Content
The young teen’s legs swung excitedly as they dangled off the back of the wagon. She watched landmarks grow increasingly more familiar as they slowly rolled by. She didn’t quite remember all the directions to Mora’s place- otherwise she might have snuck out there herself more often- but she definitely recognized the area now that they were getting closer.
Her legs swung faster. She couldn’t wait to see her ag-
“Mom, can we stop for a minute? I gotta pee.”
Oh Grobb.
“Oh, sure Maizy~” came a sing-song-y reply from the front of the wagon.
The rolling wheels ground to a halt as the warnicorns stopped walking. And the teen’s happily swinging legs fell still almost as quickly as the smile fell from her face. And that was before the inevitable-
“Mariposa, could you walk her into the trees?”
There it is. The teen sighed- quietly enough that no one else would be able to hear.
“Yes, Marco,” she replied.
Mariposa Diaz hopped down off the family wagon and walked around to the front. She gave one of their harnessed warnicorns a pat as she passed by, then stood and waited as little Maizy awkwardly wriggled her way down off the front seat. It was a rather annoying few seconds to the waiting teen, as she watched the younger girl cautiously slip her little legs further and further down, in an attempt to minimize the ‘fall’ of what could easily just be a one second hop if she’d just-
“Oof,” Maizy grunted as she finally slipped too far. Her feet dropped a terrifying ten inches before she landed on them.
“Good girl,” encouraged her proud father, Marco.
“Awwww, look at our little Maizy-Maiz,” went her adoring mother, Star.
Mariposa resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead reaching out her hand for her niece to take before leading the way off the road.
Yes, that’s right, ‘niece’. As her older brother Marco was so fond of pointing out, she was ‘little Maizy’s aunt’. Though, to be honest, most people tended to mistake her as the big sister with all the free babysitting she had to do.
“Hey, slow down,” the kid complained in a rather whiny voice. “We all told you not to go too fast.”
The teen made a conscious effort to slow her steps as they navigated over rocks and twigs. Sure, being older and taller, she had longer legs, but did Maizy really have to tiptoe over every little bump in the ground? Though in the little girl’s defense, Mariposa did cover terrain much easier and quicker than most. Even most adults.
Once they were out a little ways, Maizy pulled at her pants and started squatting down. At least she was old enough to do this part by herself now. The teen turned to give her young niece some privacy. Her older brother’s hyperactive wife waved cheerily from their seat at the front of the wagon.
Mariposa held a straight face.
She was way too young to be an aunt. And Maizy was way too… Maizy to be a good niece. And it wasn’t just that she was young and slow, no, Mari could be okay with that, it was more that she…
“Dad! You said Mari has to watch me when we go out together, but she’s not watching!” the little girl called. Mariposa couldn’t hide a scowl.
“I’m not gonna watch you p-” the teen’s sentence ended in something closer to a growl. She refused to turn around despite being called out on her ‘rule breaking’.
“Don’t worry, sweety, we’re all watching,” Marco called back, reassuring and ever-oblivious.
Mariposa recomposed herself.
A tattletale. Her niece was a massive snitch. Anti-fun. A stickler for every little possible detail. And obedient to a fault. Every time she wanted to go off and explore or hunt or spar with a monster, there was Maizy, reminding her how she should be ‘watching her little niece’, or ‘not going out after seven cause dad said so’, or ‘not poking the hydra cause grandma said it was too dangerous’.
‘Too dangerous’, she mentally scoffed. It’s not like that’s MY faul-
“Done!” Maizy announced, a moment before retaking her aunt’s hand.
“Good, let’s go,” replied Mariposa, leading the way at the maximum speed she thought the girl could handle- that being frustratingly slow.
“Hey auntie, why are you so excited to get to auntie Eclipsa’s house?”
“Cause I want to hang out with Meteora.” Isn’t that obvious?
“Hey, if you’re my auntie, and Eclipsa is also my auntie, why is she a grownup but you’re still a kid?”
“Cause she’s not really your ‘aunt’, she’s technically your great, great, great… something grandma- except not really cause there was that whole thing where her real daughter was taken away, so…”
“Yeaaah,” Star chimed in now that they were closer, “our family can be a liiittle confusing sometimes.”
Maizy reached up toward the wagon and made a first attempt at getting on- unsuccessfully. The older, much less patient girl decided to save some time and simply yoinked the kid up by the armpits and handed her to her dad. Then she quickly dashed back around to the rear and hopped back into place.
“Ready,” Mariposa called out- in case it wasn’t clear.
“Hyah!” her brother called out.
The teen’s smile returned as the warnicorns began to walk and the wagon started to roll again.
