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star-and-the-motherverse · 3 years

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Chapter 1 - Mother’s Wisdom

The Butterfly Who Lost Her Wings

Word Count: 4501 | AO3 Mirror | Next

Summary: It was on that fateful day when Star Butterfly, the princess of Mewni, disappeared. Mewni was left broken, grieving, and lost. Queen Moon, despairing and left at her lowest point, decided that she would not rest until her daughter was freed, no matter what it cost her.

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* ♦ *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

If only her daughter had listened to her, then maybe, just maybe, this situation would never have befallen them.

Oh, who was Moon kidding? It was unfair to blame Star for all of this. If anything, she was just like her mother, pulling practically the same scheme that Moon had when she was her age. She was proud of Star, in a strange way, for taking the matter into her own hands and attempting to fix the problem as best as she could. But only now was Moon in a position to finally recognize how dangerous the situation was.

“Star!”

Her daughter was on an adjacent balcony, standing beside Ludo. She wasn’t that far away at all, and yet, it felt as if the distance between them was far greater than it had any right to be. At the sight of her daughter, Moon’s fear subsided significantly, but she could not shake the feeling of dread that was heavy in the air. Marco and Yvgeny stood next to the queen, confused by the situation presented before them. They probably felt very much out of their element, being thrown into a situation as dire as this.

Star turned to meet their gazes, offering a sad, little smile. Maybe she already knew how her mother felt about all this. “Hey, Mom. Hi, Marco.”

Moon wanted to ask what was wrong, but it clicked into place when a ghostly unicorn escaped from the wand embedded in Ludo’s hand. Her blood turned to ice. No, she wouldn’t have… The half of the star insignia had darkened to an ominous black, confirming Moon’s fears.

“I, uh…” Star’s eyes darted away, as if she knew the consequences of what she had done just as well as Moon did. “I’m sorry, you guys.” The ghostly figure of the millhorse let out a defeated whinny before disappearing into the sky.

“Is she okay?” Yvgeny asked aloud, not to anyone in particular. “What does that mean? Is, is that...”

Marco attempted to answer him, but his voice quickly trailed off. “It’s…”

Tears immediately began to pool in the corners of Moon’s eyes as panic set in. “The... the Whispering Spell…” She slammed her fists down on the railing in front of her, as if it was going to give her some kind of ability to stop this from happening. But she knew just as well as Star did that what had been set in motion could not be interrupted. “No! Star! You... you get away! You run away from there!”

Star’s voice was quiet, but firm. “It's too late, Mom.”

Marco moved forward to stand beside Moon, his hands gripping onto the stone railing in an effort to ground himself. “She’s… why isn’t she running? Why is she just…”

Something must have clicked in Yvgeny’s mind, because he suddenly blurted out, “What?!” and took several quick steps backwards, away from the impending destruction. “Why she use that spell again?!”

Moon was too overwhelmed with horror to wonder how or why either of them would know what the spell was capable of. She was frozen to the spot, her mind, heart and body all at war with each other. She wanted to rush over there and do something, but what could she even hope to do?

Ludo said something to Star excitedly, but Moon was unable to hear him over the wind. The two of them exchanged some words. Star’s gaze never strayed from the wand, her lips pressing together into a thin, contemplative line.

“No!” Moon screamed as the spell began its work. A fiercely bright pillar of green magic shot out of the wand and into the sky, crackling and snapping viciously. There was a sickening moment of silence as the wand imploded before an explosion shook the castle, taking down the entire tower with it. The three of them could only watch in horror as it fell apart and collapsed into a spray of dust and debris.

“N-no, no no no NO!” Moon’s shoulders began to tremble violently, out of fear for her daughter’s life. “Buff Frog, we have to go now!”

Yvgeny, despite his dread, grunted in acknowledgement and scooped both her and Marco up in his arms, jumping down to the crater below. Moon tore through the rubble recklessly, overturning chunks of rock and sheets of stone. A wave of anger washed over her as she found an unconscious Ludo, however irrational those feelings might have been. Now that she knew Toffee was involved in this mess somehow—she should have known better than to assume that he’d finally left her and her family alone—it was impossible to place blame in this situation.

She never should have left Ludo alone once she found out he had the other half of the wand. If she had acted sooner, there was the chance that she could have prevented all of this. She felt so lost without the High Commission on her side, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it in the given moment. Her daughter was her one and only priority right now.

