Title: wrong space wrong time
Fandom: Star Vs. the Forces of Evil
Summary: AU. Toffee's life has been too freakin' weird.
Character(s): Toffee, Eclipsa, Monster Love, Glossayrck, OC's
Notes: Starting writing this AU after "Just Friends" and after seeing all the episodes before that one; first started writing this before season 2 finale. Just starting to go wild with the theories here before the season finale.
This part was finished after watching season 2, and reading some of the new tie-in book "Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension". Part of this is kinda experimental, just me writing for my own interest and to explore things; and partly due to that, this results in this chapter being…well, I will say right now that I really do try to go wild with this chapter. And seriously, when I say AU, I really do mean AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Vs. the Forces of Evil.
iv.
(This is the last time Toffee sees his mother truly alive. He is eight.)
...
Toffee tears off strips of his shirt and bandages Eclipsa's leg while she barricades the entrance with her wand. Her feet remain firmly planted, she does not move—this all makes it easier for Toffee to dress her wound. (One of them, anyway. She's already lost a lot of blood. Toffee wishes he were better at this, wishes he could find a proper healer in the chaos of another Mewman assault.)
The boy looks up at her, tail whipping back and forth anxiously, jaws clenched, trying not to ask stupid questions or say stupid things, like: How long will that thing hold? That entrance's the only way getting in or out. We can't get out of here—there's no other way to get out. We'd have to go backward, we'd have to go through the Mewmans at the door. Does this buy you time to fight them off? Or can you make a new exit? Mewmans have never gotten this far into the temple before. Was that knight who just killed the elders really your daughter? My half-sister? They called her princess, they called her PRINCESS—why didn't you ever talk about her, why don't you ever really tell me anything—does she want your wand? Is this about the stupid STUPID wand? It always is, everyone's always dying over it, everyone wants it, it's always destroying, burning, killing, that stupid—horrible—it—are we going to die, is this it?
Toffee bites the inside of his cheek so he can stay quiet. Asking or saying any of this isn't going to help, he's certain of this, it'll just waste time. And he has no idea what to do, has no clue—the only useful thing he can do is to stay quiet and wait and listen and follow Eclipsa's lead, because Eclipsa knows what she's doing. Whatever else is going on, his mom knows what she's doing.
But she's hurt and tired, can't even maintain her transformed state anymore. (Toffee had not seen her transform like that since the attack that killed Dad.)
The young half-monster sees more blood seep through the hasty bandages wrapped around Eclipsa's abdomen, indicating that the injury there had reopened. At the sight of it, he sucks in a breath, blinking rapidly so as to stop the sudden watering of his eyes; he couldn't let the fear overwhelm him, that wasn't going to help.
Eclipsa must have heard Toffee, because she finally looks down, locks eyes with him, and maybe she sees his worry and fear and everything he wants to say, no matter how hard he tries to hide it or stay calm. Because her eyes soften, and she kneels down and draws him close, and Toffee just slumps into her embrace, realizing he feels really tired too, and for a moment feels his own injuries too. But his wounds are lesser in number and severity than Eclipsa's; and guilt still makes him nauseous, knowing some of her wounds she took while protecting him.
(He tries to banish small details of his mother's face—how strained her eyes looked, sweat and blood lining her skin and making it look even paler, how all of her seemed like she tried to resist exhaustion and physical pain.)
"Toffee," she says, and he closes his eyes, hides his face in her shoulder, careful not to touch the bandaged part of it. (His mother is just—she's injured all over. It's not a new sight, it's happened as often as Mewmans attack or she goes to fight—but it's one he still dislikes.) "I haven't been a good mother…"
Immediately Toffee feels even guiltier, and starts to protest (and he also starts feeling very afraid for some reason that he doesn't want to figure out right now, not right now, not ever).
"…I've tried, but I'm not. But I love you more than anything, I truly do…"
Toffee clings to Eclipsa tighter, starting to dig his claws in. He tries to speak, saying, "I know, I know—" Stop, just be quiet, please, just tell me what to do, tell me what I can do to help us get out of this, just stop talking about this, talk about anything else, anything but this, just— "Mom, what—?"
"I need to keep you alive you, and this—"
There's another crash against the barricade that makes Toffee flinch, and then Eclipsa just snaps her mouth shut, and the softness leaves her eyes. She climbs to her feet, grabs Toffee's arm in a vice-like grip, her other hand raising her wand.
