Picking him up, he just cracked open his eyes to met her own. smiling, he barely managed to utter a word through the black gunk that spilled from his lips, and Star tried to maintain herself, the horror drenching her eyes far too palpable for her to rest upon him. Star could hear it, the way his breath began to hitch, become...shallow, and there it was again, a striking pang, distinct fear that made it difficult for her to move, to breathe, herself. He couldn't...he couldn't...
No.
No, he would be okay! They just had to move while they still could.
She had to keep it together, if only long enough to complete this.
"I know, Marco, I know! Just...just hold on! You're gonna be fine, just look at me, okay?" Attempting to steady her voice, Star knew she felt anything but confident in what she'd said, even more when his breaths were becoming shorter, more so now as he trembled quietly from the pain, though now he was going still.
So...still.
'P-please...please, this has to work. Please...' The young girl begged a voice she couldn't see, a presence that she didn't know whether it was there or not. But it didn't matter, did it? Whether it had or hadn't heard her, her wish was the same.
Her wish was just as desperate.
Bringing him within the sanctity of the circle, Star felt them all grow silent, still, as Tom retreated from the unicorn, its form destabilized just enough for him to have a moment to breathe. In the midst of all of this, she'd nearly forgotten that Tom had been there at all, and even through the pressing guilt in that thought alone, she stood, running to meet him where he was as he tried to collect himself.
The fatigue of this entire ordeal was beginning to get to her.
"Guys! I don't know how much longer I can...I can hold this thing off." He wheezed tiredly, eying its gurgling mass with a wary, exhausted stare before he looked pleadingly to the rest of them. But all of them knew there wasn't much that they could do while they were performing this...whatever it was.
Star wasn't sure what to expect herself.
Looking back as the others began to prepare, she gave Tom a long hug, embracing him tightly before looking at him for a long moment. Of course, this seemed to take the former by surprise as well, his face blooming a warm red, a pleasant color that matched his virulent flame.
But she didn't mind his growing temperature, really. With how this was turning out...Star wasn't sure if this might be the last time she'd ever see him. Or really, if this would be the last time she'd seen...anyone again. It was worth her while to at least do this one last time, to feel his warmth, encased in flame.
With Mina and the spell in mind...it was hard to tell what would happen anymore.
"I'm sorry. Just...j-just to hold him off just a little more. I promise we'll help when this is over." She asked softly, and Tom watched her, concerned. Looking behind her at where Marco had been laid, the others proceeding to remove his clothing, she could tell he was bothered, though of the two of them felt themselves grow a little awkward at the notion of Marco being naked in-front of them.
In a way, it was sort of hilarious that they managed to even think that way in a situation like this.
It was nice to see someone else was besides herself.
Looking back to her, she couldn't deny it, the small, worried pull of his lips.
"Is he..." Mustering up the courage to ask, the teen came in closer, uncertain of how to ask, but he did anyway, the question mulling the backs of all of their minds.
Though frankly, it was something she wished none of them would ask. Doing so just made it feel more...real.
Especially when she didn't know the answer.
But still, she couldn't stop him from asking. What right did she have to do that?
"...going to be okay?" He asked, and Star doubled back, her heart...cold.
Sighing, she looked back at him, a hollowed smile her lips.
"I don't know, but...let's hope for the best, okay?" Giving his hand one, last squeeze, she left to join the others. Looking to his hand, he watched as she kneeled down beside his body, Marco's body, and in that same moment, the unicorn and it's minions began to reform, ready to enact vengeance against the demon prince. Bracing himself, Tom prepared to do the same.
And he hopped into the fray.
Behind him the queens, Star, an Glossaryck were ready at last, and though Star was bashful, looking away from Marco's nude form, though more than that, the horror she felt as the wound only seemed to get worse, his breathing as well, they continued as they'd planned, with the small creature at the helm. Glossaryck eyed the boy carefully, forehead furrowed with an unreadable emotion before he called upon the Book of Spells, the heavy tome floating just beyond his grasp as he began the rite.
