Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Marco Diaz is Dead!" Star screamed, setting the viking-style pyre aflame in the Diaz backyard. "Long Live Marco Diaz!"

"Star. You don't have to do that."

"But Marco is dead! You have to understand that, Marco! We need to remember him...them. We need to remember Marco Diaz."

"Star, I'm still the same person! It's just that we all know that I'm a girl now. It's fine." Marco wasn't sure what she expected from telling everyone she was a girl, but she certainly wasn't expecting a viking funeral. Considering how gleefully her parents had decided to don viking helmets and sing as the pyre and the suit-bedecked straw dummy burned, perhaps she really should have. Star was great at convincing them to go along with whatever she wanted to do.

Two years had done a lot in terms of toning Star down from Life-threatening fourteen year old recklessness every minute to Life-Threatening sixteen year old recklessness every other day. The change was impressive when you compared it to fresh-from-Mewni Star. Time couldn't tame the core of Star's personality though, and it was all excitement all the time. All excitement and great ideas, viking funeral for the boy she had never been included. Marco smiled when the suit wearing dummy properly caught fire and began spewing fireworks into the afternoon sky, sending Narwhals and kittens flying from the glittery center. Thankfully, the neighbors were pretty deaf and great at ignoring them.

All this to celebrate a gender change on her driver's permit, she considered as she side-stepped a falling narwhal, Marco couldn't wait to see what happened when she started on her Estrogen regiment next month. It was a shame her parents would be taking her back to Mewni today and Star wouldn't get to see it. Maybe she'd pop in anyway? Star was more responsible than she had been before, but more responsible didn't mean unwilling to skip out on meetings or exams to celebrate an important day with her friends.

Then Star's mirror began to chime.

It was semi miraculous that Star could hear it at all over the sound of magical narhwal-unikitten fireworks but she was kind of miraculous by herself, so that was fine. Star barely checked the caller-id before she was shouting.

"HI MOM! HOLD ON, LET ME-" Star spun towards the Diaz's and her wand set the fire from burn to vaporize, turning the pyre to ash and cinders instantly. The lingering heat dissipated with the fire extinguished. "Okay, yeah, what did you want?"

"Star, your Father and I will be through coming shortly."

Almost instantly a pair of dimensional scissors cut through the fabric of reality and a carriage pulled by Giant Invisible Goats rolled through serenely, at odds with the incinerated funeral pyre, which had already been at odds with the Southern California stucco neighborhood. It sparkled and glimmered as Star attempted to bolt towards it. Marco grabbed her by the shoulder, stopping her dash before it started.

"Wait for it, wait for it...." After a long moment the door slowly opened, a blue silk walkway pouring out ahead of its passengers. King and Queen Butterfly finally stepped out onto the blue silk. "Now," Marco said, unleashing Star upon her parents. Star sprinted as fast as Mewmanly possible at her parents and squeezed them until even Queen Butterfly's stiff back looked like it would bend.

"Haha, wonderful! It is such a long time since we have seen you!" Raphael Diaz carefully adjusted his horned helmet as he patted King River Butterfly on the back {well, slammed really, because King butterfly is a short man and Mr Diaz was pretty large and semi unaware of his own strength}.

When The Butterflys had been settled down onto the couch and snacks had been passed around the Diaz'z and the Butterflys began talking. Marco and Star sat, sides pressed together soaking up as much friendship as they could stuff into their Human and Mewni bodies.

"Thank you again for hosting Star for us," Queen Butterfly said primly.

"It was no problem at all. We loved having Star around. Didn't we, dear?"

"We sure did! I made a statue of her face, you know!"

"You did?" Queen Butterfly looked only passingly interested. King Butterfly was stuffing his face with taquitos.

"Ah, yes. Sadly it was broken when Star had an accident with her wand. She said sorry so many times we had to ban the word in the house for a week, you know!" Now Queen and King Butterfly were interested.

"She apologized? Really? I don't think she even apologized for crashing a Warnicorn through my vanity on my birthday. Truly, you seem to be excellent influences. You must have raised your own child so well!" Mrs. Diaz turned towards Marco, who was sitting with Star, and hugged her tightly.

"Yes, Marco's our little Princess!"

"I apologize for not checking your status before we had Star board with you. We were unaware you were royalty."

"Nah, Queen Butterfly, we're not actually royalty. It's just a nickname. We're just regular people," Marco shrugged casually.

"Well, that certainly is a shame. Please, allow me, on behalf of the Mewni Kingdom and the Butterfly Legacy to grant you a gift for hosting Star so wonderfully."

Mr. and Mrs. Diaz turned towards each other. They had enough reason to be wary of magic, having seen Star use it for three years. On the other hand, they had seen Star use magic for three years and knew that it could do some amazing things. If Star could grant them laser-puppies and add new rooms to their house as an energetic, and untrained teen, then the much more responsible Queen Butterfly would surely be able to not destroy things when she gave them a gift. Besides, the gift might even be more practical than having a water-slide for stairs, even though they had enjoyed that for a while. The Diaz's turned their heads back to the King and Queen on their sofa and nodded, smiles wide on their faces.

"Excellent! Star, if you would hand me the wand please?" Queen Butterfly held her open hand out expectantly. Star got up and walked over to her mother and handed her the wand, Handle first because Marco said it's safest that way and she really wanted to impress her folks by being super safe.

Queen Butterfly took it and shook it a few times, until it became blue and gold, with a broken, blue crystal heart at the top. Paying no heed to Star bouncing excitedly next to her, Queen Moon Butterfly, stood and began to wave the wand in elegant patterns above her head.

"Orbis terrarum regni est. Magica primogenita tua. Ego dispono vobis regnum!" The wand began to chime a series of crystalline notes and began to glow until everyone had to shut their eyes. Marco felt magic wash over her, cool and gentle. It was like standing in the ocean,whereas Star's magic felt like someone invented an Electric Grapefruit and shoved it into your mouth.

The magic went from a tidal wave to a river and eventually slowed to a halt. Marco pulled her  hands away from where they had been shielding her eyes to look around the room. Nothing was broken. No one new was in the house. The walls weren't breathing and her arm wasn't a tentacle. Marco had approximately negative two ideas what exactly that spell had just done, but it was big. She knew that much despite not knowing what exactly it did.

"Woah."Star stood, staring wide-eyed at her mom. Marco wondered if Star would be as powerful when she got on the throne."Marco!" Star yelped, breaking Marco out of her thoughts. "Your face! Marco, you have spirals on your cheeks. Mrs. Diaz, too! You're just like us now!"

Marco and his mom looked at each other immediately. Star hadn't been kidding. Where Star had pink hearts on her face Marco's mom had yellow spirals. Marco could only assume she had them on her cheeks, too. Star snatched her wand back and bounced over the table in a single leap to pinch Marco's cheek and coo at him. Mr. Diaz was also touching his wife's face, murmuring about how cute they looked on her. Queen Butterfly cleared her throat and the noise stopped as everyone turned back to look at her.

"I have taken the liberty of granting you the Butterfly Legacy Marks." Okay, built in fancy make-up? Marco could deal with that. She'd have to make sure her stuff looked good with yellow in the future, otherwise no big. But, no, it couldn't have been something that small with all that power build up. Unless the Butterfly Legacy Marks really needed that much power? Marco had seen Star's activate when she attempted to break Marco out of Toffee's prison. Maybe this really was all that Queen Butterfly did.

"It wouldn't do to have you go around without some symbol of your station, after all." Marco's Magic-Shenanigan senses were tingling and she had been living with Star for two years; those senses were always spot on.

"What station?"

"Your station as royalty, of course. This dimension has always been rather backwards in inter-dimensional matters and the like. Seeing as how the dimension had no pre-established royal family, you now rule the entire dimension." Marco felt her jaw drop before Star reached over and gently pressed her mouth closed. "I have also granted your family the gift of magic. No force in the universe will be able to dethrone you for several generations at the very least. Not even the Royal Wand would be able to take it away from you." There went any hope of undoing the spell.

"Additionally, the Kingdom of Mewni will be glad to be the first to welcome you into the inter-dimensional community. In fact, we would like to propose large-scale trading between kingd-"

"AAAAAAHHH!" Star screamed, drowning out her mother. "MARCO YOU'RE A PRINCESS, TOO, NOW!" Shrieks turned into giggles as Star grabbed Marco and spun in circles. The faint feeling of unreality looming over Marco became stronger as it sank in that, No, this wasn't a simple slip up that Marco could fix, that Queen Butterfly made the Diaz's the Royal Family of Earth, permanently and on purpose. Distantly, she wondered if this would interfere with her starting estrogen.

Chapter Text

She didn't know why she thought she could just go to school the next day and have everything be fine.

Star had gone home to Mewni with a promise to "mirror you everyday, Princeeeess Marcoooo" and Marco had swirls on her cheeks. Marco had switched rooms, citing the size of Star's room would be wasted criminally if Marco didn't move into it. It was weird waking up without Star levitating her hair brushes in circles around her even though she knew to expect it. What she didn't expect was the photographer creeping on her through the very tall tower window.

"HI-YA!" MArco reflexively karate chopped the creep off their ladder and ran into the bathroom. Marco threw herself against the door. Sweating bullets,she grabbed the magic vacuum cleaner. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing if Ludo or Toffee had sent that person to take her out. Drawing on the sense of concentration and focus that had taken her up to her red belt, Marco threw open the door and sprinted to the window.

"I have a vacuum and I'm not afraid to use it!" When nothing else came in the window, Marco let the vacuum float by the window and stuck her head out. The person from before seemed to be okay, which was great. What was not great was the crowd of other people with cameras aimed at her tower window. Shrieking with fright, she jumped the stairs and careened into the living room.

Her mom and dad were sitting comfortably on the couch, while what seemed like a thousand cameras were recording her mom saying, "Oh, yes! We've known about the other dimensions for years! Our daughter Marco has traveled just about everywhere in the universe."

"It's important for a girl to travel a bit you know," her dad exclaimed, cheerfully picking up where her mom left off. "She has had lots of practice with magic. Very educational."

"King and Queen Diaz, your last name means 'days' in Spanish. Is this related to your choice of royal symbol?"

"Royal symbol? Mom? Dad?" Marco flinched in surprise as all of the cameras turned as one to where she was standing in her pjs and socks. Okay, maybe opening her mouth had not been a wise idea. "Uhhh...Later." Living with Star had given her ample practice doing lots of things. One of those things was deciding when it was best to turn tail and run. Marco put those lessons to good use and bolted back up the stairs.

When she made it back into the tower, strange men had come in the window and were snooping around, taking pictures. A bald guy with a red beard was taking a million pictures of the vacuum cleaner, which had decided it wasn't taking kindly to the men in the room and was doing its best to suck their faces off. One of them was rifling around in her dresser, getting dangerously close to her underwear drawer. Marco felt her cheeks heating up as she took in all the strangers in her room.

She threw her head back and yelled "STOP!" MArco felt her cheeks go from anger-hot to you-just-smashed-your-face-against-a-cast-iron-skillet-hot. The room filled with gold and red beams of light. It faded away as quickly as it came. As all the photographers kneeled on the ground, clutching their eyes, heedless of their broken cameras, MArco slowly raised her hands to her face in awe. Did she do this? But even Star needed her wand to do magic like that. Her finger tips traced the warm spirals on her cheeks, this is not what she expected.

The sound of ripping filled the air as a pair of scissors poked a hole in space. The portal had barely opened before Star was pushing her arms through, wand in hand.

"Marco! Mom said she detected you used your Legacy Marks! Are you okay? It is Toffee again?" Star pushed the portal wider until it let her through. She already had mud on her blue dress and dainty socks despite it being very early in the day. Star didn't bother dodging the humans in her way. She just trampled them on her way to hug Marco. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I was riding Warnicorns and I-"

"Woah, woah, woah, woah Star! I'm fine," she said, pulling back from the hug and looking around at the strangers who were slowly starting to get their bearings. "Well, fine now, anyway."

"Woah, sistah! I did not expect a party!" Star was clearly taken with all the people in various stages of emerging from the fetal position. "Lemme change. Boop!" Star bopped herself on the head with her wand, morphing her outfit into frilly blue and pink club gear. The wand began to glow and pulse colors like a strobe light.

"No, Star. It's not a party."Marco continued over Star's whine of disappointment, "They were all trying to get into my room!"

"Speaking of, hey, Marco, this is my room."Star tapped the wand against her face in time to the color changes. "Yeah, it's been a while but I'm pretty sure your room is over there."

"Star, it's been twelve hours."

"Yeah, I know, forever. We should catch up more." MArco rolled her eyes.

"It is your tower, I moved in after you left."

Star gasped. "You took my bedroom?" The wand dropped its pulsing pattern as it took its usual shape and her clothes changed back to the mud stained dress.

"It's bigger," Marco said matter-of-factly. "It's a waste not to use it. Besides, I like the spiral stairs."

"True, true."Star really couldn't blame her, the room was pretty cool. "plus it matches your face."

Marco's hands flew up to cover her cheeks self-consciously. "Not the point, Star. The point is these people all invaded my home. Plus! Mom and Dad are the King and Queen of Earth now and they're giving live interviews in the living room."

Star squealed, clapping her hands and bouncing. "Oh! Royal Decrees! Are they gonna make the national symbol a monkey? Are they gonna change the Earth's name?" Star started gnawing on the top of her wand.

" I don't know, Star! Just.. help me get them out of my room, please!" Marco was gonna miss the bus and be late for school. She was still in her pajamas. She was not up for dealing with this alone.

"No problem-o, Marco!" Star spun and waved her wand. "Warnicorn Sparkle Forceful Exit Wave!" Armor wearing, hostile unicorns came pouring out of the wand in a glittering rainbow wave, spearing intruders on their horns and kicking them out the windows in a shower of sparkles before dissapearing. Marco crossed the room and stared out the window at the pile of humans on the ground and a couple that had landed on the neighbor's roof.

"Star, I think a couple of those guys need medical attention." Warnicorn horns were pretty long and at least two guys had gotten speared in delicate places.

"Pfft," Star dismissed with a wave of her hand. "They'll be fine. Just give them a couple crowns and they can go take care of it if they like." Star flopped onto the bed carelessly, humming as she pulled out her pocket mirror.

"Hey, Mom! Marco's fine. Probably just had a dose of accidental magic. Like that time i stubbed my toe!" Marco shuddered. She still had flashbacks to that day. "Just called to let you know!"

"Good to see you're getting back to us so quickly, Star." Marco could hear Queen Butterfly across the room. Wow, she must be great at projecting her voice. "We really are proud of you. By the way, please inform Princess Marco of when we'll be sending her tutors. Madams Magiraece and Hymnal will be there sometime within the week. Now, I must go. Your Father and I are preparing a ball to welcome the Kingdom of Earth to the dimensional community and he can't color coordinate to save his life. Please be home in time for court, Star."

"Ugh! Bye Mom." Star snapped the compact mirror closed and jumped back to her feet. "Mom's sending you and Queen Diaz some tutors. Just a little Welcome To Regency gift. Nothing huge. Anyway, shouldn't you be at school?"

Marco's head snapped around to look at the clock. It was already ten o'clock. Darn, darn, darn.

"It's okay Marco, I got it! " Grabbing Marco around her shoulders, Star yelled "Mega Bunny Rabbit Blast!" Marco was proud that she only yelled a little as they rocketed out the window, riding a beam of pink energy and bunny rabbit. The landing was far from graceful, but they didn't land in the road this time, so Marco counted this as a success. However,it only took a moment of helping star up and brushing herself off before the problem with Star's plan became more apparent.

"Star, I don't have any of my stuff! I'm not dressed. I didn't even get to take a shower!" Marco hated having to take showers in the locker room. She couldn't cover up all the mirrors and she would catch glimpses of her body out the corner of her eye sometimes.

"Don't worry, I got that too!" Before Marco could say that she was 'fine, thanks' Star blasted her with magical energy. "Radiant Shadow Transform!"

Marco's pajamas exploded into a puffy red dress. It wasn't half bad, really. The front was shorter than the back, making movement easy and she had puffy red capris on under it. Comfy red boots gave her an extra inch in height, not that she needed it, towering over Star as it was. The dress had a high collar with wavy lace and no sleeves. A yellow sash with a huge bow cut across the waist of the dress. Yellow spirals decorated the edges of the dress. As she looked her her newly gloved hands, Marco could feel her hair swishing along her back. Seemed like the ponytail was back.

"Ta-da!" Star sprang into the air, hands held skyward. "Beautiful princess look achieved!" She flipped open her mirror and shoved it in Marco's face. "Check it out!"

Marco could see she was wearing makeup, her beauty mark was beautifully highlighted by the spirals, which was a nice bonus. The marks would probably cover any need for blush she would ever have in the future. More importantly she was wearing a golden crown. It was a tiny ring of spirals studded with rubys. It set on the crown of her head perfectly and didn't move even when she turned her head from side to side. Two golden spirals held up a tiny golden sun on the front.

It wasn't her usual Princess Marco look, but she could go for it. Marco hugged Star companionably. "Thanks Star."

"No problem! I gotta go-UGH!- get ready for court. I'll see you later though. Pony Head and I are gonna take you to Quest Buy later." Star pulled her Dimensional Scissors out of her muddy socks and tore a hole in space-time. Star was halfway through the portal when it began prematurely closing on her. Maybe it was time to replace the old scissors Pony Head had given her?

Marco went over and helped pry the portal open wider."Uh, sure Star. But why though?"

"To get you a wand. Duh, Miss Silly Pants! You're gonna need your own magic wand soon."

"What? Star!" But Star had already managed to get her shoulders through the portal and it closed behind her as she fell through it into Mewni.

