Disclaimer: Adventure Time and its characters belong to Pendleton Ward. The song "Immortals" and its lyrics belong to Fall Out Boy.
Immortals
vi.
(i try to picture me without you but i can't)
Centuries pass, but this time, oh, they pass so slowly.
After some deliberation—and some tears, so many tears, entire storms and rivers and oceans, and she doesn't know how she can shed them when she never drinks any water, but even so, she can't make them stop—Marceline surrenders to fate or destiny or whatever it is and retreats from the world entirely, seeking refuge in the Nightosphere.
Home sweet home, she thinks. Nothing like fire and brimstone to warm the cockles of my unbeating heart.
The Nightosphere is chaos, unrelenting and raw, but it seems like the most benign of tumors when Marceline considers the sterile, calculating order that Bonnibel is imposing on the world above. She tries not to think of it, though—it's impossible not to, or not to think of her, but at least she tries. She lives in her father's house, watches as he presides with cruelty and stark, raving madness, and recalls that absolute power corrupts absolutely and how's that going for you, Bonnibel?
She samples some souls, but she doesn't really like the taste. It doesn't hold a candle to blood. (It certainly doesn't hold a candle to Bonnibel.) There's plenty of red here, though; the place is madly decorated with it; and even if she used her entire eternity to drain each morsel gray, she'll still never drink it all.
She joins a ghost gang. They're petty and stupid and mean, and Marceline finds herself hoping they'll corrupt her, that this whole place will corrupt her, because maybe if she rusts and rots, maybe then she'll be able to go back to Bonnibel and look her in the eye and not cringe at that cold, cold clarity she sees there.
She writes a lot of angry songs. She writes a lot of sad songs. She writes songs for her, too, with words that plead and beg and forgive and condemn and forgive again, but she burns the papers where she scrawled the lyrics. Sometimes she records them just so that she can tear the cassette tapes to shreds, just so she can watch it all fall apart.
It's lonely. She forgets things, things she ought to remember.
Then her father eats her fries, and that's the last lumping straw.
The world outside the Nightosphere is foreign to her now, and she hisses in pain as the sun scalds her flesh, forcing her to retreat into the shadow of an overhanging cliff. Oh, yes, she vaguely recalls, that happens here.
This time around, she simply adapts to being nocturnal. There's no one else's comfort to consider.
She doesn't know where to look at first, so she just flies around, refamiliarizing herself with the geography. It hasn't had a chance to change, not in a meager three hundred years, but there do seem to be more cities than she remembered. Not cities like there were in antebellum ages, towering spires of metal and glass, but cities out of antiquity, castles and fortresses of stone.
Not all of them are made out of stone, though.
One of them seems to be made out of incredibly stale cake.
Marceline floats down towards it in the darkness, and with her bird's eye view, she perceives that this is the center of it all; the other castles, the other cities ring it like planets, each on their own orbiting arc, each revolving around this sun. Landing in front of the castle door, she knocks—she's not a heathen, after all.
When someone answers, she almost cracks up laughing. It's a banana. It's alive. It has a spear.
"Who dares come to Princess Bubblegum's door at this hour?" it demands gruffly, dark little eyes glaring at her.
Shit, I can't believe she went with that title. But that's an inward thought only, and outwardly, she considers for a moment and then flashes her fangs. "Tell Princess Bubblegum that Marceline the Vampire Queen wants to see her ASAP."
The banana guard's eyebrows rocket skyward. "Q-Queen?" it echoes. "Oh! Oh! Your Majesty! Forgive my rudeness! I shall fetch Her Highness immediately. Come in, come in!" It backs up, bowing over and over again, until she's standing in the entrance hall, and it skedaddles across the cavernous room and waddles awkwardly up a flight of stairs at the far end. Left to her own devices, Marceline glances around. The whole place is pink, pink and made of sugar. It's disgusting, and she wrinkles her nose and hawks a contemptuous loogie on the floor. The saliva melts into the saccharine tile, and she smirks, dark and humorless.
She's only been waiting for ten seconds total when she gets bored, and she lounges on her back in mid-air and swivels her bass around, plucking out unconscious melodies as she wonders, for the first time, what the plop she's doing here. What does she really expect to happen? What does she want to happen?
She doesn't figure it out before Bonnibel arrives.
The princess pauses but once when she catches sight of the vampire, and then she glides across the hall, straightforward as ever and seemingly pinker, but that might just be the surroundings, or because she seems to have acquired quite the penchant for purple, which only accentuates her coloring.
Marceline doesn't notice much of these details, though. Her attention is fixed only on the golden crown.
"Why is it always crowns?" she laments under her breath, and she slings her bass onto her back again and comes to rest on the floor and nods as cordially as she can manage. "Bonnibel."
"Marceline," the princess replies in kind, and one of her eyebrows arches. "You're a queen now? Or so I'm told."
The vampire smirks, all teeth and no heart. "I didn't want you to think you could give me orders, Princess."
"You wouldn't listen in any case," Bonnibel dismisses, and she folds her arms on her chest.
Marceline hums inattentive agreement, and she can't bite this bitterness back: "Nice crown, babe. Did it come with the title?"
Lavender eyes narrow. "In a manner of speaking," she allows, ignoring the reference to Simon, to his descent into rotten madness. A pause, and then, "Did you simply come here to harangue me?"
"That depends." The vampire cracks her knuckles, glacier-slow. "Does that mean I get to rip you a new one?"
"Crude but accurate," Bonnibel concedes, and she shakes her head, her gaze falling away. She does not attempt to speak again, leaving the ball in the other girl's court.