“Mom? Dad? Could you tell me another story from when there was still magic?” the little girl up front asked.
“Aww, sure baby,” Star replied. “Hmm…”
“Oh! I got one!” went Marco. “One day, when your mom was first learning to use her magic wand, she turned my arm…” he took on a cartoonish, foreboding voice, “…into a MONSTER ARM!”
Maizy became instantly riveted.
Mariposa tuned out. She’d heard that one before- heard most of them by now. Besides, what was the point of hearing about a world that she’d never get to live in anyway…
★ ★ ★
“And that’s how I kicked Jeremy Birnbaum’s butt,” Marco finished.
“Yeah you did!” Star echoed. “Say, whatever happened to that guy anyway?”
“I… don’t know, I haven’t seen him since-”
“Maaaarrrriiiiii!!”
A loud, angry cry cut through the peaceful woodland. The warnicorns neighed and stopped abruptly. Mariposa perked up immediately, head darting side to side, but still she didn’t see what was coming until it was already on top of her. Literally.
Another girl her age dashed and leapt out of the trees, tackling the seated teen straight off the wagon and into the dirt. The pair tumbled once or twice before coming to a stop, with the newcomer pinning the other’s shoulders to the ground.
“Mariposa!” Marco yelled in shock, but before he could act-
“What took you so long!?” Meteora yelled. “You said last time you were gonna visit sooner!”
Staring up at her friend, it was pretty clear to Mariposa that this was the kind of ‘angry’ that meant she was happy to see her again- really happy judging by the force of that tackle- not to mention the smile that couldn’t help breaking out behind that pale pink scowl. The Diaz girl started to giggle.
“Sorry, it was my brother’s fault,” she complained, growing a sizable smile.
“Oh, that Marco! Mari if you stay away that long again I’m going to kill you!” With a huge joking grin, she shook her friend ‘violently’ a few times to make sure the message got through.
“Oh no! Monsters and mewmans fighting again! Please, don’t eat me monster girl!” Mari feigned between giggles.
“Pfff, you’re human, not mewman,” Meteora snarked playfully, as she sat up off the ground and offered her friend a hand.
“And you’re only half-monster. What’s your point?” Mari countered, taking the hand.
The tailed teen snorted a little laugh in response- she knew she didn’t have one.
“Good to see you again, Mari.”
“You too, Mora.”
They smiled at each other for a moment as the conversation paused, but the lull didn’t last long.
“Now come on! I’ve got a ton I want to show you!” Meteora urged.
Her friend didn’t need to be told twice, and the two immediately sprinted off together up the path toward Eclipsa’s home.
“Mariposa! Wait!” Marco cried, but the girls were already gone.
★ ★ ★
“What did you say these things were called again, Mari?”
“Marco said they were called ‘cars’. Humans used to use them like super fast wagons before the Cleaving.”
“Huh, weird,” Meteora replied, jumping off the roof with a metallic twang to land back on the ground. “Well, I found a bunch of smelly water in this one, and it basically exploded when I set it on fire. Almost burned my hair off.”
“What the Grobb!? Cool!” Mariposa eyed the old derelict contraption, now just a rusty frame, and tried to imagine what it would have looked like a decade or two ago, with tires, and actual glass in the empty windows. She didn’t dwell on it, though. “So, what’s life been like out here in the sticks?”
“UGH. BORING,” the half-monster complained with a frustrated swish of her tail. “I mean, it’s nice, but nothing ever happens and I can’t do anything!”
“Same old, huh?”
“It’s what my parents like. ‘A nice quiet life.’ Easy for them to say after they’ve already had all their excitement. Every few months they mention maybe trying to start a small kingdom like old Mewni, but without magic there’s basically no one who can even figure out how to ‘grow corn’- whatever that was- let alone build castles.” Meteora kicked a rock into a tree. “What about you? Has your genius brother figured out how to fix the ‘human slippy chin’?”
“Nope,” Mariposa replied bluntly. She knew her friend meant ‘supply chain’, but she didn’t bother correcting her. She barely understood what it really meant herself. And what did it matter now that it didn’t exist anyway? “Life’s still pretty dull in Echo Creek, too. I have a few friends, but… I really wish you were there.”
“Me too! I can’t believe we have to stay away because everyone’s still so scared of monsters. My dad can hardly even size-shift anymore anyway! And didn’t everyone just finish fighting a whole war about that? Like, what was even the point of Star destroying magic? Not like it destroyed people being stupid.”
“Right? We should just-”
“Maripoooosa…!”
A voice like grinding teeth fell on the teens’ ears and interrupted their conversation.