Toffee doesn't hear his mother say anything; he just sees her look very focused. Then energy blasts out of her wand—tendrils of it make a shape, an hourglass; that then spins, resembling a clock—then a hole in space is ripped before them. He can hear voices through the hole.
Toffee starts trying to dig his claws into the ground, starts pulling away from Eclipsa, but any strength he has left is useless against hers. She may be more hurt and tired than he is, but she is still too much for him.
"Mom, what are you doing?" He asks, looking up at her, eyes wide, chest pounding. "What's this? What are you—?"
Eclipsa begins to throw him forward. Because Toffee resists, she pulls harder, and it twists his arm. He gives a pained shout, and through one eye he managed to keep open while the other squeezed shut, he sees his mother—she's quietly crying, pain etched on her face.
For all his struggling, it's no use. Eclipsa shoves him through the portal.
Toffee feels…very strange for a second. Like weirdly electrified, because it doesn't entirely hurt like any Mewman electrical spell he's been caught in, but it—it just feels weird. And even when it feels like extreme distortion in his body, it doesn't feel like pain—it's more like…like every sense heightened, until it's blinding, and he does feel like passing out, but it still doesn't exactly hurt, it's just—
And just as quickly as it happened, the strange sensation is gone, and Toffee hits a smooth surface. But the boy feels like he had before, he feels normal, as normal as he can possibly be with exhaustion and injury. Toffee immediately tries to scramble up, but the stupid ground is slippery. He can't be delayed, his only chance is to recover quickly and run back—
Toffee can still see his mother, through the hole ripped in space. Eclipsa's arm is already moving, swiping her wand down, and as the wand sweeps down, the portal is zipping shut.
"WAIT!" The boy screams, running forward; but it's no use, it's no use—the portal zips shut and out of existence, and his feet scrape and claw against the cool smooth surface. Too stupidly smooth. Toffee had burst forward with such desperate speed, it's hard to stop, and this smooth surface isn't helping; he slips and slides, and crashes into something solid.
It's not a wall though.
"Glossayrckwhatdidyoudo?!"
"Rhombulus, weren't you paying attention?" Toffee feels a shock of surprised relief to hear the old man. "All right, it's very likely you weren't. But as I told you, I'm only keeping an appointment; I did not directly set any of this in motio—"
"Like hell you didn't!"
Toffee flinches away, scrambling back from the living arm he had crashed into—it looks like a monster's arm, belonging to one of those monsters with three minds, because there are two heads attached to the end of each arm, and one cyclops crystal head on top. The boy flinches again when another monster pops out from behind the three-headed monster, someone with horns and a beard and a snout and horns and very big wings, and looking very confused.
Glossayrck, the tri-head grown-up said Glossayrck, and Toffee had recognized the old man's voice, it came from behind him—he just had to get to him, and he would help him get back to Mom. Toffee whirled around, and froze.
He was in a large room, on top of a long, smooth table. There was a large window to the side, and outside were just stars. (How high up were they?)
There were even more people in the room—what looked like a monster's skull in a crystal ball, and if he hadn't somehow blinked, Toffee wouldn't have thought he was alive. There was someone who looked sorta like a Mewman lady, but her really pale skin color and the rest of her features made Toffee realize she looked more like one of those demons Mom and Dad had shown him in an old scroll before. The last person did look like a Mewman lady—and more alarmingly she had clear cheek marks and a crown on her head and looked very regal and was already raising a wand toward him—
Toffee didn't move, trembling and frozen with fear and confusion—this Mewman's wand didn't look like his mother's, but it had to be hers, just the shape changed— Mewmans had magic but he hadn't seen many with exactly wands, they would use other things to channel their magic, or just their own body—the wand only went to Mewman royal ladies with cheek marks, and this Mewman had them, and the wand—but Momjust had that wand, how could this other royal Mewman have even gotten it—who even was she, she wasn't the princess-knight he had just seen slaughter monsters at the temple—was there another royal Mewman lady that had a right to the wand, someone he had never heard of, someone Mom never talked about, what—what was going on—
The wand fired, and still Toffee didn't move—but he felt his shirt pull, and then was jerked away.