-----------------------

School had gone about as well as it really could have all things considered. Everyone had questions for her ranging from the reasonable to the outlandishly personal. Janna stuck around constantly, doing her best to advertise her potential in case the Kingdom of Earth needed a Spy-Master. Jackie, despite having broken up with Marco about four months ago, managed to stay friends with her and was pretty chill about the whole thing. Alfonzo and Ferguson were pretty impressed with the fancy get up, jokingly offering to carry 'your highness's' books and mock fighting for her hand in marriage in between classes. Brittney Wong immediately attempted to cozy up to Marco the first chance she got, sitting at her table at lunch. Marco got up and left as soon as she pushed Ferguson out of his chair. She does help Ferguson up, though. She's not a monster.

 Only Ms. Skullnick hadn't changed her behavior at all. "Listen, kid. I don't care if you're the Princess or what," she grumbled, as she passed out graded homework.

The last bell had hardly rang before Pony Head cut a portal in the wall of the classroom. Only three people in class were surprised to see a flying unicorn head. Most of them had seen Pony Head causing trouble at some point.

"Pony Head!"

"There she is, Star! Come on girl, we're going shopping! Star's paying!" Having heard the comment, Star leaned halfway out of the portal and waved a fist full of gold and jewels.

"Let's go Marco! Some of the girls from St. O's are gonna meet us there!"

This wasn't even close to a normal day, but she had a feeling it would be normal for her soon enough. Marco horn-fived Pony Head and they jumped directly into the portal.

Chapter Text

Marco considers that she must have had magic all along, because from the moment they all walked into Quest Buy the other princesses huddled together in a great big traveling circle of petticoats, too afraid of falling prey to Quest Buy Organizational Insanity to  glance at it for longer than a minute. Princess Nettle, the four armed mosquito-lady princess that had been brought in while Star and Marco had been sneaking into the castle, had tried at first and promptly retreated for a quick recovery session.

Marco could understand the organization system fairly well. So far she had been the only one who didn't work there to decipher the code. As such, she took point as they traversed the mysterious aisles. Row after row of items passed them by as they made their way to the wand aisle. Usually their trips to Quest Buy were full of Running And Screaming (TM) so the casual stroll through the store was a pretty nice change.

By ten minutes in Star's tired to convince Marco to rename the Kingdom of Earth. Suggested names include: land-dirt-sky-topia, the Kitten Center, several strange gargling noises (one of which earns a "not a bad name" from Nettle), and a drawing of a peelable Twizzler that has been peeled apart and then shaped into donkey. Marco vetoes all of them instantly. Instead, Marco reminds Star that she can rename Mewni all she wants when she's Queen. The excited giggles make her regret it fairly quickly.

"It's nice of you all to stop by. I kind of didn't expect anyone but Star and Pony Head to show up."

"Are you kidding?" Princess Flora said, hovering just to Marco's left, her tiny pixie voice full of amazement and glee. "You're Princess Marco. Every princess in the universe that ever heard of St. Olga's Reform School loves you. Not to mention the toys you sell are so cute!"

Nettle nodded in agreement. "We're all happy to welcome Earth to the party. Especially since it's your realm." She rubbed her front two arms against her proboscis charmingly.

"Plus a few of have haven't ever been wand shopping before, so it's pretty nice to have a reason to do it. Even if we can't use magic ourselves." Taurina, the Minotaur princess added, clip-cloping along on her new iridium shoes.

"I can't really imagine what kind of wand I'll be getting. I've seen Star's wand in action a lot but i've never really used it. Is there a system for buying wands, Star?"

"Not really, Marco!" Star shouted from above, hands wrapped around the back of Pony Head's neck and gleefully enjoying her piggy back ride, pony neck ride? "My parents have been passing ours down for generations. Most wands are like that. You've just gotta find your own. Go with what's cutest, I say!"

"Yeah," Pony Head added. "Just make sure you get one that runs on Unicorn Power or channels your own magic. Pixie powered stuff is so bad, ya feel me?"

"Oh I feel ya." Marco did not have fond memories of her time in the Shard Mines.

"Pixies," Star muttered. "They're almost as bad as, as-TOM!"

Okay, now Star was being silly. Marco looked up to where Star was hanging as she walked forwards. "Come on Star! Tom isn't nearly as ba-Oww!" Marco hit the ground like a pile of potatoes in a chiffon sack. The crown had gotten tangled in her ponytail causing her own hair to blind her. Okay. Walking forward without looking where you were going was bad, Marco. Look both ways.

"Ooh, Girl. You really took a fall there," Pony Head nickered semi-consolingly.

"I'm fine, just got my hair stuck in my crown." Someone reached down to grab her hand and pulled upwards. Thank goodness Star had given her flat shoes with this dress. If she hadn't, then it would have been much harder to stand up in the unbalanced weight of the dress. "Just give me a sec. There, got it." Without the crown stuck in it, her hair finally fell down her back like it was supposed to and she could see again. The shock of opening her eyes to Tom in her personal bubble almost knocked her back down again.

Tom had shot up like a weed since he and Marco had first met. He has started at an average size for a fourteen year old human and then rapidly jumped straight to about ten feet tall. Marco had literally been mirroring Tom one day to talk about Love Sentence tickets and when Tom had met up with her the day after....suffice it to say she was shocked at the least.

"Woah." Marco took a hasty step back. Knocking face first into Tom carried a risk of getting barbecued. She wanted to  give him a little breathing space. They were pretty good friendenemies but it was better to not test fate."Hey, Tom."

"Marco? I didn't know you were a princess." Tom stuck a claw in his gelled up hair and scratched along the base of one horn.He waved at the other girls weakly. "Hey PonyHead, Hey Starship."

"Yo whaddup, Tom-boy" PonyHead neighed. Star rolled her eyes as the other princesses waved with a chorus of vague hellos.

"You've never heard of Princess Marco before?" Marco gestured to the row of Princess Marco action figures right behind him. It was kind of hard to miss. They had just released a new series of dolls with a pull string voice.

"Well, yeah." Tom rubbed his neck, a bit nervously. "But I didn't know it was you."

"Marco's Princess of the whole Earth, Tom" Star said exasperatedly. "My parents gave her magi~c!" Star waved her hands excitedly, letting go of Pony Head. Her shoes clicked slightly as she landed with a twirl. Star reached out and looped her arm around Marco's, pulling her back into the gaggle of Princesses. "So we're here to get her a wand."

"Cool, cool. Mind if I walk with you?" Tom pointed a thumb behind himself. "I'm heading that way, too. Love Sentence just put out an exclusive, limited print album."

Marco unlooped her arm from Star's and bum-rushed Tom. She stopped a foot away with her palms up in a gesture of 'hang on a second.' "Is it that Awesome Feeling Remix Album they've been talking about?"

"Heck yeah, it is!" Tom's face broke out into a huge sharp fanged grin. Like the pair of nerds they were, they clasped hands and squealed, jumping up and down.

"Nerds!" Pony head laughed, whickering hysterically.

"Yeah, but we're happy nerds!" Marco responded, eyes full of jubilant tears."

"I know, right?" Tom replied, wiping a tear away from his third eye. "This is the best day of my-"

"T O M !" A voice rang out, shaking the rack of Princess Marco dolls, causing one to to fall directly on Tom's horn. The horn had pierced through both the box and the doll, leaving him with a lopsided weight on his head. It would have been funny if things weren't still shaking and the ground wasn't rumbling and cracking apart.

"Sorry, girls!" Star shouted, cutting a portal to St. Olga's into the rapidly heating air. Quickly, they all filed through, shouting their goodbyes to Marco and Star. Pony Head rushed through, she wasn't allowed to fight anybody for a month and if her dad found out otherwise he'd sell all her favorite CD's and she was not taking any chances. Nettle turned at the last second, making the gesture for 'Call Me' before the portal closed behind her.

"Toooom! What is going on!?" The checkered floor split into a chasm between Star and Marco. "Star!"

"Starlight Foot Smash!" Glittering purple horse legs smashed out of the tile, sending Star flying to the other side of the gap. "Tom, what did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" He defended himself weakly, face hidden in his hands.

"Then what the heck is going on" Marco shouted. Star readied her wand, shoulder to shoulder with Marco, who had also assumed a stance ready for butt kicking.

"Get out of here! Hurry! It's-" A howling wind cut him off as a gigantic demon rose from crevice. The tops of his ten horns hit the ceiling with a crunch. The wings they spread wide cast a darkness over them, pervasive and foreboding. Five eyes circled a larger, central one on their face. Long tar black hair floated around their blood-red face like they were underwater. Their clothes were Classic Hell, with skulls on everything; the froofy neck tie, the boots, the spooky looking cape.

When the three story tall demon had finished manifesting, Tom sighed and straightened his back. He quickly yanked the Princess Marco doll off his horn and tossed it behind his back. "Princesses Star and Marco, I'd like to introduce you to the King of Hell." In a smaller, more tired voice he added, "it's my Dad."

Marco's arms fell from their battle-ready  positions as she turned to Tom in shock. Hyper aware of the huge demon towering over them, Marco curtsied politely and hissed between gritted teeth, "That's your Dad?!"

"Hi, Tom's Dad!" Star yelled, waving the hand not holding the wand at the speed of light.

"S T A R B U T T E R F L Y..." Tom's dad growled. "I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU AROUND LATELY. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO? SETTING FIRES? CAUSING CHAOS? BREAKING MY SON'S HEART!?" The ground behind him burst into flames.

"Uhhh, Well. No, only a little and not lately?" Star shrugged guilelessly. Tom and Marco both face palmed. Tom had told Marco about how his dad's temper was even worse than his own. She almost couldn't believe that Star was just smiling and waving at the fifty foot demon that probably wanted to eat her. "We just met up with each other! We're here to buy a wand!"

"A WAND?" Marco's dad was bending down to put himself eye to eye with Star, who stood there a little uncomfortably. His nose was roughly as tall as her and she could see all his pores. Ugh! It had just started and she was already over it. His center eye stayed focused on Star but the ones surrounding it looked accusingly at his son.

"WE?" Tom shuffled slightly, attempting to maintain his stiff back while also attempting to be completely unseen by his Dad. It must suck trying to be unnoticed by someone with, like, seven eyes.

"Uh, Dad, this is Princess Marco Diaz of Earth." And now Marco was attempting to be unseen by the giant demon with seven eyes.

"M A R C O  D I A Z." Never before had Marco wanted so badly for that to not be her name. "IS THIS THE ONE YOU HAVE CHOSEN, MY SON?"

"Chosen?" Marco and Star turned towards Tom who was doing his best to not look at either of them. Marco crossed her arms and Star put her hands on her hips. "What's your dad talking about?"

"Uh, well. To be a King in most places you kind of need to be born Royalty, ya know. But in the Underworld you also, kind of, need to-"

"Just spit it out, Tom." Marco sighed.

"Tobekingyouneedtobemarried! There! I said it, can't make me say it again." His lilac skin was basically boiled lobster red as he tried to ignore how his entire head was steaming, presumably with embarrassment.

"You need to get married, so you went to Quest Buy?" Marco was two seconds from laughing out loud. Star was barely holding it in-oh, no, never mind. Star laughed until she hit the floor, which took about three seconds with how hard she was laughing.

"They have literally everything in the Universe, here!" Tom was grumbling in humiliation. "If any place is going to have someone that will marry me, then it would be here!"

"IT WORKED, DIDN'T IT PRINCESS MARCO? HE SOUGHT A PRINCESS AND HERE YOU ARE." Marco had somehow forgotten about the huge demon parent standing over them the entire time.

"Yeah, no. I'm not for sale." She faced Tom's dad, head on. "If you want a Princess Marco, then you have to get one of those ones." She gestured to the rack of action figures behind her. Star only laughed harder, kicking her legs and slamming her fists on the ground. The wand in her left hand began shooting magic across the store, turning overhead lights into gummy bears and shelves into giant pink puppies. Marco bent down and dragged Star to her feet.

"Come on, Star. Let's go find a wand." As Marco pushed the still giggling Star away she heard Tom's Dad.

"GOOD CHOICE, CHILD. REMINDS ME A BIT OF YOUR MOTHER."

Chapter Text

They made it to the wand aisle....eventually. It had taken a lot of energy to keep Star from grabbing a cart and stuffing it full of junk. She could buy some creepy haunted garden gnomes when they were done and Marco was gone.

The wand aisle was imposing. Millions of wands must have been up there, all coalescing into one shimmering mercurial wall of magic. Some were feminine and sparkly. Some resembled a weapon more than a wand. Some looked like they were made for use by someone that didn't have human style hands. Each one was unique and amazing. More importantly each one was locked away behind glass. Every single wand was in a glass box with a lock or force field around it. They didn't have this in the wand charger section, that was for sure.

"Woah." Star clamped both hands around her wand as she stared up at the impossibly tall display. The two girls looked at each other and Star spoke up. "We need help."

The search for an employee always got faster when you were threatening to burn down six and a half aisles of freshly dusted products. It also tended not to win you many favors from said employees, but they never did favors anyway.

"Just so you know, this is not my department." The sloth-person sighed and scratched their chest, attempting to hide the Wand Manager badge on their grease stained uniform.

"How do we get a wand?" Star had at least waited for them to finish lying before she got to the point. "All the cases are locked."

"You can't open the case unless the wand is meant for you. So just, go try opening all of them, i guess."

"And the force fields?" Marco could hardly believe this was really happening.

"The force fields won't go away unless you have a compatible magic type." The employee began counting off on their finger-claws. "You have your standard celestial body and internal power types, then you've got the void kind, the emotion kind, and so on. Then you have the custom stuff, most things with crystals for example. Then there's the Destiny Rack."

"Uh, Destiny Rack?" There were capital letters in there. Marco heard them.

"Yeah, it's for people destined to own certain wands and do certain stuff. Corporate mostly keeps a list of stuff on the Destiny Rack wait list. They ship the out when one's supposed to be received."

"And, did you get any today?"

"Well, no. Actually, let me check." The employee fished a handheld out of his pocket and slowly typed on it. "Seems we actually did just get one in stock."

Marco and Star leaned forwards, attempting to read the screen on the small machine. It all looked like scribbles to her. Star couldn't seem to make sense of it either.

"If you want, you can head up to the customer service desk and see if you can open the case."

"Let's do that, Marco!" Star jumped up and down in impatience.

"Sure, Star, just calm down a bit. We don't have to hurry, this time." The employee behind them chose that moment to speak up.

"Customer Service closes in fifteen minutes, your majesties."

"COME ON MARCO LETS GO!" Star grabbed her scissors and cut open a portal. She all but grabbed Marco and dumped her in it. "We have to get you a wand! Then we can be Wand Sister Mess-Up Twins!"

Marco stuck the landing even if she was a little shaky from the trip to the customer service counter. Dimensional travel could be rough sometimes, even if it was between two spots in the same dimension. She just hoped Hekapoo didn't see that. She didn't want to chase her down for sixteen years again.

Star stuck her head out and looked around before popping out of the rapidly closing portal. Marco was just glad that Star had finally internalized checking where she was going when they exited portals. There had been far too many accidents on the interstate the last time she didn't.

Star grabbed Marcos hand and dragged her to the counter as fast as she could. The sloth employee fractionally lowered their newspaper to look at them.

"Hello." Marco cleared her throat and straightened her dress. "We're here to pick up a Destiny Wand." The sloth employee gestured to the left sluggishly.

"Second door, mind the force fields."

"Thanks!" Still holding Marco's hand, Star bolted for the door. She reached for the doorknob only to bounce back as the force field pushed her away. Marco grunted as Star's rebound had sent her flying back directly into Marco's stomach, knocking the air out of her. It was then and there that Marco decided that Quest Buy was on the bottom of the list of stores she'd like to visit. She'd have to pick up spare wand chargers on her way out the door so she didn't have to come in again anytime soon. Ten chargers maybe, ten was a good number.

"Sorry, Marco. I didn't think the door was protected, too." Star reached up to pat Marco on the shoulder. "Looks like you're going in to try it on your own. Good luck opening the case. I believe in you!" At the word believe Star created a rainbow silhouette of the word 'Believe' that radiated sunshine. Waving her wand like a fan she dispersed it before it could set itself or anything else on fire.

Marco reached for the doorknob carefully. If the wand wasn't her Destiny Wand, she didn't want to have a huge knock back like Star. When her hand opened the door if felt like victory but also a lot like walking blindfolded into a dark room. That might have been because the lights were out, but at least twenty percent of it was nervousness.

Marco walked forwards, hands feeling along the sides of the wall. She could hardly tell the rough concrete walls from the rough concrete floor. To be honest, there was a fair chance that gravity had changed while she was searching, so it was a legitimate thing to worry about. The light from the doorway was faint now, even though Marco had only been walking for ten minutes. Her hands hadn't even left the left wall. There was a back wall and right wall to explore too. This was going to take forever. Then she fell.

It wasn't even a graceful, 'oopsie doodle, let me just get up' fall, it was a 'flat on your back, no way to save your dignity' fall. At least it was dark and she was alone. What did she trip on anyway? She righted herself onto her hands and knees and searched around. She didn't want to trip on it again. Once is fine, twice is a legitimate reason to never leave your house again.

When she finally found it Marco grabbed it and then immediately let go. It felt like her hand was somewhere between gentle tickle and sizzling. When she cradled her arm to her chest there was no pain, just a normal, skin temperature human hand in an unburned glove. when it stayed that way and did not, in fact, turn back into a tentacle or fall off, Marco hoped like hell that it wasn't some sort of weird cursed object and grabbed it again.

Heat traveled up her arm, like warm dessert wind on the perfect summer day, warming her from the inside out. This must be what it's like for cups when you put hot chocolate in them, she thought. Slowly but surely her cheeks began to glow, casting sunny yellow light on the object in her hands.