“Maripooo- Oh, there you are,” said little Maizy, carefully stepping through the brush. She looked at them with an innocent little smile, seemingly oblivious to their annoyance. “The-” she almost stumbled and had to repeat herself as she regained her footing. “The grownups said you two should come inside for lunch and I should come get you.”
The pair of teens shared a frown over the intrusion, but either one, if pressed, would have to admit they were hungry.
“Alright, Maizy, we’ll be there in a few minutes,” Mariposa replied dismissively.
“But dad and auntie Eclipsa asked you to come now,” the younger girl replied, sounding almost genuinely confused.
“Just start back on your own, we’ll get there before you anyway,” came the young aunt’s second attempt.
“But… they asked me to get you. We have to go together.”
“Oh Bork! Just buzz off and we’ll be there soon, okay?” Meteora finally snapped.
Maizy pouted. Not a sorrowful frown, but a troubled, frustrated, pronounced pout of disagreement.
“Okay, I guess I can just tell them you won’t come…” the girl mumbled, starting to turn.
“Maizy, wait-” Mariposa bit back her anger, “…we’re coming…”
The child’s pout transformed into a grin.
Meteora was practically steaming, and Mari wasn’t far behind, but they both knew the last thing they needed was for the adults to get involved and waste even more of their time.
So they followed Maizy back toward the house. At her slow, careful, infuriating pace. With nobody speaking a w-
“Hey, grandma said not to get your skirt dirty!”
“Wha-” Mariposa looked down. There were indeed a few noticeable splotches. Maybe she’d brushed against something, or maybe it was from when Mora had tackled her earlier. “Whatever, I’ll clean it later.”
“But she said not to get it dirty,” Maizy repeated.
“Grandma’s not even here.”
“But she still said-”
“She- When did she even say that?”
“Um, it was last summer when you were gonna go out after it just rained.”
“Last sum-!”
Mariposa felt a steady hand on her shoulder. It was Meteora. From the stiff grip of her clawed digits, Mari could tell her friend was barely holding it together herself, but still, the reminder was enough to keep the other teen from boiling over.
They both took a deep breath.
★ ★ ★
“Thanks again for the food,” Mariposa said, backing away from the table as hastily as she politely could. A few steps away, Meteora was doing about the same.
“But, dears, where are you two off to?” Eclipsa asked.
“Oh, we’re just going to hang out,” her daughter replied.
“Ah, I see. Well you have fun then.”
“B-but, where?” Marco tried to ask.
“Don’t worry, we won’t go far,” Mari reassured, quickly following her friend out of the room.
Globgor flashed a parting smile, Marco a worried frown, but neither teen was around to see.
They ran as quick as they could out of the house and back into the private wilderness. It wasn’t exactly rural countryside. Though there were trees, the landscape had plenty of roads and old structures. But when Mewni and Earth got all mushed together, things got a lot more complicated, and a lot of the people who used to live, well, everywhere… didn’t anymore.
“Ugh- *pant*- probably shouldn’t be- *pant*- running after eating that- *pant*- stuff,” Mariposa huffed. Not that she slowed down.
“Yeah- *pant*- it doesn’t taste too good- *pant*-but it’s what we have.”
“So- *pant*- where should we go?”
“Oh! I know a good spot!”
It didn’t take long before they reached a clearly abandoned looking house. It was missing most of its roof, some of some walls, and had moss and vines just about everywhere else. The perfect cool hangout spot.
“H- *pant*- hey, I remember this place, we used to come here when we were little, right?”
“Y-yup,” Meteora answered.
“Wow, the place looks great,” Mariposa praised, admiring the handiwork on the dilapidated building.
“Thanks, made some of the holes myself,” came the proud reply.
“Oh! Is our thing still here?”
“It better be.”
Following returning memory, Mari walked over to one of the walls that had a sturdy piece of furniture resting on it. With her friend’s help they pushed the debris aside, and carved deep in the wall, still clearly visible, was:
Mora & Mari
Sisters forever
They’d carved the words inside a big circle, years back. Next to it, were a couple smaller carvings of simply “m&m” in circles. They’d heard that was the name of a really good candy that used to exist. They’d never gotten the chance to try any since the Cleaving messed everything up, but since it was officially their candy, they decided it must have been the greatest.
Mari giggled.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing… Blackberry,” the Diaz girl teased, giggling again. Meteora rolled her eyes playfully.
“You do remember that nickname was your idea, right?” the half-monster reminded her friend. Mariposa had given her that name before she’d learned a lot of Spanish. Neither had even known ‘mora’ was a word, let alone what it meant…
“Well, you try coming up with a good shortening of ‘me-tee-or-ah’.”
