Red and Blue make Purple

Due to the Dead

Marco woke up, which was odd, because he’d never remembered going to sleep in the first place. In fact, he realized, probing through his memories, the last thing he’d remembered as the wind in his hair, Star shouting and screaming like a maniac beside him. Or had it been behind him? In front of him?

Eh, who cared. If you’d been rooming with the likes of Princess Star Butterfly of Mewni, the weirdness became routine after about twelve hours. Marco levered himself up onto his elbows. Elbow.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes—ow, sand—and stared at where his right arm, shoulder, and a good chunk of his ribcage should’ve been.

GOOD MORNING.

Marco blinked again as he got unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head slightly to clear it. The words hadn’t come in through his ears, he knew that. They’d just been there in his memory: they had been spoken, and that was that.

THERE IS A LITTLE CONFUSION AT FIRST. IT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED.

Marco turned, and stumbled back a few steps on pure reflex, looking up in shock at the seven foot-tall skeleton, grinning at him from beneath the hood of a robe as black as space, blue sparks burning in its eye sockets.

“Oh,” he said, his voice vanishingly small. “Oh crap.”

The funeral was a small affair; Marco hadn’t been too close with many people outside of his extended family. There were only a half-dozen—five, Star corrected herself, five of his friends there. To her right were Janna and Jackie, supporting one another as though they might collapse at any moment. To her left were Ferguson and Alfonso, weeping openly. Ponyhead hovered comfortingly over her shoulder.

In front were Mr. and Mrs. Diaz. They’d dragged her out of her room for this ritual, for the sprinkling of blesséd water over the empty casket and the saying of empty prayers—“requiéscat in pace” indeed. They’d asked her to do the same. She’d refused, which was why her mother and father were here now, saying a few quick words of blessing and vengeance over a great broadsword that they’d laid over the casket. It wasn’t anything that she’d seen in the royal cemetery, she noted absently, not some great jeweled blade with gold and silver inlaid everywhere gold and silver could be placed, but a guard’s sword, three feet of gleaming, deadly steel, a simple, elegant thing meant not for decoration but for hacking people to pieces. He would have appreciated the gesture.

The treacherous thought bored up to the front of her mind, and with it came the guilt. You wanted him to come along on that adventure, they hissed at her, and you aggravated the beast. You tripped when it came time to escape, and Marco had to save you. Dear, dear Marco had to open up the portal and shove you through, and when you tried to help him, Star, you with your stupid little wand that couldn’t raise so much as a hive on the thing’s hide, he had to close it and save your useless little life. All you were good for was scraping up the stains and what scraps were left of him.

Tears welled in Star’s eyes and she turned and hurried away, past the last person who’d come and the last person she wanted to see.

“Starship,” Tom said as she went, and guilt fed a building rage. She kept going.

“Starship,” Tom said again, his hand landing gently on her shoulder, and she snapped. Her fist came around at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound, and her right hook would’ve laid the S.O.B. out if he hadn’t ducked.

“Here?” she hissed, pulling out her wand. “Now? You’re trying to hit on me now, Tom? My best friend is dead and what, you think you’re going to—”

“It’s not like that,” he insisted, his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, it’s not like that. I’m sorry.”

“Then what,” she said, biting off each word, “is it like?”

Tom hesitated and took another half-step back. “Look, no matter how you feel about me, Star, I still care about you,” he said. “And it hurts to see you like this.” The wand started humming at a higher pitch. “I’ve been talking to some friends,” he said quickly. “Some of my friends on the, uh, other side.”

“You’ve got five seconds before I turn you into kibble and feed you to the laser puppies, Tom,” Star said.

“You can bring him back,” Tom said.

“So I’m dead,” Marco said.

YES.

“And you’re Death.”
YES.

Marco looked him up and down. “No offense,” he said, “but I thought you’d be scarier.”

PEOPLE OFTEN DO.

Marco looked around him. A great desert surrounded him, glittering black sands stretching to the horizon in all directions. A faint suggestion of mountains stood out in the distance, beneath a sky like black velvet tainted with diamond dust.

“Where is this place?” he asked.

THIS IS NO PLACE.

Marco thought some more. “So what’s at the end of the desert?” The words felt right.