Marceline pushes off the floor, hovering about eight inches up, and circles the monarch like a buzzard weighing the chances of dinner. "A nice Franken-nana answered the door," she snarks at length. "That's pretty jacked up, Princess—giving life to fruit. Giving life to anything and then making it serve you. Pretty freaking jacked up. I s'pose I should be thankful that you didn't cross the line of calling yourself Goddess Bubblegum and making them worship you, but it's a small blessing. Practically a pittance."
Bonnibel's jaw tightens, but that is all.
"I don't see your precious amulet," Marceline continues, lashing out again, her forked tongue a whip, her fangs knives.
She sighs. "I lost it, quite a while ago."
"Is that so," the vampire murmurs, and her eyes sweep back to the crown. "Seems you didn't lose the Stones of Power. You're wearing that one pretty proudly."
Bonnibel lifts an absentminded hand to caress the opalescent stone. "I retained this one, yes," she admits. "The others I distributed amongst the kingdoms."
"Mighty gifts from their benevolent ruler," Marceline sneers. "What did they do to win your favor, eh?"
Unspoken, but glaringly loud: What could I have done to do the same?
The princess swallows but maintains level speech. "They established orderly, fair, and just communities. Thusly they were entrusted to guard a portion of the Enchiridion's power." She pauses again, almost as long this time, but Marceline has nothing more to say, so Bonnibel picks up the thread of the conversation by herself. "Speaking of…I'm actually glad you've come."
"Oh?" the vampire challenges, but it comes out too raw to truly be a taunt.
She dips her head. "I would ask you a favor."
Marceline barks a laugh, and it's thin and full of tears. In contrast to that response, and to Bonnibel's surprise, she permits, "Ask away, Princess."
The monarch beckons the vampire to follow, and with a half-suspicious frown, Marceline floats after her. They ascend staircase after staircase until they reach the highest room in the tallest tower, where princesses are always required to live. When she realizes where they are, the vampire summons another scathing laugh, but again, it doesn't come out quite as harsh as she wants it to.
"Wow, Bonni. Don't you think it's a bit presumptuous, asking me for a favor and then showing me to your bedroom?"
The other girl just slants her a look, otherwise not deigning to rise to that. She heads to her closet, instead, and shoves some of the boxes and dresses aside. Marceline ventures over, curiosity getting the better of her, and frowns as something catches her eye.
"Hey," she says, reaching out for the sleeve of a black t-shirt. "Isn't this mine?"
"What? Oh," Bonnibel realizes, straightening from her crouch. "Yes. I…think you must've stowed it in my pack by mistake back…well, back then. Yes. Er." She stares at the garment for a long, ticking moment, and then she returns to her rummaging. "You can take it, if you want," she offers, muffled.
The black cotton is thin and almost slick between the vampire's fingers, but cotton lasts practically forever if it's not exposed to direct sunlight, and Marceline has always been careful to avoid just such a circumstance. She's also always been careful to keep her own clothes in her own pack; she and Bonnibel have never exactly had the same taste when it comes to fashion.
Marceline's throat thickens, just a sliver. "Nah, I haven't missed it." But you've missed me, she adds in the astonished silence in her head. Maybe you're not a lost cause, after all.
"Oh, well, if that's fine with you. I guess I have enough room in here to store it," Bonnibel says, still with deliberate evasion in her voice, and then there's the heavy metallic sound of a lock slipping free, of bolts sliding back. "Come on," she adds, and she steps into the thick press of the hanging dresses.
Marceline steps closer guardedly. "Dude, where're we going? Narnia?"
The princess laughs, and now Marceline's throat does swell shut—it's been so long since she heard her laugh. It's beautiful. Musical, almost, light and bubbly. Like sugar. "Glob, no. We're just going to my strongroom."
"You have a…strongroom…" The vampire trails off, her mouth slipping open as she stares. Calling this place a strongroom is an understatement—it looks like the most fortified chamber in the whole world. "What's this lumpin' place made out of?" she asks, brushing fingertips across a wall.
"The hardest substance known to candykind," Bonnibel replies, and a grin flits across her face. "Jawbreakers."
Marceline whistles appreciatively and tucks her hands into her pockets. Bonnibel is standing near the plinth in the room's center, and she floats over. "What's in the box?" she wonders, nodding at it.
In response, the monarch pulls a key from around her neck and unlocks it. There's a click and a rush of steam, and when that clears, there's the Enchiridion.
Their last meeting playing sharp across her mind's eye, Marceline wills her hands to unclench. "Why're you showing me this?" she asks, low and hollow.
Bonnibel hefts the book from its resting place, her fingers tapping arrhythmically on the leather cover. "With the Stones of Power distributed, this…well, I have no reason to have it," she decides at last. "It's a handbook for heroes, and I'm not a hero."
"Neither am I," Marceline reminds her, ember eyes gleaming crimson with the blood of the creature she killed and drained earlier that night.
For a moment, the vampire swears that the princess is going to fight her on that one, but she lets it pass. "You can fly, though. I've located a place to keep it safe, a place only a true hero can reach. You'll be able to deliver it there with ease. The trials aren't as insurmountable when you're airborne and undead."
She tugs at the strap of her bass, a nervous tic of a motion. "You're not making much sense, Bonni. Geez, look around you—this place is a freakin' fortress. Why d'ya wanna move it somewhere else?"
Bonnibel shrugs. "It doesn't require a pure heart or heroic courage to get at the Enchiridion here. All it takes is the key."
