Notes:

Woohoo! 20 Chapters and 30k words! Hallelujiah, I can barely believe I've made it so far. Thank you all you readers for coming along up til here, because we still have a very long way to go.

WARNING: Serious discussion of religious beliefs, if thats not your cup of tea skip this chapter. Don't worry though, this should be the last chapter we really delve into it. I just wanted to show Star coming to terms with her foster families religious beliefs pretty quick, so I went with a couple of intense chapters bout it.

Chapter 20

Star, my parents, and I all sit around our kitchen table. It was a deeply uncomfortable ride back home for all of us, as we pondered how we were going to talk out our various differences in perspective and religious beliefs. For Star, at least from what I gather, she sees 'Gods' as forces of nature with an ego. For us, God is our creator and what we base our faith on. Unfortunately for us, she has literally met a few and we as a species have no clue for sure if our deities are even real or not.

But we have something more important to discuss first, at least as far as my father is concerned. He really, deeply doesn't want Star to be some horrible demon worshipper of some kind. "Look, Star, I know that must have been confusing to listen to. Our foreign exchange students often run into some problems eventually, and religion is one of those that crops up here and now. But first, you said your ex-boyfriend was a Prince of Hell. What was his name? Lucifer?"

Star blinks. She clearly hadn't been expecting that line of questioning at all. "What? No. It was Tom. Tom Lucitor, and why it was kind of weird you got it so close, I don't know any Underworld Royalty with the name Lucifer either. Why is this important?" The idea of underworld royalty is of so little concern that she didn't consider it a part of a religious discussion, huh?

I speak up, hesitation on my face "Star, in Christianity sinners who don't have an appropriately deep relationship with God end up in Hell when they die. Being tortured for eternity. It's not quite so simple as bad people end up in hell and good people in Heaven, but that's close to the gist of it. And the leader of hell who tempts people towards both Sin and giving up God is Satan, or Lucifer. A prince of Hell, the devil." Perhaps she'd recognize what it means to us through some synonyms? We're both speaking English, surely something would have the right implications to paint them as 'evil'.

Star seems rather flabbergasted by that idea. "What? No, that can't be it. The underworld might have different subsections depending on your dimensional location, but its general purpose is the same everywhere. Everybody who dies ends up there."

My father gulps, his face going pale. "What? Everyone goes to Hell? That can't be true! You just don't have any real Christians there, it must be it. Oh, you poor soul." He's on the verge of crying at imagining an entire dimension of people living in torment forever. "There's no way a just god would allow so many to be tortured for eternity! Is there truly no way for your people to avoid such a fate?"

Ding. I can almost see the lightbulb flash above her head as she finally seems to get what my father is saying. She shakes her head vigorously back and forth, then claims "People don't go to the underworld for punishment! Its just, like part of what happens when you die. Like, lots of negativity and grudges and pain pile up on your soul as you go through life, so when you die the underworld cleans it all up for you." She pauses to catch her breath and straighten out her thoughts. I imagine she considers the next bit especially important for my distraught father to hear. "The biggest problem with the underworld isn't any demons torturing you or anything, it's just boredom. There's like a nearly infinite backlog of souls to fill and so they're all super freakin bored."

"What? Bored?" My mother finally speaks up when she realizes that my father is a bit too distracted to add to the conversation. "Our religion speaks of lakes of fire and terrible torment of suffering sinners for eternity, but most of all the soul rending pain of knowing you'll never be in God's embrace again."

Star just rolls her eyes at that. "Definitely not that. Most people I know can't stand our deities, hell I bet quite a few of them went to the underworld just to get away from them. Lakes of fire though...yeah. There's a lot of creepy demon stuff down there. But a lot of it comes from the negativity of the souls themselves infecting the environment and the original denizens. As for the torture, well… eternity with an undying body can get really boring. A lot of people get creative with their entertainment."

My father looks up at that, his voice ringing out sharply, "Entertainment?! I can't believe what I'm hearing! You think you can come into our home with these LIE-" He gets no further than that before being silenced by my mother taking a grip on his arm that looks far less than pleasant.

"Rafael." She snaps, twisting her grip on his skin. "That's enough. Go cool off." He returns my mothers glare for mere moments before folding. She's always worn the pants in their relationship, amusingly enough considering what had been preached about in church today. He stands up immediately and walks out of the kitchen, then out of our backdoor to lock himself up in our shed.

Mom lets out a sigh and gives us both an apologetic look. I'm honestly a little shaken myself, I'd never seen my father that upset. Star is clearly both a little afraid and very guilty that she'd managed to get him that angry. Seeing her like that, I feel my lips twist into a frown. I might have to have some words with my father at some point, it's been a while since he's been lectured…

"Look, I'm sorry you two. Rafael is just… before he met me, his family was deeply catholic. They were very, very strict believers. He's been loosening up for years and years, moving to a different church with me, and especially opening his mind with our exchange students sharing their perspectives. But this… this completely flies in the face of everything he believes in, and it wasn't a gradual thing. I'm sure he's grieving for more than you know, right now." My mother wrings her hands worriedly. For all that she'd seemed a steel maiden a few moments before, I can tell how much she hates how all this hurts my father.