It was a wand, obviously, but it sure looked different than Star's wand. A salmon colored handle supported two wavy rows of curved metal (that actually looked a lot like brass knuckles) running down either side of it. with a line of tiny diamonds down the center. Instead of a heart or crystal at the head of it, it had a crown. It wasn't the fancy, ugly looking kind. It was a simple, gold pointed crown, with what looked to be a flowerbud poking out of the center. The charger on the bottom was an orange circle that- Oh my gosh. Was it? No Way! It totally looked like a Dragon Ball. Marco was all over that.

"Yeah! Score!" Marco ecstatically fist pumped the air with her brand new wand. "I have a Dragon Ball wand. Sweet!" With her cries of victory the spirals lit up even more, casting full light on her newly acquired wand. One by one the diamonds in the front sparkled, playing a music-box note as they did. Slowly but surely, the flower-bud grew until the base of it was flush with the metal of the crown.

The seams of the petals pulsed with warm light once-twice- and then exploded into a Tiger Lilly, sending glowing pollen scattering across the cavernous store room. With her path now lit, Marco ran for the exit, but not before grabbing spare chargers from the box on the floor near the wand. She had planned on ten chargers, but seven was a good number, too.

Star greeted her return with fanfare fitting a Queen and King returning from battle. Star picked up the much taller Marco by her waist and spun her around and around in sparkling circles.

"That'll be 400 karats, please" The sloth employee announced, interrupting their celebration. Star stuffed a hand into her pocket and deposited a handful and a half of gold coins and gems.

"Keep the rest!" Star yelled, already cutting a hole in reality with her scissors. "Come on, Marco! We've got to show Pony Head!"

Chapter Text

Marco laid back on her bed, basking in the silence of the room. Her first day as a Princess, and she had a wand, a visit from Star, and a cake. Her mom and dad had surprised her with it after dinner. Chocolate cake with pink icing and a drawing of Marco in a crown on the top had accompanied the cheerful congratulations and the assurances that they had installed locks on the windows throughout the house. Marco was stuffed and she was magic and she was a starting estrogen in a few weeks. This day was officially perfect. It was time to end it with some satisfying rest.

Now, Marco's pajamas had been turned into a poofy dress by Star who had already gone back to Mewni. Pajamas were required for the optimum sleeping experience. That left only the one option. Well, honestly there were more options, but Marco really wanted to try out her new wand.

Marco levered herself up off the bed and stared at her faintly glowing wand. The Tigerlilly had closed back up at some point, reverting to a bulb in the center of the crown. Hopefully it didn't mean anything bad. She cradled the wand in her hands gently as she thought about it. Considering how much she didn't know about her wand, it was probably a bad idea to go messing with it when she didn't have anybody around to help her if things got...out of hand. She set it down on the nightstand, her new place for her wand and all of the chargers were tucked away in a neatly labeled row in the nightstand drawer. She was all about having a Dragon Ball wand but she didn't want people to go searching for her chargers across the universe to make a wish to bring her back to life when something unfortunate happened. Marco had a Destiny to fulfill, after all.

Marco sat in the darkness and stared at the dim light of the wand as it sat innocuously on the plain wood of the night stand, slightly to the left of the lamp and dead center under her Fist of Karate poster. She had a Destiny. Not a destiny, but a Destiny with capital letters and the magical powers to match. Maybe she had already fulfilled her destiny by leading the St. Olga's rebellion and the wand was just a prize. She had done a lot of things but couldn't really think of anything she might do that would be worthy of a capital-'D' Destiny. Maybe her Destiny was to do something tiny but important, like invent a weird spell or pet a certain dog or serve someone her finest nachos. It might be something awesome, like, she would kick a monster in half or save a whole dimension. Just thinking about it was thrilling and terrifying.

What ever her Destiny was she would probably need to be awake for it, so she actually needed to get to sleep. Without pajamas Marco made due with what she had. She stripped off the poofy dress and accessories, leaving on the fancy red shorts and her bra. She grabbed a t-shirt out her dresser and pulled it on. She'd get some new pajamas tomorrow, she decided as she settled in for the night.

Tom was the prince of the Underworld, Hell, or whatever else you wanted to call his kingdom. His Dad had been ruling for hundreds of years probably. It certainly felt like he had always been ruling the place with how many pictures and statues of him Tom would see  in the forgotten, abandoned areas of the kingdom. While Demons had always been kind of territorial, they were also suckers for showing off whenever and wherever they could. It was considerably harder to impress demons that lived too far away to see you and be impressed. Thusly the underworld was a continual war-zone - construction-zone combo. Residents built nicer and nicer dwellings as close as they dared to get to the Lucitor Royal Castle and when one was sufficiently impressive, they were often attacked in an attempt to take it over. Tom was petting Marshmallow and watching one of said skirmishes via a pair of trinoculars when his mirror rang.

"Tom. I need to talk to you." Tom whipped his head around, He pulled the trinoculars away from his face and scooped Marshmallow up into a careful embrace.

"Marco?" Marco was on the mirror. She had one hand  fisted in front of her mouth with a look of concern.She also seemed to be wearing what looked like a pink dress with a flowery collar and a big bow in the front. She didn't appear to have her mascara on, but Tom didn't feel like wearing his mascara all the time, he wasn't about to judge.

"Tom, I... Wait. What were you doing?" Tom quickly threw the trinoculars somewhere behind him.

"Nothing." Tom was pretty sure that Marco could hear it too when they hit something with a crash. She didn't appear convinced.

"Whatever," she graciously allowed. "I need your help."

"Sure thing, Marco-polo, whatcha need?"

"I'm the Princess of Earth but I was never taught a lot of Princessing stuff. Star's parents are hosting a ball and I ne-"

"Hold up, Starship's parents are hosting a ball?" Tom set Marshmallow on the floor, letting the rabbit hop off obliviously. He needed to pay more attention to this.

"Yeah!" Tom watched as Marco spread her arms out wide with exasperation. "A ball! To welcome the Kingdom of Earth to the "Greater Dimensional Community"."  Tom hadn't actually seen anyone do finger quotes in a very long time. All three eyes tracked Marco as she began pacing back and forth in front of the mirror. "And I can dance leading and following, that's fine. But I do not know any court manners, at all! What if we offend somebody and they wage a magical war on Earth? We can't handle that. I'll have to defend us all with my new wand, because Mom doesn't have any experience with magic yet and I haven't even had a single lesson." Marco stopped pacing and turned to the mirror with an anguished look.

"So you did get your wand?" Marco shook her hands in tiny frustrated circles.

"Yes, I did. But that is not the point right now. The point right now is that I have no idea how to act at a ball. Star's gotten way better at recognizing time and place, but I'm not entirely sure she won't tell me to do something that only she can get away with or just forget to tell me something important."  

Tom crossed his arms ad considered it. That was a fairly reasonable worry, actually. Star had forgotten to tell him plenty of things when they were dating. Things like Those flowers are cursed, and that's a priceless antique, and there were monsters inside that house. (That last one had devolved into a fight about monsters not always being evil and informing people about stuff like that.) Star was vivacious and friendly and also incredibly forgetful sometimes.

"I think I can help with that. I could give you a quick rundown on court manners and attempt to divert course if it looks like you're having trouble." Tom looked slyly at the Marco through the magic glass. "Well, I could, but what's in it for me?" Marco smirked and crossed her arms.

"You still owe me for the Sock Incident." Her smirk grew more smug as  his face started generating enough heat to start smoking.

"That was one time!"

"Yeah, and once was more than enough."

"Fine, whatever," Tom sighed, rubbing his forehead in the space between his eyes. "It shouldn't be too much trouble, I guess."

"T O M. I HEAR YOU ON THE MIRROR IN THERE. ARE YOU WOOING THAT FUTURE QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD?"

"Sorry about my dad. He gets an idea and won't let it go. I'm gonna have to go. He might check who I was mirroring," Tom said hurriedly. "Don't pick up if you get a mirror from me right after this. I'll see you tomorrow at noon."

Marco watched with mild confusion and a fair chunk of concern as Tom tried to silently run to turn off his mirror only to notice Marshmallow hopping squarely into his path at the last second, requiring an abrupt change of course that left him face down on the ground, attempting to yank his horns out of the floor.

"Uhhhh, I'm just gonna go now." Marco hit the off switch just in time to see the door to Tom's room begin to open. Dodged a metaphorical bullet there.

Now it was time to get studying. Marco's parents were kind of skating by in the Running A Kingdom department on their ability to make friends with pretty much everyone they ever met. Marco doubted that she'd have the same luxury. People already had expectations since it was primarily her friendship with Star that launched the whole series of events that made Earth a monarchy in the first place. Not to mention her parents talking about her exploring other dimensions on international-uh, kingdom-wide television.

She could live up to those expectations, she knew she could. She was Princess Marco and she would not let herself, her fellow Wayward Princesses or her kingdom down.

Chapter Text

Oh god, she was going to let her people down so hard.

Marco should have counted on at least one person with a grudge showing up and starting things off with a diplomatic incident. Still, Marco could hardly believe that the Pixie Empress was right there. There was no chance she wouldn't recognize Marco. It was probably hard to forget the teenager that had cost you a delicious meal. Sure enough, the Empress was flying angrily in Marco's direction.

"Flora Felixis Pixis! How did you get out of St. Olga's? You're supposed to be at school." The Pixie Princess, hovering to Marco's left made a break for it. She darted through the crowd as fast as her wings would take her, with her mother trailing close behind.

"God speed, Flora Pixis." Marco saluted solemnly. Even if Flora got away from her mom now, she'd still be getting chewed out later. The other St. Olga's girls watched and shook their heads in sympathy. Taurina, Nettle and Murin the Fourth, the Rat Princess had all asked their parents for permission to attend, citing making connections and "a princess must be friendly," making some use of their horrendous attempted brainwashing. Flora hadn't. She figured she was really small and was therefore unlikely to be seen. She had even asserted that luck was her middle name. Felixis may have meant 'Lucky', but luck had abandoned her this day.

Lucky for Marco, though. Hopefully she wouldn't be seeing the Pixie Empress anytime soon. She would not want to see the inside of those Shard Mines again. Alfonso still coughed up pixie-dust from time to time and it had been years.

Marco sighed heavily as she tapped her fingers along the wand she had tucked into the sash of her dress. She wanted to shuffle over to the side and maybe escape for a breather but she couldn't. This whole ball was for her and her family. When guests weren't dancing they were schmoozing up to her or her parents. They didn't have a lot of opportunity to schmooze on her parents, however. Her mom and dad were having the time of their lives out on the dance floor. Someone, probably Star, had given the musicians sheet-music for the salsa and the tango, but also for the Macarena, Selena Quintinilla's 'Bidi-Bidi-Bom-Bom' and the extended version of the Fresh Prince theme song.

Thankfully Marco was only required to dance at the first and last songs of the evening, which were both sedate waltzes. Unfortunately she had to meet all of the royalty Queen Moon had invited in the meantime. Most of them were fine. Quite a few of the ball-goers were Butterflys so they were used to antics from Star and King River. It was hard to be more rowdy than those two when they were bored. The bar was pretty low, considering, for the Butterflys. The other half of the partiers were royalty from out of dimension.

Nettle's parents had declined their invite, politely, sending Nettle in their places. Taurina's mother, Queen Zebu-Heck Taurus, was chewing on the leaves of Mewni's famous corn. The Pixie Empress had left, chasing after Flora. Murin the Fourth, or Fourth as she preferred to be called, had assured Marco that her parents were there, even though she hadn't seen them yet. There were more royal families arriving every fifteen minutes, too.

 Queen Moon assured her that most of the more uptight, stickler-for-tradition types were the first ones there, so any late comers were probably more relaxed and easier to talk to. It had proved fairly correct. A few of the princes she had been introduced to by insistent parents had turned out to be from Henry H. Dominic's Reform School for Capricious Princes, which made getting along a lot easier when they identified themselves as "big fans of Princess Marco." Marco had even met one of the smaller princesses who adored her.

Marco could honestly say it felt good to sign an action figure of yourself.

"Looks your parents are having fun." Fourth pointed to the dance floor where Marco's parents where dancing enthusiastically to a classical rendition of Salt-N-Pepa's 'Push It.' No amount of shoulder fringe on her dad or puffy skirt on her mom could disguise the smell of goofy dances.

"Yeah, I think it's time I take a break."

"Is this song one of Earth's traditional dances?"

"Not really. It's just my mom's favorite."

"Hmmm. I think I'm going to attempt this dance." Marco watched as Murin the Fourth scampered onto the dance floor.

"Have fun." Marco turned back to Nettle and Taurina. "I'm gonna get something to eat. Want anything?"

"Nah," Nettle waved her lower left hand casually. "Mewni balls never have good snacks."

"I have to go use the little princess's room, actually." Taurina shuffled in place, tail whipping anxiously back and forth.

"Okay. We want to meet up over by the stained glass window shaped like a bird in fifteen?"

"Sure."

"Sounds good."

Marco made a mad dash for the snack table. She hadn't eaten for a while. She checks out the delicate stack of plates at one end of the table and grabs one of the bigger ones. Growing girls need to eat. Mewni's specialty was corn, and they had lots of it. Everything you could make with corn was there; Corn salad, corn quiche, corn chips, burritos with corn, corn relish, cornbread, chowder, and good old fashioned corn on the cob. They also had plates full of corn leaves, dried corn kernels for the Harpy Royalty,bundles full of green corn stalks and what appeared to be burned popcorn.

It struck her, as she put slices of quiche on her plate, that corn was pretty much the only thing on the table. Did Mewmans eat anything else? Was that much corn healthy? Maybe it was. Considering she had seen Star turn into a giant kidnapping butterfly, mewmans were probably at least part insect. Bugs tended to stick with the one food source, didn't they?

"Marco!"

Marco yelped and fumbled with her plate. Marco caught it just in time to prevent her getting corn stains all down the front of her dress. Why did everything show on pink? Shouldn't that be white? She turned her head to her left and there Star was, in her blue dress, with sticks in her hair. Most importantly she was sopping wet and dripping onto the shiny ballroom floor. Yeah, there were bigger problems than hypothetical corn stains.

"Star, you should probably dry off." Marco had no idea how Star could just stand around in wet socks like that. Just thinking about it made her grimace.

"In a minute. Guess who tried to get in."

"Uhh..." Seriously, Star was creating a puddle the size of the Atlantic. Bug people or not, that probably wasn't healthy. Marco set down her plate and grabbed a hold of Star's hand. Together they set off for the nearest door, which was the entryway. No was way Marco going to let Star be seen like this by her mom. That way lays yelling. "No clue."

"It was King Helios. That jerk probably came to eat all of our snacks and then the whole dimension. I doused him with a typhoon. I got hit in the back-splash." Marco dragged Star around an ivory pillar as Queen Moon came strolling past. Marco waited until Moon was farther away before they both came back out and walked faster.

"Are the villagers going to be fine?"

"Yeah, it's been a really dry season anyway. The crops could probably use the water. And the villagers could use the bath." Considering how many of them Marco had seen covered in filth when Star took the Diaz's on a tour through the Forest of Certain Death, Star probably had a point. "Just glad I got to put out Helios again."

"I never liked that guy." Marco agreed.

They were close enough to touch the doorknob when the doors blew open. All of the people turned to stare, except the musicians who had seen worse, the Diaz's who were still enjoying themselves and Fourth who was shaking her tail right along with them. Right outside the open doorway was a wall of flame. Marco instantly started sweating heavily. Marco flinched away from the heat, letting go of Star who drew her wand reflexively from her vest pocket. As suddenly as it came, the flame was gone leaving an open doorway and a carriage.

"Well, I'm dry now." Star shook herself like a wet dog, shaking off the heat of their near roasting. Star poked her wand in Marco's direction, instantly making her ice cold. It was not pleasant, but she wouldn't turn into a huge sweaty mess. Plus, she wasn't a solid block of ice, which had happened a couple times before. "Hey isn't that Tom's carriage?"

"No, it's...not." Marco had seen Tom's carriage a lot. There was black and red and the flaming dead unicorn. That was the same, but this one had more than one unicorn and the goat skull on the side was surrounded by other skulls, human and unicorn and on that might have belong to whatever species Princess Smooshy had been. There was also considerably more fire on this one. At least three times the fire. Maybe four times.

Marco turned around and jogged back to the snack table as quickly as she could. If what she thought just happened had just happened, she wanted to get some food in her because it was going to be a long couple hours. "Star, did Tom's Dad get invited?"

Star shook her head furiously as she followed. "Most mewmans hate demons. How did he even know we were having a ball?"

"I kind of asked Tom to come." Marco took in Star's bewildered face as she stuffed two slices of quiche in her mouth at the same time. "I wanted his help with something. I didn't think his dad would show up,too."

"Ladies and Gentleman," began a familiar voice. "Demon King and Prince are now arriving."

"Oh, hey it's Buff Frog." Buff Frog was standing at the front entryway, arm spread to gesture to the wicked looking carriage. Buff Frog was looking pretty good. Last time they had seen him he had been overworked, caring for thirteen tadpoles by himself. They were both glad to see him looking more well rested. He sported his old tunic and skull belt combo, now with skulls on his shoulders and a ram's skull on his head. Three guesses who he was working for.

King Lucitor strode into the castle, his boots leaving flaming footprints on the fancy blue carpet at the front. The gathered guests wordlessly parted, leaving a path from door to the throne, where King and Queen Butterfly were standing and watching the whole affair. Tom came in behind him, darting into the crowd of people as if to be lost within the crowd as soon as possible. Sadly, he was nine feet tall plus three foot horns and one of the only two demon attendants to the ball. The crowd all stood a minimum of three feet away from him in every direction, as though avoiding a spotlight centered on him.

