Time has slowed down around them, to a near standstill...This was Scott's working...He had designed fail-safes over fail-safes and this was one of them. He could see the world around him, move in slow motion, but he himself was completely immobilized, partly by the enormous pile of rubble on top of him and partly because the nature of his spell…He only crippled his bodily functions, so that he was able to still think, but his blood wouldn't spill. With his sharp mind, he had expanded his time bubble, in order for it to comprise Star as well.
"Star?"
"W-What? What's going on? Where are you? Why can't I move?" she hastily started asking questions, but Scott didn't have time for that…
"You're in a time bubble and you can't move because I had completely halted your body, leaving only your mind, wide awake…"
"Why?"
"Because, I am dying, Star…And I wanted that at least, in my last moments, I'd be honest…I designed this spell about a millennium ago. It was my first try at manipulating time, after Glossaryck taught me that. It was just his way of showing his appreciation after I had shown him how to manipulate space…"
"Wait, what? Hold on! You're dying?"
"Yeah…Didn't you see me getting impaled by my own arcane missile? I am bleeding profusely…and I got about twenty minutes, before this bubble we are in pops and that blast, you see over there will hit you, ending your existence as well… The second this spell wears off, I will die, but hopefully you will dodge the blast, now that I told you this…Now, I am waiting for your questions, Star…Over our time together, I had been nothing but a mystery to you, and I believe you are dying to ask me so many things…And now, since my fate is sealed, I will finally be honest…"
Scott's words were extremely rash and fell like a one-ton-weight over Star's brittle mind. She was speechless for the first seconds, mute in awe, but with a surge of willpower she managed to recollect herself and to start…
"Dude…You just messed my brain…how can you be so calm, when you are dying?"
"It's because this is the death I've been craving for a long time now…"
"What? Why the heck would you want this?"
"I am human, Star…a mortal race…After seeing countless people I cared for dying before my eyes, while I helplessly defied this natural phenomenon, I started falling in this feeling of depression…But I couldn't ask for my death, I couldn't kill myself…It just had to happen. I am glad it is at the hands of Toffee, an evil force, that I perish and leave this realm…"
"But don't you want to live? Don't you fear death?"
"I will be finally reunited with the ones I lost, Star…Why would I fear what I so desperately want? I do not fear this, but rather, I despise the fact that I leave this world…and leave you behind?"
"But why…? By the way you're speaking of the 'sweet embrace of death'…you seem to not have any sort of affection towards anyone…Why all of a sudden you'll start missing people?"
"Because…and I find it extremely hard to say given the circumstances," Scott said, his eyes wandering towards Marco's unconscious body. Star however, couldn't see this…She was still hiding behind her mother's throne, and she couldn't move…Their voices resonated in each other's heads…
"What circumstances?"
"I see that you and Marco had begun to really share the one-sided love you showed him…"
"What's that got to do with our…"Star interrupted herself, realizing what Scott was driving at." Wait…do you mean?"
"Yes, Star…I do mean that I…love you," he said gulping afterwards, giving away his nervousness.
Star needed some time to process this information, he was so surreptitiously piling up on her, but he had no time, and she knew that…She had to just swallow and continue.
"But why…? Why me? Why out of all the Butterflies you had interacted with, why you chose me?"
"Because, deep down, I am just as you…We share the same uncertainties, but I hide them while you show them. We share the same fears, but again…I hide them and you show them…We are alike in so many ways…and you determined me to finally look at life as a pleasure, rather than as a burden…"
"Then why you did nothing, to show it? Why did you just passively deny it?"
"That's hypocritical coming from you don't you think, given the situation you were in. I knew of the Blood Moon…I knew that for the first and last time, my cold heart was touched by the warmth of such an ineffable feeling, it would be pointless, because it would be against so many laws of the universe…This is why, I was so cold towards you at the beginning, but, as time passed…I got used to it…The pain I had felt for so much time, finally got bearable, just because of you…"
"What laws of the universe? Why did it become bearable?I can't understand anything you're saying…"
"Oh, silly shooting Star," Scott sighed smiling for himself. "Just as absent-minded and delightful as ever. I will miss this the most," he continued coughing up violently. Even though his bodily functions were slowed, his wound was still affecting him. His mind acted up on what his physical body was experiencing…
"You ok?"
