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No one came to the Field of the Last Generation these days.
King Marco Diaz and Queen Star Butterfly had been insistent at first to call the royal cemetery and its first occupants by any other name—the First Generation, perhaps, to mark a new era for the dimension of Mewni with its merging with Earth. A place of honor, perhaps, for those who rose up as the nation and its people ventured into an unknown world where science reigned and magic had died with the coming of the Great Cleaving.
But as the years went on, as more and more were buried within its fields and those who still remembered began to vanish or fade away, the place became known by its true name, its title in actuality taking upon a new meaning as the bodies of Moon and River Butterfly were carefully laid beneath the surface: those who still knew what came before the Cleaving.
Those who still remembered a world without dragoncycles or Mewmans, without monsters and floating Pony Heads, when magic was but an accessory for chaos wielded in the hands of one magical princess from another dimension.
Those who still remembered a world without electricity or television, without guns and machines, when the most devastating weapon ever to be wielded in all the lands was a Solarian Knight and the first thing that came to mind when a Mewman thought of Earth was that one human in a red hoodie inside Butterfly Castle, who spent his life constantly chasing after a woman in a game slightly out of his league.
Those who still remembered after all these years how everything—the chaos, the magic, the upheaval, the change—had begun on a fateful afternoon when a young boy called the Safe Kid met his future wife gnawing on a water fountain. Not everyone knew the full story anymore; most who did were long gone.
No one came to the Field of the Last Generation these days. The last of those who still remembered had long since joined the rest.
Save one.
A horned figure ventured through the worn, derelict gates and began walking a familiar path up the hill. His three eyes began scanning the thick bushes and overgrowth for the tombstones beneath, reading the many names of those buried within for the three he sought. A part of him knew exactly where he would find what he sought, but Tom still searched regardless across the graveyard; he felt it only right to give each person their due, knowing all too well almost no one else would be coming to do so.
Alfonso Dolittle. Ferguson O’durguson. Oskar Greyson. StarFan13.
Even to this day, Tom had no idea what StarFan’s actual name was. Part of him never wished to find out—not from a lack of interest, but from a general wish shared by the community and herself to preserve the identity the woman had chosen to keep for the rest of her life.
Yvgeny Bulgolyubov (known to all as Buff Frog).
The old man had lived a long and happy life with his kids, and died surrounded by thousands of grand and great-grandchildren. Tom smiled at the memory, fondly recalling how the monster had looked around with tears in his eyes at the countless multitudes of tadpoles that had swarmed the house, not to mention the innumerable other monsters waiting outside in honor of their beloved ambassador and leader, fervently praying against hope that he would live another day. That, or whatever afterlife existed, had one last pleasant surprise for him when he arrived.
General Kelly Wootz. Captain-General Higgs.
The former had been stranded on Earth after the magic was destroyed, but with the help of some fancy science thingamajig dimensional travel was more or less reinstated and Kelly could reunite with her family back in Woolandia. Happily, she eventually came back to serve in the Royal Guard and often worked side by side with the latter, even saving Marco and Star from an assassination attempt by Mina that one time. They were both happy—Kelly definitely was, Higgs was as happy as she usually ever was—all the way up to their final days.
Jackie Lynn Thomas. Chloe Delacroix Thomas.
The two had gotten married shortly after Star and Marco’s wedding and coronation, with the two monarchs as the guests of honor in their wedding ceremony. They each became the godparents of the other couple’s kids, and always came to visit Star, Janna, and their respective spouses for fun and games every Saturday night. The demon snickered at the memory of one unforgettable night when someone (Janna, in all likelihood) spiked the drinks—somehow, the couples all managed to end up waking up next to the wrong spouse the morning afterwards. Good times.
His heart stopped as his third eye spotted in the distance the three tombstones he long sought. Although somewhat more ostentatious in appearance than their fellow neighbours, his friends had insisted that their tombs be no less different in shape and structure than that of the rest of their close family; the three now stood untouched by the surrounding shrubs and grasses and plants save for a scattering of beautiful and vibrant flowers—the perfect symbols for the two Queens and one King he had once met in the quaint Californian suburb of Echo Creek.
JANNA ORDONIA
2000–2075
Thief, lover, witch, and daring queen
From the deep pit of depression Tom found himself in in the aftermath of his failed relationship with Star, Janna had somehow managed to force her way into his world—one second the demon was all alone in his life with only his thoughts for company, the next second she was there by his side, his closest confidante and his partner in crime, the one person who could truly intimately know every single nook and cranny of him in a way that even Star had never managed to achieve. It had been the darkest of days when the light faded from her last wistful, devious smile, almost as if she had planned to pull off the ultimate joke in front of her husband and family. It was something the anguished Tom came to realize only when it was far too late—Janna Ordonia’s final prank was truly the worst one of them all.
MARCO DIAZ
2001–2078
King, warrior, husband, father, Safe Kid (not)
Tom smirked at the inscription. Till his final days, Marco had vehemently refused the title of Safe Kid, claiming that his years in service to Star and Mewni had rendered him anything but that. He was right, but it still gave everyone a rise to needle him about his overzealous devotion to his friends’ continued health and wellbeing. Technically, the tombstone wasn’t supposed to have that title, but the demon had interceded and personally inscribed the despised words on the granite. One last petty act of revenge on the human in their friendly rivalry, he fondly reckoned.
Finally, he gazed at the very last one of them all.
STAR BUTTERFLY
2000–2076
Queen, underestimated, triumphant, but always the magical princess from another dimension
A tear trickling down his face, Tom weakly smiled and gently brushed his hand across the tombstone as he gently spoke to the woman buried below. His words were soft and indecipherable amidst the field of the fallen, but something in the demon comforted him, telling him that the former princess he had once loved had heard. With a nod, he stood up and stepped back from the three tombs, seeing them united in his vision once more.
Reaching inside his coat, Tom slowly pulled out a final bottle and methodically poured out a glass onto a small flask. With his drink in his free hand, he held it high in the air towards the tombstones as an offering, as one final gift from him to the three most important people ever to have graced his long and happy life—not just as King of the Underworld, but as Tom Lucitor, the angry demon, the irascible prince, the good friend, and the caring lover who knew deep inside when it was time to let go.
To the one woman who had made it her raison d'être to turn his life upside down, to transform his everyday life into an everlasting cycle of poetic chaos as both his Queen and his wife.
To the one man who managed to see beyond the facade of the fiery, short-tempered demon, and helped him change for the better.
To the one woman he had truly loved in every single fashion of the word, who had walked into his world without prompt or encouragement and stolen his heart with her smile and her passion in making the world better for Monsters and Mewmans alike. The person whom he had sought his entire life to win over, whom he had shared three of the happiest months of his life before he realized his time had long passed.
The memories he still had of their times together, he would treasure. The souls of his best friends, stored in a shrine in the Underworld for them to coexist together forever more, he would protect. The three tombstones of the last heroes of Old Mewni, he would maintain. And until the passage of time returned them all into oblivion, he would recall and remember the lives they once had to the end of his days.
Tom wistfully smiled, his glass still in the air. “Well, here’s to you, folks.”