The Thaw
Chapter One: My Heart Bleeds for You
This old soul
Bitter gray and mourning
For the loss of one fool
Who wasn't really such a fool
I believed that you truuuuuuly loved me
And then you left me
Just-a-little-girl
All-alone-in-the wooooooorld
A little girl who needed you
Needed the love you gaaaaaave me
But-I-never-knew-the-pain
It-caused-you-to-be-in-
Just. To.
loooooooooove me
My. Old. Friend.
Please forgive me
Her sweaty palms clutched the red bass for fear of it slipping through the sobs that broke her musical trance. In the thousand years she'd lived nothing had ever been sunshine and rainbows, but nothing ever seemed as unfair as the fate that befell the one person who had been there in her darkest hour. The one person who had saved her held a burden greater than any she had ever known or imagined. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
Nothing.
Floating suddenly required too much concentration and Marceline fell to the floor, her precious instrument cradled crookedly in her lap, wrapped in her thin pale arms. Music was her escape, but no matter how much she sang it out nothing bandaged this kind of pain. It was a hopeless, useless feeling she felt for the kindness that could never be repaid.
Marceline leaned back against her stiff couch, the black tendrils that were her hair falling wildly around her, framing the fine features of her face. Without thinking her fingers strummed the strings on her instrument and the bitterness escaped her in a slow melancholy tune. It took the place of her tears and she was able to stand.
Someday I will find you
Soooooomeday I will find you
Soooooooooooooomeday I wiiiiiiiill fiiiiind yoooooooooooou
Her voice was weaker than the melody but its weight bore down on her. Marceline made a promise, just as he had made a promise…and a plea. Simon had asked for forgiveness in his shambled letters. Every bit of sanity he had clung to was for her, for her to have a chance in the aftermath of the war. Marceline had never known why that was so. It always occurred to her that the crown's power had corrupted him.
She just never realized that he hadn't asked for such power. All he wanted was his princess to love him again…and for his queen to stay safe.
The music stopped.