Toffee hung down by the back of his shirt, limp and still in shock, heart pounding and eyes wide as he finally found Glossaryck, looking like he normally did, just calmly floating in the air.
"What was that?" The first loud voice Toffee had heard in the room shouted, and Toffee flinched at the volume, but finally glanced up at his rescuer. It was definitely the first voice he heard, the tri-head grown-up—Rhombulus, Glossyarck had called him—Rhombulus now had one of his snake hands biting his shirt to hold him up. "You—your highness, you can't just shoot him, he just got here—"
Through the fog his mind had become, Toffee numbly figured the grown-up had never been to Mewni.
…But wait, wasn't he a monster? How could he not know—?
"It's a monster," the new Mewman queen hissed, and Toffee flinched, turning to look back at her. "It—"
"He's not just a monster, he's a Butterfly," Glossayrck's voice cut in, and Toffee had never felt so happy to hear and see the old man.
The other people in the room stared at Glossayrck, and Toffee felt really uncomfortable looking at the new expression the Mewman wore, so he turned away from her and just focused on the person Eclipsa trusted, and whom had been a mysterious fixture for his whole short life.
"Glossayrck, I need your help to get back to Mom, she—"
The boy flinched as something banged against the table, and he looked down to find the Mewman had modified the wand to look like a small hammer thing.
"And who is your mother, beast?" She said, voice deathly low, and Toffee began to tremble again, he couldn't find his voice. Even with Glossayrck here, even with the loud guy who had protected him, Toffee did not feel safe with the grown-up Mewman in the room. He hadn't even found an exit in the room yet, no escape route—
"Did you not hear me?" The Mewman's cold blue eyes narrowed, filling even more with disdain. "Did you not understand?" Something more controlled entered her voice. "Fail to comprehend civilized speech? You managed a few words before, but—"
Toffee finally snarled, though his voice cracked. "It's none of your business!" His fists clenched, claw tips biting into his hands, and he only half-noticed Rhombulus hesitantly lower him back to the table surface so that his feet touched something solid again, releasing the back of his shirt so he could stand on his own. "I don't even know who you are, you're not Princess Comet—"
Something sparked in the Mewman's eyes. But it was with a lazy grace that she flicked her hand, and the wand whipped out a glowing vine that wrapped around Toffee and yanked him closer, making his knees slam against the table and cause them to sting.
"Woah, wait—!" Rhombulus shouted, sounding very alarmed again. Toffee flinched when something else wrapped around him and pulled in the opposite direction. When he opened his eyes, Toffee found it was indeed Rhombulus again, arms wrapped tight around him and enfolding him into a bear hug, while his snake hands looked very apologetic.
"Your highness, he's not gonna talk if you keep pushing him around," Rhombulus said, almost whining, and Toffee found it really weird to hear someone so big sound so whining and what the hell was going on what had Eclipsa thrown him into how was this protecting him?!
"Beast, why did you mention Princess Comet?" The Mewman said, her voice even lower and colder, and Toffee squirmed futilely against her vines, and in Rhombulus' more protective hold. Clearly as long as the Mewman had him wrapped in vines, Rhombulus wasn't letting go.
"What are you talking about?!" Toffee snapped, trying very hard not to cry and think how much he just wanted his mom right now. He couldn't cry in front of this Mewman, he couldn't act like the kid he was, he had to be more grown-up. "Comet's supposed to get the wand next, not you, that's what everyone says—"
Toffee finally just gave an inarticulate shout, his anger and fear hitting a breaking point. "Just let go of me!" (So much for acting more grown-up. At least he hadn't cried.)
"I just don't want the queen yanking you around," Rhombulus said, sounding a little guilty.
"Rhombulus, he's talking to Queen Sun, not you," the demon lady finally said in a dry voice.
"Oh."
Ignoring those two, Toffee was about to again demand the Mewman let him go—when suddenly the worst pain his body had ever felt stabbed straight through him, he heard and felt skin rip and bone break—he lost all consciousness, all sensation, everything.
...
"…there, you see?" Toffee groaned at Glossayrck's voice. "Like I said, he's fine."
