It was a transformation, but not a complete one.
The Ice King was not some new person. He was still Simon, in some warped, mangled sort of way.
He was supposed to be Urgence Evergreen, but the magic of the crown could not change minds, feelings, souls, the core of a person. Instead it shifts little puzzle pieces, the very moving tectonic plates atop the surface of every being. The outer shell.
For Simon, it's like looking through a pair of glasses, murky and muddy, thick like jello. It warps and changes things, so he sees what does not exist and can't perceive what's in front of him.
And he can't remember anything before he put them on, so all the world, and all he knows, is based on that one, ever warping, murky image.
He knows he's missing something, but he can't remember what it is. There's an ache, painful and tearing, though. A gaping hole.
He's trying to fill it.
When he first meets Bonnibel, she's dressed in a lab coat, pink hair pulled up in a bun, all messy and falling out of place, a pair of rounded little spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of her nose. She leans over a microscope, all consumed in her work, and only when she hears his approach does she turn to scold him with acid on her tongue.
Something clicks. Somehow, she's what's missing. Though he's never met her before, he's known her for years. He remembers. She'd lay her head on his shoulder, and they'd talk for hours and he'd confide in her, his greatest fears and weaknesses.
She had the nicest smile, and the cutest little glasses and she was his.
He was going to marry her.
"My princess!" He exclaims, voice trembling because he's missed her.
She glares him down,
"Who are you?"
His face crinkles, as he's simultaneously confused and surprised by the question. He's not sure of the answer, as he gazes through the ever shifting, melting pot of his memory. Who was he? He grasps at the thread, almost has it, before it slips away into oblivion. He's left, lost and searching. Eventually, he has to settle for looking down, at his pale blue skin, and white hair, and asserting that he must be the Ice King. Yes. And wasn't he always, that? Always this, all powerful and frozen to the touch?
He must be.
He frowns. He's not completely certain why, but he feels she should know him.
"I'm yours, sweetheart" He replies, desperation leaking into that crazed voice of his.
She shakes her head, and he's seeing red and green, interspersed among the shades of pastel pink. He smells parchment, and hears the crinkle of pages turning.
He throws his arms around her, pulling her in for a hug. He's overwhelmed by the overpowering scent of bubblegum, and disinfectant and briny sea moss.
Or none of those smells… or all of them?
Then, there's a sharp sting across his face, and he's on the floor. Disoriented. Head swimming.
"You creep! Get away from me" He hears her shout.
He remains on the floor for a while. Cold seeping through his skin.
When he finally sits up, she's gone, and there's a red, sweltering mark on his cheek.
He stumbles around for a while, surrounded by penguin blobs, half submerged in thick jello, and with something distinctly missing.
She was his princess. The young, bright scientist who sat next to him and laughed at his jokes and loved him. His dearest Betty...Bett…B…
He turns to his current house guest, who he'd kindly given a comfy little ice box to sit in. She was called a princess by her little paper subjects. he was skeptical, though. At the very least, she definitely wasn't his princess, (too short, too bland) because he knew how to recognize her, whoever she was... but, she'd do for now.
"What was her name, again?"
"Who?" She asks, voice quivering with… something.
Ice King was in no mood to try to figure that out. She knew what he was talking about!
He was talking about… about his, uh… his soulmate...
"You know, the pretty redhead, science lady and all"
"Oh, uh, Princess Bubblegum?"
Bubblegum. Yes, she was the one.
His princess, his missing link.
He was going to marry her.
And wasn't it always so?
There's a faint tingle, a little sneaking premonition that surfaces briefly through the sludgy fog, that says otherwise. A little memory, of red hair, and sharp rimmed glasses, and antiquities inked across yellowing paper. He blinks, as it fades from view before he can grasp at the edges.
He ignores the feeling, of something still being missing.