Prologue
Tip tip tip.
Bubblegum sighs, tapping her pen against the edge of her desk. It has been exactly eight days, twelve hours and thirty five minutes since she issued an ultimatum to the Fire Kingdom; surrender all assets or be met with resistance.
Bonnibel Bubblegum prided herself on many things; her scientific work, her quick wit and most importantly her dedication to the Candy Kingdom. Bonnibel didn't like to think of herself as a bad person – ruthless, perhaps but no inherently bad – although she's been having a hard time convincing people otherwise as of late.
The decision had come four months after her initial venture to the Fire Kingdom. Despite having less than friendly plans on entering the kingdom she had left with a newfound friendship with the Flame Princess, a friendship which was now dead and buried. The fact of the matter was that the Fire Kingdom just kept growing and she knew she couldn't quite trust Flame Princess not to overstep her mark. The way Bubblegum saw it – had always seen it, in fact – was that the Fire Kingdom would need dealing with one way or another. The citizens were simply too unstable and the rulers had a habit of turning out evil, to put it bluntly. The thing was that the Fire Kingdom had never had a ruler quite as good at their job as Flame Princess which was good news for the Fire Kingdom and bad news for anyone else.
Despite genuinely wanting to be on good terms with the Kingdom, Flame Princess' strength had continued to grow to the point where Bubblegum saw her as a threat and that was something she simply couldn't risk.
She hasn't slept in over thirty six hours.
Bubblegum sighs once more, stooping over to continue writing letters asking for alliance from the other kingdoms. Her room is dark with the only light coming from a candle next to her. She fights a yawn and pushes pen to paper.
Her kingdom needs her. She doesn't have time to sleep.
A short gust blows through the open window. Bonnibel pauses. Out of the corner of her eye, the candle flickers. There is no way that there should be any wind in the room. She glances over to the window; it lies wide open when just two minutes ago it had been open just a crack. Feeling her muscles tense, Bubblegum reaches an arm down to search for anything to ward off the possible assassin.
As her hands close over a discarded candelabra, a thought occurs to her.
"Marceline?" she calls out tentatively.
Without warning the Vampire Queen is floating at her side. Bubblegum sighs, dropping her makeshift weapon.
"You look tense, Bub-bubs" Marceline says, floating on her back, arms behind her head.
"Tense? Marceline, you can't just come in here unannounced. I thought you were a- a-"
"An assassin sent by Flame Princess?"
Marceline raises one eyebrow as Bubblegum tries to think of a response. She had purposefully been trying to keep Marceline in the dark about the Candy Kingdom's current situation so as to protect her from both harm and making choices that she shouldn't have to make.
"Forget how good I am at finding out information? People talk, Bubs" Marceline drops so that she is sitting on the desk, next to Bubblegum and facing her.
"Ice King" Bubblegum mutters. She had requested the help of the Ice King a week and a half prior, knowing that he would help her should worst come to worst. She should have known that he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut.
"He may be delusional but he's a sucker for telling a story. Ask him to tell and he'll do it without even realising"
"Look Marceline" Bubblegum sighs. "I'm not going to sit here and play games with you. This is a serious situation, if you hadn't noticed and I need to-"
"Who says I can't take things seriously?" Marceline's voice rises "You think I think this is a joke, Bonnie? You're all up for charging into war on horseback or rainicornback or whatever against weirdo fire peeps all on an assumption and you think I think it's a joke? You sure you aren't the delusional one? You're gonna get yourself killed!"
"Will you keep your voice down?" Bubblegum whispers harshly. "As much as I'm sure you're here to tell me that you aren't going to stand by me on this, I don't need to hear it"
"What, you mean like Finn did?"
Bubblegum closes her eyes, draws in a long breath. Finn had already come to confront her after Flame Princess had spoken to him about Bubblegum's ultimatum. He'd said she was crazy, insisted she was being possessed once again. Upon realising that this wasn't the case he'd stormed out, tears in his eyes. He had once said he'd stand by her side, her knight through everything but this he couldn't justify.
"You've changed" he'd said and the hurt in his voice made her heart sink like a stone. He didn't understand, he was only sixteen years old, hadn't even known her ten years. He hadn't seen her have to make this kind of decision before.
It went against his hero's code, he'd said, to harm innocent people and he couldn't let her do it, couldn't let her hurt Flame Princess, the girl he was still madly in love with.
Bubblegum had never thought she'd see the day when she couldn't count on Finn by her side.
It made her sick, knowing that that day had come.
"Of course he spoke to you" Bubblegum murmurs.
"Told me you'd gone insane" Marceline says matter of factly, shrugging.
