Star stared up into the pitch-black abyss that hid the ceiling of her room. It was late on Mewni, sometime between eleven o'clock and midnight. With the lack of a city or town full of lightbulbs to fill the night sky with light pollution, Star couldn't see her own hands in front of her face. With the lack of light around her and her body still, Star was able to key onto her other senses more aptly: She could feel her chest rise and fall and rise again as she breathed, could smell the faint scent of lemon in her linens, and could hear how absolutely quiet the world around her was. And yet, while Mewni slept soundly and Star's room lay as motionless as her body, her mind raced with fears and doubt that kept her from embracing the peacefulness around her and falling asleep as well.

Mewni. Her people. Her role as a princess and eventually queen. The damage Toffee dealt to everyone. The monsters and how she was going to end the prejudice against them. Eclipsa. Her mother. Her friends. Tom. Marco. All of it kept cycling in and out, one doubt leading to another fear leading to more anxiety and frustration. How could she keep her friendship with Marco strong, her relationship with Tom equally stable, her fellow mewmans happy as well as the monsters, her mother's warning's in mind while also her sense of justice towards Eclipsa-

Star tightened her fists and closed her eyes, frustration boiling over into anger. Why did she have to juggle so much at one time? Any one of those issues would have been challenge enough, and now she had all of them on her at once. The stress was crushing her, suffocating her, destroying her. She needed some way to deal with it all, to relieve herself of the weight of her worries. She thought about running away. She thought about running far, far away to some distant, unknown dimension where she could ignore everything that was going on in Mewni and just stop caring.

It was tempting.

Star opened her eyes again and let out a small sigh. It wouldn't work. Hekapoo or Marco would find her. Hekapoo knew the dimensions too well, and Marco had already used the spying spell to find where the golden portal had transported her. Besides, she couldn't just leave it all behind. She cared too much. It was the reason she was worrying in the first place, because she didn't want to hurt anyone, to let them down. Leaving right now would just make her guilt worse and worse until she cracked. Running away never makes anything better, it just delays the inevitable.

You would know, a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered. You're very good at running away.

In front of Star, in the black void she had been staring on and off again for the past hour, she saw the image of Marco Diaz, her best friend, her once crush, now squire. She saw him smile, scream out in terror, laugh, cry, stare at her like she was the only thing that mattered, his face when she told him to the truth, his lips making the words "I-"

Star closed her eyes quickly. In the darkness that consumed her, she saw Marco with Jackie. Hugging. Kissing. Laughing. Pain soared through her, but before it could overwhelm her, she thought out a simple command: stop. It's over. And the images dissipated, colors recombining to show her Tom, his own warm smile and charming features looking back at her. She saw his anger, his frustration, his selfishness. And then she saw his shamed face, his efforts to improve, his pathetic face begging her for a second chance. She thought about shutting him out as well, but before she could do so, their conversation from earlier in the night came up.

Star had tried to confide in Tom about her worries regarding the future of Mewni and her political issues, but Tom had cut her off.

"Star, Star, you need to chill out," he said smoothly. "All these worries are gonna kill you, girl. You need to relax, kick back and enjoy yourself a little more."

Star's face grew irritated. "These problems aren't just going to go away, Tom. If I don't deal with them now, it'll all just get worse and worse until I can't do anything about them. I need your help to get through this."

"Star, I'm still only a prince." His voice had gotten more agitated, more frustrated. The candle in between them had gotten slightly brighter. "You're still only a princess. Let your mother handle all of this, it's her job."

Star shook her head. "Haven't you been paying attention? My mom's the one trying to convict Eclipsa, and she doesn't care about the monsters. If I let her just do her thing, I'm screwed. I can't just ignore the world around me because I don't want to deal with it, Tom. Not anymore. And you shouldn't either."

The candle fire grew brighter and hotter once again, eating away at the wax below it at an alarming rate. "Star, you're going insane over this stuff. You can't keep going like this, no matter how important all of this is to you. I'm just asking that when we're together we let go and just enjoy the moment, ok?"

Star took in a deep breathe and was about to reply when they were ambushed by a group of masked bandits. The fighting with the bandits ended up taking two full hours. By the end of it, most of the bandits had fled, except for one. Star had trapped them in a large glob of syrup, immobilizing them. When Star and Tom went to interrogate him, the bandit had tried to spit in their faces. They demanded to know why they had attacked. The bandit reluctantly informed them that they had been trying to assassinate them, as they were part of a cult that was out to destroy the kingdoms of Mewni and replace them with new governments. Tom was ready to end the bandit, but Star stopped him and called for her guards to come and collect him instead. As they were leaving the restaurant they had been eating/fighting in, Star made one last remark:

"Do you think ignoring that would have stopped that?"