Marceline has to give her that. "And that's no test for a savior," she realizes. "Just a test for a really radical burglar."
"Exactly," the princess concurs. She proffers the book, heavy beyond its physical shell. "Will you take it there?"
"If you riddle me this," the vampire replies, not yet accepting the tome. "What're you expecting to happen, eh? You're setting this up so you can judge someone competent enough to save you. So what danger do you imagine you'll need to be saved from?"
There's a terrible weight in Bonnibel's eyes, too, even more so than that which burdens the Enchiridion.
"Would you believe me," she whispers, "if I say myself?"
The only blood in Marceline's veins is stolen and sluggish and cool, but that statement serves to make it run cold.
She takes the Enchiridion to the appointed place, skimming through the clouds over the trials below and placing it in the hands of its new guardians. She doesn't return to the Candy Kingdom afterwards, choosing instead to wander the new, somewhat more civilized countryside of Ooo.
("Why's it called that? Ooo? It's a lump of a name," she asked Bonnibel before departing.
The princess exhaled an awkward laugh and scratched the side of her head. "Er, well, when I'd first built the kingdom, everyone who came by was so impressed by it that…well, the first words out of their mouths were, 'This place is…Ooo!', so, as a joke…"
"You named a country after a joke?" Marceline cackled. "Dude, I knew I loved you for a reason!"
That had killed the atmosphere pretty quick.)
That's not why she doesn't return, though. She doesn't return because she couldn't save Simon from his crown—she was just a scrawny teenaged half-demon, not a hero. Now, she's a powerful eternally-eighteen vampire, but even so…
She can't save Bonnibel from her crown, either.
vii.
(i'm still comparing my past to your future
it might be your wound but they're my sutures)
All across Ooo, Marceline claims or constructs or carves out houses. She acquires dozens, in convenient places, in whimsical places, forever searching for a home that she knows is only present in the heart of a princess made of bubblegum.
She does whatever she wants, whenever she wants to do it. She even gets a terrible boyfriend who treats her awfully because sometimes, when he smiles at her, there's a hint of Bonnibel in the curve. Eventually, though, she kicks him out, because a dash of remembrance isn't worth putting up with his crap and she's nine hundred years old, for glob's sake. She's finally outgrown fairy tales.
She's not a knight, so she doesn't get the princess. That's the long and short of it. She might as well stop pretending.
(She still doesn't have a home.)
Bonnibel labors ever for stability and progress, fashioning experiments in her lab and crafting order and prosperity outside it. She champions the rule of law, the rule of justice and decency, and in Ooo before anywhere else in the world, there is a glimmer of hope for the future.
Such hope is a little forced, a little false, since she had to create the population by herself, but there has never been any hope that could survive unsupported by sheer willpower. And there has never been any progress that rests on a foundation untainted with sin.
The world doesn't work that way. And Bonnibel is shrewd enough to understand that, and cold enough to carry it out.
Princess Bubblegum has a line of suitors (because, let's be real, they're not there to court Bonnibel herself) that she never even begins to consider—she hasn't thought about dying since that vampire ripped her leg off centuries earlier, and sees no reason to provide an heir to her throne, especially in such an uncouth way. But she glances at them sometimes, the poor candy fools, and each time she does, she experiences a little pang, because Marceline's never lounging there with her razor teeth and her red eyes and her raven-wing hair, ready and willing to sweep her off her feet and take her away from all this…gravity.
Marceline's never there at all, except in the shirt she let Bonnibel keep.
In the beginning, the princess only takes it out sometimes, caressing the ancient fabric and remembering that first heady rush of Marceline's lips on hers. She presses the cotton to her face and breathes in, deeper than deep, as if there's really a scent left there after so many hundreds of years. There isn't, of course, but the memories remain, twisted and tangled in the threads, inextricable as barbed wire in her heart.
As the years drag by and her crown grows heavier, she takes it out more and more often until she starts to wear it to bed. It protects her in her sleep, wrapping her in memories of happier times, of freer days. It adheres to her skin like armor, and maybe it's more of a talisman than she thought, because the alluring whispers of the Stone of Power fall on deafer ears.
When it gets really bad, she wears it beneath her clothes in the daytime, too.
It keeps her mind sane, but it wears her heart so, so thin.
A message arrives at Marceline's treefort during late summer when the dusk lingers thick on the western horizon, the most glorious, sullen shade of gold. She lazily pokes open the window with her foot, letting the carrier bird flap inside, and when it drops the envelope in her lap, she arches a curious eyebrow.
The bird pecks at her shoulder as she turns the letter over and recognizes the seal of the Candy Kingdom. With a frown trickling across her face, she absently sinks a fang into the scarlet wax and dissolves the seal, flicking open the paper a second later.
There's not much of a message. Come to the castle, it reads. Very important.
It's not even signed, but that doesn't matter. Marceline's been reading Bonnibel's handwriting for almost a thousand years; it's not as if she can mistake it.
For a moment, she's caught at a crossroads. The flinching pressure in her hand wants to crumple the note, and the flinching pressure in her dead heart wants to preserve it behind glass and a frame.
In the end, she scowls and shoves it in a drawer and spitefully takes her time, waiting for full night to descend before nudging open the window again and following the bird's invisible path through the skies above Ooo. The countryside below is dark except for the occasional flicker and flare of firelight, but Marceline pays it little heed, her attention fixed on the growing silhouette of Bonnibel's castle, pockmarked with bursts of light like the rolling hills.
