AN: The full chapter title is "Wherein a Princess is Captured and a Deal is Struck" or, alternatively "Wherein Betty Reads a Book"


"Miss Betty, do you have any idea where Finn and Jake are?"

Peppermint Butler sounded more than a little on edge, so Betty carefully placed her finger between the pages of her book to save her spot and closed it, so she could grant him her full attention. Though she did hope whatever it was wouldn't take too long. There was so much in the world that had changed in the past thousand years while she had… well, Betty wasn't really sure where she'd been, exactly, or how she ended up here. She remembered getting on the plane for her trip to Norway – or had it been Sweden? – but after that things were hazy or completely blank until the moment she'd found herself lying on a beach being gently nosed awake by Lady Rainicorn. But regardless of how it had happened, Betty was here now and she had a lot to catch up on and a lot to learn about the way this world worked. Too much not to take the utmost advantage of any quiet moments that presented themselves, like this one had been before the appearance of Peppermint Butler.

"They left to go on a dungeon crawl about a week ago, Finn said they'd come by for a visit once they got back, and they haven't yet, so I assume they aren't. Back, that is," Betty said. "Why, what's up, Pepper? You look like you wish you had hair so you could be tearing it out."

"A week ago? Shouldn't they be back by now?" Peppermint Butler asked, completely ignoring Betty's question.

Betty shrugged. "Jake mentioned that he thought they might be awhile." In fact, he had told Betty privately that while the sudden and mysterious appearance of another human had distracted him, Finn was still pretty upset over his break-up with his ex, Flame Princess – a break-up so spectacular it had apparently resulted in the, temporary, destruction of an entire kingdom and, despite a small sense of morbid curiosity, Betty couldn't say she was sorry to have missed it. Jake, however, was hopeful that taking Finn out to hunt for treasure and fight evil-doers might help clear his head, and Finn's head, it seemed, needed a lot of clearing.

"Well, that's just great; now what am I supposed to do?" Peppermint Butler said, scowling.

"That depends on what's going on," Betty said, unable to help further as Peppermint Butler had yet to actually tell her anything.

"Princess Bubblegum has been kidnapped" – Betty got half out of her chair in alarm – "by the Ice King." And then she sat right back down again.

Betty had yet to have the extremely dubious pleasure of meeting the Ice King, but she'd heard plenty about him from Finn and Jake, who were always willing to complain about their roommate. Only a temporary one, they assured her, just until his aforementioned destroyed kingdom could be rebuilt by his penguin, an effort that had apparently caused another catastrophic event – this one involving 'snow-a constrictors' – that Betty had happily missed out on, that time due to being laid up in the hospital while she recovered from… whatever it was that had happened to her to result in her washing up on the shores of Ooo. The two boys, as well as Princess Bubblegum on occasion, had thrown a lot of words around to describe the Ice King, like "bad guy" and "evil" and "nefarious" and "no good, dirty, stinking, rotten, total donk," but the impression that Betty had gotten from their stories was of an infantile and obnoxious jerk, but not one that was in any way all that dangerous. Honestly, the penguin sounded more dangerous than Ice King.

"So have the Banana Guard go pick her up at the Treehouse. And soon too; didn't she have that thing later today?" Betty said, opening her book back up.

"If by 'that thing' you mean an incredibly important royal event that could cause a diplomatic incident if the princess were to fail to attend," Peppermint Butler said. Who knew he could do shrill? "I don't think you appreciate the full gravity of the situation. The Ice King is no longer just some powerless old man squatting in Finn and Jake's house. He has his crown back, his magic back, and his kingdom back. He's far too much for the Banana Guards to handle."

"So you go rescue her," Betty said.

"Me? What makes you think I'm capable of something like that?" Peppermint Butler said, his tone incredulous with just the right touch of flustered. Betty stared at him, narrow-eyed. He stared blandly back.

Finally Betty sighed and placed her bookmark in her book before sticking them both in her jacket pocket. So much for a quiet moment. "Fine, I'll go get her. The Ice King's new palace would be the mountain made of solid ice up to the north, right?"

"You're going to rescue the princess? But you aren't a hero or a knight or a magic user or –"

"Or anything like that, no," Betty agreed. "But I am a fully grown adult woman and Finn said he's been dealing with the Ice King since he was a kid. If a twelve year old boy can do it, I should be able to manage."

