The Last Human

By: Ruby Sword

Prologue

I'm ten years old. Jake and I are walking through the Grass Lands along the eastern side of the river that forms the border between the forests and the Candy Kingdom to the west. We've traveled further than we thought we would from our old home just south of the Mountain Kingdom. We miss our family, but we don't miss home. It was time for us to grow up and move on. The green backpack my mother- or Jake's mother, anyway- made for me is starting feel heavy. I think about asking Jake if he wants to stop and take a dip in the river, but instead, I spot the tree. Its trunk is huge and sturdy, with vine-like branches that hang from the top, creating a dome shape, and there are three slightly smaller green domes covering the branches to the sides. Past the tree to the north, we can see the Ice Kingdom in the distance, but here, it's warm. "Whoa, bro," I say to Jake. He scopes the tree too and gives me a knowing look. "New home?" He doesn't really have to ask. I make a fist and push it toward him. He smiles, then pounds it.

I'm thirteen. I'm looking around the dank underground ruins beneath the old taffy tree forest at the base of the Rock Candy Mountains, searching for signs of life. There are none. The tribe of folks I thought were humans is gone, like I knew they would be. Scared away, probably for good. Susan's gone as well. I want to believe she really was a human, but I know in my heart that she wasn't. She was a creature, just like the rest of them. I'm still alone. No, I'm wrong. Jake puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I remember that even if I am the last of my kind, that doesn't mean I'm really alone.

I'm five years old. I'm crying into my mother's furry yellow chest because some of the forest folks were mean to me and said I didn't belong. That I wasn't a dog like my parents or my brothers. She's making a comforting shushing sound like only moms know how to do, but when I look up at her, I see the reluctance on her face. She tells me I do belong, that I am loved, but that I'm not a dog. I'm a human. I listen, horrified, as she tells me about how they found me as a baby in the forest below the Lost Cliffs, naked except for my white bear hat, helpless and alone, and they took me in. I see my brother Jake, peering around the corner, listening, looking sadder than I've ever seen him. I wonder if he knew.

It's the day after my seventeenth birthday. Princess Bubblegum is sitting next to me and I'm arguing with her. "None of that stuff used to matter before," I say,

more to my hands than to her. "You were always a princess and I was always just a boy." "And now my father has returned and I must do what he expects of me." She sounds like she's reading from a script. "I don't get it." I start to raise my voice and look at her again. "You never even mentioned your dad to me. I didn't even know you had one, and all of a sudden you'll do anything he says?" That look of pity is still on her face. "Of course I have a dad. Everyone comes from somewhere." She keeps talking, but those words echo in my head. Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone except me.

Chapter 1

"You ate my spaghetti." I don't respond. It's the best way to handle the guy when he's griping about nothing. "You admit you ate my spaghetti?" I keep walking, trying to stay alert in the dark corridor. "So, did you think I wouldn't notice that you ate it, or was this a malicious attack on the dude who's trying to help you out on this little mission?" I see an open door ahead of us. "Let's try that room next." "Right, because whatever's in there will enlighten us more than all the piles of nothing we've found in all the other rooms. Say, I have a prediction. This room will be filled with even more gross garbage than the last one. Let's run there! I can't wait to dig through it all!" I grit my teeth. His up-beat sarcasm is starting to get to me. "And by the way, that was not awesome of you to eat my spaghetti while I wasn't looking, or however you did it-" "Jake! Cram it about the spaghetti!" I yell at him, finally turning around. "You ate it yourself an hour ago! You scarffed it in less than a minute. It was pretty sick to watch." He pauses, trying to remember. "Oh, yeah, that's right. I think I still have some sauce on my face. The smell must be making me hungry again." He scratches behind his ear, looking remorseful. "I'm sorry bro, I shouldn't have blamed you. Just getting a little antsy down here I guess." I sigh and pat his head. "I know dude. We can head back up soon, I just want to check out this one more room. I have a feeling about it." And I do. He's right to be skeptical; our efforts today have been pretty fruitless. A lot of dank rooms filled with dust and debris, wreckage of a place that remains a mystery to me. But I have to try this room. I can't leave here empty handed today. Not again. Jake smiles at me knowingly and ventures ahead, probably trying to compensate for complaining so much. He knows the toll this search has taken on me, so he tries to seem enthusiastic as he enters the room. Turns out he didn't need to try. As soon as I walk in, I see that there's something different about this room. There are no windows. The other rooms all had windows. Granted, they were mostly cracked and broken, and there wasn't much of a view, considering we were underground, and all that could be seen through them was the dirt and rock that had buried this building so long ago, but the windows were there, letting me know that once, there must had been something better to see. This room has no windows at all, and though it's still a wreck, it's somehow a more wellpreserved wreck than the rooms we've explored before. Instead of destroyed remains of desks and chairs, and books so old the pages have turned to dust and ash, there are counters that actually still stand. Sinks that still have faucets and knobs. And what look to be drawers under the counters.

Jake and I exchange an almost giddy glance before pulling out drawers. Most have garbage, some even fall apart from being opened too vigorously after all these years, but I come across one with something inside. I almost skip to the next drawer, but the sheen of the plastic glimmers under my flashlight and I pause. "Homie! Check this," I say as I gingerly remove the plastic sleeve from the drawer. Jake's beside me in an instant. Inside the plastic sleeve are several rectangular strips. They appear black at first, but Jake shines his light at them for a better look and we see that each strip has different colors swirled inside. As I move my face closer, I see that the colors aren't swirled at all. They form tiny pictures, but I can't tell what they are. I'm squinting furiously, my eyes only an inch away from the sleeve as Jake taps my arm. "Finn?" "Yeah, man?" "Look." I look to Jake, but he's directing me to look at the wall in front of us. His flashlight is shining through the tiny pictures and making a larger picture on the wall. I quickly point my own light at the sleeve, focusing it on just one of corner of one of the strips. The light appears on the wall in the blurry form of two smiling faces. Human faces. Faces like mine.

Back at our camp, Jake has rekindled the fire and is warming up more spaghetti. Never takes much to cheer that guy up after coming back to the surface. It's not that he's scared underground, he just prefers fresh air, the sky, and the vast array of living things that just don't exist down there. I can't blame him for getting cranky. This search doesn't mean to him what it does to me. When it comes down to it, he is here for me, even if he complains. I take the plastic sleeve of tiny, transparent photographs out of my backpack and hold them up against the light of the fire, studying them yet again. Humans smiling, laughing, posing. They look to be close to my age, seventeen, give or take a year. "So, what do you think they mean?" Jake asks, his mouth full. I sigh. "I don't know, bro," I reply thoughtfully, "but it's some kind of link to where I came from. This is the first real clue we've found in a since we got here." Jake nods and finishes his dinner in silence. When he's done, he stretches out across the top of his sleeping bag, relaxing, but not ready to turn in for the night. "Do you think there's a way to find out how old they are?" He asks me with a furrowed brow. He knows there's a way, but he doesn't want to be the one to suggest it. I sigh again, but it comes out as more of a groan. "Yeah, but I don't want to think about that right now. I just want to bask in this moment of success for a while longer. Maybe tomorrow we'll think about that." Jake nods, and turns over on his sleeping bag and uses his stretching powers to reach his viola a few feet away. He plays a quiet tune that acts as a soundtrack to my thoughts. I lay back on my bag as well, propping up my head on my backpack, watching the fireflies glow against the sky, and my mind wanders to the place I was trying to avoid. The princess. She, of course, will be the key to figuring out the origin of the pictures we found. Granted, there may be other folks in the Land of

Ooo with the resources to help me, but none possess the combination of genius and intuition that belong only to her. Yeah, she's one of a kind. Not to mention the way that her face lights up behind her giant safety glasses when she cracks some scientific mystery that's been puzzling her, or the way her magenta hair stands out against the stark white of her lab coat... Her hair that feels so soft it's almost gooey against my calloused hand when I brush it back away from her smooth cheek... Superballs. I'm back to this. I shake my head violently, trying to expel the thoughts of her. Jake notices my frustrated expression and stops playing. "What's invading your brain, Finn? You look like something's messin' you up." I don't reply, so he stretches one of his arms over to where my head is propped up and rubs the spot between my eyes where it's wrinkled. I close my eyes and eventually, I relax and my forehead smooths out. He pats my head through my hat, then lets his arm shrink back to it's normal length. "Yeah," Jake says, "I know what you were thinking about. I'm sorry I brought up... you know." I turn and give him a half-smile. "No worries Jake. I'm happy today. We found such an important piece of the puzzle. I just hate that I need her to help me figure out where it fits. Or, where I fit in with it, or if it could even have anything to do with me and my ancestors." I pause, not wanting to admit the rest. "And I hate that I'm happy I have an excuse to go and see her." "Finn, you don't need an excuse," Jake reminds me. "You two are friends. Or you're supposed to be friends, anyway. There's the possibility of being friends. She wants to be friends." He grins, looking goofy. "Lady told me she misses you." I sit up abruptly. "Misses me? Really?" I almost yell. Then I slowly shake my head and lay back down, staring at the sky. "No, Jake. Don't do that. Even if she does miss me, it doesn't matter. Rules are rules, and the king made it clear that I'm only allowed to see her in official situations. Anything more and we'd both be in a heap of trouble. She's married now, and that's that." I nod resolutely to myself as I close my eyes and settle into my sleeping bag, deciding not to bother with the tent. The night is warm. I'll be fine without shelter. That's that.

Chapter 2

"How can she do this to you?" Jake whispers to me as we sit on the hard folding chairs that were set up in the castle's courtyard for the occasion. I remind him again that she's not doing it to me. She's just doing it. This is her life, and even though it wasn't her decision, she didn't fight it. In the end, she agreed to the life that was chosen for her, which meant that she was never going to choose me. Not really. A fact that was now glaringly obvious to me, and the entire population of the Candy Kingdom, as we all watch her walk down the aisle toward the Ice Prince. I can't see her face through the veil, but I imagine she's happy. Huh, her dress is white. I would have thought pink. At least some pink flowers or fluffy junk. But there's nothing, just big whiteness. Doesn't seem her style. Ice Prince doesn't seem to mind. He runs a hand through his messy-on-purpose snow white hair. What a tool. His grin's a mile wide when she takes her place next to him. Yeah, mine would be too. I roll over in my sleeping bag, my brain stuck somewhere between waking and dreaming. I must be partly conscious to be torturing myself with memories that shouldn't matter anymore. My actual dreams are far less meaningful. "It's been decided Finn, I'm marrying the Ice Prince." Her face is blank as she tells me the news. She's not sad or angry or excited or afraid. She's also not letting me down easy. She's just... filling me in. My stomach drops to the floor. This is normally where I burst out with a creative expletive. "But," is all I manage to choke out. "You and I..." I trail off. I can't seem to think of the words for what Princess Bubblegum and I are. Good friends? In love? Somewhere in between, I think. I've had some kind of feelings for her since I was twelve, when she was older, and things between us weren't a possibility. But when she had that accident a year later, complications in her recovery set her back in age, she became thirteen, same as me. As we grew up together, finally on even ground, I really believed I had a chance to... be with her. There was comfort in our relationship. I'd save her life, she'd kiss my cheek, I'd blush. We went on that way for years. We were content. I didn't want to push for anything more, because I knew it would happen eventually. I just knew. When we grew up. We'd be in love for real. Then the stupid Ice Prince who no one even knew existed showed up with the Candy King who everyone thought was dead, and everything went to hell. Apparently Candy King had been lost in Lumpy Space for years and the Ice Prince, who was on some soul-searching vision quest there, found him, rescued him, and brought him home to the Candy Kingdom. The king took back the throne that Princess had taken over in his absence, and she was happy to have her dad back. Things were okay, until Ice Prince had an epic battle with his own dad back in the Ice Kingdom and the Ice King was finally defeated for good and exiled to the Crystal Dimension. Candy King was so happy and grateful for everything the Ice Prince did that he decided that Princess Bubblegum should marry him. Peppermint Butler informed me of all of this when I came to pick Princess up for a movie night, totally clueless. It all worked out perfectly, the Candy Kingdom and Ice Kingdom finally joining together. The only piece that didn't fit was me. The Great Hero was apparently not great enough. I left the castle that night alone, not knowing what to think. Maybe I should have drawn my sword, pushed past the guards, and confronted the king. Or confronted her. Demanded an explanation from her. She owed me that.

