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Okay, I'm not gonna do some fake authors notes or anything, today I'm going to be honest with everyone. I'm feeling like shit right now, and have been for the past week. I'm stressed, I'm tired, I've been depressed, and my life feels like a total fuckfest. In whatever reviews I put out in the last few days or so, I've been faking having the same cheery-ass attitude I usually do, and I thought I'd let everyone know so that I don't feel worse about it later. My opinions in those reviews were completely honest, but I'm sorry for lying the way I did.
I know I may sound a bit rude and like an asshole when I say this, but I can't put it into any other words. Don't worry though, I don't need sympathy, I just need rest. The point of me saying this is because I think that my mood may have found its way into the chapter. There is cursing and there is a little more violence than I'd usually like, but right now it seems fine to me.
I do not own SVTFOE or any of its characters, they belong to Disney and Daron Nefcy. A big thank you to my Beta-reader and personal friend, Altruisticdorito.
Mewni,
Nimbic Village,
30 years from present day...
Children ran across dirt trails, houses and shops standing at each side. Each child sprinted away from one another in a game of tag, turning and manoeuvring as best they could, making the tagger very frustrated with her peers. She swiped away every chance she got, but she was proven to be a tad slow in the chase.
"Can't catch me!" one of them taunted as they turned the corner, around a fruit shop. The tagger stopped for a moment to catch her breath, resting her hands on her knees and breathing heavily. She had shoulder length, silver hair that was tied back in a ponytail. She wore brown shorts that were torn at the legs and a dirt-stained shirt.
Once she caught her breath, she ran forward after the kid that tried to escape her, and be so smug as to doubt her skills. With a grin on her face to pity the poor soul, she sped around the corner at top speed.
"I've got you now! No way you can get away..." her words slowed, and so did her figure. "...From..."
She stopped at the sight of a line of armoured men, heavy metal plating covering they're entire bodies. Except for the man who stood in the centre of the line, helmet off and his eyes focused on the girl in front of him. She gulped.
"...Me..." she squeaked. The centre guard -presumably the captain- folded his arms, his eyes etched with disappointment. He furrowed his brows and looked at the girl sternly.
"Now, Princess Moon..." he had a voice like gravel. "I think it's time we stop playing games and head back to the castle, don't you think? Your mother and father are very worried about you."
He stood tall, showing full-well that he meant business, and only business. The girl shrunk, taking a step back with a shamed look on her face. "I-I-I was just... Having some fun... I didn't mean to make anyone worry..." Moon's voice was shrill, frightened. She took a few more steps back, only for the captain to walk forward and towards her. A slightly frustrated sigh escaping his lips.
"Oh, I believe you dear. But you see, when the one and only heir to the throne of Mewni escapes her room, while she is grounded, without giving any form of alert or signal, leading the entire staff to assume you had been kidnapped..." his gaze pierced into the princesses soul, her body paralysed by the fear she felt.
"I don't think going out to have some fun is enough to let you skip along, scot-free." He stood directly in front of the princess, towering over her. Moon just stood there, basked in the guards shadow.
"So, with that out of the way... Perhaps we should head back to the castle, to confirm that you are, in fact, still alive and not in the hands of some maniac. Understood?" The princess knew his question was rhetorical. His words were final. Moon also knew she couldn't escape the royal guard, they knew all of her tactics at that point. They were trained mercilessly to be able to stand anywhere near her, and they'd definitely stuck by long enough to know a thing or two about her. Moon let her head fall in defeat, sighing to herself.
"Alright..."
The captain let a small grin curve underneath his cold eyes, getting down on one knew and letting his hand fall on her head.
"'Atta girl," his voice grew softer. "Now let's head off." he got back to his feet and strode past his men with the princess at his side. The other guards soon followed them, marching in sync only a few paces behind. Moon kept her eyes down throughout the walk, rubbing at her arm in embarrassment and shame.
