Title: wrong space wrong time

Fandom: Star Vs. the Forces of Evil

Summary: AU. Toffee's life has been too freakin' weird.

Main Notes: Written post-"Just Friends" and after seeing all the episodes before that one; written before season 2 finale. Just starting to go wild with the theories here before the season finale slays me on Monday. Seriously, when I say AU, I really do mean AU.

Part-specific notes: Part of this is kinda experimental, just me writing for my own interest and to explore things, and see if I can get this out before the season 2 finale, explore ways of expressing these ideas and see if I can do it in a matter of days...so, just. Yeah, things start to escalate quickly now.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Vs. the Forces of Evil.

iii.

It feels like it's been ages since his cousin Arabella tried to cut his hair, and it just magically refused. Toffee's six now, but it feels like ages. He hasn't seen Arabella for a really long time, not since she left to fight farther abroad with another troop. Sometimes he'll hear about her, from her parents and other family and villagers. She's still alive, so that's something.

Toffee already wishes he could go back. Right to when she tried cutting his stupid hair. Just right around then.

(To when his father was alive.)

…

Eclipsa has not been the same since that Mewman assault on the temple took dad away. Not entirely.

Toffee doesn't know why it still surprises and disappoints him; not like he's been the same since either. And it's not like she's completely different. She's just…off. Ever since then, she's been off.

…

(It wasn't the first Mewman attack on the temple Toffee's witnessed, and it hasn't been the last. It's forever seared into his mind as one of the worst though. How could it not, given what it took from him.)

…

Eclipsa will bury herself in work and go days without speaking to or seeing Toffee, and sometimes he hates her for this. (His father's family and other temple inhabitants look after him, but it's not the same.)

And he wonders if this is how his half-sister feels about their mother. He knows she exists, even if Eclipsa never tells him anything about her.

He fears he'll end up the same as her—left behind. He's heard how Eclipsa left the ruling Mewman king for his father…maybe he was the only one she really loved. With him gone…maybe she has no reason left to stay.

Toffee feels like someone drowning pulled to shore whenever Eclipsa comes back to him, and so far she always does. He tries to tell himself his mother will not abandon him, like she did with her firstborn.

…

Toffee has eavesdropped, before mom or anyone else can chase him away.

He wants to know what work or research takes her away for days on end.

He's heard scraps of this, rumors: his mother and her all-seeing eye spell, but trying to change it into a new form. See something else, see the future. Scrying.

It's not enough; he wants more answers. But Eclipsa locks herself in workrooms and takes her company with other grown-ups. When she's with him, she doesn't answer his questions about the work that involves magical research.

Toffee breaks into his mother's small shelf, the one where she stores pudding for Glossayrck.

"Old man, what's my mother doing?" Toffee asks immediately, holding out the pudding to Glossayrck.

Glossayrck is a mystery. All Toffee really knows about him is that he is ancient and has known mother since she was little; that he taught her and still works with her. That he likes pudding, and lives in Eclipsa's spell book.

Toffee has not talked with Glossayrck as much as Eclipsa has. He's only seen the old man a handful of times. It may have been Butterfly tradition for their children to be educated in magic by Glossayrck, but Toffee has never really had lessons with him. Sometimes Glossayrck did a sorta lecture with him, whenever Eclipsa left him with the old man for that specific purpose. But mostly any magic he learned was from Eclipsa himself.

She hasn't been doing a lot of that lately either.

Glossayrck takes only a spoonful of the pudding Toffee offers. "Eclipsa has already asked that I not say anything. And did it more politely than you, I might add."

Toffee snarls, snatching the pudding and spoon away, curling in on himself and beginning to angrily swirl the spoon around inside it, faster and faster, what was he even doing—the thought of throwing it in Glossayrck's face flashes across his mind—

"Have you held the wand again? You used it the month after your father died, hadn't you?" Glossayrck says this calmly, as if he were only asking about the status of Toffee's studies.

It makes the boy freeze and his heart pound.