"I didn't mean to imply you're incapable, but you do lack experience in these matters. Besides," he added in a tone that had Betty suspecting this was the real reason he didn't want her going, "the princess will have my buns if I let you try to rescue her and you get captured instead."

"You aren't letting me do anything, grown woman, remember?" Betty said. "And anyway, Finn and Jake aren't around to save her, the Banana Guard can't do it, you won't do it, but somebody still has to do it, so I'm volunteering. I owe Princess Bubblegum for making sure I was taken care of after Lady found me and for letting me stay here and for helping me to adjust to this time period, not to mention she's my friend. And if the Ice King gives me any trouble, I'll just knock his crown off his head, problem solved."

Peppermint Butler still looked a bit doubtful, but after a moment he nodded. "Alright, but when this goes wrong it's on your head, man, not mine."

"Duly noted," Betty said.

"And you'll have to borrow The Morrow so you can get to the Ice Kingdom and back in time for the royal event."

Betty crinkled her nose in distaste – she didn't much care for flying and she got the feeling that The Morrow didn't much care for her – but she didn't argue. She doubted it would be a fun trip, but at least The Morrow was better and faster than walking.


"I should have walked," Betty said to herself as she struggled not to blow chunks all over the, presumably new, flooring. That would be extremely rude, even if the Ice King was a jerk and a perpetual kidnapper; cleaning up vomit was not a pleasant task. Once she was certain the contents of her stomach were going to stay in her stomach, she looked over at The Morrow and gave her a baleful glare. "You couldn't have made the ride a little smoother? Or slower? I am trying to save Princess Bubblegum here, and I know you like her at least."

The Morrow swiveled her head to the side so she could stare at Betty with one great yellow eye. After a minute The Morrow seemed to feel she'd made her point, then, with a supremely disinterested air, she turned away and began preening her feathers, focusing especially on the spot where Betty had been sitting.

"Stupid bird," Betty muttered quietly. But not quietly enough, it seemed because The Morrow gave an indignant little screech – not an exceedingly loud one, but still louder than Betty would have liked, since this was ideally supposed to be a stealth mission – and flew back out the window. Hopefully she hadn't gone too far, though so long as The Morrow remained within earshot, Princess Bubblegum should be able to call her back pretty fast, once Betty had saved PB and they were ready to make their escape.

Betty surveyed the room, hoping to find some sort of clue as to the location of the dungeon or holding cells or wherever it was that Princess Bubblegum was being kept, but was instead confronted with the sight of a penguin staring at her from the doorway. "Oh. Um, hello," Betty said, hoping that if she sounded casual enough, the penguin wouldn't kick up a fuss about her breaking into the Ice King's castle. If it could even be called breaking into, given that the window she'd entered from had been wide open, and was large enough that Betty was fairly certain it was actually intended as a point of entrance and egress for Ooo's flying denizens. "Are you Gunter, by chance?" The penguin nodded. "Nice to meet you Gunter, I'm Betty; I'm a friend of Princess Bubblegum. I heard she'd come over here to stay with the Ice King for a while, so I thought I'd stop by and visit."

"Wenk wenk," Gunter said. And while Betty couldn't understand whatever penguin language Gunter was speaking – she wasn't even entirely sure that there was a complex penguin language to understand, for all that Gunter seemed to understand her – it was pretty clear that he was highly suspicious of her story.

"Really," Betty insisted. "I'm just here for a social visit to see how Princess Bubblegum is settling in."

"Wenk," said Gunter flatly, obviously not believing a word of it.

Betty huffed in annoyance. "I'll have you know I am a very good liar when I want to be; I'm just better at telling the truth. Besides, that story would have tricked the Ice King." Betty had been prepared to possibly run into Gunter and for him to be more dangerous than the Ice King, but not smarter too.

"Wenkwenk," Gunter said ambivalently, then turned around and walked off. After a moment of considering the options, Betty decided to follow after him. The way she saw it, there were two likely possibilities: either Gunter had decided, for whatever reason, to help her and was even now leading her to where Princess Bubblegum was being held, or he had decided to rat her out to the Ice King and was heading to find his master. Betty would have preferred to avoid a confrontation with the Ice King if at all possible, but if Gunter had decided to give her up then it was basically inevitable now anyway, so might as well go to him first and hopefully retain some small measure of the element of surprise to give herself a good opportunity to knock his crown off and then demand he tell her where he was keeping Princess Bubblegum. It maybe wasn't the best plan, but it was better than wandering about the castle and likely getting thoroughly lost.

