A thing I came up with immediately after watching the Vault.
I do not own Adventure Time.
(For Princess Bubblegum, it was only a few moments of horror for her world to end in a little terrible way.
The amulet swinging, a look of horrified realization in Shoko's eyes. Guilt, shame, conflict, and more vie for dominance on her face and settle into the well-used miasma of panic.
Shoko runs.
Trips.
A heavy, thick splash, and she is gone.
And left there, is her partner. Bubblegum stops, Bubblegum stares, and she feels conflict when she tries to think of something to do or say, anything, and for once her brilliant mind falls flat and empty.
There are no words. Just grief.)
Heavy paws lay on the ground, claws touch the sand, and large eyes stare at the river of radioactive waste. Across it,
The tiger stiffens. Fear makes fur stand up.
Slowly, inching forward, staring intently at the green sludge even as the stench aches and hurts, waiting, hoping; Shoko was the ultimate warrior, Shoko had survived losing an arm for gain, Shoko had survived the Bath Boy Gang, Shoko has survived everything.
Shoko couldn't die from tripping and falling because she was scared and not looking right.
The tiger stares at the waste, and barely senses the Princess staring with a look like miserable terror.
The river of radioactive waste is silent. Shokan is silent.
Shokan is gone.
And something changes in the tiger; something goes soft, still, and it shakes. Just for a moment, as if something ephemeral had slid out and gone away to leave the tiger a husk, empty and lost.
Its eyes look hollow. Forsaken. If cats cried, it might well do that now.
As it slinks back down, it wavers for a moment, till its belly touches ground. Its gaze stares at the river of waste, and seems to stare far longer, a thousand years wider.
There is a calmness to it. A dreadful certainty, a steady thought that if Shokan was gone, there would be nothing else. No panic, no stages of despair; just simple acceptance of grief so overwhelming its passing took life with it.
Very carefully, with a dreadful calmness, the tiger's belly touches the ground. The tiger looks at Bubblegum, for a moment or two, and its gaze goes soft for her. 'You tried,' it seems to say as it lays down on the ground, and closes its eyes.
A long moment, dreadful and painful.
There is a thought. I'm sorry, sister.
The breathing slows, stops.
If I could protect you like I should have, I would do it all over again, and do it right this time.
And everything, for the tiger, stops.
Bubblegum averts her eyes, her fist clenched so tightly that her knuckles are almost white and bruised pale purple-red. Later, they have a burial. The first one the Candy Kingdom comes to have.
And many years later, Jake blinks, opens his eyes, and feels like its been so long since he has done that.
"Hey, mang?" he says to his brother, Finn. (Coin to coin, like to like; Shokan and her tiger, Finn and Jake.) "I think I had a weird dream. Let me have a turn on BMO's memory thingie."