When she finally settled down, and the tears weren't flowing anymore, I stood up and held her by her shoulders in front of me so that I could look into her small, tear-stained face. She looked… different. It wasn't just the black mist that was gradually fading from her, or the small smile on her lips. It was like her entire being had shifted. She seemed… lighter, more child-like.

I gave her a warm smile, not knowing if she was actually seeing it or looking into a different dimension, but I smiled all the same. I stole a glance at Marshall and Gumball, who were standing a few feet away, holding hands, the terror completely gone from their faces. Marshall looked ready to fight, and Gumball was wiping the tears away. Their faces reminded me, once again, of why I really came here.

"Seeress, I—"

"She means to end the portal bend, to keep the Lich from his ascend. It can't be done, the Lich has won, and will arrive before the day's done," she interrupted, already knowing what I was going to say.

"Can't you close the portal? Can't you stop him? You're The Seeress! You need to do something!" Marshall cried, his fists clenched in fear and anger.

She turned her head to Marshall, her face stone still as she spoke. "Patience he needs, dear vampire king. The portal is open and cannot be breached. Come, the Lich will, with power and skill, but that does not mean he cannot be killed."

The Seeress tilted her head down, her eyes never moving, and took three steps back. We all watched her intently, unsure of what she was doing or what she meant. I knew her well enough to know that, to her, even the most subtle of motion or speech could reveal a ton of information. She struck her hand into the air, her cloak sliding off her arm to reveal the darkness swirling around her pale, bare skin. Electricity crackled and sparked between her fingers, first invisible, but becoming strong enough for us to see it evolve into what seemed like hand-held lightening. The wind thrashed and swirled around us, growing more intense as the electricity in her hand became more and more visible. As entranced as I was with her hand, I still managed to notice her pale lips moving ever so slightly with words I couldn't hear. Marshall pushed me behind him, preparing for a fight, and Gumball stood behind me. As the girl mumbled her words, in her hand the electricity took shape and mingled with the blackness around her arm.

"Fionna! What's happening to her? What's she doing?" Gumball yelled into the swirling wind around us, clutching onto my shoulders.

I wanted to answer him, to tell him I didn't know, but I couldn't speak. My eyes were glued to the small girl and the thing forming in her hand. The shape it took was small, and weapon-like. It looked like… like a dagger.

The last of the mist and electricity swirled and hardened into a medium-sized dagger, about a foot long, and shaped in such a way that I had never seen before. It looked exotic, with its sheer black blade and hilt, and blue streams of what looked like electricity flowing through it. The dagger looked… powerful. Something about it made me want to turn away from it, but I couldn't.

She wrapped her fingers around the dagger, two on the hilt and two on the blade, and lowered her arm from the air, holding it out in front of her. With her other hand she ran her fingers up along the blade. "He conjured a dagger made of dark matter, but before he could plunge it he had to stagger…" she repeated, gazing off into space as she touched the terrifying weapon. "The dark weapon's named from the magic it came; the Grimoire Dagger, once the Lich's shame."

"That? That's the dagger he conjured?" Marshall asked in disbelief. Gently, I pushed him out of the way so I could step in front of him to look at it. His body tried to protest, but I shot him a look that demanded he move.

"The dagger is plain as a sword or a chain, for it has lain dormant and waiting in vain. Its purpose is clear, to eliminate fear, but only one's flesh will it actually shear."

"The Lich…" I said, my thoughts slipping through my lips. She nodded at me, but her face looked pained.

"Then what are we supposed to do with it? Stab the Lich? The guy doesn't strike me as a man who'll go down because we poked him with a pretty dagger," Marshall interjected, his arms crossed against his chest.

"A catalyst it needs for the power to breed, a specific item which keeps the powers seed." Her eyes grew wet and her still, emotionless mouth slowly curled downwards, into a sad frown.

"W—what does it need to activate?" I asked carefully, taking a step towards her. As I did, she took another step back. It stopped me in my tracks. She didn't want to be touched.

She gripped the dagger in both hands and held it to her chest, hanging her head, letting her long, long hair hide her face. "For so long I've waited for my purpose to be sated, to be freed from this prison, to no longer feel jaded. Years have gone by, and many have tried to take hold of my power, but had quickly died. I grew tired and cold to the worlds that I hold, to the people whose lives could be bought and sold. I waited for him, my creator of sin, so that one day I, too, could have some kind of kin. Yet he never came, but it was all the same. The Seeress was my purpose, as well as my name. So I sat and I watched as his evil was botched, and waited for this day when the portal would unlock…"

I saw the tears drip down her face as she clutched the dagger harder. Again, I tried to step closer to her, holding my hand out to comfort her, but again she stepped away, turning her head to try to hide better. "Seeress…" I tried, wanting so bad to go to her, to comfort her. The Lich… he was like her father. That's how she saw him, that's how she wanted him to be. What a monster, to create a child as a weapon and leave her to turn to stone in loneliness.

