Silence and Longing.

"There wasn't supposed to be any pussy at Prince Thomas's bachelor party, but despite the order that royal fidelity is not to be put in jeporady, here you are Marco." Higg's slapped the oaken bartop as she laughed at her own joke.

"Hurrkkk!" Next to the statuesque latino a horned figure finnaly finished emptying his guts onto the floor, the mixture of tequila and vitrolic bile eating away at cheap tiles and underlying cement. "That's, that's Earth slang for a lady's nether region, right Marco? We're still got to a stripclub right? I need to see them dance away those seven veils." Stumbling to his feet Tom began to grow more excited, more animated as he spoke. Glass shattered against a wall as the intoxicated demon pantomined a stripper with too much enuthiasm, sending an empty stein flying.

Higg's eyes had never left Marco, he'd been staring into the mouth of his half empty tumbler like it was the open maw of a hydra ready to swallow him whole. Only now, ten minutes after she'd slipped inside to confirm their whereabouts did he stir with the sound of that breaking glass. He didn't merely stand up, standing up was workings of lesser men. Higgs watched as the human, such an odd wording she thought, Hu- instead of Mew-, rippled from his hunched over form atop a barstool, into one of his low fighting stances. One leg slightly forward, broad shoulders straining at his red long-sleeved shirt, and right hand balled into a fist ready to be plunged into a foe. Bull Surveys the Pasture he'd called the form once during a training bout, and she'd not forgotten the way it made him look then, like one of the royal museam's powerful bronze statues. The way it made him look now. The way he always looked on the battlefield when everything came down to blood and screaming.

It took Marco a moment to realize where he was, to recognize that shattered glassware wasn't a threat. To remember with a slight buckling of his legs that he was dead drunk. He was on Earth with Tom for his last night as a free demon.. if Marco was honest with himself, it felt like his own last night as anything. Corn, he'd been hitting the bottle, bottles hard for his own sake rather than Tom's. With a sigh he hoped his friend couldn't tell the diffrence. He let himself relax only to feel the sharp sting of a hand slapping across his ass.

CRACK! "You were full of openings Marco, a real knight of Mewni wouldn't need a reminder!" drawled out Higgs, a smirk playing across her face.

His face deadpanned in reply, "A real knight of Mewni would've removed their hand by now."

Higgs leaned in close, "Look Nerd, a real knight knows to loot the castle after besiging it." She gave him a squeeze and the Earthman tried to back away flustered, bumping into the bartop. That blush on his face, it made something race deep within her chest. "Speaking of castles, why the fuck, aren't the two of you with the rest of the bachelor party, safe in the Corn damned castle? There's plenty of people that'd like to knife a drunk prince."

"Well, you know, there's a palace full of princes to wish Tom off", in his periphrials he could see Tom making a 'that's me' gesture to the bartender, "and we ran out of Earth liqour pretty early on. So I decided to I'd step out to get more, but Tom wouldn't let his best man go off on his own, and Rich Pidgeon kept proclaiming he'd pay for the peasant and slipped along too. Speaking of, Tom, where is Richard?"

Tom rocked along like a ship in a storm, taking nearly as many paces backwards as forwards to get up to the pair, grabbing onto them both so as not to capsize. His face beaming, the demon prince slurred his words, "Rich.. Rich went into the men's bathroom with our waitress. I'm telling you, either he's got game or Earth girls are into feathers.. Marco, Marco my man we need to get us some feathers. My main man Marco we gunna get feathers and then bar more hits!"

The acidic woman dismissed the royal's stream of conciousness, "Maybe she wanted to see his coinpurse?" The princeling was snickering at her euphimism, but missing her point. Royals didn't know the worth of the gold that encompassed them. "How'd you find us, why'd you come looking?" Marco's voice was stern, as though Higgs had interupted something important in this bland Wisconsin tavern.

"Psh, the Underworld guards hadn't realized you or Tom had bounced until the Maiden's Meeting, Higg's eyes rolled, as if that bachelorette fiasco was packed with the pure, started getting... lets say... disapointing photos from a certian someone. Some loser whom caused a panic when they could not be found in Tom's room hiding from guests and playing video games as expected."

Tom was too drunk to get angry: he steamed a little and his body threw a few sparks that bounced across the floor before fading away, "Nobody calls my bestie a loser like that. He finnaly beat me in Hellracer Seven! Besides knight, I ain't letting Marco take the credit. Those were my pictures! Pony's been posting some of the truth cube's questions on FaceScroll and I figured I'd show Star the answer to one of 'em early."

She saw the intensity in the Latino's eyes die off at the casual mention of the blond princess, he seemingly wilted. "M'lord," undisguised sarcasm rolled of the redhead's tongue, "you 'answered' over fifty royals with those, short, messages".