But it appeared that luck, or rather, Gunter was on Betty's side, because he led her down a few hallways and to a room with a giant cell along one wall, and inside it was Princess Bubblegum. "Betty? What the junk; what are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Betty answered. She left the obviously unvoiced, though she thought her tone made that part clear.

"Well, yeah," Princess Bubblegum agreed. "But why you? Normally this is the kind of thing I have Finn and Jake do for me. Or maybe Marceline. She and the Ice King have a weird sort of rapport; I don't really get it. Maybe it's because they're both a little nutso." Princess Bubblegum quickly and briefly clapped her hand over her mouth, going wide-eyed. "Oh my Glob, don't tell her I said that. She'll kick my buns into next week and probably still be mad."

"I haven't even met Marceline yet, so your secret is safe with me," Betty assured her as she began searching the room for the key to the cell. From what she'd heard about him, the Ice King seemed like the type to keep it somewhere obvious and near-by.

"Good. We've been kind of getting along lately, and I don't want to start fighting again," Princess Bubblegum said. "Anyway, you still haven't told me why you're here."

"To rescue you," Betty repeated. Princess Bubblegum made a moue of displeasure, so Betty elaborated. "I don't know if Peppermint Butler tried to get in touch with Marceline or not, but Finn and Jake are still out on their dungeon crawl. They weren't available, and so I volunteered instead." Betty put her hands on her hips and frowned. "Do you have any idea where the key to this cell is?"

"Looking for this?" Betty whipped around, and behind her was a man who had to be the Ice King. He was holding his blue robe up to his waist so he could reach down inside his underwear – really just a bunch of dirty cloth bandages wound around and crisscrossed back and forth over his privates – and pull out a heavy looking key made of ice. That was disgusting.

In spite of the fact that Betty really didn't want to touch the key now, she lunged for it, only for the Ice King to float a good six feet up in the air, so it was well out of her grasp. Glob-darnit, Ice King could fly? Had someone told her that? Thinking about it, she thought that maybe someone had mentioned it, and she had forgotten about it. That was going to make it almost impossible to get the key, or to knock the crown off his head. She could maybe try to get Princess Bubblegum to distract the Ice King while Betty threw something at the crown, but, while Betty was in good shape and considered herself decently athletic, she really couldn't aim for beans. So now what?

"Why hello, princess; I don't think we've met before. I'm the Ice King," he said, with a waggle of his eyebrows that was probably meant to be provocative, but mostly just looked silly.

"I'm not a princess," Betty corrected, though with the sheer number of princesses that seemed to be running around all over the place, his confusion was probably understandable. "I'm Betty Grof. I'm a friend of Princess Bubblegum and I just stopped by so the two of could visit. You know, have some tea and chat a bit about how she's settling in here."

"That's right," Princess Bubblegum said, taking Betty's cue. "You're welcome to join us, Ice King."

"Really? No one's ever invited me to hang out with them before. You ladies really want me to join you?" Ice King asked, and he sounded so genuinely thrilled about the prospect that Betty almost felt bad for lying to him.

"Yes, really." Almost.

"Wenkwenk wenk wenk," said Gunter, who had apparently been standing in the corner watching the proceedings this whole time.

Ice King turned an accusatory glare on Betty. "Is this true?"

"Um… no?" Betty hazarded.

"It is true! You don't want to hang with me at all, you just want to steal my princess." The Ice King floated another foot higher in the air, his expression going furious and foreboding as magic and ice began to gather around his hands. "I'll show you what I do to princess stealers!" And for the first time, Betty felt deeply and instinctually frightened.

Betty was, or had been, a researcher by trade, and it was a job that her nature was suited for – thoughtful, methodical, and thorough. At least, that's how she was the vast majority of the time. But sometimes there would come a moment where Betty would find herself wanting to behave almost impetuously, an occasional desire to leap without looking first. Her father had always said that that desire represented the spark that separated the good and even great minds from the truly brilliant. Her mother, meanwhile, had insisted that Betty had, hidden deep within her, a bit of an adventurer's spirit, and that her rare impulsiveness was that spirit peeking through. And then there had been Betty's great aunt, who had had an unfortunate tendency of cackling and who scared Betty terribly when she was younger and who Betty had missed just as terribly once she was gone, who said it was a touch of insanity. "Just a touch, mind you, not enough to be getting worried about, just enough to keep things from getting boring. It runs in the family, you know." Betty was starting to feel like Great Aunt Imogene must have had the right of it after all, because what possible explanation other than a touch of insanity could there be for the way Betty suddenly found herself saying, "Take me instead."