Skipping all façade of manners, the vampire floats through one of the monarch's bedroom windows, sprawled on her back with her fingers laced behind her head. She's irritated to be summoned like this—she's irritated that she still can be summoned like this, that she can't possibly refuse to come when Bonnibel calls—and she is sure to let that emotion leak into her voice.
"What doth you desire, O Great and Chewy One? What could be so lumping important that you've deigned to break a century of silence?" she sneers, her eyes stubbornly, disrespectfully shut.
She opens them, though, when Bonnibel replies.
"Marceline," she says, and her own voice is small. Very small.
The vampire peers at her, her irritation ebbing in the face of vaguely annoyed confusion and more than a modicum of concern. The princess is just standing in the center of her bedchamber, looking as small as she sounds. "What?" Marceline barks, harsher than she intends, but her nerves are starting to fray.
Bonnibel winces, though it's not clear if her pain derives from Marceline's tone or something else entirely. Either way, she approaches the vampire and, to her scalding surprise, takes hold of her hand. "There's something you need to know. It would be easiest just to show you." She wavers, gnawing on her lip. "It would also be fastest if you flew us there."
The other girl stares at her for a calculating moment, and then she exhales a sigh through her nose and hefts Bonnibel into her arms, the motion as effortless as it ever was. "Point the way, Princess," she says, soft and somehow tired.
Bonnibel does, sweeping an arm out like a compass needle, and together, they venture into the night; the moonlight ripples iridescence across Marceline's hair, and Bonnibel's body leaks warmth into the vampire's cold, empty chest. Neither of them tries to breathe too deeply, because Marceline smells like everything her shirt no longer holds—the tang of metal from her bass strings, the crispness of fallen leaves, the cloying salty rasp of blood—and Bonnibel smells less like sugarcubes and more like purest syrup, something startlingly clear and only halfway sweet.
It's easy for the vampire not to breathe, but the princess has less of a choice, and she has to keep loosening her hands from their nostalgic death-grip in the other girl's tank top as the scent and the memories nearly overpower her.
Marceline doesn't need Bonnibel's indicating finger to realize they've reached their destination; she started descending towards the snow as soon as she saw the white gleaming in the summer night. She lands lightly on the edge of it, not certain if she should set the monarch down or not; as she hesitates, though, Bonnibel lowers herself and slides a pace away, seeking the return of her compromised composure.
The vampire tries not to be offended by that distancing, telling herself it doesn't matter anyway, and valiantly refocuses. "So," she remarks. "Snow in summer."
There's not really a question in her voice, but Bonnibel nevertheless provides an answer. "Yes. Simon has come to Ooo." She pauses, glancing at her former friend to determine her reaction.
Marceline just stands there, though, stands there and stares across the unnatural ice. She seems stiff, her jaw tighter and her shoulders straighter than usual, and she bows her head in something like an acknowledging nod.
Bonnibel swallows. "He calls himself Ice King now. From what my reports have gathered, he doesn't remember the past at all. Not you, not me, not himself."
The vampire digs a small divot in the snow with the toe of her boot. "Reports, huh," she murmurs, staring into the frozen blue shadow by her foot. "You're spying on him?" Before Bonnibel can defend herself, Marceline shakes her head. "No, I get it," she dismisses. "I would, too, if I were you. You have more reason to be cautious of him than anyone." Her lips pull taut, causing the points of her fangs to flash in the starlight. "What're you gonna do?"
"Nothing," Bonnibel replies, and Marceline looks at her so sharply her neck cracks. "Seriously," the princess insists. "His crown may have deranged him, but I can't imprison a man who's already imprisoned in his own head. That would just be cruel."
A spiderweb of hairline fractures spread across the vampire's countenance, giving the impression that the slightest touch will shatter her completely. "So what're you gonna do?" she echoes, as hoarse as an asthmatic in a cigar club. "Just leave him to his own devices?"
She nods. "Unless he proves himself a deadly threat, I see no reason to act. I certainly see no reason to act preemptively."
Marceline is unwilling to let this lie, though, and she picks at it masochistically. "But before…I mean, shit, Bonni, he tried to—"
"Yes, he did," the princess interrupts, some of her own ice creeping across her words. "You don't have to remind me. I haven't forgotten. But." She shifts her weight, braces her arms on her chest. "That was almost a thousand years ago. Not that there's a statute of limitations on that crime, but…well, I have guards now. And walls. I'll be safe."
The vampire looks away. "Yeah. Safer than when all you had was me."
"That's not what I—"
Marceline holds up a hand, and Bonnibel submits to that. "It's fine," she whispers. "It's true."
No, it's not, the princess nearly blurts, but she catches the words halfway up her throat and tucks them back away. Instead, she remarks, "My reports also seem to indicate that in his advanced senility, he has in fact become rather less of a threat. I think, perhaps, he is truly harmless once more. Potentially annoying, but harmless. Like…like allergies."
The vampire bobs her head, over and over and over again, as if it's loose on her neck. "Okay," she breathes, and at last, she looks up, sweeping her gaze across the wind-sculpted snow drifts. "Maybe I'll drop in on him one day." Her eyes flicker to Bonnibel's, and there's a warmth in their depths that has nothing to do with bloodfire. "See if he wants to share some chicken soup."
The princess almost tears up at that, almost flings her arms around Marceline's neck and sobs every last truth into her collar. Like I miss you and I still love you and I'm so damn sorry that I hurt you and You're so much better than I deserve, don't you see, that's why I can't have you. She almost says it all.