Tom scowled. "No, but I think it would have lessened the rest of the stresses on you."

Star bit her lip but didn't respond. Sleep was starting to come to her, and the memory began to fade into abstraction. As her consciousness left her, one last thought pierced her mind: Maybe he was right.

The next day, Star woke up drowsy and achy. She groaned bitterly at the beam of light that penetrated her curtains and found their way right into Star's eyes. Grumbling curses of pain and endless death under her breath in Mewnian, she turned to her other side and tried to fall back asleep.

Knock, knock, knock- "Hey, Star!" Marco's muffled voice hit Star's eardrums like a tsunami wave. "Are you ready? It's nearly eight."

Star pulled her pillow over her head and groaned in deep frustration. She considered telling him that it would only be a moment and then fall back to sleep, or not answering at all and fall back to sleep, or destroy all of Mewni with a single magical blast, destroying everything and everyone she knew… and then fall back to sleep.

Instead, she got up, yawned moodily, and responded, "Give me a few minutes." A few minutes later, Star opened her bedroom door to find Marco waiting, his left foot tapping away impatiently. Star narrowed her eyes at him. "Kept you waiting, huh?"

Marco frowned disapprovingly. "Come on, Star, I know it sucks, but if we don't get up early, we'll never get-"

"-anything done, I know." As much as Star hated it, Marco's timeliness and 'morning person' attitude had helped her get a lot more done than she had before he'd arrived. That didn't mean she had to like it, though. Star was not, and would most likely never be, a 'morning person'. Getting up before ten o'clock had been a foreign idea to her on Earth, and with Marco back, it looked like she'd be stuck with that schedule forever. Star grimaced and tried to muster up enough energy to wake up out of her slow start. "Gotta take the day by surprise before it takes you by surprise."

Marco gave her an absurdly pleased smile. "Exactly! We've got a lot on our plate today, so we've got to start now." He dug deep into one of his skinny jeans' pockets and pulled out a small crumpled piece of paper. "I started a list for today to help us get organized. First things first, we'll-" and Marco proceeded to list off a number of different chores and activities that they would do that day. Some of the items were royal duties Star had to take care of, some were household chores they needed to do, and a few were activities based around relaxation and chilling out. Star smiled. Marco knew that she had a lot that she needed to get done, but he also knew how to balance it out so that Star didn't go insane. Also he was a huge dork about it and it was adorable to see.

"-talk to Eclipsa-" Marco listed off mindlessly.

Star winced and looked down towards the ground. Marco was too distracted with his list to notice until he reached the last item. "- And that takes us to bed. It's a pretty full schedule, but I'm sure that if we- Star?"

Star took in a deep breath and steeled herself. Then she looked at Marco with her most serious and determined eyes and said, "I need to talk to Eclipsa alone." Her voice was crisp, short, business-like. Marco blinked and returned her serious gaze with a dumb one.

"Uh, are you-"

"Yes," Star cut him off. She kept her hard gaze on him, trying not to let any doubt or concern show. "I… I need to talk to her myself. I don't think she likes you very much, and she probably won't give us a lot of info if you're there, sooooooooo… yeah."

Marco stared at her, still shocked. Why would she have asked him to help her last night and then immediately tell him to stay away the next morning? "Are you-"

"Yes."

Silence. "Ok, if you say so."

Star winced. She hadn't meant to be so harsh. She gave Marco a reassuring smile. "Hey, you said it yourself, it's going to be a big day today. I don't want to over work you. Just, I don't know, hang out with some one or enjoy the, uh, garden or…" her voice trailed off and her false upbeat tone died with it. "I'm sorry," she said flatly, "But I can't have you there for the interrogation."

Marco stared at her for a long time, unsure. He knew that something was up, but he also knew how stubborn Star was and that she most likely wasn't going to tell him what was up. At least not yet. "Well, if you're sure…"

"Yeah, yeah, it'll be fine." Star took the list out of Marco's hand and started walking down the hallway. "So what's the first thing on the list, breakfast? Ooooooo, today's Sunday, you know what that means?" Star's face brightened up with real excitement. "Corn!"

Marco's stare didn't waver at first, still concerned. Eventually, however, Star's carefree attitude got the best of him and he relaxed. His face grew pale and ill, and he muttered under his breath, "We have corn everyday. For every meal."

Star rolled her eyes. "Marco, you've been here for how many months? We only grow corn. We only eat corn. We are corn."

An image of a corn Star popped into Marco's head and he shivered. "God, no."

