Heyoo, new fanfic here we come - like it says in the summary, this is a sequel to 'A Confused Christmas For Marco', it's pretty mandatory - chapter 1-2 is a bit iffy but I swear it does get better. To be honest, you could skip those and start at 3... Maybe.

Twitter: vKAtFanfic_Net - I provide updates on new chapters and fic when the site just bums me over.

Finally, this may/probably will turn into an 'M' rated fanfiction later down the line. So if it disappears one day from your list, try searching through the 'M' fics too! Enjoy ~

Spring was in full effect by now: Green had once again taken over the kingdom of Mewni by storm, unfortunately, just like Earth – pollen was a thing here. Meaning Marco would be very uncomfortable for the foreseeable future. This story begins in the same location as before, the Butterfly Castle. However, unlike last time, it was not dreary winter night with solemnness surrounding the castle. Instead it had a beautiful rose garden flourishing below to which Eclipsa made sure to take extra care of, nobody knew why she held such a fondness for that garden.

Moving on further up the gigantic castle, we eventually reach the rec. room, where Marco and Tom were currently preparing for Mewni's annual 'Table Tennis Championship Tournament', after getting over their differences and understanding each other more they had found that they actually played very well together in table tennis. They had Star whip up clones of themselves so that they could verse players of equal skill, unsurprisingly, it was currently at 32-31 to the real. Anyone that understands table tennis rules would be able to tell you that usually a round of a game ends when one side reaches 11 points. The caveat being that it has to be by a 2 point margin… Meaning that because they were identically skilled players this was highly unlikely to happen.

They were on their last round now, it was best out of 5, with each side being on 2-2. Whoever won this set takes all. The two, who at this point were very enveloped in a sense of pure concentration, took half a side each - same to their opposites. Marco was handling the left side, adjacent to Fom (Fake Tom), whereas Tom was taking right, opposite to Farco. Come on, just one more hit! Marco thought to himself, a bead of sweat dripping down his temple: He didn't care.

"Tom!" He yelled.

"I know dammit!" Tom hastily replied before putting an absurd amount of spin on the ball, it duped Fom into thinking it was coming for him, when at the last moment just before connecting to his racket – it made a sharp right and headed for Farco who wasn't prepared for such an attack and in a moment of panic didn't know what to do, eventually leading him to dropping the ball off the table.

With that, the game had ended, the real team had won. "Yes!" Cried Marco in glee after 3 hours of consecutive table tennis. Tom had just dropped on the floor in victory, throwing 1 open hand into the air for Marco to respond with a powerful, victorious high-five.

In the Kitchen

Kelly had dropped on over to see Star, and the two were currently baking cookies in the kitchen. Kelly was a very good cook in fact, or at least a very clean one, virtually 0 mess around her workstation or her apron. Meanwhile, the same could not be said for Star, she had flour dropped on the floor, her apron, the table – I'm pretty sure she had even managed to get some on the ceiling: I'm not gonna question it.

"It feels like forever since we've hung out like this Kel." Star chirped.

"Yeah it's definitely been far too long." She replied in a casual tone, contradictory to her face which was completely focused on her mixing. Kelly had even slightly poked her tongue out, which made her face cute but deadly serious.

"So how have you and Tad been lately?" An inquisitive Star pried.

"Well, he's finally moved out… I think. So that's good, but we haven't really seen or talked much since." She didn't seem to fazed or bothered when saying this, it seems like she really must be over him.

"Good for you! He was always so clingy." Star confessed, with her face now looking as if she was trying to set the mixture on fire with her mind.

Kelly let out a light giggle at this, "Yeah I guess he was."

The time had come for them to add the chocolate, while Kelly was moderately increasing the amount in her mix, being sure to not over-do it, Star had pretty much dropped the entire bowl of them in, this made Kelly give her a peculiar glare. "Well there's no point in baking chocolate cookies if you only have 2 pieces of chocolate in one."

I mean, she wasn't wrong. But I don't think this is what people meant when saying 'Frivolously add the chocolate chips.' This strange tree of logical thought process convinced Kelly to just go and have fun, so she did the same and dropped the entire bowl of chips into the mixture. The two laughed at her change of heart and began to lay them into their shapes.

Once they had been put onto a tray, they carefully placed them in the oven, being certain not to touch any metal pieces. "Well that was exhausting, I'm going to freshen up in the washroom." Kelly informed whilst strolling out of the room.

