AN
And here we come to the climax! The moment we've all been waiting for! Boss fight! Whatever you want to call it, it's my favorite part of the writing process, because I've known what it'll be like for AGES and it always flows easily. The biggest hitch in this one was deciding how I'd do the rock-off, and while I don't think my solution is perfect, there's a point I reach where I decide it's good enough; if I poured over everything to perfection like other writers I know, I'd never get anything done!
So, here you have it! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! We're going to have some cooldown chapters before we jump into the next story arc, so enjoy this last nugget of action before the pacing slows down for a bit!
Chapter 8: The Rock-Off
As Marceline drifted further and further down the shaft, deep into the heart of the mountain, she could feel the heat rising up from the lowest levels, the foundries, furnaces, and forges where Thoros and his Forgelings formed ore into ingots and ingots into items. She couldn't feel it the way Finn might; there was not a drop of sweat anywhere on her body, but she could feel it all the same. Vampires, even the most powerful ones like Marceline and a few others, had an inherent vulnerability to heat and fire. It was nothing like their aversion to sunlight, but arrows dipped in oil and lit could harm a vampire when they would have otherwise bounced off harmlessly. Similarly, the blades of the Forgelings could cut her, even when she was transformed, because the magic that animated them imbued the blades with enchanted heat. To that end, a vampire might not worry about the temperature in the weather, but that didn't mean for a second that they couldn't be burnt.
All about her, she saw the Forgelings crowding the sides of the great spiral stairway, watching her silently as she drifted down. She shifted the guitar-bass to ride against her right hip, hanging from its strap. She'd named it Bloody Mary, a reference to both her own tastes and the color of the instrument; that color looked absolutely delicious to her undead eyes, but she'd never, ever drink it, and that was assuming she managed to keep the thing. Every instrument needed a name, and if it didn't have a name, only a fool would play it at a gig; that kinda stuff was begging for the show to go badly, for the crowd to be harsh, for the venue or the sound or customer or any number of things beyond a performer's control to totally suck. A performer was at the mercy of her crowd, along with an endless list of other things beyond her control. A good performer took those things in stride. When she got up on stage, they would crash down on her like rain, but a good performer never seemed to get wet. Nothing fazed her. She rolled with the punches, oozing complete confidence at all times, even if the sound was shitty and the crowd was tiny, and even if she was playing for the 'opportunity', which was band-code for 'free'.
Marceline was in performer-mode, 100%. Sure, she'd just gotten two out of three of her instruments barely a few minutes ago, and she was short an extra set of hands if she was gonna play both bass and guitar, and her only bandmate couldn't make the show, and if she screwed it all up she was probably gonna die, and if she died, her bandmate, who she happened to have the immortal hots for was also probably gonna die, and she had no idea what she'd play, or what the crowd even liked, but all that was tertiary in her mind. Because she was Marceline the Vampire Queen, and she was going to rock that mountain down to its roots, down to the tectonic plates, down and down and down till the core of the planet wobbled on its axis. And that was all that could possibly save her, and one of the only other people that she remotely cared about.
She was thinking she'd end up with her left hand on the lower bass neck, use her other hand to play the upper guitar neck from above, bite her pick in half and use her hair to play them both at the same time.
It could work. Marcie thanked her lucky stars that she'd wound up with prehensile vampire hair, because otherwise there was no way she could pull it off. "Alright, so on the downside, being a vampire means you lose out on ultra-hot-human-boy-makeouts," she said to herself, trying out the two-hand-and-hair method with some improvised licks over a few simple basslines. Tricky, but not impossible. "But on the upside, you don't get burnt to a crisp by the harshest crowd you've ever played for. I'd call that a win."
Her inner voice tickled at the back of her head, whispering; "He'd be more than just a good kisser, you know. The kid's a freakin' saint, he'd probably be the best boyfriend in ever. And don't even try to say that it's just physical, you know that's a boldfaced lie."
"Ugh, not now," she told that voice. "It's time to rock! You can watch sappy movies and eat ice cream over boy troubles later."
Down and down and down she went. Passing her by, packed together like sardines on the stairwell, the Forgelings watched her. There was no clank and clamor in the workshops, only the sound of the bellows, like heavy breathing. It seemed the entire mountain complex was there to hear her play. And Marcie was determined not to disappoint.