With no hope of blending in he went to where the St Olga's princesses were all chatting and preforming the signature St. Olga lean-against-the-wall-and-look-cool. Tom caught Marco's eyes across the ballroom. He shrugged gently and shook his head sadly. He was just as happy as they were about this.

King Lucitor came to the end of the aisle and bowed at the waist after a momentary pause. If Queen Moon relaxed after seeing he had no intention to fight it didn't show at all. Her back was straight, her face expressionless and her feet were braced against the floor inside her fluffy dress.

"King Lucitor, Prince Lucitor,"Moon said evenly. " How unexpected of you to join our ball this evening. What brings you all the way out to our dimension?" Which, if one had a Royal-to-Layman's translator would read as "You're not supposed to be here. Why are you here?"

"K I N G  A N D  Q U E E N  B U T T E R F L Y, I HAVE ARRIVED TO JOIN IN WELCOMING THE D I A Z FAMILY TO THE DIMENSIONAL COMMUNITY."

"I see. It is a shame that you have arrived so late in the evening.We were just getting to our last dance of the evening." Star and Marco exchanged a look as all the musicians trailed off in the middle of their song and began packing away the sheet music Star had provided. As one they all flipped to the very last song in their sheet music, the ending waltz.

King Lucitor's eyes canvassed the ballroom as the musicians readied themselves for the last song of the night.The top right eye landed on Star and Marco, at the snack table. The left-most one swiveled directly to his son. Who, upon noticing, blanched with a stricken expression. Tom sighed and began to walk across the ballroom, St. O's girls saluting him as he went. They, too, knew the struggle of parents making you do things you would rather not in front of large crowds.

The crowds parted with a dim suspicion as Tom walked across the ballroom, with every eye on him. It felt like an eternity before he finally reached the two princesses at the snack table. Tom barely looked at them as he bowed, very carefully not slicing anyone with his horns.

"Princess Marco Diaz, May I have this dance?" Marco's low noise of confusion was cut off by Tom's hissed whisper of "Say yes."

"Uh...sure?" It came out more like a question but it was close enough for Tom. He straightened up and put out his arm for her to grab.

With another quick look back at Star, who urged her to go, she set her hand on his elbow and the silent party goers broke out into a rash of whispers.

"Why is your dad here?" Marco hissed as they walked to the center of the dance floor. "I thought it was just you."

"He caught me leaving in the carriage and demanded to know where I was going," he replied, equally as hushed. "When I wouldn't say he asked the unicorn. When he found out he made me come in the business carriage." So that was why Marco didn't recognize the carriage.

Other couples began trickling onto the floor. Nettle appeared to have dragged a werewolf looking prince out to dance. Taurina was still performing the St. O's Lean as Fourth squeaked quietly into her ear. Star had grabbed a cat princess (thank goodness Marco had been warned and had dosed up on Benedryl) and joined them. When no one else paired up, or grouped up, in the case of the Goblin delegation, Queen Butterfly stiffed nodded her head and the musicians began to play. Queen Butterfly only watched out of her peripheral vision, keeping her eyes on King Lucitor as he moved himself to stand menacingly near the wall, before scooping all the burned popcorn into his sharp-toothed mouth.

"Look, Marco, I'm so sorry this happened," Tom said lowly as he lead her around the dance floor. "I should have known he would be paying more attention now that I'm getting ready to inherit. I should have known!" Tom grit his teeth in a snarl as his hair caught fire on the ends. Marco was very unaware of the worried gasps filtering through the music as the waltz went on.

Marco sighed under her breath. "It's not your fault. It's your dad's. You can't blame yourself for that. Deep breaths, buddy." The fire fell away from Tom's head as he took a deep breath in through his mouth and gently blew smoke out his nostrils.

"Good job, Tom." Marco managed a weak smile, glad that at least one thing didn't go wrong today.

"Thanks." Tom offered back an equally mediocre smile, but it was better than nothing. Marco caught Star's eyes behind Tom as they turned. The mutual nod was a much needed confirmation of solidarity. Slowly Marco could feel the waltz coming to an end. She was so ready for it to end, it was almost unreal.

"Marco," Tom sounded extremely nervous. Marco's Shenanigan Senses were tingling off the charts. "I just want to say sorry ahead of time."

"Wait. Wha-" Marco didn't get to finish her sentence as Tom hooked one foot behind Marco's left ankle and yanked her off balance. With no other choice than to hold on or crack her skull open, Marco let herself be dipped. She flinched and shut her eyes as Tom's face came flying towards her. The expected pain of his face crashing into hers didn't come, just the feeling of her lips being several degrees hotter than they should be.

Marco had been kissed before. She had done a lot of kissing, even if it wasn't as much as she would have wanted. She knew what kissing felt like, so the sound of shocked gasps made a lot of sense in context.

When he finally lifted her out of the dip, Marco didn't see her parents taking pictures by the hundred. She didn't see the grim look on the Mewni faces of King and Queen Butterfly or the creepily pleased look on Tom's Dad's face. She didn't even see Star, who had partially pushed her dancing partner out of the way to get a better view. All Marco could see was Tom. Who had just kissed her. And was now holding her in starting formation with a resigned look on his face.

Marco freed her hand from his and punched him directly in the face.

Chapter Text

"Princess Marco Dances with a Devil?" Marco paused in cleaning her shoulders off after her haircut (third this week, courtesy of Star's tendency to give Marco ponytails for fancy occasions) and stared into the mirror in awe and irritation. "What kind of junk is that?"

"The kind of junk printed in Princess POP! Magazine." Star waved the offending magazine in the air like she was trying to swat pixies out of the air with it. "You even made the front page. Impressive. I burned down a town with a rainbow on my first day with the wand and I only made it to the weekly highlights section."

Marco hid her face in her hands and groaned. She had thought she was doing so well and then that happened. Her parents weren't mad of course. They fully supported defending yourself from unwanted advances. Tom's dad wasn't even mad either, nor was Tom (who was honestly expecting it the whole time.) Queen Butterfly hated party crashers and had patted her on the shoulder in private for punching Tom. Marco wasn't sure how to feel about that.

No one was mad per-say, just shocked. Unfortunately shock equals a good conversation topic and it spread like fire on the Savannah. It didn't help that the goblins that were there at the time had their own printing press that owned Princess POP! Magazine. So much for no diplomatic incidents at her first ball. Oh well, at least it wasn't Earth's paparazzi. Now, those guys were nuts.

Marco took a deep breath put her hands back at her sides. There wasn't anything she could do about it. Heck, it might even turn out to be a good thing. She had already gotten a letter from Fourth about how cool she was. If nothing else it was Saturday, which meant karate practice where she could calm herself in the midst of super cool mixed martial arts. She hadn't seen her sensei since she had become a princess with a magical wand. She still couldn't believe that description applied to her now, too. Hopefully he would be cool about it.



He wasn't cool about it.

"Dude,er...dudette, your highness. I'm so glad you picked my dojo, the Tang Soo Do." His hands were clasped together in a pleading gesture. He hadn't changed a bit since Marco was fourteen, only now he was forty years old and starting to get grey hairs in his beard. She was actually a bit taller than him, now.

"I've been going here for four years."

"And we are so grateful to have you visit us," he carried on completely unaware of the paparazzi taking pictures through the dojo windows. "We have only the most honorable, top notch students here."

"Jeremy Birnbaum uses golden Brass-knuckles during tournament matches and you picked him for the Grandmaster showing because his family donated a lot." Marco watched as Sensei Brantley began sweating. It was actually mildly gross.

"Uhh, yeah, about that.." Marco watched as he squirmed in place like a chastised four year old. Pointing out the obvious only seemed to make things worse here.

Marco set one hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, buddy. Let's just practice today."

"Uhh, okay, Your Princess-ness." Marco face palmed. She had a feeling that the dojo was going to be a lot less relaxing in the future.

"What is this?" Marco's head turned slowly only for her to go bug-eyed. Jeremy had stuck his hand into her bag like a jerk and was holding her wand, crown aimed directly at himself. "Some kind of flower? How lame." He tossed it into the air.

"Jeremy! Don't touch that!" Marco shot her hand out and caught the wand, fingers sliding through the pseudo-brassknuckles on ether side. The entire dojo held their breath as one as the flower bud inside went from green to pink and swelled to the size of a baseball.

The flower popped open, for the second time. It wasn't a tigerlilly this time. The petals were rounded and layered on top of each other in a splay of yellow on red. She had seen her mom wearing one of these one time. Was it a Begonia?  It looked like one. The entire flower pulsed a dull red and shot out a bunch of vines. Marco watched in wordless shock as they completely cocooned Jeremy Birnbaum. Oh God. Marco was having flashbacks to the tentacle arm.

The dojo could hear the faint sound of Jeremy screaming his head off from the inside. The flashes of the paparazzi cameras through the windows were accompanied by another coming from inside. Marco turned back to see her sensei taking pictures with his phone.

"Cool. Can I try?"

"No!" Marco pulled at the vines with her free hand. "Help me get this off of him!"

"Right, br-uh, Sis." Sensei pulled alongside Marco, waving the other students over to help. They began unraveling it slowly, but it never seemed to get closer to freeing Jeremy. Ten minutes had passed and half the room was covered in detangled vines when Marco had enough.

She had been on edge from the moment she woke up and she was not doing any better with Jeremy's stupid behind getting himself tangled in vines. She had punched one of her best friends in the face at her first ball as princess. She had photographers following her everywhere and every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world was trying to cozy up to her to get royal favor. Royal favor she still wasn't comfortable acknowledging as hers to give, because it was only her first week! The multiverse wasn't cutting her any slack and she was about sick of this day.

Marco was tearing at her hair, when she shouted "Come On!" She threw her hands exasperatedly into the air. Her frustration mixed with shock as the entire vine cocoon spun on its side as the vines retracted into the wand. Jeremy rolled away as the last of the vines let go of him.

Everyone crowded around Jeremy, looking down on him with concern. Jeremy just drooled, eyes open wide and shaking slightly. He didn't react to the hand waved in front of his face or the feeling of Sensei kicking him gently in the leg. Marco watched at the flower on the wand closed back up before putting it back at the bottom of her bag. Jeremy still wasn't responding when she made her way over there. He did smell really nice. Smelling nice doesn't tend to matter when you're in shock, though.

"Marco, you've traumatized our poor, defenseless star student-"

"He's got a black belt. And he did this to himself." She pointed out to him, crossing her arms.

"Regardless, you've traumatized him and I cannot allow that in our prestigious strip-mall dojo. You are banned from the Tang Soo Do, Princess."

"I helped you find the Red Belt How-To-Karate video, went to your birthday parties for the last three years and HE did this. To Himself!" Marco counted off on her fingers, pointing to the still semi-catatonic rich jerk on the ground at the end. By the end the spirals on her cheeks had knotted themselves into angry squiggles.

"Yes, all that is true," Sensei admitted, nodding solemnly above his crossed arms. "But his parents will sue." Marco could only glare at him. "Go in shame!" he shouted, pointing at the door sternly.

Marco tightened the red belt holding her Gi closed and grabbed her bag on the way out the door. The paparazzi began hounding her as soon as the door opened. She struggled to get her bike through the sever over-crowding of paparazzi. She almost didn't hear former-sensei Brantley shouting after her.

"Wait, Princess!" Marco turned to see him holding the door open with his foot. "Will you still come to my birthday party?" Marco sighed, turned back around and pedaled off. She huffed a breath angrily as the spirals squirmed furiously against her skin.



Marco managed to get back inside the house with some effort. The paparazzi had proved to be a problem until she had clued in to the fact that none of them knew how magic worked and could be cowed with a brief wave of her wand and some implied threats. The others that couldn't be intimidated were still susceptible to karate, meaning she got her workout after all.

Marco had half a mind to go upstairs and not come out until the day was over, but she was stopped about two feet past the door. The Laser Puppies, who would probably never grow up, were using their lasers to harass a... something.

"Down Sajack. Back off, Barko. Come on, everyone." Gently, she shuffled them off of whatever it was and tossed a squeaky bone up the stairs. All of them scampered after it, having already forgotten about their light-hearted laser torture. It looked like a pile of charred rags until it started moving.

Whatever was inside shuffled around for a long minute before she realized it was trapped in the fabric. She was halfway through ripping up the offending material before she noticed the symbol on it. It had been heavily charred with repeated tiny lasers but it was the old shirt Tom used to always wear when he materialized on Earth before he outgrew it. Marco only had a split second to worry about what that might mean before Marshmallow bolted out of the makeshift sack and darted directly into the kitchen.

Marco followed as fast as she could. When she had made it to the kitchen her mom had already picked Marshmallow up off the floor. Marco sighed with relief. Tom would be inconsolable if something happened to Marshmallow.

"Oh hey, Marco. Is this your little friend?" Mom was nuzzling Marshmallow to the yellow spirals on her cheeks. Marshmallow quaked in Mom's hands. Marshmallow didn't seem afraid. It was more like they were cold. And why wouldn't Marshmallow be cold, she thought. That little puffball's been in the Underworld their whole life and Tom's always kept his room pretty hot. Poor thing probably didn't know temperatures below eighty degrees Fahrenheit existed.

"Sorry about Marshmallow, Mom." Marco retrieved Marshmallow from her mom and tucked them into the shirt of her Gi. Marshmallow already seemed to be doing a little better, it would have to do for now. "Marshmallow isn't actually mine.I don't know how they got here. I do know the owner, though. So returning them should be easy." Marco looked over at the stack of scrolls and floating glass cubes on the kitchen table. "What are you doing?"

"We made a lot of friends at the ball yesterday. Everyone's sending us greetings cards. Not sure where to get thank you scrolls, though." Marco unrolled one of the scrolls. She had to turn her head ans squint a little but she could read it with a little work. It was a plea for an alliance. From the Pixie Empress of all people. Well, maybe the Empress wasn't as hard about grudges as she thought she was. Marco looked over the rest of the messages on the table and knew without a doubt that they were all exactly the same thing; alliances waiting to happen.

She absently petted Marshmallow's head as she surveyed the pile of messages. That many kingdoms wanted to be friends after just the one meeting? That one meeting ended early due to her punching the son of a party crasher in the face. Even the ones with reasons to hold a grudge were putting in their application for the metaphorical Friendship Thursday. In the case of at least three of them, including Pony Head's scroll which Marco could see leaking glitter on the far corner, the Friendship Thursday application was a lot more literal.

Marco was broken out of her daze as Marshmallow began to squirm deeper into her clothes.

"I'm going to go return Marshmallow now"  Marco called over her shoulder as she headed back to her room.

Marco waited for her mom's "Alright" before grabbing her bag. She leaped the last five steps up to the second floor to avoid trampling the laser puppies who had decided to take naps there.

Marco opened the door and found her room trashed. The spiral stairs had fallen into a heap and the bed looked like it had been sat on by a very large warnicorn. Papers and clothes were strewn across the floor. A boom box with a crystal in it was blaring Love Sentence, which was the least horrific part about this whole experience. She didn't have to look far for the culprit as the closet door flew open and there was Pony Head muttering about how many red hoodies she had in there.

"Pony Head!" Marco screamed. She felt Marshmallow cower down even deeper in her shirt and instantly felt like a jerk. "Sorry Marshmallow." Wow, no wonder Tom kept Marshmallow around as an anti-anger pet.

"Pony head" Marco hissed, more quietly this time. "What are you doing to my room?!" Pony Head turned around with one of Marco's socks in her teeth.

"Hey, Marco. Why do you have so many of the same thing?" The sock hit the ruined bed without a sound. Marco could tell from here that it was gross and slimy.

"Pony Head, I know you know what socks are." Marco set her dufflebag down in the doorway.

"Not that, girl. I mean what's with all the hoodies?" Pony Head floated over to the crystal boombox and switched tracks with her horn.

"I like red, okay. And you still haven't answered." Marco turned the boombox off, cradling the bunny in her shirt with one arm.

"So, like, my dad wanted to make sure you got our treaty on time, right? Well, I told him we were friends and so he sent me to drop it off ya feel me?" Pony Head flipped her hair with a flourish and a horsey laugh. "Home's been boring lately anyway, so I decided to hang around until you got back. I was just looking around, but I got a little carried away, can you blame me?"

"Yes. Yes I can! You wrecked the room Pony Head." All her beautiful organizational systems destroyed. The bed posts looked like spiky wooden death traps. Her wand chargers, scattered like so may Dragon Balls.

"Yeah, but you can fix it, can't you? You got a wand and stuff, right?" Pony Head looked at Marco like she was being silly.

"No, Pony Head. I can't! I just got this wand. I  have no idea how to use it and i can't really practice without somebody else here to make sure nothing bad happens. I accidentally turned a kid in my dojo into a plant burrito and got kicked out! I can't fix this Pony Head, at least not right now."  Pony Head's ears dropped and she frowned.

"Well, I just have to say that I am truly sorry I ruined your room and stuff Marco and would like to say it won't happen again." Pony Head proclaimed softly in a single breath. Her mostly unheard lisp made a brief appearance. She returned to her normal, raucous volume soon after. " can like, totally spot you some of this stuff anyway. We got some extra stuff no one is using."

"I'm good on that." Marco didn't want to deal with a bed that might decide to eat her for not being a floating unicorn head. "Just don't do it again, Pony Head." Back to the old room for her. At least she still had her old bed in there. It was probably safer, in the long run, too. The entire tower was made of magic. Who knew if the place could just up and dissapear one day without Star there to sustain it.

"Anyway I need you out of the room for a bit. So you don't have to go home..." Marco pushed Pony Head towards the door, overbalancing a bit as she wiggled away easily.

"Why, gurl? I've already seen you change." Marco flushed all down her front.

"I need to mirror someone. It's bad enough that the room is a mess. We don't need another person there, too."

"Look, I can be quiet. See I'm, like, so quiet. They'll never notice I was here."