“Where's Star?” Moon barked out, picking up the small monster by his shoulders and shaking him. His eyes opened, but they were glassy and difficult to read. Was that the faintest tinge of pink light she could see in them? “Where is my daughter?!”

How peculiar it was, that it wasn’t Ludo’s voice she heard when he responded. No, it was far more familiar than that. “Mom! Mom, Mom! I'm in here!”

“Star? Is that you?” She wasn’t exactly sure how Star had ended up inside of Ludo’s consciousness—was the inside of the wand and his mind connected somehow?—but the fact of the matter was that she was okay, and that was all that Moon could hope for.

“Yes, yes, it's me!” The relief was prominent in her daughter’s voice, as if she had shared the same fears as her mother.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Moon hugged the kappa tightly. She understood that her daughter might not even be able to recognize the gesture, but she made the effort nonetheless. Behind her, she heard both Marco and Yvgeny let out sighs of relief. They came up on either side of her and looked over Ludo curiously, equally surprised and puzzled by this new development.

“This is very strange…” Yvgeny commented. As comforting as it was to know that Star was still here, it didn’t make it any less disorienting to hear her voice coming out of Ludo.

Marco leaned forwards to better center himself in Ludo’s field of vision. “C-can you see us?”

“Yeah, Marco, I can! Y-you guys didn’t get hurt, did you? You’re all okay?”

“I assure you, we’re fine,” Moon answered for them. “Are you? Where are you?”

Her daughter’s voice was shaky and uncertain. “Well, I-I'm totally fine, but, uh... I don't exactly know where I am.”

“That's okay, sweetie,” Moon assured, hoping that her words could comfort her in some way. “The important thing is that you're safe. Just stay right there. And no matter what, we will find you!”

“Mom? M—yeah, c—“ Her voice was beginning to break up, to Moon’s dismay. “Can y—re—t-tha—“ Ludo’s eyes closed as her voice faded away.

Just as quickly as the brief period of relief had appeared, it was gone, leaving her unnerved and frightened. _No no no, come back to me! Please! _“Star? Are you still there?" She shook Ludo again, a bit more aggressively than she intended, hoping to somehow reconnect to her daughter.

Ludo’s eyes opened again, but this time, the light behind them was a sickly, ominous green. The voice that came out of him was not her daughter’s. Yet it was somehow just as familiar, eerily so.

“Hello, Moon.”

It didn’t feel like her blood could run any colder than it already had. Her fight or flight reflexes desperately wanted to kick in, but she felt rooted to the spot, face to face with the one she recognized as her worst possible enemy. “Toffee…”

Ludo’s body floated out of her hands and up into the air, where he hovered in place, smiling a wide, toothy grin that didn’t quite seem to match what she knew about Ludo’s personality. The emptiness of his eyes made it all that much more unsettling.

All three of them were on their feet in an instant. Neither Marco nor Yvgeny moved into attack stances right away, but they were clearly put on edge by the confirmation of who this was in front of them. Marco looked completely taken aback, as if he thought this was impossible. His mouth was agape, but not so much as a word escaped him. Yvgeny’s eyes were anxiously darting between Ludo’s hovering body and their surroundings like he was expecting more bad memories of the past to jump out of hiding and ambush them. Despite his attempts to appear threatening, he was very clearly incredibly tense.

Moon shook her head quickly, clearing her thoughts. Why Toffee was here did not matter, not right now. She took a commanding step forwards and clenched her fists at her sides. “Give us back Star.”

“Oh, of course,” Toffee chuckled. “But I'd like something from you first. Something that belongs to me.” He outstretched his hand, still bearing the blackened half of the wand in his palm. The missing finger was easily recognizable.

His finger, she remembered. He had mentioned it before, when the rest of the Magic High Commission had been incapacitated. She had found it amid all the rubbish shoved into Star’s closet and had kept it on her since, fearful that Toffee would find it himself. But now, what was she to do? Her sense of reason told her that giving in to his demands was a very poor choice, but did she really have any other options? Her child was now trapped inside the same plane as that monster, that villain. Star needed to be rescued immediately. There was no doubt that her daughter was a fighter, and she was likely already trying to find her own way of escaping. But if Toffee had been inside the wand, after all this time, and had never found a way to escape—

Moon stopped herself from debating it further, reluctantly reaching to remove the small jar from her belt and hold it out towards him. The finger sat inside.