She settled on the bottom floor, guitar-bass slung wide on her right hip, left arm dangling loose in open, confident body language, her face locked into a stony disinterest, oozing cool. Her tall boots clomped on the stone as they touched the ground, her long raven hair shifting subtly around her slender frame, as though it was constantly being nipped this way and that way by the only breeze in the still air at the lowest level. Forgelings surrounded her, murmuring words to each other that the vamp couldn't make out. They left her a wide circle, about twenty-five feet in every direction, seeming to be more cautious among themselves than threatening towards her. "Feels like walking right into the middle of a pack of gorillas," she thought to herself, casting her eyes about. She was a moment from calling out, when she heard one booming sound, echoing from deep within the mountain, if it could go any deeper. She concluded her thoughts; "And there's the alpha male."
Ducking under the arch on short, thick legs, his huge torso and long, massive arms giving him a hunched appearance, coincidentally quite like a gorilla, came Thoros himself. Built of brass, rippling the air with an aura of heat, tongues of flame leaping from his eyes and between his teeth, horns curled about his head like a rams, with four mammoth tusks protruding from his jaws. The temperature in the room jumped a few degrees, just by his presence alone. "So, you have finally shown yourself," he said, sitting on his haunches and knuckles in the massive arching doorway he had come in through. Marceline, doing her absolute best to maintain her stage presence, looked up to face him, ruby red locking onto two points of licking, leaping flame. "I had wondered when you would finally arrive, or whether you'd gone and played chicken." As though it were on cue, the massed, gathered Forgelings imitated their master, as the behemoth tucked his hands into his armpits and flapped them, teasing; "Bok-bok-bakock! Chiiiiiicken! Chicky-chicky chicken!" Marceline was momentarily bombarded by clucks and calls.
She raised one eyebrow before responding, "Yeah? Well, here I am, ready to go." She hefted Blood Mary, as if to demonstrate. "You got the amps, right? This gig ain't paying me enough to lug all that junk around."
Thoros let out a sound that must have been an annoyed tut, though in his booming bass it sounded like a battleship's broadside. "Yes, yes, we have the amps!" Though no order had been given, two amps were brought forth, one for the bass, and one for the guitar portion of the elaborate instrument. Marceline raised her eyebrow higher.
"…And for the vocals?" She asked, prompting the Forgelings to groan and grumble, and leading Thoros to facepalm thunderously. "I don't do instrumentals."
"Yes, yes, we have a mic! And it's a good one, too! Bring the MP-75!" Thoros cast his burning gaze to Marceline, who merely met his stair, looking like the very definition of unimpressed. "My word, you're demanding. I'd never have booked you if I knew you'd be this much trouble."
That was a rap that Marceline had heard a million times before. Or maybe two million. A girl had to be ready to advocate for herself if she wanted to make it in rock music. "Man, you made the contract, I met the terms. I got the axe, and you wanted the show. Your gig, your rules, your problem if you don't like it."
"Yes, yes, I know," Thoros responded. "Now, more rules. You've got the gear for as long as you can stay alive. You can use any skills, weapons, tactics, or other methods to defend yourself, on the condition that you don't pull the plugs on anything you're playing, and that you don't stop playing until either you submit, you die, or I declare you the winner. Ready?"
That one stumped Marceline thoroughly. "Wait…" She scanned the crowds of Forgelings who surrounded her on all sides. One and all, they raised their bladed arms, knees bent and ready to spring. "…The wad didn't write anything about this!" Marcie cried in frustration.
"Begin!" Thoros commanded, and the first line of burning blades charged forward. It was too late for Marceline to abandon her confidence, however. She was committed to the gig, and all she could do was roll with the punches and curse her misfortune.
"Ash, I'll flippin' kill you!" she roared, letting her fingers play blindly with the fretboards as she lashed out at her first target, her back leg shuffling her sideways as her front leg shot out like a piston, with every ounce of force in her undead body behind it as she wracked her brain for something more concrete to play. She knew in her heart that this kind of gig was impossible to play right. Not alone, not the way Thoros had built the venue. But all she could do was try, silently hoping that her hero came to play his part in time.