But I didn't, and it doesn't matter because here she is standing outside the tree fort entrance, and I can't think of a thing to say. She pushes a pink envelope toward me, and my eyes shift from her impassive face downward. "The wedding is in two weeks. I hope you can come." This is what breaks me. "What?" I explode at her. "You're inviting me to watch you marry that jerk? Have you lost it?" Wait, that's it! My eyes dart back and forth, as an idea forms. I grab her by the arm, force her inside, and sit her down on the sofa. She looks confused as I sit down next to her and grab her face in my hands. "Finn, what is this?" she asks as I search her eyes. "You've been cursed, P.B., I just need to find the real you inside your eyes," I tell her. "Then I'll locate the talisman, or I'll fight that Ice Prince and break the spell he's got you under, and you'll be fi-" "No, Finn." She shakes her head and gently lowers my hands from her face. She holds them in hers between us. "I haven't been cursed. The Ice Prince isn't a wizard. He doesn't have that kind of power," she explains slowly, like she's speaking to a child. I rip my hands from hers. "Then you aren't her!" I spit. "You're an evil doppelganger or a shape-shifter, and the real Bubblegum is in danger somewhere!" I start to jump up from the sofa to grab my sword, but she stops me. She's not strong enough to physically stop me from moving, but her hand on my knee has frozen me in place. She looks straight in my eyes and shakes her head again. "You don't really believe that," she says softly. "You know who I am." I scowl at the impostor. "If you were really the princess, you could tell me what we ate the first time we had dinner together." "Spaghetti." My eyes narrow further. "Lucky guess. What color is my hair?" I've got her. Only a couple of folks know this one. She smiles warmly, and I falter. "Golden blond," she replies. "I imagine it's brighter and shines in the sunlight, but I've only ever seen it at night. Once." I close my eyes and hang my head. "After I saved you from that evil tree monster." "And you took off your hat right before you kissed me," she finishes. "I am me, Finn. You know I'm telling the truth." I look back up and meet her eyes. She's no longer blank, but this look she's giving me is worse. It looks like pity. "Fine," I bark. "You're you. And you're not under a spell. You're just marrying Ice Prince because you're so in love with him." And I mean nothing to you, I want to say, but I keep it in. She sighs, and looks older than me now, which technically, she is. She's been around longer, and in this moment, she looks worn. "Responsibility is something you've never had to struggle with, Finn. I have an entire kingdom, and now my father, to answer to. You don't know what it means to have that resting on you," she explains. I start to object, but she stops me. "Who you are is important. You're the Greatest Hero of Ooo. You've saved everyone here countless times, including me. But you still live this carefree life. You fight monsters and save princesses, and you live in a tree fort with with your magic dog and you don't answer to anyone. Not all of us are so lucky."

I look down at my hands, resting awkwardly in my lap. There's a scrape on my forearm that looks recent. Still pink, and not scabbed over yet. I can't remember which fight it's from. "None of that stuff used to matter before," I say, more to my hands than to her. "You were always a princess and I was always just a boy." Man, that sounded lame. "And now my father has returned and I must do what he expects of me." She sounds like she's reading from a script. "I don't get it." I start to raise my voice and look at her again. "You never even mentioned your dad to me. I didn't even know you had one, and all of a sudden you'll do anything he says?" That look of pity is still on her face. "Of course I have a dad. Everyone comes from somewhere. And my dad is the king, and I trust the decisions he makes for the good of our kingdom." This part doesn't sound scripted; she believes what she's telling me. I stand up and look down at her, my jaw set defiantly. "Everyone comes from somewhere? And what about me? I came from nowhere and nothing, so I could never understand what it's like to have a dad come tell me to marry some frozen jerk?" I'm seething now, feeling my face flush with anger. "What about him, by the way? No one questions why we never heard of an Ice Price before? You don't know anything about him! He's supposed to be some hero all of a sudden- what if he's worse than his dad?" She stands as well, calmly. "He didn't know he was the Ice King's son when he was growing up," she explains. "And when he found out, he went to the Ice Kingdom to meet him, and when he saw what his father was like, he was ashamed, and left on his journey to really find himself-" "You know," I cut her off, "I'm sorry I asked. I don't care where your fiancee came from. I already know everything I need to about that guy." He's stolen her from me. I hate him. That's all that matters. "Finn, please, I know you're angry," she says, and picks up the pink envelope she dropped, "and I don't expect you to really understand. But you mean so much to me, and I don't want to lose you." She hands me the envelope and this time I take it. "I understand if you don't want to come. But you're my friend, and I wish you would." Before the sting of the word "friend" fully hits me, she's out the door. I open my eyes and see that it's not yet morning. The sky is lighter than it was, but the sun still has an hour or more before it makes an appearance. I desperately try to think of something other than the princess to occupy my thoughts so I can get a little more rest, but nothing comes, so I count the blades of grass next to my sleeping bag as I wait for morning to arrive.

Chapter 3

Jake's whistling calms me. He can tell I had a rough night, so he doesn't ask why I'm being quiet. He just whistles some happy little melody that makes it pretty tough to stay so down in the dumps. If things were different, I would start singing a song right now. Something about heading home along the river after a week of being away. Or maybe about how stoked I am to have found a clue about some humans from the past. Or probably about how good that ice cream waiting in the freezer at home will taste when we dig into it. But even though I'm feeling less surly, I can't get myself to sing. Might be a while before I do again. "Whoa, almost stepped on a snail," Jake mentions, bouncing along next to me. I look behind us and see the little snail waving, apparently unaware that he just avoided being squished. "I can't wait to get home and call Lady!" Jake exclaims. "I'm sure she's been missin' me. Maybe I'll bulk up a little before I see her, impress her with how hard we've been working." He grins at me and grows from his normal height at my waist to several inches taller than me, then flexes his arms, turning them into enormous bulging muscles. I shove him and laugh. "Save your romance techniques for Lady Rainicorn, dude. I am not into it." He laughs and shrinks back to his normal size, then resumes his whistling for the rest of the way home. "Dude, wake up! I have an idea," Jake tells me as he shakes me into consciousness. I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep so hard. I just crashed into my bed the minute we got home and closed my eyes. I hadn't even taken my backpack off. I rub the sleep from my eyes and make sure my hat's straight. "What is?" I say, more groggily than I expect. Jake sits next to me looking proud of himself. "Well, I talked to Lady while you were taking a nap, and she said that Bubblegum has been waiting to hear from us about the artifacts we found." I perk up at this. "Oh yeah?" I didn't think she cared much about my quest. Jake smirks. "Yeah, but I think we should wait to show her. The Ice Pr-" he stops short, "That dude we hate is leaving for some goodwill mission in the City of Thieves. He'll be gone for a while, trying to clean up some of the crime in that place or some junk." I scowl. "Yeah, like we haven't tried that before. Guy needs to come up with his own ideas." Jake shakes his head. "You're not listening, kid. He's leaving the kingdom, and will be gone for a while," he repeats, pronouncing his words with purpose. "I think Bubblegum might be, you know, bored while he's gone. Perfect opportunity to give her the pictures for her to try and figure out. Maybe you could even stay and help her. You know. With the science." He nudges my arm and wags his tail, grinning. As much as I don't want this news to make me so happy, it does. "When's he leaving?" I ask, trying not to sound giddy. "Heh-heh, I thought you'd like that," Jake replies smugly. "Day after tomorrow."

"Cool." "Ice cream time?" "You know it, dog!" We race down from the bedroom to our little kitchen, and I see by the mid afternoon light hitting the table that I slept for several hours. I think it must have helped, because I feel my mood lighten, and as Jake and I each gorge on our own carton of ice cream, the optimism I felt earlier about my mission is restored. "What do you want to do in the meantime?" Jake asks me, licking his jowls. "Video games?" I look over to Beemo, our video game system, but he's sitting on his stool in the corner, knitting what looks to be a very long, yellow scarf. "Nah, he looks kinda busy. Anyway, I promised Marceline I'd go see her when we got back. Wanna go with?" I ask, though I already know the answer. Jake isn't as terrified of Marceline as he used to be, but they still don't get along all that well, mostly due to the fact that scaring the poots out of him is on her list of favorite things to do. I don't get what the big deal is; she hasn't actually tried to kill him in years. "Mmm, no thanks little brother," Jake says, getting up and packing his viola into its case. "Think I'm gonna go hang out with Lady Rainicorn. She should be getting home by the time I make it over there." I nod. "Tell her I said what's up." He nods back and heads out the door. I toss the empty ice cream cartons in the trash and the spoons in the sink, then grab my backpack and set out to the lake. On my way, a few folks need my help. A bear's bullying a rabbit, messing up his self-esteem, so I set that bear straight with a swift kick and a lesson in kindness. Then an old slime grandma is having trouble finding her way home, so I help her out and put her groceries away for her when we get there. She kisses me on the cheek and I try hard to make it all the way out of sight before wiping the gross slime-gunk off my face. I move quickly through the Ice Kingdom, staying on the outskirts, making sure to stay far away from the castle. My trip takes a little longer this way, but I don't want to risk running into the Princess Bubblegum, or worse, the Ice Prince. Come to think of it, running into them together would be worst of all. It would be pretty hard to maintain my good mood if I had to deal with that dude trying to show me who's Prince in front of his new wife. When I finally get to the lake, I wash my face again for good measure, then find the paddle boat I use to get to the cave. It's cool that Marceline got it for me. She doesn't need it, since she can just fly wherever she wants, so it's basically just to make it easier for me to visit her. It's nice to know she cares about our friendship, even though she'd never admit it. I feel a pang of guilt as I approach her little cottage inside the cave, seeing as how I haven't hung out with her since the wedding. She didn't bother watching the ceremony, just showed up for the afterparty in the courtyard in a ragged-edged black and purple dress with her umbrella to keep the sun off. Once it was evening, she made me dance with her, even though I was feeling so low, then she dragged me over to the table with the giant wedding cake, which was shaped like the Ice Kingdom, covered with tiny happy Candy People and penguins, and the bride and groom on top. Barf. I was about to complain when Marceline pulled out a handful of worms with sharp little teeth and

