest fears used against him, and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't had more than a couple of nightmares about it in the weeks since. "Star…" he began, but stood up and threw her arms around his neck.
"You trust me, remember?" She kissed him softly when he made to answer again. "I promise I won't let anything bad happen, okay? We'll have me, Janna, and Tom there and even if he's pissed, he won't let anything bad happen to us."
"To you, maybe…" he answered, smiling despite the tense subject matter. Leaning his head down to press his forehead to hers, he made a decision. "Star, I do trust you, so okay. We'll use the park and just hope that the demon isn't there, or won't want to mess with all six of us."
"It'll all work out fine, I promise." Smiling, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his once more. But this time, she kept them planted against his, working her mouth as her hands slipped around him. There she stayed, locked in a passionate embrace with the boy she loved, enraptured as every fiber of her body tingled with pleasure.
Reluctantly breaking the kiss several moments later, she stepped back, cheek marks glowing a light pink.
Feeling like he could fly, Marco took a second to compose himself before getting back to the matter at hand. "Sooo, we have the outline of a plan. Any idea how we make it all happen?"
"Gimmie a couple days to set everything up. Mom took our compacts, so this is going to be a bit slower than usual," she said, giving an exasperated huff at the reminder of just how much she didn't like the Spiderbite Princess.
"Sounds good," he answered, grinning at her; though inside, he wasn't nearly so sure. For as much as he loved Star, and respected her very powerful abilities, subtlety was definitely not her strong suit.
"Star? Marco?" came the muffled voice of his mother shouting up the stairs, "pancakes are ready!"
"Got time for some chocolate chip pancakes before you sneak back to the castle?" asked Marco, cocking an eyebrow at Star, who suddenly had a faraway look in her eye at the mention of her favorite breakfast food of all time.
"With that powdered sugar on top?" She was doing her best not to drool at the thought of warm fluffy pancakes filled with chocolaty goodness and drenched in maple syrup and powdered sugar. A flutter ran through her at the thought of the food-based ecstasy she was about to experience.
"We got extra of both," he chuckled, knowing just how much of a sugar junkie she was.
"Then lead the way! But first…" she let her voice trail off as she stepped closer and leaned in to kiss him gently for the third time in as many minutes. It was soft and lingering, and she broke it with no small amount of regret. Settling back onto her feet, she tittered at the somewhat stunned look on Marco's face. "I needed one of those before we have to go without for a while," she said, taking his hand and letting Marco lead her downstairs for a delicious breakfast with the people she was fast considering a second family.
O - O - O - O - O - O - O
Settling into her bowl of spiced beach melon, Moon let out a weary sigh. It was only 11:30, and already she could feel the stress making the back of her neck ache, whispering the promise of a skull-pounding headache sometime after lunch. Absentmindedly rubbing the protesting muscles, she let her eyes flit to the royal itinerary for that afternoon and almost wished she stayed in bed like River. Four full hours of petitioners from the citizens of the kingdom… That meant minuscule problem after minuscule problem that could be handled by low-level functionaries at their most severe, or most often by both aggrieved parties actually taking five minutes to speak to one another. 'Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in the Kingdom who knows how to be a functioning adult,' she thought, suddenly feeling thirty years older.
It was her second least favorite responsibility, just missing out on the top spot to presiding over open court for the nobles. "Duty before self…" she muttered quietly to herself in rote recitation. It was always something she said to herself, a reminder that the responsibilities to the crown were paramount to all other considerations. A responsibility so important, that Moon considered it a cornerstone of her very being. It was also an unpopular concept with the rest of her family. River understood, mostly. But Star…
Moon sighed again as she swallowed a mouthful of the sweet and tangy melon. Breakfast had been a lonely affair that morning, as River had been sleeping off the aftermath of the post-tournament revelries. From what he'd managed to tell her before falling asleep last night, he and Reynard had indulged in the ale, song, and general revelry long into the evening. And Star? Well, she had been a no show at breakfast, and when she had inquired with Manfred as to her whereabouts, he had simply told her that she had elected to have breakfast brought to her room that morning. It was a familiar dance between the two of them: Moon always trying to rein in and smooth over her daughter's behavioral rough spots, and Star's inevitable rebellion against her mother's perceived overbearing tendencies. 'She'll understand someday,' thought Moon, with the patience only decades as a sovereign could instill.
