[Author's note: I've had this story kicking around in my brain for years and am FINALLY getting down to writing it. Yes, this is an epic fantasy twist, but not a full epic fantasy AU. I'm too in love with the quirkiness of the universe to fully change it. Here goes the first chapter!]
Chapter One: Knighthood: Part One
For eight hundred years, Prince Bubba Gumball the First's routine remained unchanged, very much like himself. He rose before the dawn each morning, when the sun still hung just beneath the blanket of the East horizon. He'd stretch beneath blankets woven of the finest spun cotton candy, drag himself out from atop the mattress, bare feet padding across sugar rock tile. He perched himself at a window of one of the castle's highest towers, overlooking all that which had been built under his guidance, evolving with the ages. Houses of the twenty first century speckled the world outside his gates, each humming with electricity and appliances he had played a hand in creating. Insects that had bred and evolved with their needs for survival all sang their tunes among the morning dew. Times had changed. And yet…
His chin dipped downward, catching sight of his two blush hands that gripped the window's edge. He twisted his wrist over to expose his palm, glancing at the only wrinkles that would ever grace him. Fingertips of his opposite hand traced the groove of each one, enduring its tickle for as long as he could bear, before wiping the itching palm upon his pajama shirt.
Eight hundred years, yet nary a day over twenty. Rulers of other likes had come and gone in their own respects, yet Gumball remained untouched. It was not from a stalemate; In his centuries, he had conquered kingdoms, seen many a war, watched knights that served under his name come into this world but a babe and leave in the arms of aged death. Always finding himself beside the death bed, never upon it himself.
Violet eyes slid closed to the world, the morning light still a burning amber at the back of his lids. No, he would not think of death and his lost children. Not this early. The sweetened morning air flooded his nostrils, his chest expanding outward, holding there for a moment before he released the bitterness upon his breath and into the breast of the wind.
He would endure. He had to.
He gave the call for his Lady in Waiting, his dearest and oldest friend, and held his head high as he returned to sit upon the side of his bed. It wasn't but a few minutes before the Peppermint Maid arrived in his chambers, wheeling in a fresh breakfast. Her porcelain-like face grinned at him, letting him begin eating his fill as she fetched his robes for the day.
"Big day today, sire." She called across the room, her voice squeaking along with the hinges of the wardrobe in his bedchambers. "Not every day we get to, well, knight a knight."
Bubba, in the midsts of chewing a delicate bite of a candy apple, thoughtfully swallowed and turned, "We?" He asked, raising a brow playfully.
Wide eyes came over Pepper's face, barely peeking over the heap of cloth in her arms as realization hit. "Oh, do pardon me!" She corrected herself hastily. Tiny footsteps clicked against the tile as she made her way over, "It's just, little Fionna's so grown up now. They do just grow up so fast, don't they? Seems like yesterday when you got wind of a little human girl turning up…"
He could only nod at that sentiment; It truly had seemed like yesterday when he'd laid eyes on a human, the fabled last of her kind, defying all supposed laws of history to be there. When word had reached the royal court of her existence and the small feline abode she resided in, the prince had arrived himself to see if the rumors were true. He remembered kneeling before the foster parents, taking a child that couldn't have been more than five months into his arms. How she'd begun to wail, only to steel her nerves and quizzically study him, brow furrowed, gumming at one of her own tiny fists as she grunted.
His lips quirked at a smile. That fighting spirit hadn't dampened. As she grew, so had it. And despite the prince making special plans to bring her and her family under his protection to preserve her life, each year she aged, Fionna seemed to come up with more elaborate plans to endanger it. Plans he hadn't been able to understand until he'd truly stopped and listened to his people, who had begun to hold her in the esteems of a hero.
The rest was and would forever be, especially after today, history.
—-
His house certainly wasn't where the party had started, but with just a couple stragglers and the sun threatening to burn him alive, Marshall certainly wasn't going to argue. With his guitar in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other that had gone particularly pale, he rounded up the last couple of bumps in the night - A ghoul couple by the name of Zak and Leslie, and frequent partiers at that - and led the way himself back into the jagged cave where his home waited.
What happened after the trio stumbled their way through the door was, much like the rest of the night, a blur. With a record on the turntable from a fond but bygone band, a joint was lit and passed; Not that Marshall could partake in the smoke, instead drinking the red from part of his edible stash. Laughter erupted through the house, echoing through hazed minds as hands and libidos wandered. The king of eternal night remembered kissing and groping her… Or was it him? Not that he supposed it mattered. The familiar cocktail of sin mixed beautifully, bringing the night to a final head before the cooldown as the single undead body flopped back onto the sofa between the two living ones. This wasn't the first time he'd ended the night like this with these two, and between the striking features and bodies of both of them, he hoped it wouldn't be the last.
Like a bat, Marshall stretched out his arms, slipping them over the shoulders of both his guests. "Now…" He began, his voice holding its usual rasp, "What should I do with both of you troublemakers?"
Leslie was the first to speak through the fit of high chuckles. "Who says you have to be the one to do something?" Her brow peaked with confidence.
The two men paused, dumbfounded for a moment before they exchanged glances.
"I like the way she thinks." Marshall exchanged back to Zak, nodding as his mind traveled through different scenarios, each more dastardly than the last.
Zak nodded in return. "Mood. Hence why I'm dating her."
"Good call, good call." he agreed.
Each found the cannabis doing its work through them once more, snapping into giggles and grins before a series of words attempted to escape Leslie, slurring a little. Marshall asked her to repeat herself.
"What about you?" She repeated clearly, brushing some of her fiery mohawk from her face, "You got anyone special?"
He pointed to himself, giving a quizzical look. "Me? Nah. Y'all know me; I don't swing that way." He said with a certain amount of swagger.