"But I didn't see the presence of she, the influence her heart would leave on me. Now I want to stay, to live another day, and for that I give her my eternal thanks." She cocked her head, her white eye poking out from her hair just enough for me to see the tears. She smiled at me, a sad, grateful smile.

"Seeress, I don't understand! Why are you so sad? What can I do to help you? Please, tell me!" There was a growing feeling in my heart, a tightening of my chest. My heart pounded and my blood rushed. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

She looked down again, taking a deep breath before raising her head with pride, her demeanor totally changed. "She has no time to watch me cry. For that I truly apologize. Six hours from now is when he will plow through the portal I opened for him as I vowed."

"Six hours? That's all we have? Fionna, we need to get back to the kingdom and evacuate everyone we can. This will be no place for anyone when he comes." Gumball made a lot of sense, but I couldn't wrap my head around it yet. Again, there was a feeling of a missing piece right in front of my eyes, something I couldn't see. The omission, the anxiety, the feeling of something being wrong… it soaked up all my attention. Not even my revenge could break me away from it.

"Seeress, what's the catalyst for the Grimoire Dagger?" I asked, hard in my convictions.

"Fionna—" Gumball reached for me.

"Wait," Marshall said, interrupting Gumball, keeping his hand on Gumball's chest so he couldn't walk up to me.

The Seeress's eyes fell slightly, looking just below my mine, her hands falling to the front of her legs, the dagger still firm in her grasp. "To kill the king, the dagger must be filled with his power, pure, without sin. His weakness is held as a piece that's expelled from his body before his evil could swell."

"You mean… his heart. You mean yourself," I said, my mind and body in shock with the sudden realization.

"Yes, she is right. The daggers' one blight is that it takes the last of the Lich's light."

"No. No, that can't be it. There's got to be another way. Seeress! Please! Tell me there's another way!" I screamed it at her, trying again to lunge for her, to hold her and protect her from herself.

She glided away from me, backing herself up to her mirrors where I could see every angle of her. "Stop! Stay back! She must not lose track of the reason she's come so far to attack!" she yelled, holding the dagger up in the air, poising it to aim straight to her heart. Tears were streaming down her face as she sobbed, this time staring directly at me.

I screamed to her, sprinting as fast as I could, my hands out to her, begging her to stop. Marshall flew at her, too, darting towards her in the air. She was so far away! I wasn't close enough! She was going to…

"I choose this day to break from my fate! I will not blindly follow his hate!" She closed her eyes tightly, raised her arms just a little more, and plunged the dagger straight into her heart.

Blood poured out of her chest, covering her pale hands and dark dagger. She fell back against a mirror, shattering it with her body, and slid down the broken shards until she sat limply on the ground. Marshall landed right next to her, quickly moving his hands towards her to lift her, move her, or do something to help her. His hands shot back as he neared her body. There was electricity around her, crackling and energizing, shocking Marshall when he tried to touch her.

Just inches from her body I dropped to my knees from my sprint and slid to her side, tears running down my face as I begged her to take it back. I tried to touch her body, but it was no use. The electricity shocked my hand away. I tried to withstand the current, to force my fingers to her face, but the energy was too much. The sheer force of it nearly knocked me back.

She took short, shallow breaths, her eyelids heavy over her eyes and a small stream of blood flowing from her lips. She turned her eyes to me, as if she was looking at me, and smiled. "T—take it… p—please…" she started, trying to lift her hand to the dagger. I was so overwhelmed with the pain of seeing her that way that I just nodded to her, wiping the tears from my blurry vision and reaching for the dagger. It was the only thing I could touch that wouldn't shock me away.

I gripped the hilt tightly, feeling the power, the energy course through it. Slowly, carefully, I tried to pull it out. She grunted and bit back screams of pain as I did, and it made me cringe and want to stop. Marshall wrapped his hand around mine, looking me dead in the eye, telling me I know it's hard, but we can do this. Together we carefully pulled the dagger all the way out, leaving a big, gaping wound in the small girls' body.

The crackling electricity faded away, and I tossed the dagger to the ground, focusing on lifting her from the glass and holding her in my arms. She coughed and closed her eyes, her breathing gradually getting lighter and lighter.

I leaned my forehead against hers, my tears falling onto her face as I rocked her gently in my arms. "Please… please don't… it's not worth it…"

"Fi—ionna… thank… you…" she whispered, smiling up at me. I tried so hard to smile back, to bite back the tears for her and show her that someone cared about her, that someone wanted to spend time with her and love her and be her friend. She deserved that much. She deserved to know that.

With one long, painful sigh, she let out her last breath as I held her in my arms.