"And you agreed, I'm sure" Bubblegum scoffs.
"No. He doesn't know you. Not like I do, Bonnie"
Marceline drums her fingers on the desk absent-mindedly, looking past Bubblegum. Neither of them speaks for a while. Bubblegum tries to go back to her writing but can't fathom why Marceline is here and why her temper seems to be going from red hot to neutral within seconds. Finally, Bonnie puts the pen down and leans back, looking directly at Marceline.
"Why are you here, then?"
"You really think I'm going to let you go at it with Flame Princess, candy blazing? Face it Bubbs, you and your candy army are pretty cute but you wouldn't last a second"
"You really think that little of us, huh?" Bubblegum snaps.
"Bonnie, your main soldiers are freaking bananas – literally! – your candy people can barely tell their head from their toes and you've already been melted to goo once in the past few years. You got nothing on Fire Kingdom"
"So you're here to mock me? Well, I'm sorry we can't all be immortal half demon vampires, Marceline. You know those kind of genetics are slightly more difficult to get a hold of than candy"
"I ain't here to mock you, keep your gum on"
"Then why are you here?" Bubblegum slams her fist on the table. She's very aware of how short tempered she's being but Glob, the last thing she needs right now is an obnoxious vampire in her face.
"I just said, I'm not letting you duke it out with the Fire Kingdom on your own. I'm not bonkers, I know that's what it's coming to. You'd give up everything if it meant protecting your dumb Kingdom"
"You think?"
"You just gave up Finn, didn't you?"
Marceline raises her eyebrows.
"I-I wouldn't call it giving up" Bubblegum stutters. "He had his own choice to make, I wouldn't-"
"You gave up me"
Marceline's voice is small and as she says it she turns her head to look out the window, avoiding the Princess' gaze. Bubblegum swallows.
"Marceline, this isn't the time-"
"Yeah"
The tension in the room is palpable as the two monarchs sit in silence.
It is the Vampire Queen that finally breaks it.
"I'm here to help you Bon. Whether you want me or not"
"Marceline" Bubblegum murmurs. "You know there hasn't been a time when I didn't"
Marceline scoffs and finally moves her head forward to look at the Princess again.
"But you need to think about this" Bubblegum continues. "I can't let you just do this on a whim. You need to know what you're up against. You could lose a lot, you could lose-" Bubblegum swallows, pushing the image of Marceline losing her life from her mind before continuing. "You'd be going up against people you love, people we love. Finn, Jake, Cinnamon Bun"
"And what's my other option? Fighting you?"
"You could stay out of it. This isn't your fight"
"No, but it's yours and you're going in with nothing. It's suicide"
Bonnie sighs, burying her head in her hands.
"'Sides, you'll think of something. You always do" Marceline says. She leans forward, carefully tucking a strand of hair behind Bubblegum's ear. When the Princess doesn't move, Marceline begins to shuffle the papers littering Bubblegum's desk into a somewhat neat pile.
"You need to sleep, Bon. You've been up for days again, I can tell. I always can"
The Princess doesn't move. After a minute, Marceline sighs and pushes off the desk so that she is floating upright. She floats forwards a few paces, her back to Bubblegum.
"Stay with me? Tonight" Bubblegum finally says in a small voice.
The last time Marceline had stayed over had led to the two arguing. The day after Princess Day. Bubblegum had told Marceline that she was encouraging LSP to be too reckless. Marceline had said there was no harm in a little fun.
Bubblegum had accused Marceline of being ignorant to the people that were cleaning up the mess that she had called "fun"
Marceline had accused Bubblegum of being selfish and caring too much about her image, never wanting to see her until it had gotten dark.
Bubblegum had accused Marceline of not understanding the duties of a true monarch.
It was an argument that had been coming up behind closed doors I recent years, ever since the two had made up after Marceline's return to the outskirts of the Candy Kingdom. After the whole rock shirt-Hambo palaver the two had realised that maybe it was better to be on each other's sides. They'd already hurt each other, torn each other to shreds before, a flurry of broken hearts. What was the point of fighting now when they could be friends?
Just friends.
That hadn't lasted long and once more it meant sneaking around at night only this time without a label commanding commitment.
Marceline had said she was sick of being something when the sun set and nothing once again when it rose.
Bubblegum expects Marceline to be gone when she raises her head. She had been right, Bubblegum does need sleep; she's exhausted right down to her bones.
She hears the window shut but to her surprise Marceline is suddenly beside her and as Bubblegum turns to look at her she softly blows out the candle, leaving them in darkness.
"Come on then" she hears Marceline murmur, barely audible. She feels cools fingers wrapping around her own. "You need to sleep"