Day 7.

"Your Grace."

The date that Eclipsa had handed to Lily's mother corresponded to the date of the Funeral for Eclipsa's mother. The corpse was a fake double, created using magic by Eclipsa, and bore only the symptoms of a blood clot in her brain. Even had the body not been a fake, the 'body' was found hours after the event would have taken place, and it would have been impossible to revive her even with the powerful resurrection magicks they had access to.

Eclipsa was crowned Queen, and attended the funeral a few days later wearing a veil. Star wasn't sure what her official excuse was, given that her only frame of reference regarding veils at weddings was that widows were supposed to wear veils at funerals, not daughters. But she had a pretty good sense what her real reason was: Eclipsa hadn't shed a tear the whole ceremony. She'd been plenty teary-eyed at Lily's funeral, but at her mother's funeral, she seemed almost bored.

A state of mind which broke the moment Lily's mother―who had taken the date as an implicit invitation to the event―addressed her.

Eclipsa shook her head. "You can still address me as Eclipsa. You can always address me as such."

Lily's mother looked hesitant. "Perhaps… 'Your Grace' is better."

Eclipsa flitted her eyes in her direction. "I see."

"As a mother, who witnessed firsthand the love between my daughter and the woman she dreamed of living the rest of her life with, and who witnessed the way that your mother tore at that dream every moment of her life, I cannot condemn what you did. There were many people I witnessed who suffered because of her, and not just those children..." She shook her head. "However. As a person of Moral Character, I cannot condone what you did either, and as a parent who still has a family, whose security and well-being matter greatly to me, and whose well-being would be threatened if the specter of your treason were ever to implicate us, I'm horrified by what you did. For the sake of myself, and my family, I'd like to ask that this be the last time we ever come into contact with each other."

Eclipsa stared forwards for several seconds before responding. "Very well then." She paused again before continuing, "if you wish, I can have you removed from the Capital. You and your family will be given a comfortable home far outside the Capital, at no expense incurred to you. That will minimize the chances that you and I ever see each other again, and you might prefer to get away from a place which, I suspect, is bringing you more negative memories than positive."

Lily's Mother shook her head. "One more way to connect us to you. If we move away, we'll find a way to do it ourselves. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be cruel, but..."

Eclipsa shook her head. "You have nothing to apologize for. Not to me, nor to anyone else. It was my fault what happened to Lily. Maybe she didn't see it that way, but it's the truth. Because that's what I'm good at. It's what I've always been good at. Hurting people. Minos, Lily, mom…"

"Your… Eclipsa…"

"Maybe I can work that to my advantage. Maybe hurting people will make me able to be a good Queen. Or maybe being able to hurt people so well is what made my mother such an awful Queen. I guess I'll find out."

Lily's mother wrapped her arms around herself. "Lily loved you. She truly believed that you were what the People of Mewnie needed, more than anything else. I think the responsible thing to do, if you want to honor her memory, is do nothing less than whatever it takes to represent that image of you."

Eclipsa didn't respond to that.

"That's all. I hope you make a good Queen."

Star sighed, watching the scene play out. "Prepare to be disappointed. Alright, we've seen enough. Turn the scene off."

The Mirror reacted to Star's query, and she stretched on the floor of her room.

She had seven days left. Unless she had no leads left, she wasn't going to spend it watching how Eclipsa covered up her lies. Not when it had nothing to do with Fate Magic.

Star scribbled a few notes into her journal.

There was a strong lead for her to follow now. The Mirror wouldn't confirm it, but that ribbon that she saw stretching from the Rift to Lily… That was a Fate String. It had to be. And not just any Fate String: the Fate String that bound Lily to the Curse. What else could it be?

So why was she able to see it in that moment?

The magic impelled by the String was powerful in that moment, for sure. Was that the difference?

"Mirror," Star began, as Marco perked up from the corner of the room, "turn the filtering off, just for me."

She jumped up from the floor as it attempted to grab at her clothes using a thousand blood-red hands, too smooth yet too rough. The wind howled through the room as everything else, save for Marco, began to buckle and strain, splintering and bleeding and gasping and suckling.

She looked directly at Marco, who looked back at her with empathetic concern on his face. She looked up and down his body, and saw no ribbons attached to him.

Star rubbed her eyes with one hand (the other clutching her nose shut) and began to walk around him. "Uhh, Star?"

"I'm trying to see if I can see the Ribbons."

Marco held up his arms helplessly, to avoid obstructing her view, but it was to no avail.

She spent a few more minutes trying to see if anything could be observed, but the smell was getting through her fingers, and she was starting to lose her focus. "Mirror, reenable the filter."

The room returned to normal, and Star collapsed onto her bed, overwhelmed from the assault on her senses. She wasn't certain, but it felt like the effects of the Curse were still somehow getting worse.

"Anything?"

Star shook her head. "I don't know what I expected: the Ribbon didn't show up for Lily until the last moment before she died."