"Alright, Finn, time to make your magic," the Last Human told himself, plopping down onto his butt the moment Marceline had begun her trip down into the core. "Marceline needs your help to rock Thoros' socks, and you need your help to get out of here without getting carved up. Time to put your wiz-kid-lid to work." Finn set about cataloging everything he knew about the situation he was in; the path that his enemies would be taking to him, the barrier which stood between him and his friend, and every escape route he knew of from his current position. "Well, we already know that the secondary stairways are a bust. They could be crawling with Forgelings who are probably under orders to stab you to bits, and if you go to meet them there they might just toss you over the side of the staircase after they've stabbed you. But you might have to run the gauntlet as your best option, so keep that in mind. Alright next…" He browsed his mind, running down the catalog as he looked around the room. "The windows. That's a bust. You can't fly, you big dumb. What's next?"
He eyed the pedestal that Marceline had been working on when she had been dropped down below. "The barrier," he stated, talking through his mental process. "The barrier between you and Marcie. Can you break it? Let's find out."
Finn hopped up to his feet, stepping cautiously out onto the segmented area of the floor. It almost looked like the pedals of a flower, but beyond making sure that it didn't open on him by surprise, Finn wasn't stopping to smell the flowers. It was a delicate balance, one that he'd learned through experience, to walk the line between moving fast enough to reach your friends in time, and going slow enough to avoid missing something vital. Once Finn had learned to walk that balance, he'd found that he was a lot, lot less stupid than he'd assumed he was. Careless wasn't stupid, and now the Last Human was neither.
He approached the pedestal, the one bit of the room that he hadn't examined in detail. Immediately, he noticed that the segments of the floor were all separated from the pedestal, which inhabited its own twelve-sided space of solid floor, all except for one, which connected with that space seamlessly. "I see," he said. "So when the mechanism activates, the pedestal rides on this one petal, while all twelve disengage and drop down. And since you can walk on the petals of the flower without triggering it, that means that the trigger is the…" His voice hit a crescendo as he stepped firmly onto the platform that bore the pedestal, but his 'eureka' moment got busted up by the fact that nothing really happened. "…Inner platform. Urgh!" he growled in defeat, kicking the pedestal three times to vent his frustration. Finn cast his eyes towards the doors lining the perimeter, and was about to head off towards one of them when a familiar voice caught his ear.
"Um, hello?" came a timid, gravelly voice, drifting through one of the windows. "Is there anybody in here? Ohh, I hope I'm not intruding…" A blue shape floated up to one of the chilled glass panels, pushing it open slowly. "Hello?" the newcomer called again. Finn couldn't believe his eyes.
"Ice King!" he whooped, dashing up to the scatter-minded wizard. "Good glob, am I glad to see you!"
"Y-you mean that?" Ice King responded, a confused but pleased smile on his blue face. "Well! I'm glad to see you too, Finn, though honestly, you didn't sound so happy before you saw me. Is this a bad time, you know I can come back later if it's too much trouble…"
"Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope, trust me Ice King, this is the perfect time!" Finn assured him, dipping around the mage's back to shut the window he came through, just to enforce his own statement. "In fact, I need your help with something. It's a… A bonding project! Me and Marceline were spending some… Bonding time together! And we decided to do this here puzzle floor! See, Marceline is down below, and if we solve the puzzle of this floor, it'll open up and we'll get to hang out with her! As buddies! So it's really, really important that you help me solve the puzzle floor as quickly as possible." Finn studied Ice King's face furiously. He was happy for any amount of help he could get, naturally, but Ice King was possibly the most unreliable ally Finn had, except maybe Flame Princess, what with her elemental way of looking at things.
"Really? Well, that's just dandy!" Finn could barely contain his relief as Ice King continued; "And the puzzle is this floor, you say?"
The boy could only nod his head as rapidly as physically possible, unable to form words, almost out of fear that he'd ruin whatever he'd just set into motion.
"And you say we need to solve it as fast as possible?" Ice King questioned further.
"Yes," Finn replied, growing rather frustrated. "Yes yes yes. Faaaaaaaaaast."
"Oh, okay then," Ice King reached into one of his robes' seemingly-endless pockets, producing a pouch, from which he produced a handful of dust. "You know, I'm really not too fond of this kind of divination magic, I kinda like to give my noodle the challenge of figuring it out for myself, but I'll tell ya it comes in really handy when you're in a pickle."
"Okthatsgreatthatscooljustdoit!" Finn babbled, practically exploding with urgency.