"What about Rosie?"
The question had arrived as such a swift kick that the vampire barely processed who asked it. Zak, the words having just left his mouth, stared almost slack jawed as he awaited an answer.
Marshall swallowed. Rosie… Part of a damned EP he'd recorded and released the year prior. An acoustic affair, meant to be nothing more than something that would rise and fall in private listenings, asked about by truly avid fans who dug up old ballads from ancient times. But that was just the thing with bitter heartache; You didn't need to live for an eternity for it to sink its claws into you, let alone relate to it. Before he could ever prepare for it, 'Rosie' had become Marshall's latest hit, haunting him wherever he went. Infuriating, when it had been meant to haunt someone else.
Marshall sucked his teeth, scrunching his features a little, "Ah. You know." Slowly, he retracted his arms from around the two of them, "You live as long as I have, you can write about almost anything. So…"
The rockstar slowly peeled himself from the couch, finding that jab had halted the buzz for him, though he didn't draw his attention away from his guests. The couple stared at him, wide eyed in awe that neared reverence. Beneath his breath, Zak managed a single word in amazement.
"Fuck…" Leslie uttered, allowing a moment of silence, "But it all felt and sounded so real."
"Yup." Marshall enunciated, scratching at the back of his neck as he stood.
"Even that line about them being enveloped and controlled by fear and society?" Zak asked.
"Especially that line." The undead king felt himself internally cringe.
Not wanting to entertain this conversation much further, especially while in such a vice grip of substances, the vampire cleared his throat, starting in without much thought. "Well, this has been one hell of a night, but-"
At the sound of his own sentence, Marshall went rigid, almost as if stopped by time itself. In his mind, a singular word of that sentence stuck out, echoing against the drugged fog of his mind. He shut his eyes so tight he thought his eyes might recede back into his skull, repeating to himself.
"Night, night, night…"
Realization delivered itself unto him like a blow.
"Knight…!" he yelped, eyes snapping open in a panic, "What time is it?!"
—-
"You know how this works, Cake." The knight-to-be joked softly, "If you start crying, I'm gonna start crying."
It had all happened so quickly. The two sisters had known on paper that they were to arrive and ready themselves for the ceremony at the Gumball Palace. Fionna had played the big day through in her mind several times already as if to prepare for battle, yet found upon being ushered into a private dressing room that nothing had truly prepared her. And as she stood upon a small pedestal, surrounded by some of the most elaborate mirrors she had ever seen, she watched through the reflection as her sister struggled against misty eyes and hiccuped breaths.
Cake, who could scream a monster down from something stupid with the power of her mom voice alone. Cake, who raised Fionna herself after their parents passed, the very reason Fionna was even worthy of a knighthood. She was about to break.
"I know." She sniffled. She slipped a paw into a hidden pocket upon her body's hip, fetching a handkerchief to dab at her eyes, "If I go down, you're coming with me."
There was a giggle shared between the two before a pause settled in the room, carrying recognition with it; The gown Fionna had been gifted for this occasion was unlike the sisters had ever dreamed owning or wearing themselves. Magenta silk caught the light from a nearby window as it seemingly rippled down the girl's form, suspended in a glistening frame of rose gold accents. At the center of her chest, a jeweled brooch fastened with one of the purest azure candy rocks perched itself, cascading echoed rays of light about the surfaces of the room. With what seemed like a thousand bobby pins, feet of Fionna's golden hair had been braided and gently swung to the forefront of one shoulder, joining the gown at its skirt.
"What a dress…" The calico cat breathed, still looking her sister over in awe.
A mischievous grin cracked upon the human's face as she buried her hands in the silk, "It has pockets!"
A staccato of a laugh bounded from Cake, "Of course it does!"
All noise inside the room ceased as soon as three raps arrived at the other side of the door, soft and quick. For a moment, Fionna found her legs instinctually starting to move underneath her, grabbing to pick up the skirt of her dress before Cake sprung into action, holding up a paw in her little sister's direction.
"You just stay put." She said quickly, "I'll get it."
With the door soon opened inward to the room, there was a joyous exchange as Cake greeted the newest body to enter the space. Her tail stood upright, the tip playfully swirling as she dearly embraced whoever it was before they caught Fionna's eye.
There, still slightly in the doorway, stood a figure that had been with her for as long as she could remember. Sometimes as a stern, guiding hand that reminded her how important structure was. Other times with a whimsical twinkle in his eye, showing her the secrets of the universe he'd discovered in the early days, and how he planned to discover so many more. An ageless prince, like a deity to this world, and somehow also like an uncle to her.
If she hadn't been near crying yet, that had certainly been fixed.
"Hi." She grinned, shakily breathing soon thereafter.
With a sympathetic smile and that glint in his eyes she knew so well, the prince stepped forward. Arms delicately wrapped around her, allowing Fionna to prop her chin up on his shoulder, feeling a hand smooth at the back of her head as that familiar smell of bubblegum surged her senses.
"Thanks for the dress." She managed in a whisper.
A single chuckle emanated from his chest, "And thank you for so much more."
He held her for a minute longer, letting Fionna gather herself as she wafted in a couple of deep breaths, pressing into him for comfort. The moment passed with an exhale, the two letting each other slip from their grasps, exchanging warm gazes.
"Ready for today, then?" He asked, quirking up a brow.
Of course, Bubba hadn't been the only uncle figure Fionna had. With enthusiasm, seeming to find her second wind, two words escaped her, "Hell yeah."
The candy prince's pupils hinted at disappointment. "Fionna, language."
[AN: And there we go! This chapter was originally supposed to be much longer, but I'm deciding to break it up into two parts. Please let me know what you think!]