Summary: It gets lonely in the Ice Kingdom, so the Ice King gets it in his head from a stray comment from Finn that he should make a family. The Crown approves. Unfortunately, the only way he knows to do this in a way Finn would approve of, is to literally make one. The Crown leads him to a spell to bring the dead back to life, but to use it he needs a preserved body, his own blood, and the blood of a hero. He kidnaps Finn and Jake after getting the first two ingredients. He gets a single drop of Hero's blood, and recites the spell to bring his Ice Princess to life.
Only, he doesn't want to marry this one. Nope, she's blood of his blood after all! He just wants to raise her to take over the Ice Kingdom someday. She doesn't feel quite up to the challenge though, especially as she's now grieving the loss of her family and friends. You know the ones she knew before dying in the Mushroom War?
Chapter 1: The Day The World Ended.
Laura carried her little brother, one hand clutching her younger sister, who in turn carried their baby sister as they ran for the bomb shelter. Both of the younger children were crying, screaming their fear and confusion over the dangerous world they'd been born into. Laura and Reba were old enough to know there used to be a life before the war. Laura more than Reba.
They made it just in time. Their mother hadn't. Karoline Feral had attempted to find their father, pushing her children to run ahead. Laura had known Karoline and Herald wouldn't make it, even if they found each other before the bombs dropped. They would never make it to the shelter.
Other families huddled with them, too scared to make a sound, but too tired to stay quiet. Whispers flourished as people asked the same questions they'd been asking for three years. When would the war end? Who was winning? How many of them would survive? How long until the radiation fell enough that they could go outside again?
Radiation was a big deal in WW III. Laura had been hearing and learning about it for three years. Her little brother was five, and her sister two. They didn't remember a world before the war, Carrie had never even experienced it.
Laura settled the children down, helped Reba guard their supplies from the other watchful eyes of the group they'd taken shelter with. Too many days and nights with empty bellies after leaving their things unwatched had taught them that not even the shelters were safe. They didn't save you from starvation.
They hardly protected you from radiation. They hadn't protected Carrie when she was in the womb. She'd been born with mental retardation, nothing to be done. Lots of kids born during the war had worse problems. At least she could function, as well as could be expected anyway.
She locked eyes with one man who'd been eyeing her satchel for the last half hour. His gaze moved to his wife, heavily pregnant but far too thin in the face. His clothes looked like they'd fit better on a man with more meat on his bones.
She was impressed. Impressed and depressed in equal measures actually. This man wanted to take their supplies for his wife, but he wouldn't stoop to stealing from kids and teenagers. She'd seen people murder their own relatives to avoid the extra mouths.
They were better off than some folk. The Feral family had been rural, they'd once owned a well off farm. They'd held out for a year and a half on their property when the war began, and had still kept enough money to pay for supplies when they'd been forced to evacuate from the bombs.
In their satchels and backpacks were enough food and water to keep them alive for two months, if she rationed it properly and didn't let anyone steal it. If the radiation levels fell before then, they could leave the area. She wasn't sure where they'd go, with both parents MIA she was in charge so she had to decide, but she knew there weren't many safe places left.
Rumors flew like the bullets from guns about supposed safe havens. Places underground, or so far south as to go Antarctica, if someone could make it all the way. She'd heard about plenty of them, and she'd known some of the people who'd sought them out. None of them ever came back, not that she knew of anyway. Their parents had scoffed at the idea of a safe place, and she had agreed. No place was safe from the enemy and their dirty bombs.
"Laura, mom's not coming, is she?" She sniffed and loaded her brother onto her lap. She cradled him to her chest, it was all the answer he needed. Tears fell and sobs racked his too thin body. She'd lost so much already, everyone had. She supposed that they'd been too lucky so far, they'd only lost one sibling and their grandparents. The universe wasn't satisfied with that, it had to take their parents too.
little child, be not afraid
though rain pounds harshly against the glass
like an unwanted stranger, there is no danger
I am here tonight
little child, be not afraid
though thunder explodes and lightning flash
illuminates your tear-stained face
I am here tonight!~
She choked. She couldn't sing the next verse. It was too much like a lie. She never made a promise she wasn't sure could be kept to a child. They didn't understand when it was broken.
little child, be not afraid
though storm clouds mask your beloved moon
and its candlelight beams, still keep pleasant dreams
I am here tonight
little child, be not afraid
though wind makes creatures of our trees
and their branches to hands, they're not real, understand
and I am here tonight
for you know, once even I was a
little child, and I was afraid
but a gentle someone always came
to dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep for fears
and to give a kiss goodnight
well now I am grown
and these years have shown
that rain's a part of how life goes
but it's dark and it's late
so I'll hold you and wait
'til your frightened eyes do close!~
Others had taken up the song. It was a favorite to sing to the children when the ground shook from bombs impact and the sound of guns blasting felt a bit like thunder, out of your control. No one sang the chorus and no one dared sing the end. People had long stopped talking about what would happen after the war. All that was important was that it ends, either for the individual or for the whole.