"Oh all right then, just don't get your boxers in a wad," Ice King responded. He then mumbled some words, and tossed the dust around, a little sprinkle towards each corner of the room. When the particles had settled, they began to sparkle with color; most of the room sparkled red, but the platform that bore the pedestal shimmered a steady green. "Ah, interesting. Finn-buddy, that dodecagon over there is a pressure plate. Me and you, see, we don't have the weight to trigger it, but if we both stand on it and jump real hard, I think we might just be able to trigger it."
Finn couldn't help but grin ear to ear as he took up a position on one side of the pedestal, Ice King moving to the other. "Ice King, I would be honored if you would be my buddy and jump on this pressure plate with me." Part of Finn was laying it thick to keep Ice King interested, but another part of him was honestly grateful for the help; sure, Ice King was batty, but Simon Petrikov had been a good dude, and so was Ice King, in his own nutsy way.
"Oooh, yes, yes, I'll do it!" Ice King exclaimed, taking a position opposite of Finn. "Ready? One…" Finn bent his knees. "Two…" The human, curiously enough, heard clanking, echoing up from the four stairwells and through the wooden doors.
"Just in time," he thought to himself with a grin.
"Three!" Ice King exclaimed, and they both jumped as high as their legs would power them, landing simultaneously on the platform below them.
Just as hot metal bodies began slamming against the doors, buckling the blocks, the floor folded downward like the petals of a flower, dumping the two intothe shaft below.
"Umm… Ugh, I can't believe I'm doing this… T-twinkle twinkle, little star…" Marceline looked frantically about her, waiting for the next attack to come as she struggled to just keep playing no matter how hard she was pushed, or how low she had to stoop just to keep the notes coming. It had been the most taxing fight she could remember, but she was running out of energy, and the cuts of those heated blades, shallow as they might have been, were not closing as quickly as they had at the start of the fight. She knew at that moment, either she'd be unable to keep fighting, or unwilling to keep playing, but either way she'd lose it soon if help didn't arrive. "If I've gotta stoop lower than Twinkle-Twinkle, Little Star, maybe I don't deserve eternal life," she joked with herself, if only just to keep on playing and keep on fighting. The cables that tied her to her equipment were long enough that she had some room to maneuver, but the worst of the restrictions was the way her hands were tied to the instrument. All she could do was kick at her foes, and while her vamp strength made one kick enough to put down each Forgeling, she didn't have enough legs to make it work perfectly. Her odds for the fight would have been better if she could transform, but that'd force her to stop playing the instrument that wouldn't grow with her, and that'd mean the end of the contest. As it stood, Thoros was unpleasable, but so long as she didn't stop fighting and didn't stop playing, Marceline would have a chance at survival.
"What? Interlopers!? Who dares violate the sacred life-or-death stakes of the rock-off?!" Thoros boomed, cutting the rest of Twinkle-Twinkle short. The Forgelings stopped to follow the gaze of their maker upwards, and then so did Marceline, her almost-defeated spirits soaring.
"Marcie, so there you are! So nice to see you!" Ice King droned in his usual lackadaisical way, Finn riding down with him, clinging to his ankles. Marceline the Vampire Queen wasn't sure who she was happier to see, as the boy released his grip as soon as it was safe, rolling with the landing to come up right in front of her.
"Did you ever doubt me?" Finn asked her when he caught his breath. His landing had brought him close, closer than he'd normally stand in regular conversation, and the proximity, combined with the fact that she was standing rather than floating, made Marceline realize that Finn had, somewhere along the lines, gotten almost half a head taller than her. It made her feel vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with the fight that'd been interrupted just in the nick of time. The smug, rogue's grin that he wore when he said it didn't help. Marceline couldn't work up an answer for him, just responded with her own smile, before turning to face Thoros, performance-mode back in full force.
"Whoa, whoa , whoa, easy there big guy. Bandmates. Ya didn't think this was the real show, did ya?" The rocker made a show of retuning Bloody Mary. "That was just the warmup, now let us get everything set up if you don't want us to split. Capisce?"
Thoros seemed to chew it over for a few seconds, before spitting out; "Fine, but make it snappy!"
Marceline turned back to Finn and Ice King, trying to work out a plan in her head, but Finn seemed to be several mental steps ahead of her. "Ice King, you got a drum with you under there?" he asked decisively.
"Well yeah," the wonky wizard responded, as though it were obvious. "Why do ya think my robes are always so big when I'm so slender?"