"Not quite…I don't have much time left…Laws of the universe, you asked. A being meant to keep the balance of the world, one who lives on a higher plane of existence, can't be bothered to interact in any affectionate way with the lower people he was entrusted with…He must be, but the guardian, emotionless, a cold rock…The Blood Moon creates a contract between two beings, cursing their souls to be bound for all eternity…It cannot be broken by any force on Earth. How can someone not feel an insufferable amount of pain, when between him and his love, lie such impossible to surpass barriers? However, it became bearable, when I saw that we shared this trait as well…We were both trapped in the same war, between what our minds said it was possible, and what our hearts thought we could achieve… It felt heartwarming but heartbreaking at the same time, seeing how we shared this misery…"
"I had no idea you felt this way about me…I have…no words to…" she tried to say something, anything to comfort the person who meant so much for her, who sacrificed so much for her, who was dying for her, before her very eyes, but she was drowning in tears…Sadness and sorrow conflated in her head, rendering her mute. All she could do was sob, her hiccups being caught by Scott's sensitive ears…
"Now, now…there is no reason to get sad…Keep those tears inside, as you are dropping them for a man who is happy for your happiness, who is sad for your anguish and for someone who is glad to pass…"
"But…I don't want you to pass away…You have bombarded me with so many things to think about…that painting, that diary, those visions and now this…Your love was inadvertently following me, and I was blinded by my own pain to see the agony in my close friend…"
"Don't bring this upon yourself, Star," he said in his sweet tone. His words seemed soothing, as if he was reading from an old book. "I am the one to blame for this…for all this. Toffee, your mother, Marco who is struggling there…"
"Marco? Is he gonna be alright?"
Scott didn't answer, but rather she could hear him chuckling maniacally…
"Even now, I can see it…Ironic…"
"What do you see?"
"The influence of the Blood Moon, what else?" It was only now, that Star realized the curse she was upon…Was this the reason of her inner flurry? Was that unbearable omen why her world was starting to break apart? Was her love for Marco just a blind infatuation caused by a force she couldn't understand? She no longer had to wonder…She could ask her omniscient friend, dying before her….
"Is this…Blood Moon thingy, the reason why all this had happened?"
"No…it is not. Although it aided a lot in the reciprocity of it…Your feelings are as pure as fresh fallen snow…The fact that I intervened, however, caused all this ruckus, if I am allowed such colloquialism…" he said, his irony not fading away as he was…
"How did you cause this?"
"It's like in the Ancient Greek tragedies…People try to overcome their puny condition and become godlike…this is called hubris. This can't be allowed by the almighty gods…They strike those who dare deny their nature. This punishment is called hamartia. It's a philosophical law. I tried to overcome my damned nature, but, in doing so, I was undermining the gods, defying their laws…I got punished, and so did those I cared for…My own putrid arrogance was my down fall…"
"So, you are the only one who caused this?"
"Yes…I haven't got much time, Star…Is there anything you want to know?"