JUDGMENT.

“So there’s no heaven?” he asked.

IF THERE IS, I DO NOT KNOW. I MERELY COLLECT SOULS. I AM NO JUDGE.

The empty silence of the desert stretched out again before Marco and Death.

“I guess I’ll find out at the end, won’t I?” Marco said.

YES.

“All right then,” Marco said.

He started trudging through the sand. Death watched him go.

“What?” Star said. Her heartbeat suddenly seemed to be far too fast, her muscles and vocal cords paralyzed with shock.
“You can bring him back,” Tom said. “Someone’s been interfering with the natural order of things, toying with things that shouldn’t have been touched. Your friend, Marco, shouldn’t have died when he did. And that means that you can bring him back.”

The last few words came out choked. Ah, Star noted dimly, that was her fist clenched around his neck, lifting him high in the air.

“I swear, Star, I’m not lying, I’m not lying,” he said desperately.

“How?”

“I don’t know—wait, wait, wait!” Star lowered the lethally humming wand. “All I know is that there’s a place, I don’t know where, I don’t know what they’re called, where you can bring the dead back. To true life, not as some kind of zombie.”

Star lowered him carefully to the ground. “Do you at least know how to find this place?”

“No,” Tom said. “But they probably have a better idea than I do.” He pointed over Star’s shoulder and she turned.

“Star,” her mother said, as Tom left, massaging his neck. “We need to talk.”

“I’m going, Mom,” Star said. “I’m bringing him back and you can’t stop me.”

Her mother regarded her clinically for a long moment before her gaze softened. “So much like your father,” she said to herself. “I know that I can’t stop you,” she said to Star. “Even if we locked you up in a lead box you’d probably find a way.” She indicated a random direction. “Walk with me.”

The two strolled off among the gravestones, leaving the others behind. “Do you remember the story of the Grey Knight?”
“Yes, Mom.”

“The first king of Mewni,” the Queen noted. “Or rather, the man who would become king. His lover, the queen had been slain by an assassin in the night, and he swore an oath upon his sword that he would snatch her from the claws of death itself. For a year and a day he searched, until he found the entrance to the underworld and overcame the guardians that opposed him. He descended for another year and a day, and emerged with the queen, who had, clutched to her breast, the wand you now hold.”

Star stopped. “So it’s real?”

The Queen turned and smiled down at her daughter. “Yes. Come back with us tonight. If you are to confront Death itself, you’ll do it properly.”

Star glanced back at the mourning Diazes. “Tonight,” she said.

STARCO IS SEXIST

anti-svtfoe

LISTEN UP!!
You are all about equality between men and women. Equality is amazing. Equality should exist between all people of every gender, age, and race. Then here we are looking for a strong female lead in every show. While I agree Star is a strong female character (and I like her for that) we have to look deeper at the relationship between her and Marco. I respect Starco and their shippers but I would like to share another side of Starco that maybe you haven’t noticed. In boy/girl relationships people look for equality, a girl that can take care of a boy the same way he can care for her. Think about how many times Star has saved Marco. Other than his karate skills he is completely defenseless, because as you might have noticed he doesn’t seem to last long in a fight without Star. Marco pretty much relies on the protection of Star. Star has to take a parental role to Marco because he can’t fend for himself. This is clearly proof of the inequality between Starco. It’s honestly amazing to see a strong female lead but why can’t Marco be equally strong? What’s wrong with them both being skilled fighters? But it’s not just about the monster fights. For example, in St. Olgas school for wayward princesses, Marco was captured. Had it been Star she would’ve defended herself but Marco couldn’t. The biggest example of the inequality is the episode storm the castle itself. Marco is trapped in a glass box. They even played Marcos weakness as a joke when he tried to attack Toffee and only hurt his hand. But Star prances in and within 8 minutes everything is a-okay and once again the winning point goes to Star. The worst part about this is Marco is VERY insecure about it. He even had a checklist of who saved who. It’s more than upsetting to see someone suffering because they feel inferior to their closest companion. So what should we see more of? Marco saving Star? No way! We need to see them on the same level of power. We need to see them equal so Marco no longer has to depend on Star! Let’s make it happen people ♥︎