"Haha, perfect, whip that baby out, and then set up an ice stage for you and Marceline! Make sure it's really thick, and really cold, and make sure that it doesn't melt!" Ice King consented, pulling out a snare one a stand and two sticks, before raising a twenty-foot-tall stage, right below his feet, lifting both of the performers and their equipment up off the ground.
"Uh, Finn?" the vampire ventured, never one to sit out of a battle, especially not one she considered her own.
"Look, before you say it, I know you're perfectly capable of fighting your own fights. That's cool, it's something I… really like about you," Finn responded, seeming to pull the words out of her mouth as he turned back to look up to her atop the stage. That's something that had always bothered the Vampire Queen, but the words he put in her mouth were basically the ones she was putting there herself, so she found herself with nothing to get mad at. "But this is all being played by ear, and Ice King is crazy, so you've gotta focus on keeping him in line, alright? You've got a full band, with vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, so just do what you do best, and play, so I can focus on what I do best, fighting."
"Alright weenies, times up! Let's get this show over with, because honestly, if it's going to be anything like the warm up, I don't wanna drag out the pain, you dig it?"
Finn's face went from friendly but firm to all action in the blink of an eye. "Listen, just go with it!" He ordered her. "You play, I fight, now go!"
With that, the Last Human turned to face the first charge, swords leading as he met his first five enemies head on.
(Ithitsallonitsown here. Hope you're enjoying everything! Now that we've reached the finale, do yourself a favor and tune into what Marcie and Ice King will be laying down while Finn takes out the trash. Head over to YouTube before you keep reading, and turn on 'The Touch', by Stan Bush. Enjoy!)
The key to fighting multiple opponents, as Finn went about it, was the fact that only a certain amount of enemies could fit around you to try and take a swing. With that in mind, keeping each enemy in a position that is in the way of as many enemies as possible was the key to survival in the kind of fight that Finn was entering, a fact that he was well aware of. Meeting the charge of the first five, the young man put his own weapons into play, slicing and thrusting on angles that intersected every attack that came his way. His movements blurred into each other, flowing from one position to another as his attacks wove a web of steel around his body. Every time one of his foes came in to exploit an opening, Finn was there, closing the hole in his guard with a stroke of his own, finding a weak point with every movement. His blocks became strikes of their own, dealing damage with every movement, as the Forgelings fell away from him like saplings in the path of a tornado. None of them could strike with confidence, because every move they made against him invited one of those twisting, whickering blades to bite deep into a vital target. Despite the fact that they surrounded him, a pair of blades waiting for him in every direction, not a single one of them could find a move to make, because wherever they could go, he met them with lethal steel, every time.
Thoros, sitting on his haunches, watched as a single human boy cut down his warriors like a scythe in a field, listening to the music that spilled from the boy's friends as they too watched him fight like a creature of the Nightosphere. He gathered nicks and scrapes here and there, opening the fabric of his sweatshirt until it hung from him in tatters by the white hood over his head, red blood seeping from the shallow gashes, but none of them seemed to slow him; he was possessed by his purpose. Finn would fight until Marcie and Ice King won, or until the moment he could no longer swing his swords.
In the end, it was the master of the domain who relented first. "Stop!" he roared, and everyone turned to look and see why he roared it. "Stop this, I have seen and heard enough!"
The ranks of hot metal blades parted, as Thoros lumbered across the room to stand before the icy platform, which promptly began to melt and boil away under the blistering heat of the titan's presence. It seemed as though he would reach out to squash them all under a single palm, when Thoros' broad chest seemed to crack down the middle, then swing out. Hopping out from a contraption that could only be described as a massive suit of mechanical armor was a short, stocky old man made of the same brass as his colossal vehicle, with a long, flowing beard of, you guessed it, instrumental strings, strings of as many lengths, gauges, and materials as one could possibly imagine. "You three have done here what none could do for me in all the years of my playing this game," the old metal man, the true Thoros, said. He wore a kindly smile, walking over to stand face to face with Finn, Marcie, and Ice King. Unlike how it had been when he piloted the machine, Thoros' aura of heat was a much more gentle warmth, very tolerable. "For centuries, adventurers of all shapes and sizes have come to claim the instrument you hold there, Miss Vampire, but none of them, not a single one, could show me what you three have shown me."
Thoros took a wide grin, pausing for effect. "Can none of you tell me what that is?" he asked the stupefied trio. "Ah, I suppose that would be asking too much."