—the mechanized armor slammed Eclipsa hard enough to make her drop her wand, and Toffee flinched to see it happen. For a terrified second he stayed behind cover; then disobeyed his mother and darted for her wand. She had to have it back.

Something crackled out of the sky, hitting the ground—stone splintered, Toffee slipped, the ground turning sideways, his world flipping, he saw the wand slide, the mechanized armor stumble—heard his mother swear and his mother never swore—

Toffee woke up with a cough, aching all over. He wiped at his mouth, it felt wet, sticky. His vision was blurry, his head spun; but eventually it focused, and he looked up, up, to the temple, to where he had just been, where debris still trickled down from a new jagged cut in the rock face.

The boy flinched, hugging himself as a cold gust of wind blasted past. Where was mom, where was—

Wand, he remembered. Toffee climbed to his feet—crumbled back down when he realized how much that hurt—then crawled to a nearby rock to help himself up, and squeezed his eyes shut and grit his fangs how that still hurt even with the rock as support.

Toffee looked around. The rock ledge he had fallen to was just covered in debris, and he saw nothing from where he leaned against the rock. Pushing off the stone with a wince, Toffee began to walk further out.

When he saw the mechanized armor, Toffee stumbled back, frightened—then caught himself when he realized the armor was unmoving, dim, dented, and looked broken.

And then he saw the wand was just beyond it.

Toffee scrambled over the armor to Eclipsa's wand. He grabbed it, preparing to pull it out of the debris where it stuck out from—but then mother's wand changed, growing shorter, freeing itself from the debris. Toffee stumbled back against the mechanized armor when there was no longer resistance from the debris he had been anticipating.

The boy stared in alarm at the wand—what had happened, what had he done? His mother's wand was supposed to look like an umbrella; now it looked way too short, it was shaped differently—

"There! It's the w—"

"Shut up!"

Toffee whirled around to find more Mewman knights crawling over the armor, one hitting another that had been pointing at him and the wand.

Heart jumping up in his throat, Toffee ran with the wand, clutched tight in his claws.

Instinctively the boy skidded to a halt when one knight landed in front of him, he must've jumped from the armor's great height to block him—

Toffee darted to the side, he had to get away, he had to find mom—

He felt a vice grip on his tail, then was yanked back and sent flying—he screamed when he hit rough, cutting rock, and fell back to the ground with a strangled cry. Toffee had been knocked on his stomach, felt the wand pressing painfully into his chest.

Hearing the knights approach, Toffee felt his terror spike and almost overwhelm the pain in his battered body. The boy raised himself to all fours—only to vomit, spit up something sticky and metallic-testing, his eyes squeezed shut. He opened one eye, his vision blurry. Finally it focused more, and he spotted the wand beneath him, and reached out with one trembling claw, while the other shakily continued to support the rest of his body. His claw scrambled for the wand, frantic, panicked, before finally finding purchase and clutching it tight.

He looked again, to find the knights—one was closing in. Body burning, Toffee shot up, to run again; but this knight had caught him too, plucking him up by his neck how was his hand so big—

Toffee had one eye squeezed shut, the other open—he saw one large gloved hand around his throat, the other reaching for the wand—he moved his wand hand, so that the knight just grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip. He kicked at the knight, claws scraping uselessly against metal—air, he needed more air than this—

"Just—stop that—just give it here, you little beast—!"

The knight let go of his wand hand, tried to grab for the wand itself again—Toffee's arm screamed as he made it move out of the way again, and this time the knight caught him by the elbow, pulling—

Toffee made a strangled cry, it felt like his arm was ripping, and his eyes watered.