"Alright, alright. I think I can get what Dad feels. But he's gonna have to deal with it, the universe is bigger than us humans were ever prepared to understand before Star came along." While my sympathy for Dad was ignited by my mother's explanation, I still won't forgive him for spooking Star like that so easily. "Look, Star, can you tell us a bit more about the Underworld? Where does this Tom guy fit into this?"

My new best friend takes a calming breath, then paints a smile on her face. Her eyes are clear enough that I realize I'm perhaps being a little overprotective of the girl. She'd been facing down terrifying monsters long before she met me, my father throwing a hissy fit is nothing she can't overcome. A smile slowly slides onto my face as well, I can't help it-she's been such an amazing change to everything I know.

"Well, the Lucitors are the ruling family of Mewni's particular stretch of the underworld. He's a demon, or half I think? His father was a Mewman before marrying Queen Wrathmelior, so I figure that he's half and half. Demon's being basically just people corrupted by the negativity entrenched there. It's given Tom a supernaturally awful temper, but he doesn't need that to be a jerk." Star rolls her eyes, her distaste for her past boyfriend clear on her face. How nice…

"How did you two meet, anyway? I can't imagine there are like, royal get-togethers that just happen to include demons." I snort, trying to picture some hoity toity nobles sipping tea cups with their pinkies up and offering cookies to monsters like Niotalosed.

"Well, yes actually. The Silver Bell ball being one of them. I told you that Mewni was divided up into a bunch of kingdoms the other day right? We just kind of consider the underworld one of those." She shrugs, to my amazement. Has it just always been this way for her? I can't imagine what that would be like here on Earth. Would Hell be a state? A country? In the United nations? Would our president just shake hands with the devil and call him an ally? Well, hell, I can definitely imagine that at least.

I snicker to myself at my little joke, which earns me a warning look from my mother. She's listening intently to every word that comes out of the magical princess' mouth, probably so that she can tell my father about it in a way that he can handle later.

"So, yeah, we pretty much grew up together along with the other royals. Princess Spiderbite, Prince Kelpington, my bff Princess Ponyhead, lots of people." Star kind of shrugs. I wonder how crazy these other royals of Mewni have to be to keep up with the likes of Star and a fuckin demon prince? It's kind of a scary thought to imagine all of them in the same room.

"Okay, yeah. I think I can work with that." My mother sighs, her hands coming up to rub at her temples. "This is a lot to take in. Marco, what do you think about all this? Got anything that might help me convince your father he hasn't been living a lie his whole life?"

"Well, no. He's definitely been doing that. But his faith in god shouldn't be shaken at least, mine certainly isn't." I give my brightest smile at the two of them, who just blink at me like I've gone crazy.

"This Jesus guy? Marco, you've never even seen him! I'm telling you, Gods are -way- too annoying for all the hype we heard in church, and probably too selfish to bother serving as lord. They couldn't care less about the little people as long as the big picture stays whole." Star does her best to convince me that I'm making a mistake, probably insulting her deities a little too much in the process. Regardless of the differences in our cultures, I'm pretty sure gods should be a little respected at least.

"Yes, Marco, I'm a little confused myself. How can you hear all of this and just be okay with it? I mean, I'm not Rafael but even I'm struggling to cope with all this." My mother asks almost desperately, like I could throw her a life preserver to help she and my father's faith stay afloat in this storm.

"Well, honestly, this doesn't really change anything." I begin with, to the consternation of the two girls at my table. "I've never really been a big believer in the way we portray hell anyhow. Like, there's two many arguments to make against it for any logical being to consider it all that deeply. A short hundred years of life decisions extending into an eternity of torment? Those are the actions of a villain, not someone who chose to bring life into existence from the start. Our universe is much too beautiful for that."

I clear my throat and stand up from the table to grab a coke from the fridge. After I've wet my whistle appropriately, I screw the cap back on and continue. "Everything we know in our dimension is colored by human perceptions, and we're a deeply stupid and misguided species altogether. As for Star's perspective...well, we haven't really explained very well to you what exactly we mean by God."

Star tilts her head uncertainly, then glances at my mother. Angie, being an intelligent woman, seems to catch where I'm going with this. She mutters "Olympians…?"

"Exactly. We also have representations of forces of nature who were kind of jerks in our history. Gods, they called themselves, and they sound similar to the type you're talking about. But the Christian God is something more. He is the spark that made everything, the maker of every dimension in the universe, the highest power above it all. The things you call Gods would look at him and still think him divine, because he created even their creators and so on."

"That...sounds like it doesn't exist. The universe is a crazy place, it just exists. How could just one guy have made it all? He'd need like, a gajillion wands worth of juice to do something like that." Star waves the wand in question around skeptically.

"I haven't a clue! But I still think someone did. The universe is too amazing to be an accident, I think. But you don't have to think the same way. One thing Christianity teaches that is too often forgotten is -acceptance-. You'll be a part of our family no matter what." I walk over to pull Star up out of her chair and wrap her in a hug, which my mother quickly joins into as well.

"Yeah...I'm still not gonna join your cult." Star deadpans, before giggling happily and just enjoying the hug. I hope my mother can pass along my thoughts to my dad, maybe it'll help. By the look on her face, she seems satisfied enough at least. I hope he doesn't stay in that shed all night like he does on Halloween...