Ooo was a cold, dark place at night. The princess knelt, her nightdress sliding up around her thighs as she dug elbow deep in the dirt. The old graveyard was quiet. There were no creaks. There was no wind. There was, however, a noticeable absence of sound. A vacuum, of sorts. A silence so profound that the silence itself seemed audible. It beat against the princess's ears over and over, like waves crashing against the shore. It was maddening.
Worms slithered against her bare arms as she sifted through the dirt, which was quickly turning to mud the farther she dug in her search for a suitable tissue sample. After the Great Mushroom War, before Ooo regained a semblance of civilization, candy people were buried without caskets. The princess knew this well. She had been but a child when Ooo was united from warring factions into a thriving kingdom by her father, but she well remembered the sickly sweet stench of the dead rotting in the ground in this very same graveyard. Oh, did she remember.
She brought a handful of mud to her face and sniffed it delicately. Her nose wrinkled, and she nodded to herself. This sample would suffice.
The princess stuck her hand down the front of her dress and pulled out a test tube that had been hidden in her underclothes. She hadn't been able to find a bag that wouldn't have gotten in her way as she scaled down the castle walls. Peppermint Butler would have an aneurysm if he knew she was wandering the graveyards at night again. He was the only servant that had been with her since she was a child, as he was the only one who had achieved the eternal life that the princess also possessed. Albeit, he received it through the dark arts and she through the scientific efforts of her father, but all the same, only he knew the trouble she really could stir up should she dabble in the wrong enterprises, and only he had any semblance of control over her.
A twig snapped, and her neck stiffened.
She whipped around, but only darkness and jagged tombstones greeted her. She released her breath in a gust through her nostrils, and turned back to the ground in front of her, throwing her weight forward in preparation of standing up.
A pale blue face greeted her. A dead face. A grinning face.
She fell back and opened her mouth to scream, but an icy cold hand clamped over her mouth. She whimpered.
Cool lips brushed the tip of her ear. "Be still, Bonnibel."
The princess immediately relaxed, melting into the hard body surrounding her. The she froze up and huffed and shoved the body away from her.
She inhaled deeply, obviously about to deal a lengthy lecture to her attacker, but was drowned out by hysterical laughter.
"Wow, I really got you that time Bonnie," Marceline, the Vampire Queen said between snorts of laughter. "You should've seen your face. Priceless."
The vampire attempted to grasp the princess's wrist, but she pulled away angrily.
"You disrupted a very important scientific experiment." Her chest puffed up importantly. "Your donking up my-"
Marceline flicked her softly on the forward, effectively cutting her sentence short. The princess blinked, astounded. The vampire laughed loudly once more.
"C'mon cutie. You know you miss me."
Bonnibel's pink cheeks turned a shade darker.
The vampire queen smirked, and circled the princess' waist with her long arms. She lifted her up a few feet off the ground, and rotated slowly in the air, her hands gently resting above the girl's hips, and her quarry's hands trembling atop her shoulders.
She softly bit the tip of Bonnibel's ear. "You know you miss this," she whispered hoarsely.
The princess turned her head away, and the vampire queen stiffened. She let go, and the girl tumbled to the muddy ground, dirtying her night clothes. When she looked up, indignant, Marceline was gone.
Princess Bubblegum sniffed, holding back the tears in case Marceline was still lurking nearby. She slid a finger underneath her nightdress, pulled it out and looked down at her own chest. A black band t-shirt greeted her blurry gaze. She choked back a sob, and stood, sample tube in hand.
She did miss her.