Roses for Abadeer
The Fires of Friendship
Once, a few hundred years back, when the woman was still young and foolish, she believed herself to be in love. In this world that promised nothing but tears, Ash had found her. He alone filled her life with wonder. Never before had she thought dreams were something that could come true.
Until then her life had just been passing by, fleeting emotions, one long faceless blur, unstable shifting tides that carried her nowhere but further into depression. Simon had been lost to her. The world was dark and unfamiliar.
She'd spent so long being alone that to suddenly find herself in the company of someone else had shocked her system. And it was…wonderful.
She placed Ash onto a pedestal. Her false idol. Her nativity had been her own doing, and looking back at stupid mistakes, if she was true to herself Marceline knew she had turned a blind eye to so many signs. Their relationship had moved way too fast in its time, despite the warning in her heart. Marceline wanted more than anything to make him happy.
And in the end that psycho jerk had stolen her innocence.
Even as their relationship spent its course and began to spin downward, Marceline would look up to the stars and beg them to see her through. To keep him by her side. She just couldn't bear to be alone anymore.
Her thoughts twisted suddenly. She found herself in darkness, standing on the edge of time.
Stars above, stars below, only her and Hambo against the world. She smiled down at him. His eyes, two mismatched buttons of slightly different size, were suddenly traced in subtle light and the woman looked up to find its source.
In front of her Ash billowed into existence from the smoke of memory. She hugged her little friend to herself and took a step back from his taunting face. Her foot ran out of ground and she fell backward. Falling into black.
Marceline awoke with a start. Hambo was nowhere to be found. Neither was Ash.
With curiosity, the woman sat up and let the blanket covering her fall into a heap on her lap. She picked up a corner to examine it.
Her surroundings were unfamiliar but not unwelcome, with exposed brick walls and modest windows entertaining most of the affair. Gauzy curtains had been let down to allow the last tendrils of afternoon light to filter indirectly into the room, dusting patterns on the wood floor. A clock kept time nearby, its soft clicking enchanting in the easy silence. It was a little after four.
Foundation stones of differing colors and sizes created a checkerboard of beige and flax around her, trimmed neatly by chestnut accents. Little antiques peppered the room on various shelves and nooks, each holding a secret promise of adventure. Across the small room an elegant satinwood case held ancient tomes and foreign texts, their spines shining the way quality leather should. She breathed in their perfume. This was the room of a poet. The heart of philosophy and long thoughtful discussions on Voltaire.
The effect was that of an old world fairytale.
The room had been sparsely decorated with furniture. A table near the window, a well-loved armchair, and the comfy couch which Marceline occupied almost too much for its intimate space. Each artifact bespoke the care of its owner.
Marceline scanned the room, trying to remember how it was she ended up here. The last thing she could picture was a blue recycling can and a sign overhead. The woman squinted and rubbed her sore head.
She was somewhere in the past, that much she knew.
The faint sizzle of cooking sounded somewhere further away and soon the woman smelled something wonderful inviting her to come closer. She hadn't realized until this moment how utterly starved she was. Maybe they had red pottery she could have.
Getting off the couch quietly, Marceline floated out of the room and down a hall.
The place she had found herself in was not large by any means, but clean and well cared for. By peeking into a few rooms down the way, the woman discovered a bedroom, a room full of more artifacts, and a bathroom with simple fixtures and curtained tub. The hallway had its share of maps but none looked familiar. Marceline paused near one which featured a placed called "Australia" and felt a pang of something she couldn't quite describe. She suddenly missed Finn and Jake.
"…in the woooorld todaaay takes eeeeverythiiiing you've goooot…"
A warm tenor voice distracted her, causing her breath to hitch. If her heart still beat it would have skipped in this moment. She knew that song.
"…mmmm mmm mmmm mmm mmmmmm mmm mmmm, suuure would heeelp a looot… Oh, shoot. Well, that piece is burnt."
The woman wasn't one to be afraid. She had seen her share of horrible things, some of which she was responsible for, and held her own in most fights. She was half-demon, a vampire queen. She had spent a large portion of her life in the Nightosphere with unspeakable creatures slithering around at all times. Her own father was the Lord of Demons.
But Marceline had not prepared for this. Her world suddenly blurred away, a door up ahead the only tunnel in her vision. She swallowed hard. Fear crept up her spine.