But only almost.
"I'm sure he'd like that," she declares, bright and brittle, and she sniffs—just from the cold, just from the cold. "We should be getting back, though."
Marceline nods, still so preoccupied, and gently scoops her up again.
This time, Bonnibel doesn't play at pretenses. She snarls her fingers in the shirt and tilts her face into the vampire's chest, making sure each breath is thickly infused with her scent and pretending that the wind whipping in her ears is a heartbeat.
If Marceline notices, she doesn't say a thing.
One day, a human boy comes to the Candy Kingdom, and he's noble and brave and pure of heart. Bonnibel recognizes this, much as she is initially loathe to, and she dangles the Enchiridion in front of him. He claims it like a hero, and he does Ooo proud. He'll do her proud, too, eventually—and not just because he'll do anything to make her proud, but because her heart's not quite as hard as it seems. Not anymore.
She never tells him, though, that she's always a little bit disappointed that he's not Marceline.
She really, really thought that, in the end, her hero would be Marceline.
viii.
(i am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass)
The thing about mortals is that they die.
Finn lives a long and rich life. His deeds are the stuff of legend, his victories guaranteed to earn him a seat of honor amongst the gods—or so the tales promise. But in the end, he succumbs to the ravages of time, that temporal storm that has never done more than brush fruitlessly at Marceline and Bonnibel, and Ooo loses its greatest hero.
They bury him as he requested, rocketing him upwards into the stars with his collection of swords and his silly, now-threadbare hat and the bones of his faithful canine companion—Jake had passed decades earlier—so that he could have one last grand adventure, sailing eternal across the cosmos.
Afterwards, Marceline burns the treefort to the ground. She can't imagine ever living there again; it hasn't been her house in decades, and it was Finn's home like it never was hers. She respects that. She lets it die with him.
Bonnibel sits with her while it burns, and they watch as it chars itself to ash, as the beams pop and split, as the fire gutters and spikes. Somewhere in the middle, when the smoke is beginning to irritate their eyes, Marceline takes up her bass and composes their friend a tribute, the kind of epic poem that exalted the heroes of old. Tears flow freely down her pale gray cheeks before she makes it through the first verse, and Bonnibel is already crying the moment she picks up the instrument, before she even strikes the opening chord.
The only thing they save from the pyre is the Enchiridion, but it wasn't really Finn's. He was just its caretaker for a while, even if it can never hope to have a better one.
When the first light of dawn sees the last wisps of smoke dancing away on the breeze, Marceline shifts her bass onto her back, her fingertips bleeding stolen blood from the long, mournful hours of quiet song. She seems unaware of that, though, and picks up the hefty book.
"Guess it's back to the temple for this," she remarks, glancing sidelong at Bonnibel to make sure.
The princess nods and scrubs the tearstains from her face. "To await its next champion."
Marceline doesn't ask what happens if there isn't one; it doesn't occur to her, and even if it had, Bonnibel gives her no time to ask, as she's reaching over and pulling on the strap of the bass. "What're you doing?" the vampire hisses, glancing swiftly towards the sunrise. "I've gotta get going, babe."
In response, Bonnibel just shrugs out of her long coat and drapes it ungracefully over the other girl's head like it's a lampshade. "I know this is terrible timing," she says, her hand coiling around the instrument's strap again, anchoring in place. "And not just because of the dawn, but because we just lost Finn, too. He did more than protect Ooo, though; he gave us common ground once more over the years, and with it, the chance to renew our friendship." She pauses, deliberating. "We're almost there. I just need to apologize."
Marceline forces her lips to smirk. "Then grovel away, Princess."
"No," Bonnibel insists, and she tugs on the bass. "I've been working on this for a long time. I'm afraid I'm not quite the wordsmith that you are," she admits ruefully, and the vampire finally permits her to take her guitar. The strings are stained with stolen ichor, and it transfers redly to the monarch's fingers as she runs them up and down the instrument's neck; she doesn't care.
"You're gonna play?" the vampire wonders, genuine surprise in her tone. "Dude, when did you learn?"
She slants her a glance that has a shade of reproach. "I've been watching you play for a thousand years," she drawls, eyebrow tilting up, "and I didn't write the melody. I borrowed it from you." She chews on her lower lip. "It seemed most fitting that way."
Marceline adjusts the other girl's coat, making certain it's shielding her from the sun. "Go ahead then," she teases, and she tugs on the gray points peeking through her hair. "I'm all ears."
A measure of weary sorrow shadows Bonnibel's eyes, though, and she does not remark on that attempt at humor. She simply begins to play, and it's a very familiar melody to Marceline, indeed. What's worse, it's a very familiar apology, reminiscent of one she received ages and ages ago.
"La da da da-da, I'm getting buried under my crown
La da da da-da, yeah, it's pushin' me so far down
I know I wiped the smile from your pretty gray face
I know I lost the one thing that I just can't replace but I'm
Sorry I didn't treat you with compassion or even courtesy
Sorry my ambition drove you so far, so far away from me
It was jacked up, what I was doing, but it felt necessary
I don't know if ends justify, so I'm sorry for my means
Turn's out that, I am the problem
Yeah, I am the problem
It's true, I'm not very perfect, am I
I'm just your problem
And I-I-I-I am getting buried under my crown, and
I-I-I-I am freakin' scared I'm gonna drown
You've gotta stay this time and save me, Marcy, please
I promise this time I won't do lump to make you leave
'Cause I know I'm just your problem
And know what? You're still my problem
But maybe together, we could solve 'em
(How 'bout it now?)