She had known those children for about 4 months, but they didn't know anything about her being royalty, let alone the heir to the throne of the Mewni kingdom. They let her join their group and they had been having fun ever since, pulling pranks and playing games. They were the only friends she had as well. Her mother thought of all village people as scum, and nothing but, while her father found them charming and fun. The queen, however, had an iron fist over her partner, and thus she was forbidden to ever visit the commoners. For most of her life, she'd been locked away in that castle, never to set foot into the soil trails until she was of age. Now her parents were going to find out about her friends, and keep her isolated from them.
The captain looked over at the princess as they walked. She seemed deeply saddened, she was like glass on the verge of breaking. He shook his head to himself and continued walking forward. Then the princess suddenly lurched forward, going face first into the dirt. Everyone stopped walking forward, and the captain got down on one knee to help her up.
"Geez kid, are you alright?" he reached out his hand for her to grab. "You gotta be more careful."
Moon didn't take his hand, she just lay there in the dirt. The captain felt his eyes widen at the sound of soft sobbing coming from the dirt. He looked closely and saw moons pale blue eyes, shiny with tears, that fell into the dirt. He saw the distraught expression on her face, for the captain, it was hard to look at to say the least.
"Leave us..." he ordered to his men his head falling with his eyes shut. They turned to him and muttered in confusion to one another.
"But, Captain Savin..." one of them spoke.
"I need you all to head back to the living quarters and see if anything has occurred while we took leave. I will escort the princess myself, and I will not tolerate any opposition. Are we clear?" he demanded. The guards knew better than to screw around while on duty (especially with their captain present),so they saluted, saying "Yes, Captain Savin, sir!" before heading off back to the castle in an orderly fashion. Meanwhile, Moon still sobbed to herself, tears staining the ground below. When he looked over Moon, he saw nothing but a frail child that was being denied what he would consider one of the most important parts of youth. Friendship.
Captain Savin stood in front of her once more, kneeling down and placing his hand onto the girls shoulder. His cold and ruthless attitude was gone in an instant, his eyes softening and his grip reassuringly squeezing at Moon's shoulder.
"Listen... Kid..."
She kept sobbing, her lip quivering and breath shaking. "Please..." her voice was only a whisper at that point, she wasn't the cheerful and fun loving kid he saw only minutes ago. "They're the only friends I have... They don't now I'm royalty, and I'd like it to stay that way... I don't want to lose my friends... Please..." she pleaded between sobs.
The captain ran the situation through his head. He had specific orders from their highnesses to bring her back and keep her from going out into the village, but she just wanted to have some innocent fun with her friends. Savin closed his eyes and shook his head, thinking to himself 'I'm going to regret this...'. He sighed in defeat and looked over to his sides, seeing if any of his lower ranks had decided to test his patience and stay behind. Thankfully, no one had.
"Alright, here's what's going to happen." He said, putting a finger forward and looking Moon directly into the eyes, getting her to sit up and stop crying for the moment.
"I'm going to take you back to the castle and tell your mother and father about what you've done, but, after your punishment is over I will let you out into the village to play with your friends from time to time. However, I will need to be present when you do so. I won't stand near you, I'll watch from a distance, and if anything happens you can signal me, alright?"
Savin was then caught off guard when he felt the princess' arms wrap around his neck in a tight hug.
"Thank you so much Donny! I owe you one!"
Savin gently pulled off the princess and set her back down on the dirt, a small grin tugging at his lips. "You're welcome kid. Just don't go testing your luck, alright? It's the fourth time this month you've left without explanation." He frizzed up moons hair with his gloved hand, a thankful smile on her face that pulled at his heart-strings.
The two then got back up on their feet, starting to head back towards the castle. Moon had known Captain Savin, or 'Donny' for a few years, and he was nothing short of a wonderful man. On the outside, he was tough and bruiting, he had to be, you can't be the head of your own squadron and not be badass about it. But when he was left alone, he was really a sweet man, often mistaken for someone that could be decapitated if they so much as look at him wrong. Savin was assigned to Moon to be her bodyguard of sorts while she was punished a few years back, and with the time they spent together, they became friends almost instantly. Moon would personally request for Donny to be her bodyguard, occasionally slipping in a few good words about him just to sell the deal, but it never really took her parents much convincing. Savin saw Moon as what she was, a kid, and she saw him as what he was, a man with a job to do and a caring heart. He was kind of like a stepdad in a sense, or a fun uncle.