Light trickled from underneath and it was here that the alluring aroma was at its strongest. The woman slowed to a stop and touched down carefully. Behind the half-propped door, the sounds of someone cooking could be heard. Little bursts of humming mingled with sections of lyric filled her ears. The kitchen's apparent smallness meant he was close by. Right behind the door, perhaps.
A little gasp later there was a soft plop on the floor beyond.
"Oww, that sucker's hot. Oh, there you go…dropping things."
Marceline let out a small whimper as she slowly pushed open the door. The man's back was turned to her as he scooped up a sad slice of toast and deposited it in the trash. Even without seeing his face he was unmistakable.
"Last piece, shoot. Guess it'll have to be a bagel."
He fished around a few questionable dishes in his refrigerator and suddenly felt eyes upon him. The man turned.
Marceline stood in the doorway. Somewhere in another dimension, Time stood still. Literally. Prismo hunched over with rapt attention and ate another tortilla chip. The little island in his pool floated away too quickly for him to reach the salsa. Perplexed, he scratched at his chin for a moment and then hit the play button.
"Oh," Simon said and quickly shut the door of his refrigerator. He stood there looking awkward, with a bagel in hand. Self-consciously he hid the hand behind him with as much suavity as he could muster.
"Hello."
"Hello," agreed Marceline softly, in a daze.
She knew she had missed Simon, but not until this moment had she realized how very much his loss truly affected her. As if seeing his face had released the floodgates of emotion she stood there in breathless silence. Too afraid to move lest this be a dream.
The man seemed to catch on to her sudden unease.
"Oh, um, I'm Simon. Simon Petrikov."
"Marceline."
Simon shyly looked away. He couldn't rest his gaze directly onto her for any length of time without feeling lost. Something about her was just penetrating, deep, almost like the sensation one gets from staring into a flame.
Awkwardly, he smiled at mention of her name and nodded. A name as beautiful as the woman it adorned. Marceline. Marceline. Yes, it suited her.
"This is my home. Although, I uh, I suppose you're probably wondering why you're here."
She shook her head automatically and caught herself. Marceline instead nodded, trying to look as if this man hadn't been the cause of almost a thousand years of heartache.
"Maybe a little."
The two stood together in this way for a moment longer than necessary. Marceline searched his face.
He nervously made an attempt to usher her towards the table and chairs. "Would you like to sit? Oh, goodness, where are my manners? How are you feeling? Are you alright? Do you have any burns? I think I have a first-aid kit somewhere…"
Marceline frowned. "I'm fine."
Simon scanned her once over in a purely professional manner. He blinked.
"You're not burned, oh, thank God. I was…I was so afraid! When those soldiers hit you with that chemical or, well, whatever it was. I was afraid you'd be hurt. I saw you," He pointed towards the dining room window, "down in the courtyard. You were in such terrible pain that I…"
The man drifted into awkward silence, the words too terrible to give life to. He guiltily itched for his crown and thanked the Heavens it was locked safely away inside a metal cabinet beneath two strong chains. The idea was too tempting.
Suddenly lost, he anchored his gaze on Marceline and decided to hedge around the issue. The girl seemed to be waiting for an explanation of sorts. Simon couldn't blame her.
When he brought her up to his apartment it had seemed a good idea at the time. With curfew and all… But now it only seemed like a felony.
Furrowing his brow, Simon went to speak but was cut off by a high-pitched screaming.
"What is that?!" Marceline, with her ultra-human hearing, covered her ears protectively. The blaring was terrible, endless.
"Smoke alarm!"
Simon rounded on the stove and the pan he had neglected. What may have been bacon was now smoking profusely, blackened and crisped beyond salvation. The man quickly turned off the burner and grabbed a hand towel. Coughing, he waved at the smoke for a spell and finally cracked the window. The attempt he made at moving the hot pan to another burner sent him hissing in pain.
He shook his burnt hand with a grimace.
"I'm so sorry," he began, pulling a chair towards the offending noise source, "This is why I don't cook."
"It's okay, just please turn that thing off."
After fiddling with the housing, Simon gave up and unceremoniously ripped out the battery. He stepped down off the chair and considered the pan and his ruined breakfast.
"There might still be a piece or two left, if you're hungry. Oh, and an egg," the man indicated a sloppy mess on the table behind her, "It's scrambled or well, would have been sunny-side up but I didn't quite make the flip."
He was so cute that Marceline couldn't help but laugh. She shook with laughter. Soon it consumed her.