He must be talking to Mom, and at the thought of her, Toffee wanted to immediately get up and hug her, or make her tell him a story or sing him a song if his body wasn't able, and right now it didn't feel like it was able. He just really wanted to hear Mom and see her; he just had the worst dream…wait. Glossayrck sounded like he was reassuring her. No, the attack was real, but Glossayrck must have taken him back to Mom after he passed out, or Mom had come and—
"Ohthankgoodness."
That wasn't Mom. That was loud guy. Rhombulus.
Toffee's eyes snapped open.
"The queen's vine whip just turned him into a pincushion, how is he fine?" That was demon lady.
Toffee bolted up, to find all of the strangers still here with Glossayrck, they were still in the same room. A quick glance down showed him his shirt was in tatters, a lot of blood was drying on his chest, but his scales were smooth. Even some of his earlier wounds were gone. Toffee remembered just feeling like he had been stabbed all over, before blacking out…
His yellow eyes fell on the wand-vines that had trapped him, discarded on the floor—now covered in long thorns, and a cluster of them drenched in blood.
Slowly looking back up, he found the Mewman glaring at him, and his heart pounded—he almost screamed with shock and fear when something touched him, but it was just loud guy shoving him behind and under his long cape. "Nah uh, not again," Rhombulus said.
"Glossayrck, explain," the Mewman hissed, and Toffee worked up the nerve to peek out from under Rhombulus' cape to look at Glossayrck.
The old man finally really looked at him, and Toffee felt something like hope.
"Toffee, tell them your mother's name."
The young half-monster looked away, out the window, to the stars. "…Eclipsa," he said, reluctantly obeying the old man.
The winged goat monster gave a shocked bleat, and Toffee looked around at the strangers; demon lady's eyes were wide and she was silently mouthing no way; the Mewman queen looked shocked and angry and even more murderous; the monster skull in the crystal ball looked surprised, but also not as much as the others so far, and also looked a little something like guilty and definitely skittish; goat monster—again, just shocked; Rhombulus somehow looked smaller, all of his heads wide-eyed. Of course, Glossayrck was excluded from any great show of emotion—but then again, he already knew who Toffee's mother was.
"You're lying," the Mewman hissed, glowering at the young half-monster, looking at him as if he were lower than dirt. Toffee growled back at her, hate climbing up his throat. (The boy wished he could claw out those cold blue eyes.)
"He isn't," Glossayrck said in a firm voice.
The Mewman whirled on him. "That's impossible, it's been hundreds of years since Eclipsa ran off with that monster!"
Toffee felt his stomach drop and his heart stop. (The recent memory burned in his mind: Mom's wand blast first forming an hourglass, then a clock, then a hole in space.)
The goat monster turned to the monster skull in the crystal ball, bleating and glaring. Demon lady narrowed her eyes at him too. "Omni, you've been more real-weirdly-quiet, not super-shocked-quiet over there."
"Also, Omni's all space-time!" Rhombulus added.
"Yeah, I was getting to that," demon lady said, rolling her eyes.
"Glossayrck, I want to see Mom right now—I want to go back to the temple, I want to go home," Toffee quickly cut in, eyes locking with the old man's, he didn't want to hear anything else, he just wanted to leave, he wanted to leave right now, please—
"I—I don't think that'll be possible." That was the skul—Omni, finally speaking. "I'll have to run a diagnostic, but I'm already sensing that it's—"
"—Impossible," Glossayrck finished, and already Toffee was shaking his head.
Queen Sun grit her teeth. "You're not honestly suggesting that this thing—"
"'Toffee,'" Glossayrck mildly corrected.
"—Beast," Queen Sun spat out, refusing the correction. "Are you seriously suggesting this wretched beast is Eclipsa's filthy half-breed child sent from the past—"
"I don't want an explanation, I just want to go home!" Toffee screamed at Glossayrck, desperation and terror warping his voice and—oh no, no, now he was crying.
"…You are only getting one of those things, and it's not the one you want," Glossayrck said. Although Toffee then called him a very bad word that Mom always said he could never use, Glossayrck still continued. "Toffee, the last you saw Eclipsa, she was at the end of her rope—sending you to someplace far away wasn't enough for her…and so she used a very experimental spell to send you forward in time."