*BANG* Moon jumped in her seat, her golden spoon clattering off the plate as the door to the royal dining room burst open and bounced off the marble wall. Taking a steadying breath in anticipation of another argument, she looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see her husband striding towards her. Though, that small bit of happiness quickly began to drain when she saw the deep frown creasing his face, despite his bushy blonde beard. It completely imploded, though, when she saw him shooing away the servants for privacy as he approached the table.
"Moonpie, dear… I have something I'd like to discuss with you," he said the second he sat down, reaching over and tearing the leg off of a roast warble bird rather more forcefully than was necessary.
Taking a moment to gently dab at her mouth before folding her hands in her lap, Moon had to fight back an eye twitch that threatened to break loose and ruin her composure. "River, before we get into whatever is vexing you on this dull, overcast morning, would you be so kind as to tell me from whom you have heard whatever it is you are about to verbally accost me about?"
"It was Reynard if you must know, but that's beside the point!" As if to emphasize his words, he took an angry bite from the leg of meat he had clenched in his fist before letting it drop to the plate. "We had a bargain, you and I. Both of us agreed to let things between our daughter and Marco run their course without outside interference. You can imagine, then, my surprise when I heard from Reynard how you forbade Star from pursuing Marco."
Doing her best not to let her growing temper edge her words, Moon gave a small nod. "It seems that particular piece of gossip travels faster around the castle than news of which lady of court Reynard is currently lusting after this week. I would have liked to have informed you of my decision myself last night, but you decided that the post-tournament revelry was more important than the imminent scandal that is brewing right under our nose."
"Scandal, posh…" he said, waving his hands away, "it's merely relationship drama. Nothing more than silly teenage problems that would have resolved themselves shortly if you hadn't interfered."
"Silly?" retorted Moon, her eyebrow arched in disbelief. "River, to the nobles, appearance. Is. Everything. Need I remind you how many times Aunt Etheria demanded I cease courting you when we were young? And that was merely a matter of decorum and taste. Yesterday, I witnessed the crown princess of the Spiderbite Kingdom physically attack our daughter, another heir to the throne, over accusations of impropriety. Did you know that I had four nobles come by my office last night, including my aunt and Lord Parcival, to demand I put Penelope in the dungeon for assaulting a member of the royal family. Can you imagine how the Spiderbites would react?" She could see some of the color draining out of her husband's face as his anger began to flag in the face of her cold reality.
"Moonpie, I…err, had no idea…" he managed to stammer out as she glared at him.
"Of course not, because you did not think to meet with me after the tournament ended. If you had, I would have explained my reasoning for demanding our daughter cease her destructive pursuit of Marco Diaz." Try as she might, Moon couldn't keep all of the cold fury out of her words and she could see the last of his anger freeze and fail under her temper.
"I'm…sorry. I should have met with you after what happened yesterday before joining Reynard at the feast," he said, eyes downcast and shoulders sagging.
"Thank you for apologizing, River," she said, giving her husband a small smile and reaching for his hand, enjoying the reassuring calloused roughness there. "I didn't make this decision lightly, you know. I see the way our daughter looks at that boy. And don't you think for one moment that I haven't noticed their easy chemistry and complementary nature. We were their age not so long ago…" Back was the color, and she watched it bloom under her husband's beard, staining his cheeks a blotchy crimson. "Marco is a worthy match for our daughter, and one day, when things have settled, I do intend to lift my ban. But Star must first demonstrate to me that she is mature enough to appreciate the problems her recklessness engenders."
"Wise as ever, Moonpie," he answered, finally seeming to understand her logic. A moment later, however, a sly grin spread on his face. "You do know what this means though, right?"
"Yes, dear…" said Moon, waving a glowing hand through the air and depositing a small, bulging sack of clinking gold coins into his outstretched palm.
Review Roundup!
Speaking of doing reviews, once Ronald and I can put our heads together we'll do a combined review response for the last chapter and this one in a big document we'll upload in a week or so, so stand by!
