This was so incredibly frustrating.
No, this was beyond frustrating. It was maddening. Ever since Lady had gone home with her parents, Bonnibel had been left alone with nothing but her own thoughts for company. They tended to circle around in infinite loops, growing tighter and tighter till they threatened to cut off the oxygen to her brain. Her sword, Conviction, traveled with her more often than not. Though traditionally worn at the hip, it dragged on the floor when she tried. Instead she slung it over her shoulder, bumping diagonally against her back.
And she carried a small thermometer in her purse, wherever she went.
She didn't dare ask Granny if she knew when she was going to die.
Asking a question like that was out of bounds, and not just because she didn't want to admit her meeting with Death hadn't been a hallucination. She knew it hadn't been. She knew because she felt his familiar chill floating around Granny every time she came into contact with her, the cold miasma leeching away at her strength. Cho's hip had fractured terribly, and in her vulnerability she had succumbed to a terrible infection. The longer Cho stayed in the sick bay, the more her condition worsened. She was growing withdrawn, looking frailer by the minute. Worst of all, she increasingly began asking for Marceline in her barely lucid moments, fever started to grip uncomfortably at her senses.
Fevers.
Were fevers catching?
Bonnibel didn't know. The only thing she knew was that she was alone, and every eye in the castle increasingly began to turn to her, wondering if the time was soon coming when she would inherit the throne. The only time she felt she had total privacy was when she retreated to her room, where her thoughts coursed around her in their endless circling, or in the library.
Her punishment seemed so long ago. Even though she had been forgiven, the task lay half completed. So, pushing back her sleeves and lighting up a candle, she threw herself into the work when she had spare time, losing herself in something she could control.
And when even that wasn't enough, she finally went to Grandpa.
She had found him many years ago, buried in a little box in her mother's closet. Letters- so many letters, all addressed to different people. She had read through all of them at least a dozen times, each turn of phrase, each word choice as familiar to her as her own speech patterns. Though he had died before she could remember, she felt closer to him than her parents, having no mementos of them. There was nothing other than family portraits to relate to. With Grandpa, though, a remnant of his personality still shone through in his words, and so she fancied she knew him. He was a man of action, quick to solve problems, and sharp as a dagger's edge. She bet he would know what to do about Marceline.
After all, it had been a vampire that killed her parents.
He made his opinion of the undead clear, recounting the part he played in the war against the Lich. Also, here and there, he made mention of a few particular entities he refused to call by name. L, J, and M. The references to them were always a mystery, one she tried to pick apart many times. With a hot snake of anger uncoiling in her belly, Bonnibel had a feeling she finally knew who "M" was, after all this time.
Sighing, she put the letters away in their safe space, folded neatly with the newest at the top of the stack. The deeper she looked into the past, the more she was beginning to see Marceline had been heavily entwined in her life since long before she was born. Picking up Conviction where she had left it lying next to her, Bonnibel decided now was a good time to figure out just what kind of connection this vampire queen had to the Candy Monarchs. Going to the window, she squinted out into the sunset. Dragonfly wings buzzed around her, curiously far from the moat below on the castle grounds. Waving the pest away from her face, she found herself once again without a plan or even a clue as to what to do next.
Though she was loath to do so, it was time to open the other box.
OoOoO
The cupcakes Cho had sent probably hadn't lasted long, and Bonni doubted Marceline's patience fared any better. Without Cho, all the progress on their weird secret project ground to a halt. More and more often Bonni spied the vampire prowling the borders of the Candy Kingdom, looking for a weak point in the invisible field that kept her away. Cho was too feverish and confused to be much help, but Bonnibel managed to wrangle bits and pieces of information out of her.
Though she wasn't sure on the specifics, she was certain the two of them were working on a method for Marceline to break the curse that kept her banished from the Kingdom. Unlocking her banishment lay in the underworld, and too much of their work involved esoteric formulas and cryptic spells that Cho knew, but Marceline didn't. Cho was the brains of this operation, but Marceline was the one with enough raw magical ability to carry it out.
And Cho was sick.
So she stood on the mossy bank outside the vampire's lair once again. Careful not to slip on the green-sponged rocks that led to the waterfall entrance to Marceline's cave, Bonnibel hoped the vampire would be inside. Considering it was high noon, she doubted the vampire would be wandering about. But with Marceline, who knew?