As the two walked, they caught sight of the castle up ahead, with Moon's mother and father waiting patiently at the gates. One of them seeming to be not to happy with their daughter, with a scornful look on her face. Her dark eyes spoke one thousand words as they pierced through Moon, sucking the confidence from her body.
"Moon Butterfly! Just what in Mewni's name were you doing out in the village!?" the queen demanded in a dark tone. Moon flinched at her mother's yelling, shifting her gaze away and off to the side.
"I... I was looking for some fruit, and got lost in the market..." she lied. Captain Savin rolled his eyes, but it was subtle enough that no one noticed. The queen pointed a finger at Moon. "You're lying!" she shifted her gaze toward the captain.
"Isn't that right, Donatek?"
Captain Savin looked down at moon, the fear in her stance was noticeable. He sighed to himself in his head. "Actually your highness," he argued, a small amount of frustration seeping from his voice. "Princess Butterfly was looking to buy some fruit. She stopped by my old friends Graham's stand for an apple, then moving on to a few other tradesmen." The king rose his brow to this, sensing that Savin wasn't exactly painting the right picture, but not mentioning this suspicion to his wife.
The queen let her guard down, Savin's claim surprising her. "Oh... Well, I suppose... I was a little harsh upfront. Please, forgive my rude behaviour." She apologized. Moon sighed in relief and straightened her posture. The king then decided to place his two cents.
"However, that doesn't excuse you from being punished dear." His gaze fell over Moon, a degree of softness in his eyes. "You were grounded for a reason. Coating the halls with slug juice does make for a wonderful skating experience, but it also gets people hurt. So your punishment is now extended because of this fiasco, by there days. No more, no less."
Moons head fell in disappointment. Granted, she could be in a much worse situation, had her mother decided the punishment, but she still found it somewhat unfair that she had to go an extra three days, on top of a week of being grounded. But she couldn't argue with her parents, so with her head low and Donny at her side, she walked back through the castle gates.
The queen sighed to herself, her expression showing frustration. "What am I doing wrong? She's turning twelve in a few months and she's nowhere near ready to handle the wand..."
She felt a hand rest on her shoulder, gently squeezing for reassurance. "I'm sure she'll be fine dear. We just need to let her so her own thing and she will realize what she needs to become." The king reasoned. "And besides," he pulled out a rattle like object from his pocket, spinning it between his fingers like a baton before firmly grabbing it. "When I was young, I didn't know how to work this thing at all. And to be perfectly honest, I still don't."
"That's not very encouraging."
"You know what I mean. The fact of the matter is, if I can handle this item of intense power without a care in the world, I don't see why Moon should be any different."
The queen sighed to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Listen, Creek, I understand what you are saying, but you've done more harm than good with that thing, and I don't any Moon following in your footsteps. It'd be chaos at its finest."
Creek closed his eyes and let his head fall. "You're right..." he felt stupid, not knowing what to do pained him. He did not want his daughter to be like the uptight pansies he heard about, but at the same time, being a complete scatter brain with the most powerful object in the multiverse is not going to turn out well. He lifted his head and looked at his wife in the eyes.
"So what do you suggest we do?"
The Queen clutched her hands behind her back, avoiding eye contact with her husband. For the first time in a while, Creek saw an emotion in her face that she rarely ever showed. Confliction.
"I do have an idea..." she hesitantly said. "But you're not going to like it..."
After sunset...
In Moon's bedroom...
Moon sat alone on her bed, staring out the balcony doors and into the night sky. Stars specking the inky black that stretched across the heavens, it was like a canvas, and space was it's masterpiece. She couldn't enjoy the beauty of it to its full worth, however.