“Trust me, I tried. Why did our parents have to give us such long, weird names?”
“Right? I really lucked out with ‘Mari’.”
“If you say so…” teased the half-monster teen with a flick of her tail.
“What?” Mariposa raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“Well, my nickname might be a fruit, but your actual first name is a bug.”
“Your entire family is named after a bug! I’m named after you guys!”
Mora laughed. She’d walked right into that one and she’d known it. Mari laughed with her. The pair settled into some more conversation, some light, some heavier. They shifted around their hideout, pointing out new things to each other. The shadows began to shift a touch.
It felt nice. Like coming home somehow. They never really knew why they got along with each other so well. Why they’d declared themselves ‘sisters forever’ despite not even really being relatives at all. But they had, and they were happy for it. Happy that even though they had to live apart, they could at least get these moments together to-
“Maripoooosaaaa?”
“No… no no no nononono-”
“Mariposa? Are you in there?”
Meteora’s tail snapped like an angry whip.
“Maybe we can just stay quiet and she won’t find us?” Mari whispered optimistically.
It was precisely three seconds later that Maizy’s little head poked through the opening in the wall that served as the main entrance.
Welp, so much for that plan.
“What is it now, Maizy?” Mariposa asked, doing her best to leave the frustration out of her voice.
“Mom and dad said I should come find you two so we can all play together.”
“What?” Meteora crackled like thunder.
“I- uh- listen, Maizy. Mora and I would really just like to play by ourselves for a little while, okay? We can play with you later, I promise.”
“But… mom and dad said we should play together now…”
“I know, but…” She saw that familiar pout already starting to form on her niece’s face. “Okay, let me go back and talk to mom and dad.”
“What?!” Meteora crackled again. They say lightning never strikes twice, but apparently meteors…
“Look, if I get my brother to say we can play another time, that’ll be the quickest way out of this, trust me.” She turned to her objectively evil niece. “Right?”
The little girl nodded. The logic was sound. She started to turn and head back toward the house.
“Oh, no no no,” Mariposa interrupted. “You stay here with Mora. I’ll go back and talk to Marco and Star.”
A certain hybrid teenager began to give her forever sister a death glare.
“It’ll be faster,” Mari insisted. “I can get there and back five times before Maizy does. Just… play with her for a few minutes, and then once I’m done I’ll piggy back her back to the house and she’ll be out of our hair.”
Meteora ‘agreeably’ scraped her claws through some nearby overturned furniture.
“Fine,” she agreed.
“Fine?” Mari asked her niece.
The youngest girl nodded.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon.”
“You said that the last time you left,” Mora grumbled, but her friend was already gone.
“…”
“…”
“You and Mari promised you wouldn’t go far.”
Meteora Butterfly took a real deep breath.
“No, Mari said that. And besides, we’re not far.”
“No, I think this is far.” Maizy nodded. “It took me a long time to get here.”
“Not surprising,” the angry teen grumbled. Her kid gloves weren’t nearly as thick as her friend’s. “How did you even know we were here? How did you even find this place?” Those were more ‘angry questions directed at the universe’ than anything else, but they still received answers.
“You showed me,” the little girl replied simply.
“Uh, what? No I didn’t.”
“Uh-huh. You did. You took me here. You and Mari.”
“Wha- No! When!?”
“When I was little. You and Mari went out here where none of the grownups could find you. But she had to watch me, so she brought me with her.”
“Wh… that’s…” Meteora strained her memory. At first she was sure this kid was just lying or nuts, but then… “That… That was- You were like a year old! There’s no way you could remember how to find this random broken house just cause you were here once when you were a baby!”
“Uh-huh I could. I did it,” Maizy insisted. It was hard to argue with her being there.
“B-but how?”
“I remember everything! All the rules. All the ways I can get hurt. All the places we go. It’s a trick my mom taught me,” the kid replied proudly.
Meteora raised a disbelieving eyebrow and stared.
“See, she was trying to teach me how to spell my name.”
Spell her name? She’s a kid but she’s not six, how old is this story?
“But I couldn’t remember which way the letters went, so mom said I should try this little trick to help me remember. She said all I had to do was go like this:”
The little girl straightened up, rose to her tippy toes, spun around in place and declared:
“Magical Maizy Memory Mend!”
*boop*
She tapped a finger to her own forehead.
“And after I do that, I can remember easy.” The kid smiled.
…That …sounds like a spell. …A magical spell.
“…Did your mom not teach you that trick?”
Meteora didn’t answer. She furrowed her brow and tried to process.
