Afterglow

Upheaval

Mewni.

A nation united.

One banner, one people, with one destiny.

A country whose cities oozed with prosperity, tolerance, and progress. Whose roads were filled with people of all backgrounds and worlds, each cheery and optimistic, sharing in their love for the Queen. Whose future would be defined by affluence, advancement, and dominance.

Where everyone coexisted and cooperated for the greater good, dropping their baseless prejudices for a uptopian future, monster or mewman. Where conflict was in the past, and diplomacy solved their problems. Where justice and liberty reigned and freedom rang.

When her family's misdeeds and mistakes would finally have been accounted for.

When she'd take the throne for herself and lead her own way.

When Mewni would rise from the darkness and finally come into the light after so many decades.

Or at least... that's how it was supposed to go.

Instead, the castle walls were damaged, the houses and shops of the sprawling city burnt brightly as mobs roamed the street, armed with axes, pitchforks, and whatever tools could be found.

Corpses of monsters lay, scattered on the streets, forming a trail of death that followed the massed insurrection. Some had put up resistance, taking out some in the struggle, while others attempted to surrender to no avail, mercilessly being struck down upon sight.

Thousands were gathered here, lighting flames to royal standards, cutting down alleged loyalists and exposed monsters by the hundreds, slowly making their way to the gates as they chanted and cried. They held revolutionary flags, defied and desecrated the royal portraits, and had ended any sense of authority or order.

Most were peasants, uneducated and from the lowest backgrounds, amalgamated into a single mass, all desiring of the same thing. But as Star looked on from the towering balcony within the safety of the impenetrable Butterfly Castle, she did not only see civilians, but soldiers. Legionnaires, defectors, former generals, demanding their terms be met. Once former defenders of the kingdom, they had turned against her.

All of them united in their hate against her.

What few loyal members of the army remained were holding the gates, uneasily staring at the crowd as they were clearly outnumbered and outmatched. They kept face as the horde feverently harrassed them, slowly increasing in militancy and aggressiveness as they didn't move.

This was where it would end, it seemed...

The walls would only hold for so much longer, a day, if she was lucky.

"Star..." Marco said, distracting her from the demonstrations, borderline revolution occuring below as he peered through her door. "They... they want you to abdicate... I think we should listen and run..."

She noticed the pair of dimensional scissors on his hands, and felt a tinge of betrayal and anger towards him.

"What? There's no way I'm doing that! They're going to kill them all if we aren't here, Marco! We can't just let them die!" She hysterically retorted, brooding with fear as she pictured the sight in her mind.

"Star, what else can we do?" His head was cast down, and he was stricken with a heavy heart as he walked in. He never could have imagined it coming to this... never. "If you don't, they're going to kill us too, they're going to storm through that gate and slaugther them regardless of what you choose!"

"But we can ju-"

"NO, Star, we can't! It's too late for compromise, they're literally right at our front door! We can't do anything about them, we lost our chance to do that already!" He angrily and exasperatingly countered, trying to get Star to take the most pratical option between a choice of two undesirables.

"The most we can do is evacuate everyone here and save a few lives instead of none... It's better than letting everyone get murdered, Star! Staying here is pointless! It won't do anything but make things worse! They've got weapons, we don't! They've got numbers, we don't! LITERALLY NOTHING will stop them! The only thing we can do is escape!"

Star was silent, stunned by Marco's seemingly sudden outburst.

She tried to think of a counter, of some possible argument that would justify staying put to make things better. But the more she thought about it, the more locked in she felt.

Marco was right...

What else could she do here?

Full of remorse, she gave in and nodded, ordering her guards to fall back into the inner castle and get the few monsters that seeked refuge within the castle to safety, outside of this world.

As everyone got into place around an hour later, the signal was given, and the gates were abandoned, leaving them unguarded as the people began ramming the gate to force it open.

Silent and unquestioning, every person and every soul in the castle entered the portals, leaving the castle soundless except for the distant sound of a battering ram and people, scrambling to try and get in and take part in the anticipated coup.

Star and Marco were the last to leave, and they both stared outward as the doors finally broke, getting a last look at their soon-to-be former kingdom before it would fall into anarchy.

Star felt her dreams and hopes shatter as she looked on, knowing what this would mean for the rest of the land.

What was Mewni going to be now?

A place of coexistence and unity?

No, it would be a world of uniformity and compliance.

A place of righteousness and justice?

No, it would have a government of mob rule and anarchy.

A land of prosperity and opportunity?

No. It would be known for his intolerance and impoverished streets.

A place of optimism and cheeriness?

Not when people are ravaging the streets or killing innocents, no.

A nation of peoples united?

No, not when mewmans go along killing monsters and reincite the flames of the Monster-Mewman Conflict once again.

She couldn't help but feel that this was her fault. That she'd failed to do things right in order to achieve that world she'd wanted. That her attempts to achieve this goal were misguided and incorrect. It pained her. All she'd wanted was to make life better, and she'd failed in so great a way that her own people turned against her.

When she'd step out of this dimension, they'd persecute the monsters in the kingdom and drive them back out into the forest again.

When she'd step out of this dimension, Mewni would fall back into another dark age, with no more light in sight to guide it forward anymore.

But what else could she do?

What would dying here do?

Mewni would plunge into darkness, and she couldn't do anything about it.