“Your Majesty,” Toffee said, as he floated down closer to her. His hand outstretched further, silently asking for her to follow through with his demands. “Do we have a deal?”

“Take it.”

She tipped the jar upside down and dumped the finger out of it, placing it in his hand before she could convince herself otherwise. The smirk on Ludo’s face widened as he closed his hand around it. The finger immediately began to reattach itself to the severed stump it was once a part of, until it was whole once more.

The light in Ludo’s eyes flickered out, leaving them pitch black. He looked as if his life force had been taken out of his own body, similar to the fate of the High Commission. He hung limply in the air.

Moon wanted to cry out for her daughter again—perhaps she could finally hear her, now—but Ludo’s right arm sharply extended, prompting her to stay silent. The newly reformed finger had yet to stop expanding, as unnatural gray ooze slowly spread from his hand and up his arm, overtaking Ludo’s entire body in a horrific display. The dark sludge took on the shape of a skeleton as it continued to grow. Skin stretched over its form, followed by a jet black suit. As the figure’s shape began to finalize into lizard-like features, his eyes were the last thing to roll into place, and he lightly floated back down to the ground without saying so much as a word. Toffee’s eyes were widened, his gaze settling on the empty space in front of him.

Before anyone was able to even react, he bent forwards and vomited out some of the sickly dark ooze that had reconstructed his body, as well as Ludo himself, who landed in a mostly unconscious heap on the ground. Toffee blinked a few times, shocked silent, before returning to stand upright and examine his hand. It looked as if his finger had never been absent in the first place. His eyes were stretched wide in disbelief.

“Where is my daughter?” Moon demanded, taking a slight step towards him.

“Yeah, where’s Star?!” Marco chimed in from behind her, finally breaking his silence. He chose to adopt a karate stance, lowering himself to the ground with partially bent knees.

Toffee turned his hand out to face them, where the fragment of the wand still resided. Without warning, he clamped his hand shut, crushing the blackened, brittle stone in his palm. It crumbled to dust and he allowed the broken remains to fall to the ground.

“She’s gone,” he said plainly, before he turned and began to walk away.

Everything around Moon in that very moment felt as if it ceased to exist. He had to be lying. There was no possible way that he was telling the truth—she refused to give it the consideration. Admitting that would mean that her daughter was gone, and she wasn’t going to let that be a possibility. No, not at all. She wasn’t in the wand, no, she was somewhere else, safe and happy, somewhere where nothing bad could happen to her.

Her eyes were tearing up...why were they tearing up? Nothing was wrong. No, she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life. Toffee hadn’t won. He hadn’t succeeded in this revenge scheme of his. He hadn’t taken away her baby girl. She was going to prove it. She had to prove that he had failed, and then maybe, just maybe, she could have the last laugh...

Her feet set in motion before her mind could even register it, carrying her towards the septarian. She stepped faster and faster, until she was running, and a emotionally-driven scream tore out of her as she clenched her fists and lunged at him.

Toffee had whirled around to face her the moment she threw her first punch. He pushed her hand away from him before it could collide with his chest. Again and again, she threw her fists at him, and he continued to block her attacks until he caught each of her fists in his own hands. Moon struggled free of his grip and instead pulled Star’s half of the wand off of her belt, placing it directly over the monster’s chest as she repeated the words of the very spell she had used on him in the first place. Despite it being in her own hands, the wand’s shape never changed.

“I call the darkness onto me from deepest depths of earth and sea! From ancient evils unawoken, break the one who can't be broken! From blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal! To summon forth the deadly power; to see my hated foe devoured!” Her words were bathed in desperation, but the spell did nothing at all.

Toffee narrowed his eyes at her impatiently. “Are you finished?”

He flinched slightly as a punch was thrown into his back and turned his head to glare at the one who had inflicted it. Marco stood there with his fists held up, clenched knuckles turning white with anger. Tears were pooling in his eyes. Toffee grumbled something under his breath and turned to grab him by the arm, haphazardly throwing him at a nearby pile of rubble. The boy landed in a painful heap, and Yvgeny immediately rushed over to him.

Moon snapped out of her stupor as Toffee took hold of her shoulders, shoving her into the ground. He dusted his hands off on his suit jacket and spared one last unreadable glance at her before walking away. Ludo stopped him before he could leave, but her mind had tuned him out. Her thoughts spiraled downwards as fast as her tears were falling down her face, and she tried desperately to think of something else that could be done.

