stay?" Tom asked.

That was the real question. As much as Star treasured Marco's friendship, he, and Earth in general, represented a form of escapism that was ever so tempting. With Marco here, she'd have an excuse to go on random adventures in other dimensions again. It wouldn't be like her and Tom, who stayed within Mewni for their play-dates.

There was a reason Star gave away Ludo's dimensional scissors to Janna. She needed to stay put on Mewni. She wanted to be a better princess.

But with Marco around, it would be too easy to fall back into old patterns, to undo the progress she had made in these last few weeks. That is, if things could even go back to being like they used to. After all, things hadn'tthe Underworld?"

"Sure!" Star said. "But… couldn't we just get ice cream up here? What's the difference?"

"Oh, ice cream in the Underworld is the best kind. Of course, you only have five seconds to eat as much as you can before it melts, but that's half the fun."

"Okay, I've got to try that!" Star said with excitement. The change in scenery would be nice.

"Let's go then. My carriage is parked outside."

"Which way is it?"

Suddenly, Tom stepped around her and, slowly, gallantly, put his hands on her shoulders. "Don't worry. I'll lead the way."

Without saying anything else, Tom began massaging Star's back and neck, and immediately unknotted all of the stress she had been accumulating for the past few hours, and some that she had been carrying for weeks. Tom