I promised you Foundlings'verse one shots and behold! I finally delivered. This was 100% written because I've been obsessively listening to Queen's early albums while Mrs Plesi is away and White Queen (As It Began) is just so hauntingly beautiful. You don't have to listen to it while reading this one shot but I HIGHLY recommend it and just, early Queen in general. If you can overlook the fact they always do at least one appallingly bad song on every album Queen are one of the best bands to ever exist. And then there's a Byron poem in here too, just cause it's pretty and definitely deserves an honourable mention.
And you don't have to have read Foundlings to read this but it might help! On the other hand, it's pretty long. So if you read this and then go read Foundlings after then it'd totally work too, just accept that anything that isn't obviously taken from cannon in here is explained in the much longer AU fic set 300/100 years after the action here. Or just read this as a stand alone, that would probably do it too.
Content Warning: mild references to warfare and execution, Queen lyrics, Byron poetry.
There was a knock at her study door and Bonnibel looked up from her paperwork, surprised. That late in the evening it was unusual for anyone to disturb her. When she stood and opened the door Peppermint Butler bowed formally before her and she sighed internally; if he was using the official royal protocols then it was unlikely to be anything easily resolved. Her study of ancient technologies was about to be neglected for the rest of the night, she could just feel it.
"Majesty, forgive the lateness of the hour. Your presence is formally requested in the throne room." he mumbled to the floor, before she commanded him to rise.
"By whom? It's rather late for official business, Peps." the princess replied with a light frown.
"A stranger, Majesty. She claims to be a royal with urgent business. I have reason to believe she isn't lying about who she is. But if I'm right about her then you'd do well to turn her away." he replied.
"And why is that? If I'm meeting with a potential enemy I'd sooner know as much about her as possible beforehand." Bonnibel replied evenly. She wasn't given to pre judging anyone until she knew more about them.
"She is the daughter of Lord Evil, milady. And, I think, a vampire."
Bonnibel fought hard to keep an amused smile from her face when she saw how worried and earnest her butler's expression was.
"I have no dealings with the Lord of Evil, I've only met him once and he keeps to his own dimension. And a vampire, really? I didn't think you believed in such nonsense. Perhaps she is a demon and perhaps also a blood drinker but vampires are the stuff of children's stories, Peps. There have been no vampires in Ooo for hundreds of years. Well lead the way, we'll find out if such a thing as a vampire really does exist anymore."
Peppermint Butler scowled at his feet as he bowed again and turned from the study door. His mistress didn't believe in vampires? The she was in for quite the shock when she discovered what was waiting for her in the throne room. He'd never met Lord Evil's prodigal daughter before but he'd heard rumours about her in the Nightosphere. Fierce, brutal, bloodthirsty. She was as sinister as she was darkly beautiful and her vicious civil war on her own people was the stuff of nightmares. He resolved to watch her carefully and do everything in his power to keep his mistress from falling under her spell as so many others had before. If the stories were to be believed Lady Abadeer had bedded hundreds and beheaded thousands. The rebel vampires called her the White Queen because her sleeves were so often stained with the ashes of the disloyal that she executed. He shivered a little as they walked down the darkened corridor. Perhaps nobody else in Ooo knew what Lady Abadeer was, but he'd spent enough time in the demon dimension to be wary of her by reputation alone. But as they approached the doors to the throne room his scowl grew deeper. Soft music and an unearthly singing was floating down the hall towards them from the where the door had been left slightly ajar; so she was going to ensnare the princess by playing the sensitive poet? Peppermint Butler was grudgingly impressed; Lady Abadeer must have done her research before coming to them.
"On such a breathless night as this,
Upon my brow the lightest kiss.
I walked alone.
And all around the air did say,
My lady soon shall stir this way,
In sorrow known.
The White Queen walks and the night grows pale.
Stars of lovingness in her hair.
Needing, unheard.
Pleading, one word.
So sad, my eyes.
She cannot see."
"Is that her?" the princess breathed, her face already shining with enchanted wonderment. "She sings like an angel. But so sadly! I don't believe anyone who could sing like that is truly Evil, Peps."
He frowned and opened his mouth to reply hotly but her Majesty had already pushed open the door and slipped inside, shutting it gently in his face. Peppermint Butler stood outside quietly fuming.
...
