"Uh, mom?"

No response.

"Hey, mom!"

Star didn't look up. When she and Elizabeth had first gotten to Star's room, they had tried to find Glossaryck so they could ask more questions. However, after ten minutes of looking in his tower and then through the drawers, piles of dirty clothes, magical creatures, and even Star's secrets closet, they could find neither Glossaryck nor the book of spells. Star groaned in frustration and let herself fall unto her bed face forward (still groaning through the sheets) as Elizabeth leaned her back against the wall and slide down till her butt plopped unceremoniously onto the ground. Part of Elizabeth's brown hair had fallen over her face as she slid, and she brushed it off irritably.

"I don't get it," she exhaled from frustration. "Where could he have gone? Why would he disappear right after we saved his sorry a- butt?" Her cheeks flushed, but Star didn't seem to notice.

"Glossaryck pulls this crap all the time," She replied, lifting her head only high enough so her explanation wasn't muffled. "He'll probably appear out of nowhere randomly and say that he was testing me or something."

"That's… probably true. Damn." Bitter resignation replaced Elizabeth's anger and she ended up gazing blankly at one of Star's creatures while thinking back to her experiences with Glossaryck. She remembered how when she was first learning magic, he'd taken her wand from him until she had told her mother the truth of what happened to their royal sofa. He'd also refused to help her with one of the spells, forcing her to learn about the importance of not using magic… or something. He'd also made her make him pudding for no reason. None. Yeah, she figured, this is his brand of bullshit: helping by not helping. Goddamnit, Glossaryck.

Elizabeth was eventually awakened from her mulling's on Glossaryck by… nothing. It occurred to her that Star had gone quiet. She looked up to see Star staring pensively down at her wand, which had conveniently fallen right in front of her when she had laid down on her bed. Her eyes were glossed over and her mouth was curled up in a tiny frown. Elizabeth called out to her, but she didn't respond. She did so again, this time louder, but no success. It wasn't until she nearly shouted, "Mom!" that Star's eyes snapped open. Star's head whipped around like a broken sprinkler until she found Elizabeth, her left eyebrow raised. Star blinked, then laughed nervously.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, didn't realize you were speaking to… me." Her dismal mood had evaporated, leaving only her normally cheerful and playful personality.

Elizabeth's eyebrows scrunched up. "I… said it three times. And we're the only ones in the room."

Star winced as though having just seen someone doing something socially awkward without realizing it. She took in a deep breath before explaining, "Yeah, well, you said mom, and I'm not really a mom yet, and I don't want to think of myself that way, so yeah." She paused for a second before adding, "Yeah, if you could call me Star instead, that'd work out just fiiiiiiine."

Elizabeth frowned. She'd never called her mother by her first name, not ever. Of course she'd heard her mother be called Star before, but she'd never thought of her that way. She was her mother: The person who had raised her, cared for her, chided her, loved her. "Star"sounded like someone else, like someone's friend or a cousin. There's a reason no one calls their parents by their first name: it's not how you think of them. It certainly wasn't how Elizabeth thought of her mother.

Though, then again, the 14-year-old girl Elizabeth had just witnessed pouting didn't really remind her of her mom either. This Star wasn't quite like her mother, at least not yet. She didn't have the confidence or grace that Elizabeth remembered. "Star" was… kinda like herself.

"Right, yeah," She responded slowly. "Star. Ok then." She tried to remember what she'd been talking about. "Oh yeah, what's up? You're kinda acting… depressed-ish?"

Star bit her lip and made an uncomfortable expression with her face scrunched up like a pug. She quickly began rambling, her eyes moving around the room as she spoke: "No, no, I'm fine, I just- I don't know, it hasn't been a really great lately, Marco was hanging out with Jackie more than me for a while, and I lost Glossaryck, and my wand wasn't working great, and then Marco learned that I had a crush on him and he basically rejected me and-" Her whole body had tensed up as she rose in angst and anxiety until she could hold it no more. She let out a heavy, exaggerated sigh that seemed to fill the whole room with it's immensity. She looked up to meet Elizabeth's gaze. "It's just been a lot lately, and not getting the wand tonight kinda just ruined my day." As she said 'ruined', she let herself fall back onto her bed. After a moment she added, "Also it's kinda weird that you're my daughter. That's weird."