set them by the bottom tier of the cake. One worm took the lead and chewed a tiny hole in the cake, then made his way inside. The rest followed through the same hole. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Marceline as she led me back to the dance floor, but she just smirked. When Ice Prince and Princess Bubblegum cut the cake, they found it had been completely hollowed out, and the worms had set it up inside like a little apartment. I don't know where they got that tiny t.v. or couch, but they looked thoroughly peeved about their ceiling being cut into. Marceline and I laughed so hard we both fell over on the dance floor clutching our stomachs. Ice Prince had glared furiously at us, but we were too busy laughing to care. She actually made the night sort of bearable. I knock on the door and Marceline answers. She's wearing ripped jeans and a gray shirt, her long black hair tied up in a messy ponytail, shaggy pieces falling loose around her face. Usually she wears boots, but today she's barefoot, probably because she wasn't expecting me. I realize I might have woken her, since the sun's still up, but if I did, she doesn't mention it. "Hey Finn. What's goin' on?" she asks with a smile. I make my way into her living room, and sit down on the rock hard red sofa. She's added a pillow since I was here last. I smile. "Just thought I'd stop by and see you. It's been a little while. Wanna chill?" "For sure," she replies. "Whatcha been up to?" she asks, taking the band out of her hair to let it down. She runs her fingers through the length of it a few times, smoothing out some knots. She curls up on the couch next to me, or seems to anyway, but actually she's floating an inch or two above it. "Jake and I were checking out some of the underground ruins, way out past the Lost Cliffs," I tell her. "Found some cool stuff too, you should-" "Hang on a sec," she interrupts me. "Stand back up." I don't get a chance to comply, since she grabs both my arms and pulls me up. Then she plants her feet firmly on the floor only a few inches away from me. Her hands slide down to hold my wrists and she's giving me an odd look. "Uh, what?" I ask awkwardly. She smirks. "Since when are you taller than me, Finn?" I realize I'm looking down at her, and laugh. "Oh, yeah, I guess I didn't notice. Seems weird, considering you're, like, a thousand." She shrugs. "Yeah, well, I've been around that long, but my body's been the same since I was sixteen." "Yeah, except when you turn into a giant monster bat or whatever," I chuckle. Then I realize something and my mouth drops open. "Wait, sixteen? Ha! You know what that means?" I ask tauntingly. I boldly poke her the tip of her nose with my finger. "In a way, I'm sort of, kind of, actually older than you!" Her pallid cheeks flush to an almost pinkish color, surprising me. I hope my teasing hasn't crossed a line; I might have to pay for it in the form of a beating. She can't seem to think of a response, and she no longer meets my eyes. I wonder how long the height difference has been so apparent. I have at least three inches on her. I'm still grinning when she looks back at me and arches one eyebrow. For some reason, I suddenly become very aware of how close we're standing. "Yeah," she says, "I

guess I never planned on letting you live to reach seventeen." She tilts her chin up at me and smirks. "Why do I keep you around again?" "Uh..." I wrack my brain. "I'm your good-natured human sidekick who makes you feel way more evil and powerful by comparison?" Her smirk turns to a smile. "Yeah, that sounds about right." She frees my wrists from her grasp and floats over to a bowl of shiny red apples on an end table and grabs two, tosses one to me, and uses her fangs to suck all the color from hers until it's a sickly grayish white. "So, I've been messing around with a couple of songs since I last saw you," she tells me, tossing the deflated apple corpse into the trash. "Wanna lend me your sweet beats?" I try to smile, but it comes across as more of a grimace. "I do, but I really haven't been feeling the music in me lately," I admit. Marceline rolls her eyes. "Please don't tell me you're still all weepy over your little Bonnie." I look at the floor, then take a bite of my apple. "Ugh. Finn, this is the one thing I don't get about you. That pretty princess has had you wrapped around her sugary pink finger for years. Now, she's married to Prince Frostbite. You're finally free, and all you can do is mope." She floats back over to me and pokes me in the chest, giving me an evil grin. "You should celebrate." She doesn't give me a chance to protest. Before I can finish swallowing the big bite of apple, she's on the phone with Jake, telling him to invite everyone over for a party in her cave. I hear Jake shout something enthusiastically through the phone and I can't help but smile. "Your dog is on it," she informs me.

Before long, the party's in full swing. The Party Bears sensed a shindig forming and showed up right away, decorating the cave with streamers and colored lights, and setting up karaoke before we even knew they were here. Jake brought Lady Rainicorn, and a whole bunch of Candy People and forest folks over, and even a few princesses showed up. Not P.B. of course, but everyone made a point not to call her. Of course I was too embarrassed to tell people Marceline's real reason for the party, to celebrate me taking my heart back from P.B., so she told them it was my belated birthday party. "I missed Finn's real birthday a few months ago," Marceline explains to Raggedy Princess. "I forget that people have birthdays sometimes, since I don't really have one. Or, they don't really count when you don't age. They're just silly mortal traditions that vampires don't bother with. Whatever. Finn's a silly mortal, so I figured he should have a birthday party." Raggedy Princess just nods anxiously and hurries off to get some punch. Marceline winks at me. I dance with just about everyone, chow down on "birthday" cake, and even crowd surf on the Party Bears. The Candy People start a game of Truth or Dare, but I feel like I'm getting a little old for it, so I take a seat away from the crowd on the dock and put my feet in the lake, checking out the the reflections of the colored lights on the water. Marceline sits down next to me. "Good party?" she asks, keeping her gaze on the lake. "Good party," I answer. She rests her head on my shoulder. "Good." We sit this way for a long time, listening to the sounds of the party, watching the colors dance across the water's surface. Things slowly start to quiet down. The

music's still playing, but the songs are more mellow. I realize that I haven't had a troubling thought since before the sun went down, and this makes me smile. "Hey Marceline?" She lifts her head and looks at me. "This night really did the trick," I tell her. "Thanks for being such a radical dame." She tilts her head up toward mine and kisses me. It's not the first time she has. Usually, she does this after a good battle, whether we've fought off a monster together, or she's the one who punched my lights out. She grabs me and roughly shoves her lips onto mine, then lets out an evil little laugh afterwards about how embarrassed I am. Then she usually gets in another good punch and flies away. But she's not laughing now. She did catch me off guard like always, but she lets the kiss last long enough for me to actually react to it, if only for a moment. As soon as I relax slightly and close my eyes, she draws back. She looks at me again and for a split second I think I see that pinkish color come to her cheeks again, but she lays her head back on my shoulder too quickly for me to be sure. Whoa. Her lips were cold, like the rest of her, so how come mine feel so much warmer than they did before? I feel a little light-headed, like when I get up too fast after sitting down for a long time, but I haven't moved. Am I getting sick? Or... Holy shmaow. Am I having some boy-girl type thoughts? What's going on in my brain zone? Since when do I think about Marceline like, well, a girl? She's been my pal for years. Not to mention, she made it pretty clear back when I was a kid that she would never date me. Suddenly, I put together what changed. Her age. Marceline has always been a thousand year old creature to me. But today, she admitted that part of her would never age past sixteen. I was thirteen when she told me she wouldn't date me, but I'm not thirteen now. I finally caught up, and even surpassed her. Out of nowhere, we're on the same level, or at least, it feels that way. I smile without really knowing why, and rest my chin on the top of her head. I wonder what Marceline was like when she was really sixteen. Was she more girly back then, or was she always rough and tumble, even before she became a vampire? When she was just... The realization hits me so hard I almost fall into the lake. I pull away from Marceline and look her in the eyes, feeling intensely stupid for not ever putting this together before. I mean, I'm not exactly famous throughout Ooo for my brain power, but this is just ridiculous. "What's wrong Finn?" she asks, looking confused. "Marceline," I start, "A thousand years ago, before you were a vampire," I gulp, "what were you?" She tilts her head to the side, blinks twice, and a tiny smile forms on her lips as she answers. "I was human."

Chapter 4

My heart seems to be malfunctioning, because I can hear my blood pumping in my ear drums. Maybe I didn't hear her right. "You were?" I stammer. "A.. a human?" Marceline lets out a soft chuckle. "Yeah. Well, half human anyway." My eyebrows furrow. "Half human? Oh right," I say, smacking my forehead. "Your dad is the deathless soul sucking evil dude from the Nightosphere." "Yeah, that's Daddy," she sighs. "But my mom was human." She pulls her feet up out of the lake and crosses her legs. My mind is reeling. I've been busting my hump on my quest to find out where I came from and what happened to the rest of my species, doing happy dances whenever I find the tiniest scrap of a clue, and right here beside me is the answer. "This is... math," I whisper, more to myself than to her. I've known Marceline for five years and never put this together. I am an idiot. "Uh, what's going on guys?" I turn around to see Jake standing awkwardly behind me with Lady Rainicorn. I guess Marceline and I were in our own little bubble for a long time, because most of the party guests have cleared out. Only a few Party Bears are still slow dancing, and Lumpy Space Princess seems to be setting up a small camp for the night. I don't answer, still reeling from the last few minutes. "Well, uh, we didn't want to interrupt you guys, but I'm gonna take Lady home now," Jake tells me, trying to read the dumbfounded expression that must be plastered all over my face. "Just wanted to say thanks for the party, Marceline." "Anytime, Jake," Marceline answers. "I think our boy might have even managed to cheer up a little," she adds, making me blush. Jake is still trying to figure out my face as he climbs on Lady Rainicorn's back and they fly toward the mouth of the cave. Lady Rainicorn spouts a bunch of jibberish that sounds like "Ee pati leul hoseuting jusyeoseo gamsahabnida." "No problem!" Marceline calls back. She looks back at me and laughs. "Finn, why do you have stupid face?" I can't really think of anything to say, even though I have countless questions for her. But before I can put any words together, she seems to get an idea, and stands and takes my hand, pulling me toward her cottage. I snatch up my shoes and let her lead the way. She takes me inside and I move to sit in my usual spot on her couch, but she doesn't let go of my hand. She leads me to the corner of the living room where there's a ladder leading up to a square shaped hole in the ceiling. She starts to climb, then looks back down at me. "Come on," she urges me. I follow her up the ladder to find us in her bedroom. Everything's dimly lit with a soft, purple glow coming from a few globes hanging randomly from the ceiling. Her bed looks like a giant, cozy bean bag in the center of the room on the floor, with several large chests lined up against the walls. She opens one of the chests and starts digging through the contents, occasionally throwing out objects that are in her way. She pauses to look at me after tossing a clock shaped like a cat onto the floor. "Sit down," she orders. "I want to show you something, I just need to find it."

I look around the room unsuccessfully for a chair before awkwardly taking a seat on her bed. It's surprisingly plush. "Whoa, this sack is pretty sweet," I note, then I remember a piece of vampire trivia I've heard that doesn't seem to fit. "Hey, aren't you supposed to have a coffin or tomb or something to sleep in?" "Nah," she says, throwing a giant lady's hat covered in different plastic fruits in my direction. It lands on my head, and I quickly remove it. "It's such a cliche. Oh, here!" she exclaims, lifting a large book out of the chest. She leaves the slight mess she made and sits next to me on the bed. The book she's holding looks incredibly old, but I can make out the faded pattern of flowers on the padded fabric cover, although I can't tell what colors they once were. Marceline carefully opens the book and I lean closer to get a good look at the first page. In the center is one square photograph of a woman and a girl, both human. The woman's hair is dark and shiny, but not as dark or as long as the girl's. She has both arms wrapped around the girl, who's strikingly beautiful, and looks to be about fourteen. The innocent smile and olive tone to her skin throw me, and it takes me a full minute to realize I'm looking at a younger Marceline. My jaw drops and Marceline smiles. "Yeah, that's Mom and me, back in the day," she tells me. I'm reeling. "What day? Marceline, I need to know about this!" I almost shout. "Were you guys part of a whole tribe of humans? What happened to the rest of them? Are any of them left anywhere?" She puts a finger to my lips and sighs. "Easy, boy. This was us, over a thousand years ago, maybe a thousand and twenty, I'm not really sure anymore," she pauses, focusing her gaze on the photo. "My mom was born underground, after the fall," she begins. "The fall?" I ask. "Yeah, the fall. The fall of everything. Civilization, the world," she explains simply. "Humans ruled the land, but the different tribes mostly hated each other for some reason, so they set off deadly bombs to kill each other during the Great Mushroom War, and pretty much destroyed themselves. Some went to ground, like my mother's parents, and survived there. They had my mother and lived happily for a while, not knowing that the world had changed. The bombs that caused all the death and destruction also blasted open holes between dimensions, and let magic leak into this world. That magic mixed with the leftover gasses from the bombs. The creatures that had survived the war mutated. New creatures were formed and began to thrive. They buried the ruins of the old world and started new. Meanwhile, my father stumbled into this world from the Nightosphere and found my mother while looking for souls to suck. He fell in love with her, and promised to spare her parents' souls if she married him. She agreed." She pauses to show me a few more pages, with more photographs from her past. Her mother looking much younger and deliriously happy, holding a chubby-faced Marceline baby. Toddler Marceline on a beat-up looking tricycle, one wheel smaller than the rest, with bandages on both her knees. I guess she never was a girly-girl after all. She takes a deep breath. "Unfortunately, living topside made the humans sick. After effects of the bombs. I was okay, since my dad was a mystical creature, and probably because I was born into that atmosphere, but my mom had spent her whole life underground. She would start to get weak, and have to go back underground for a few months. Sometimes I'd go with her, and visit my grandparents. Sometimes I'd stay with my dad. I wasn't allowed in the Nightosphere because of my human blood, so Dad would stay with me on the surface or take me to visit the Underworld. And when Mom felt better, we'd all live