Comprehension tried to fight its way across the halfbreed's face, but it lost to the storm of beverages coursing through his veins. His face settled for a lazy smile, "Sweet, she got my texts." The demon pumped his arm twice and reach out for a fist bump. "Now," Tom unconciously shifted, holding himself upright with his grasp on Marco's collar. "Horn-head's blog also mentioned a word I couldn't de-riddle... desi.. dechiper. Do either of you know what a blumpki-"

Higgs shusshed the demon with a hand over his mouth and raised an eyebrow towards Marco. "Tomas, Lord Tom, I think you should go collect your fellow prince so we can move your party to the next dump". Seeing his confusion she applied the bro culture she'd picked up on from her occasional, unfortunate, interactions with the mercenary Raventalon, "Never leave a man behind dude!" The phrase was like magic, Higgs had to imagine Star intoning the words like a spell launched from her candy colored wand: the twenty year old prince released his deathgrip on the knights and, weaving between tables, set sail for the lavatories. Like one of Star's cocked-up spells though, Prince Thomas crashed into the ladies bathroom".

"Oh Fuck.

The hand that had previously covered Tom's mouth now grasped Marco's sleeve, halting his chase before it could begin. A well placed heel and a shove from Higg's shoulder had Marco right back atop his seat. My Mewni! She loved brushing against him like that. "Dork, just let him be his own problem for five minutes" Higgs twisted the man's shoulders as she spoke, rotating him to face the wall-length mirror and endless array of colorful bottles that made up the barkeeps domain. "You know Marco, when you were presented to Mewni with that damned song I figured you were some hot-shit fop, ready to let all the smallfolk be greatful to ruled over by yourself. I may have been wrong then, but today, today you just look like shit."

He glanced at himself in the mirror: complexion still as tanned as his father's, brown hair meticlously moussed and arranged, vest unwrinkled, blue tie with Butterfly monogram still straight. He lied, "I suppose I don't see what you see Higgs."

Higgs snorted at his reply. Some knights didn't know the value of gold. "Here's some traditional peasant wisdom that I know you can appreciate Marco. Castles, are full of the blind."

He paused for a moment, then his brown eyes the color of warm mud locked with her own, and he nodded his head twice, saddly.

She slid onto the cracked, faux leather stool adjecent to his, and with a second bodycheck, reached across his front to snag a half empty tumbler before his descending hand could reach it.

"Hey, that was mine."

"Key word there, was, it was someone else's and now its mine," she shook the glass at him lightly, amber liquid and ice swirling together within it, "spoils of war."

Marco gave a short, curt laugh.

"You weren't leaving to get more beer, you were leaving to leave, right?

"Fuck. Why is your tongue so sharp. How do... why do you always cut to the heart of things people want unmentioned Higgs?"

"Because I was born a sword, and I intend to never be sheathed," She watched the shadows of other s flitting between the variety of bottles as he soaked in her profound statment, "Or so I tell myself. You don't get a full belly when you're one of twelve peasant children unless you're the strongest and fastest. You don't become a squire when you aren't decisive, when you don't stand out. The beautiful rolling meadows and cornfields of Mewni are full of secret horrors: monster attacks, sentient spells, extremes of weather. We were always hungry, but constantly being a single bad harvest from real starvation will either harden a mewman or break 'em." The redhead jammed two fingers into his right shoulder. "Guess which one I chose before I fought my way to Sir Stabby's conceeded side?"

Any remaining stoicism seemed to leave the hulking figure, "Yeah, I was leaving to leave... I.. couldn't handle being there. All the ribbing, all the dirty jokes and bedroom 'tips'... they were all about Star. They were all being directed at Tom, but these quips! They all felt like knives being wielded at me, against me. I tried to get our bachelor to mingle, I tried to slip to the other end of the ballroom or out onto the balcony for any other conversation. But Tom just kept clinging to his best man. As the bottles emptied and everyone got raunchier, I just couldn't do it any more."

Marco felt her gaze press down on him like a mountain, "You couldn't do what? What couldn't you do anymore Marco?"

"I felt the mask slipping, I've been keeping it up for weeks! Maybe I started lying to everyone, to myself years ago... I couldn't pretend to be happy or even content anymore."

Tears began to streak down the latino's face, hot tears. They started to soak into his red collar.

"I made a big show of it, going to Earth for tequila and beer. Played myself off as wasted already so that when I didn't come back until tommorow I could lie about getting lost or passing out on someone's lawn. But just when I thought I was free, just before I could close that shimmering portal: out pops Tom and prince pidgeon riding one of his horns like it was his personal perch. I was trapped again, no matter how I stalled... Richard bitched at first but then became enthralled by 'exotic' Earth and shut his beak. Looking back, I have to wonder if Tom knew I'd been wanting to escape it all... and if he did know, why didn't he let his bro go?"