"Okay, catch you later!" Star shouted back.

…

A few moments had passed, Star was sitting down now, overlooking her and Kelly's creations rising in the oven. Rise! Rise my pretties! Rise so I can eat you! The last part of the thought was accompanied by a slight dribble that escaped Princess Butterfly's mouth. "Ooo they smell dazzling." Came a voice from one of the pictures in the room.

"Who's there!?" Star demanded.

"Calm down love, it's only me." Said the painting as it swung open and a short, green-haired woman stepped down from it.

Startled by the reveal, Star interrogated, "Eclipsa! What are you doing here?"

"Well it gets dreadfully boring up in that castle all alone, I'm sure I mentioned that there are hidden passages all around the castle to you before." She recalled.

"But this was a new room since… Well… you got froze." A confused look was plastered on Star's face at this point, trying to piece together how she could've known.

"Pssh, I was frozen over 300 years ago, this room is at max 100 years old. Do you honestly think I was the only Princess to know about these tunnels and therefore extend their reach?" She raised a valid point, but Star couldn't believe that there were other princess' that found these secret routes and she hadn't until Eclipsa told her.

"Ok… But that still doesn't answer 'Why are you even here?'"

"I mean, I was originally here to remove one of your toes for throwing crap onto my beautiful rose garden-" She started,

Only to be interrupted by Star at the mentioning of losing her toes "What!?"

"Oh be quiet, it was only a joke – I'd never remove the toes of someone so preciously adorable." This had earned a slight awkward laugh from Star as she glanced around the room, looking for anything to give her comfort.

"But, I saw that you were in the kitchen making something, so I thought I'd take a peek-sy first, and let me tell you little Star. I am not disappointed, therefore, I will allow you to pay me back in chocolate cookies! 5 Should suffice for the amount of work I had to go through in order to return my garden to it's original state." I mean, it was a fair deal to be honest – destroy someone's garden and you give them a few cookies.

"They're not ready yet though." Star noted.

"So be it, use these tunnels and bring them to me at night, if you don't… Don't go to sleep." She warned. The atmosphere had changed, it felt dark, cold as if all jolliness had just been sucked out by an inescapable abyss.

Until Eclipsa followed up with another hearty chuckle and added "It's just a joke, loosen up a little. If you don't bring them tonight I'll just be sad, and perhaps a little mad." Before Star had chance to reply she could hear Kelly walking back towards the kitchen, she turned around to face the direction of Kelly's entrance, but when she looked behind her for Eclipsa – the painting was already closed and her eyes vanished into the walls.

"Hey Star! How the cookies doing?" A merry Kelly asked.

"Good… They're doing good." Star replied in an indifferent tone.

Evening

After months of Marco and Star's baby steps they had eventually reached to the point where they'd frequently sleep in the same bed together, nothing more. But it was a step forward, as the two were preparing for sleep Star had remembered Eclipsa's request, she had saved some for Marco earlier but Eclipsa was honestly the bigger thread right now then an empty-stomached Marco. With Marco he might go 'Aww Star…' and moan, but with Eclipsa she could cut off your arm and still be up for doing more. Sorry Marco, I'm gonna have to use your cookies to save my arms, and toes, and feet…

She made up some lie to Marco about having something to do with Glossaryck before going to bed and commanded him to just go to bed without her. Claiming that he needed some rest from all that intense training earlier, after assuring Marco that she'd be fine, she hurried down what-seemed a thousand stairs and arrived at the kitchen where she left Marco's snacks. Realising that there'd be no way she couldn't sneak past the guards and all the way to Eclipsa's tower where there's even more guards, she had decided to use the tunnels.

Using the words that Eclipsa had told her she commanded the painting to open and it did so, entering the tunnels she grabbed her wand which acted as a light source to light up her way. After wandering aimlessly for a few minutes with cookies in tow. It dawned on our little Star: She had no idea where to go from here.

There we go, chapter 1 out the way - the first 2 chapters will probably be world-building and setting up characters + maybe some foreshadowing or plot points later down the line. I do try to update once a day, but I think if I do it before the last chapter reaches 24H, it doesn't send the fic to the top of the board.

Anywhoo - leave a review, tell me what you think. How can I improve? What do you want to see? I'm going into this not knowing where I'll end up, but I do have somethings planned for later. Not sure how I'll get there though.