topside together for a while." She chuckles and points out a picture of her five year old self, making what a little girl might think would be a scary face, but she ended up looking more like an adorable kitten. Next to her is her father, baring his gruesome, razor sharp teeth, and his evil black eyes that seem to lead into an abyss of never ending nightmares. She smiles fondly at the memory. "We had some pretty good times," she says, then her face turns somber. "Then Mom got sick and didn't get better. She died when I was fifteen. I went to live in the Underworld with my dad for a while, but then he left me there and went back to the Nightosphere where I couldn't follow. He'd visit sometimes, but I was lonely and fell in with a pretty evil crowd, which is where I met the Vampire King. I asked him to turn me, and get rid of my weak human blood once and for all. He was in love with me and wanted to make me his bride, so he agreed." She smirks with pride. "But once I was a vampire, it was clear that, because I was half evil already, I was way more powerful than that pathetic king. I overthrew him and became Vampire Queen." She closes the book, sets it gently down on top of one of the closed trunks, and finally looks up at me. I meet her eyes, desperately searching them for... something. "This is huge," I say, unable to find a more accurate word to describe what she's just told me. "Why have you never told me any of this before?" She shrugs. "You never asked." "I-" I start, but once again feel idiotic. "I guess I didn't, did I? Man, I'm not a very good friend, am I?" I blurt out. "It's just that, after that time I summoned your dad, unleashing his evil onto Ooo, and interfering with you guys and your relationship, I felt pretty guilty about it, so I figured I probably shouldn't ask about your family again." She laughs dryly. "Yeah, my dad's a bit of a sore subject. But no, you're not a bad friend. I haven't talked about all that junk in so many years, I guess it's easier just to forget. I'm not a big fan of having emotions, ya know? But it's good to get it out sometimes." That little smile I've seen a few times today plays across her lips, an echo of her innocent human smile in the photographs. "You're a good listener, Finn." I just smile back, not wanting to admit that I only brought up her origins selfishly, to try and learn more about my own. But it doesn't seem to matter, because before I can figure out why, she's putting her hand on my cheek, leaning up toward me. The moment her before her lips connect with mine seems like an eternity, and I realize for the first time that I'm actually leaning down to meet her. Her lips aren't as icy as before, and the second I feel them, they seem to set mine on fire. The fire spreads across my whole face and reaches the spot behind my ear where her fingers are reaching underneath my hat and feeling my hair, and suddenly, it seems as though I'm the one kissing her. I swear I can almost hear my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, and with Marceline's vampire hearing, she definitely can. I might be embarrassed, but I'm too distracted by the fact that we're still kissing. I feel pulled toward her like a magnet, and even though her mouth is pressed against mine, I want her closer to me. My hand finds itself on her waist with no idea how it got there, and when I realize this, I expect that she'll break away and punch me or take a swing at my head with her axe-bass. Instead, her fingers grasp tighter to the place where my hair meets my neck and she somehow pulls me closer still. Time is playing tricks on me because I have no idea how long I've been kissing her when we hear a loud crash outside. We break apart, shocked by the sound. In an instant, Marceline's eyes turn black and she bares her fangs in the direction of the window, hissing like a snake. Realizing there's no immediate threat, she puts the

demon face away and we stare at each other for a long moment before moving to the window to investigate. The last of the Party Bears had been loading the karaoke machine back into their boat when they had accidentally dropped one of the large speakers onto the hard cave floor. Marceline lets out an awkward laugh. "I didn't realize anyone was still here." She looks up at me, but I find it hard to meet her eyes. "Looks like they're clearing out though." "Yeah, except for L.S.P., who looks like she's already moved in," I say, pointing out the window to L.S.P.'s sleeping bag, next to a little campfire. Apparently she slept right through the crash. We both laugh a little too loudly. I take a step away from the window, and Marceline follows. "Um, Finn," she starts. "I should probably get going," I stammer. "Jake will be waiting up if I don't come home, and he might think I got kidnapped by gnomes, 'cause this one time I did, so he might go out looking for me and get into trouble," I explain, wondering why I'm having a such hard time ending my sentence. She nods, looking uncharacteristically non-threatening, no trace of the usual sarcastic rancor in her eyes. "Okay, well, I'll see ya later then?" She bites the side of her lip after she asks and for some reason my knees want to stop working, and no part of me wants to leave. I force my body toward the ladder and start to lower myself. "Yeah, totes." I pause before I finish climbing down, only my head and shoulders remaining in the purple glow of her room. "Hey, thanks for... everything," I say, and she answers by smirking and throwing the fruit-clad hat back onto my head. As I head to the water and untie my little boat, I keep looking back at her bedroom window. She doesn't appear, and I don't expect her to. She's definitely not the sentimental type of chick who'll go for one last longing look at her hero before he sails off into the night. But for some reason I stare at the window, even as I'm rowing out of the cave. It's oddly comforting, given how many flip-flops my stomach has done tonight, to know she's in there, and that maybe, just maybe, she's still thinking about me. What she may be thinking, I don't have a clue.

Chapter 5

Jake is snoring loudly when i get home. He's sprawled out on his back on his open cabinet drawer full of blankets, and has obviously been sleeping soundly for a while. I knew he wouldn't actually be worrying about me, but I thought he might have stayed up. I toss my backpack onto the floor and get my fuzzy red pajamas on. I hop enthusiastically onto my bed, my brain still buzzing from the events that unfolded tonight. Or, last night, I guess, considering it's now well past two in the morning. I stretch my legs all the way to the end of the bed and let out a satisfied sigh. "What are you so happy about, party animal?" Jake asks. I look over to see he's rolled over onto his side and propped his head up on his elbow. He looks tired, but not angry that I've woken him. If anything, he looks amused, waiting expectantly for my answer. I shrug. "It was a good party." He raises his eyebrows. "Okay, yeah," he agrees, "it was a good party. But since when do you stay longer at a party than I do? You're the responsible one." "I dunno man, maybe you're losing your party-dog edge," I jab. He scowls at me. "It was my birthday party. I wanted to stay and do it up." "Uh, right," he says skeptically. "Your birthday that was almost four months ago. Look dude, I don't know what you're being all shady about, but you'd better let your best friend in on the secret. You looked pretty weird when Lady and I left the party, and you didn't even say goodbye," he points out. He's right, I can't keep anything from him. "Okay man, I'm just messin' with you. I was hanging out with Marceline and it kind of came up that I've been looking into the history of my peeps, and as it turns out, we might not have had to travel so far for info." Jake looks confused, and I explain a little of what Marceline told me about the Great Mushroom War, the fall, and the humans not being able to survive the effects of the bombs. I leave out most of the details about Marceline's family, not wanting to betray her trust. It didn't feel like anything she told me was a secret, but I still want to keep it between us. I like being the only one who knows that side of her. "Whoa, bro!" Jake exclaims. "So do you think there are still humans that survived underground? And how come you don't get sick? Do you think the gross bomb air wore off in the last thousand years, or you're tough hero lungs can just handle it? And what about-" "Pump the brakes, guy," I interrupt. "I'm not sure about the rest, I just know that this is important. It's more than we've ever known before." "Yeah, for real," Jake agrees. "Makes those little pictures we found seem like nothing at all. What did Marceline say about them?" I frown. "I didn't ask her." Jake looks surprised. "Well, why not? She might have known something about them, maybe she could tell if they were older than her or not. If not, there's a chance of more human survivors somewhere."

"Uh, yeah, you're right," I tell him. "I should have asked her, I just.. forgot I guess." And even though I give no verbal clue as to why I forgot, my face betrays me and turns bright red. Jake just stares at me questioningly, and I can't think of a single thing to say, other than, Oops, I was distracted by all the making out we did in her bedroom. And of course, since this is in my head now, I turn even more red than before. I sink lower into the soft piles of monster furs that cover my bed and try to ignore Jake, who's grinning at me now. "Okay," he says, pretending to be nonchalant. "Maybe we can head over there together in the morning and ask her about them." I whip my head around to look at him. "No!" I yell, before I can stop myself. "Uh, I mean, we were just there, and she probably wants to get some rest, since I think I might have woken her up in the first place going over there, so maybe she just wants to be left alone, and she's sick of visitors after throwing a such a rager for me, so the best thing is probably for me to wait until she calls me or.. I will call her... fairly... soon." I finally manage to stop talking, but Jake is staring at me like I've gone coco-nuts. Maybe I have. Ladies are clearly not good for my brain. "Okay, dude," he finally says, laying his head back down. "You just sleep on it. Figure out your biz when you're ready." I exhale loudly, then close my eyes and try to clear my mind of thoughts pleasantly opposite of the ones that have kept me awake recent nights. I think I fall asleep smiling.

When I wake up, I feel amazing. I mean, little boy style energetic. Like someone double-charged my batteries overnight. I grab my root-handled sword from my backpack and jump up on the bed, challenging an imaginary enemy. "What's up monster? Think you can just come in here? This is my house," I tell it, slicing off its invisible head. "This is totally my house." I jump down from the bed, tear off my pajamas, get dressed in my standard attireblue t-shirt, blue shorts, black shoes- and bound downstairs, doing a flip in the air and stabbing the wall with my sword. "Good morning!" I yell to the world, both fists in the air. "Mornin' little bro," Jake says, sitting on the couch drinking coffee. "Feeling pretty good today?" I'm about to answer when I notice that sitting on the couch next to him, also drinking coffee, is Marceline. She's got a smirk on her face and one eyebrow up. "Uh, yeah, defs," I answer, suddenly flustered, trying to pull my sword from the wall. "Good sleep, all that," I add, pulling a little more desperately on the sword with both hands now. They notice my effort, but say nothing, and keep sipping their coffee. Finally, I use my foot as leverage against the wall and my sword is freed. I stumble backwards, almost landing on the floor. Extra smooth, kid. "So Jake, you said you found these underground out by the Lost Cliffs?" Marceline asks Jake, trying to get back to whatever they were talking about before I interrupted. "That's right, babe," Jake answers. "In some building that was buried deep under there. One of the few that was even a little bit in tact. And that was pretty much the only thing of any value we found in the whole mess," he explains, taking a bite