Toffee opened his mouth, glaring, but Glossayrck cut him off, already answering the question he was about to shout. "She had to stay behind and seal the portal shut herself. She had little control over time and place—again, the spellwork was experimental, and time itself is just a tricky thing. Eclipsa could only specify that she wanted to send you forward, and she could at least identify the time and place her magic was sending you to; when she was able, she asked that I meet you then—"
"This is insane," Toffee choked out through his tears, anger now twisting his voice, a burning glare in his eyes.
"Your mother was desperate," Glossayrck simply said. "And there was at least one other factor." Toffee rashly doubted that, feeling that Glossayrck was holding back even more about Eclipsa's reasoning.
"Perhaps the overriding factor, really," Glossayrck said. "The time travel enchantment is tied to another spell, one she used to make you immortal."
"…What?" Toffee breathed, staring blankly at Glossayrck. He dimly heard the goat monster give a very long shocked bleat and demon lady flatly say, "Shut up."
"So…" Rhombulus began slowly, carefully. "Toffee survived the queen stabbing him because Eclipsa put an immortality spell on him? And that's because it's connected to her sending him through time, from the past to the future—I mean, now?"
"Evidently," Queen Sun said in a dangerously low voice. "It seems Eclipsa has gone beyond what the Queen of Hours had first pioneered…"
Glossayrck didn't look to the others, his eyes remained on Toffee. "Eclipsa was desperate, and wanted to keep you alive," he said.
"And she thought this was a good idea?!" Toffee shouted, small claws curling so hard into fists he felt his palms sting and bleed.
"Ah, let me clarify," Glossayrck said, and Toffee couldn't believe how the old man could still be so calm, acting as if he had just asked a simple question, like they were back at the temple and Toffee had just given him pudding. Could nothing ever really get to him? (But then…then Glossayrck had…he had a lot of years to wait for this, apparently.) "I keep emphasizing Eclipsa's desperation, because it was a factor that clouded her better judgment."
"I…I…" Toffee's voice quivered, the tension in his shoulders slipped away and he felt limp, almost felt like collapsing to his knees; his glare dropped, replaced by a look that was part-dazed, part-lost, and still scared. Then he snapped, glaring again, back going ram-rod straight again. "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care about any of that, it's all—it's all just noise, stupid, it's stupid—I want to go home, I just want to go home—"
"Kid, kid, just—zip it for a sec," the demon lady started to say, and glanced at the goat monster angrily bleating at her, and completely missing Toffee growling in her direction. "—Kid…Prince, I guess—?"
A terrible glare twisted the Mewman's face. "He is not—!"
"By birth he is," Glossayrck cut in.
"I. Don't. CARE!" Toffee screamed, and that immediately made the Mewman and the old man stare at the young half-monster. The Mewman looked incensed, while Glossayrck looked at him as if he were a very interesting specimen, and in that instant Toffee hated them both in equal measure.
Demon lady held up a hand in Glossayrck and the Mewman's direction, as if to block them out, and her eyes met Toffee's glare. "Just…calm down for a sec, okay? We need Glossayrck to back up." Before Toffee could snarl at her again, the demon lady glanced away from him and back to Glossayrck. "Seriously, back up again to the mechanics of what Eclipsa did."
The goat monster suddenly bleated again, and Rhombulus said, "Wait, Lekmet wants to know what you've been sensing, Omni. Y'know, for comparison? Like, he's guessing you sensed that this was a space-time thing, but, y'know—to double check—"
Omni began. "I—"
Realizing the grown-ups seemed distracted enough, Toffee bolted, looking for an exit from this room. He didn't get very far, demon lady suddenly appearing before him, cutting him off. He tried to sidestep her, but she was there again. And—wait.
There were a bunch of demon lady copies now circling him.
"Princeling, you're gonna have to sit tight while we figure this out—" All the demon lady copies said in creepy unison, reaching out their hands for him.
Toffee backed up, growling a warning, tailing anxiously and aggressively lashing back and forth. When the demon lady copies didn't take the hint and just continued, one of them getting too close, the boy lunged forward, sinking his fangs into her outstretched hand.
Not exactly reassuring when she just sighed, but Toffee was starting to feel overwhelmed by red filling his vision and head.
The boy bit down harder, growling louder when he felt hands wrap around his torso and start to pull him away.
"C'mon, this isn't gonna work—just relax—"
"Pfft, he's got quite a grip—or bite, I guess—"
Both voices belonged to demon lady, and the twin voices sounded like they were having a conversation. (Toffee wildly wondered if this counted as talking to yourself for them—her? What tense—ohthiswastoostupid.)
