Vestiges

Well, if I can sit and binge watch three whole seasons for a show in a short space of time, I reckon that it means that I'm a fan. Yeah, I haven't been watching it for years like some of you. I'm tardy-to-the-party, a Johnny-come-lately. But I've got passion too. All I need to do now is to pop open a vein and write something I hope I'll enjoy. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Vs. The Forces of Evil. I never have, and I never will. And if I did… Hell, the pairing would probably still be undecided, just like it is now. I can't seem to make up my mind…

You know… just like Nefcy.

1.

It was silent.

He sat on his bed wide awake in the dead of the night, trying in vain to gather his thoughts, as well as himself. His mind was a swirling mess of memories, contemplations, and occasional mumbled curses whenever he encountered a particularly nasty concept. After a while, however, he realized that this all came to be when he first returned to Mewni.

He didn't know when he first started developing feelings for her; that much was certain. The princess had entered his life abruptly while he was yet in school, and the responsibility of being her guide was thrust upon him. Arriving home the same afternoon, he had the (good?) fortune of learning that she would be boarding with him as a foreign exchange student, essentially wrecking his once prudent and normal life.

He knew that she was tantamount to trouble. After all, how many people could set rainbows on fire?

A diminutive bird creature with an ego. An oversized monster-tentacle for an arm. Freezing time. An immortal reptile in a three-piece suit. The list went on, each new facet even more mind-boggling than the last.

But he'd realized that already. He'd come to terms that he enjoyed her day-to-day magical shenanigans. He gained worthwhile experiences, but he went wrong somewhere along the line.

"Why am I here?" the teen muttered.

That indeed was the question.

After his return home, he found it hard to readjust to his daily life, much like the incident that cost him sixteen years of technical aging in an alternate dimension, simply due to a simple misunderstanding. He'd begun to enjoy and adapt to a wonderful, exciting new way of life that revolved around the Butterfly. His friends quickly grew tired of his regales of his exploits. His parents worried about his state of mind. His girlfriend of a short time, Jackie, essentially dumped him because of his obsession with his souvenir cape, which turned out to be made from the King's old meat blanket.

And his response to what was his traditional way of life was to tell it goodbye and to rejoin Star, whom he had begun to develop feelings of romanticism for. Truly, he'd lost his sanity. Not to mention, she didn't exactly welcome him with open arms and to be fair, he wasn't exactly perceptive to the underlying hints either. She had moved on with Tom, no less.

He (Marco) had moved on as well. From best friends to strangers who shared some memories. From the castle to the laundry room. From being carefree to a squire. From a glorified servant to a third-wheel.

He was fifteen now. He'd had another year of living to grow smarter, and that he has. He was intruding on the princess's life. She'd settled into her new role, and he'd returned only because… what? His life lacked excitement and danger? Star, who had confessed to having a crush on him, would have been a rebound girl to replace Jackie?

So many questions. And there were more.

But not tonight. Not now. He'd already lost too much sleep over them. But one thing was certain.

Things and times changed, and it was time that Marco Diaz did too.

He used to be timid, afraid, overly-cautious. Adventuring had taught him to be bold, fearless and daring. There was no lesser of the two but there was room for combination. He'd use all aspects of all he had gone through, to patch all the cracks of his character, better himself on a whole and become all that he could be, and would be.

Come the new dawn, he was going to right a few mistakes.

It would start with admittance, and acceptance.

"Star, you got a minute?"

The teenaged girl looked up from brushing her teeth. The solemn tone of the best friend's voice was already making her start to worry. "Yeah," she mumbled around a mouthful of paste froth. "You okay?" She noticed that he hesitated almost at once, but he eventually got over it.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I guess. It's about me being a squire. No… that's not it…" He hemmed and hawed for a bit, "it's about me coming back to Mewni. I'm sorry for just dropping in unannounced, you know what I mean?"

Star merely shrugged. "It's all water under the bridge, Marco. Geez, that was such a long time ago."

"It hasn't even been three weeks, Star!" Marco blurted impatiently. "Just hear me out. Do you remember Song Day-"

"Let me stop you right there, Marco. Tom and I are-"

"Together. I know. And as your best friend and squire, I support you one hundred percent. On second thought…" Marco gave a long exhale. "No. That's not true. Guess I'm still a little insecure. But Star, just listen. This is about me, okay? Hear me out. You had a crush on me while I was still with Jackie. Even if that songwriter guy didn't say anything, you told me yourself before you came back to Mewni."

