Replies to the latest reviews:
SugarQueen97: You'll find out more about Diana in the final 2 parts of chapter 11 and chapter 12, but don't expect everything to be revealed just yet. And yeah, you are partially correct about Moon and Diana's relationship ;)
Rock Raider: You won't really see much of her childhood, just a few bits and pieces. About the ageing, it was supposed to be explained during the previous chapter but I cut it short (this part of chapter 11 was supposed to be in chapter 4 but I had to cut it short.) But yeah, you'll find the answer to all your questions very soon!
gemstarz22: Thank you! And sorry that you had to wait so long, but I simply can't afford to invest too much time into writing Fanfiction...
Rock Raider: He's quite clearly an adult... why would you assume otherwise?
D4rK Sid3: Thank you! I hope I continue to live up to your expectations ^.^!
Disclaimer: I do not claim the right to Star vs. the Forces of Evil or any of the characters that appear in the show. They belong to Disney and the show's creator, Daron Nefcy. I do, however, claim the right to the plot as well as any original characters that may appear in this fic, and would kindly ask you to inform me should you want to use anything from this fic in your own story. -jolleIQ
Beta read by ElleFreak.
Story cover by Luzz015. Be sure to check her out on DeviantArt!
Star vs. The Forces of Evil: Staring it up!
Chapter 11
Queen's Lament
Part 5
"A Ball?" asked the young blue-haired Queen, a single eyebrow arched. She and Queen Ula were seated at a small, round coffee table, sipping tea while King Tethys and River were busy playing with Nerida.
"Indeed," replied Ula and sipped her tea.
"Hold on! Hold on!" Moon raised her hands and made back and forth motions with them. "You want me to host a public ball in the midst of this political turmoil?" Ula replied with a nod and a smile. "Pardon my language, but what!?"
"A Ball," said Ula, calmly and with a friendly tone. "My husband and I have been considering our options and we think it would be a wise manoeuvre to make."
"How so?" Moon wondered. The idea itself wasn't bad, but the timing was, from her point of view, about as awful as would ever come.
"It is at times of great inconvenience that people are willing to stop and think about the issues that plague them. All they need is a push," said Ula, smiling, and sipped on her tea, then frowned. "Oh my, it seems I've run out..."
"Queen Ula," spoke Moon, looking at the queen with a serious look. "With all due respect, I really don't think it would be a wise idea to host a ball in the midst of this tension. Having your people and mine locked in a room together wouldn't accomplish much good if you ask me. A fight could break loose!"
"That's what I'm counting on."
"Huh?" Moon's mind froze. Did she hear that right? Ula was counting on a fight to break loose between the monsters and the Mewmans?
"Can you repeat that?" asked Moon, chuckling. "I must've misheard-"
"You haven't misheard a thing," replied Ula, calmly, stunning the Mewman princess. "I am counting, no- hoping for the ball to boil down to a fight between both sides, preferably amongst those families who've grown to despise one another."
Moon stared at Ula with gaping eyes and a look of bewilderment. Try as she may, even she couldn't stop herself from blurting out the next words that quite literally forced themselves unto her lips.
"Are you mad!?"
Ula's eyes froze open and she blinked a single time. Realization of what's she said hit Moon and she recoiled into her chair, tightly clasping her mouth shut with both hands, dropping her teacup which shattered on the floor. Moon stared at Ula, completely aghast, and slowly removed her hands from her trembling mouth.
"I-I-I-I..." she muttered incoherently as each word there afterwards lodged in her throat. She swallowed repetitively and panted heavily, fearing the worst.
Ula stared at her for a time and opened her mouth. Moon closer her eyes, ready to hear the worst and fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness if she had. Instead of words of outrage, she heard giggling. The young queen opened her eyes and stared with a mixture of shock and disbelief as Ula laughed in her seat. Moon's brain failed to register anything. Ula noticed this and made her way over to the Mewman queen and smiled pleasantly. With a snap of her fingers, the monster queen opened a dimensional portal a few feet away from them.
"Come," Ula offered her hand, which a perplexed Moon took, and the two walked through the portal.
When they reached the other end, Moon cast her gaze about and was surprised to see that they were atop a lone hill overlooking a small village. Ula sat down and pulled her knees to her chest, then shot Moon a smile and tapped the spot next to her. Moon sat down on the designated spot and mimicked Ula's sitting position. The two queens stared on in silence and enjoyed the light breeze that played with their hair and made the leaves dance in the air.