Marco was unconvinced. "I'll get you a salt lick next time we're in Mewni if you leave.

"Princess Marco, you imply I can be bribed so easily. Two salt licks."

"One salt lick and a glass of apple cider."

"Deal."

When Pony Head had returned to her own dimension, via Marco's scissors, Marco turned herself to the Dimensional Mirror installed on the wall. "Call Tom."

It was a good thing this mirror was still registered as an auto-pick-up on Tom's mirror because Tom probably hadn't been rational enough to answer anything for quite a while. Marshmallow was a good chunk of his lifeline to sanity and ,quite predictably, he wasn't handling the bunny kidnapping very well. Eighty percent of what she could see seemed to be on fire. It also looked tilted, like the mirror had been knocked to the floor. No way was she going to have any luck like this. She'd have to make a stop in on the Underworld and hope King Lucitor didn't notice.

Marco stopped to change into a hoodie and jeans quickly. They didn't know she was coming so it wasn't like she would be late. Besides dimension hopping was best done in comfy clothes. But something was missing here. Comfy clothes? Check. Mission Objective? Check. Partner in Crime? Not Check.

An adventure withou Star wasn't right. It was not the way things were supposed to be. But, this wasn't an adventure. This was just her using scissors she knew how to use to go to a place she knew pretty well for a total of five minutes to return a lost pet. Mind made up, Marco wrapped Marshmallow in a spare hoodie and cut a hole in reality with her gleaming scissors. It would be fine.

Chapter Text

Usually Marco met up with Tom on Earth, requiring no dimensional travel on her part. Even when they did hang out in Tom's room of the castle, Tom usually did the portal creation or she rang the Hell Bell the Star had never returned to him. From the amount of time she had spent in Tom's castle she would have thought she would aim better when using her scissors by instinct, if nothing else, but when she poked her head through the portal seemed to be hovering about fifty feet in the air, outside the castle.

Marco pulled her head back in and closed the portal. Try number two yielded similar results, only on a different side of the castle. Must be some type of security system, she imagined.  Marco watched with concern as a window on the far side of the castle exploded in a hail of fiery glass shards. Maybe she should be looking in the wreckage of her room for the Hell Bell. It probably wasn't going to be any easier to cut her way there if she kept getting pushed away from the castle.

She stuck her scissors in her hoodie with her wand and turned back to check on Marshmallow. Marshmallow seemed to have stopped shivering but who knew if that was good for rabbits. Marco didn't.

Marco's eyes scanned around the trashed room. Of course Pony Head had to show up and wreck the place now of all times. When ten minutes worth of searching revealed two wand chargers to her, but no Hell Bell, Marco had to concede that she was screwed. She needed magic help and she needed it soon. Time to call Star, after all.

"Mirror call Star." Marco watched as the glass displayed a picture of Star wielding a very large axe as it dialed her. She shuffled impatiently as it rang, glancing back at Marshmallow every few seconds. Tom had probably murdered at least three people by now if that explosion was any indication.

"Marco? What's up? Whoa. What happened to our room? Have you been practicing magic without me?" Star's heart marks cracked a bit as she showed off her best pair of sad puppy eyes. The hearts healed themselves as Star finally took notice of Marco's fuzzy little passenger. "Is that a bunny!"

"Star! I need help getting to Tom's place. Someone kidnapped Marshmallow and then just dumped them off on me, tied up in Tom's old shirt."

"Why don't you just go there? You have scissors don't you?"

"Yeah! But every time I try to get there something keeps bumping my portal back. If I hadn't checked I'd have walked out fifty feet into open air." Marshmallow's stillness was getting to Marco, triggering activity in her brain's rather large Worry Zone. She jiggled the rabbit a little bit, attempting to get a response. Marshmallow opened their eyes and squirmed as though trying to break free of the shirt it was wrapped in. "I can't find the Hell Bell either, because Pony Head trashed the room while I was out."

"She does tend to do that" Star began tapping her wand against her face contemplatively. "Well, why don't you use the mirror?"

"I already tried mirroring him. It's on auto-pick up but I don't think he's calm enough to talk to me right now. I'm not really sure what else to do."

"No, Silly. Stick your hand through the mirror." Marco stood awestruck as Star grabbed her abused copy of Princess POP! Magazine and, reaching through the glass, booped Marco on the nose and dropped it.

"Y-you can do that?"

"Sure can!"

"Then why don't you do it all the time?"

"It's a pretty expensive feature for mirrors. Only royalty can really afford them, and you can't put stuff through a mirror that can't do it too. All the mobile mirrors are too small to get anything important through them so no one ever bothers casting it on mirrors that small." Star shrugged casually and began gnawing on her wand. Marco supposed it made sense. Kind of.

"So you think I can drop off Marshmallow that way?"

"Probably" Star said around the wand in her teeth. A loud knocking startled Star. Marco looked on as Star's wand fell out of her mouth and hit the floor, turning her bed into a giant green teddy bear, which began attacking all the other furniture in the room. "Uhh, Gotta go take care of this, Marco. Good luck with Marshmallow. Mirror End Call."

Marco's reflection replaced Star's image as she was hung up on. Star had handled worse before and probably didn't need her help. Marco would check back on her in a minute, just in case. With that decided Marco turned her attentions back to the rabbit in her arms. Okay, she could just put Marshmallow in the mirror. It would be easy and totally fine,and if she had any doubts, she could just stop. Totally safe.

"Mirror, call Tom." The mirror rang once before it transitioned to Tom's room. Tom didn't appear to be in view, but the mirror had been settled back on the wall and there was a lot less fire. She could even see Marshmallow's Ultra Bunny Condo from there, wide open and everything.

"Alright, little buddy. Time for you to go back to your daddy." Marco lifted the shirt-wrapped rabbit to the glass and hesitantly pressed the bunny against it. There was no resistance, just an abrupt change of temperature. Marco could feel Marshmallow's squirming double immediately. Marco stuck as much of her arms in as she could, trying to lessen the impact by letting go of Marshmallow as close to the ground as she possible. "There you go, buddy. Go home."

Marco dropped the rabbit, wincing at the thump it made. Marshmallow shook it off and bounced away towards the cage full of food and tasty hay. Another day, another job well done and she didn't even have to leave her house. It sure took the sting out of being forced out of Tang Soo Do.

Hands sprung from the floor on Tom's room and grabbed Marco, dragging her through the mirror. Marco  swung her legs up to brace on either side of the mirror. She pushed as hard as she could and had almost pulled her hands back to her side of the glass, when the left hand abruptly switched from pulling to shoving, sending her off balance.  With her unable to gain her footing back in time the left hand joined the right one on her arm and yanked, sending her tumbling through dimensions.

She hit the floor with as graceful a roll as she could muster, letting the momentum break her arm free of the clawed hands. She let the momentum roll her until she got her feet under herself. She sprang up into a basic defensive position, right fist at her waist with her left hand curled into a fist a foot in front of her face.

The clawed hands gripped the ground apart as their owner pulled himself up and out of the floor.

"YOU TOOK MARSHMALLOW!" Tom's eyes burned white hot with fury. He tore his leg out of the floor and then the other, shaking stone and dust free almost incidentally. "I expected the punch. Heck, I deserved it! But you had to go One Step Further, Didn't You?" Marco was very glad she had practice in taking down monsters twice her size because Tom was bearing down on her with a quickness.

"I didn't take Marshmallow!" Marco dodged under Tom's swipe and grabbed his wrist. With practiced speed she stepped behind him, spun and swept Tom's leg out from under him. His tendency to levitate made the pin a little messy but it was serviceable enough to get him to stop trying to murder her. Tom snarled low enough to vibrate the room. She was only peripherally aware of the mirror crashing to the ground and Marshmallow running in panicked bunny zigzags. She was more focused on the demon prince trying to burn her off of him by increasing his body heat. Joke's on him. Marco's endured worse than some first degree burns for the sake of Not Dying. "Listen, Tom! I didn't steal Marshmallow."

Tom bucked and nearly threw her off. Words had apparently left him at some point, because he was just growls and hissing now. His hair had caught fire again, the gel in it flaring up in an acrid puff, letting the hair fall around his face. Having decided that denying involvement wasn't helping matters, Marco switched tracks.

"Tom, Deep Breaths. Deeep. Breaaaths. Count with me, Tom. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. You can do it." Tom slowly stopped his shaking and fighting as Marco held him in an arm lock. The heavy breathing was the next to go. The growling stopped soon afterwards, making Marco uncomfortably aware of just how much noise they had probably been making. "Marshmallow's here. And you're fine, right?" Marco watched as Tom closed his still glowing eyes and nodded grimly.

"Alright, I'm gonna let you up on three. One. Two. Three." Marco switched her grip from wrist to shoulder and gave Tom a lift. He stood there for a minute with his eyes closed, hands smoothing nonexistent wrinkles off of his sleeveless black button down. Marco began to wince as the adrenaline wore off, leaving her quite aware of the numerous burns and bruises she had acquired in the course of the last ten minutes. "I'm just gonna reset the clock."

Tom finally opened his eyes and sighed. "Sorry, Marco. I shouldn't have been so mad." He took a hand and smoothed his hair back away from his face where it had been bothering his top eye.

"You had a pretty good reason to be mad, though." Marco went over to the shelf near Marshmallow's cage and delicately turned a glowing hourglass upside down. They both watched with resignation as a set of numbers appeared above it, proclaiming that it had been twenty seconds since Tom had last lost his temper.

"I'm gonna miss seeing that 'It's been a year" logo in the morning." Marco turned to Tom who was doing his best to try and play it off as a meaningless trinket instead of the reason he, Star and Marco went out to a carnival in celebration.

"Don't worry, Tom. You'll get there." Marco patted Tom on the shoulder, only to flinch away instantly. Oh right, burns. Burns that were currently still physically hot. Great idea touching a person who was hot to the touch with burned hands. Great foresight, Marco she thought.

"Sorry! I probably burned you, huh? Here, let me just." Tom  grabbed both of her arms before she could protest. He chanted softly. His hands began to glow and her burns began to fade away until they were little more than warm spots on her palms.

"Wow, you did a really good job."

"Thanks," Tom responded turning her hands around as if searching for injuries he missed. "I figured that if you were doing magic I'd have to get back to practicing. Can't let you show me up."

"You have your table-tennis crown for now," Marco warned jokingly. Tom rolled his top and left eye, keeping the right one on Marco. He crossed his arms in disbelief.

"Besides I have to fine tune my lesser used areas of magic now. If I'm king I wont have time to practice whenever I'd like. I'll have a country to run." Now that they were done battling to the death it was awkward to just keep standing around in the middle of the room. Tom set one hand on Marco's back and ushered her over to the ping-pong table. He let her serve first, because it was honestly the least he could do with how badly he was about to destroy her. The ball clacked against the table as Tom revived the conversation.

"Thanks, for returning Marshmallow."

"No problem, What are friendenemies for?" The ball flew past Marco, rolling to an ignoble stop somewhere behind them. Tom served this time, going extra gentle.

"How did you get Marshmallow anyway?"

"I don't know. I came home from the dojo and there they were, all tied in in your old shirt." There went ball number two.

"Sounds like we have a traitor somewhere in the castle. Dad's probably keeping them around as a test for me. I'll have to kill them later."

Marco winced a bit. "I forget how brutal you guys are sometimes."

"I AM a demon."

"You know, what? That's fair." Another serve, another point. They'd been playing table-tennis together for years and Marco could still only get one point in three.

"Marco. I need to talk to you."

"I'd like to point out that we are talking right now."

Tom put down his paddle and turned a serious look at Marco.  "No, Marco. I need to talk to you about something really important."

Marco's brows furrowed in concern as she stopped attempting to play ping-pong. "I'm listening."

Tom pressed his spider-like fingers to the flat expanse of the table. "This is going to sound really crazy, and just hear me out here." He took a deep breath in and blurted out "I need you to marry me."

Chapter Text

Marco's first reaction was an instant 'No" but in the interest of friendship and being fair she decided to continue listening. It couldn't be more crazy than the time Star had decided that smothering yourself in barbecue sauce was the best way to get a Kraken-parrot's attention.

"Alright, Tom. You've got ten minutes to convince me to marry you and then I need to go check if i need to save Star from her teddy-bed."

Tom opened his mouth before closing it and shaking his head. Yeah, Marco completely understood. With Star you have have to accept things sometimes, even if those things don't make sense.

"Anyway. Marco, think about this. I need to be married-"

"Uh uh uh." Marco interrupted Tom, holding up her hand. Her open palm turned into a finger point as she instructed him to "Start the clock." Tom grumbled and waved a hand through the air above the ping-pong table. A trail of flames followed his hand, leaving behind a set of flaming numbers.  "Okay," Marco said. "Now, you can convince me." Tom's top eye kept a watch on the numbers as he started pleading his case.

"I need to be married to be the king. The counselors have been attempting to set me up with strangers. Complete strangers that not only expect me to be just like my dad, but have "ideas" about how the kingdom should be run! If I marry you then I don't have to deal with any of that and no one can pressure you into marrying for an alliance."

"No one will hit on you," Tom continued, counting off on his fingers, "because demons are known to be super possessive and they won't want to chance it. Demons are pretty hardy and decent fighters and assassins, meaning any assassination attempts or threats to Earth will be handled by the Underworld by default, saving your squishy untrained humans an inglorious death. With Earth being so closely aligned with Mewni, any one trying to incite war against Mewni will be regarded as inciting treachery, meaning Earth and Mewni can't be touched by anyone with anti-mewman or anti-human opinions."

"Plus," he went on, more quietly."You're pretty much the only one who's seen me loose my cool and still stuck around besides Brian and Marshmallow. You know ways to get revenge that are better than obliterating people and I always have fun hanging out with you." Tom  walked from his side of the table over to Marco."We'd get to do that even more if we were married. Think of all the movie marathons, all the Love Sentence concerts, all of the table tennis!" He draped an arm over her shoulder and held his hand outward.

Tom stared at Marco. There was a minute left on the clock and she seemed almost but not quite convinced. But what else could he say? What would convince her that this would be good for both of them? Was it the kiss at the ball that was holding her back? He knew he shouldn't have done what his dad told him, even if it meant he wouldn't be let out of the castle for a epoch. He had creeped out one of his best friends with a kiss he was forced into. He was ready to abandon the whole thing and let himself be married to some weirdo baroness if it would let him keep his friend if she said no.

Tom was sweating bullets. As his nervous agitation increased so did his temperature. Both rose until the sweat was evaporating off of him almost as fast as it went on.

With ten seconds left on the clock all Tom could do was  be sincere.  He clutched her hands to his chest and dropped to his knees, putting him a few inches below eye level. "Please marry me, Marco." He fixed all three of his eyes on her, doing his best to communicate exactly how dire this was, how up to her this whole thing was. "Please?"

She was cracking, he could feel it! Time to pull out the chief weapon in his arsenal. Tom widened his eyes, just a little, not enough to creep Marco out. Creeping her out was counter productive. He could creep her out later. "For me, Marco?" He squeezed her hands ever so slightly.

Tom heard the crackle of the timer as the flames flared and extinguished themselves with an eerie hiss. Tom didn't move, just stayed staring up at Marco as the yellow spirals on her cheeks slowly rotated. Marco sighed and shrugged with an eye roll. "I guess."

Tom sprang to his feet supernaturally quickly with a fist pump. He jumped and shouted with excitement.

"Yes! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much Marco!" He was halfway through telling Marco that she "won't regret this" when he stepped on a ping-pong ball and fell backwards onto the floor in a stunning display of grace and agility. He didn't even get the cursory 'are you okay.' Marco just went straight to laughing.

"Not a word."

"Yeah right," Marco laughed. "I'm going to laugh about this for the rest of my life-no, our lives. Right, Fiance?" And they said monsters and demons were evil? He put a few curses on her, that's all. He didn't deserve this. He resolved to put hippo blood in her shampoo next time he was at her place. When she leaned down to give him a hand up he relented a bit. Red dye would be just as good.

Chapter Text

It was only after she sat down to dinner with her parents that Marco realized the severity of what she had done. This wasn't something she could just mention in passing. She was engaged at sixteen. For her it was doing a friend a favor and getting a favor in return. To her parents this was their only daughter getting married. Sure they were King and Queen now, but they were just people first. They didn't think in terms of a political alliance and benefits to the realm. They thought in terms of who is going to make dinner and who is going to vacuum the living room.

Marco was kind of impressed that they still found time to do the things they did before they were royalty. Star's parents needed people to dress them and cook them meals, they were so busy running Mewni. It was also kind of amazing that no one had tried anything yet in regards to their house. It wasn't the White House or anything with a ton of security. It was just a house in SoCal. Marco frowned around her mouthful of cauliflower. They should do something about their security, actually.

"Everything alright, Marco?" Marco snapped back to reality. Her mother was looking at her across the tiny table. "You've hardly eaten anything."

Marco chased her cheesy cauliflower around her plate with her spoon. She didn't really know how to go about doing this, so maybe she should just be up front with it?

"Mom, Dad, how did you two know when you were ready to marry?" The excitement pouring off of her parents raised the temperature in the room. Or maybe that was just her flushing as she kept her eyes on her baked vegetables. To their credit her parents did not immediately jump into ecstatic questioning. They answered first.

"Rafael and I had know each other for about three years, but we only spent two of them dating. And one day your father took me to the beach and he kept taking stupid pictures of me with his Polaroid. I spilled ice-cream on my sarong, I tripped and knocked down some kind's sandcastle, the whole enchilada." Mom's face softened from barely concealed mania to a softer, gentler expression. "When I told him to cut it out he asked me to imagine the future and showing it off to our kids." Her mom reached over to join hands with her dad, their lovesick expressions were as clear as day. "I knew then that we could have a future together."