"What?" said Ice King and Princess Bubblegum at almost the exact same time, though Bubblegum sounded somewhere between indignant and incredulous, whereas the Ice King, who had drifted back down a bit and returned to a more relaxed expression, just sounded confused.

"Betty, you can't trade yourself for me," Princess Bubblegum objected.

"Watch me," Betty said. She was getting a little tired of people telling her what she could and couldn't do today. "Look Princess, I might not know much about politics, especially about the ones here in Ooo, but I do know it's a lot more important to keep you out of that cell than it is to keep me out of it."

"You're not less important than me," Princess Bubblegum said.

"I didn't say that I was." Just that Princess Bubblegum's freedom was more important. There were a lot of things that a ruler of a country needed to do that she couldn't while being held captive, not to mention that thing that Pepper had gotten all shrill about, but if Ice King were willing to keep Betty supplied with books and writing materials, she could still accomplish a great deal of what she wanted to do right now from inside his holding cell. Come to think of it, the Ice Kingdom was probably a much more peaceful place to get work done than the Candy Kingdom anyway.

"Wait a second there, Princess Betty; who says I want to trade?" Ice King objected. "Sure you seem like a pretty stellar lady, top-tier princess material for sure. But Bubblegum is my favorite princess."

"Not Princess Betty, just Betty," she reminded him. "And Princess Bubblegum has always been your favorite, but how do you know you won't like me better? Besides, isn't she a little young for you?" Of course, Betty felt like she was a little young for Ice King too, presuming one didn't count the thousand years when she had been… wherever, but she was older than PB at least.

"What're you talking about? Bubblegum is old as butts," Ice King said.

Betty turned to Princess Bubblegum with raised brows and she gave an awkward little cough. "Technically that's sort of true. My apparent physical age is primarily determined by my levels of biomass, not how many years I've been alive."

"I see," Betty said. "Well, you still don't know that you won't like me better."

Ice King appeared to consider that for a second. "I know; I'll just keep you both here while I take some time to get to know you better, and then I can decide which one of you I want to marry," said Ice King, and Betty had to admit it was a good point. Ethically repugnant, but that aside it was hard to fault the logic of his approach.

"But what about, what about…" Betty cast about for some other objection she could use. "What about when Finn and Jake get here?" she asked triumphantly.

"What about Finn and Jake?" Ice King said.

"They're going to find out eventually that you've kidnapped the two of us. And then they'll come rescue us and you'll be alone all over again. But, if you agree to let Princess Bubblegum go right now, then I promise that when they do show up, I won't let them rescue me," she said.

"Betty, what are you doing?" Princess Bubblegum hissed.

"Rescuing you," Betty told her, for the third time. "Now be quiet and trust me."

The Ice King eyed the two of them whispering to each other suspiciously. "Wait a minute. You're just agreeing to that because as soon as I let Princess Bubblegum go, you're going to have her turn around and free you too, so you won't need Finn and Jake to do it."

Huh. Betty honestly hadn't expected him to catch on to that loophole. "Fine, then I promise that I won't let anyone rescue me." Which still left her the option of escaping on her own. "Now do we have a deal?" she said, extending her hand up to the Ice King.

He dithered for a minute or so, looking back and forth between her and Bubblegum and muttering to himself. Finally Betty let out a heavily annoyed sigh. "Look if you aren't interested, then I really should get going. I have lots of other things I could be doing today," she said, starting to bring her hand down.

"Wait, no, deal!" Ice King said, darting down and taking her hand. He shook it once, then everything suddenly went dark.


When Betty woke up, she was in the same cell that Princess Bubblegum had been in earlier, surrounded by chunks of ice and lightly covered in frost, and the room was empty. So much for her idea of escaping as soon as Ice King opened the cell door to let Princess Bubblegum out, then.

Betty got up and brushed the ice off herself. Not seeing any sort of cot or chair in her cell, she sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Then she pulled her book out of her pocket and, happy to see it wasn't all that worse for the wear after having been frozen, picked up right where she had left off.