The laughter of children reached their ears. At the foot of the hill, two children, boys by the looks of it, were play-fighting and laughing all the while. The thing that shocked Moon was that one of the two boys was a Mewman and the other was a monster, yet that didn't matter to the two boys who simply kept tacking one another to the ground and chasing each other in circles, laughing all the while.
"You weren't expecting to see something like that, were you?" Ula asked playfully, casting a sidelong smile at Moon. The Mewman queen kept her perplexed stare aimed at the two young children for a time and a ghost of a smile crept unto her lips.
"Where exactly are we?" Moon asked, aiming her gaze at Ula. The young queen had a good idea but wanted confirmation. Moon watched the two boys as they tackled each other to the ground repetitively, growing dirtier with each collision. Eventually, their faces and clothes were covered in smushed grass, dirt and light scrapes, but their faces beamed with joy and innocent laughter kept escaping their mouth as the game dragged on. She couldn't help but smile, to which Ula giggled.
"On the edge where our territories meet," said Ula. "A place that shows how senseless all this hatred truly is," Ula remarked, watching the two boys at the bottom of the hill. Just then, two women came running at the two boys. One was a youthful Mewman and the other resembled the monster-boy. The two exchanged a few mouthfuls of slurs, then each grabbed their child by the hand and dragged them off. The two boys gazed at one another with saddened expressions, clearly wishing for their playtime never to end. Ula's smile turned into a frown and she sighed. "Well... the hatred isn't as apparent, at least..."
Moon lowered her head and squinted.
"I often come here," Ula continued, "It gives me hope." She sighed and put on a serious expression. "The older generations are lost in their hatred. They'll not sway, therefore it is pointless to even attempt to sway them."
"Do you think so?"
"I know so." The answer was firm a decisive. Moon didn't doubt her. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks, after all."
Moon chewed on her lip, then spoke, "What do you hope to accomplish with a ball?" She thought it was a fair question, especially since Ula wanted a fight to break out. By all logic, a blunder at the ball would only further complicate things.
"It's a fool's hope," began Ula, "But I am hoping that once an inevitable fight breaks loose amongst the elderly of mine people and yours, the younger ones will band together to stop them. Once that is done and word begins spreading, there will be tensions within our kingdoms, but ultimately, it is the carriers of the future whose voices shall be heard."
"So your entire plan is dependent on a fight breaking loose amongst the elders and that the younger ones band together to stop it before it escalates?" Ula nodded. "You're playing on a coin toss," Moon warned her, "As far as I see it, it'll go one of two ways: either it works and the younger ones truly do band together, or they begin fighting amongst each other and all you achieve is a state even worse than the current one, Queen Ula."
"I'm well aware of that," replied the queen with a relaxed smile.
"Then you must realise that it isn't worth the risk," said Moon and nudged closer to Ula. "We need to act carefully. Don't we already have a plan?"
"Yes. A plan that will take far too long."
Moon arched an eyebrow.
"Weren't you the one who proposed it?"
Ula's response came after a momentary delay, and she said it with the voice of a person confessing their sins.
"I never intended to carry out the plan." Moon looked at her with gaping wide eyes. "Truthfully, it was an excuse to persuade the council into allowing us to go to Mewni without sparking an outrage. Not that there wasn't an outrage but it definitely helped prevent a revolt against us."
"A revolt?"
"We're not exactly popular amongst the people," sighed Ula, "We fear that if things keep dragging on the way they are, we'll be disanointed and have our crowns taken from us. That would be a disaster for ongoing peace-talks between our kingdoms because the royal court would no doubt sooner escalate the situation to all-out war than negotiate peace-talks."
"Perhaps you're being paranoid?" suggested Moon, attempting to fool herself rather than Ula, who calmly shook her head.
"No, 'fraid not," replied Ula, drily. "I'm certain that none of what I'm about to tell you was your or your mother's doing, so don't mistake my words for accusations. Over the last few months, my husband and I have narrowly avoided death so many times that I no longer keep track. We've had assassins coming after us on a weekly basis, and the frightening part is that not all of them were from your kingdom."
"What!?" Moon jumped. "Why've I not been informed of this!?"
"That's why!" Ula replied, sternly, a single index finger raised and the gaze of a mother plastered on her face. For some reason, Moon felt tiny just then. "You're still young, much too young to bear the title of Queen. Take no offence, but your youth will push you into acting rash and impulsive as you've just demonstrated."
