Hey guys, can you believe that this is Chapter 20? I sure can't. Since it's a bit of an anniversary, I thought I might let you in on a little secret: I didn't plan any of this. I started writing this as a Marceline/Bubblegum slashfic literally years ago, and when I first began publishing it on Fanfiction dot net, I didn't have any inkling of the characters I was going to introduce or the plot that's beginning to unfold. In the weeks and months ahead I'm going to start hitting pretty heavily on some of the main plot points, and there's going to be everything from Gothic horror to (moderate levels of) body horror. I'd just like to commit now to always providing trigger warnings when they might be necessary before some of the darker content.

P.S, don't pick on me if I accidentally contradict something that happened in the most recent episodes! I haven't seen them yet. Actually, it might be a while before I can bring myself to watch them.

Best, J. M. Stanton.

(Cont'd)

"My first love was a mighty warrior," Sue said. "In the Sagas of the North, they tell of only three greater fighters: Nate, who fought giants, dragons, and an evil forest-"

"An evil forest?" I asked.

"He fought in the forest maze for twelve days without sleeping. And Shamiqua, who did battle with an army of vampires single-handed-"

"Ooh, me too!"

"...this is kind of a big deal in my culture, telling stories the right way."

"Oh. Okay."

"-And Bob, who even now fights a demon lord these seven centuries, for the fate of us all. My lover was a mighty and famous warrior, whose feats are told of in the Sagas alongside even the deeds of Bob."

I suppressed a laugh.

"My lover was fearsome with a broad axe, a slayer of knights and a hunter of beasts, who met with fear and spit in its face on the fields of the Kings! My lover was a poet, who added three thousand and twenty-three lines to the Sagas, and every one is studied by school children as models of the very best verse. Oh, the Sagas: Think of what you call death metal, but with more violins and the skulls of your enemies are used as drums sometimes: that is how we perform the Sagas.

"And the best poets of the land added to the Sagas when my lover died, telling of her wars and her death and her wooing of many princes-"

"You didn't say it was a woman!" I said.

"...Is there something I'm doing wrong? Apparently, I come across as straight in your culture. I am very... butch, yes? And I have very butch interests. In my culture these are sometimes signs of being not-straight, and I thought they were in yours as well."

"Well, yes," I said. "But, um... how do I say this? We- I mean I-don't like to assume things. It's very impolite in our culture to assume one way or the other. And I guess I... I guess I thought that most people in the Northlands were into those things."

"Of course they are! But I more than most! Do you know how many women go to war in my culture?"

I took a stab in the dark. "Not very many?"

"Almost all of them. Do you know how many enjoy it as much as me?"

"Almost all of them?"

"Not very many!" she said, grinning. "Pay attention! I like soft men and hard women, and between the two there is no comparison!"

I wondered if I counted as "hard," whatever that means.

"Now where was I?" Sue said. "My lover was the leader of the Kings' armies, the highest ranking soldier in all three Kingdoms of the North; from Mount Lohg to Kyubek. I was ten years younger when I met her, an unnamed teenager-"

"-Unnamed?"

"You don't get born with a name, do you?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I changed mine a little when I was young. I just wasn't a 'Marcelina.'"

"No, that's absurd! In the North you have to earn a name in battle or by poetic prowess. Stop interrupting," she said, laughing. "I was her saddle-bearer and bondswoman-like an intern around here. And she taught me the ways of war.

"This was around the time that Worm-ass the Inexorable, the Terrible, came down out of the high western mountains. Worm-ass… Yes, he was actually called Worm-ass! He came down with his armies and claimed half a province for his own land, so we could hardly stand by; we had to fight to reclaim what was ours.

"We rode ten days; the warriors formed the van on mighty horses and we bondservants rode behind on hardy mules, carrying the heavy armor, the axes, the pikes, the partizans, the… I think I'll skip a bit.

"Battle was met. Shields were split."

The passive voice was used, I thought. I kept it to myself.

"It was on a snow-covered field in a deep valley, where not a raven circled to feast on the dead. Our line began to break through, but Worm-ass's men had shields that covered them from above their head to below the knees, and they joined the shields together with hooks and eyes to form a wall. They pushed against us with all their might, one pushing on another and the front line pushing on their shields."

I knew what she was describing. I've seen that kind of thing used.

"My lover issued the command. Much of our distilled mead was sacrificed to do it, but the soldiers made firebombs and lobbed them over the wall of shields and bodies.

"Into that flaming chaos a few heroes broke through and strode triumphant, loosing souls from bodies and heads from… shoulders. Among them was my darling, my hero, mo ghile mear. From a hill I watched as she fought Worm-ass himself – they say the commanders always find each other."