The redhead took a tenative sip of her captured beverage, "Because you are his only friend."

"Hey now, that castle was jam packed with his friends."

"Until five or six years ago," she paused as the liqour graced her lips, "until you and Star got back to Mewni. Tom burnt every social bridge he'd ever crossed. Those were, and forever will be his aquantiances and peers of the realm, no matter how many beers and farts they'll share."

"...He's got Star."

"Oh, we can all see by the ring that he's got Star." A delicious shiver ran up her spine as he winced, wounded by his own words. But if the three of you stood together, his number of friends would stay the same, one."

These words too struck him, like a hammer. "I.. I don't know about that, they're togehter and that fact says so much. It says so much and I've been deaf, been trying not to listen for years."

He saw her mouth open and prempted her, "Yes, yes, castles are full of the blind and deaf".

She smiled for this un-fought for victory.

"With unshakable Tom following me, I gave up. We came to this tourist trap town for go-karting, mostly to get him to shut up about that hell-racer game. As we shot down these closed tracks, I realized that we were all going the same direction, there's no turning, no breaking away in what I was doing. All this ends at the finish line. I then knew the only real escape I'd have all day, was what I'd run from earlier at the party."

"Shitfaced, farting princes and jokes about small tits?"

"Close, but no. Drinking! I could run all the way to the bottom of a glass, and if I couldn't numb myself to all this shit with one glass, I could have another. With enough tequila I could stand all the words and thoughts in my head."

"So, Did it work?"

"It did for the first hour here, the first hour was a great time. But on this planet alcohol is labeled as a depresant for a reason. It became a smaller, more intimate version of castle Lucitor. I couldn't melt away into a crowd here when it came time to talk about blondes and how magical our wands were. Like a triangle I had to make the third joke every round, it was like a form of self-flagulation. At the stagg party Tom clung to me like a magnet to a refrigorator," Marco immediately picked up on her confusion at his choice of an Earth metaphor, "like a barnacle to a ship, for the entire corn-damned day. Every catcall, every shot, everything was a reminder of Sunday's wedding. Of Star."

"The rehersal dinner earlier this week: it was the first time I'd seen her all month. Seeing her face again was like seeing the sun one morning in winter, a relief, that sunshine made me so damn happy. But it lasted just a moment, and then that hint of the sun, her, it highlighted in its abscence just how bad the blizzard really was."

"She's been backing away from our friendship, from me ever since the engagment. I tried to talk about it at first. I wanted a big-boy, big-girl conversation, to reassure myself and surely her too that we could still be besties. That I'd still be around! That my heart..."

"But I saw the two of you chat in the corner afterwards! I heard giggling and saw the pair of you laughing. Didn't you say all this shit, didn't you talk through what's eating you up?"

The man steeled himself for a moment, "I tried, I really did. But she kept steering things towards the weather, the state of the kingdom, nothings. Worn down, I played along. It was the emptiest conversation of my life. The fucking emptiest."

"I was at a crossroads, it was either screaming or walking out of the whole damn kingdom"

"And then," She motioned her head towards the bathrooms, "barnacle time?"

"Yeah, it was barnacle time. He came flying over with samples of wedding pie, instantly wrapping his arms around the two of us. He talked about the future, plans for later group vacations after ascending the throne... getting smooshed against her like that, it, it wasn't fun or comforting anymore. It suddenly hurt, it burned. So I laughed at empty jokes, ate my slice and slunk away like a dog."

"Yeah, I saw that too. I also saw you and River walk out together. I also heard the king come back to his chambers that night with a black eye."

"You sure seem to do a lot of watching Higgs."

"All guards observe Marco, I just happen to be the best at doing so." Higgs straightned her back, puffing her chest out proudly. "I'm great at everything I do."

"Well I didn't beat the shit out of Star's old man if that's what you're getting at. I wanted to get into it with someone though, maybe with myself. Across the years River has mediated between the princess and me when things went sour. The old man knew things were on the fucking rocks. First time I'd never seen him boisterous or thrumming with that Johanseen energy. He was talking, his sentences too jumbled to make sense. He was appologizing for his daughter, telling me how honorable I was, raging about love, the kingdom... I don't think he knew what he was appologizing for.. what he was talking about. He'd been seeing a big problem, I suppose there's one person in that fort with an eye, but didn't realy know what the problem was or how to fix it. So River just jumped in and flailed around as best he could, it's what he always does when there's something wrong that's too tough or confusing. This time though, shit didn't pan out for him. Moon wasn't around to swoop in and unmuddle his ideas, hell, she was probably still trying to haggle down that giant dowry."