Moon puffed her cheeks and pushed her lips together as she glared irritably at Ula.
"Well... you're not much older than I am!"
"Oh?" uttered Ula, shooting a sly smirk at the young queen. Leaning in so that she was almost provocatively close to Moon, Ula asked, coyly, "And how old do you deem me to be?"
Moon froze up as her mind made sense of the situation and the question. When she came to, she replied, "By my best estimate, around twenty."
Ula stared at her with gaping-wide eyes, then began snickering to herself, leaving a confused Moon anxiously waiting for an answer. "Twenty?" Ula repeated with a humorous intonation and backed off. "As flattered as I am," said Ula, "Your answer is quite far from the correct amount. Still, I do take that as a compliment!" Ula cast a friendly smile in Moon's direction and seeing that the young Mewman queen wanted a proper answer, she complied, "In two moon cycles or so, I'll be forty and nine."
Upon hearing this preposterous statement, Moon blinked rapidly and her mouth hung agape.
"No way!" Moon examined her from top to bottom and didn't believe a single word. "You can't be that old!"
Ula chuckled.
"We Merfolk age well, do we not? As you can imagine, writing marital laws is quite the task," she said with a sly smirk, snickered, and continued, "We do not age linearly as your people. Ours is more akin to a flight of uneven stairs. I sill remember when my body was that of a teenage girl not unlike yours. It remained so for two decades before it assumed this present form."
Moon was almost afraid to ask the following question but her curiosity got the better of her.
"And... um... your husband...?"
"Oh, he's five years younger than me," Ula replied, shrugging. "He's an early bloomer, I suppose."
"Uh-huh," Moon muttered, feeling more than just a bit unsettled by the series of revelations.
"Back to the topic a hand," said Ula, assuming a serious pose and speaking with a flat tone. "What I was attempting to illustrate was that we have enemies on both sides of the conflict who want to rid themselves of our reign, and I fear that our replacements won't be as keen as we are on putting an end to a generations-long conflict, therefore it is of the utmost importance that we take advantage of today, for tomorrow, we may no longer be here. And if anything were to happen to my husband and myself... then Nerida..." Ula paused, unable to structure a proper sentence that could convey her motherly fears. Nevertheless, Moon understood perfectly what the queen was getting at; Nerida would likely be a cast out or put before the blade, neither of which Ula wished for her precious daughter.
The two queens sat in silence and watched the leaves dance in the wind. Then, Moon asked, hesitantly, "Are you truly certain a Ball would help things?"
"Certain?" repeated Ula, and chuckled. "I'm certain of nothing. But if there's even a slight chance that it could work, then I am willing to take the risk." Ula stood up and offered Moon a hand at getting up. Looking down at the young queen, she asked with a smile, "The question is, are you?"
Moon stared at the hand, her face stiff as a stone statue's. If she accepted the proposal, not only would this cause a great outrage amongst her subordinates and her people, she would quite literally be putting her faith in a coin toss that would either progress peace talks at an unprecedented pace or it would be another bumper on the road. It was a great risk, one a wise and responsible ruler would never dare take.
She took the hand.
Ula smiled, pleased, and lifted her upright.
"Well, it appears we're organising a ball," sighed Moon. She could practically hear the royal court yelling at her for accepting such a foolish proposal.
Ula opened a return portal to Mewni and the two queens were back in the castle. As soon as they were through, they heard a cry.
"Look out!"
Not a moment later, Moon found herself on the ground, her luscious, light-blue locks sprawled over her face, and something light was pressing against her torso. She brought her hands up and brushed away her hair, then saw a tiny monster-girl lying on her, rubbing her head. The girl opened her eyes to look at the teenage queen with her large, palegreen eyes. The small girl had the head, body and arms similar to those of a Mewman, but her skin tone was a mixture of paleblue and turquoise with lavender stripes running along her arms and legs as well as sections of her chest and torso. Her hair was like seaweed, only instead of the colour green, it consisted of a splendid mixture of blues and pinks with some purples mixed in between. Her ears were sharp and upon breathing through her nose, Moon took in the scent of an oily, almost fishy smell.
"Nerida!" Ula said in a motherly tone and picked the girl up.
"Nerida?" Moon muttered to herself and stood up. Apparently, she'd been careless, for Ula overheard her and smiled an apologetic smile.