Of course Marceline knew she wasn't alone anymore, she could feel the awareness of a light pulse throbbing hungrily in her mouth and throat although she ignored the aching instinct to feed with the practice of centuries. But she was halfway through the verse and nothing and nobody was worth interrupting the music for, not even to beg sanctuary from some mysterious powerful woman she'd heard rumours of.
"Dear friend, goodbye.
No tears in my eyes.
So sad, it ends
As it began."
She let the last note fade away and for half a second there was ringing silence in the strange pastel room she'd been asked to wait in. Then a feminine voice spoke behind her.
"In our lands it's customary for visiting royalty to present each other with gifts before official negotiations begin. Am I to take it that this was your gift to me? It is the strangest gift I've ever received but not unwelcome."
She did turn then, and had her first glimpse of her future wife.
It was a tall and extremely beautiful woman who addressed her, close to her own physical age in appearance although Marceline had spent enough time with vampires and immortals to know that appearances didn't count for anything. She was dressed in a long dusky pink gown and her skin and hair were varying shades of fuchsia. Given the soft pink décor that she had seen throughout the palace she had no problem guessing what the princess' banner colour must be. Marceline landed and curled forwards into a deferential bow, shouldering her bass as she went.
"Rise. Be at peace, stranger." the princess commanded as she took a seat in the tall throne on the raised platform at the other end of the room.
"I brought a gift, milady. Not my voice. My memory."
And yes, she'd judged it right. The princess looked at her with interest stirring in her rose coloured eyes and Marceline let a small smile slide onto her face. The strange locals in the village that she'd questioned had boasted of their princess' intellect and thirst for knowledge, told her that she had the largest library in the known world. And Marceline had managed to smuggle a few books of her own with her, books she was almost certain her homeland hadn't seen since the Mushroom War. She reached into her backpack and pulled a couple of the slim volumes out, coming forwards and laying them reverently at the base of the throne.
"I was born before the Mushroom War, your Highness. I watched the world burn when I was just a little girl. And along with these ancient books I can offer you six hundred years of perfect memories and the location of ancient technologies. I can't offer much physically but my own memories and what knowledge I possess that may have been lost to the world in the centuries since the bombs fell."
Marceline risked a glance back up to the pink woman's eyes again to find them alight with curiosity.
"And what do you ask in return for this precious knowledge?" the princess asked.
"Sanctuary." Marceline replied simply. "I am being pursued by a group of usurpers and rebels. I am exiled from my throne and Kingdom, I have come a very long way seeking your aid. I only wish to live, I'm not asking for an army or assistance winning back my throne. My counsel and guard are dead and my Kingdom is lost. I am the last of my species that isn't a soulless monster and I will not permit the blood drinkers to ravage this land as they have elsewhere. I took an oath; I subsist on colour instead of blood. All I ask is my life, and in return you will have whatever knowledge it is in my power to share with you."
The princess stood and came down to stare into her face, eye to eye. When she was on the ground they were within a centimetre of each other's height and Marceline was distractingly aware of her warm sweet breath and the slight stutter in her pulse when their eyes met. Internally she sighed, reluctant to admit that it had been a long time since she'd been so close to another being and longer still since she'd seen such a lovely face. She was there to beg for sanctuary and her life, not to get embroiled in yet another stormy affair. The princess stared into her eyes for a long time, searching for something. Marceline looked back and tried to make her expression as open and honest as possible.
"We can drop the formal language. I'm curious, where did you come from? And what do you mean that your species are soulless monsters? My butler seems to think you're a vampire but also that you're a demon. So which is it?" the princess asked coolly.
"Both." Marceline shrugged.
"How?"
"Half human, half demon. Bitten by a vampire, so now I'm all vampire too. Watch."
She rose gently into the air and let her face morph into the she-wolf. When the princess continued to just stare at her Marceline sighed and pulled a red rag from her pocket, draining the colour and heat from it in one go and tossing it down to her mysterious new pink acquaintance.
"It's so cold. Like a dead body." she murmured, touching the cloth reverently.
"See? Vampire. Check it; I got the bite scars and everything." Marceline added with a crooked grin, turning her head so the other woman could see the two shallow puncture marks on the side of her throat.
She wasn't prepared for the princess to stretch out her hand and ghost warm fingers against the scars though. Marceline leapt back into the air with shock, skin suddenly blazing with sensitivity and a jolting aching desire that was in no way welcome.
