It was Marco who noticed it first. “Star, don't freak out, but the goblin at that creepy-looking booth over there is selling you check marks.” Star gasped, slapping her hands over her hearts, “that is SO not cool! the only person who gets to give my stuff away is me!” her Earth sky blue eyes darkening as she followed his outstretched finger to the goblin’s market stall and– –released a huff of air through her lips, her hands and wand falling back to her side, golden tresses shaking with her bouncing movement. “Marco, I thought you said he was dangerous. Like, taking ‘em off with magic or something. That’s normal here.” “He looks suspicious.” Marco protested, Star grabbing his hand and dragging him over to the stall through the crowd. “And he’s selling pieces of your face! How is that normal?” “Because,” Star said, stopping for a tentacled creature pushing a baby carriage, “it just is. This is one of Mewni’s outer-demational trading ports, it’d be, like, Janna-levels of weird if it didn’t have–” “Symbols of the Butterfly queens! Symbols of the gods!” The goblin slapped the top of his stall and peered up at them, eyes crossing behind a long and crooked green nose as he took them in. “Customers. Actual Customers. Roy was right, you should never give up on your dreams.” A riot of colors and shapes, in all materials and sizes. The blush of Star’s hearts patterned in dragonscales. The brutal magenta of her mother’s diamonds cut into edges of knives, painted at the bottom of teacups. Rabbits and moons and lighting bolts. “Star, what is this? It’s completely different from the stuff they sell at Butterfly castle that looks like you and your family.” “Psshhh, Marco, don’t be ridiculous. That!: royal merchandise, these are the symbols people use to invoke our specific domains as gods. Kinda like how you said some people on Earth carry around and bones of dead people.” “Saints’ artifacts, Star, and they don’t do that anymore.”