of toast with what looks like strawberry jam. He offers her a piece from his plate and she takes it, sucking the color from the jam. I set my sword down on the little wooden table by the stove and grab some orange juice. Coffee makes me queasy. Seems like it might do the same to Marceline, considering it's not red, but I don't really know all her dietary rules. Not knowing whether to go and join them or stick to my own morning time biz, I down my juice while still standing in the kitchen, then start brushing my teeth at the sink. "Well, to be honest, I can't tell how old they are," Marceline tells Jake. "Not in this form, anyway. If you can find a way to develop them, you can probably get a better idea. All these pictures have humans in them, but they're so tiny, it's too hard to make out where they are. If you develop them, you'll probably be able to see if they were taken on the surface and the building was buried later, or if these folks were survivors, living underground after the war." My interest is piqued, and I decide to chime in. "Develop? What do you mean?" I ask, moving my toothbrush to the side of my mouth. Marceline sets the plastic sleeve next to Jake's breakfast on the table in front of her. "These are negatives. Developing them will make them bigger and easier to see. They'll be like the photographs in the album I showed you. Last night," she adds purposefully, giving me a smug look. Jake looks at Marceline, then suspiciously follows her gaze to me. I can feel myself blushing, so I quickly turn to the sink to rinse the toothpaste from my mouth. When I turn back to them, his eyebrows are furrowed at me, but he stays on topic. "So how do we develop them?" he asks her. Marceline shrugs. "I'm not really sure. My grandparents are the ones that made the photo album for me, but their old digs are long gone now, somewhere on the bottom of the Sea of Sure Death. I know you need special paper and chemicals, and some kind of lab. Science stuff, not really my thing." Jake lights up. "Well, perfect!" he exclaims, turning to me. "We were already planning to go see Bubblegum about them. I bet she'll know how to do it!" I open my mouth, but don't say anything. I somehow managed to completely forget that we have plans to visit the princess. I also seem to have forgotten to be all heartbroken and angsty. Huh. I've gone almost an entire day without thinking about her at all. First time in as long as I can remember. Marceline frowns and floats up from the couch over to me, setting her coffee mug in the sink. "Yeah, Bonnie'll totes figure it out. She's Little Miss Chemistry, or whatever. I'll leave you guys to it." She gives me an evil glare that chills my bones, and I swear the room gets darker. I recover quickly though and grab her hand before she has a chance to float away. "Wait," I say, a little too loudly. Her glare eases up a bit and I pull her closer to me. "She's not... I mean, we're only going so that... You're more, uh..." I stammer quietly, trying to figure out what I want to tell her. Jake lets out a loud groan, reminding me that he's still there, and what a terrible job I do talking to ladies. "Look," I finally say, "We're not going over there until tomorrow. You can stay and, uh, hang out with us?" Marceline's glare softens, then disappears. She smiles and shakes her head, lacing her fingers with mine. "Nah, I'm gonna go kick L.S.P. out of my cave and probably go back to sleep til the sun goes down. Jake woke me up when he called, insisting I come over here early to shed some light on your little mystery." She reaches up

with her free hand and tucks a stray piece of my hair that's fallen onto my forehead back up into my hat, and kisses me lightly on the lips. "See you guys," she says, and flies out the door, opening her umbrella on the way. I exhale loudly and blink a few times before taking a seat next to Jake on the couch. His eyes are twice their normal size and his mouth is hanging open at me. I close it form him. "Shut up, dude," I warn him. He ignores me completely. "What the bazoobs was that?" he yells incredulously. "Why didn't she punch you? Or beat you up? That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen her do! And she got all scary when I mentioned Bubblegu-" Suddenly he gasps dramatically. "What's going on with you two?" "Bro-ham, I told you I wanted to wait on asking Marceline about those pictures," I remind him, putting my feet up on the table. "Yeah," he agrees, "which I thought was because you were all pumped to show them to Bubblegum first. I felt bad that I said that stuff about you seeing her alone; I figured your princess-love was getting in the way of your quest, and I knew that was probably a bad thing. So I called Marceline for you to try and get some answers faster," he counters. "I didn't realize you had changed your tune from princess to terrifying vampire queen so quickly." His look of disappointment flips my anger switch on. "Hey," I shout, planting my feet back on the ground and turning to face him. "In case you forgot, the princess got married. To not me. Almost three months ago. And I've been miserable!" He starts to look guilty, but I'm not done yelling at him. "I spent way too long trying to figure out a way to win her back, when the truth is, she was never even mine to begin with. And when I realized that, I decided to focus all of my energy on finding the humans, or at least finding out if they're all gone for good." "Yeah, I know that, brother," Jake says quietly, clearly feeling bad that he made me blow up. "Yeah, but what you don't know about is what it's like to be the only one of your kind," I point out, calming down a bit, the rage slipping from my voice. I sigh. "To be without a family, a real family, with a mom and a dad. I found out yesterday that Marceline knows a little bit about that. I think she kind of understands what I'm going through, and I don't know, maybe that changed things between us," I say, just now putting this together in my head as the words come out. "Maybe I care about her. Maybe I could even have with her what I thought I'd end up having with Bubblegum, except for real." I shake my head, picturing how hard Marceline would laugh or punch me if she heard me talking like this. Jake smiles, grows to about three times his normal size, and puts a heavy arm around me. "I get you, man. But hey, you do have a family. I'm sorry about my jerkitude. I guess I was just surprised. I mean, I've seen ladies kiss you plenty of times, but that was, I don't know, like, secretly intense." I smirk at him mysteriously. "You have no idea." The look on his face is priceless.

Chapter 6

It's not until late morning, as Jake and I are approaching the entrance to the Ice Castle, that I start to feel an anxious lump forming in my stomach. I've never visited her here before. It still feels wrong. This is a place I would come to rescue her from the Ice King, not a happy home she shared with her new husband. The thought gives me a chill and I grab my favorite yellow sweater from my backpack and put it on. When I was looking for it this morning, I came across the pink sweater with the heart on the chest that Princess Bubblegum knitted for me that helped save me from the evil magic of the Lich. I held it for a moment, remembering what it meant to me at the time. Then I threw it out the bedroom window, where it got stuck on a branch. Maybe some mama bird'll find it and use it to keep her babies warm at night in their nest. Maybe they'll crap all over it. Peppermint Butler is expecting us and meets us at the castle door. He shows us the way downstairs to what used to be the dungeon, that the princess has turned into a laboratory. He leaves us there and we stand in the doorway for a moment before entering. The princess is across the lab, wearing a new fur-lined, thicker version of her old lab coat, her back to us. Jake nudges me. "You okay, buddy?" he whispers. I give him a resolute nod, and clear my throat loudly. P.B. turns around, her face lighting up behind her safety goggles as she notices us. "Finn!" she exclaims, bouncing toward us. "Jake! I'm so glad you both came. I was glad to hear that the efforts of your expedition were fruitful." She takes off her goggles and give Jake a hug. Then she hugs me. It's formal and stiff, except I think I'm the one making it that way. I realize that I don't want to feel her warmth or smell her sugary sweet hair. She backs away and looks at me oddly, but smiles. "So, what is it you wanted to show me?" Jake takes the lead, which I'm grateful for, and removes the sleeve of photograph negatives from my backpack. "Well, we wanted to know if you could develop these for us, and maybe help us figure out how old they are," he says, handing them to her. She holds them to the light and studies them for a moment. "Whoa! These are pictures of humans!" she exclaims. "Yeah," I finally chime in. "I guess we forgot to mention that." She raises an eyebrow curiously at me. "I can't believe you waited to bring them, Finn. I would have thought you'd want these analyzed right away. Lady Rainicorn told me you returned days ago." There's an accusatory tone in her voice I don't like. I try hard not to scowl. "Well, I wanted to show them to another expert first," I tell her, trying to sound formal and raising my chin a bit. "An anthropology expert, of sorts. Someone a little more well-versed in human history." Jake turns to frown skeptically at me, but doesn't contradict my story. It's only a slight variation of the truth. "She was able to give me a good deal of useful information, a plethora, really, but unfortunately she lacked the resources necessary to develop the negatives into proper photographs. That's why we're here." The princess looks taken aback, and so does Jake. I don't have a clue where all the big words have come from, but somehow, I don't falter. I'm here on business, nothing more.

"Right, of course," she replies slowly. "Well, I do have a darkroom where I can develop these, but it's not here. I'll have to take them back to my old lab in the Candy Kingdom. I wanted to pay my father a visit anyway, so-" "Superb," I cut her off. I can't seem to control my rudeness. It's totally not like me to be this much of a jerk, but part of me likes that I can be the one controlling our conversation for once. That maybe she doesn't have the hold on me she used to. "When should we return for them?" "Uh, tomorrow morning, I guess," she answers. "I'll just stay with my father tonight and come by your house on my way back here. If that's okay with you, of course?" she asks, copying my formal posture. "That would be awesome!" Jake tells her in a much more friendly tone before I can answer. "Thanks so much, Bubblegum, you're the best, really!" He grabs my arm and leads me back toward the door. "Come on Finny, it's a little chilly in this place for a dog without his booties." "Bye guys," the princess calls as we leave. I don't answer. "Ouch," Jake says, once we leave the castle. "I thought she was supposed to be the Ice Queen. What the heck were you even talking about in there, dude?" "Jake, I can't blame you if you're just not as good at talking to ladies as I am," I say matter-of-factly. He bursts out laughing. I can't help but join in.

It's been dark for a while, and I'm lounging on the roof alone. I left Jake downstairs playing video games to lug my most comfy recliner up here and enjoy the warmth of the night under the stars. The Ice Kingdom left me cold; I don't plan on returning anytime soon. There's really nothing for me there anymore. When she spoke, when she hugged me, I felt nothing. Nothing but the urge to leave as soon as my business was finished. Seeing her there, living her new life in a place I associate with so much hate was exactly what I needed. I don't hate her. I never could. She was such a huge part of my life for so long, and she helped me grow up in ways I didn't know I could. She helped me become not just a great adventurer, but a hero. I'll always care about her. But I am finally over her. This thought fills my entire body with so much happiness, I can't lounge anymore. I spring from my chair to my feet and do three back flips. "Ha ha!" I yell at the top of my lungs, forgetting that it's night and the forest creatures might be sleeping. "Wow, someone's awfully peppy today." I turn around to see a figure in a torn gray dress floating up to the roof. "Marceline!" I exclaim. It's funny, I've gone ages without seeing her before and it didn't ever bother me. But now, I realize I haven't seen her since yesterday morning and I can't get to her fast enough. When I reach her, she's still floating, so I grab her by the waist and pull her down. She looks surprised, but she lets me ground her, and the moment I do, my lips are on hers. A shocked squeaking sound escapes her, but within a second, she relaxes and kisses me back. I feel that same fire that scared me before spreading through me, but this time I'm prepared; I welcome it. My hands move up the small of her back, pressing her body to mine. She grabs the back of my neck and her fingers find their way under my hat. Suddenly needing to be free of it, I break away for less than a second to yank my

hat off over my head, then meet her lips again, tossing it to our feet. She kisses me even more ferociously than before, but after a moment, I feel her hesitate. "What's wrong?" I ask, keeping my eyes closed, only pulling my face a fraction away from hers. "I know it's weird, but it doesn't feel weird," I try to explain, kissing her between words, not giving her a chance to answer. "I mean, thing I had with the princess was never really anything and, I don't know, I think maybe this could be something-" She pulls an inch or two away, which feels like a mile to me. "Stop being such a girl. It's not that," she says. "I just have to see..." she trails off, and her eyes move from my eyes upward. She pulls away a bit further and looks slightly astounded. "What?" I ask, worried, but then I remember. "Oh right, the hair thing." I shake my hair out and let her take a minute to adjust to my naked head. Last time I checked, my hair was pretty shaggy and messy, and had become a slightly darker shade of blond than when I was younger. I can feel it falling over my forehead, but the longest pieces don't quite reach my eyes, so I know it's not even close to as long as it's been in the past. "Oh," Marceline whispers, sounding awe-struck. "This is too weird." I'm about to offer to put the hair away under my hat again, but she starts running her fingers through it incredulously. Her eyes are still wide in awe, but she's wearing that amused little smile I've come to appreciate. "What the heck, Finn? You're like, a handsome guy," she says with a little too much disbelief. I smile a bit awkwardly. "All right," I say. "That's cool, I guess." I never really gave it much thought. Handsome doesn't save villages or win fights against monsters. Apparently Marceline digs handsome though, because she pushes me over onto my chair. Then she climbs onto my lap facing me, and I'm kissing her again. And... oh, holy cow. Why did I waste so much time pining over a girl who never made me feel this way? Like somehow time has stopped, and a minute goes by like a second. Like we've frozen in place but the world keeps spinning around us, making shapes seem to melt and colors blur together. Marceline's fingers are woven through my hair, roughly forcing my head closer to hers. I gasp when she bites my lip with her sharp fang, and she laughs, and whispers a breathy, yet insincere apology. No part of me cares. A little sharp pain and blood loss is nothing. My head is spinning, trying to hold onto fragments of thoughts, but I'm too engrossed in her to think of anything other than our bodies tangled in this chair. I don't even comprehend Marceline when she whispers in my ear, "Someone's coming." I move her face back to mine and kiss her again before I realize that she actually said something, and by the time I figure out the meaning of her words, I hear their voices. Jake comes up the ladder first, followed immediately by Princess Bubblegum, and I have exactly enough time to turn my head toward them and form a stupid looking expression of bewilderment on my face. Jake spots me and mirrors my exact expression, while the princess just looks horrified. Marceline unwraps herself from me and floats leisurely up from the chair, straightens her dress, and smooths her hair with her hands. "Hey Jake," she says casually. "Bonnibel." Jake's eyes are enormous, and I can tell he's now also holding back a laugh. "Uh, well P.B. here got done with our photos earlier than she thought so-" he starts to explain, but I interrupt, hopping to my feet. "Oh, math! You did it?" I blurt, taking a step toward them. "Thanks Princess."