Everything had gone quiet. If he didn't know any better, Marco would have thought that the whole castle stopped all activity within its walls just to allow him the utmost peace to vent out his troubles. He could feel his own nervousness rising the more and longer Star stared at him, waiting for him to make his point, but he forced himself to remain steadfast.

"You've been my best friend for almost a full year now, but it didn't matter how long it was. I just knew that you were in trouble, and it wasn't a question for me if I should come help or not. It was automatic for me, I guess." He felt a few beads of sweat sprout on his brow as he felt himself near the heart of the matter. "But after everything was straightened out and I went back home, I had a hard time readjusting, just like when I spent sixteen years trying to earn my dimensional scissors from Hekapoo. My friends, my parents, even Jackie had a hard time dealing with me, all because I kept bringing up how awesome Mewni was and why I had a cape, which… heh," Marco chuckled at his own misfortune, trying to lighten the mood. "Turned out to be only a blanket that had a running cord at the top. We… broke up."

"What?!" Star was hearing this for the first time. "You and Jackie?! But you two hit it off! Although I was wondering about the long-distance thing…"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Marco muttered as his eyes fell. "But after that, I came back to Mewni. Maybe it's because I was heartbroken. Maybe it's because my old life was too boring without you around." He didn't even have to look up at her face to know that she was probably feeling a little self-satisfied to hear this. "But what I'm ashamed to admit is…" He shuffled nervously as he doubted himself whether or not to confess his feelings. "Jackie said… heck, even Tad told me that I had a crush on you. And I think that… they were right."

She, admittedly, had started to lose a little interest in what he had to say, but as soon as he said the last, she felt her toothbrush sag out of her limp mouth and fall into the bathroom sink. Mustering up her will, she spoke the most intelligent thing that came to mind.

"…Uhhh…"

"Star, please. Let me finish," Marco pleaded. "I'm also starting to think that I was going to start seeing you like some sort of rebound girl."

"What?!" A deep frown marred her face with anger. "Marco, if you think that I'm some sort of idiotic princess who's gonna wait around for a guy to just move on from a girl, you've got another thing coming!"

"Well, it's already here." the boy said calmly. "You moved on, and I respect that. I'm a little glad, I guess. Maybe even a little jealous of Tom. But I'm happy for you. Don't forget that."

He didn't sound entirely truthful. No, he was honest. He was merely unsure if he believed his own words. But if he could get over himself to admit something like this, then she'd esteem his candor. "Okay. But does this mean you're going home or something? Why are you telling me all this?"

"No." He folded his arms, fidgeting a little. "I'm staying. What, you want me to leave?"

"No, no!" Star cheerily exclaimed, albeit nervously. "I still need my squire-ly best friend!" She was already stepping over to him to give him a side-hug, one he reciprocated with the thought of 'friend-zone' riding his mind, clearly audible. "I don't know how I would've managed without you being here! Like when I was sleep-portaling! That could've been a real disaster, am I right?"

"Sure, sure. I was only telling you 'cause I just wanted to square things out. So we're cool, right?" He awaited her response with apprehension, hoping he'd get a decent closure.

"As cool as a Winter-storm Hyperblow." A chill ran down her spine when she thought of how she had frozen the Pixies when they had tried to wed their queen to Marco's friends. "Really cool. But why are you telling me all this? Are you dating someone else? Pony-Head? Kelly?" She could already feel traces of jealousy in her veins, though not something she herself was aware of. "Hmm… what's that squire's name from Quest Buy? Higgs, I think it was?"

"No, no!" Marco waved his hands frantically. "I'm gonna focus on myself for a while. And between you and me, all of this been really stressing me out. Like how the other squires act like turds, keeping your secrets from your parents… I don't want to go all wrinkly with white hair."

"Nah, you won't." Star was about to return to brushing her teeth but found her toothbrush in the basin. With a small amount of disgust seeing that it was touching some of her previous toothpaste-spittle, she washed it off thoroughly before applying more paste.