Toffee did not let go, until he was yanked back with a sudden force, and he felt skin rip and blood fill in his mouth, making his eyes widen in alarm and revulsion. Then immediately he spat that junk out, coughing and gagging. (Honestly, that wasn't the first time he had bitten a chunk out of someone, he'd done it with some Mewmans before—but it wasn't something he was very good at or that used to, and he didn't like it. It wasn't like hunting small animals, which he had little problem with, but that was different—that was for food, not for a fight.)
Looking around, the half-monster saw that demon lady was down to only two copies of herself, one holding him; the other in front of him with his teeth marks in her arm and a chunk of her flesh ripped away.
Demon lady glanced at the wound on her arm, and laughed. "Ah, little guy bit off more than he could chew," she said, almost sounding fond, and Toffee stared at her as if she were crazy.
Toffee hurriedly wiped the blood and remaining flesh from his mouth, and watched Lekmet heal the demon lady's bite wound with glowing hooves and a scolding bleat.
Then one of the demon lady twins set him down. "There. Got it out of your system, now? Feeling calmer?"
Toffee stared up at her—then began using even more bad words Mom had always forbidden. (But then Mom wasn't here, was she?)
"—no, no, I'm not doing this, I'm NOT—" Toffee said, once he had exhausted all the bad words he had ever learned. "I don't care, how many times do I have to say it?!—I just want to go home—I want my Mom—!"
"Enough," hissed Queen Sun, and Toffee flinched. He stared at her; the Mewman had her arms crossed, wand tapping impatiently against her arm. He kept staring at that wand. "We can't do this with him here; just—"
Toffee lunged for her, and actually managed to make contact, he had apparently managed to catch her by surprise—he was climbing up her dress, desperately clawing and reaching for her wand—Mom used that wand to send him here, it would send him back to her—if he could just get his claws on it—
The Mewman's eyes and cheek marks glowed white, just like Eclipsa's when she transformed, and Toffee felt his blood run cold. Then something like wind and heat and electricity threw him back, and he heard other things—bodies—hit the floor. And though it wasn't the worst pain he had ever felt, it still hurt, and Toffee lost consciousness again.
A/N: THAT SEASON 2 FINALE. ENJOYED IT. Mygod still a lot of mystery, it didn't really do anything to completely derail this fic, so that's kind of neat. (But man, some more answers would've been nice—but really, it's fantastic as is, and I'm impressed that they're keeping the mystery up, and actually really do like that. THE SEASON 2 FINALE WAS SO GOOD, IT STILL GIVES ME JOY AND CHILLS AND JOY.)
With Father Time and recently Omnatrix, there have been instances of time-space travel in the show, and I wanted to take those space-time travel themes/concepts and combine them more with the possibility of plot/Toffee backstory (also just wanted to go kinda wild with some crazy time-space travel plot-and-character stuff). And then the tie-in book "Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension" happened—I haven't finished it, just got it, was just flipping through it, but let me tell you Skywynne Queen of Hours made me freak out, and I had to include her, it was just another thing to work in this crazy fic's favor, another instance of space-time travel (and even backstory behind the spell Star first used that introduced her to Father Time in the first place). I really did have the visual for Eclipsa's experimental time-space spell written out before I had seen the page about Skywynne in the new book. Also had the visual of the wand-vine attacking Toffee before seeing him use a gigantic magical vine against Moon, and somehow that just made that fic visual better in my mind.
I honestly was writing this scene with the High Magic Commission and brainstorming further fallout from it before the season 2 finale aired, and I find the season finale makes this 10000x better in my mind. It just made for this neat mix of basically "okay frantic little cute half-monster kid here, what do, we definitely can't tell him about his mom that we locked up and have no intention of releasing nope nope, but shit this kid is like having a mental breakdown at eight years old," to years later "OHGOD HE'S KILLING US" really amuses me. I was already brainstorming Toffee's sheer rage when he eventually learns the Magic High Commission knew Eclipsa was alive and had her imprisoned the whole time, and never told him and just let him think she died all those years ago—and the S2 finale of Toffee just wrecking their shit nicely adds a new level to that development I'm brainstorming.