Marco curled up. "Right."

Star shook her head. "Sorry, I shouldn't..."

"Do what you have to, Star."

"Right." She leaned down to her journal. "Maybe, if I just―"

The moment she leaned over, the world fell out from under her.

She fell into a formless void, far removed from the world she was in.

"What the…?!"

Her voice, though she could hear it, didn't vibrate against her head or throat, like it normally did. Almost like it was coming from a source adjacent to herself, but which definitely wasn't herself.

She couldn't see anything, anywhere, in any direction.

At least, not until…

"Wait… is that…?"

The dots. The structures composed of the dots. She knew where this was. The Fate Dimension.

Star collapsed onto a road, not unlike the one she had traveled the first time she was here.

As she struggled to get up, she grumbled "What…? Why am I―"

"Because I invited you here."

The voice was unmistakable, the quiet, yet commanding voice belonging to Fate.

Star looked up at Fate, who stood over her, with a pleasant look on his face.

He pointed to a table and chairs, made of the same strange material as the rest of the world. "Come, have a seat."

Star jumped up and took up an aggressive stance. "How did you bring me here?" her voice still sounding somehow detached from herself.

Fate raised an eyebrow. "Well, technically, I haven't brought you anywhere. Physically, you remain in the same location as before, doing… whatever you were doing at the time. And your mind hasn't gone anywhere either. I've simply supplied an overlay over your mind. You might not be familiar with the concept, but―"

"I know how it works," Star said, warily eying him.

Fate smiled. "Oh good, then I won't have to explain it. Now sit." He pushed a chair away from the table and offered it to Star.

"Is that a form of Fate Magic? The thing where you override a person's senses?"

Fate snorted. "What? No. It's regular magic."

Star stared at him, trying to work out what he was doing. Personality-wise, this was very different from the cold, indifferent God she'd met two weeks ago.

"Are you going to sit down?"

Still eying him, Star sat in the chair provided to her. "What do you want?"

"Ah, what do I want..." He smiled at Star. "What I want, is a mutually beneficial arrangement. See, Miss Butterfly, I've been considering the circumstances and proposals of our last encounter with each other. Ruminating on how we met, how we engaged and dealt with each other. And I've come to a very important realization. That I have been… somewhat unfair to you."

"No kidding." Star didn't try to mask the sarcasm in her voice.

"Well, allow me to explain my position further: see, the arrangement that has been put before me remains the same as before. I've been promised a soul. The Mangled Strings that are wrapped around your friend are the mechanism by which I'll be able to claim and collect that soul after he passes. But you already know this."

"Yes." There was a detail to how Fate had described the situation that was new information to Star: the idea that the Curse itself facilitated Fate's acquisition of Marco's life, beyond the mere fact that it kills him. But she didn't want to needle on that point.

"The last time you and I spoke, you seemed adamant that you ought to trade your own life for your friend's life. What I have to confess is that at the time, I found your proposal very… unintuitive. There were any number of things you might have been able to bargain with… Starting with your own life is, suffice to say, a very strange gambit."

Star narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Well, why start with your own life? Why not offer someone else's life entirely?"

Star gripped at her legs. "Because you can only make that kind of offer for someone else who's also affected by the same version of the Curse, right?"

Fate scoffed. "Now why would you think that?"

Star's eyes widened.

"The Truth is, Miss Butterfly, I think I'm starting to understand the position you're in, now that I've had time to ponder it. And additionally, the benefit of hindsight has allowed me to understand that I underrated your original proposal. To the point that I'm prepared to offer you a far better deal than what you initially proposed to me."

"… And what would that be?"

Fate nodded. "You offered your own life to save the life of your friend. You offered many other things additionally, which tells me that you don't quite grasp the value of what I'd have to do for you to grant your request. Regardless, what I am offering you is simple: a life for a life is a constant that I must maintain. There's no getting around that. But… Perhaps the life you give need not be yours."

"Who would I give to you instead?"

"Well, that's part of the deal I'm offering you: you get to make that choice yourself."

Star felt her palms grow sweaty. "I… I could just choose anyone?"

"Well, there are restrictions. It would have to be someone whose relationship to you could be genuinely described as friendship, or more. The person must be Sapient; that seems like the sort of thing that would go without saying, given the first restriction, but the funny thing about a lot of your Mortals is that you have some very funny ideas about the qualifications for 'Friendship', and I want to ensure there's no ambiguity on that point. And the Iris must be able to confirm that their odds of dying in the next two decades is no more than Five Percent. Speaking of: that's also part of the deal. In addition to whomever you choose to take your friend's place, you will also return the Iris to me. But, should you fulfill all of those conditions, I will reconfigure the Strings bound to your friend, sparing his life, and freeing the both of you from the effects of those Mangled Strings, taking the life of the person you choose instead."

Star stared at Fate, whose face was calm and pleasant.

"Are those terms acceptable to you, Miss Butterfly?"