Let's try to solve 'em…"
The last deep notes fade buzzing from the bass, and Bonnibel glances up at Marceline. There are fresh tears tracking down the vampire's face, silent and as resigned to this fate as the princess appears to be herself.
"You, too, huh," she croaks, her gaze dragging to the golden circle, as hateful as Simon's crown ever was. "You said we could solve it, though. Do you know how to fix it?"
The real question, unasked: Is it already too late?
Bonnibel runs her fingers lightly along the strings, causing quiet little shrieks. "There's always research," she provides with the smallest shrug. "It's always worth a try."
"And if it fails?"
She shrugs again, a more exaggerated and far less casual ripple of her shoulders. That's answer enough.
Marceline feels she ought to say something, even though at this point, everything's inadequate. "I'm sorry," she manages.
Bonnibel smiles, wobbly and wet. "I'm sorry, too."
Not much happens in Ooo after that. Finn lived at the end of an era, and now, a new age of stability and peace stretches out before them, long and summer-bright as it trails after the sun. Simon's madness progresses to the point where he doesn't remember desiring princesses at all, the phantom of his fiancée finally lost beneath a millennium of snow. He calms, and fades, and Marceline plays checkers with him on the weekends and always, always brings chicken soup.
It's his favorite. He re-discovers this each time, and he's always surprised that this young vampire would like to spend time with him, but she never corrects him, and she never tries to explain. She just smiles and passes him a steaming bowl and wipes her tears away as surreptitiously as possible.
Tentative and uninvited, Bonnibel drops by on Marceline's first visit, borne aloft on a descendent of Lady Rainicorn and Jake, but she doesn't intrude on their private moment. She just waits outside the ice mountain, gently buffeted by turbulence until Marceline emerges with her empty can and her checkerboard. Neither of them speaks; they just share a look, and then the vampire hugs her so tightly that she can barely breathe.
Marceline holds on for a long while, long enough that the rainicorn starts expressing his awkwardness in apologetic Korean. She pulls away, but the shadow of her touch remains, and the bond begun in Bonnibel's song solidifies and seals, becoming something real and true and unbreakable.
Almost unbreakable.
Bonnibel's research, extensive as it is, has unearthed nothing.
They fall into a rhythm then, as they've fallen into one before. While Marceline haunts the ceilings like the world's most musical ghost—at least, when she's not touring Ooo with her latest crop of songs—Bonnibel spends her time ruling, but she delegates more these days, shaping trusted lieutenants into leaders in their own right, and begins hypothesizing about the inclusion of a senate or parliament into the Candy Kingdom's constitution.
"It worked for both the Roman and British Empires," she points out with a shrug. "It would balance the power and allow for expansion."
"Aw, geez, Bon," Marceline drawls. "Now you want an empire?"
But she's smirking as she says it, and Bonnibel knows better than to take her seriously when her eyes glitter like that. Some of the humor is lost on her, even so, and she leans more of her weight on her elbow so she can cradle her head in that hand. It feels thick and full of lead, the crown's slow poison seeping in. She would take it off, but that only seems to make it worse; the Stone's power nags her then, haunting and peripheral, like something she can't quite remember.
The vampire sits up straighter where she's reclining in the air. "You okay?" she asks, worry humming a counterpoint to her nonchalance.
"I'm fine," the princess dismisses. "I was just disgusted by your joke, that's all. Honestly, Marcy, I want less responsibility, not more. One day, I'll be nothing but a figurehead, and one day, I won't even be that."
Marceline's eyes hover anxiously on her friend's crown. "What's less than a lumping figurehead?" she says, the humor creaking and betraying her. "All they do is smile and wave and—and—and raise little dogs in freakishly large numbers."
Bonnibel narrows her eyes, furrows her forehead, concentrates hard. Nothing is as easy as it was before she traded away her beloved shirt for Hambo; that garment truly was a talisman, and while she hoped that their revived friendship would prove to be an equally potent charm, it's not so tangible. It doesn't armor her while she sleeps. Things slip through the cracks…
But Marceline herself can't save her, so an old t-shirt of hers, no matter how drenched it is in memories, can hope to do the same. It was a placebo, nothing more.
"I…I don't know what's less than a figurehead," she finally mutters.
The vampire's knuckles bleach as she strangles her bass; it chunners metallically in protest. "That thing you said earlier, babe? Whatever it was? I'd get on that. Like now. The sooner, the better and all. Chop chop."
Blinking, as if she needs to reorient herself, Bonnibel gives a hesitant nod. "Yeah. I'll draft a proposal today. I'll convene the other monarchs in a few days to go over it, and then I can…issue the edicts and begin the process of…appointing magistrates." She massages her forehead, an action Marceline has seen her mime far too often recently.
Slinging her guitar onto her back, she floats down to the desk and plucks the pen from her friend's limp hand. "You talk, I write. Saves time. Time's a-wastin'. Don't got no time to waste."
The princess slants her a bemused look, and while Marceline is relieved to see the clarity refreshed, Bonnibel's words are no reassurance. "What're you talking about? Despite the fact that both of us have died at least once, me from the Lich King and you from that vampire, we seem pretty indestructible. We have all the time in the world to waste."
But Marceline just thinks of Simon, who can't remember breakfast once he's finished it, and now of Bonnibel, who doesn't know what's less than a figurehead.
"There are worse fates than dying," she declares flatly. "There are worse curses than vampirism."
It would've been better if Bonnibel argued that, but she doesn't. She already understands.