"Oh, right, my apologies, Queen Moon," she said, holding Nerida in her arms. Ula noticed the perplexed gaze Moon was aiming at her daughter, and continued, "What you're seeing right now is how we normally look when we're in our home under the Deep Ocean. It's only when we travel on land that we use magic to alter our forms for the sake of convenience. Our bodies may be well adapted for life underwater but we cannot say the same for land on the surface. Which reminds me-"
For the first time since meeting her, Moon noticed a genuinely scornful look plastered on Ula's face, aimed at none other than the small girl cradled in her arms.
"Young lady," said Ula, tapping her foot rapidly. Nerida swallowed audibly. "Did you forget to take the elixir again?"
"Umm... maybe?" replied Nerida and giggled nervously. Shaking her head, Ula sighed and tired sigh, then placed the small girl on the ground.
"Where's your father?"
"And where's River?" added Moon. "I explicitly told him to watch over the two of you while I conversed with your mother."
Nerida blinked.
On queue, both Tethys and River came running after the girl, panting heavily. Upon catching their breaths and noticing the flared poses of the two queens whose lips were curled and whose stares were icy, both men gulped simultaneously.
"H- hello, darling..."
"H-hello, my queen..."
Both stuttered in unison, drops of nervous sweat dripping from their foreheads and their lips locked in awkward, anxious smiles.
Ula and Moon exchanged a look, and the latter spoke up.
"River?"
The boy swallowed and asked with a trembling voice, "Y-yes, my queen?"
"I thought I ordered you to watch over them?"
"And Tethys," said Ula, crossing her arms before her chest and arching a single eyebrow at her husband, who began twirling his fingers.
"Y-Yes, dear?"
"I thought we agreed that you'll make sure Nerida drinks her elixir and doesn't revert to her true form, which reminds me-" Ula reached inside her dress and extracted a thin vial filled with a sparkly red potion. She opened it and gave it to Nerida, who drank it without protest. Once it was empty, her fish-like features vanished in a matter of seconds and she took the form Moon had first seen her in. "That's better," said Ula with a relaxed smile. "Now-" the smile vanished instantly as she looked at the two men opposite to her, both of whom stood stiff as logs. "Care to explain yourselves, boys?"
The two men exchanged a quick glance and a nod, wishing each other the best of luck, and turned to face the two women.
"Well," began River, "We figured young Nerida needed some form of entertainment, so we decided to play a game of catch and... well..."
"She... sort of outran us both..." finished Tethys.
"That's all?" asked Moon, casting a prying gaze in their direction.
"That's all!" both yelled in sync.
Moon kept her gaze locked on them, then sighed a tired sigh, and spoke, "Alright, I suppose I can let this one slide. But River?"
"Yes?"
"Do make sure she doesn't wander off alone and crash into other people, will you? You know how fussy our servants can be."
"And Tethys?" said Ula, gazing at her husband.
"Yes, dear?"
"Make sure you give her the elixir on time, please? We're guests here and I don't wish to cause a scene, alright?" Tethys nodded obediently. Ula then continued, conveying the change in plans, "We'll be hosting a Monster-Mewman Ball and we've much to discuss," continued Ula, "Queen Moon and I will need a few days of peace to properly arrange things, so I'm expecting the both of you to be on your best behaviour and keep my daughter out of trouble, alright?" The two men nodded without question. "Good, now continue with your game, just be more mindful, understood?"
"Yes, ma'am!" the two swore and saluted her like a pair of loyal soldiers. Ula then told Nerida to go with the two and inform her if anything happened. The young girl gave her mother a quick hug, then dashed over to the two men.
"Want to check out the royal gardens?" offered River.
"Ok!" she replied cheerfully.
"Permission to give her a piggy-back ride?" he asked Tethys, who replied with a smile and a hum. River lifted the girl upon his back and the three walked out of the room.
Moon and Ula shook their heads at the sight, but couldn't help but smile.
"He certainly has a way with children." Ula placed a hand don Moon's shoulder and gave Moon a single, solemn nod. "He'll make a fine husband someday!"
"Why are you telling me this!?" Moon exclaimed, blushing madly.
And thus, the organisation was underway.
Gonna have to cut this one short! Hopefully, I'll finish the next chapter by Sunday! Fingers crossed!
As always, reviews and suggestions are much appreciated!
'Till next time!