"This is true," I said.

"And though my heart broke, though the sky turned black, though tears in my eyes magnified the distances and blocked my sight, I couldn't look away as she fell, white steel in her chest, red steel out her back. Hwaet! These days are not good days, I cried aloud, when heroes die and ruins dot the earth. But my feet moved with a will not my own, as though the spirit of a powerful hero possessed my body-"

She was interrupted by the worst sound in the world. The bomb siren was kept in a little building about thirty feet away from the rec-room window, for reference. So when it went off, we knew about it probably a little before it happened, it was so fupping loud.

We were in armor and out in the garrison yard within one hundred seconds. As we stepped into the yard, I saw one of the knights, a very big humanoid called Sir Hyatt, throw something into the air.

The place was still lit from the party, and the Knights all formed up—all of us were in armor, but some of the others wouldn't have passed inspection. Getting in armor drunk is a bitch, but I have the advantage of experience.

Sir Howell, striding in front of the square once again, was still in his parade armor from the party, shiny gold plates with ridiculous shoulder pads and a helmet that had a crest like a rooster's comb. He had one of his magical shields, though, and he held his sword in the ready position, flaming brightly in the half-darkness. He held his shield up and tabled it.

Suddenly, Dr. Mungey fell out of the sky and Howell caught him on his shield. He whispered something to Howell, and Howell helped him down.

"This Billy character has returned with an army of flame elementals," Howell shouted, chuckling in an unsettling way. "He'll be here in at most two hours, according to our latest aerial recon. We must defend this bastion of education at all costs-"

"Wrong," said another little jelly mutant in a yellow sports-coat who had just appeared behind him. The man stepped up and talked to Sir Howell, but kept his voice where we could all hear him. "This is twenty-second-century thinking, Mr. Howell. We are no longer the only institute of learning in Ooo; we no longer have the need or the right to defend this complex by military force. You are ordered to negotiate with Billy. If necessary, I will take control of the situation and dismiss you back to the garrison."

Sir Howell swore. It was the first time I'd ever heard him swear, except once when he'd dropped a helmet on his toe. He put an "H" after the "F" in a way that was new to me.

"I must ask you to use ideologically correct language, Mr. Howell," the little man said. "This is a civil institution and we must try to act civilized. No more of your swearing like a pirate and using force... well, like a pirate."

"Alright, dammit, let's get a few things straight, Mr...Thaddeus, was it?" Sir Howell said. He spoke very rapidly and gestured with his shield. "First, there is no other independent and free school like the Lyceum, and if this light goes out the continent will be darker. To defend that independence is paramount over the politics of the moment, over the worth of a few lives. I have seen many fads, Thaddeus, some of them called things like 'republic' and 'empire,' but I have only seen one Lyceum. Lux lucens."

Just when I thought he was done, he took a deep breath and began railing at the little man even harder. "Second, you are not my employer, my husband or my friend, and even my husband called me Sir when he was on my fighting side. You shall call me 'Sir Howell,' because I have earned it. If you absolutely will not call me 'Sir,' you must call me 'Dr.,' because I earned that one too—in library science, dammit. Where was I?"

"Only one Lyceum?" the man suggested, with a punchably smug tone of voice.

Sir Howell calmed down a little. "You, Mr. Thaddeus, do not dictate university policy. You are, what, vice president of the Student Government? A glorified prefect. Run along and let real faculty and real students do what must be done, young man."

Thaddeus didn't take the insult. He just said, in a calm, even tone, "I'm afraid I have orders from the Chancellor," as he took out a scroll with the official seal of the university.

Sir Howell said some hilarious, vile things about Thaddeus' mother and some other relatives, as the jelly mutant made a big show of handing him the paper. He looked over it and got quiet.

"Well," he said at last, loud enough that all the Knights could hear him. "they've gotten to the SGA, they've gotten to scholarship office and soon they'll have us too, and we'll just enforce their damn rules over the students like private police."

He went on. "The order is to negotiate and to hand over Sir Marceline to the enemy if it becomes necessary. This is not acceptable. We will hold within the campus gate and passively block Billy from entering, protecting this woman, until the SGA or some other arm of the Chancellor drags us from the gate by force, or until rivulets of my blood run among the cobblestones like so much summer rain, after which I severely doubt you youngsters will fight on. At least you are drunk, and there's courage in ethanol. I, for my part, am very drunk! Form up!"

"But I must protest," barked the little man.

"Useless to protest if you cannot speak," Sir Howell said, chuckling. Without looking over at him, he held up a hand, fingers spread, palm towards the little man.

