Marceline wiped her mouth as she lowered the bottle from her lips.
Glob dang it tasted bad—so bad she began to wonder if these ghosts were playing some sort of prank on her. Because Marceline had drunk almost half the bottle and she didn't feel any different.
"It takes a second to kick in," Annie offered, as if reading Marceline's mind.
Marceline handed the bottle back to Annie and rolled her shoulders, rolled her neck. Cracked her knuckles and stretched her arms to the ceiling. She suddenly felt restless, like something wasn't quite right and she needed to do something about it. It was probably the drink, she reasoned, but it felt bigger. More pressing. Like something outside the cave was calling her name. Like the wind wanted to pull her into the sky so she could feel the night air on her face and starlight on her skin and watch her shadow, born from the full moon and the shape of her body, following far below on the ground.
She blinked, and returned to the present, to her house, to the ghosts surrounding her and watching her for any sort of reaction.
"Woah," she said.
"Right?" Les laughed and snagged the bottle from Annie.
Annie scoffed, annoyed, but softened and laughed when Les winked at her over the bottle. The female ghost turned to Marceline. "So, what's the plan for tonight?"
"The plan?" Marceline raised her brows, looking at the ghosts in turn. She pointed to the bottle. "This wasn't it?"
"Drinking at your house?" Spike called from the couch. He floated up and grabbed the bottle from Les, who relinquished it with a lighthearted snort. Spike finished and tossed the bottle back to Marceline. "Like we've only been dead for a hundred years? Come on M, we've grown past that."
"Unless," Annie nudged Spike with her elbow, "you aren't feeling up to going out. We've had our share of fun in your house." The ghost brightened. "Hey, we could break out the instruments and jam like we used to."
"Yeah!" Les held out his hands and a ghostly guitar manifested itself into them. He laid out a sick guitar riff. "We haven't jammed in so long."
Marceline bit her lip. She had been avoiding going into her music room because Bonnie's stuff was still in there. Then there was the fact that she hadn't really bothered to listen to her own music or even pick up her bass, and she wasn't totally sure she could even play anything decent if she tried.
Plus, that feeling was still there, deep in her gut. The feeling that she needed to leave her cave.
"I think I'd actually like to go out," she said, and the ghosts whooped. They really seemed to enjoy cheering, but Marceline didn't mind so much anymore. Her stomach was knotted with the anticipation of flying, but not in a bad way.
"We could go to the drive-in," Spike suggested. "Catch a movie?"
"Ooh, what about Worm Kingdom?" Annie added. "That place is weiiird."
"Maybe we could visit the Abyss!" Les howled.
A flash of white light lit up behind Marceline's eyes, and a dull roaring started in her ears.
"Dude, that place is way too dangerous," Annie chided. "Do you have any idea what goes on in there?"
"No, do you?"
Annie scoffed. "Of course not. That's the point. Rational people stay away from that place at all costs."
Something in Marceline's brain felt like it was cracking. She clutched her head with both hands. What was happening?
"Nah," Spike shook his head. "That's not what I heard."
"Really?" Annie crossed her ghost arms. "What have you heard?"
"I heard it's fine to go down there if you aren't alone," Spike said, mohawk bobbing in his earnestness. "As long as you're with friends, nothing bad will happen."
Everyone looked at him; even Marceline looked up through the pain in her head.
"Yeah, that sounds fake," Annie said. Then, she finally seemed to notice Marceline's distress. "Woah, M. Is this stuff hitting you that hard?" Annie gently took the bottle from Marceline's and handed it to Spike. "We don't have to go out if you don't want to."
Marceline shook her head, straightening out slowly. "I'm fine."
And she was, somehow. The headache disappeared as suddenly has it had come on. She was a little off balance, which she blamed on the drink a hundred percent. But she was left with a sense of emptiness that she couldn't explain, a feeling of urgency that she couldn't bring herself to pretend was the drink.
Suddenly, she wanted her bass. She wasn't sure why; she still didn't think she would remember how to play it. But the feeling was there, so she told the ghosts to "wait up a sec" and darted off to her music room as quickly as she could, then returned with the instrument strapped to her back.
"In case we want to jam somewhere else," she said defensively at the curious looks of her ghost friends. They cheered again, and Marceline rolled her eyes, laughing.
The ragtag group of four shot out of the house together, albeit slightly wobbly from the beginning effects of the weird liquid, making their way to the mouth of the cave.
The weight of the guitar pressed against her back was comforting in a way that felt entirely natural, as if it were meant to be there. As the cave entrance grew closer, Marceline wondered if that was a remnant of her old self—if the feeling of safety was something like muscle memory. And, if she felt this way about the instrument just being close to her, would she be able to play it?
The thoughts were swept away as soon as the group of the dead and undead were out of the cave and shooting toward a deep black sky sprinkled with millions of glittering stars.
Marceline put her arms out as if she could catch the wind in midair, and her chest felt lighter than it had in days. She let out a throat-rawing wooooooooooooooooooo, and the ghosts followed suit, punching fists and twirling in the air with the joy of life—or, at least, something like it.