As she heard the undeniable truth, her feelings for the dying man changed. She was now oscillating between anger and pity…She was mad because he was the sole reason for the entire universe's downfall…All this time of blaming herself for her mistakes, for her flaws, when he was the one who should've taken the fall…
"I know what you're thinking, Star," he said, coughing violently. "You hate me, right? You had lived through so much pain, condemning yourself for what was going on around you, when I was the culprit…I want you to know something, that you might not want to find out…And this is going to be the last thing I will be able to say," he uttered, his voice fading…"When I first came back from my prison, that place I was exiled to, when you thought I died…and I saw the destroyed castle, I realized something…I realized that everything is passing in this wretched universe, and that nothing lasts forever, but anyone can see this…However, I felt no greater pain, when I thought I had lost you…I decided to finally do what I dreaded for so much…I fled to the most remote place in this dimensions and conjured a portal, with my corrupted magic…a portal that would kill me…Because life wasn't worth living for anymore…My mind was set, I wanted to die no matter what. But then, Glossaryck decided to give my death a purpose…I chose to die for you and for my mistakes…So I can deserve the fate I was craving for…"
"Scott…"
She couldn't say anything else…His lifeless body couldn't continue channeling the time bubble…It collapsed, and Star just had the time to jump away from the wicked blast, Toffee had fired towards her. Star was sent flying across the room, but with a blast from her own wand, she regained her balance midair and bounced back from the wall. Toffee was grinning, while looking at Scott's corpse…He couldn't help but bask in the glory of his impending victory…
"Ah…finally, you have fallen, Saturn…You've been nothing but a relentless thorn in my back all these years…Now, it's finally time to accept your destiny…"
His gloating was interrupted by Star's spellcasting. He was hit by an immensely powerful attack, Star shot out of her wand…Her prized trinket changed shape, though…Her half of the star was glowing red, the tiny wings on the side became black and bat-like, rather than those of a Pegasus…The heart on the top was no more. With a merciless look in her eyes, she fired another blast, sending Toffee through the solid wall of the throne room and into the cornfields. Where he landed, the impact caused a crater to be formed…
Star rushed to Marco, levitating the heavy pile of debris off of him. She slapped him a couple of times and summoned a bucket of water to drop over him. He woke to her smiling face, despite behind a curtain of happiness there lied a backstage of despair and chaos.
"Wha-what happened?" Marco asked surprised, hastily getting up.
Star said nothing, she just pointed at Scott who had his arcane missile still inside of him…Marco couldn't believe his eyes. Scott was still alive…but now he was dead. He tried to catch her gaze, but she was too determined to waste time on meaningless squabbling…She grabbed his hand, and pushed him towards the gaping hole in the wall, pointing at Toffee, who was still recovering from the power of Star's attacks…
He was surprised to see how, despite he had eliminated the most powerful of all beings, the one that was entrusted with the noble task of safekeeping the balance of the universe itself…He still struggled to fight the untrained and reckless princess…Was he wrong? Did he miscalculate anything?
Back in the throne room, Star and Marco were discussing a battle plan.
"So, how do we fight this guy?" Marco asked, separating the blades of his scissors, just like Hekapoo taught him to do.
"I've got a plan…but I am not so sure it will work," she answered looking at her new wand…
"Your wand…what happened?"
Star didn't answer, but rather leaned to his hear to whisper him what they should do. The next second they jumped in the courtyard, ready to confront the evil demon. They didn't wait a single second more…While he was still dizzy from the impact, Marco rushed towards him, his little scissor-daggers drawn out. At blinding speed, he cut open several portals around him, surrounding him with nothing but gates to other dimensions…The boy finished his job by jumping over him by further imprisoning him with one enormous portal above him. Now, wherever he would want to go, he would have blinked to another world, leaving the battlefield…Or so they though at least…
"You think you can create a tomb of portals, so that I can't approach you? You're more foolish than I gave you credit for!" Raising his hand he started draining the energy of the gateway above him, closing it, little by little…But he made a mistake…This wasn't their plan at all.
Unbeknownst of Toffee, Marco had passed through all the portals he had created. This way, wherever he would appear next, he would've let a link to his former location…Every portal he had opened around Toffee was chained to where he had started blinking from…Star and Marco smiled at each other, knowing that the demon fell in their little trap…While Marco was busy, tearing through the fabric of space, Star had channeled her power to conjure an extremely powerful attack…It was a little spell, she had remembered from the time she read Eclipsa's chapter…It was a spell whose description said that it would "make any wound unhealable, every cut unsealable and reopen any scars." Star knew what this was…It was the way Toffee had been defeated before, by her mother's darkest spell.
The attack left her wand, scorching the ground beneath it…Its power was…unbelievable, insidious, to an extent…It was a devious attack, meant to incapacitate your opponent by any means, but the way it was used. It was amazing… Marco was the target of Star's attack, but right before he was about to be hit, he opened a portal in front of him, redirecting the blast to God knows where…But he knew where he was sending it.