Laura used to believe in a God, someone who set up this life and let them do as they pleased. She sometimes still believed, in the few quiet moments when they were all safe, that maybe there was a God to welcome all the dead into his kingdom. She liked the thought of mom singing with angels and dad talking baseball with Babe Ruth.
There wasn't any light in the safe house. The electric generator had been destroyed some time ago. Everyone sat in the dark, eating and whispering to each other about may haps and a someday that might never come. With her siblings asleep, and still three hours by her watch before she had to wake up Reba, Laura settled in to another long vigil.
Two weeks later saw a return to the surface, and a return to some humanity. Laura had waited until Reba woke up to talk of the man and his wife. Half their food had gone to the couple, along with good luck wishes for the soon to be born baby. Laura still felt the smile encroach on her face at the thought of it. Sometimes one had to make the good moments in life for themselves.
"Where to next?" Reba asked as they beat a hasty retreat from the dust covered town. Everyone was leaving now that the dust had settled. The radiation could still be thick in the air. This place wouldn't be fit for habitation for at least two generations, from Laura's guess.
"The enemy's on all sides, the safe zones are getting small." She reminded her. Laura needed to give her the reminder, because what she was planning would take quite a bit of persuasion on her part. It was times like these she wondered if those English classes had been worth anything, those essays she'd written seemed worse than useless now. They seemed wasteful.
"Maybe, if it's just us four, we could break through the enemy lines. They never bomb their own people." Reba was silent for a long time after that. They left the ruined town in peace, walking with some time with the married couple before they went on their own path.
"There's not much left we have to lose." Reba sighed. Laura knew when her stubborn little sister was scared. Carefully-because Jay was asleep riding piggy back and she didn't want to jostle him-she gripped Reba's free hand.
"Whatever happens, we won't lose each other. We'll be together." She promised. This at least was a promise she could keep. She refused to leave another place where family had died. If she lost her siblings tomorrow, she'd wait for a hundred years if it took that long to be buried beside them.
It was a cold comfort, one that might have those entire idealistic nut jobs who preached about 'living on' go into a tirade, but enough for them. Sometimes cold comforts were all one could offer. Laura wanted to believe that they'd all make it through this. That someday Jay could go to school and learn how to read and write, and they could get help for Carrie, and Reba wouldn't be so wishy-washy about her own life because there was a tangible future waiting for her!
As for herself, Laura didn't have some idealistic ideas that so long as her siblings were happy, she would be too. All she really wanted to do was find a place where she wasn't always looking over her shoulder or listening for the click of a gun being put off its safety. If she could find a place like that, she'd be just fine living the rest of her life writing stories.
True ones, about her life in this war, pretend ones, like what she told her brother to help him sleep at night, and the Day Dream ones, where she could imagine the future that they'd have if only they could survive.
Things were quiet for a while. They were passing through an abandoned city on their way towards enemy lines. Laura bit her lip as she tried to remember how many days were left until Christmas. There wasn't anything she could really do for the holiday, but she'd at least like to keep track of the date. If for no other reason than so she could feel more like a human and less like a scavenging animal.
There was no one to activate the sirens, everything was too damaged to work. They didn't have any advanced warning when the bombs began to fall again. Laura only heard the whistle she once associated with objects falling in a cartoon. Her brows pursed together and she turned her chin upward, a horrible chill spreading through her body.
"Run!" She barked as she recognized the shadows of stealth jets and their evil cargo. Reba needed no encouragement, lacing hands together to avoid being separated. They weaved around abandoned cars and corpses littering the streets. Laura's eyes searched every sign for the bomb shelter symbol. She needed somewhere they could hide, a place that might withstand the assault.
Reba's laces, worn clean through and retied too many times to count, finally gave out. They broke and she stumbled on the loose ends. Laura felt her sister's hand drop from her grip and whirled around.
The most terrifying thing she'd ever seen had been her sisters staring up at her. Carrie too frightened to cry and Reba so empty of hope that it was clear she'd already given up. All she did now was look up at her older sister, the only one who hadn't left her behind, asking her.
Would she keep her promise?
Laura wasn't always a good person, but in the dark a person discovers who they really are. Laura felt the first impact of the bombs, normal ones this time, and she knelt beside her sister and they clutched the little ones tight, hiding their faces so they wouldn't have to watch. Reba's eyes overfilled but Laura no longer had the will for tears. All she had left was the chance to die with the remainder of her family.
Her body screamed at her to run, to find shelter, to escape the enemy and their soundless jets. She couldn't move, she only held her family tighter and apologized to her mother and father. It was December 21st 2012, that was the day the world ended.