Simon, not having a better alternative, laughed along with her. Hers was an infectious sort of laugh. He was grateful for the distraction.
"You have," the woman informed between giggles, "dirt on your nose. From the smoke, I think."
The man wiped it off and laughed harder. "I suppose it is only sootable."
Marceline rolled her eyes and fell into the nearest chair, still laughing. Same old Simon. Always making up the silliest puns. She smiled at him with affection. Her enjoyment ebbed slowly into a general appreciation, and she sighed warmly at the thought. She'd missed this. The man turned, smiling, and used the towel to move the pan to a cooler spot on his stove. He fanned away the remnants of smoke and turned on his sink to begin washing utensils.
"So, why breakfast?" Marceline couldn't help but ask, watching him. She looked at the sad mashed egg and took up a fork, just for his sake. Although food was never on her menu she'd eat for Simon. "It's past four thirty by now."
"Ah," he acknowledged in good spirits without turning, "I'm afraid my dear that breakfast is all I know how to make. Although, looking at this pan, I suppose I shouldn't even say that anymore."
He chucked a little while he scrubbed. "Ruined two eggs, dropped a piece of toast, annihilated half a package of bacon, and you don't even want to see what happened to the pancakes. Oh, and I lost a bagel, outright."
"You mean that round thing on the floor near the stove?"
The man followed her gaze and paused.
"Yep, that would be it." Simon lamented at his last bagel, shaking his head. "This is why Betty does all the cooking."
Out of reflex he'd said her name. Now he regretted it.
Marceline perked up at the mention of Betty. Finally some familiar ground.
"Betty?" she feigned ignorance to start a conversation.
The man nodded, trying to form the words he needed to say. "My…fiancé."
"Oh."
She heard the water suddenly turn off. Simon deposited the towel back on the stove door handle and turned. With a brightness that seemed almost too overdone to be genuine, he gestured to the meal Marceline was struggling through.
"Any good?"
"Yes, delicious," she lied, forcing down her forkful. He'd over-salted the yoke and there was a suspicious crunch in one of her bites. She smiled to ease his worry. "Thank you, Simon. It was nice of you to make this for me."
"I knew you'd be hungry after such an ordeal. My mother always said that food solved any problem. Large woman, my mother."
Marceline snorted down another bite and giggled. Simon chose this moment to mourn over his lost bagel, sending it to its final rest in the trash bin.
"Aren't you eating?"
"No, don't worry about me. I'm afraid there wasn't really enough for both of us anyway, ha-ha."
Another siren sounded outside. Long and solemn along the empty campus.
The man peeked out his kitchen window at the courtyard below. The structure had been ruined and cracked tiles littered the area. A statue near where Marceline had been attacked had been decapitated. Simon shivered to think what the crown was truly capable of, if ever allowed to turn its power loose on the world.
"…on? Simon, did you hear me?"
"What?" said the man, his thoughts elsewhere. He looked suddenly much older. Simon took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose out of habit. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"
"I asked about your antiques. Do you collect them?"
"Oh, well, sort of. I'm a professor of antiquaries you see. I travel all over the world in search for artifacts. Relics of forgotten worlds. Forgotten places.
"It's quite fascinating to see an entire civilization through the objects they leave behind. Small things, probably nothing of much value during their actual lifetime, can be a priceless find, a rare discovery. Pottery, for instance, becomes a blueprint of existence.
"A bowl used every day and formed by a clumsy hand. A single slab of clay that on its own is worth nothing, but carved into a vessel for water or other substances becomes precious. Such an intimate testimony of its user, this bowl. Plain to look at but with a trained eye, you can see more than what the surface holds.
"Fingerprints to a society, a people, dead but never gone. Ghosts of this ever-changing world, left behind for us to find. Like filling in the pieces of a puzzle with no edges. All of it, there is no end to the wisdom one can unearth. The riches one can find on archeology digs, oh Marceline – you would just be amazed!"
Suddenly the man was so confident, a different person. The notion of antiques lighting a fire in his soul. He spoke with such passion that Marceline could not help but love him.
He came down off his high and smiled at her, conscious of his babbling. He said as much, apologizing for boring her.
"You're not boring me. I think it's fascinating, too." And she meant it. She really did.
The fire in his eyes reignited, and together, they spent the evening discussing underwater adventures in Atlantis, escapades in ancient Egypt, and tours through Babylon.