Her shocked look fades and she purses her lips in what looks like irritation as she hands me a folder full of papers. "Yeah, sure," she says, her eyes scanning me, then shifting to the top of my head. Automatically, my hand goes to my head, feeling the unfamiliar mop in the spot where my hat usually is. I ruffle my hair selfconsciously, then scan the roof for my hat. Marceline clears her throat and holds it up tauntingly. I blush and shake my head, unable to suppress my grin. When I turn back, the princess is already on her way back to the ladder. "Glad I could help," she says angrily. "I'll leave it to you and your expert to figure out what they might mean. Auf wiedersehen." Jake's mouth forms an O shape and he can't hold his laughter in as he disappears down the ladder. He manages to keep it fairly quiet until we see the princess fly away on her giant white swan, but once he's back inside the tree fort, we hear his belly laughs roll out. Marceline starts cracking up as well, and I toss the folder, the one that might have seemed so important to me at any other moment, onto the chair and spring toward her to retrieve my hat. She flies out of the way as I grasp the air where she had been floating, and I smirk, narrowing my eyes at her. I lunge for her again, catching an arm this time, but she moves so swiftly that before I know it, she has me pinned to the roof face-down and is cackling harder than before. I reach around and grab her forearm, catching her off guard, and manage to flip her over onto her back. I figure she must be letting me pin her wrists to the ground, considering she's so much stronger than I am, but I retrieve my hat anyway and wave it in her face, smiling triumphantly. She doesn't let me gloat for long though, because I feel her push me up and suddenly I'm in the air. She's launched me far off of the side of the roof and I'm about to crash land somewhere past the old well. I shut my eyes tight and brace for impact, but instead I feel a cold hand grip my ankle. When I open my eyes, I see that my face is about an inch from the ground. "Cut it a little close there," I observe as Marceline sets me down on the grass. "Nah, my undead reflexes are far beyond anything your puny human brain can comprehend." She lands on the ground too, then offers me a hand and pulls me to my feet. "It's still early," she announces. "Wanna head to the Fire Kingdom and find some dragons to kill?" "Nah, I'm still pretty mortal over here, and not so much fireproof," I remind her. "I did hear about some Why-Wolves terrorizing folks on the outskirts of the Dark Forest though. We could go slay 'em," I suggest. She smiles deviously and nods, taking my hat back and yanking it down onto my head, then darts back to the roof to retrieve the folder P.B. had delivered. She tucks it safely away into my backpack and I position myself beside her, securing a tight hold to her waist. Taking off smoothly, she flies us into the sky over the Grass Lands. We manage to track down a small pack of Why-Wolves and chase them through the forest, but they're pretty crafty. They get too far north and we lose them near the Haunted Swamp. We try to figure out where they're hiding, but Marceline recognizes some undead friends of hers, so we stop to say what's up. They seem okay until one starts trying to devour my flesh, and I have to kick his bones apart. Marceline is uncharacteristically understanding about it, but it makes it a little too awkward to keep hanging out with them. We stroll along the swamp shore for a while looking for a good fight, but nothing particularly evil is going on. I guess that's the downside of being a somewhat famous hero around these parts, especially when I'm chillin' with the most bad-ass dame around: no one messes with us. I guess I could say that's a good thing, but not when we're in the mood for a roughhouse. Maybe we just need to branch out further, some place where we're not as easily recognized. I bet there are plenty of butts to kick on the outskirts of Ooo. Somewhere I've never been, like the islands in the Squid Ink Sea.

That's a pretty long journey though. "Hey Marceline," I say, breaking the comfortable silence we've been enjoying as we walk. "Hmmm?" she asks in a melodic voice. "I was thinking, maybe we could go somewhere." "Like where?" she sings. "I dunno," I answer. "Somewhere different. Somewhere where our impressive reps don't scare off all the bad guys, where we could get into a good scrap. Where they don't know us so well." "They know me everywhere, kid," she says with a smirk. "You forget I'm an ancient undead queen?" "Psh," I say, jumping on a boulder, then back down again. "Whatevs toots, I'm a king, ya know. You don't hear me going on about it," I retort. Marceline looks at me skeptically. "King of what? Your little tree fort? Or king of the dorks who wear cute animal hats?" she laughs, pinching my hat-ear. I scowl at her. "I'm the Goblin King, actually. Legit-style." "You're not a goblin," she points out. "No, but I defeated their king and they gave me his crown," I tell her. She laughs. "Okay, okay, so we're even. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, going somewhere?" I try to get back to my previous train of thought. "Yeah, I was thinking, maybe like the Southern Islands?" She gives me a slightly surprised smile. "That's pretty far away, Finn, even for me. We'd have to plan out a trip like that. Probably have to stay there a few days. Maybe even a week." "Yeah, I guess we could." "Just the two of us?" she asks, raising one eyebrow, and suddenly I'm embarrassed. "Well, I..." I stammer, "I didn't mean like that. I just meant, you know, to fight some monsters we've never fought before. Because it's gotten so tame around here, that's all." I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly. Her smile widens. "You're so adorable. It's almost gross." She punches my arm, hard. "Yeah, we should go. It'll be romantic." I shake my head, my cheeks burning. "Shut up." We've walked most of the way through the Grass Lands, or, I've walked and she's floated next to me, and the tree fort comes into view. I slow my stride a bit, not wanting the night to be over, despite her teasing. She notices the slight change in pace and looks at the sky. "It's still early. Barely past three," she notes. "You wanna hang at my digs? We could scope those photos," I suggest nonchalantly.

She smiles. "Sure, we could do that." When we get into the tree fort, we find Jake and Beemo asleep on the sofa, leaning against one another. Quietly, we make our way up to the bedroom and she plants herself on one side of my bed, leaving enough room for me next to her. I take the folder from my backpack and sit on the bed, suddenly learning that it was not exactly made for two people. Marceline takes the folder, and guides my arm around her shoulders, so she can settle more comfortably in my crook, and now the photos are the last thing on my mind. She opens the folder though, and I try to focus. There look to be about twenty photos, and they're much larger than the ones in Marceline's family album. The details are easy to spot now; Princess Bubblegum did a fantastic job. I feel a stab of guilt about the way I snubbed her. I'll have to figure out a way to apologize. My remorse doesn't distract me for long though, because I'm now looking into the eyes of two smiling faces, so similar to mine it nearly knocks the wind out of me. On the left is a boy, who looks to be about my age, maybe a year or two older. The hair is shorter and light brown, the eyes are green, and the skin is much more pale than mine. The differences are plain, but he looks more like me than any creature I've come across in my entire life. Next to him is a girl, hair slightly darker brown than his, with large brown eyes and long eyelashes. They both wear big smiles, almost as if they were laughing as someone captured this moment. After absorbing the oddness of staring at these two members of my species, I scan the rest of the photograph for information. They seem to be sitting or standing against a gray brick wall, and wearing plain, dark clothing. This could have been taken anywhere. I move it to the bottom of the stack. The next photo makes my heart sink. It's just the girl this time, reading a tattered looking book while sitting under a tree. She seems to be unaware that she's the subject of this picture, her eyes focused intently on the book in her hands. I sigh heavily. "She's outside," I say quietly, more to myself than to Marceline. "This must be from before The Great Mushroom War, otherwise they'd be underground." I feel utterly defeated. The only tangible clue we've found on the humans' whereabouts, and it turns out to be a dud. "These kids have been dead for over a thousand years." Marceline looks up at me. For a moment, I think the expression on her face is pity, but I'm wrong. It's empathy. Her human family died and her father left her. She knows what it's like to feel this alone. She sets the photos down on my lap and reaches up to gently remove my hat. She combs the mess of hair down over my forehead with her fingers. I look at her face and see traces of the human girl she used to be, something she doesn't show me often, but seeing it now comforts me. Maybe she's the closest thing to my own kind I'm going to find. Hard to believe, when I think about all the times I've seen her light her eyes on fire and morph into a terrifying demon. "No worries, hero," she tells me, pulling my head down to kiss my cheek. "There are plenty more places in Ooo to look for human relics. Maybe even on the Southern Islands. When are we going?" I grin at her, my disappointment quickly replaced with complete adoration for the girl next to me. I pull her closer, so she's halfway on my lap, and kiss her slowly, less hungrily than before. She wraps her arms around me and shifts closer, knocking the photographs onto the floor with her knee. When she hears them fall, she looks down to see the mess she made. I try to pull her back, but she resists. "Uh, Finn, wait," she says, still looking at the floor. "What is it?"

She leans down over me, picks up one of the photos from the floor and hands it to me. I study it, trying to see what about it was cause to interrupt us, but nothing catches my eye. It's a large group of humans, taken from further away than the others, so I can't see as much detail in the faces. They're outside in a clearing, and they all seem happy, perhaps celebrating. Then I notice. In the middle of the group and slightly to the left, with his arms draped around a few of the others, is a much taller man than the rest. Except he's not a man, he's a warrior. And though he looks much younger than the weathered old retired hero I've come to know, I'd recognize him anywhere. Billy.

Chapter 7

"What about a brain beast versus the Iceclops?" "Hmm. Tough one. Brain beasts are pretty clever, but I'd have to go with Iceclops for the win. One good punch will deliver a bombastic brain freeze!" "Ah, man! That was terrible," Jake groans at my enthusiastically dumb joke. I chuckle. "Yeah, pretty bad," I agree, kicking a rock down the cobblestone road. It's early morning and I'm still pretty wiped from being up all night with Marceline. She opted to stay out of the sun while Jake and I followed the trail that my quest was leading us down. Our pace is fairly slow on our shortcut through the little town near the edge of the Grass Lands on our way out to visit the cave of the old warrior. "Okay, okay, my turn. A swarm of Battle Cubes, infused with a triple lightning power boost, verses-" Jake holds up a paw. "Dude, you're using my love of fightonomic debate to distract me from asking you about your smooch session last night, aren't you?" he accuses tauntingly. "Not even, guy," I argue. "You already asked me. I'm trying to distract you from noticing that I never answered," I point out. "See the distinction?" He gives me a sour look. "Whatever dude, just spill it. What's the story? Is Marceline like your girlfriend now, or what? You love her?" He draws out the word "love" for several seconds. Now it's my turn to groan. He hasn't changed since we were kids. It's the best and worst thing about him. "Man, I don't care about that stuff. All I know is Marceline's the raddest girl I know, she's my best friend besides you, and now... we just happened to have added 'making out' to the long list of awesome junk we do together. All right? Happy now?" I ask, hoping he's satisfied with my slightly vague explanation. It's not like I actually have a better one. He's not. "Just making out, huh? Then what was going on this morning when I came upstairs? You two all snuggly in your bed, that's what!" he says in a melodramatic voice. "Yeah, except we were fully clothed on top of the bed, not in it," I correct him. "And we were sleeping. We were out adventuring all night, or trying to, at least. By the time we got back and finished looking at all those photographs, we were beat, so we just passed out." He gives me a sly wink and nudges me hard with his elbow. "Uh-huh, yeah, I bet." He's starting to frustrate me now. I can't decide which is worse, his initial disapproval of my relationship with Marceline, or his giddy fishing for the details. "Look," I say, stopping in my tracks. "I never ask you about your tender moments with your girlfriend, so-" "But I always tell you anyway!" he interjects. "Much to my dismay," I shudder. "It's gross. Hearing about other couples' makeout time is gross. Guh-ross. Okay?" He finally quiets down for a moment as we make our way out of the town north, toward the hills. "So... you're a couple then?" he asks, then quickly dodges my

