Authors Note

Hey guys it's me again! First off I'd like to thank you guys for all the support, it really means a lot to me. Secondly I'm going to be going on a weeklong hike starting next week. For this reason i have delayed making the two part chapter on Ludo's plan until after the hike. The original plan was that I would make both chapter's in one week but this way just makes it less stressful. As for this chapter, I designed it to be a fun light hearted fluffy one to counteract the dramatic tension of the last chapter. This chapter is also pretty long (I kinda got carried away with the starco moments but hey what can say?). Anyway I will just leave you all to read on! I hope you enjoy and I own nothing!

Star leaned against the railing of the lookout point. She took in the sight before her, a vast maze of gullies and crevasses cut into the orangey sandstone. One could easily get lost in the tangled mess. Puffy white clouds drifted across the sky in a sea of brilliant blue and a dry dusty wind fluttered through her hair. They were at a lookout point by the highway that cut through Red Ravine National Park. The crew had stopped to take a break from the constant driving. Star didn't understand the name as the rock in the ravine was clearly orange, but she just dismissed it as more earth weirdness.

Marco walked up beside her and took a gulp from his water bottle; the midday sun was relentless.

"Hey pass me some water." Star asked him without even turning her head.

Marco passed her the bottle and leaned up against the rail beside her. Star took a swig and handed it back.

"Man it sure is hot, wouldn't stink to be stuck down there?" Marco said while looking over the canyon.

Star laughed "You know it, what would you even eat?"

"I don't know maybe bugs or something."

"Ewwww gross!"

"Hey you gotta do what ya gotta do when surviving in the wild!"

She laughed and got up from leaning on the rail.

"Hey I'm going to go use the washroom." She said pointing towards the direction of the bathrooms.

"I'll come with you, I have to go to."

They both strolled off to the washrooms. They came around the other side of the trailer got a good look of the washrooms. Turns out washrooms wasn't the right term, the correct word was outhouses, or in this case outhouse.

Star and Marco glanced at each other for a brief second.

"I'm going first!" Star yelled out as she darted off towards the outhouse.

"Oh no you're not!" Marco shouted back while running after her.

The two both grabbed hold of the door handle and started to tug it between themselves.

"Give it up, it's mine!" Star said in a flustered tone.

"There's no way you're getting it!" Marco fought back.

"Ladies first!" She said tugging at the door.

"Earthlings first!" He replied tugging the door to himself.

They went back and forth like this for a solid fifteen minutes, bickering like two siblings. This was something only earned by a strong and enduring friendship... or a need to pee, one of those two at least.

Eventually their little tug of war devolved into an even more pathetic petty slap fight.

"Marco!" Star whined

"Star!" Marco whined back

"Would you two just shut up!" Mr Diaz moaned from across the look out. "You're like an old married couple, except young and able to physically attack each other so it's even worse!"

Star and Marco paused for a moment and looked each other in the eye... and then continued to fight.

Mr Diaz sighed and rubbed his temples. "Kids..." He muttered o himself.

Star and Marco were getting tired, soon one of them would give in or a choice would be made as to who got to go first. But lucky enough for them they wouldn't have to because at that moment Star tripped on a rock and fell backwards down the hill beside the washrooms.

"Marcooooooooo!" Her voice faded out of earshot.

Marco looked on in horror as his best friend fell down a ravine. Without thinking he ran after her proceeding to trip and fall as well.

He rolled down the dusty hill into a smooth slide-like gully of wind polished sandstone.

Marco started to slide down it. Up ahead he saw a tunnel into the rock. Star screams echoed from inside the quickly approaching cave.

"AHHHHHH!" Marco screamed as he flew into the tunnel at high speed.

From within the tunnel he saw in the distance a pin prick of light that slowly began to grow. With a bit more screaming Marco was thrust into the blinding desert sunlight. Flailing about as he falls for a few seconds he lands face down in the dirt right beside Star who is in the same position. He spits out the dry sand and groans.

"Why does this always happen to us?" He mumbles through the dirt.

Star rolls onto her back "Like i told you before after that juice bar fight your just bad luck." She says drearily.

Marco grunts in response and pushes himself up out of the sand. He looks around at his predicament. They are in a small ravine, or in better words a pit. It's about the size of large family room with smooth sandstone walls that rise two and half stories above them. The only other interesting things are a dead tree in the corner and a small cave that leads to who knows where?

"How on earth are we going to get out of here?" Marco said utterly stupefied.