She scrambled over to the pile of broken pieces scattered across the ground, scooping up a small handful. Yes, that was it! She could put the wand back together again. Then everything would be alright—it had to be alright.

The ground scuffled in front of her, signaling that someone was approaching. But she hardly even heard it.

“Come on, come on. Why won't you fit? Come on.”

A shadow appeared on the ground over her. “Queen?” She looked up and met Marco’s gaze. His sadness was apparent on his face.

“M-Maybe if I-I put the wand back together, it'll… it'll bring her back.” Her voice was trembling as badly as her frail hands were. “But this piece won't fit.”

Marco leaned down on one knee and silently looked over the wand, before picking out a piece and offering it to her. “Here. Try this one.”

“Th-thank you,” she murmured, carefully taking it from him and glancing over it first, and then the pile of shards just in front of her. “There’s just so many pieces, I-I don’t even know where to start…”

She heard light footsteps cautiously draw near, and she knew there was only person around that was small enough to fit that description. Her gaze snapped up to connect with Ludo’s, startling him with how piercing it was.

“I-I’m sorry!” he stammered out immediately, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

She didn’t care how apologetic he sounded. There was no excusing what his actions had ultimately led to, in her eyes. “This is your fault. It’s all because you were stupid enough to fall for his tricks!" He flinched under her accusation, frightened. She recognized the hypocrisy in her own statement—she had just given Toffee the power to escape the wand, hadn’t she?—but the torrent of emotions running through her mind convinced her that she was justified in blaming him. It felt like the only thing she was still able to do.

“I’m so sorry,” Ludo murmured. “I… I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know anything anymore!” He conveyed his frustration and equally afflicted emotions with a wave of his arms. “I never meant for this to happen! I don’t even know what is my fault, a-and what is his…he’s used me, too, I hope you realize…”

“And that’s supposed to give you a pass?” Moon pushed herself off the ground, standing tall over the comparably tiny monster. “Did you really think that no one was going to get hurt? You took over an entire kingdom by brute force and threatened every person standing in your way!”

Ludo made no attempt to deny any of the accusations being thrown at him. He hung his head shamefully and couldn’t bear to maintain eye contact with the queen. “I wanted to be something more, someone who would be revered by the masses for his awe-inspiring greatness. My wand, it spoke to me, yes! It told me that I would be loved as the new King of Mewni. I thought that I could make things better! But the people of Mewni, they despised me… and even worse, it turns out, I haven’t accomplished anything on my own! I thought Toffee was dead, but he was here all along, manipulating me every step of the way!”

“What’s done is done, Ludo. You cannot deny responsibility for your crimes!”

“I’m not trying to!” He retorted, his temper growing equally short. “I’m trying to apologize!”

Moon, not able to stand looking at him any longer, turned herself away from him. “Just get out! Go away!”

“I know that we fought all the time, but I truly never wanted Star to get hurt! Not like this! I just wanted—“

“Get out of my sight!” She screamed, clutching her hands over her head. “L-let me concentrate, please...”

Ignoring him, she studied the wand pieces through her teary eyes, trying to think of what other options she had. She couldn’t think clearly with that insurgent monster pestering her, but even once he gave up and backed away, there was still no way she was going to be able to put all of the pieces back together. Her mind knew this, but her heartache refused to let up. She fell to her knees in front of the broken relic in an admission of desperation.

“I, I need to start over.” She dumped the fragmented half of the wand back into a pile and flattened out the crumbling pieces so she could more easily see them individually. “I have to...”

“Queen Moon.” Yvgeny’s voice was firm, but cautious. “I do not think that is going to work.”

“It’s going to work,” she insisted. “It will work, you’ll see. I’ll prove you all wrong.”

“She might be right,” Marco offered, only to immediately be shut down by Yvgeny.

“No! Do not encourage her.”

“It’s going to work!” _I’ll show you all, _she told herself. I’ll prove it. For Star’s sake.

“Please, you are only hurting yourself by doing this.” Yvgeny kneeled down and managed to pry the wand out of her hands—granted, her grip on it had been shaky.

“What are you—no! Give it back!” She was on her feet in an instant, repeatedly trying to steal it back. He held it well above her head, just out of her reach.

“Queen—“

“Give it back! Give it back, now!” She started beating her fists against his arm weakly, desperately. When the wand still had not returned to her hands, she collapsed into heavy, miserable sobs. Yvgeny frowned sorrowfully at the poor queen, holding onto her shoulder to prevent her from toppling over where she stood.