Marco's situation wasn't nearly as mushy. True, it had a man on bended knee pleading for her to marry him. But it also had one of her best friends tripping over a ping-pong ball like an air head. Could she imagine a future with him? Days complaining about stupid things on television shows. Hanging out on weekends, reading funny stuff on the internet out-loud to each other to get a laugh. Lame jokes and dimension hopping and concerts with Tom and Star. The more she thought about it the more relaxed she was about her decision. She'd get to live with one of her best friends forever and he wouldn't have to marry a total stranger.

"Thanks Mom. That helps a lot." Marco swallowed her food,smiled and then jumped halfway out of her skin when a boom shook the neighborhood. The rules on magic at the table had been relaxed somewhat since Star had grown less likely to try and help with serving dinner. That made if perfectly acceptable for Marco to draw her wand out of her hoodie before she bolted into the living room. "I'll get it" Marco called over her shoulder as she walked to the window.

The carriage she saw through the living room window was back-lit by the cameras of the paparazzi that had taken up camping across the street. It wasn't the 'business carriage' as Tom had called it, just his own personal carriage with the cereal dispensers and the love sentence shrine and the dead unicorn she recognized. Why was Tom here at six at night?

"Marco, who is it? Do we have a guest for dinner?"

"Ummm." Marco watched as Tom poked his head out of the door and looked around. The paparazzi doubled the camera flashing when he faced them. She could already see Tom's temper rising from her spot in the living room. Time to go save some jerks with cameras. "Not sure, let me ask."

Marco stuffed her wand back in her hoodie, opened the door and walked outside sedately. It was better to act like you didn't notice with Tom. He hated when his anger showed and it was easier to calm him down if he didn't know you knew he was mad.

"Hey, Tom. What's up?" Tom's head turned to the right until his body and head were facing opposite directions. A quarter of the camera flashes stopped as photographers fainted.

"Hey Marco. Sorry about showing up so late." Tom turned his body to the left to match up with his head. Another few paparazzi fainted. "I wanted to make sure you were willing to marry me and I forgot that since you're a princess that I have to ask your parents for permission to court you."

"To what?" Marco's spirals curled into yellow question marks.

"To what?" Marco and Tom turned to see Marco's mom and dad in the doorway. "What do you mean by courting Marco?"

"King and Queen Diaz." Tom bowed slightly. "I want to court Marco. Please allow me to-"

"AAHH!" Rafael and Angie Diaz, mostly Rafael, cut Tom off with high pitched squeals of delight. Mrs. Diaz's cheeks were glowing intensely, shedding enough light to reveal the singular paparazzi that had been lurking in the next-door  neighbor's yard. "Come in, Come in!" Mr. Diaz ran up to them both and all but picked them up and carried them back inside.

"Wait, Mr. Diaz!" Angie paused in closing the door. All the Diaz's turned to see Star hop out of the Hell-Carriage. She looked different somehow but Marco couldn't put her finger on it. "Sorry it  took me so long. I got distracted by the tiger." Star chuckled and bounded to the front steps.

"Is that tiger still Brian?" Marco looked over at Tom who was encased in her dad's other beefy arm. "Why is Star with you?"

"Nope, this one's real, genuine White Tiger. We should probably go inside for that second one." He delicately pointed into the living room with a razor sharp nail.

Once they had all been seated around the dinner table with plates of fish on rice and cauliflower the Mr and Mrs Diaz restarted the conversation.

"Tom, was it?" Mrs. Diaz looked up at the towering demon that had set himself delicately in her thrift store wooden chairs at her dinner table. "You want to "court" Marco?"

Tom watched in sudden understanding as Queen Diaz made air quotes around the word Court. So that's where Marco got it from. It explained so much.

"Yes, I would like to formally submit my request to court High Princess Marco Diaz of the Kingdom of Earth."

"Well, Tom. We are Marco's parents, but it's up to her who she wants to...court." Mrs. Diaz hastily shoved a spoonful of rice into her mouth, grateful for the excuse to not say anything.

"Um, Tom," Mr. Diaz asked with mild suspicion. "does this have anything to do with Marco asking about knowing when you're ready to marry?"

Tom shot Marco a look across the table which she returned with a guilty smile. Tom's neutral face edged into a mischievous smirk. Marco scowled which only made him go from smirk to full toothed grin. Marco blushed and silently looked the other way only to catch the eye of Star who was also grinning like a loon. Marco looked down at her plate sullenly. She looked back to Tom who was doing his best to laugh silently. She couldn't not smile, this whole mess was pretty funny. Her eyes flickered up at her parents whose expressions were something approaching awe-struck. That must have looked a lot like a couple-y thing to do because her parents were tearing up with grins on their faces.

"Oh, Marco! Of course you can date Tom!" Mrs. Diaz abandoned her dinner to go hug the daylights out of her daughter."We never want you to think you can't bring your boyfriends home, cariño! Is that why you punched him at the dance? Were you keeping it secret? We welcomed your girlfriend Jackie and we welcome your boyfriend Tom, too."

Mr. Diaz had taken a blank canvas out of nowhere and was already painting the moment in a fit of emotional inspiration. Marco couldn't get a word in edgewise, her mom wasn't letting up for a minute with encouraging words. "How long have you been hiding this? What did we do to make you feel like you had to hide? Just tell us and you'll never see it again." Too bad Mrs. Diaz's refusal to stop talking didn't stop Star like it stopped Marco.

"Yeah, Tom!" Star shouted through a mouthful of pollock. "The Diaz's loved me and were super understanding about The Crush. And I was just staying here. You want to marry Marco, they're going to love you just as much. They already do!"

Tom and Marco both face-palmed. Star continued shoving cauliflower into her face like she hadn't just stuck her foot in her mouth instead. There was a difference between dating and married. It was a world of difference, a dimension of difference, even. Courting and Engaged were not even close to the same level or reaction. If Tom thought it was bad that his plea to 'court' her had been interrupted by Star's dire inability to wait with good news, he had no idea what was coming next.

"Mija, is this true?" Mrs. Diaz had pulled back from the hug and was now looking Marco in the eyes. Marco nodded, wordless in the face of her mom's emotion. Marco wanted to correct her. She wanted to let her know that it was just a favor between friends but she looked so happy, how could she disappoint her like that? Besides, the end result was the same, even if the emotions behind the choice were friendship rather than romance.

"Are you sure" her dad asked, canvas neglected with the shocking reveal. Marco nodded again, firmer this time with the surety of a good choice behind it. Marco had made a lot of mistakes before, but this time she knew she had it right. "Really, Mija?"

"I can see showing off a stupid photo of Tom falling down ten years in the future." Mrs. and Mr Diaz chuckled tearfully while Star whooped with laughter.

Tom, who had not been included in the emotional moment between Marco and her parents earlier, yelled in affront. "Hey! Like you have room to talk. If you can show that off I'll have six hundred and sixty six pictures of you loosing at table tennis with zero points every time."

"It's true," Star cut in. "Marco can't score a point to save her life. I've seen it."

"I've improved," Marco protested mildly from the unflagging cage of her overjoyed mother's arms. "I've been scoring points. I scored a point earlier today."

"Marco, I put down the paddle to ask you to marry me."

"And?" Tom rolled all his eyes. They both knew that once the paddle was set down the game was on pause. He couldn't blame her for attempting to save face, though. He understood wanting to believe you've improved even when evidence argues against it. It was part of the reason he wanted to marry her and not some stranger. Which reminded him.

"Oh! That's right. Star, the headband?" Star looked up from where she had been slipping the laser-puppies contraband fish pieces. So that's why Star looked different. She wasn't wearing her horned headband. Everyone watched as Star rummaged through her cloud purse. After a few moments she presented her horned headband. Star got up and pranced around the table. Mrs. Diaz let go of Marco but didn't go far.

Marco had always assumed the headband was just shiny red plastic, but as Star put it directly on her head, she became very aware that it was not regular plastic. She could feel something on top of her head. Not in the towel-on-my-head way, but in the my-foot-is-asleep way. It tingled all over her scalp like that time Ferguson had dared her to lick a battery. It cleared away as suddenly as it came and she could feel the horns of top of her head like they were a part of her. She looked past Star at Tom with a raised eyebrow.

"The horns are a sign of royal favor. It's kind of like a VIP pass into the underworld. No one will touch you with those on and you'll always be able to communicate with Hell citizens. Some of them are kind of hard to talk to if you have our type of vocal chords."

"I'm gonna miss conversations with Glumbus," Star sighed wistfully. "They were pretty interesting for a slug monster. Threw the best parties,too. You're just going to have to do the talking for me when we visit, huh, Marco?"

"You might not be able to tell without a mirror, but the horns you're wearing are bigger than Star's. This indicates a higher level of favor. Star was my girlfriend, but you're my fiance." Marco's mom grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. "You'll be able to go pretty much anywhere you want with those on. You won't have to wear them once we get married, though. Think of them as a kind of engagement ring."

"Cool ring." Marco slid her hands into her hair, rubbing against the smooth red horns. They really were bigger. Pointier, too. She might have to be careful until she got used to that. "At least I won't have to worry about spearing kids at the dojo" she muttered under her breath.

Star, who had gone back to the table while the others were preoccupied and eaten everyone's dinner off their plates, sighed a loud sigh. She leaned back in the chair, showing signs of an oncoming food coma.

"I think it's time I get Starship home, Marco-polo."

"Looks like. Here, let me help you." Between the two of them, they levered Star up and got her to the carriage. The cameras of the tabloid photographers were still going strong as Marco opened the carriage door.

"Hey, Marco. Do you like having these guys around or...?"

"Feel free to scare them," Marco allowed. "Just try not to hurt anyone."

Tom's eyes glowed a menacing red as he chanted in Hellish. Ghosts flew out of his mouth and chased every single paparazzo away. Marco wasn't a fan of terror but to be frank the past week had been a strain on her patience and she was glad to be rid of them in a way that did not involve body-bags or serious injury. Tom and Marco both laughed as one woman tripped over her own shoes laces in a panic and dropped the soda she had been drinking all over herself and her expensive camera.

With the reporters scared away they went back to getting Star into the carriage. Star climbed in with a half aware mumble and a vague arm movement that might have been a wave goodbye.

"Night Marco. Thanks for saying yes." Tom bent down and hugged her with his spindly arms. He pulled away and set his hands on her shoulders. "Thanks I owe you so much."

"Yeah sure." Marco shrugged. "then help me get better at ping-pong."

"In your dreams, Marco." Tom climbed into the carriage and shut the door with a cheerful, if tired "Talk to you tomorrow."

With no more visitors in the way, Marco excused herself from dinner with a hug to both parents went upstairs. The tower bedroom was still trashed and she would have to clean that up tomorrow morning, but for now her old bedroom had a bed that was just calling her name. She barely kicked off her shoes before climbing in.

Chapter Text

Earth suddenly being a monarchy had been great for newspaper sales if nothing else. There was no eye of providence on the back of money anymore, no more In God we Trust on dollars. All over the world people were discovering all symbols of office, big or small had been replaced with a, literally glowing, golden sun. The initial shock of waking up to aliens, monsters and floating unicorn heads announcing via television that they were visiting your kingdom to meet the new Queen was the worst of it.

News papers had been working twenty-four-seven that morning. Endless tabloid and Enquirer style articles had been pumped out in variations of "ALIENS REAL", "HOSTILE TAKEOVER?" and "MERMAIDS ARE REAL AND WANT DENTAL INSURANCE." When a procession of Goblins had parked across the street from the Echo Creek Newspaper offices there was no way they wouldn't do an interview. TV News channels had already gotten there by the time that the print journalists had stepped out of the building. The Echo Creek News had to bravely shove their way through the crowd to even hear the Goblin at the center.

"Yeah, we're really glad that the Earth has opened up as a viable market. We always thought it was a waste to not sell Goblins Dogs out here. The princess loved them, you know. I'm sure you all will, too."

"Princess," a BCA News representative asked, microphone positioned practically halfway into the Goblin's mouth. "Have you met the new princess?"

"Met her? She and her friends crashed my truck a couple years ago. Kindest, smartest princess i've ever met." The Goblin nodded with a smile. "In fact I still have a scar on my back."

"Who is the princess?" someone yelled. "Do you know her name?"

"You don't know your own Princess's name? How could you not? She interdimensionally famous! She has been for years! Heck, she's got merchandise!" The reporters stopped, stock still in silence. They've had a princess for years? And she's famous with merchandise? A couple reporters with kids had flashbacks of singing blondes with ice powers and red headed mermaids finding love with humans.

"I could tell you her name though, for a six hundred and fifty dollars." The Goblin held his open hand over the edge of the Goblin Dog truck, grinning amiably. As one the reporters scrambled to get their wallets but all they could find were credit cards. Only Chip, of the Echo Creek Newspaper, had cash on him, a blessed miracle of exactly six hundred and fifty dollars. As the money exchanged hands, the goblin pulled him in close and whispered into his ear. Just like that the Echo Creek Newspaper had a name, Princess Marco Diaz.


When the news stations had arrived at the Diaz household, the first newspapers of the day were going out. Each was a tiny miracle of unbelief followed by shocked reality. Everyone and their mother was running out of their house in their bathrobes and house-shoes talking to their neighbor in tones of "this can't be real" and "Susan, did you see this?"


When the President of the United States came on the television with an emergency broadcast it was a two minute announcement that Yes, he had been talking with other world leaders over-seas and Yes this was happening to everyone else. He was cut off when an aide came running through the camera shot to whisper into President Obama's ear. The president blanched, announced that Earth is now a monarchy and on live TV, announced that he was too old for this and needed a nap. "The Queen is live on BCA right now. So even if you don't all go watch it, I know what I'm going to do."

The interview was pretty standard for talking to the sovereigns of the entire planet. Queen Diaz was welcoming and friendly. King Diaz made them all taquitos. A few people had to pass on virtue of being vegans, so he went into the kitchen and came back with a bowl full of fruit. The questions were answered sometimes frankly, and sometimes they were danced around. One or two questions were passed on entirely. When the reporters pressed the Diaz's frowned.

"I don't think that's any of your business." Queen Diaz responded sternly. "If you insist on acting like that I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The questions were tamer after that. All the reporters asked their questions one at a time, with raised hands like children and the new King and Queen answered like patient parents.

Half an hour into the interview the princess came down. The interdimensionally famous princess looked a lot like a boy, to be honest. But her face spirals matched with her mother, so that had to be a relative if not the princess herself. She was only there for a moment before she ran back up the stairs, presumably into the gaudy looking tower that sprouted out of the two story house. That was the first the news had seen of Princess Diaz but it was far from the last.


After being briefly thrown off the school property until classes were over, the news crews invaded the halls of Echo Creek High like bulls in a fragile teenage china shop. Some minor bribing of the principal revealed that Marco was in the classroom of one Ms. Skullnick, who turned out to be a monster.

"If you're looking for Ms. Diaz," the green skinned Ms. Skullnick grumbled. "She's already left the dimension." The reporters began to interview the students who were in various stages of packing up to go home when Ms. Skullnick grabbed the four closest reporters by their fancy suits and hoisted them into the air.

"Now, I had better not see any of you ladies and gentlemen interrupting my class. I don't want to see you all harassing my students. I had better not hear about you stalking anyone on school grounds. Trolls live to be eight hundred years old, so I can make your whole lives and your family's lives miserable. Are we clear?" They were clear.

So the school was off limits, which was a shame. But the Diaz's hadn't made any laws about their house yet, despite the locks on every window. And there were no laws, and no trolls, preventing them from following the Diaz's around town. Rafael and Angie's lives were pretty boring. Angie was an author and Rafael was a cook at an upscale restaurant downtown. Both enjoyed a marked increase in their patronage with the publicity of their royal status. Otherwise they did grocery shopping, trimmed the lawn and mostly stayed inside with the curtains drawn.

The real news was with the Princess. Magic blasts and transformations, inter-dimensional balls, cocooning people in vines at their dojo, and midnight visits from demons. She was everything the journalists could have asked for. Nothing big enough to demand coverage from television crews, but plenty big for newspapers to work with. After years of obituaries, complaints about water towers and editorials this was a goldmine of information. They were more than ready to take advantage of the opportunity the princess had given them.

They were ready until the demon, that is. It had loosed some sort of curse upon them. Creaking walls and angry whispers haunted the afflicted. Some of them sought refuge in churches just to make them spirits go away. The paparazzi had lost all memories of the night excepting the memories of the princess asking the demon to not kill anyone and his glowing red eyes. All of them had lost all their photos, too. All phones, cameras, and other tech on them had been severely damaged if not completely destroyed, presumably by magic. Half of them quit on the spot. No one wanted to be haunted by angry specters. Doubly so if they didn't even have anything to show for it.

So, active photography and, let's be real here, stalking were out. No problem. Newspapers had gotten by on less before. They could do what they did best, dig stuff up at the city hall. A couple of mayors and such had bribed the paper to keep quiet about little things over the years, now they would be returning the favor for access to public and less-than-public records. One of the easiest places to start was birth certificates. Start at the beginning and all that. This is how Chip from the Echo Creek News offices hit paydirt at two twenty-three pm on a Saturday.



Hyun-Jin Sorenson sat in the waiting room of the planned parenthood. A picture of a couple in silly looking outfits laughing was on the wall across from his seat. The table he had kicked his feet up on was full of informational papers in bright colors. Pap smear information, birth control, the whole works spread out like a buffet of reading to keep your mid off of what you were there to do. It wasn't there for him.

He had been there plenty of times at this point. Hyun-Jin wasn't afraid any more. Okay, he was mildly afraid, but no more than usual. He had been pregnant a couple of times now. It wasn't a shock like it had been the first time. He had assumed that the testosterone would make it impossible to get pregnant but he had been wrong about that. The resulting trip to the Planned Parenthood had been more or less a panicked fugue state. He was more prepared this time. He was chill. He was ice. He was still mildly surprised when someone sat down next to him.