A crack echoed inside the cave, jolting her with fear for an instant. She saw her, then, was fortunate enough to catch her in the middle of a spectacular temper tantrum. One jagged stalagmite clutched in her white-knuckled hand, Marceline paced familiar grounds, swiping the air in front of her occasionally with an angry outburst. She hadn't noticed Bonni yet, but Bonni could see her by the light of the torches that lined the walls of the cave, flickering and dancing. Anyone peeking in then would see twisting shadows and the occasional gout of flame, and hear hissed curses and stone breaking.
Most people would have taken that as a sign of demonic possession, a trollish witch casting unknown spells. Bonnibel took it as a sign Marceline was home, and so stepped further inside without much further thought. Crossing some invisible threshold, or maybe making too much noise with her steps, she alerted the vampire to her presence. They locked eyes across the caves, the waterfall roaring behind her, and then all of the torches fizzled out.
"Hello?" she called into the darkness, catching the vampire's ghoulish shadow in the corner of her eyes a few times. Clutching her basket closer to her chest, she wandered further inside, aware she was being stalked. The faint static of the waterfall entrance drowned out any other noise and the darkness shrouded the cave in mystery. Deprived of most of her senses, she nevertheless charged in blind. "Um, Marceline?"
When she bumped into the house, she almost screamed. The wood was dry for being in such a humid environment, little splinters crumbling off under her fingertips. Then, the torches roared up again, blinding her after her vision had adjusted to the darkness. A clawed hand grabbed her by the back of her neck, dragging her roughly inside the house. Stumbling, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick stone floor, Bonnibel did her best to keep hold of the basket in her hands as Marceline pulled her along, eventually dumping her onto the couch. Hitting it like meat against the cutting board, Bonnibel winced, but made no noise. Instead she glared rebelliously up at the vampire, waiting for her next move.
For whatever reason, Marceline had resumed using the guise of a pre-pubescent girl. In fact for all Bonnibel knew, this was her true shape. Marceline might have been turned into a vampire as a little girl. Barely older than herself, Bonnibel realized with an unexpected jolt.
Jerking the basket from her hands, Marceline didn't even bother insulting her this time, just opening it at once, finding the box inside, and rifling through the contents. Bonnibel watched Marceline pick a letter at random from the box and open it, red eyes scanning it hard enough that Bonnibel feared her intensity might set the brittle pages aflame.
Folding it with more tenderness than she had whipped it out, Marceline lifted the letter to her nose. Her eyes closed, eyebrows furrowing together. "It smells like secret places and dust," she breathed out in agonized bliss. Something fell into the pit of Bonnibel's stomach at her tone of voice, and she squirmed in her chair, looking everywhere but at the vampire lost in her memories. "But I knew what they were the moment you walked in." Regaining her composure, Marceline's loose, easy peace was broken. She set the box down next to Bonni on the couch, lips tightening. Flapping the letter in Bonnibel's face, the princess felt the red-hot intensity of her gaze focused on her once more. "Where'd you get these?"
"I found them. They are yours, correct?" Bonnibel asked, picking up a single envelope at random. Her fingers managed to just slide it open before Marceline snatched the letter out of her hands.
The vampire returned it to the box, tapping it against her palm like a deck of cards, neatly packing them together. Her hands, capable of so much bloodshed, were loving and gentle with the faded yellow documents, old from age and many re-readings. "None of your business, Snacks," she muttered.
How should she go about this? It was hard to ignore the black hole in her gut, pulling at her lungs, making it hard to breathe. "They are yours, both those addressed to you and those written by your hand. I already read one of them," she confessed, wishing Marceline would shape shift into an adult again. Talking to an adult was no problem, especially one she didn't like. Rebellion was a pure, hard emotion, quick to strike and easy to wield.
When Marceline looked just like her, well... it made her chest constrict.