"So you're not gonna try to send me to Lavabo again, right? The knight guy who does the castle's laundry?"

"No! No… ohh…" With an air of realization, she grasped that Marco had found out what she had been trying to do when he'd re-arrived. That is, try to thrust him out of her life without making it too obvious. "Marco, I'm really sorry-"

"Everything's fine." Marco could already feel his tense shoulders begin to relax. "I guess you could say it's all… water in the sink?" Marco turned on the tap, letting the water flow forth as he laughed lightly on his own terrible wordplay joke.

"Water under the bridge, Marco. And as your best friend," Star cautioned with an air of amusement as she turned the pipe off, "take my advice and never ever make that horrible joke again."

Right, right. He only said that to try to end their disquisition on a lighter note. Everything, however, had worked out well in the end. Tension had been rising between him and Star; he might have made things worse, but he had learned a long time ago that things had to get worse in order to get better. Wasn't that what he believed?

He did feel better now, didn't he? Indeed, he was. Marco regarded his toothbrush and felt a Love Sentence vibe coming on. Somehow, he looked over at Star and realized that she was feeling the same when she began to sing into her toothbrush in the pretension that it was a microphone.

"Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!" Star sang the vocalization merrily, starting the tune to their second-favorite song. Marco barely knew it himself, but he'd already started to join in, singing into his own toothbrush.

"Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!"

"It was no secret, the way that we feel…

A love that's so pure, a love that's so real!" Her notes were bright, yet had a somber undertone. Marco smiled regardless and carried on.

"You showed me your world, and it felt like a sign," Marco's tenor rang out.

"But you acted too slow, and you ran out of ti-i-ime!" Star replied exactly how she felt, the lyrics falling in line perfectly. First verse completed, they went on to sing the chorus, eerily reminiscent of the Love Sentence concert they had attended. It did not matter, for somehow, Marco found some closure in the song he was searching for.

"And now we'll be just friends… We will be… just friends!

And now we'll be just friends… Be… just friends…~"

Song completed, Marco turned again to Star, who had a wide grin on her face. "Just friends?"

"Best friends," she reaffirmed with a nod. It was what he needed to hear at that point in time, and began to know peace for the first time since his re-arrival on Mewni. But it was not enough. There was still a large amount of personal confliction to sort through, and his two minds were, that of the one from his thirty-year-old mentality and his current biological age were even now trying to merge. The slight, chronic headache that he'd had resting in the pit of his brain was growing, but it could be dealt with later. At least for now, a great deal of the heartache was gone.

Yet… something new had replaced the latter. No, not a substitute. It was always there, trying to make itself heard over the roar that had been the hum of his nature. It was nearly-nonexistent, yet clearly had virulent desires. There was no longer that loud, petty distraction, and the dormant iniquity became conscious within the Diaz.

"Destroy… The Wellspring…"

Today, Marco didn't have much of an issue to 'fess up and tell Star about his turmoil. It might be a bit OOC, but he shouldn't have any more insecurities. We all remember 'Naysaya', (shudders), and I'm sure that if he can be honest with a crush he had for years, he can talk to Star more comfortably given that she was originally his best friend. Besides all that, it's a work in progress. Hope you'll stick around.

As to my yet-to-be-decided pairing, Daron Nefcy is driving everyone out of their minds right now with the ships. How can there be so many ships in one show?! (It's not a harem anime, woman!) Forums are frantic and shippers are going to war with tactical nukes. I'm staying out of it… for now.

EDIT: As of the posting of 'Christen' (Chapter 9), I finally made up mind as to the shippings that I'll write about. (Or attempt, whichever's more apt to describe it.) It's Miggs and Markapoo. That aside, this fic is primarily Adventure/Drama, not Romance. It means that this fic is plot-driven, while romance happens on the side. Furthermore, since this fic falls in the Drama genre, the romance follows a course of character exploration, not as 'cute' fluff. These disclaimers aside, I trust that the fic will still interest you, but I make no guarantees. I write as a hobby, not for fan-service.

PS: In case it wasn't obvious enough, I'm a fan of using Latin; it's in my parting words, and it's used in the title of the fic. Also, I contacted the admins and got them to add Kelly to the drop-down character menu. Any Kellco shippers out there, you're welcome.

Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.