The stars of Amphibia were a magnificent sight to behold.
They weren't quite a reminder of earth- the constellations here were different, they held their own stories and history. Amphibia itself was nothing like earth, and they were no exception.
Amphibia wasn't where Marcy grew up- not in the common sense of it anyways, though there was something to say about what she had gone through while she was there. But even after being stabbed, witnessing the shattering of her 13 year old self as a passenger in her own body, and whatever else this world had thrown at her, the stars still wrapped around her in a comforting fantasy. Like she could reach out and be sucked into an endless world of stories, just the right mix of reality and fantasy for her to feel her soul find its place among them.
They weren't like Earth's stars, no, but they gave the distinct feeling of being home.
Her thoughts were cut off by the rustling of the tall grass around her, and she pried her eyes away from the stars to look around. Two girls laid next to her, their giggles and whispers filling the night air.
"What are you doing!" she whisper-shouted.
The girls shushed her, and she had half the urge to point out just how much louder they were being than she was. She felt a hand squeeze her own, followed by another flurry of giggles, and decided against it.
"Sorry Mar-Mar," Anne started, though her smile suggested she was anything but. "We're stealing your hiding spot."
She quirked an eyebrow.
"Stealing my spot? Sash, it was your turn to seek, wasn't it?"
Sasha scoffed and waved it off with a smile. "The frogs don't know that."
Anne shook her head disapprovingly, but her laughter didn't do much to push the guise of disappointment.
If Marcy had to guess, she was probably happy Sasha and the Plantars were getting along at all.
Marcy sighed and turned onto her back.
"Okay, but if you're going to usurp my spot you have to be quiet at least."
Anne shrugged, but Sasha whined another protest.
"That's boring! Wh-" a yell from the house silenced her as a light flashed over in their direction.
"What are we supposed to do then?" She finished, her voice significantly quieter than before.
Leave it to Sasha to almost get them caught.
Marcy decided it was best to stay quiet, as opposed to voicing that thought- whether that was to help them win hide-and-seek or to avoid a swift punch to the arm could be left to interpretation. Instead, she wrapped Sasha's fingers with hers, and then did the same with Anne.
And if her heart was racing or her face was a bit too red? Well, it was cold out, and that flashlight had been dangerously close to outing their hiding spot.
Instead of focusing on any of that though, she decided to focus on the feeling of home.
She brought the girls' arms up to the sky, tracing each of the constellations she had memorized from her balcony in the Newtopian palace.
The light disappeared, voices drifting away as Marcy reached out for the stars. Her concern for the game faded as she looked lovingly between the stars in the sky and the hands in her own. A smile took over her face as she outlined patterns in the sky, retelling the stories of the stars. The words left her mouth easily, as though they were something she had known for all her life.
The world around her seemed to fade out as she drifted in space, between tales of old heroes and prophecies and fate.
Sasha and Anne, much to Marcy's surprise, hung onto every word.
In the moments when she would feel so immersed in the world that her words became little more than whispers, Anne would stare intently at Marcy's lips to read them, and Sasha would bring herself closer to Marcy's face, immersed in a world unknown to her.
The breath against her cheek and the eyes on her lips reminded her just what it meant to be human.
In coming back to earth she noticed things she wished she wouldn't. The way Sasha's face was rough against her shoulder, permanently scarred. The way Anne's face scrunched in confusion trying to spot the similarities between this world's stars and Earth's.
The presence of the stars felt all too crushing, now. The prophecies they foretold weighed heavy on her chest and, out of habit, she clutched her shirt.
She thought, then, about how ridiculous this all was.
About how Sasha had been brought here and forced to fight for her life, forced to find what little control she could and lose herself in the process. About how Anne had been ripped away from her life, her family, unable to reassure them that she was alright.
About how she had it easy, because while she forced them to live through all of that, she had been up in a castle, living like a princess, learning about the stars.
About how even after she dragged everyone she cared about into an insane fantasy world and saw the consequences, she still tried to escape.
Her throat closed up, then, and she desperately cried to the stars for help.
A hand on her face grounded her, snapped her back to the present, and she felt herself flinch. She pushed herself up, wincing at the pain that ripped through her chest as she tore herself away from her friends.
"Marbles?"
Her home crumbled around her, falling to pieces in her empty fingers. She curled into herself, feeling her breaths becoming heavier as her tears watered the grass.