"Then who slugged the king?"

"Oh, it was me, I just didn't beat the tar out of him. He just wouldn't leave me with my thoughts. So I decided to follow his daughters example and talk about anything, anything else. I nudged him towards wrestling, its easy to distract him with things like that, hunting, feasting, whatever. The old man was in a panic, my blood was up. I mean boiling with all that's been going on. So when the old man inevitablly demanded a tussel I went all in. I didn't hold back and crushed him three for three. Blood boiling: I wanted to bruise, I wanted to feel alive and River just wasn't a challange any more. So we went to an interdimensional arena. I think he needed that too, I think he needed not to think.

The woman laughed, "He doesn't do much of that anyways."

Marco laughed too, "More than you might think. We took on any fighter that came our way but the steady stream gladiators slowed to a trickle and then died off. It was an unsatisfying victory. That wasn't enough for either of us. Hell, we even shouted that fact out. He again got too excited, and forgot himself in the moment. He said we should invite the wedding party out here to get some real contenders. That's when I slugged him. He got himself up off the ground and just nodded at me, just looked me in the eye and nodded. The old man bellowed at the top of his lungs and charged the box, that's where all the pit fighters wait their turn. I ran in too. Blood pumping, muscles aching... I think we smashed up everyone else in that room. It was a fucking wreck afterwards."

Seated, she gave him a half flourish with her free arm, "Lord of Bruises."

She leaned in close, as if a conspiritor. "Bruises, there's a lot of people who owe you their lives in Mewni, hell, Oldman would give you the moustache off his face after you got his grandson that posting in Arms-Burg. If you can't handle the wedding, if you're going to fall apart up there... you say the word and I'll put some small emergency together. I know Dave and Babyface are supposed to patrol the Eastern Corridors. I'm sure General Diaz can take their shift, It's better than you saying you got drunk and passed out on someone's lawn."

His posture hunched, his face hardened. "No. I need to see this through, for my friends' sake." Marco reached to his left, to a slice of bartop covered in white smears. His now less than nimble fingers managed to grab hold of a shotglass of El Jimador, a few pecks short of full. The latino threw his head back and gulped it down, the potency of the drink overwelming the slight taste of beak.

Eyes bloodshot, he wrapped his hands together and set his chin to them. Moments passed in silence. "Alright, your plan Higgs? I've changed my mind to a maybe." He lost himself in painful thoughts.

She tilted her head back and slowly savored the taste of her stolen rum manhattan, the mostly melted cubes of ice sliding down her throat. She knew that the hints of salt and sandlewood weren't native to the drink, but to it's previous owner. Unnoticed by the suddenly sullen man, the tip of Higg's tongue lapped the lip of the glass, taking in every essence. Spoils of war she thought. - - - - - -

"It's getting early and you still look like shit." Her caloused hands clasped his shoulder. "Take a couple minutes and get yourself back together. Take it slow, then cut us a portal back to the Lucitors' palace. I'm going to go collect a pair of problems."

Through the haze of alcohol he recognized, and was even touched by the termagant's rare show of concern. He knew Higgs would venhemetly deny ever showing him care or compassion if he dared bring it up. Marco wiped the salty remains of tears from his face and, with elbows on the countertop, burried his hands in his brown hair.

CRACK! CRACK! He could hear Mewman strength kicking down a pair of doors and shouts like those of a drill seargent.

"Handlebars! Bird! I want to see the two you out of those bathrooms, and I want to see the two of you right now! Corn, she loved these rare chances to bellow at royalty consequence free. Pink hair poked hesitatingly up off the cold floor and crawled to a doorway, like lightning Higgs roughly grasped a horn and yanked backwards. She dragged its owner behind her with one hand, like an angry governess pulling along a naughty child by the ear. Her other hand unerringly guarded her sachel from any potential clashes with walls or porcelain as her captured charge struggled drunkenly. She patted the buldging leather bag as she marched into the adjoining, unresponisive bathroom. The squat, mass produced tumbler was a stolen treasure. Spoils of war indeed. Marco again stared into the mirror as he turned to leave, careful to avoid the his own gaze, careful to not look into the eyes of a man going to his own funeral.

He reached for his scissors.

-A.C.

Postface: 09-11-2018 This was my late entry to the Svtfoe Reddit Sub's September writing contest (this month's theme being Obsession). There's some great folk having fun and staving off the hiatus there. Go check out their stories (and memes).

Do I need a legal disclaimer? I don't own Svtfoe, it's owned by Miss Nefcey, Disney, and 'The Mouse'.