At the same time, the lethal ray came out of Toffee's prison walls…He was hit by all of them, causing him to screech in pain…His agony was expressed in an eerie, inhumane howl. His flesh was burning, and he couldn't do anything about it…The portals surrounding him faded away, leaving the flaming demon expose to the duo's unforgiving glances…
"Congratulations…heroes…" he said in-between painful groans. "You have…managed…to… defeat me…in the most…pitiful…way," Toffee continued his condescending plea.
"But we beat you didn't we?" Star joyfully answered, regaining her usual composure she had lost earlier.
"Not…quite…"
"How come? Didn't this spell cripple you before?"
"Pre…cisely…I am weakened…But I am immortal…"
"So what is this supposed to mean?" Star asked the proud demon before her, who, even in the prime of defeat, couldn't withstand the thought of someone being superior to him…
"It means that…I will return…Maybe not in a year…Maybe when you will have died…Maybe when my goals…have already been accomplished…But I will return…"
"What are your goals, Toffee," Star asked half curios, half driving at something much darker.
"I want…justice…I want the monsters…to regain…what is rightfully theirs…I despise you…for driving…my ancestors of…a land that we…peacefully inhabited…We were willing…to share…but you didn't…look past our horrid appearance…You couldn't see past that…we were good…in essence…but years of oppression…turned us…into what we are now…Outcasts…in a world…were good is…evil and evil…is called good…"
"You are evil, Toffee, whatever your intentions are." The voice of Glossaryck interrupted his painful speech. "Whether or not, you have the background to motivate your actions, going to such lengths to achieve a seemingly noble purpose is not an act worthy of the forces of good…You may preach whatever you want, but this doesn't change anything…You are worthy of your fate, Sartorian. Better accept it humbly, and not use the flimsy shield of arrogance to defend yourself…
"Be that as it may…old man…you can't deny…what happened…"
"Neither can you, Toffee…"
Star had her wand raised at the poor unfortunate soul…She was thinking whether or not she should kill him…On the one hand he was the living embodiment of evil…He had stopped at nothing to attain his goals: manipulating, backstabbing even killing…He had done nothing but bring pain and desolation over Mewni, slaying its mightiest defenders and proudest heroes…He had destroyed her world and…she couldn't forgive him for that…She rose her wand, pointing it towards Toffee…The hearts on her cheeks started glowing red…the princess started floating in the air, magic gathering around her…A crimson sphere started gathering before her, attracting little pebbles from the ground. Toffee chuckled maliciously as he saw his demise approaching…He couldn't help but appreciate the Butterflies' power. Defeating him twice, while the least powerful of them, in his wrongful conception, was going to obliterate him…Star was finished, and the immense orb was fired. Toffee's face glowed as his malevolent grin was the last expression he had made. The impact was massive, barely contained by Glossaryck's innate shield…Only ashes remained out of the monster who has left nothing but death and solace behind him…
Star fell to the ground, exhausted, drained both physically and mentally…She had lost Scott twice in three months, both times believing that he was gone for good. However, the first time he still lived on through his notes…he seemed alive in her mind and heart. Before she didn't see his lifeless husk serving as an uncanny reminder of his death…He was in the middle of a circle of a demised circle, comprised of magical beings…Lekmet's ashes were scattered all over them…
The last three people left standing were now crawling over the corpses of soldiers and monsters alike. They formed the ground, they were uneasily walking over. They climbed the remains of the stairs and stopped at the top of the main cupola, in the throne room…Marco and Star were visibly grieving over the loss of so many closed ones, while Glossaryck was trying his best to appear emotionless…Even he was moved by the sorrow flooding the atmosphere. They walked over to Scott's body, Glossaryck removing the arcane missile, impaling Scott's heart to the ground. No blood was spilled from his gaping wound…Star couldn't bear seeing him like that. She was crying outside, leaning on the balcony while Marco and Glossaryck were deciding what to do… Glossaryck already created 4 coffins for the bodies of the Magic High Commission and the fallen keeper of balance. He was levitating their corpses inside, when a strange enormous portal opened right beside him. A tall, bearded man got out from it. Glossaryck recognized him, and so would Star should she have looked…
"I believe you are going to take him away, right?"
"His acts have though us a lot, Glossaryck. It is only fit that we repay him with this honor…"
"You're going to treat him as you did with all the heroes before him?"