Hyun-Jin usually came in at this time because everyone else would usually pick a different time to come in. The fact that someone else showed up at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning was sort of amazing.

It was a younger person, probably a kid, in one of those fashionable scarfs that were so popular despite it being September in California, wrapped around their face.It was almost like they were hiding but the kid didn't seem afraid. They looked excited actually. Hyun-Jin was kind of jealous. That kid was having the time of their life and here he was doing what amounted to a semi-annual chore. Some people get all the luck. Might as well be friendly, though. There wasn't anything better to do than talk, and besides maybe some happiness would rub off or something, you never know.

"Hey."

"Oh, hey. Sorry, was this seat taken?"

"Not at all." He extended his fist for a bump. "I'm Hyun-Jin."

"Hi, I'm Marco. I'm here for HRT." Well that explained the good attitude. Hyun-Jin had been over the moon when he had first started Testosterone.

"Cool. Is this your first time here?"

"My first time at this one, not my first time at one ever. I went to the one down in Echo Creek before for my initial paperwork and stuff." Kid's happiness was just radiating off of her. Felt good to see someone else get their life under their control. "I'm really excited. I was going to wait for my friend Star, but she's impossible to wake up before ten when it's not a school day."

"I used to be that kid, too, back in high-school. Now I'm up all hours of the day. Maybe your friend will be like me." That set Marco off laughing. Star must really not be the 'wake-up-early' type. Well, keep laughing kid, because Hyun-Jin hadn't been either. "You never know what you'll be like when you grow up until you get there. I didn't expect to be a pregnant dude living in a planet-wide kingdom when I turned twenty four. You just gotta wait and see, sometimes."

"Speaking of," he went on. "What do you think about that whole King and Queen Diaz thing? It's a trip, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Marco laughed. "I sure wasn't expecting it. That's for sure."

"Did you hear the princess can do magic? Not the magic show type stuff, but the legit, honest to god, fairy godmother stuff."

"Yeah, the princess can do magic. I think the Queen can, too, technically."

"Man," Hyun-Jin said, crossing him arms behind his head. "I'd love to be able to do magic. I'd just change my body and be done with it. No more pills and patches. No more shots. It'd be great." Marco went quiet and stuck her hands in her hoodie pockets. "Sorry, Did I make it awkward?"

"No, it's just....you'd trust something you don't understand with your body. I tried that once and it turned out...badly. I still worry bout a recurrence. Who knows what magic could do. It could turn you into a plant instead of changing your organs. Or it could change your organs into the wrong types of organs. How would you like to have nine hearts?" Marco sighed and slumped in her chair. "Sorry, I just worry. Lots of people aren't very careful and I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else."

"Yeah, kid, but there's a point where you're gonna hafta trust people to make their own choices, even if they're bad ones. You get that right?"

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

"Chin up, girl. You're getting estrogen today."

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks Hyun-Jin."

Doctor Isewell chose this moment to come out of the door separating the waiting room from the offices. Her gnarled fingers curled around the clipboard with an unusually tight grip. She wasn't a morning person but why was she so stressed. Hyun-Jin hadn't seen her that nervous since her parrot was in the pet-hospital. It became a lot more clear when Dr. Isewell called in her next patient, one Princess Marco Diaz.

"Guess I'm up." Marco hopped off the chair, unaware of Dr. Pamela Isewell's stress or of Hyun-Jin rebooting his brain."Nice to meet you, Hyun-Jin." Marco followed the doctor into the the door which closed behind them with a soft thud. Hyun-Jin pulled out his phone. His mom was never going to believe this.

Chapter Text

The alarm clock went off from its spot on the nightstnad. Marco turned a bit but she had already lost the battle with the noise and now she's awake. She reached her arm out to slap the off button and connected with something distinctly not alarm clock shaped. Marco went from laying prone to prepared to attack in record time, hands ready to deliver some devastating, Grade A, Mackie Hand style punishment. If they thought they were getting her wand, they were about to think again.

"My apologies Princess!" The intruder said, cowering behind the nightstand. Marco didn't relax her posture, just kept her arms at the ready and jumped down on the floor with a quick hop. As she strafed the nightstand more of the stranger appeared. She didn't recognize them but they appeared to be pretty demonic, bat wings and pointy teeth and all. An assassin? Come to strike her down as she slept? That probably wasn't it despite how cool it would be to say she got the upper hand on an assassin.

As Marco looked around the room and found nothing out of place besides the obvious she turned her attention back to the mystery demon. They were still hiding behind her furniture in a pretty pitiable manner. The demon cowered even further as she got nearer. Ah, Geez. She couldn't fight them. It'd be like kicking a laser puppy. With a heavy sigh she slammed the button on the still ringing alarm clock and let her arms hang at her side. She had just woken up and her chest hurt, her nerves were dangerously close to shot and she had a test today. "Might as well get this show on the road" she grumbled with no small exasperation.

"Hey," she called to the demon. "I'm gonna need you out of the room for about fifteen minutes. My mom and dad are probably still eating breakfast if you want something."

"Of course, Princess!" The demon didn't so much leave as vanish in a puff of sulfur. It stank a fair bit but it was way easier to deal with than Tom's fire scorching her ceiling. She had almost considered the smell worth it when she saw the burn marks on the floor. She might have to get a landing pad of some kind if demons kept teleporting in. Maybe a grill or something. Sure, they were royalty but fixing the floor every time was still going to be a waste if she didn't so anything about it. "Note to Self: Install fireproof flooring."

Once she had speed showered and gotten dressed, (during which she noticed that she wasn't growing body-hair back as fast, to her utmost pleasure) she headed downstairs, wand in hand. She wasn't surprised to see the banner reading Congrats on Being a Princess hanging from the mantle. She was however, very surprised to see her parents chatting with King Lucitor and feeding him cake as he hunched himself over in the living room. Marco almost dropped her backpack in shock. She wasn't sure if they didn't notice or simply weren't acknowledging the holes his ten horns were poking in the roof.King Lucitor wasn't wearing a cape or spiky boots. Instead of that, he wore a pinstriped business suit with a fancy necktie pinned to his shirt with a skull. The demon from in her room was hovering nervously near the window with a vaguely familiar human.

"HELLO DAUGHTER-IN-LAW." King Lucitor faced her, smiling with his mouth full of razor teeth and sounding for all the world like a goofy dad about to tell a terrible dad-joke.

"Oh, Marco!" Her mom turned her head away from their demonic guest with a smile. "King Lucitor here was just telling us about the new mirrors he's having Klaarg install today."

"Mirrors?"

"Yes your Highness." A demon, presumably Klaarg, flew off the couch and knelt in front of Marco. "The Royal Family has sent many betrothal gifts to the Kingdom of Earth." Marco was momentarily distracted as her mom commented on how romantic is was, with a giggle and a grin.

"I AM PLEASED TO HER THAT YOU HAVE ACCEPTED MY SON'S PROPOSAL. THIS MAKES US F A M I L Y. I AM PLEASED TO WELCOME YOU TO OUR INFERNAL RANKS." Marco was not really sold until he continued on with "I HAVE BABY PICTURES YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE." Ah, yes. That'll do it. Nothing better than having dirt on your best friends.

 Klaarg carried on."Among the gifts is a set of mirrors." Klaarg conjures up a mirror from nowhere and holds it up to Marco's face. It was covered in spiders and skulls and over all very....Tom. She'd have to see if she couldn't get it customized elsewhere. "There is one with The Kingdom of Earth's Royal Symbol as well." Klaarg held up another mirror. It was a bit shorter but wider and decorated to look like a pretty tasteful rendition of the Sun of Earth they've become associated with. Marco's examination halted when she spotted a note slipped between the glass and frame of the mirror.

Hey Marco, thanks again for agreeing to marry me. I'm finishing up the last bit of training for being the king so we'll probably get married in about four to six months. Once that's done it should be business as usual for a while. There'll be a couple of yearly events the royal family has to show up for, but not too many. Also, we're gonna be hosting a feast afterwards to celebrate the wedding. I'm inviting Star and a couple of dignitaries from neighboring dimensions. Invite who you want. (We're serving unicorn for the second course, so maybe not PonyHead?)

 Marco could just see Tom's shifty look as he wrote that note. It had never occurred to her, but they did have unicorn blood in buckets dumped on people during the Blood Moon Ball. Maybe Unicorn was super popular in the way that lobster was popular on Earth. Maybe Tom was considered weird for hanging out with someone that others might consider food. Well, he was marrying a human, so it probably wasn't the weirdest thing he had ever done in his subjects' eyes. Speaking of subjects... she looked back to Klaarg who was still holding the Sun Mirror patiently.

"If you could set this one up," she pointed at the sun mirror, "in my room i'd appreciate it."

"It will be done, Princess Marco." The sun mirror vanished from Klaarg's hands in a puff of smoke, thankfully not sulfur scented.

"NOW, WIFE-OF-MY-SON, YOU MAY THINK THAT THE UNDERWORLD IS ONLY FULL OF MONSTERS AND DEMONS. BUT WE HAVE HUMANS AS CITIZENS AS WELL." Tom's dad pushed the human man near the window with his finger until the human was next to Klaarg the demon. As the man bent down in a bow Marco realized where she knew them from. "I WANT YOU TO MEET HIGH WITCH A L V I N G  C A N D L E."

"Mr, Candle is a witch?" Marco was mildly confused. She had figured Mr Candle was a demon of some sort in disguise. Maybe he was just borrowing Tom's gadgets to do his job. She didn't expect him to be a witch.

"I SEE YOU HAVE MET HIGH WITCH C A N D L E."

"Yeah, as a guidance counselor. Not as a High Witch."

"I do so enjoy guiding the youth of fellow humans in my free time, Princess Marco." Mr Candle was sweating slightly and shot her a pleading look. She considered ratting him out, but he had only been listening to Tom and hadn't seriously hurt anyone. She had forgiven people for more before, with less provocation. Marco waved neutrally as he walked back to his king's side with Klaarg.

"So, High Witch Candle," Mr. Diaz chimed in. "You live in Hell. How do you like it there?"

"I enjoy it very much, Your Highness. My family immigrated twenty years ago and it's been lovely." Mr. Candle's gentle voice resonated with pride. "Life under the rule of the royal house has been nothing short of wonderful. There is a thriving community of humans, all witches of course, in the Underworld. I am a spokesperson of sorts for the humans that live there."

Marco had never considered how Brian and Mr Candle knew Tom enough to work for him. It made sense though. People had always thought that witches were servants of the Devil. Maybe they hadn't been completely wrong?

"Nice to see you King Lucitor,Mr. High Witch Candle, Klaarg. But I've got to get to school."

"OF COURSE, BELOVED-OF-MY-CHILD, WE SHALL NOT DELAY YOUR DAILY ROUTINE. ONE MUST LEARN BEFORE THEY RULE AN ENTIRE REALM. I TRUST YOU HAVE GOOD GRADES?" Oh man, now she had a father-in-law breathing down her neck about grades.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good." She wasn't even lying. High B's and a single A on her report card last year had even earned her and Star a trip to DisneyLand. The fact that it was true didn't make it any less awkward to be telling this to a three story tall, demon king father-in-law, scrunched up on her parent's couch.

"Have a good day at school, Princess," Mr. Candle said evenly. Marco could see him holding something behind his back. It flickered out of sight in a cloud of smoke and she could feel her backpack grow heavier. "Prince Tom sends his regards."

It's only when she's eating lunch with everybody that she remembered the mysterious object in her backpack. Marco took it and pulled the lid off. With the greatest of reverence she raised her prize from its confines.

Jackie, Janna and MarcoFan13 (formerly StarFan13) all looked on in awe as Marco graced them with the glorious presence of her immaculate gift. The awe was marred a little but when Ferguson announced that he didn't get all the fuss over a CD. She could not believe he got her the new, limited print, Love Sentence Awesome Feeling Remix Album. Janna was more impressed with how quickly Tom had managed to grab a copy. She had lots of people that would would trade a lot of favors for that CD. MarcoFan was more of the mind that anything Marco liked was good as golden and behaved accordingly. Marco peeled the plastic coating off of the album and checked out the inside of the jewel-case. It even had digital download codes. Marco fist pumped with a quiet "YES." Three guess what she was doing during studyhall and the first two didn't count.

"That's totally rad, Marco." Jackie said, walking with Marco to dump off their empty lunch trays. "Are you going to the concert?"

"Concert?"

"Yeah, they're doing a concert two cities over. Apparently they want to go a concert in Echo Creek because this is where you live, but everything is already booked up. I guess everybody else had the same idea."

"I'll see if I can make it. I do know Star would love to go. I, however have to do some royalty stuff. Just politics and dimensional meet-and-greets. You know how it is." Marco flippantly waved her hand as though she weren't making decisions for the entire world. "I have to do some wedding planning, too."

"Wedding? Who for?"

Marco frowned for a moment before going slightly bug eyed. She had completely forgotten to tell her friends she was getting married to another friend from a different dimension. Yeah, this was going to be kind of awkward.

"Oh, yeah. About that..." Great start Marco. Way to not be awkward and obvious. "It' actually...My...wedding." Jackie stared at Marco, mouth agape as the wind pushed her blue hair into her eyes. "technically?"

They stood in the middle of the cafeteria, completely oblivious to the eavesdropping cheerleaders and lunch ladies. Yeah, Marco goofed on this one...

Chapter Text

The ensuing ten minutes between lunch and next class period was the third most awkward of her life. Marco was starting to sweat off her mascara as Jackie, Alfonso, Ferguson and MarcoFan13 all followed her to her locker, where they surrounded her with a whispered cacophony of questions.

"You're getting married?" Jackie was the first to talk. MarcoFan13 was the first to make noise, but Marco didn't really have any response for a thin, constant squealing sound.

"Yeah, but it's like not a huge deal." Marco shrugged, trying to play it off but Jackie wasn't letting that go so easily.

"You're like, sixteen. You're going to be seventeen in a month, Marco. Sev-en-teen. That is a huge deal."

"Yeah," Alfonso cut in. "That's kinda weird."

"Are your parents making you, ya know, cause you're a princess now?" Ferguson frowned worriedly and ground his shoe into the cheap high-school tile.

"No, guys. Nobody is making me get married. Tom needs to be married to be the king and didn't want to marry a stranger is all." Marco turned back to her open locker to grab her algebra book, grateful for the split second of not having to face her friends. Book in hand, she closed her locker firmly and turned back to them.

"Tom asked and I said yes." She graciously left out the begging on his knees and whining. "He's going to be King of the Underworld and I'm going to be Queen of the Underworld, and eventually Earth, when my folks retire."

"Are you sure about this, Marco?" Jackie set one hand on Marco's shoulder, he very picture of pure-hearted concern. "You can always say no, you know."

"Thanks Jackie." Marco gave her a quick, one armed hug.  "I know what I'm doing."

 Marco and Jackie split off from Alfonso and Ferguson, each heading back to their homeroom when Marco turned around. "If you have an questions ask High Witch Mr. Candle." Marco turned back around and caught up with Jackie who hadn't stopped walking.

 Marco smiled as she heard Alfonso and Ferguson exclaiming "Mr. Candle is a Witch? Cool!" Marco could only imagine what kind of questions Mr. Candle would be hearing from them for the rest of the school year.

Marco came home to her parents sitting on the couch watching the television in the living room. Star was upside down, with her feet hanging over the back of the love seat. The fact that King Lucitor was gone was a relief but it was offset by the fact that her parents looked dreadfully worried. Star didn't look too concerned, dropping popcorn into her mouth one at a time, but she rarely looked concerned when something bad wasn't happening to her specifically.

"Hey, guys... " Marco's brow furrowed as everyone turned to her. Star had carelessly dropped a piece of popcorn close to her open eye and desperately tried to vacuum it into her mouth by sucking in air in the popcorn's general direction. "What's going on?"

Turned out threats were what was going on. Most people liked their new monarchs. In fact, almost everyone was happy to have the Diaz family leading them into a bright, magical future. As in everything there were a few objectors, it was just how things were. The thing was, with the existence of magic being revealed some of the here-to-fore hidden magical communities were a lot more vocal for obvious reasons. Most of them were also pretty happy with the Diazes being the royal family of Earth. They thought the Diaz family was a Magical monarchy they could get behind. A small contingent of angry vampires, however, was throwing up a fuss with demands for one of them to rule.

"We've been here longer," the suited spokesperson repeated into the microphone, translating for the surly Italian vampire, who was wearing enough clothes to be seen Invisible Man Style on the camera. "We have been here since you were just colonies, you upstarts." In the gathered crowd Marco could see similarly moving assortments of clothing, other vampires no doubt, looking at each other and shaking their heads in ways that definitely seemed like eye rolls. "We should rule! You humans are weak and fragile. If you do not surrender the throne, we will take it!"

The legitimacy of the threat was somewhat undermined when the vampire turned to walk away into the crowd and tripped over their very long, and unnecessarily 'edgy' trench coat. The sleeves and gloves, and by extension the arms and hands within, whirled like an out of control helicopter as they stumbled and fell face first into a sidewalk. The gathered crowd looked around, murmuring, unsure of the etiquette of touching a vampire to help them up. The vampire continued to lie there on the ground until what appeared to be another vampire, or an invisible person in a more reasonable coat, helped them up and dragged them away by the arm. The first vampire muttered something as they strode away.

The camera then focused back on the suited reporter as the vampires disappeared into the crowd. "You heard it here first folks, Rebellion in the Kingdom of Earth! Didn't know vampires could be heard on camera, but not seen. Amazing, isn't it?"

Despite Angie and Rafael Diaz's concerns, Star and Marco were not too afraid.