"Don't touch them!" she snarled, whirling away and trying to push the pulse of unwanted emotion back down No, having some beautiful strange woman stroking her scars was not something that she was going to let happen. Not ever.
"Woah, overreaction much? I just wanted to look." the princess replied in a voice brimming with confused hurt.
"Then look with your eyes! Vampires can't be touched on their scars, right? Not by some random stranger, it's way too sensitive. It's like, a trust thing. Epicentre of my power and stuff, understand?"
"Ok, geez, I'm sorry! I didn't know. You coming back down or are you gonna float up by the ceiling all night?"
Marceline let herself relax as much as she could and drifted back down but still remained a couple of inches off the floor watching the other woman warily in case she tried to touch her scars again.
"So you're a vampire. Vampires are real and freak out majorly about having their bites touched. Ok, I learned something tonight. What are those books you brought me then?"
"One of them is about physics and stuff, rockets and space flight and how to make all kinds of old world stuff. I can't make sense of it, never had a head for that kinda thing. The other's special. It's a book of ancient poetry. It was too beautiful to leave behind, I didn't know if any copies of it still existed. But it has Byron and Coleridge and all the classics in it, I learned to read outta that book. I have a few collections of classical sheet music too but you're not getting those. You can make copies of them but the originals aren't for keepsies, ok?"
"Deal." the princess replied, eyes wide with anticipation at the prospect of being gifted ancient books. "Hey, am I gonna get your name or am I just gonna have to call you 'Vampire Princess'?"
"Vampire Queen actually. And it's Marceline. Marceline Abadeer. Yeah, like Hunson Abadeer's daughter. My father's-"
"The Lord of Evil, I know."
"Huh. Cool. And you? Am I just gonna call you 'Candy Princess'?"
"Princess Bubblegum. But since you kinda outrank me as a queen I guess you can call me Bonnibel."
"Not a chance, that's a total mouthful. I'll just call you Bonnie."
"Excuse you? Nobody calls me that, it's not my name."
"It is now, princess. Bonnie. It suits you."
"You know I'm gonna retaliate by calling you Marcy, right?"
And suddenly her playful grin was fixed in place, eyes a little glassy because the last person who'd ever called her that and wasn't one of her closest vampire companions for hundreds of years had been Simon. Suddenly she wondered if he was still around, if he'd stayed in the frozen cave she'd gently guided him to before she left to try and find the remaining humans.
"Hey, do you know someone around here I might know? He'd be an old man by now if he's still alive. Long white hair and beard, he looks sorta like a blue Santa Claus. He's kinda forgetful and uses ice magic. Wears a magic ice crown and keeps a lot of penguins." Marceline asked quietly, avoiding the princess' eyes.
"You mean Ice King? You know him?" she replied, confused.
"That's what he's calling himself these days then? Used to know him. A long time ago. I doubt he'd recognise me now though."
The princess nodded thoughtfully.
"I knew he was old, but that's crazy old. Even older than me."
"I'd say so, you look about eighteen."
"I'm four hundred and eighteen actually, but it was a good guess."
Marceline shrugged, she wasn't in any position to judge anyone for looking significantly younger than they were. She was almost six hundred years old; if she'd aged she'd probably look like a toothy grey prune by then.
"So tell me more about this gang of rebel vampires that are chasing you." the princess said, settling herself back into her throne. Marceline crossed her legs in mid-air and prepared to give her the heavily edited and abridged version of events. Sure the pretty pink woman seemed friendly enough and willing to help, but Marceline wasn't about to just open up and tell her everything. It would take hundreds more years to earn her deep trust.
...
And those hundreds more years passed and they became friends, once the rebel vampire gang had been cornered and dealt with. From time to time the odd group of marauding vampires found their way to Ooo but Marcy quickly tracked them down and took their heads if they drank from sentient beings. Perhaps Bonnie thought she was being a hero, standing up for the rights of the defenceless. But Marceline was terrified that if she let them leave alive they'd run back across the sea and tell the remaining rebels where she was hiding. Nobody held a grudge like an immortal. Three hundred years slid by in a slow blur of surreal adventures, midnight flying and long discussions about everything and nothing. And then one night Bonnie missed their agreed meeting time for a midnight picnic and stargazing session in the Candy forest.