Her hair flared up with a wriggling life of its own, her tiny fangs bared in a grimace of rage. What blood remained in her body rushed to the surface of her pallid gray skin, flushing it and making her seem almost normal. "Oh god, you are- you're the worst. I really don't think there is a person on this planet who is more vile than you. First you try to kill me-"
"I merely threatened you. No action I took would have actually ended your existence." The fact that Marceline wasn't technically alive was a point she wanted to stress very much. Undead people had no right being fussy about their existence.
"-Then you invade my privacy. Way to go, hero. Serious princess skills you got there."
No one questioned her princess skills. "I didn't know they were yours at first," she said, getting up so that they could be on equal ground. It didn't work the way she envisioned it, since Marceline had a habit of floating and so remained a head taller than her. "Just that Granny told me not to read them. But she's sick and she really wants to see you so I went looking for a clue about your banishment and found these stupid love letters instead." Grabbing the box again, she thrust the letters towards Marceline, surprising her into holding it before it fell out of their hands. "So here, take it. Your property restored to you."
The letters rustled under her fingers, running along the top of them like they were skimming through pages in a book. "Why?" she asked, short and sharp. Almost like the way her younger body was shaped, all angles and joints. Her lower lip dimpled under the pressure of one fang, chewing on it from a habit that was likely older than the fangs themselves.
Bonni licked her lips, dry from nerves. "It's a peace offering. I want to work together to end your banishment." Breaking eye contact, she turned her body aside unconsciously, her feet shuffling back and forth. "I don't like you, but Granny does. I'm willing to cast aside my pride if it would make her happier."
Far from appeasing her, that only set Marceline further on edge. "Dang." Her feet hit the floor. "She's really sick, isn't she? If a little brat like you is swallowing up all your nasty for her sake-"
Snatching the front of her ragged old t-shirt, she forgot for a moment that this was a centuries-old vampire. "Hey!" she said, shaking her once. "I would do that and much more for Granny, any time she asked. You don't know anything about me, bloodsucker."
She slapped her hands off her, a light motion that carried the weight of all her supernatural strength. It hurt, a lot. "That's rich, coming from you. You never even gave me a chance-"
"Urgh, enough, enough!" Grasping her head, she mussed up her hair and stomped her feet. "Do you want my help or don't you?"
Lifting up into the air, she twisted upside down, regarding her with crossed arms. The box of letters remained firmly and securely shut. "What could a snack-sized brat like you do, other than shoot me again?" Her flipped expression sneered. "Being stupid-brave isn't enough to get us where we need to go."
"And where, exactly, do we need to go?" she asked, not liking how the vampire looked down on her, both figuratively and literally. Even then it didn't seem like Marceline would take up her offer, so Bonnibel went to her last resort. "I owe you a life debt. I'd see it fulfilled."
She didn't want to admit it, but it was true. She had tried to kill Marceline. No matter how hard she tried to rationalize her behavior, that fact remained.
In the span of an eye blink, Marceline was in her personal space again, scrutinizing her. Maybe vampires could see a lot about a person from just their eyes. That explained the staring matches she tended to engage in. Or maybe she just didn't care about how uncomfortable it made people to look directly into their eyes- maybe it was a display of dominance, like an animal. In any case, Bonnibel gave as good as she got.
Marceline's eyes shifted from red to a chipped steely blue.
"Fine," she said. "If you have any grand ideas about how to get to the different Dead Worlds, I'm all ears." To prove her point, she shape shifted dramatically, paper-thin bat ears twitching their way free from her thick black hair.
Though she didn't want to, Bonnibel grinned. "I might just wind up surprising you, Marceline."
Her long tongue rolled out, emphasizing each dry word. "Your entire existence is a constant surprise to me, Snacks. But you have something in mind?"
"Yeah. I can get you where you need to go, but it won't be easy. And you'll need to do as I say without getting fussy and angry."
Marceline's eyes narrowed at that.
"I never said I'd be your friend," Bonnibel pointed out. "Just that I wan to help you. Now, do we have a non-aggression agreement, or don't we?"
"You deal hard, baby," Marceline grumbled, but in the end she must have seen that they needed each other. If for nothing else, they both wanted to help Cho get better. That common ground was enough to get them on speaking terms, and maybe even working-together-without-killing-each-other terms. "But yeah, we can do business."
They shook hands on even ground, Marceline deigning to let her feet touch the floor and stand at her level.
It felt good.