Rushing toward the boundless sky, shredding her lungs with cries of joy, Marceline wondered if, maybe, life wasn't something that just happened to you. Maybe, it was something you were supposed to find yourself. Maybe existing was supposed to be an adventure; it was supposed to be messy and scary and confusing and crazy, because that's what adventures were—overcoming the bad stuff to get to the good stuff, the stuff that made all that jank biz worth it. It didn't matter whether your actual body was alive or not—in the end, that was all more or less irrelevant. What mattered, she decided with sudden, complete clarity, was recognizing how small you are, and choosing to live like you aren't.
"Hey!" she yelled, hoping all three of her friends could hear her. It seemed they could, because they all looked at her, their expressions mirroring the way she felt. "Thanks for barging into my house!"
Everyone laughed, and the lightness in Marceline's chest seemed to spread to her whole body and into the sky beyond. She felt…infinite. Like she was part of the sky itself.
"It's the drink!" Annie yelled, seeming to read her mind yet again. "It's made of Mushroom War Goo. Makes you crazy, right?"
"Right!" Marceline laughed again, and her laugh trickled out of her throat like stardust. She didn't even care to bother to ask what the Mushroom War was. It didn't really seem to matter.
The group stopped when the atmosphere began to get dangerously thin, and they turned to survey the ground below.
Ooo spread below them like it was made of clay, still and silent and small. A miniaturist's version of the world. From up here, the lines between the kingdoms were clearer than ever, dividing the land into a patchwork of green and blue and pink and orange—not that Marceline knew exactly what she was looking at.
"Tell me which kingdoms are which," she said to whoever was listening.
"Well, there's the Ice Kingdom," Spike drawled in the slow cadence of his voice. "Then there's Slime Kingdom, Fire Kingdom and, of course, Candy Kingdom."
Spike kept talking and listing kingdoms, but Marceline forgot to listen.
Candy Kingdom.
Her euphoria dimmed at the thought of the Candy Kingdom and Bonnie and what she might be doing right now. It must have shown on her face because Les elbowed her and said: "Let's dive."
"Dive?" She said. "Isn't that, like, dangerous?"
"Probably," Spike nodded. "You've definitely passed out before. But you've always been fine."
"Wow," she said. "Okay. I guess we can do that."
"You learn a lot about yourself in freefall," Spike said, still nodding.
Annie smacked his arm. "Stop being weird, Spike. We all know you majored in philosophy." She looked at Marceline with a roll of her eyes. "He majored in philosophy."
Spike smiled his slow smile and said "I'm not wrong though" right before spreading his arms and dropping toward the earth with sudden, breakneck speed.
Marceline let out a surprised laugh, watching the ghost plummet toward the ground, then turned toward Annie and Les. "You guys all seem really chill about this whole memory loss business," she said.
It wasn't really a question, more like an offhanded observation, but Annie shrugged and answered anyway. "Girl, we've been through a lot."
"Yeah," Les agreed. "We've been dead for hundreds of years, M. We've seen some weird things. This probably isn't even highest on the list." He paused, assessing. "It's up there, though."
"The way I see it," Annie continued seamlessly, "it doesn't really matter. People change anyway. Even the undead."
"Really?" For some reason, that took Marceline by surprise.
"Of course. Why wouldn't we?" Annie looked at Les, and her expression changed to one of mild amusement. "Well, most of us do, anyway." Marceline turned her head to Les, who was hanging upside down with his arms spread out, tongue spilling out of his mouth like a dog.
"I'm not ashamed," he said. Then he, too, shot toward the ground like a missile.
Marceline made a decision. She turned to Annie. "On the count of three?" she said.
Annie nodded. "One."
Marceline grinned. "Two."
"Three!" The two of them shouted the word together as they let themselves fall, and then began to actively accelerate toward the ground.
Falling was a weird feeling. It was like the sky had taken hold of her stomach at the top of her descent and kept it there. Wondering if she would ever get it back, her grin widened, and tears streamed out of her eyes as the ground rushed up to meet her—smooth and blurred at first, and then sharper and more focused as the details of the landscape came into view.
Finn and Jake, Annie and Les and Spike; how many more amazing friends did Marceline have that she couldn't remember? The thought made her feel giddy with excitement—she had so much more life to live.
As the ground came closer, two figures came into view: one a blob of blue, the other a blurred orange shape. Slowing down, she realized that it was Finn and Jake. Weird. What were they doing outside in the middle of nowhere so late at night?
Hoping it wouldn't upset her ghost friends, Marceline veered in Finn and Jake's direction.
Remembering what Spike had said about herself and pranks, Marceline turned herself invisible right before she reached them.
This was going to be good.
She flew up behind them, trying to be as silent as possible, resisting the urge to burst into a fit of giggles.
Then all at once, a shadow fell over them, obscuring the moon and causing Finn and Jake—and Marceline—to turn in alarm.