"Marco," her mom said. "Are you sure this won't be a problem?" She put her finger to her mouth, chewing slightly on her nail. Her dad reached over and pulled her hand away to hold his.

"Oh, Mrs. Diaz," Star cut in waving her non-popcorn hand dismissively. "There's no way some chumps like that are going to be a problem. We are both great at monster fighting, pluuuus we have magic! We can take them all." Marco extends her first for a bump and Star obliges. "No problem."

Which is how Marco ends up dodging laser beams in a warehouse on a Saturday morning.

Marco dodged to the right, avoiding the blast of magic that carved a scorched smiley face into the ground. She rolled out of the blast zone and hid behind a partially collapsed brick wall. Most of the glass in he warehouse was gone, broken over the years by various squatters for seemingly random reasons. Some of those windows had even been broken cleanly, meaning that she'd have a way out if she could get there fast enough. She had been fighting for about a half an hour by now and was ready to get out as fast as she could.  Another laser blasted chunks off the wall Marco was hiding behind and she decided to go for it.

Marco waved her wand and shot out a clump of bramble vines to her right. The laser beam goes for the thorny tumbleweed. Marco takes the distraction and heads towards the window. The wand in her hand glowed as she sprinted and aimed at the floor.

"Upsy Daisy!"

Marco quickly got over whatever lingering embarrassment came from saying something like that when a daisy the size of a trampoline popped into existence below the window. The laser missed Marco by an inch as she threw herself feet first into the petals and went rocketing into the air.

As she neared the window, she swung her wand wordlessly and jasmine vines sprung out. The jasmine grew into the wall around the top of the window, forming a sturdy attachment as Marco went sailing above the window. The vines tightened on the down swing and Marco swung foot first out the busted out window, into bright daylight. The wind blew sweat out of her hair and a voice sharply proclaimed "TIME!"

Marco let go of the vine and landed in a crouch next to the source of the voice. Madams Hymnal and Magireace were standing next to a pile of apples as tall as themselves, six beautiful swords made out of rapidly wilting grass and one gigantic bumble bee. Madam Hymnal wasn't a physically imposing magic tutor but she had the look of a librarian that took one look at you and saw all your flaws, late fees and everything. Madam Magireace was short and squat but just as stern looking. The two of them started speaking to each other in low tones and Marco turned away to give them a bit of privacy, or at least the illusion of it.

Marco watched as the conjured warehouse dissolved, leaving Star standing in the middle of a clearing, blowing on her wand like it was leaking gun smoke. Trust Star to showboat at Marco's magic exam. Star hurried over, swinging her wand like a bubble-wand.

"That was fun Marco, but you cold use some more work on the ol' upswing." Star grinned brightly and tapped a playful fist against Marco's shoulder.

"Do you really think I did okay?" Marco looked down at the wand in her hand. The flower in the crown had gone back to a tiny green sprout but she could feel it humming with magic and ready to go.

"Yeah, I do!" Star draped herself over Marco's shoulder like a particularly effervescent cape. "You did way better than I did with my exam with Baby."

"Star, you specialize in battle magic. I specialize in making plants grow."

"Yeah, and that vine totally brought them that apple in one piece." Marco had accidentally flooded the warehouse with apples when the vine flowered into a pitcher-flower which ate the initial apple. Every leaf and flower on it turned into a copy of the same apple and started shedding them uncontrollably for a good ten minutes. Marco had a feeling that Baby would have failed her for that.

"Princesses!" Marco and Star turned to the tutors behind them. "We have a deliberation for you, your highnesses." Star grabbed Marco's arm and turned her around eagerly.

Madams Hymnal and Magireace looked at each other and then back to the waiting teenage girls. As one they announced, "You have passed." Star whooped with  joy and Marco simply sighed with relief. "The Queen will require some extra magic tutoring, which will happen as she deems fit. Good showing, Princess."

"See Marco, I told you you'd pass." Marco smiled wearily. She didn't exactly get the Dragon Ball Powers she wanted,she considered staring down at her wand, but she could make this work, too.

Chapter Text

"So is it Midnight or Darkness, your Majesty?"

Marco and Tom sat next to each other on the couch in Tom's room, filling out paper work on clipboards. Star's chair and clipboard were long abandoned as she wandered around the room. Where the ping-pong table usually stood, there was a large table heaped halfway to te stone ceiling with color palettes, fabric samples, vials of blood and other mysterious things. The attendants rushed back and forth between the sitting royalty and the table with all the efficiency of adrenaline soaked bumblebees.

One of the demons, a vaguely feminine shadow that introduced itself as Girm, held two swatches of indistinguishable black fabric in its non-corporeal hands. Marco, unable to see any real difference, sat back a touch and looked at Tom. Tom leaned forwards, hands folded pensively in front of his mouth. HE silently pointed at the one on the right and Girm hustled back to the table where Star was picking through the stuff in search of anything neat to mess around with. Marco looked down at her clipboard. Three requests for emergency assistance (a landslide in Northern India, a drought in Iran and a very large sinkhole in Central Florida that just reeked of magic), a questionnaire about royal symbols (why did she need to be associated with more symbols than the Royal Sun), and approximately half a book of appeals from politicians for royal funding on their pet projects, less than a third of which would actually help people.

"Alright, everybody," Tom said amiably. "Let's take a break for now." The demons all bowed and walked out in a single file leaving Star, Marco and Tom alone in the room. Tom stretched himself out to his full nine foot length and flopped sideways on the couch. Marco shoved his feet off her lap briskly.

"Man, that was so boring." Star was on her stomach, staring into Marshmallow's cage, watching as he shredded some of the cloth from the table. "I hope I never have to do this stuff when I get married. I'll just magic up a wedding and it'll be fine."

"I don't know, Star. I kind of like this stuff. Making decisions and being listened to on every little detail. Its nice." Marco set her clipboard down on the arm of the sofa and leaned back. Tom slung his feet up on her lap again and she pushed them back off. When he put them back, she  grabbed both of his feet around the ankles and pulled. Both of his legs came off at the knee and he yelped. Star turned away from the bunny cage and guffawed at the sight of Tom's empty pant legs and surprised expression.

"Hey!" Tom sat up and reached for his stolen appendages. Marco threw one to Star, who caught it expertly. Marco shoved the other one into the crevice of the sofa behind her back. Tom tried to reach over Marco's shoulder to get his leg without tipping over, a feat that was complicated by Marco swatting his hand out of the air whenever it got close to its target.

Unable to maintain his balance and regain his leg, Tom decided to throw himself forwards and squish Marco. She threw her arms around him, attempting to keep him from being able to grab anything but he kept breaking free of her flimsy hold. She turned her head this way and that, trying to catch his hands in her red plastic horns.

"Go, Star!" Marco called out, through her gasping laughter. "Save yourself!"

"Your sacrifice will not be in vain, Shield-sister!" Star tucked the lavender leg under her arm like a football and went running out the door.

"You little rat!" Tom hissed faux menacingly into the laughing face of the leg thief herself. Tom reached for his leg again but preternatural quickness was no match for someone playing keep-away. Marco held the leg as far away as she could get it. His boot clad foot banged up against the mirror on the wall. They both paused to look at it and make sure it wasn't broken. When nothing happened Tom took the opportunity to swipe the leg back from Marco.

Marco tried to grab it again, but Tom just kept pressing her into the side of the couch. For a guy who could float, he was incredibly heavy when he wanted to be. He had her pressed against the sofa cushions, lording his success over her with a smile when his dad came into the room. The door stretched to accommodate him as he walked in, holding Star by the back of her dress like a stray cat and his son's leg in this other hand.

Tom and Marco freeze when they notice him staring at them. All of his eyes were wide open, almost too wide open to the point where there wasn't enough room for them on his face. Tom's eyes were much the same and he had lost all color in his face. Whatever color Tom had lost went straight to Marco as she realized what it must have looked like to the demon who just walked in to see his son on top of his Fiancee on the couch. Her face spirals had straightened out into tiny exclamation points. Nobody moved for a minute and then Star, who had been dangling in awkward silence finally broke the tension with the hammer that was her personality.

"Yeah, this is fun and all, but..." Star wiggled free of King Lucitor's slackened grip and went to grab her all but forgotten clipboard of paperwork.

Tom hastily pushed himself back to the other end of the couch. He reattached the leg in his hand to his body as Marco sat up and grabbed her own paperwork. Tom watched with his left eye as the girls cut a dimensional hole with Marco's stylish scissors and scarcely said bye before scrambling through it in their hurry to be free. Well, lucky them. He was stuck here with his dad, who was still staring at him wordlessly.

Tom watched as his father set Tom's other leg by the door and left the room. The anguish only increased, however, when a box came sailing in through the open doorway.

Tom fell off his couch in his panic to get away from the condoms his dad had just given him.

Chapter Text

It was November and SoCal had become one long, flat layer of heat. Most of the people that had moved out there to be close to the royal family were spending their days inside, in the air conditioned safety of their expensive homes. Marco and Jackie were hanging out in the local park with the laser puppies. Jackie and Marco had decided to match shirts today. Marco's signature red hoodie was tied around her waist to reveal her Princesses Against Poverty tank top. Jackie had on her Mermaids Against Misogyny tank on. Most of the people in the same park were just average people doing their average everyday things. Kids were climbing trees, daring each other to challenge them to mock sword-fights with brittle sticks.

Two people were obviously watching Marco and Jackie. They were decked out in suits with the fancy little pocket squares, one red, the other black. These guys looked way too fancy to be any kind of protection detail. When Barko and Sajack found a perfect spot to do their puppy business the rest of them all followed suit. It was then that the man with the black pocket square came up to them. He walked with the self assured arrogance of someone that was used to pushing people around. Jackie and Marco both found that they pretty much instantly disliked him.

"Hello, Princess Marco." He bowed with a flourish, whipping off his sleek sunglasses and nearly whacking Jackie in the face. Jackie side stepped it and backed up behind Marco. The suited stranger tossed his glasses to Jackie. She raised both of her hands and dodged with a look of disgust. The Suit Man didn't notice, eyes glued on Marco.

"I am Dick Hardy and I represent Lettam, the premiere toy making company on Earth. And I want to talk to you about being the face of our toy line!"

Marco and Jackie looked at each other with heavy skepticism.

"I'm pretty sure I told Lettam," Marco said through a scowl, "That I already have a merchandise supplier."

"And" Jackie cut in, "You severely pollute the water around your factories and don't pay your workers enough."

Dick Hardy finally graced Jackie with an ounce of his attention. He sneered as he run his lascivious eyes over her. "Princess Marco, I see it's hard for Everyone to get good help these days." He rubbed his nails against the coat of his suit, facetiously buffing their already pristine surface. "Otherwise, I imagine you'd have a less mouthy hand maiden." He laid his hand on Marco's shoulder as he stepped past her to put himself directly in Jackie's space.

"She looks decent for a mermaid, I suppose." He grabbed a chunk of her hair and ran his fingers through it. Jackie took a big step back and nearly stepped on a laser puppy. Marco moved around Dick to separate them. "Usually the fish-sticks have more scales when they come on land. Am I right?" He elbowed Marco in a manner that displayed how completely oblivious he was to the anger of the two fuming girls and the quietly growling laser puppies. Well, he wasn't going to be oblivious for much longer.

Marco reached into her shirt and pulled her wand out of her bra strap. With a flick of her wrist the flower bud popped open into a Venus Fly Trap the size of a dinner plate. The Lettam rep took a fruitless half-step back only to be crushed in a vice grip as a gigantic Fly Trap sprouted beneath his feet and closed on him, trapping him inside. Jackie looked on in amazement as the man started yelling angrily. She silently extended her fist to Marco. The ensuing bump was gratifying in all the right ways.

Marco walked closer to stand alongside the Fly Trap. She frowned at the man inside who was peering out from the gaps between its teeth and complaining loudly. "You've been pushy and wouldn't take no for an answer. You were rude to my friend just because she wasn't royalty. You're racist against merpeople. You can't even take constructive criticism about your company."

As she spoke the Fly Trap began to shrink back into the ground, Dick Hardy still inside. He began to struggle, trying to escape. When it seemed as though it was going to drag him all the way under it popped open enough to let his head out and dissipated, leaving him effectively planted in the dirt. Marco giggled a bit when one of the laser puppies kicked dirt into his face. She turned to leave him to his new life as a plant when Jackie put her hand on Marco's shoulder.

"Wait, isn't this kind of mean?" Jackie rubbed her bare arm uneasily. "I mean, let's at least give him some water." Marco looked at her and back down at the newly planted jerk.

"Yeah, you're right. Let's un-plant him." Marco grabbed one shoulder and Jackie grabbed the other and they pulled him out of the ground. His little pocket square was mussed and covered in dirt like the rest of him. His suited cohort , who had been standing to the side the entire time, came rushing over to grab him once he was free.

Suit Dude slung one of Dick Hardy's arms over his shoulder and tried to walk the dazed man away.Jackie called out after them, pointing to the ground.

"Don't forget your sunglasses, dude!" If they heard her, they didn't stop. "Well, that was a bummer."

"Yeah." The girls stood in silence for a moment, letting the warmth of the air and the sounds of the park ease their troubled minds. Jackie grabbed four of the puppies in her arms and turned to Marco.

"Hey. Think you can still get up that Princes Special at the Ice Cream Shack?"

"Two for one? Sure thing." The two walked away from the park, puppies in tow, for some double dipped sundae cones.

Chapter Text

The package had arrived about ten minutes into the argument about last names. Traditionally, the wife of a prince would take the name of a prince in the human world, much as in the demon world. However, since it was a political, platonic marriage, it stood to reason that there wasn't any particular reason to follow that because "rules like that are pointless, Marco." Therefore the only reasonable decision would be to let both parties keep their names and hyphenate. The ensuing argument about which name should go first had started as a mild joke and quickly transformed into a competition.

Tom, of course, way royalty. Marco was, too, but they both knew that she had been for less than a year and their name hadn't really built up a lot of power yet. Marco insisted that her being Interdimensionally famous made her name super important. It was one thing to be royalty, but being Famous Royalty, a celebrity to even Kings and Queens, was a different, more glamorous story. Presumably the argument would have gone on and on, had a burst of flame not sprouted from the floor.

For what felt like a solid thirty seconds, fire spiraled up from the floor in a column of heat and light. When it finally settled a single skeleton in a T-Shirt and a backwards baseball cap remained, finger guns at the ready.

"Heeeey, Tom, Marco!" He said, coming in with both hands in the air to deliver high fives to the both of them.

"Hey, Fresh Skeleton,what's up?" Upon completing his high five, Tom leaned to the left and leaned his arm on top of Marco's head,between her horns, like she was a piece of furniture. Marco ducked once it seemed that he had gotten comfortable, only for Tom to NOT fall, but remain exactly where he was, which, Totally wasn't fair. She resisted the urge to pout, but did roll her eyes, when Tom stuck out his tongue at her.

"So check it out! I've got the prototype of ya' boy, Tom, over here. If you two rad cats want to look at it?" Fresh Skeleton stuck on bony arm under theirT-Shirt and began to rummage around in his rib-cage.

Tom turned to Marco with a confused glance."Prototype?"

"Yeah, The people that make the Princess Marco action figures are making a limited edition doll of you." Fresh Skeleton handed the successfully retrieved package to Marco, who opened it with gusto and held it up, way up, for Tom to see. "You'll be getting royalties, of course."

Tom's eyes went wide with surprise. His gasp may very well have stolen half the air from the room. Tom's taloned hand reached forward slowly, stopping just shy of touching it

"Marco," he whispered. "Is that me?"

"Yeah, pretty cool, huh? I had the same reaction with my first action figure." Marco lowered it back to eye height, for her, not him. He leaned over he shoulder, looking down with stars in his eyes.

"Tom Lucitor" was scribbled on the top of the box, clearly a mock up of where the doubtlessly fancier version of his name would go. The makers had done a decent job of modeling Tom's horns and hair. The eyes were a bit too wide to be a perfect representation, She'd have to make a note of that. They always had trouble getting the eyes right.

"Check it out, Tom." Marco pressed a finger down on the center of the doll's back. The miniature Tom's eyes turned white hot and its mouth turned into a grimace. After seeing this Tom looked between the doll, Marco and Fresh Skeleton. Slowly he plucked his likeness from Marco's hands and squished it to his chest. Tom was now starting to tear up, just a bit.

"I love you." Marco was very nearly laughing at Tom's sincere joy.

"Um...Who? Fresh Skeleton or me?"

"Yes." Tom was now just moving the arms around and checking out the bottoms of its feet. Marco turned away from Tom and towards their bony friend.

"Looks like he likes it, Fresh Skeleton."

"Alright, sistah! High five!" Marco just about jumped out of her skin at the veritable shriek. She clapped her hands over here ears.

"Fresh, inside voices?"

"Oh, yeah. That was unchill of me," they said. Now much more quietly "High five?" The requested high five was delivered to both party's satisfaction. "Glad to hear Tom's digging it."

"Yeah, me too. There are a couple of concerns, though. They did that thing with the eyes again. And the claws might end up being too sharp for kids. There should be a warning about that somewhere on the box. I know they're collectors items, but kids get into all sorts of stuff. But I trust you'll be able to get all that checked out."

"Gotcha, Marco." Fresh Skeleton nodded, writing down comments on a notepad also pulled from their rib-cage. "And did you want that optional thing included too?"

Marco looked over at Tom, who was gleefully snapping pictures of himself and his toy, almost oblivious to the others in the room. She turned back to Fresh Skeleton with a smile on her face. "Yeah, but keep it kid friendly. Alright?"

The next month, Tom saw little Toms spewing fox-fire, a small, magical, non-catching fire from their heads and agreed to hyphenate as Tom Diaz-Lucitor on the spot.