punch. He stretches away from me, but I tackle him before he can get too far, and we wrestle until I have a hold on him, and rub his head vigorously with my fist. "Ah, let me go!" he cries. "Let me go, I'll stop, I'll stop!" I let him go and we both laugh, then realize we've made it to Billy's sword. "Here we are, pal," I announce, and grab the sword, opening a massive crack in the side of the rocky hill in front of us. We enter the crack and find ourselves in the home of our great hero. The floor of the cave is piled with treasure, much like the downstairs of our tree fort. Adventuring will earn you loads of treasure, even if you don't accept payment for saving lives (which true heroes never do). We just seem to find it everywhere. Unlike our home though, there isn't any furniture, at least not that we can see, but there are a few broken televisions and computers that are used for sitting. Resting atop the largest of these is where we find the giant himself. "Hello Finn, Jake," Billy greets us. He looks older than I remember, but maybe it's because I've been studying the photograph of him in his younger days, when his blue-tinged skin was less wrinkled and weathered, his beard not white like today, but auburn, to match the hair on his head that's now absent. It could also be because we haven't been to visit him in several months. "What brings you here today?" he asks. "Hi Billy," I say, and pull a long yellow scarf out of my backpack. "We brought you this. Our friend made it for you." Billy takes the scarf with his enormous six-fingered hand. "Thank you," he says, and wraps it around his neck, which looks a little odd considering he never wears a shirt. "You haven't been by in a while," he notes. I look at the floor. I hadn't meant to stay away for so long. Ever since we first met Billy, Jake and I have made a point to visit him now and then. He never asked us to, but I think he likes the company because he welcomes us each time we show up, and always tells us stories of his heroic deeds from when he was young. "Yeah, I know. We've been away for a while, and before that, well, a lot's been going on with the Candy Kingdom and the Ice Kingdom," I tell him. He gives me a knowing look. "I was sorry to hear about Princess Bubblegum's marriage. They invited me to the wedding, but I decided not to make the trip." "Oh, don't worry Billy, it all worked out just fine for the lady killer over here," Jake chimes in, earning a scowl from me. I clear my throat. "So, the reason we came to visit today was to ask you about something." I reach into my backpack again to retrieve the folder of photographs and hand them over to Billy. He looks at them with curiosity. "We found these, or the negatives anyway, in the ruins underneath the Lost Cliffs. We were wondering if you could tell us when this happened, who the people were, and where they are now." Billy looks at each photograph with interest, looking completely lost in thought. Several minutes pass before he speaks. "Please, sit down," he says to us, not looking up from the photos. Jake and I look around for a moment, then decide to plant ourselves on the cave floor. "It was forty years ago, give or take a few, that I came upon this tribe. I heard about an evil presence in the west, close to the Sea of Sure Death. I went to investigate, but when I got there, it was quiet. The monster didn't come until the night, when he found my camp and tried to attack me while I was sleeping, the coward. But I still got the best of him. I was about to finish him when he tried to bargain. He told me that he was holding a group of innocent humans prisoner, and if I slayed him, I would never be able to find them and set

them free. He promised that if I spared him, he would reveal their location to me and he'd leave and never return. I had no choice but to believe him. And, it turned out he was telling the truth. I found the humans trapped in the cavern he described. There were about twenty of them. There had been more, but the monster had been feeding on them and killed many. They told me that they had been living underground for generations, but when one of their people ventured up to the surface for the first time, he was found by the vampire, and so was the rest of his underground village." Jake's eyes fill with terror. "Wait, the monster that imprisoned them was a vampire?" Billy nods. "Human blood is rich and pure. Vampires who are weak can drink it to make themselves more powerful. Of course, since humans are thought to be extinct, vampires have adapted to make due on the blood of other creatures." "I know one vampire who just lives on the color red. She can suck it out of pretty much anything and stay full for a while," I tell him. Billy frowns skeptically. "That sounds like a strange habit for a vampire to pick up. Perhaps she's more benevolent than the the rest of her kind, compassionate toward other living things." Jake and I exchange a look of utter bewilderment. Marceline is a lot of things. Some of those things aren't exactly one hundred percent evil. But compassionate or benevolent? Definitely not on her list of personality traits. We let it go, though, and urge Billy to continue with his story. "The vampire brought them all to the prison he made in the cavern, but he didn't want to kill them. Not right away, at least. He'd feed off of them enough to increase his power, but not enough to kill them, allowing them each enough time to heal while he fed on others. Or, he tried to keep them alive, anyway. Many died in the process." Billy shakes his head in disgust. "They all got a turn at providing their blood for his nourishment. Well, all except her." He hands us a picture of the girl with the brown eyes. It's one I didn't study all that closely before. She's by the tree, but this time she's looking up from her book, smiling. "She was going to have a baby." Jake looks surprised. "What, he felt bad for her?" he asks in disbelief. Billy shakes his head again. "He wanted the baby. He had been banished from the underworld and he needed to gain as much power as possible to return there. He wanted the girl to deliver a healthy baby with the purest blood imaginable for him to drain dry." We all sit silently for a moment, identical expressions of horror mixed with sadness on our faces. I shake my head to clear the image of a vampire murdering a newborn baby from my head. "But you saved them. You saved her?" I press. Billy nods, keeping his tone grave. "I did. They lost a lot of people before I got there, but I did manage to save her. I took them back to their home under the Cliffs, but the vampire had destroyed everything. Torched it all and blocked off the tunnels. And rather than staying and trying to rebuild, the tribe said their goodbyes to that place and moved on, deciding to finally live on the surface. Some went their separate ways. Many didn't survive. They weren't prepared to face the dangers of our world." He points at the photo in my hands. "She was a clever one, though. She and her husband stayed with another pair. Together, they traveled north and settled there. They mostly stayed hidden away, especially after the baby came, fearing more vampire attacks. I checked in on them every few years. They did well. The other couple had a baby as well." Billy hands me the photograph of the tribe

celebrating, and points to a young man and woman toward the edge of the group, their hair two different shades of blond, their hands clasped tightly together. "The last time I saw them was, maybe, a little over twenty years ago, after the children had grown up. They were still doing well, and still staying hidden, even after so much time had passed. Then, after I retired, I didn't travel west again for many years. The next time I tried to visit them, they were gone." "What do you think happened to them?" Jake asks. "Do you think the vampire found them?" Billy shakes his head. "No. He kept his promise. I don't know if the humans found a new home, or if something else happened to them. For all I know, some other monster wiped them all out and all the humans are gone for good." I tilt my head slightly. "Well, except for me," I remind him. "Hmm?" Billy switches his gaze from the photographs in his giant hands back to me. "Except for you?" I glance at Jake, who just shrugs. "I'm a human, Billy," I say slowly. Billy looks unsure, then pulls some half-moon spectacles out of his pants pocket, puts them on, and looks me up and down. "Oh. Why didn't you tell me? I probably would have told you the story about that human tribe years ago." My shoulders drop and my jaw hangs open. Jake looks dumbfounded as well, but recovers more quickly than I do. "No worries, Billy. Ya know, most people think he's a goblin. Common mistake." Billy just shrugs and puts his glasses back in his pocket. Jake and I both stand, still trying to absorb all the information we've just taken in. Maybe we'll be able to make more sense of it on our way home, once we've had a chance to think. "Wait," Jake says, after we brush the cave dust off our bottoms. "So, how exactly did you know for sure that the vampire wasn't the one who killed the humans, or chased them away at least?" "Because I checked up on him too. After the humans disappeared, I tracked him to the furthest island out in the Sea of Sure Death. As far as I could tell, he was in a kind of self-inflicted exile. He still hadn't returned to the Underworld, because he had been shamed there so long ago." He shrugs again. "Or, so the old story goes, anyway, about the fallen Vampire King." This freezes me in place. "Vampire King?" I repeat. "Now, that story is ancient," Billy answers. "I don't know it well, since it was so long before my time. All I know is the vampire I fought, the fallen king, was betrayed by the woman he loved. His own wife, the Vampire Queen."

Chapter 8

"Marceline!" I yell for the third time. I pound again on her front door, although I'm fairly sure by now that she's not home. Finally, I grab the door knob and position myself to break in, but to my surprise, the knob turns. Of course. Why would one of the most fearsome and powerful creatures in Ooo bother locking her front door? I step inside and, as I suspected, she doesn't seem to be home. Her zombie poodle raises his head for a moment in curiosity, then decides to go back to sleep. Just to be sure, I poke my head up through the hole leading to her bedroom, and glance in the kitchen as well. I have to do a double-take in the kitchen though, because on her refrigerator door is a note held up by a magnet in the shape of a banana. When I move closer to inspect it, I see that it's for me. Finn, I'm hanging with my dad in the Underworld. Back soon. XOXO M Great. What's "soon" to an immortal? Later tonight? A week from now? I shake my head, still feeling angry and hurt, and now I can add frustrated to my list. I take the note from the door and turn it over, grabbing a pen from my backpack. I furiously scribble my own message, then replace it under the banana magnet. Found out your husband is alive. I slam the door hard on my way out.

"Finn," I hear Jake say, although his voice is muffled by the pillow I'm holding on top of my face. "Finn. Finn. Finn. Fi-" "Ah! What?" I yell, throwing the pillow to the floor and sitting up. He's standing over me next to the bed, his legs stretched, making him taller. "I have a three step plan to cheer you up," he announces proudly. "I'm not sad, Jake. I'm mad," I bark. "Maybe I shouldn't be this mad, but I am." Jake's self-satisfied expression doesn't change. "Why are you mad?" he asks me in a patronizing tone. I slam the back of my head back down onto the bed and stare at the ceiling. "I'm mad because some mondo-jerky vampire tortured and killed a whole bunch of my people, maybe even relatives of mine. I'm mad because that same jerky vampire is the husband of my girlfriend. And I'm mad, probably too mad, that she lied to me about him." I take a breath and lift my head again to look at Jake. "She told me he wanted to marry her. Not that she actually went through with it. She told me she overthrew him, and that's how she became queen. I kinda figured that meant he was dead. Like she sliced his head off or something and took the crown from his bloody skull." I shake my head. "Maybe that's just what I wanted to believe. I guess she never really did say that she actually killed him."