Marceline's mood soured considerably at the pink figure that sat astride the giant bird that had just flown down toward the ground.
The falcon landed on the grass with a thud. "Finn, Jake, thank Glob I found you," Bonnie said, jumping down from the creature. Marceline swallowed hard, prepared to fly away. But something stopped her, she wasn't sure if it was the invisibility that made snooping sound feel like a good idea, or if it was Bonnie's expression of concern as she scanned Finn and Jake.
"What's up princess?" Finn said, swinging his sword around. "Did you find a cure already?"
A cure?
Bonnie shook her head. "No," she said. "But I think I know where to start. For real this time." The princess clutched her head, looking pained, as if she had a headache. A bitter part of Marceline hoped it really hurt, then she felt guilty for thinking that way. "We should wait to act until tomorrow, but I think I know where Marceline's memories were taken, even if I'm not totally sure why or how."
"And the candy people? The other kingdoms?" Finn pressed at the same time Jake said "Where?"
"I don't know about the candy people," she said to Finn. "But I bet it's all connected somehow. As for Marceline," The princess paused as if to collect herself. She looked strained, Marceline noticed. Strained and tired and totally stressed out. "I think we need to go back to the very beginning, where this whole ridiculous mess started." She took a deep breath. "The Abyss."
There was that word again. Marceline's pulse began to pound, so hard she was surprised nobody else heard it. She floated slightly farther away from the rest of them, paranoid that someone actually might.
Both boys looked confused. "The what?" Jake asked.
Bonnie's shoulders slumped. She looked completely exhausted. Marceline rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. "It's a place Marcy and I discovered when we were really young. A dangerous place that should have been destroyed a long time ago."
Finn didn't look convinced. "I've been exploring Ooo since I was a baby, Peebs. I've never heard of this place."
Bonnie sighed. "Look, just meet me at the castle in the morning, I'll explain everything then. I need to assemble a good sized group of fighters to—"
"Fighters?" Jake interrupted. "You don't think we can handle it ourselves?"
"I don't know," Bonnie said. "I studied the Abyss for a couple years from a great distance. But it's impossible to tell what's in there without actually going inside, and even I was never that curious." Finn and Jake looked at each other worriedly. "I have no idea what we'll be up against, so it's best to be as prepared as possible.
Marceline's head was pounding with all this talk of the Abyss, but no memories emerged. Strange. So strange.
There was a pause, and then Finn said. "What about Marceline?"
Bonnie stiffened, and so did Marceline. "What about her?" the princess said.
"Shouldn't we tell her?"
Bonnie said nothing. The night wind picked up, causing the grasslands around them to bend like waves in the ocean, lifting Bonnie's hair and dress like she was living in slow motion, blowing the scent of sugar and strawberries in Marceline's direction.
"I don't know," she said.
Marceline stopped floating, and her feet touched the ground. She put a hand on her chest to calm her heartbeat, but honestly? She was relieved. She thought whatever Bonnie was going to say about her would feel much worse than it actually had. She wondered if it was the drink, or if, possibly, it was because tonight, for the first time since returning home, it didn't feel like Bonnie was the center of her world.
It wasn't a good feeling, but it wasn't terrible.
It was a start, at least.
"She doesn't want to remember," Bonnie continued. She sounded sad, and she seemed years and years older than she had the whole time she had stayed with Marceline. "It might be cruel to bring her back into it."
"But what about the candy people?" Finn said, taking a step forward. "If we let Marceline know what's happening, maybe she can help us save them!"
"She can't help without her memories." Bonnie turned and climbed back atop her bird. "It isn't her problem," she said simply, looking down on the boys from her perch. "Anyway I came here to tell you to go home and get plenty of sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we brave the Abyss."
Marceline jumped back into the sky and headed in the direction the ghosts had gone, any notion of pranking Finn and Jake forgotten.
Save them? Those weird little candy creatures were in trouble?
She forced herself to become visible again while she searched for Annie and Les and Spike, but her mind was preoccupied with worry. Did Bonnie not want her help because she truly wanted to honor Marceline's wishes? Or did the princess just think she would be useless? A liability? If her kingdom was so important, wouldn't she try to do everything she could to save it? And didn't that extend to asking Marceline for help?
Lost in her thoughts, she almost flew right over the three ghosts.
"Yo, M!" Spike waved her over. "We thought we lost you."
"I just took a small detour," she said dismissively.
"Well, I'm glad you're back," Annie said excitedly. "We're totally about to prank Breakfast Kingdom. Are you in?"
"Sure," Marceline said, but the strange meeting between Bonnie and Finn and Jake had her rattled, and it seemed her good mood was permanently dampened.
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When I first started writing this, it was going to be a cute and lighthearted Bubbline story. I don't know what happened. I don't know why it got so deep so quickly, but I'm really enjoying writing it anyway.
A huge thanks to everyone who has read this, and to those of you who have reviewed and followed and favorited. All of you are wonderful!