"Why don't we try and climb out?" Star replies and stands up.

Marco runs his hand down the stone wall.

"It's way to smooth, there's no way we could climb out. Lets try and come up with some ideas..."

"Ideas? You know what this calls for don't you?"

Marco nods in agreement.

"A montage!" They both say in a sing song voice.

-ATTEMPT ONE-

"Look up there what's that?" Star said pointing to the chute they just came from.

"Oh isn't that the hole we fell out of?"

"Yea I think your right."

"Well let's try and get up to it maybe we can climb out the way we came?" Marco suggests.

"Well it's worth a shot."

The hole sat about one story off the ground and was made of the same sandstone the wall was made of.

"How are we going to reach it?" Star asks.

Marco pauses for a bit before coming up with an idea.

"Here Star get on my shoulders." Marcos commands.

"What?" Star replies quizzically.

"Just do it..."

"Ok ok! Calm down there wild man!" She taunts.

Marco rolls his eyes and kneels down for Star to climb on. She gets onto his shoulders and Marco stands up, they're a little wobbly but they manage to stay upright.

"Ok now Star try to grab the hole and climb into it!"

Star tries, oh she tries alright but her feeble attempts are to no avail.

"I can't it's too smooth!" She says letting go the wall.

Marco begins to wobble again.

"Oh no no no!" He says frantically.

"Ahhhh!" They scream and fall over with a thud into the sand.

"Well that didn't work..." Star mumbles.

-ATTEMPT TWO-

Star face palms "Duh! We can just use my wand to get out of here!"

"Do you know the right spell?"

"I think I might...I'm just going to go for it!"

"Maybe that's not a-"

"FANTASTIC FEATHER FLIGHT BEAM!" Star yells out.

It charges up... and nothing happens...

"Man what is up with my wand? It's stopped working ever since that storm!" She says hitting it with her hand.

"Well I guess we're back to the drawing board..." Marco says with a sigh.

-ATTEMPT TWENTY SIX-

"For the billionth time Star we can't just climb out of here!"

"Well then I don't know what to do we tried everything, yelling for help, climbing the tree, building a ladder out of the tree, we even tried to levitate out with the power of our minds! That's like half an hour of my life I will never get back!"

"Ya ya I know..."

The two paused, thinking in the rapidly fading daylight.

"There is one thing though; we could go through the cave..."

Star the whole time they were stuck in the gully had wanted to go through the small cave. It sat mysteriously in the corner opposite of the tree just waiting to be explored and it was driving her crazy. Marco however did not have the same thirst for discovery and adventure as Star did...

"I told you already we can't, we have no idea where it leads and we could just end up getting more lost!"

"What other choice do we have?"

Marco couldn't deny that, they had tried everything and that was the only thing left to do...

"Alright fine." Marco said finally CAVING in (Man I'm hilarious!).

"YES FINALLY!" Star shouted in relief.

"But we leave tomorrow, it's getting late and we best get some rest." Marco added.

Star frowned "Alright..."

The two set about building a campfire with the pieces of the dead tree they broke off to build a ladder. But as they were collecting the dry dusty wood Star saw some small creature by the cave. It was sitting in the twilight watching them.

"Marco... What is that?" She whispered pointing over the strange creature.

Marco glanced over and saw it too.

"I don't know, But I think it's going to be dinner..." He said picked up a rock.

Marco threw the rock at it. The rock was dead on and hit the small furry animal. It squealed and then died. Star and Marco walkover to see a dead possum laying in the sand.

Later that night...

Marco stared at his meal, half of a small roasted possum. He couldn't do it, he couldn't eat the school mascot. It felt wrong, like he was betraying an old friend.

"Forgive me..." He whispered into the night air.

He bit into it, its meat was tough and tasted sour. The taste of betrayal.

"Marco this tastes weird." Star said looking at her half in disappointment and disgust.

Marco pulled himself together.

"Ya well it's all we got so eat up!" He replied and then forced himself to take another bite.

After finishing their meal the two sat by the crackling fire talking and laughing shaded by the glittering veil of desert stars.

"And that's why Ferguson will never eat kiwis!" Marco said with a chuckle.

They both laughed into the crisp night air.

"You know Marco I'm kinda glad we got stuck down here, this is actually nice." Star said blushing a bit.

"Me too." Marco said, eyes shifting away from Star.

