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“You’re not my Star, are you?”
The blonde-haired girl with a remarkable resemblance to the princess Marco served smirked, crossing her arms over the silver armor atop her chest. “Yeah, I’m not your Star. Not from this dimension, anyway—always loved how quickly you’d catch little things like that.”
Marco frowned. “I did? What happened to me where you came from?”
“Jackie.”
“Ah.” The human grimaced, nodding somberly in acknowledgement. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. Which actually kind of brings me to why I’m here—”
“Marco! I heard voices in your room—who the corn are you?!” Star gasped, “Are you some kind of evil impostor here to steal my identity?”
“More of an impostor from another universe, but don’t worry—I’m not here to replace you.”
“Ah, alright, that’s good to hear—”
“Actually, I’m here for your Marco.”
“Wait, what?!”
Alternate Star raised her hands placatingly towards her counterpart and her squire. “Okay, that actually came out a bit wrong. Could we, like, perhaps start from the beginning before you barged into our conversation—”
Star leapt at the blonde-haired traveler, skulls on her cheeks and her wand at the ready.
“Alright, now that we’ve all gotten that out of our systems, perhaps we could talk this one out like young adults.”
One Star shrugged. The other kept glaring at her, her wand pressed to a magic-induced bruise on her cheek, but didn’t bother to respond.
“Star—not my Star, the one who came here—why do you need me in particular?”
The armor-clad Star shifted in her seat, moving an ice pack to her other arm before exchanging the bag with her wand—accentuated with more silver undertones, steel wings, and a recurring moon crescent motif, Marco noted—on her right hand. “I needed—I need a Marco to help me run the kingdom. My duties as princess and the future Queen of my Mewni are difficult as it is on my own, and without someone to help me on the side as a consort of sorts, everything’s pretty much guaranteed to implode.”
“And why, may I ask,” remarked the Star Marco knew, “did you not get your own Marco to be your ‘consort of sorts?’ Or maybe end up with Tom like I did?”
“Oh, many of the things that happened in your universe happened in my universe too—especially the things with Marco and Jackie, and quite a few of the things with Tom as well. Problem was, it only took a few dates with him to realise all that I was really looking for was another person just like Marco.”
The Mewman grinned evilly. “And so my Tom came up with a novel solution: to look for a Marco in another universe that had gone through the same painful process as me. Someone who truly loved me for who I was and was going through the exact same painful process of hoping, just hoping that someday the princess he cared for might show a smidgen of the affection she once showed him, and offer him the very thing he was seeking: a Star that wanted him for who he was not just as a squire or a bestie, but as someone who could love him just as he loved her. The rest, as you can probably tell, is history.”
Star frowned. “Marco loves me? No, he doesn’t—he chose Jackie in this dimension, too, although that didn’t exactly seem to work out well for him. Besides, why would he want me—why would I need him? I’ve already got Tom for that, right? Right, Marco?”
Marco was oddly silent. Star blinked, then turned in confusion to her friend. “Marco?”
“Would I be able to visit this universe from time to time?”
“Marco?!”
Other Star shrugged. “Yeah, as long as Hekapoo and Omnistraxus can get their magic hullabaloo working, you could always come back and see Mr. and Mrs. Diaz whenever you like—every day, even. Oh yeah, that reminds me—does Mariposa Diaz exist here?”
“Mariposa? No, I don’t know of anybody named Mariposa—hold on, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, hold on just a moment! Marco, you actually have feelings for me?!”
The human sighed. “Star, you never actually noticed all this time, did you?”
“But why did you never tell me?!”
“What,” Tom suddenly spoke out from the doorway, having silently observed the whole turn of events, “and end up making things incredibly weird between the three of us? He was making the best of a really crummy situation, especially considering the circumstances you put him in.”
Marco’s eyes widened. “You knew?”
The demon shrugged. “Been there, done that, bro. That, and in hindsight it did seem pretty obvious—and you looked really bad all of a sudden after the whole Soulrise thing. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“Thank you; it’s fine now. Mostly. No, not really, it still hurts.”
“Wait, you knew, too?!”
The two boys glared back at Star. Shaking his head, Tom turned to the other Mewman in the room. “Oi, other Starship—”
“Way ahead of you: take good care of him, don’t end up turning him into an emotional trainwreck of a third wheel, and give him a ton of sweet Mewman loving.” Other Star winked at the demon, earning a blush from the prince for her efforts. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this—unlike a certain multiversal counterpart I could mention.”
“Don’t I get a say in this? This is my Marco I’m talking about!”
Marco shook his head. “Star, you’re dating Tom. And I’m fairly certain neither one of us is going to settle for being merely the third wheel or the concubine in this three-way dynamic we’ve had up to this point. Right, Tom?”
“What, as in a harem? Uhhh, probably not, no.”