"Give—"

The knight still had his arm, he was trying to just force him to let go of the wand now—he yanked his arm up higher, and Toffee cried out again, eyes squeezing shut, tears spilling—the hand around his throat tightened too, making his eyes snap open—air air air he needed air—a—anyone—Mom—Dad—Toffee saw the wand was now level with the knight's face, and the knife just kept yanking his arm, he was going to yank it out of its socket—

The realization burned across his mind: He was alone, no one was coming. He was going to die, just like dad. Dad dad Dad DAD—MOM—

Toffee felt something snap, and the wand glowed green, firing into the knight's masked face—

Just as quickly as he had been caught, Toffee was released, and he was thrown to the dirt, gasping and crying, eyes twisted shut, small claws still wrapped tight around the wand. When he looked up, his eyes widened in horror—the knight's neck was a blackened, smoking stump, and his head was nowhere to be found.

Toffee scrambled out of the way as the knight's body fell to its knees, then flopped forward like a doll.

The boy kept scrambling back until his back hit the stone wall he'd been thrown into earlier, and he stared at the rest of the Mewman knights, swearing and shouting and raising their weapons higher, rushing toward him.

Turning his head away and squeezing his eyes shut, Toffee raised the wand again, both claws clutching it tight, and even through his eyelids he saw the glow of green, and heard something get hit, something tear, and terrible screaming…

When Toffee opened his eyes and faced forward again, he saw armor ripped apart and skeletons strewn across the stone floor, perfectly white skeletons stripped clean of flesh, like flesh had weirdly never even been there.

Heart pounding, eyes wide, tears still running, Toffee stayed crouched against the rock wall with the wand raised in trembling arms until Eclipsa found him, and gently removed it, and Toffee watched the wand change back into the umbrella form he had known his entire life, and mother held him tight and said—

The pudding cup slipped out of Toffee's claws, spoon clattering to the ground.

"No, never—I never want to—"

Toffee felt his breathing go weird, his vision start to go hazy. He tried to face Glossayrck again, to focus on his gem, something to make his vision go back to normal.

Slowly, his vision focused again, and the boy's breathing eased back into something more normal. Still he gasped for air, slumped over slightly, claws digging into his thighs while he sat on his knees, feeling as if had run a very long way.

Still slumped over, Toffee's eyes looked up at Glossayrck. The old man hadn't said anything else, just watched calmly. For a wild moment, Toffee wondered if he had read his mind or something. Mom had said Glossayrck was extremely powerful. And he was a mystery. Who knows what he could do.

Hungrily sucking in one last breath of air, Toffee straightened up slightly. He stared at Glossayrck.

"…The wand changed when I held it. Do you know why it did that?"

Toffee didn't bat an eye when Glossayrck began to levitate the cup and spoon and pudding back into place, as if nothing had been spilled. The cup floated to Glossayrck's hands, and he resumed eating.

(Glossayrck was magic, Glossayrck was all powerful, Toffee had at least seen Glossayrck make things float before—and the boy just felt very tired now and really did want to lie down, but still he was curious. He just wanted to ask one more question.)

"The wand—" Glossayrck swallowed, then continued. "The wand will change its shape based on whoever holds it."

"Why does it do that?"

Glossayrck shrugged, and took another spoonful. "It just does."

Toffee frowned at Glossayrck.

"Now, will knowing the 'why' provide anything relevant in this case, besides satisfying curiosity?" Glossayrck asked, and Toffee blinked, considering that concept. "Besides," Glossayrck said, after licking the spoon. "You already asked me 'why,' and I gave you my answer. This could be a case where there's no other 'why' behind it."

"…Oh," Toffee said, blinking again, and realizing Glossayrck had a point—he had already asked why the wand had changed, and Glossayrck had given an answer to that. He'd just kept…going, questioning, as if driven by instinct.

"Don't overthink this one too much, Toffee," Glossayrck said, taking another spoonful of pudding, and again making Toffee wonder if he could read minds. "Kids are just normally full of questions, and you're no different."

Toffee gave a hesitant nod. Then he got up, bowed before Glossayrck, thanked him for his time, and left.

…

Toffee sees more of Eclipsa afterward, and the boy briefly wonders if maybe Glossayrck told her something about their encounter.

Either way, he's grateful.