Time, time, time, Marceline panics, draining the red from everything she can reach. Simon's crown had three Stones of Power. Bonni's only has one. And she's stronger than he was. She's so strong. Plus, she's held it off this long already. She can hold it off a little longer.
And she thinks of the Enchiridion, how it kept the Stones out of corruptible hands—and maybe not corruptible like evil, but like rust, how it bites into metal and eats it and rots it and takes away all its shine.
She can't stop thinking about the book. She gave it up, twice, but she hadn't earned it either time. It didn't mean anything to hold it then. But now the stupid book is locked behind a maze of trials designed to prove its bearer worthy.
Anyone can earn the Enchiridion.
Well, anyone who is strong and brave and pure of heart.
She wonders if it still counts even if that heart forgot how to beat a thousand years before.
"Maybe it's just the price we have to pay," Bonnibel murmurs later that week, once her proposals are drafted and her councils have convened. She strokes her fingers idly through Marceline's hair where the long strands stray across her own arm, not really aware of the action. Her eyes are shut, and she's half-asleep, and the vampire bows her tightly closed lips to her friend's shoulder. It's not a kiss, but it's close. They're not what they used to be, but they're close.
At length, she prompts, "Price we have to pay…?"
"To save people," the princess clarifies, her fingers slowing, faltering. "Maybe people who aren't heroes…maybe when they try to be them, they have to sacrifice more. Simon wanted to save you, and his crown took him. You wanted to save me, and now you're a vampire. I wanted to save Ooo, and my crown's taking me. We get what we want, but…but maybe our sanity's the price. Lost in our own heads for all eternity."
"Speak for yourself," Marceline shoots back reflexively. "I'm not off my rocker and I don't plan on falling off ever. My bloodlust is quite under control, thank you very much for asking, I'm touched by your concern."
Bonnibel chuckles, little more than a humorous exhale, and her lips curl at just the corners. "Oh, Marcy," she laments, "you're such a dingus. But I guess that's why I love you."
The vampire stiffens. It's probably not true. She's probably just forgetting intervening time, like Simon forgot it. She probably thinks they're still together, that this is five centuries earlier, or even earlier still. She probably won't remember a lick of this conversation when the sun rises.
It makes Marceline want to scream.
Instead, she kisses Bonnibel's pale pink neck, right under her ear, and whispers back, "I love you, too."
In the morning, Marceline attempts the Hero's Trials in a desperate bid to claim the Enchiridion.
She fails.
But she's known for a millennium that she's not a hero.
She's also known for a millennium that she'll do whatever she has to do in a pinch, like come back from the dead as a vampire to save the life of her only friend. So she hikes a middle finger at the universe and flies over the obstacles that she couldn't defeat, and when the guardians squabble and protest, she kicks the living daylights out of them.
"I'm Marceline the Vampire Queen," she growls as she grinds the last one's face into the dust beneath the heel of her boot. "I don't play nice, and I don't play by the freakin' rules."
"But the Enchiridion…it must judge you as worthy," he protests feebly.
"It's a lumping book," she snaps with a razor-edged scowl. "What the flip does it know?"
He doesn't seem to know what to make of that. "Er…everything it contains…?"
"Shut up," she snarls, and she kicks him hard for good measure and swivels her glare to the ancient tome. "You're just a book," she repeats, as if she's trying to convince it, or trying to convince herself. "You have no right to judge me. I deem myself worthy, and you're just gonna have to deal with it."
The Enchiridion doesn't burst into flames or howls or anything when she lifts it from its rest; that might not indicate that it's her by right, but it is hers for the taking, and so she takes it, takes it and flies around Ooo as fast as she can. She explains to the other rulers about the threat inherent in their crowns, but none of them believe her, none of them seem to have suffered any ill effects. For a moment, she wonders if Bonnibel's delirious musings were right—if only people who aren't heroes yet try to play the role are corruptible by the Stones.
The Enchiridion is known as the hero's handbook. Maybe those who forget that fact are doomed to forget everything, and maybe heroes aren't such wonderful people, after all. Maybe they're as spiteful and vindictive and possessive as anyone, because who else would lay such a trap and cast such a curse?
Marceline doesn't know if that's true or right or anything more than a flight of fancy, but she takes the Stones just as she took the book itself—by force if she has to. Nobody has to like her after this. Nobody has to like her ever again. They can all lump off in parliamentary bliss for all she cares.
Once she collects the Stones, even the three in Simon's crown that have been missing from the book from the start, she flies the completed set and the book it resides within to the edge of the world. It takes her a long time to reach the jagged cliffs, and she almost goes feral more than once from the strain she puts on herself. She manages somehow, though, and when she gets there and gazes down at the seething heart of the planet, she is convinced she's doing the right thing.
There are extremes of power that people should not be allowed to have—the Mushroom Wars proved that.
Hovering out over the planet's mortal wound, Marceline holds onto the Enchiridion until she's above the molten mantle; it swirls sluggishly miles below.
Without preamble or any fitting, final words, she lets it go.
It might splash. It might incinerate long before it strikes. She can't tell.
All she knows is that it's gone, good freaking riddance, and that this action, while pleasingly rebellious and undoubtedly beneficial to future generations, doesn't change anything for her friends. She was too late when she began this quest, and too late even before that. Taking away the Stones of Power will do nothing for Bonnibel. It's been made amply clear via the example of Simon, and via the princess's own futile research, that the corrupting effects are irreversible.