When the tears had finally run its course, her shoulders dropped in resignation. Her pleading, watery gaze connected with the frog monster. “What am I supposed to do?”

“You should take rest, come back with clear head. Then maybe you will find answer.”

She sniffled and nodded slowly.

“If there is one thing I know about Toffee, is that he is liar. He get inside your mind, make you think all the wrong things.” He turned and looked in the direction that Toffee had left, glaring with contempt. “What he know about magic, anyway?”

Moon’s eyes followed. The septarian had since disappeared, leaving no trace or hint of where he might have gone.

A commotion of royal guards and a few curious passerby had begun to gather around the edge of the crater. Upon seeing the state of the queen, the guards jumped down so that they could escort all of them up to safety.

“Your majesty! Are you alright?” the guard captain asked, skidding to a halt in front of her. “That was quite the explosion…”

Moon hurriedly scooped the wand fragments up from off of the ground, depositing them in the same jar that had previously held Toffee’s finger. Only after she was sure she had all of the pieces did she respond to the guard. “Y-yes, I’m fine, I wasn’t hurt…”

The guard noticed that she had been crying almost immediately. Her reddened and puffy eyes were a dead giveaway, and she likely was showing her grief very clearly. The captain was about to start speaking again, but Moon caught something in the corner of her vision that was more of a pressing matter. A few of the other guards that had jumped down into the crater were now attempting to handcuff both Ludo and Yvgeny—it seemed like they were having difficulty finding handcuffs of the right sizes for either of them, however.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Moon demanded, projecting her voice as clearly as she could manage through her emotional turmoil.

The guards shared glances with each other. It took a couple of moments before one of them dared to speak. “Um… arresting these monsters, your majesty?”

“He helped me,” she said, pointing at Yvgeny. “Where exactly do you think you are taking him?”

“Well, we were going to imprison both of them until further notice, just to be safe.”

“No, you will not. Not him. Buff Frog has not done anything wrong.”

“But, your majesty, he’s a—“

“No. That is an order.”

“If you insist, your majesty.” The closest guard removed the cuffs he had been attempting to lock on his wrists, sparing a judgmental glance at him. Yvgeny took the high road and ignored him entirely. As the guards turned their attention back to Ludo, he crossed the clearing to stand in front of Moon.

“T-thank you, Queen.” The monster quickly bowed his head in gratitude. “I am terribly sorry about Star… if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

“You have your own family to take care of,” Moon responded curtly, her tone coming off as cold. She realized this and tried to backpedal. “…so you don’t need to worry about me and my problems. I’ll be okay.”

He seemed to understand what she meant. He nodded his goodbye and, with one last “thank you” and a solemn look at all of the saddened faces around him, he left the scene and returned to the forest.

“What about him, your majesty?” the guard captain asked, motioning to Ludo. The kappa had already been handcuffed and the guards were waiting for further direction from the queen.

Moon addressed him directly, which seemed to startle him again. “Ludo, you have committed many crimes against my kingdom. I can’t simply forgive that.”

Guiltily, he dipped his head. “I understand.”

That was good enough for the guards, who were quick to escort him away as a prisoner. As they began to climb out of the crater, the captain noticed that Moon hadn’t moved from where she stood. She was staring at the ground silently.

“My Queen? Are you sure that you are alright?”

Quickly, Moon assessed her priorities. “Issue a dimension-wide arrest warrant for Toffee of Septarsis immediately. Make it of the highest importance, have him brought back alive.”

“B-but your majesty, is that not to be the decision of the entire Magical High Commission? Do you have the authority to make such a—“

“I am the only one left.” Her voice dropped to a low, serious tone. “I am making this decision on their behalf.”

“Wh— do you mean to tell me that the High Commission is dead?!”

“No, they’re not dead! No one has died!” Part of her knew her denial was more personally motivated than she’d like to admit. Exhaling loudly, she attempted to calm herself. “Just… please, please… do as I ask.”

The captain, despite her frown, raised her hand to her head in a salute. “O-of course. Right away, your majesty. My apologizes.”

“Find him,” Moon ordered, clenching her fists. “We have to find him.”

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #star butterfly #moon butterfly #marco diaz #toffee of septarsis #ludo avarius #yvgeny (buff frog) bulgoyaboff #motherverse #tbwlhw #immersive

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