The rest of the morning went smoothly. They ate breakfast, talked with dignitaries regarding current events and political negotiations, investigated mewman law for Eclipsa's trial, and ate lunch (which tasted incredibly similar to their breakfast). Neither acted like anything odd was going on, though Marco did glance at Star several times, still wondering why she was acting so oddly. It wasn't as though Star was acting unlike herself, as Marco could remember several times when she had been suddenly cold or remote both on Earth and on Mewni. For a long time, Marco just thought that it was one of Star's many quirks and that it didn't really matter. Then Star had acted extremely weird towards Marco before revealing her crush on him. After that, Marco had come to realize that Star's weird behavior wasn't just random and goofy, they were signals that Star was holding back something… in a goofy way. The only problem was the Marco couldn't figure out what Star's mannerisms meant. He just hadn't paid attention earlier in their friendship to figure out what they meant.

Marco was silently cursing himself for not being more observant in the past while also racking his brain for any details he missed throughout when Star waved her hand in front of him. "Marco, wake up." Her voice was curt and business-like. It was likely that Marco had missed her first few attempts to break through his pensive thoughts. Marco blinked.

"Wha?" He asked dazed, trying to remember what he'd been doing and what Star had been saying.

Star frowned at him. "I said I don't know how long my talk with Eclipsa will take, so you're probably going to have to ignore the schedule for the rest of the day."

Marco shook his head and remembered where he was. They had just finished lunch and they'd started walking down the hallway towards the garden. Star had been saying something about Eclipsa when he'd zoned out.

"Oh, right… hey, wait!" Marco's face grew red with indignation. "We can't break away from the schedule, we'll never get anything done."

"Marco, Marco." Star had a wonderful way of talking down to people who were taller than her. "Life is change. We must adjust to what it throws at us."

Marco gave her a sour look. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, Star."

Star gave him a flat look. "Get over it Marco." She waved him goodbye, saying "See you later. Don't get yourself killed."

Marco's heartbeat rose up with concern. He was about to ask Star one last time if she was sure that she wanted to talk to Eclipsa alone, but she had already taken off. Marco thought about going after her, confronting her and demanding to know what was up. It was very tempting. The issue was that it wasn't going to solve anything, and he knew it. Star was the most stubborn person he knew, save for maybe himself. Despite that, a large part of him still wanted to go and protect her, save her from…

Herself?

Marco shook his head and started walking again. He didn't know where, just that he needed to clear his thoughts. Star would be fine, he reasoned. She was very capable and had grown a lot since he'd met her. And she hated it when people doubted her or treated her like she was incompetent or incapable. If he'd tried to butt in, it probably would have just hurt their already rocky friendship more. Probably.

Then again, he was supposed to be her squire, her voice of reason, her best friend. Would a real friend act so passive and uninvolved when there was the possibility that they were in danger, that they needed help? Star had made her fair share of mistakes, and Marco had helped stop her from making some worse ones before.

But then again, everyone made mistakes. Including himself. Like coming back here when you were clearly not wanted, a small voice whispered into his ear.

Bzzzt, bzzzt. Marco's phone rang twice, and then not at all. Marco pushed aside whatever doubts he had at the moment about Star or himself to see who had texted him. For the second time in twenty four hours, Kelly's face shone up at him from the screen on his phone. Next to her face was a single word: "So?"

"So what?"

"You know what I mean. Did you talk to her?"

Marco grimaced. "No. Didn't get the chance to."

"Mmmmmmm. Really?"

"Don't 'MMMMMMMMMM Really me. It was late and she was tired. I'll tell her later."

"Sure. Also, I didn't MMMMMMMMMM Really you. I Mmmmmmmmm Really'd you."

"Ha ha. How's your moving going?"

"As a matter of fact, I just got off of work and was going to start packing some of my things."

"Sure you were."

Instead of a text message, Kelly sent him a picture of herself in an apartment room. The room didn't have much in it, a bed, a computer, some books on a shelf, some basic appliances like clocks and stuff, and several brown moving boxes. Kelly had one of the books in her hand and was putting it into one of the brown boxes.

"Huh." Marco was surprised. After seeing how scared Kelly was of facing her parents again, he was sure that she would have delayed even starting the moving process for at least a week. He was impressed. "Damn. Well done." And then, without thinking, he added, "Need any help?"

Kelly didn't respond immediately. Marco grew embarrassed and started cursing himself. Had he seemed to forward, to imposing? They had just met and talked for a long time last night, and he didn't want to give her the wrong idea. But then,

"Sure, that'd be great! There's more here than it looks. See you soon?"

Marco relaxed, smiled, and instead of replying, took out his scissors. He ripped a hole through dimensions that showed him the face of a beaming friend. "Hey Marco!"

Whoa this is long. This is really two-three chapters in one, but it would have felt awkward to separate it all, and I wanted the next chapter to skip back to Kelly. Also, there won't be another chapter for a few weeks. I need to take a hiatus to better map out the story and see where I want it to go. Next week there will be a fic for a friend of mine, and the week after a fic for a request. Until then, stay safe and have a nice day!