The peaceful night gave way to memories of battles, being trapped in her own body.
And maybe she deserved it, because wasn't she always trying to get away?
She tugged at her hair and squeezed her eyes shut tighter, trying to make it all disappear.
Even as the world closed in around her, as the sky shattered and the stars melted away, she couldn't escape.
Fingers tugged at her hands, becoming entwined with her own. She gripped onto them tightly before she could think to do otherwise.
"Hey, Marce, it's okay, you're here. You're safe. What's wrong?"
Soft hands and gentle words coaxed her back to Amphibia, back to reality. The reality of unearned affection and undeserved trust.
She let out another sob as she felt Sasha rub her back, as Anne comforted her and assured her that she was here, safe, and she couldn't find the words to explain that she would rather be anywhere else, because she didn't deserve it.
She forced herself to pull together some facade of composure- she shouldn't need to be comforted over something that she caused. It should be the other way around, her doing all she could to make it up to the girls she cared so much about, the girls whose lives she had been fated to ruin.
Sasha and Anne looked at her in concern and she let out a laugh, mechanical and forced and certainly not as reassuring as she had hoped.
She had never been too great with these things.
Marcy breathed in the crisp air, smiling even as it bit at her throat. In the past, she might've tried to shrug this off, to pretend it was nothing, because it should be nothing. But something nagged at her in her head, a voice reminding her that they deserved to know what this was, that this all happened because of her impulsive secrets.
She let out a heavy breath, then, along with any chance of escaping.
No, she was Marcy Wu, and she was very real, as was the weight of all her reckless decisions.
She allowed herself the comfort of the arms wrapped around her, even if she didn't deserve it. She let her hands drift across Sasha's face, tracing the scars that she had caused. She let out broken laughs as she stumbled through an apology.
"I- I shouldn't even- this all happened because of me- I brought us here, and you guys- you guys had to fight for your life, you could've died-" she stops tracing the scar in order to clutch at both of her friends. "I could've lost you, and I'm here talking about the stars because while you guys were struggling to survive I was living like some kind of princess in a fantasy game. I- I'm so sorry, you guys probably hate me and this place and I keep talking about it like it's- like it's some crazy fictional plot, and it's not, it's real and I'm real and everything we went through is real and my fault..."
She attempted to move away from them, nearly breaking into sobs again when their arms only tightened around her. Sasha rubbed her arms soothingly as Anne whispered reassurances into her neck, never loosening her grip.
"I forgive you."
She didn't think anything could ever feel the same as a giant sword through her chest, but if she had to compare it now, she'd say it came pretty fucking close.
Marcy tried to shake her head, to protest, even if that's all she'd ever wanted.
She wanted to disappear, because even now, all she's doing is hurting them.
Anne and Sasha look at her as if she needed protecting, as if she wasn't the one who brought this destruction on herself.
Eventually Sasha spoke, her voice raspy and unsure- something that used to be so rare for her.
"You didn't have it easy, Marce." She said it so easily, like she didn't have twisted, vine-like scars running up and down her arms now, like Marcy didn't do all that damage from her spot up in a faraway castle. She didn't stop there, though, even though really she should've never started. She pressed a hand to Marcy's stomach and she flinched, instinctively.
"You did die, Marbles. I- We had to lose you. That was the hardest thing that ever came from this."
For the first time in all of this, Anne's body went limp, still for a few moments until her head bobbed against Marcy's shoulders. She heard a sniffle from behind her as tears began to stain her shirt.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, apologize again, she doesn't know. Nothing came out.
"I'm not good at the whole comforting thing, I know, but I just- I missed you, a lot. And sometimes- sometimes I still miss you, even though you're here. Sometimes, it feels like I need you to talk about the stars, or weird vegetables, or whatever game you can think of because it means you're here. Please, keep talking about the stars."
And so she did.
They shouldn't fall asleep out in the field, she knew. Amphibia could get rather deadly in the night time, and she knew they'd had enough of that for multiple lifetimes.
Still, she couldn't bring herself to leave. The desperate part of her brain wanted to stay here forever, surrounded by warmth and comfort and loving touches. So she talked about the stars for as long as she could. And as she talked, she focused on the pressure encasing her, the hands in hers, the arms wrapped around her, the weight in her lap, and the feeling of being home.