Work Text:
Star Butterfly was dreaming.
1. She's five years old, scrappy and feral, racing on all fours through endless fields of wild corn. Her chubby limbs propel her forward, her small fingers digging deep into the rich, loamy soil, her small heels kicking up dirt behind her. The waxy leaves trace along her skin, tangle in her hair. But she is wild and doesn't care if her legs get scratched. She is too in love with the deep scent of the earth, with the air, cooled in the shade, filling her lungs. Beneath her, the magic of Mewni pulses and flows like a song. She has never felt closer to the raw energy of her land. She moves faster and faster and the only sound she can hear is her own panting breath.
2. She's older than she's ever been, her bones ache and her skin has been worn soft by the sands of time. She lies in the center of a still lake, where the water reflects the cloudless sky above. Though the surface does not move, the lake rises. She can feel it lapping at her legs and swelling up under her hair. She doesn't stir, she's just too tired. The water fills her ears and buoys up her fingers. She is too calm to move. The water covers her eyes and submerges her lungs and Oh, this -- this is what dying feels like. Star almost doesn't wake up from this dream.
3. It's last week again, when Star was sure she had left her favorite hair clip at school. The building was empty then but now it's crowded with the faceless strangers of the other grades. Girls and boys she doesn't recognize moving on predestined paths in a jerky, mechanized dance. They pay her no attention as she pushes past them. This time, it's not her barrette she's seeking. She doesn't know what she's lost but her heart bleeds every second she's without it. When she opens her locker, it's empty but for the pale eye blinking at her. The pupil dilates in the sudden light. She ignores it, tries to push it to the side. The eye just stares at her. Without her even touching the door, the locker slams shut. Every other springs open, violently spewing paper. It whites out the students, the halls, whites out everything.
4. Space is cold and black and humming with radiation. The void between worlds sparkles with distant universes, each stretching out their borders like worms tunneling deep into clay.
Star woke up and her dress was still stained and torn from the night before. Grass and blood, blood and grass.