The words died in the guy's mouth; nothing he said could be heard. I knew the spell. It's a fairly easy one.

"I'm sorry," Howell said. "Free speech is sacred to me, but I have lost patience with you. I will release you from the hex and do penance later."

We marched to the gatehouse and formed up in the gate, as densely as ten drunk students halfway into mismatching plate armor can make themselves in a gate twenty feet wide. I thought some chilling thoughts while standing there in the half-darkness, waiting for battle.

I was used to my own kind trying to kill me. Vampire was to vampire more hateful than a foe, in the old days. But the university was something new to me, something that presented itself as a mother, alma mater, you know, and it was kind of soul-crushing to realize that it was totally fucking trying to kill me to save its own ass. Like, who or what doesn't have it in for me?

My head spun, and in total it spun for about an hour and fifteen minutes as I stood there with the others in the gate. Fire appeared in the distance, coming up the mountain, and I tasted adrenaline in my mouth. What could we even do if we couldn't draw swords or attack?

Five more minutes and I could see the idiot's face as he marched. Behind him were about two dozen flame-dudes.

It was then that about a dozen teachers showed up with swords, axes and what I took for working firearms.

"We're the motherfucking Deans of the School and we order you to defend this place!" Foxham shouted, waving a hatchet that was rather large for him. "What can they do, fire us? We're... tenurrrrrrrred~!"

What followed was, (and I know, I'm a military historian and famous war hero,) the only time the word "tenured" has ever come to mean "CHARGE!"

So all the deans and all the Knights of the Heroic Lyceum ran like crazy mondo motherfuckers at the enemy. Swords came out flaming, and in one voice the Knights chanted the charm that turns sword-flame to sword-ice.

Want to have fun? Heat a knife cherry-red with a blow torch and cut some butter. That's what it was like. I must have deincarnated about six of the fire guys by the time it was all over.

The field outside the gate was black as my soul when it was all done. Bits of fire elementals' armor lay strewn about, and Billy had escaped, no one saw where to.

Inside, we were met by almost the entire SGA and the fat man. He looked bizarre standing up, and he was still eating peanuts. The halogen floodlights made his pasty face look dead and bloated.

"That does it! BLATANT INSUBORDINATION!" he barked in a hollow voice. "Fired, the lot of you fired, expelled et cetera, FULL STO-HOP!"

I felt a deathly chill.

Foxham looked at him. Calmly, as though all his life had prepared him, he said "no."

"HHHWHAT?"

"You heard me. We're the deans, man. We elect and dismiss your position. Who signs your paychecks? The Bursar, who happens to be me. Who do you report to on matters of education? The Dean of Students, also me. You handed me the gun, I'm firing it. You're done, fella."

The fat man reached fever pitch. "I FOUNDED this university. Ab universitate condita sum cancellarius! De lege sum!"

"Sed non. The Thirteen founded the university, and you are only one of them. Hey, guys, back me up here. All opposed to firing him? Dammit, it's him or us."

None of the other deans moved or said anything.

"The nays have it," Foxham said.

"I AM-" Charlie began.

He trailed off, because most of the Knights had circled up around him with frozen swords.

Slowly, he walked towards the gate and the crowd parted to let him out. As he stood in the archway, he strained to look over his massive shoulder.

"I will bury you," he said, calmly, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Nikita Kruschev, 1956," Foxham said, and shrugged. He walked off, the interim Chancellor of the last university in the world, a singed fox with a hatchet and a cigarette. Later I found out that he put the hatchet in the edge of the fat man's desk and gave the office to Donovan with the provision that she leave it there.

So me and Sue sat on the couch and tended each other's wounds. In the battle, she had jumped between me and a raging, large fire elemental. Her face was red where flames had entered her helmet and her left eye was swollen shut. I rubbed some patent ointment on it, feeling sure that it didn't do anything, but feeling sure that she needed it and so did I.

She made a valiant attempt to stitch up a glancing wound to my foot, where a sword split my boot, but with one eye, it wasn't happening. So I pulled out the stitch-and-a-half she'd managed to run and concentrated very hard. I thought I was going to have an aneurysm, but I managed to heal the wound.

I felt very sleepy. Sue put her arm around me and I leaned against her. "So how does the story end?"

"We lost the battle, I got wounded, Worm-Ass died of his wounds later, after pillaging three more towns, and in the end, a lot of us had to give up our names."

"But not you."

"No. I named myself that day. No one sings my name and no one knows it among my people. I am the first one who has ever named herself, I think."

"You named yourself after your lover," I said in a leap of intuition. I guess I didn't stay awake long enough to hear if I was right.