He looked up and their eyes locked onto each other. Marco's soft brown eyes glistening in the flickering fire light, Star's eyes catching the dancing flame as well. Indigo moonlight flowed down onto the two teens sitting by the fire and the small pit they now called home.

Marco often forget how pretty Star actually was, but in the fire light it was all too apparent. A warm flutter made his heart skip a beat and he flushed red.

Star didn't pay too much attention to Marco's looks; after all he was just her friend, no best friend. But in the soft orange glow of the fire she couldn't not notice how handsome he looked. Not only that but he had the cutest blush on his face, something that caused her to blush as well.

The moment lasted a precious few seconds until the silence was broken by Marco speaking.

"We should probably go to bed; we will need the rest for tomorrow..." He said looking away.

Star laughed nervously "Yea thats a good idea."

They started to get ready for bed, mostly by each clearing the spot they would sleep in of twigs and rocks. Eventually under stars and by a warm fire they fell asleep in the sand.

The next morning...

At first dawn all was well. Star and Marco slept peacefully as the sun crested the horizon. Soon the heat of the day would be back.

Marco shifted in the sand; he was awake but kept his eyes shut tight. He thought for sure that he would have woken up in the middle of the night due to the cold but for some reason he hadn't. The reason was revealed when it stirred right beside him. Marco's eyes shot open and he froze. Star was cuddled up beside him, presumably to escape from the cold.

She mumbled something inaudible and snuggled up even closer. Marco stiffened.

"Great now what do i do?" He whispered to himself.

Five minutes later of tedious manoeuvring...

Star opened her eyes to see Marco desperately trying to slip away from her. She jumped backwards and skidded off to the side, her eyes wide with apology.

"Oh! I'm so so sorry!" She yelped.

Marco had jumped back to "Its ok that was just... yeah." He said stopping awkwardly halfway through the sentence.

A awkward quiet came over them as they refused to look each other in the eye.

The awkwardness was done away with when Stars stomach growled. She looked up at Marco and put what happened to the back of her mind.

"Marco I'm hungryyyyy!" She moaned.

Marco let out a sigh; he was also getting pretty hungry.

"The only way we can get any more food is if we escape from here..."

"And that means..."

"Going through the cave..." Marco said sombrely.

"Yes!" Star jumped for joy, her dream was finally a reality!

"Alright gather up your things we-"

"What things?" Star asked with a smirk.

Marco looked around there camp. A possum skeleton, remains of a fire, dead tree and some rocks were all they owned at the moment. (It was a modest life style)

"Oh yea, kinda forgot we don't have anything."

"Whelp this just means we get to go through the cave sooner!"

Marco gulped; he was not looking forward to going through this cave.

Star turned around and looked at him "Wait your not scared are you?"

"No!" He replied defensively "...ok yeah I'm a little scared."

"Don't worry Marco I will protect you!"

Star yelled valiantly and grabbed onto his hand.

"Into the void!" She shouted with valour. With that the two ran into the small cave. Upon entering the cave a foul smell wafted into their noses.

"Eww why does it stink so much in here?" She asked Marco.

"This is probably were the possum we ate lived..."

Marco shivered, bad memories man.

"Hey Marco look up ahead!" Star said pointing at a light in the distance.

"Yea I see it!"

The two increased their pace through the cave and soon enough they were out of it's dingy halls and on a sandy hill leading down into a ravine.

A voice called from the top if the hill. It was Mr and Mrs Diaz! They had been desperately looking for the two ever since they fell down the hole.

"KIDS!" Mr and Mrs Diaz screamed in delight.

"Mom! Dad!" Marco called out. He pulled Star along up the hill.

At the top of the hill the kids were greeted with a bone crushing hug from Mr and Mrs Diaz.

"We thought we lost you two!" Mrs Diaz said while wrapping the kids in her arms.

"Don't you guys ever do that again!" Mr Diaz added holding back the tears.

Marco laughed "We'll try not to fall down any more pits!"

Star was simply amazed by the moment with the Diaz's; her parents never had group hugs like this! She wasn't even Mr and Mrs kid and here she was being included with them in a group hug! The whole thing just made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Eventually the hug broke up and the group stood around in a circle.

"Alright we got a lot of driving to catch up on so go to the washroom and let's get on the road!" Mr Diaz said with a smile.

"Alright!" Star agreed "but first can we uh... get something to eat?"

Wooo! That was one long chapter! I hope you guys liked it, i tried to sprinkle some starco-y moments in there along with the random goofy adventures. I will see you guys in a week and a bit, that's all for now!