"I ask that you all join hands. The seed must be contained here, and we must hurry. I can sense Mina's magic growing closer, and...it would seem as through our deep Marco is running woefully low on time." He reminded them, and they all nodded in return, Star taking note of his shaking breath, his desperation palpable, his fear even more so as he struggled to hold on.
He was right.
They were running out of time.
Assuming that they were all ready, the three of them watched as it began.
Releasing the seed, hovered before him, and as it trembled, suspended there in the air, Glossaryck began to speak, or really, Star mulled silently...chant.
An unknown incantation that she couldn't even begin to guess the name of.
"We present to you a gift, a bargain, to grant us something in return!" He began to shout, the seed vibrating with a sudden, spastic energy that it hadn't had before. Around her, the sky began to change, winds biting and cold as something...shifted, became different. She couldn't pinpoint it, but it was a strange...ominous sensation that filled her as she gripped their hands closer, but around them, the Realm, too, became...odd.
Her own attention was dragged away from this, though, as she watched him, Marco. His eyes were becoming...glassy, shaded and dark as his breath began to slow, more shallow.
Akin to just a whisper.
'No...n-no! Nor yet, please! Please, Marco, just...just hold on!' She cried out in her mind, not daring to disturb the ritual all the same, but her heart thrummed wildly, fearfully. It couldn't happen yet, she didn't know what she would do if...if he -
Eyes from the shadows pressed upon their backs, pulsing, blinking in time. In the back of her mind, Star gasped, spotting the faces of many of the queens and kings of time passed, locked in hands just as they'd been. They were silent, still, matching the tearing winds that ripped across their faces. Looking back to Glossaryck, she'd only begun to notice that Marco was...lifting, broken form pulling from the golden waters and into the air to match the seed.
But something...something was wrong.
She couldn't...she couldn't see him breathing. What had once been tense trembles...were slower now...softer now...until -
"M-Marco?" The girl whispered softly, almost imperceptibly to the careless ear, but Eclipsa and Moon seemed to take notice of it, too, his waning vitality.
The life that would soon be lost.
Looking to each other, neither could console her as the child began to weep, disquieted tears drifting down her cheeks as she considered letting go of their hands, convinced that the ritual wouldn't work now, not if Marco was...gone. But the two queens persisted, nodding to Star in a hushed voice just before she could break their circle.
"Star, don't...not...not yet. It isn't over." One of them said, the voice of her mother, it would seem, the girl too overwhelmed to even try to designate the source of the voice at all. More than that, she couldn't believe it.
It wasn't over? How...how could that be? Marco...he was...there was no way that her eyes were playing tricks on her, were they? If it wasn't over...was that implying that...they could bring him back?
How could that be?
The blue creature continued, unabated, even as Mina's presence drew ever nearer, and nearer still. They could hear her, cackling madly despite the alterations of their surroundings.
She was given little pause, it seemed.
And neither was Glossaryck.
"Gods above, below, grant us the power of your seed, of the sacred flower so that we may grant our own the power that it holds. In its petals we shall remain, bound to its will!" The winds picked up, colder, violent...angry. Star couldn't recall ever seeing the Realm of Magic look like this...much less as something began to happen above, far over their heads as the sky...began to tear.
It took her several moments longer to make sure that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, that what she thought was happening...was truly the case, that her eyes hadn't been deceiving her. Though, she imagined it would be hard to imagine the very sky above her ripping apart, as strange as that sounded.
It wasn't often that that sort of thing happened, you know?
As if parting a seam, akin tearing fabric apart, a blistering, white light shined, searing and warm, yet terrible, cold, like a winter breath unkempt. From it, there was something there, parting the sky, rending it clean, separate from itself.
Something...that shouldn't be, she knew that all too well.
Something about this was...strange. Even in the Realm of Magic, this wasn't...right.