Elizabeth nodded solemnly. "Very weird. But aren't you glad that Marco is safe and we got Glossaryck back?"

Before Star could answer, a dull sarcastic voice broke out throughout the room. "The one constant among teenagers of every intelligent species appears to be that they can never be grateful for what they have, only upset about what they lack." His long, blue forehead materialized through the ground, coming up to stare directly at Elizabeth with enormous wide eyeballs. Elizabeth was shaken by his abrupt entrance, but Star only narrowed her eyes in disgust.

"You were listening the whole time, weren't you?"

Glossaryck chuckled and turned to face her. "I don't need to listen, Star. I'm omniscient."

"Didn't stop you from being kidnapped, now did it?" Her voice dripped sarcasm and overemphasis in only a way that a teenager (or someone just as mature) could say.

Glossaryck shrugged. He began to float aimlessly throughout the room, his body spinning around in three dimensions. "What did I say, no care that I'm still alive and well, that everyone's safe, that she gets to meet her future daughter, nothing." He continued to float, mumbling to himself about 'the kids these millennia'.

Elizabeth frowned thoughtfully at him. "Wait, Glossaryck, if you're omniscient, then how did you get caught in the first place?"

"Wonderful question, darling. How about a more relevant one?" He stopped his inertial momentum just as he was facing up, allowing him to address both Star and Elizabeth while facing them. When neither answered, he let out a tired sigh. His words sped up and came out short and sharp, as though trying to spur on a class five minutes before the bell rang. "Remember why you two had come up here looking for me?"

Elizabeth started to respond, but Star cut her off. In response to Glossaryck's curt tone, Star sighed. Heavily. The air bellowed out of her like the petal tones of a tuba. Elizabeth could have sworn that the room shook slightly. Silence reigned for a few moments. Elizabeth began to say "We were-"but was cut off again by the Star's impression of a humpback whale. Silence, then a cautious "We… were trying to ask why Jam and I don't contradict each other and what happened when we saved you."

Glossaryck studied Star, who had started playing with her wand absently, for a few moments before scrunching up his nose and sneezing. "Yeah, yeah, that." He turned to face Elizabeth. "Right, so, listen, there are a bunch of timelines and possible alternate universes and stuff, and you and Jam come from two different ones. Your timelines usually just run, kinda, I don't know, parallel, I suppose?" He shrugged. "You two don't actually need to fight over who's the dominate timeline cuz… you both exist."

Elizabeth stared blankly at him, watching him pick his nose as though he hadn't just dropped a bomb of information on her. Nothing Glossaryck said made any sense. She had heard everything he'd said, but it didn't add up to what had happened to her. She tried to find the right words to express this to him, but came up short. Thankfully, Star, master of the English language, stepped in to help her.

"Glossaryck, that doesn't make any sense. Why the heck would she be here if everything was O-Kahey Do-kahey in her world? That don't add up, you dumb-dumb." Such beautiful prose.

Glossaryck continued to pick his nose in his usual relaxed state. "Listen, if you don't want to hear the truth, I can go back into the book and take a well-deserved nap. These are the facts as I know them, and I know all facts. Usually. Mostly."

Elizabeth, clearly shaken, looked at him pleadingly. "But- if there's no reason for me to be here… why did you send me here?"

Glossaryck stared at her for a long time. His body stayed relaxed and casual, but his eyes never moved from her. "I didn't send you here, Elizabeth."

The room temperature dropped by a few degrees. Even Star stopped fiddling with her wand. She bit her tongue before asking, "Would it be cliché to then ask 'then who did?'"

"Only as cliché and cheesy as me revealing the answer to the second question now."

Elizabeth frowned. Her stomach began to tighten up. Some instinct deep in her brain started yelling that everything was about to fall apart. "You mean, what happened at Ludo's hideout?"

Glossaryck nodded. "Ludo isn't there anymore. Toffee has taken his place."

Silence, broken only by Star's soft whisper of the lizards name. Glossaryck nodded. Elizabeth stared hard at him, then when fully convinced that he wasn't pulling their legs, yelled "Shit!"