Magic is gone. Star Butterfly destroyed it herself. My mom was there! She helped! None of us can cast spells anymore! I’ve tried for years! Why would Star be teaching her daughter to- No…
Mora thought back to her impression of the hyperactive, silly lady that she’d seen over lunch.
Star must have been joking. Yeah, that’s all. Just a stupid trick to boost her kid’s confidence, right? There’s no way she thought that spell would actually work. She would have totally freaked out if she thought a magic spell actually worked. And Mari would have definitely told me if that happened.
“…Why don’t you want me to hang out with you guys?” interrupted the little girl.
“Cause- cause you’re annoying,” Meteora replied, just spouting out the first answer she had so she could keep thinking.
But the spell did work. There’s no other way she could have found us here.
“If I wasn’t annoying, could I hang out with you?”
“No.”
And Maizy is the one who cast it. She cast it on herself. Not Star.
“Why not?”
“C-Cause you’re not cool enough.”
“Yes I am!”
If Maizy cast the spell and it worked then… Maizy can do magic…
“N-no.”
“Yes I am! I promise! I can prove it! How can I prove it?”
“Um… D-do another trick. Yeah. Like that memory trick you did, but for something else.”
“Something else? …Like what?”
Meteora grasped for an answer. What other kind of magic…? The first thing to cross her mind was her dad. Before the magic died, he could grow and shrink whenever he wanted, but afterwards he could barely do it at all. The last thing she even hypothetically wanted was a bigger Maizy, so…
“What about a trick to make you tiny. Um…”
If Star can just think up a random spell, then why can’t I?
“Magical… Maizy Minimize. Yeah. That. Try that.”
Not the most original, but…
“And that will prove I’m cool?”
“Y-yeah, if you can do it.”
“Hm, okay!” The little girl readied herself, and with another proud twirl, declared: “Magical Maizy Minimize!”
There was a bright burst of sparkles from out of nowhere, and then… Mazy Butterfly was gone.
No. Not gone.
“Hey, I’m down here! Look, the trick worked!”
Meteora looked down into the dirt. And there, against all odds, was little Maizy. Even littler than usual. Much littler. The teen crouched down, not quite believing her eyes.
The kid wasn’t even the size of her thumb!
Magic. Real magic. She’d never actually seen it with her own eyes before- not since she was way too young to remember, at least.
If the extra-little girl said anything more, Meteora didn’t hear it. The squeaky, quiet voice was drowned out by her own thoughts.
How… How was this possible!? She’d always thought that magic could have somehow survived. Hoped. After all, in all the stories she’d heard Earth and Mewni were cleaved after all the queens dealt their final blow. How else could that have happened? Besides that, even now The Lizards could still regenerate ridiculously fast. And even her own dad could still size-shift a little.
When she’d been born, she’d been heir to the throne of a lineage of magical queens. A literal magical princess. And even though that was all gone now, she’d always dreamed of a life filled with magic. A destiny just out of reach. Like a life she’d once known but had forgotten. It was almost half of what she and Mari talked about. How cool it would be if they could somehow get some of that old magic back and just… run away together.
…But no… Despite her lineage, and despite countless hours of trying and trying and studying and trying some more, Meteora Butterfly had never managed to cast a single magical spell in her entire life.
She didn’t get magic, and she didn’t get Mari.
…But this girl…
Mora reached down and scooped little Maizy up into her palm. The tiny one squeaked.
This girl… This little, annoying girl… She got everything, didn’t she? Not only did she get to live with Mari, not only did she get to be Mari’s actual family, not only did she get to butt in every time Mari wanted to hang out, but on top of all of that, despite the efforts of literally every magical queen who ever lived, this stupid little girl somehow gets to wield seemingly the only magic left in the entire multiverse.
“…Hello? I’m cool now, right? I can hang out with you and Mari? You promised, right?”
Meteora Butterfly gritted her teeth, tail stiff as an iron rod, claws bared around the living insult from the multiverse that rested atop her palm. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind in that moment, but she settled on one. One single thought, which matched the comedic cruelty of the situation she now found herself in.
…There’s no way in Bork that Mari would mind, right? She doesn’t like this kid any more than I do. And at least we’d be able to finally hang out in peace…
Mora stood up straight again, lifting Maizy high above the ground.
“Whoa! Hey, Meteora, this is kinda scary.”
“Don’t worry, Maizy. From now on, you can hang out with us all the time.”
“Oh! Thanks Mete-”
In a single, casual movement. Meteora Butterfly flung her palm up to her mouth, parted her pointed teeth, and swallowed.
*glrk*