Something about this was...wrong.
Yet she couldn't describe it...why that felt as though it was case.
Star fought to stay rooted in her spot, just as the other queens had to. Around them, the old queens and kings stood closer, closing the circle in kind, but there was something else.
Something haunting, chiming.
A sound.
She...could...hear...a...sound.
It rang, high their heads, tearing and rending the sky like the sound of...
Bells.
Great bells that chimed and sang as they descended.
Ring, it went, loud enough that her own body shivered in kind.
What...was that?
Why did she...feel this way?
Scared? Terrified? Apprehensive? The swirling mass of emotions was making it hard for her to focus as she tried even harder to keep herself still against the burgeoning winds, harsh and cold.
But she would have no choice but to force her eyes upwards, ever upwards.
They were here.
Children, infants, clad with wings of lightning, split the womb of the sky. They giggled, they laughed...yet their stony face moved not. Without muscles, forever locked and upturned in a state of elation, unearned, unmet, by any earthly pleasure.
Their presence an unnatural one, she knew immediately.
This was wrong. This was terribly, horribly wrong...she could feel it.
And it scared her.
"M-Mom? Mom, I don't like this. T-this...this doesn't feel right." Star tried to cry over the noise of the wind and laughter, parsed from the stone lips of the children above them. It was haunting, their giggles, their joyous cries.
She didn't understand. Had she...had they made a mistake?
Looking up, Moon didn't disagree. She couldn't have, a knowing look in her eyes.
"I-I...I know, sweetheart. Just...just bear it for a moment longer. This...we'll be okay. I promise." Gripping her hand tighter, the older woman gleaned what she could from a smile, but Star wasn't sure. Staring up at Marco's body, she couldn't help it, to wonder just one thing.
Would he be okay, too?
She hadn't considered that before.
Strange to think that she hadn't thought what about what this ritual, this...blaspheme...would mean for him.
The thought never even crossed her mind.
There, breaking through the white, incandescent, she could hardly believe it, the entity that had fallen through not even moments later. She didn't even have enough time to consider it before the children's laughter came to a deafening crescendo, as if they'd been laughing at them all along.
What was there?
It was a hand.
A hand.
Reaching down.
Attached to it was something unlike anything she'd ever seen.
A monster, a beast...a woman, mouth agape as the sound came again.
Ringing, ringing.
The sound...the bells.
They struck in time with the seed, burning with dark light as the Realm of Magic began to change...to shift.
No.
No, surely she was losing it, her mind, right? There was no way...this was real. Yes, she'd traveled dimensions, seen strange things...but this...this wasn't dimensional. This...this was something more. Something unknowable, unseen...something that was never meant to be touched.
Looking back to Glossaryck, she could see it, the pulsing seed in his grasp, and she couldn't help it, singular question that came to mind.
Just what was that seed?
And then, another question, one just as pertinent.
Just what had they done?
What had once been golden water...became grey, and just as quickly, it changed again.
White.
Fluorescent hues of pink, gold, and purple died, wilting to a sterile white, piercing her eyes. The sky, the water, pillars of crystal once pastel shades were christened, paled and stark, and despite her fear...she had to admit it.
It was beautiful.
Even through her terror.
"Flower! Find your host, and live! Take root. Bring to us..." Finally, the seed began to split, but something...spilled from inside. Star couldn't breathe, couldn't fathom it, as its miasmic form reached for Marco.
And reached...
And reached...
Until...
...
...
It was inside.
The crunching..the way his body twisted and convulsed as the thing, its black tendrils forcing its way inside of him, made its home, a gross use of what had once been the vessel for the one she loved.
It was contorting him, ripping into him.
Yet Marco was silent.
Still.
Star couldn't rip her eyes away as it rooted, forcing its way inside of him, his...eye. Yet he didn't move, and Star's eyes went wide for his hair, once a warm shade of brown, crackled and shimmered white, each strand of his once dark hair falling pale and frosted silver. They weren't done yet, even as it disappeared within his socket, writhing within his head until the movement ceased.