"You know, you can stand outside the room. You don't have to watch me like one of those earth birds..." she harshly spat. Over her shoulder, a female guard stood watch, her back to the wall and her arms folded.
She let out a breathy laugh, "No need to get all worked up Princess, I'm just following orders."
"Can't you follow orders outside of my room?"
She smiled. "I wish I could, but if you understood what this job meant to me then maybe you wouldn't be so pissed."
Moon sighed and let herself fall backwards to lay on her duvet. She stared up at the roof, watching closely at the carvings in the ceramic, like they were going to start moving. "I'm not angry Fisc... I'm just a little sore about this extra time on my grounding. It's like I'm being kept in a locked box, and my parents have the key. I've always hated it."
"Every kid does." Fisc pushed herself off the wall, walking over to the dresser just across the room. "But to be fair, most kids deserve it."
Moon cocked her brow at the statement. She understood it just fine, just she speculated what exactly she was getting at. The guard sat herself down next to Moon, her compensating by sitting up. "I don't exactly know what you did to get here, but to be quite frank, I couldn't care less. Kids do stupid things without realizing it, I know that I sure did."
That peaked Moon's interest. She leaned forward, eyeing Fisc with a curious look on her face. "Like what?" she asked.
The guard gave her a smug, one-sided smile. "Well let's see... I burned down a farm for a bet, I poured oil into a cornfield and lit it, I carved "Eat a chode" into the castle wal-"
"Wait, that was you!?"
She ignores the princess and continues to count off all her childhood doings. Once she'd finished, she leaned back in a cool demeanour, propping herself up with her arms. Moon just looked straight ahead with amazement, her eyes wide with awe. "That's incredible. She whispered.
Fisc laughed. "I guess it is." She then turned herself to look at Moon, her expression changing into a far more serious one, but she still held her smile. "But now that I look back, I realize that it was completely idiotic. You see, I was one of those 'leap before you look' kind of gals, but that didn't exactly help me out in life. I got into a lot of trouble, having to fix everything I ruined, except the carving in the castle. Then after that, I had to make it up to all the farmers and commoners that I had pissed off. I worked for at least a couple of months, helping them with their jobs or just doing chores, and it was hell. But it did do one good thing for me."
Moon gave her a questionable look. "And what was that?"
Her smile grew. "It gave me time to reflect. I thought about what I'd done, and I realized just what a little bastard I must've been. After that, I got my life in order, stopped doing stupid stuff and signed up for the royal guard. I miss it from time to time, but I'm happy now, so there isn't really a reason for me to go back."
She stood up and walked over to the balcony doors, turning to face Moon. "You get what I'm trying to say right?"
Moon nodded. She needed to straighten herself out, unless she wished to slave away to commoners or stay trapped in her room for the rest of her life. She smiled sweetly at the guard, as a sign of gratitude, and she gladly returned it.
"You know kid, you're not half bad. Definitely not the spoiled brat I thought you'd be, but I guess I've been reading to many stories about prince-"
"BEHIND YOU!" Moon yelled, pointing behind the guard. She turned around in confusion, and was swatted away by a large, masculine creature. She hit the wall and fell to the floor, dazed by what had just occurred. Moon screamed in fear as the creature came dashing at her with immense speed, only just being to dodge off to the side as her bed was smashed to pieces. In complete shock and fear, Moon hid herself behind a drawer set that had been knocked outward from the wall when the monster charged.
"Come here little Princess!" he mused. His voice was deep and gravely, making Moons hairs stand on end.
Fisc got to her feet, still slightly fatigued by the strike she'd taken, and drew her sword from its sheath. The creature was brown in colour, and had a head like a bull with massive horns liking out each side of its skull. She ran at the creature, ready to bring it to its knees. The monster recovered from his previous charge, turning around to look for the princess, but was only met with the blade of a claymore. It dug into his snout, blood seeping from the wound, but it was nothing fatal. He pulled the guard off of him and threw her to the side.