"He will shine brighter than any other star on the night sky…"
"Did anyone…call me?" Star said between sobs, entering the room and freezing as she saw the imposing figure before her. "What do you want?" she asked viciously, showing her blatant hate towards the ascended being…
"To transform your late friend into a forever shining omen of courage and boldness, so that he can always remind us…"
"I don't wanna know, mister," she said leaving, but Hyperion stopped her with his words.
"You mustn't be mad, Star Butterfly…All the deeds he had done will be completely erased…his faults won't stay on this ground." Waving his hand over the Council's deceased bodies, he had imbued them with the life force that Toffee had drained from them.
"They won't wake up soon, but when they do, they won't remember anything…" Hyperion didn't say anything else…he just lifted the coffin of Scott on his shoulder, forgetting to close the lid. He was just about to leave, when Marco interrupted him…
Marco was apparently unfazed by the whole battle…But he was just incapable of expressing his thoughts and feelings…He couldn't believe many things happening before him, so he just mechanically acted through this entire period…He was responding to all the stimuli around him with nothing but automated reflexes, only now managing to process everything…
"Can you…let us say our final goodbyes?"
"Certainly," the jolly giant said, placing the casket on the ground. Marco was the first to approach. He ignored Star's admiring glare, and went on to deliver his eulogy.
"I know, we had our differences at first…I know we didn't get along and I had done nothing but snap at you for the best of the time we spent together…But I can't deny what you did for me. You helped me see the world around me as more than what it was worth…To dig down into the essence of things and separate the core from the appearance…You helped me develop as I never thought with your challenges and your incredibly difficult to understand personality…And in the end, I don't think I had ever shown you how grateful I am...Better late than never, I believe." Marco left the room and went to Star, who was holding her head in her palms, sighing heavily. He said nothing, he just grabbed her attention by touching her shoulder and showed her the open coffin. She knew what she should do…Shaking, she got to her feet and walked towards Scott's resting place. She fell to her knees near him, letting her head rest on his chest, warm tears wetting his dusty trench coat. She had nothing to say, no words could express the cacophony of emotions she was invaded by…Star looked at his face for one final time. He looked so calm, almost smiling as he finally got the rest he so desperately needed after such a tumultuous life…lived by a human. Only now, did she finally see him as he was…She could see his emerald green eyes through his closed eyelids. His cheeks were two roses, contrasting with the paleness of the rest of his face…he was more alive in death, than he was when he was still roaming the earth.
She didn't know what went through her mind when she kissed him…She didn't care about how Marco was looking at her, baffled, nor how Hyperion was emotionlessly watching over…She just wanted to show him, that even after he died, he could finally succeed, after millennia. The hearts on her cheeks were glowing pink, as a strange light engulfed the two…It was blinding, but only Marco needed to cover his eyes…However, neither of them knew what was going on…The two were nothing more than a couple of stars fallen on the ground, conflating into a single being. The cyclamen body had a heart, exulting with life, whereas the blue carcass had nothing…But that wasn't for long…For every entropic imbalance there must be an equal force trying to restore the lost equilibrium. Shiny pebbles started migrating from the rose's core towards the indigo's resting soul…
The magic was over. With tears in her eyes, she wandered off towards the judging eyes of Marco, clenching her right fist on her left arm. Star couldn't think anymore. She could only feel. And no one knows what she felt when looking at Marco, he saw him not slightly infuriated, but scared and stupefied. He was pointing at the coffin…
"What…happened?" Scott asked, seeing him covered in cinders and lying in a coffin.
I just want to conclude this chapter, and this story as well, by thanking all of you who have come so far in reading my humble story…I know it has been long and we've come far, I know it is riddled with some plot holes at the beginning, but I genuinely enjoyed writing this…I feel like the things I had learned about symbolism and philosophy altogether had a positive effect on this story, as I reflected my newly gained knowledge through my writing…I will possibly write an epilogue, but I am not sure. Again, I thank you for sticking with me until this point, and I hope that you had thoroughly enjoyed my amateurish 'novel' ( in dimension, not in quality).