And he went still.
Too still.
"...your song." With that, hand began to retract, the great tear above their heads, piercing with grand, blinding light...fading into the grey of the sky, the children following it in kind.
And it was just like that...that they were alone again, the queens and kings of old fading off until they became unseen.
At last, Glossaryck finished, and it was then and only then that Mina felt closer than she had before. They could see her now, breaking across the sky at terrible speeds, her cracking laughter shrill and unhinged. Looking up to Marco, he hovered before them for a few seconds longer before gently lowering, resting within the white waters, seeping and blending with his head of stark, pale hair, Star rushing to his side as soon as she could wrench her hand free of her mother's and Eclipsa's grasps, though they made no move to stop her. It was only a moment later that she was holding him, gently in her arms, and she got the chance to really look at him since the start of this.
And again, her breathing hitched.
He was breathing again.
Thumbing through it, Star was surprised to find that his body was completely free of marks, little trace of the veins or wounds to be found, and despite the residual fear that dug itself within her core...she couldn't deny that there was a deep sense of relief felt stronger, her eyes tearing up at the overwhelming emotion. Pulling him into a hug, he hadn't awakened yet, nor did he stir, his soft features appearing so...rested.
As if he only just fallen asleep.
"Marco...M-Marco, you're gonna be okay. I thought you were..." Holding him close, she didn't dare let him go, allowing herself to relax, even in the midst of Mina's arrival.
But it would be okay.
If they could get through that...then...then everything was fine. It had to be.
By then, they heard a shout, and just as quickly, a hazy blur a was thrown towards them.
It was Tom, haphazardly parting the circle before Moon and Eclipsa were at his side, ensuring that he was okay. Pulling himself out of the white, hazy fluid, he waved them away, grinning boldly, but Star could tell something was...off.
Placing Marco down, Star stood again, facing her.
Mina.
She was finally here.
"Don't worry, I'm good. Just...a little winded. She's...a lot tougher than she looks, and..." Holding up his hands, Star noticed something strange.
Tom's magic was...gone.
"Wait...wait, wait, wait. Tom! Your magic is - " Stopping her, the young demon allowed his grin to fall. Looking to Marco, Star looked back, too.
There was a moment that she tried to shift herself...and to no avail.
Hers were gone, too.
Then that meant...that meant it had worked.
It...worked.
Mina seemed to realized that something was amiss, her own form wavering and bending as her strength waned.
"What the - what did you do?! Why do I feel so...strange..." She remarked, trying her best to keep her shape, her strength, but even she was having trouble doing so. Phasing in and out, she barely managed to stay tangible, much less move under the strain of her form. Standing up, Eclipsa walked forward, a sly grin written about her features.
"What's wrong, Mina? Feeling a bit...out of it?" The woman mocked as she stood proud, tall, before the monster slayer, and it was only then that Star noticed that the woman's arms were clear, no longer marked with the scar of the dark magic she'd pledged herself to. It was strange, even, seeing her without the crooked, stained skin that had been dyed all manner of violent. Even she seemed enthralled by the presence of her natural skin, and Meteora was aware of it, too, patting her mother's arms gently with wonder.
With great difficulty, Mina snarled, disgusted at the sight of the child.
"Ugh, would you be so bold present your monster loving ways before the very spirit of your own Queen Solaria? You dirty witch!" Presented with the chance, and the last of her power, Mina decided then and only then to strike...of course, when everyone was at their weakest.
"DIE! DIE, DIE, DIE!" She screamed, bolting headlong before them.
At this point, they all braced themselves, preparing themselves for impact when they heard it.
Star wasn't sure at first, whether it was truly as she was hearing it to be...but it was. Turning around, just as the others had, it became clear to them, the sound of his voice.
Marco was awake.
And he'd begun to sing.