He them grabbed the sword, which still resided in his nose, and yanked it out without so much as a grunt. He felt every bit of that sword, but didn't let the pain slow him down. He looked for the woman he had just tossed, but could not find her anywhere in the room. At the sound of a whistle, the monster jerked his head and spotted the guard standing in front of the balcony doors, hands on her hips and a cocky smile on her face. He charged forward at her, putting all of his strength into it, eyes beaming with the intent to slaughter whoever stood between him and his objective. He threw his horns forward so they pointed at Fisc.
She simply stood there, waiting for the monster to come closer. Every inch made a difference in her mind. Once the creature was about to turn her into a bloodied kebab, she quickly dived over to the right and rolled over into a pile of shrapnel. The monster looked confused, focusing on the guard on not where he was heading, and before he could even turn back to look where he was going, his momentum carried him out the window and down about sixty feet, into a solid concrete ground.
Fisc groaned in pain, the adrenaline in her off wearing off, deciding that she shouldn't let a monster throw her against a wall ever again.
Moon peeked out of her hiding spot, slowly making her way out as the guard stood up from the pile of destroyed wood and cloth. The princess felt a heavy amount of confusion fall onto her, thoughts running freely through her mind like scattered mice.
'Why was he after me? Did he need me for something? Was he going to kill me? Maybe he was being brainwashed. Who sent him? Was he really going to kill Fisc if she kept fighting? Is he dead now? Did we just kill an innocent being?'
Moon clutched her hands at the side of her head, a headache starting to form. Fisc, however, walked over to the balcony to see her finished work, hoping to see a puddle of meat and blood below, but felt every single ounce of her cocky demeanour and overconfidence leaving her skin to crawl at the sight of what awaited her. It was a battlefield, soldiers being torn to shreds by an army of monsters, blood lust in each and every one of their eyes. The royal guard did their best to fend off, firing off their hand guns (as unreliable as they were) and swinging their swords at the enemy. It was pure chaos as monsters run freely throughout the castle grounds. Tearing through anything that stood in their path.
Fisc felt the blood force itself out of her hands as she balled a fist at the sight of it all. Her friends were down there, fighting for the good of the kingdom. She closed her eyes so she didn't see anymore of the carnage below. She felt like gagging at the mere thought of the brutal murder. She turned herself around, her eyes still shut. She felt a rotten taste in her mouth, spitting at the floor beneath her. Looking up, Fisc spotted Moon off to the side of the room, making her way over with her head held in her hands. When the two made eye contact, they stared for a few seconds, taking in what had just happened. Fisc then broke the silence, asking the question that had been on her mind since the bull-man knocked her off into the wall, phrasing it as more of a statement than a question.
"What the fuck is going on... "
Reviews:
Exotos135: Thanks dude, you too.
Finnjr63: Thanks man, you too.
RedHood001: Let's hope I make a good telling of your prompt. Thanks.
ThunderMist36: I'm glad you enjoyed, sorry about the cliff-hanger, but I needed more time to prep the next few chapters of the arc. I hope to keep you smiling with this chapter, and all others that I bring, and I hope you keep reviewing, since even though my life is hell right now, you always seem to make me smile again and again, so thank you.
Guest Sorta: Actually, I think I did.
HiatusQueen: That is a very good analogy for a cliffhanger, I'm glad you understand the meaning. Thanks Brochacha, I'm glad I made a friend like you.
Author Smimph: I do apologize for the poke at your love lives, I hope you can forgive me. I'm also sorry for not mentioning the help you guys provided with the previous chapter, but don't worry, I fixed it up so that credit is given where credit is due. Thanks for reviewing Smimph, you keep up the great work too.
Insane Master Writer Studio: Thank you for reviewing, I'll do my best to try and not screw up in future. The arc isn't really going to have any ship tease, sorry, but I hope that doesn't effect your opinion of the chapter.
EVAunit42: You don't need to apologize dude. You can review whenever you want, I'm not forcing you to do it. Glad you enjoyed, and I think you're going to need that campfire, and maybe a tent considering how long it takes me to put out these chapters. Thanks man, you too.
Thanks for reading. I'll see you all next time when I'm hopefully feeling better.