I should not be writing fanfic. I have midterms to study for. This is madness. Eventual Bubbline, so if that isn't your thing, you've been warned. And if it is your thing, it's way eventual. And thus, you've also been warned.
General disclaimer: I do not own Adventure Time.
There is a calm before every storm. It was a lesson taught during the times shortly after the war had reached its peak, meant to be a reference to the time before things had fallen apart. One country threatened another, a third country threatened a fourth. She remembered laying in her mother's arms at night, listening to the blaring sirens outside warning them of overhead enemy planes. For a while before, it had simply been television broadcasts that kept her mother up at night, the little girl merely peeking around her door at night to watch along with her.
A cycle of languages translated into their own mother tongue by some voiceover newscaster as people in countries that were supposed to be allies declared war on other allies. The world crumbled piece by piece, rumours of this gun or that bomb being used by this force or against that force. For a four year old, Marceline Abadeer was well in-the-know.
She had always been intelligent. It was just a part of her, something her mother had always made sure to have her realise was an asset, something to take pride in. She expressed herself through abstract concepts like finger drawings made in the dirt patches between tufts of grass in the backyard. And when she fell trying to run inside to tell her mother about them, she'd scrape her knees, and get kisses and lemonade for her efforts. It wouldn't take away the sting in her skin, but it certainly was a comfort.
"Marceline," her mother spoke, cradling her daughter that night and staring with an expression that the little girl still wasn't entirely certain how to read. She'd learnt that angry eyes often meant that she was thinking about Daddy, whom she hardly ever saw, and that scared looks came around when they listened to the sirens, or sad looks from the days when they'd just been listening to the news. This was a different look still, one that made her mother look far away. She sometimes liked to imagine that she went to a castle, her mother the princess, and the world was bright and safe, and that was where her mother went at times like this.
The air raid sirens blasted again, and everything was still. People were too used to it to scream now, like they had at first, and too aware of what it meant to sleep. She could hear her neighbours through the wall, talking in abnormally loud murmurs. Marceline knew too well how to sleep through all of the noise, though. She was really, really good at blocking out sound, because she was growing up in a place and time of noise. "Do you remember the time I told you about your daddy?" The question struck her as odd, the child half-asleep and blinking up towards her mother. Wordlessly, she nodded.
Her father had become a thing of fairytales. Her mother had said that he was a busy man with a whole world of his own to take care of, and she believed her. Her mother never lied. The last time he had been able to visit this world had been in time for her actual birth, one dusty photo of her as a newborn swaddled in pink blankets set up on the mantle.
She was acutely aware of how different her father looked – and how different she looked, for that matter. His face was drawn gaunt and grey, large, pointed ears and snakes' eyes accentuating the fact. He seemed long, too long to be right, with teeth that looked razor-sharp and ready.
Marceline had only been in public school for a month before her mother had taken to homeschooling her. The kids there would pull at her ears, pointed and long as they were. They'd make fun of how pale she was, and she would turn red and start to cry. Sometimes, if she sneezed or hiccoughed particularly hard, she'd sprout a tail, or a weird nose; those were the worst times. Even her teachers hadn't liked her, the same way the neighbours didn't like her. They called her mother names and said that she should rid of her.
Sometimes, Marceline thought that they were right.
"Daddy might come to visit again, soon," she heard her mother whisper, trying not to get her hopes up and doing it anyway.
"Really?" she beamed, staring up at the woman in complete awe, excitedly staring into green eyes, a mirror of her own.
"Really. Now, let's get some rest."
In years to come, Marceline would see this moment for what it really was, a pitiful attempt to give a little monster-girl in a dying world something to dream about and look forward to. At the time, however, she merely stuck her thumb between her lips, and carelessly drifted off to a sleep-world where she dreamt of quiet nights with her whole family, just the three of them. Mommy from her Princess castle, Daddy from his other world, and she, their little girl, together at last, and not cold or scared anymore.