"Look, I don't mean to be rude or anything," Marceline objected. "But you've almost killed me, and Finn there, multiple times throughout the course of the day, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we'd really like if you just get this over with." Her tone was impatient, but she couldn't help but crack a smile of victory across her face, one that grew wider as she looked over to see Finn share his own smile with her.
"Yes, yes, of course! My apologies," Thoros continued. "But you see, every 'hero', and I use that term sarcastically, who has come for my prized creation, has come for it out of pure personal greed. They sought it because they wanted it, and would have taken it for no reason but that." The old titan's smile seemed to grow only larger. "You three, with your actions, showed me that your reasons for coming here were, ultimately, altruistic."
"Um, Mister Thoros," Finn said, raising his hand nervously in a way that made Marceline giggle to herself. "I'm not exactly the best with big words."
"Oh, I'm sorry young man," Thoros said. "You all came here to make each other happy, and seeing that, I feel I can trust you three with my most prized creation. Congradulations, all three of you! You've won yourselves considerable treasures, all three of you!"
Finn and Marceline had no energy to exclaim or celebrate right then and there. All they could manage was a look, which they shared with each other. What that look said, neither of them fully knew, but in it was relief, congradulations, satisfaction, and some kind of intense gratitude, if that could accurately describe something both of them could not, would not say, but that both of them tried to express just the same.
"Wait one doggone minute," Ice King then demanded. "You mean there's a prize?"
Everyone, Finn, Marcie, Thoros, all of the Forgelings, and even Ice King along with them, broke into laughter, as this strenuous adventure came to an end.
Just an hour later, Finn and Marceline were on the trail home, walking at a slow, tired pace, for the both of them were almost entirely exhausted. "Man," Finn said, forcing his tired legs to go on. "Jake is gonna flip out about all these cuts."
"Oh that's right," Marceline said, looking over to Finn with measured concern. "You mortals don't really regenerate. Will you be alright?"
"Hm? Oh yeah, I'll be fine. Those blades were crazy hot, so they kinda burned the wounds shut as they made them. They'll go away after a week or so. Though it kinda sucks that my sweatshirt won't heal with 'em."
"Oh yeah," Marceline replied, trying to look at anything but Finn's lean, well-defined torso. She was too tired to even float, and certainly had no energy to spend on arguments with herself in her own head. "Are you all good with that though?" She asked, trying to distract herself. "That thing meant a lot to you, didn't it?"
"Well, the hood did," he said with a chuckle, rubbing at one of the cuts that had skimmed the left side of his cheek, splitting the hat-hood open. "It was made out of the bear hat that I'd made as a kid, but that thing's been ripped and replaced for some reason or another so many times, it's really not that big a deal."
"Oh," Marceline said, and the two fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Finn felt compelled to break it. "Promise you won't make fun of me for what I'm about to tell you?" he ventured cautiously.
"Sure, unless it's really juicy," Marceline responded, to which Finn objected with a 'hey!' and a weak shove. "Aww, come on babyface, you know I don't mean any of it. Go ahead and tell me."
"Alright, alright," Finn said, feeling his cheeks flush as he put the words together. "I keep all of them. The ruined hats, I mean. As reminders of the toughest challenges and most awesome adventures I've had."
"Really?" Marceline asked, though it came out more as a statement of inspired surprise. "So… You'll keep this one then? To… Remind you of the fun we had together?"
Finn, for some reason he couldn't lock down, couldn't look Marceline in the eyes, grinning like a fool at the moon instead. "Yeah," was all he could muster.
Marceline was silent then, the two walking next to each other, Finn hiding his face by pointing it to the moon, Marceline's ruby-red eyes looking up at her tall human friend, trying to catch a glimpse of the expression he was embarrassed to let her see.
Finn froze in place as Marceline floated up next to him, whispering in his ear; "Save this too," before she pressed a kiss against his cheek. She floated off immediately, waiting for her own cheeks to settle in color and warmth, before turning back to him. Finn had watched her, incapable of doing anything more, his mind fogged over. "Rest up, brighteyes," she ordered him then, the usual jaunty tone back again. "You're still a fulltime hero, remember? People need you around here, you're no good if you drop from exhaustion." She smiled a smile that Finn had never seen her wear before. "Good night, hero-boy."
By the time he could find words again, she was already gone, and Finn found his own treehouse sitting on the horizon.