Marcy paced nervously, trying to ignore the weird churn in her stomach and unreasonable panic that something could have happened to her friend. It had been a very slow process but she'd become very attached to the sugary sweet woman over the years and it wasn't like Bonnie to be anything less than perfectly punctual at all times. She was ten minutes late, twenty, half an hour. Marceline waited until she was forty five minutes late then took off in the direction of the palace, speeding worriedly through the night with her eyes scanning the path so that they wouldn't miss each other. But the only other travellers on the road that night were forest creatures that fled in panic when her shadow passed over them.
She'd long ago given up coming through the front door and having to put up with Peppermint Butler's eye rolling and passive aggressive muttering. Instead she flew directly to the princess' balcony and peered in through the window. The room was deserted; a bolt of anxiety seared through her chest. Next Marcy dropped all the way to the ground and looked in through the basement window that let a little sliver of moonlight into Bonnie's lab. Empty, no signs of life. In a blind panic and with a growing sense of dread clutching her cold, still heart she zoomed back up to ground level and around to the shuttered windows that overlooked the rose garden from Bonnie's favourite study. If the princess wasn't there then Marceline would have no option but to alert the annoying butler that his mistress was missing, no matter that she thought he was a total pain in the ass.
Her awareness flared with that familiar pulse before she'd even got as close as the window and Marcy let out a cold breath in relief. It was a warm night and the windows were open behind their wooden shutters; she shifted into the tiniest bat she knew how to become and squeezed into the lamp lit room.
There was Bonnie, slouched in her chair fast sleep with the ancient book of poetry open across her lap. Marcy felt a huge surge of warm affection well up through her chest. When had she last taken the time to admire her friend like that? Her lovely face was relaxed and for once completely free of stress. Soft skin that Marcy had once considered garish glowed soft and impossibly smooth in the golden lamplight. Wait.
Marcy hovered silently in the air and stared, taking the time to examine each and every spark of warmth in the firework of feelings exploding in slow motion inside her chest. Oh. Oh. It occurred to her that platonic friends almost certainly didn't feel huge surges of protective love for each other when they found their friends asleep and vulnerable. Probably platonic friends didn't ache to cross the room and press a gentle kiss onto each other's beautiful lips. She wondered when she'd started to feel like that and tried to work it out but it must have been coming on so slowly for so long, she had no idea when the lines had blurred between innocent friends and something much deeper. And she was very aware that it was creepy to just hang there in the air staring at the sleeping woman. Marcy transformed back with a whoosh and carefully floated forwards. The book was open to a Byron poem, one of her favourites that she'd memorised long before her bite and unnaturally perfect memory had made learning easy for her.
She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and light
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
For half a second Marcy wondered if those lines were significant to the princess the way there were to her. But she didn't allow herself to think about it more, the only way to find out for certain would be to ask and Marcy wasn't sure she felt brave enough to do that.
"Hey. Bon. Hey, wake up."
Rose coloured eyes fluttered open and stared up at her in confusion.
"Oh, hey. What time is it?"
"Like, past eleven? You were a no show for stargazing tonight and I got worried. You ok?" Marcy asked, trying to keep the warm edge of relief out of her voice. It wouldn't do to let too much warmth creep into her voice and give away her newfound revelation, not when it was so new to her and she hadn't completely got a grip on it herself.
"Yeah I'm fine, sorry I worried you. Just fell asleep reading." Bonnie muttered, looking away to hide a flush of embarrassment.
"You must be able to recite the whole book cover to cover without even glancing at it by now." Marcy replied gently. "Why'd you still bother reading it?"
Bonnie shrugged in reply and took a moment to think.
"Guess it's a comfort thing. Like, doing something you've done a million times before because it's familiar, y'know?"
"Reading my stupid old poetry book is comforting?" Marceline asked with one eyebrow quirked quizzically.
"Marcy, when was the last time I had enough free time to read something just for the fun of it? Yeah, it's comforting. I just, even after all this time I can't get my head around how these ancient poets conveyed so much raw emotion in just a few lines, you know? I read them over and over but I can't work it out. It makes me wish I was a poet." Bonnie replied, staring down at the book. "Or an artist of any kind. I make stuff but it's not art, it doesn't move people."
"You move me." Marcy said without thinking. A second later she yelled at herself inside her head. Stupid stupid stupid!