That grates against Marceline, flays her alive. She knew she was doomed before she started, and she can picture the future facing them all: lost in their own heads for all eternity. Except for her, that is—like she said, her vampirism isn't that terrible, and even when she goes feral, she can recover. It's not like how it will be for Bonnibel and Simon. It's not the same at all.
Still, she doesn't know where that leaves her.
It takes a few more decades for the sickness to set in entirely, a few decades of stumbling pauses and a love so belatedly rekindled, but even their love, which has conquered so much, can't conquer all.
Eventually, Bonnibel forgets Marceline.
It's subtle in the end. There's just a loss of recognition in the depths of those familiar lavender eyes, the suffusion of a terrible blankness that has been erasing in from the edges for too long.
The vampire clasps their hands together—hers are shaking so badly—and she brushes her lips against the monarch's forehead.
Bonnibel looks up at her, only mild curiosity in her gaze, and she reaches out to catch a teardrop on her finger. The saline melts into her sugared skin.
"Yeah, you'll wanna be careful with that," Marceline chokes out, her serrated teeth gleaming in a watery smile.
"Okay," she accepts, and her brow pinches slightly. "Why are you crying?"
She considers that for a sticking second. "I just lost the love of my life."
"That's terrible," Bonnibel murmurs, and despite the consequences, she wipes away another tear. "What happened?"
Her mouth curves, subtle and slow, and she shrugs. "She went away."
The princess's confusion deepens as she wonders, "And you can't follow her?"
Marceline thought her heart died a thousand years ago, but as it turns out, it was merely comatose all the while, because now…now it dies. She nearly slips on the mess it leaves behind, but she perseveres with grim determination—she's always been able to subvert death for Bonnibel. "No," she says through the gravel in her throat. "Not where she's gone."
"Oh," she realizes, but there's no real comprehension in her eyes. Just sympathy for a stranger. "I'm so sorry."
Marceline nods halfway, chin tucked to her chest, and just looks at her, as if she hasn't memorized everything about her centuries before. She's still so stupidly pink. And she's still so stupidly beautiful.
"Take care of yourself, Bonni," she says, as lightly as she's able, "and always be nice to little girls lost and hungry in the snow."
Bonnibel looks at her politely and doesn't understand.
(Sometimes, later, she notices the photograph taped on the inside of her closet door, and she wonders who this black-haired, sharp-toothed girl is, and whether or not they are friends. She likes to think they would be, if they aren't already. And some preferences are carved in the bones, so Bonnibel discovers over and over again that she really likes rock music, and that her favorite color is red.)
Unable to summon the strength to fly with this strangled concrete filling her limbs and the riven husk of her heart, Marceline trudges out of Bonnibel's room and unloops the princess's crown from her belt. Without its Stone of Power, it's just a fragile circle of gold, and she has strength enough to snap it in half. She drops the mangled metal on the floor and adjusts the ride of her bass's strap for a snugger fit, fishing in her pocket afterwards for a piece of chalk. Deftly, she draws a magic circle on the castle wall and smears bug milk across it.
Once she speaks the incantation, the portal to the Nightosphere yawns wide, an eternal inferno plagued with chaos. It doesn't look like home, but that's because Marceline's home is behind her, draped in a violet blanket and gazing contentedly out the window at the fading autumn sun.
She slips her pack off her shoulders and roots through its meager contents. Resting underneath the disintegrating form of Hambo, there's a lock of Bonnibel's bubblegum hair; tears prick her eyes anew when she thinks that it's really more of a wad. A sentient wad, maybe, that has a name and enough love in her heart to last a thousand years.
She likes to think that it smiles at her, as it had smiled at her before: a perfect semicircle. While she knows that isn't true—it's wishful thinking at its finest—she indulges the delusion. It's not like she has long to pretend.
She'll be forgetting herself soon enough.
Raw heat blasts across her face, whipping her hair back like the tail of the darkest comet as she steps through the portal and enters the Nightosphere. Its volcanic landscape stretches out to indeterminate horizons in every direction, and she floats above the burning madness, not paying it much attention. She's seen it all before, and she'll be seeing it until the end of time.
Her vampirism never was going to drive her insane, but it wasn't the first thing to grant her eternity, either—her demonic heritage did that.
And that which giveth, taketh away.
When she arrives in a familiar craggy mountain, her father leaps to his feet, thrilled to see her. "Marceline! What brings you all the way to hell, eh?"
"Hey, Daddy," she replies, none of her usual lilt in her tone. She gestures vaguely at the amulet resting against his chest. "I'm…here to take up the family business."
"Oh, happy day!" he cheers, oblivious of her agony, and he joyfully rips his amulet from his neck. "My little monster's ready to embrace her destiny!"
Marceline hates him for that speech, but she hates other things far more, so she accepts the burden of her birthright without comment.
As she weighs the amulet in her hand, her mind wanders back to the beginning, reviewing more than ten centuries of life and desperately searching for a loophole, for all the good it will do her now. She wonders if they could've done things differently somehow, if they could've subverted this fate, if she and Bonnibel and Simon could've lived out their undying days happily and together.
But if they saved themselves, then they couldn't save the world.
And they wouldn't be heroes.
"Huh," she murmurs to herself with a cluck of her tongue. "Not bad for a sentimental old man, a brainy bubblegum girl, and a scrawny teenaged half-demon. Yeah. Not too bad at all."
Marceline smiles one last time, real and heartfelt and true, and then she slips the amulet over her head and lets the chaos carry her away.
Elsewhere, the broken, healing world spins gently towards tomorrow.
(we could be immortals)