"I appreciate that you're trying to make me feel better." Bonnie replied with a tired smile. "We too late to go out now?"
"Yeah, you look exhausted. Come on, let's just get you to bed. We'll go look at exploding balls of space gas another night."
Bonnie squeaked adorably when she was swept up into cold arms. Marcy flicked the shutters open on the window and they swept out into the night together, accelerating up under the stars until they were at the top of the tower and landed soundlessly on the balcony.
"Why do I even bother having stairs when you're around?" Bonnie asked her with a giggle.
"I've been asking you that for centuries." Marcy replied with a grin. And was she just imagining it or was there a spark of tension and feeling between them when their eyes met? How long had that been there? Did Bonnie know it was there? So many questions. Instead of wondering about it further Marcy put her friend down and stepped back, intending to take off and go see what the night had to offer. Bonnie's voice and hand on her shoulder stopped her.
"Don't go yet, you only just got here."
"But you need to sleep."
"Then stay until I'm asleep. But I feel awful for leaving you hanging tonight, I wanna make it up to you." Bonnie murmured, warm hand still on her shoulder and voice close to her ear. Marcy turned reluctantly.
"Are you asking me to have a sleepover with you?"
"If you want? I just thought we could talk for a while or something."
She shrugged. It was probably a bad idea but also very tempting. So Marcy found herself being led inside the princess' bedroom and if she'd had a heartbeat surely it would have been hammering with nervous anticipation. She turned away demurely while Bonnie changed into her night clothes and slid between the sheets.
"Marcy?" she asked quietly in the dark. "Do you remember the first night we met?"
"Sure, like it was yesterday. You were amazed vampires were real."
"Mhm. You remember that song you were singing?"
"White Queen, As it Began. Yeah?"
"Yeah, that one. I was thinking about that tonight. You never did sing it again for me. Why was the White Queen so sad? Was she jilted by her lover?" Bonnie asked curiously. Marcy shrugged.
"I dunno. The White Queen probably got jilted a hundred times. But if she cared for any of her lovers so much I doubt she'd have been walking around making the night pale and inspiring yearning in the singer's heart. Bet she didn't mind so much when they disappeared. I always thought it was about someone who was secretly in love with her but never brave enough to tell her. Someone who was always waiting for her but never managed to get the words out. Guess we'll never know. It's just a pretty song."
"But how can you not know what it's about? You wrote it, didn't you?"
"What? No! It's a Queen song!"
"Yes? You're a queen."
"Not like, an actual royal queen. Like, Queen, the pre-war rock band. That was just what they called themselves."
There was a long silence behind her and Marceline turned slowly to meet Bonnie's eyes.
"You didn't write it."
"No."
"And it's not about you."
"No, it was written years before I was born."
"You're not the White Queen."
"Nobody's called me that for three hundred years now. And I never asked for the title."
"So you weren't trying to warn me away?"
Marceline froze.
"What?" she breathed in shock. Bonnie slid out the bed again and walked across the room to her, almost in slow motion.
"Please tell me the truth, Marceline. I have spent the last three hundred years thinking your first gift to me was a warning never to try to be anything more than your friend."
She stopped before the other woman, staring intensely into her shadowed eyes. That close and with that sweet warm breath stirring across her face Marceline couldn't stop herself from opening her mouth and letting the truth just tumble out past traitorous lips.
"No. I was just singing to pass the time. Bonnie, you're the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Why would I ever want to warn you away?" she whispered in stunned confusion.
Bonnie didn't reply. She swayed forwards and closed the small distance between them, pressing a soft kiss to Marceline's lips. Warm arms encircled her waist and pulled her closer until they were chest to chest and Marcy was sighing longingly into the kiss. Bravely, thoughtlessly, she reached down and took Bonnie's hand. She lifted it to her throat and let the warm finger tips press gently against her scars and shivered at the waves of sensation that radiated through her.
"You make me feel like a poet. Please don't leave tonight." the princess whispered against her lips when they finally stopped so she could draw a breath. "You have three hundred years of missed opportunities to make up for."
Marcy just nodded, dazed, and allowed herself to be gently led towards the bed with that same surging warm affection filling her chest again. Three hundred years. She must be the blindest person in the world, she thought distantly. As Bonnie pulled her down onto soft sheets and their lips met for the second time she also considered that she was probably the luckiest, too.