Jake nods. "Well kiddo, you've just completed step one of my plan: Yell about what's bugging you. Onto step two!" he exclaims. "And we sorta need to hurry up. I really want to get to step three: Big brother lets you in on a super surprise secret!" He grins mischievously. I narrow my eyes at him. "What's step two?" "Oh, we fight off that dirt-clod monster that's outside." I turn to the window. Sure enough, a fifteen foot tall mound of dirt with a menacing face is headed for our house. "Oh, okay. Let's do it," I agree, hopping up from the bed and unsheathing my sword from my backpack. Jake looks thoroughly pleased with himself. "Ah yeah, boy! It's that time again!" he shouts as we head out the door. Slaying a dirt-clod monster is easy enough, they're typically pretty slow-moving. It does manage to fling some dirt in Jake's eyes, so Jake's forced to let it out of the crushing hold he had it in, with his stretchy body wrapped several times around its middle. While Jake recovers, I grab the biggest rock I can see and hurl it at the monster's head, breaking off a huge chunk of dirt. The rock seems to do more damage than my sword did, so I keep at it, picking up more rocks and chucking them. Jake follows my lead, and soon, all that's left are a few piles of harmless dirt scattered around the tree. We're about to congratulate each other on a good fight, when suddenly Jake is transformed into a pink flower with a Jake-face. Confused, I look behind me. "Science Cat!" I bellow, and go after him with my sword. I turn back to see Shark about to take a bite out of the Jake flower, but Jake recovers from the spell and changes back into himself, and punches Shark with a giant fist. We battle it out for a while, until we manage to cut their heads off and they disappear. Jake and I both fall on our backs onto the grass, trying to catch our breath. "Man, that was just what I needed," I declare. "Good idea, bro." He turns to me and smiles. "And that was only step two!" "Oh yeah, so what's the secret you wanted to tell me?" I ask, sitting up and turning to face him. He does the same, then scratches the back of his head. "Well, it's not really a secret secret," he admits. "It's just that, it's kind of a big deal and there hasn't been a great time to tell you yet." "Ah, dude, I'm sorry," I reply, feeling guilty. "I guess I've been pretty into my own biz lately. I haven't really asked if there's anything going on with you. I let my teenage boy angst take over my brain." "Don't worry about it, kid," he says, waving my words away with his hand. "So, what's the big thing?" I ask curiously. Jake grins, pausing for effect. "Lady and I are getting married!" he bursts. "What?" I cry. "Slamma cow! That's amazing! When did this happen?" Before he can answer, I stand and scoop him up, then toss him as high as I can in the air. He giggles, and lands on all fours. "A couple of days ago," he admits, still grinning. "She's the perfect girl for me bro, and it's gettin' to be that time."

"What time?" I ask. His rules when it comes to wooing ladies have never really made much sense to me. "Time to settle down, maybe start a family," he answers, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Well, great. I'm really happy for y'all," I tell him, and I mean it. My recent experience with ladies has brought me loads of grief, and I'm thankful that he's not having the same problem. Lady Rainicorn's a super awesome dame, even though I can never understand what she's saying. She can even be a legit adventurer when she's in the mood. It'll be cool having her around. Huh. A thought comes to my mind. "She's gonna move in with us after you get married?" Jake winces. "Uh, actually, we've been fixing up her place a lot," he says slowly. This makes me laugh. "You've been doing manual labor without me?" I tease. "You really must be in love." He doesn't respond to my jab. "We're kinda planning on living there," he tells me, and braces for my reaction. My mouth is still open, but my smile fades. I don't know what to say. Jake has been with me my whole life. He's the only family I have. His parents, who took me in, are gone. Jermaine, Jake's older brother, was never all that close with us. We've been on our own together since I was ten. Now he's leaving? My silence must be getting to him. "Look man, she only lives over the big hill, it's not like it's far," he starts, trying to defend his decision. "It's a fifteen minute walk, at most. Five minutes by bicycle if you go really fast! She's got her duties with Bubblegum all the time, so I'll be over here tons. Every day, probably," he assures me. I look at him and nod. "I know you will, buddy." I want to say more, but I can't find the words. I'm afraid, even if I could come up with something perfect to say, that my voice will crack and show him just how devastated I am, and I don't want that. This moment was important to him, telling me about getting married. I don't want to disappoint him. I force a huge smile and pull him in for a rough hug. "So when's the wedding?"

Turns out, Lady shares Jake's lack of enthusiasm for weddings. They basically want the opposite of Princess Bubblegum's grand soiree we all had to endure a few months back. No long, boring speeches about love-stuff and lifetime of partnership and all that, no awkward first dance, no fluffy dresses or chafing pants. They picked out a spot next to a little waterfall in the river between the Candy Kingdom and the northern Grass Lands, and asked a forest wizard to perform the ceremony. Afterward, we'll all eat tons of spaghetti and ice cream, then party til we drop. It's gonna be perfect. And it's tomorrow. The sun's been down for a few hours as I head back toward home. I'm trying to adjust to the very foreign idea of living alone, unable to think of much else as I've been out spreading the word to everyone we know, inviting them all to the wedding. I made it out west to the Mountain Kingdom, invited the marauders, the cute little forest folks, the fluffy people, Stanley the watermelon, Tree Trunks, Choose Goose, a snail I spotted waving at me from a leaf, and everyone in between. Jake and Lady hit the Candy Kingdom, spreading the news over there. Apparently, Lady already invited P.B. and Ice Prince. I'll have to find a seat far away from those two.

I realize I haven't even had room in my head for thoughts about who I would sit with, when suddenly, she's floating in front of me. I freeze for a moment, caught off guard, but I turn my face to stone, look past her, and keep walking. "You're mad," Marceline observes casually, floating backward in front of me, keeping herself in my view. "Finn? Don't be mad." I let out a humorless laugh. "Why would I be mad?" She groans. "Because you thought Nick was dead. Your note was wrong, by the way. He's not alive, he's undead." I stop walking. "Nick?" I snarl. "Nick the Vampire King? That is, by far, the lamest thing I've ever heard. And yeah, I thought he was dead. Like, permanently dead. You kind of implied that you killed him. Oh, and that thing about you being married to him, that irked me just a tad." She looks irritated, but still slightly amused. "Come on, Finn, don't be such a-" "Such a what?" I explode at her. "A girl? Am I being a girl? How's that, exactly? I thought you and I were turning into something. Something more than what we've been before. Like, maybe even an 'us'. Now, I'm having crappy feelings about the fact that you lied to me. That makes me a girl? Fine." "I didn't lie," she points out. "Not exactly. I just left a few things out." "Whatever, same thing," I say, then attempt to start walking again, but she stops me, planting a hand on my chest. "Whatever yourself, Finn," she counters, her amusement fading, turning to anger. "Why do you care about that? Are you jealous of him? I married him a thousand years ago. He wouldn't turn me unless I did." "Great, good for you," I say bitingly. "Very ambitious of you. So, what then? You married him, he turned you, and what? You told him to get lost, you were over him, oh and by the way, you were taking his throne?" She laughs dryly and shakes her head. "I can't believe I'm explaining myself to you." She meets my eyes, and hers burst into tiny flames and her long hair blows in a fiery wind that wasn't there a moment ago. "I married him. He turned me that night, after our wedding. Then I chopped him in half with my axe, and buried the pieces in two different seas." She pauses, her eyes returning to their normal black, the wind dying down. "Still jealous?" I glare at her. "So why not kill him? Why bother with that whole mess instead of finishing him off?" "Vampires can't send one another to their true death," she says, rolling her eyes at my lack of knowledge of evil creature rules. "The final blow has to be dealt by a mortal." "Marceline, why didn't you just tell me the whole story?" I ask, still full of frustration. "Because I don't have to," she growls, and I can feel her anger growing. " I have a whole lot of stories that you'll never hear. I've been around a long time, little boy, longer than your seventeen year old mind can fathom. I don't answer to anyone, least of all you." She floats up a few inches so she can stare down at me icily. "You think you matter to me? You're a blip on my radar, something to pass my time, and when you're dead, I'll still be here. Whatever little fantasy you have about you and

me, you might as well forget about it right now. Don't think for a second I owe you anything." My hands turn to fists and it's become harder to breathe. "You care about me," I accuse her. "I know you do." I clench my teeth, desperately willing my eyes not fill with tears. Her stone glare falters, and for a moment I see a glimmer of the girl I woke up next to this morning. Was that only this morning? It feels like weeks ago now. But the moment passes. She's gone and this heartless creature has taken her place. "I don't care about anything," she says, and flies away into the night.

Chapter 9

I lay awake all night. Every time I let my eyes close, I see her face, decorated with my favorite little smile. Then I see it twisted with bitterness, screaming at me about how insignificant I am. I see Jake's grimace as he tells me he's moving out. The humans in the photographs, tortured by a faceless vampire. The brown-eyed girl who was pregnant, who disappeared twenty years ago. Could her child have been my mother? My father? The thought is the one thing that brings me an ounce of hope until I remember the truth. That I was abandoned. Even if I somehow figure the story out, the ending is still the same. It still leads to me, truly and completely alone. The sunlight slowly makes its way through the window, creeping across the room, finally reaching me. When it does, I sit up slowly, still fully clothed. I go through the motions, not putting much thought into any of my actions. Take a bath outside in the pond. Fresh clothes. Brush my teeth. Cook up some eggs. They don't taste like anything. I'm just numb. Jake wakes up and eats breakfast with me, babbling excitedly about the wedding this afternoon. I manage to plaster a smile onto my face as he talks, and he's too distracted to notice that it's fake. I'm glad, not wanting him to worry about my state of mind on his big day, but I can't keep this up. After breakfast, I go upstairs and stare at myself in the mirror. "Okay kid," I say to my tired looking reflection. "Knock it the math off. This is Jake's wedding day, so you're gonna suck it up, get over your biz, and be happy." I smack myself in the cheek hard, then the other, even harder. "Jake is your best bud. This is the happiest day of his whole life. So it's your happy day too." I close my eyes for almost an entire minute. When I open them, I exhale and smile, genuinely this time. I am happy for Jake. I will get through this day. This day will be awesome. I bound back down to the kitchen, doing a few flips for good measure, and grab Jake, spinning him around a few times. "Wedding day!" I sing out, then bounce him off of the ceiling. He laughs, landing on the table with one foot in his coffee. "So, what do we need to do to get ready?" I ask him. He shakes his foot dry. "Well, Lady and her parents are taking care of the decorations, the spaghetti's been cooked, and last night I relocated that giant ice cream plant from outside Mushroom Village to our party central," he explains. "We're good to go." "So, what do you want to do all day?" I ask. "Adventure? Last chance before you're married," I remind him. "Dude, married or not, we're still gonna adventure, probably like every day," he tells me. "Today is my day, right?" I nod. "Well then, I want to spend it with my best bud, doing all my favorite things." I can't help but smile. "Okay, so what's on the list?" "Well, partying and ice cream eating are always at the top, but let's save those for tonight. So, let's see." He pauses to grab an actual list that he must have written earlier. "Leap-frog all the way to the river," he reads. "Leaf-boat race to the land bar in the river bend by the mountains, tough guy contest, build the world's tallest

sandwich, eat the sandwich, manicures, nap in the sun until it's time to go get married." He looks up and raises his eyebrows at me for a reaction. "Let's get started," I say, and pound his fist.

Our day is perfect. We're little boys again, brothers, having a blast while doing barely anything at all. It's been months since I felt this carefree. Marceline enters my mind a few times, but Jake's enthusiasm for even the laziest of our activities makes it impossible to dwell. But when he finally lays out on the grass to take a nap, I tell him I'm going ahead to the wedding site at the waterfall to see if I can help set up in any way. Basking in the sun in silence might be dangerous for my brain. I need to stay focused on the wedding. When I arrive, everything looks amazing. There's a huge assortment of pillows instead of the usual uncomfortable chairs people set up at weddings, and Lady Rainicorn's parents have turned the trees, flowers, and bushes all different colors. I move closer to one shrub for a better look and see that it isn't just solid purple. Each leaf has been turned a slightly different shade, some lavender, some amethyst, some closer to pink. Even as a boy who couldn't really care less about decorations of any kind, I have to admit the effect is pretty stunning. "Finn, my boy!" Lady's father calls to me in the raspy voice produced by his universal translator. "How have you been? What do you think of the place?" "Hey Bob," I respond in a slightly awkward tone that seems appropriate for addressing the soon-to-be father-in-law of my best friend, who once tried to eat me. "I've been good, I guess. I'm stoked about the wedding, the place looks great." He chats with me for a bit about the nice weather we have here, how he wishes his daughter was the type to go for a longer engagement to give them time to prepare a more elaborate wedding, and all the goings-on in the Crystal Dimension. I start to zone out a bit until he mentions the big stink a lot of citizens made about having such a high profile Ooo criminal as the Ice King imprisoned there, but he didn't see what the fuss was about. "I mean, it's not like the guy has any magical powers without his crown, and our prisons are top-notch. A good friend of mine works as a guard, and he says the Ice King is one of the least threatening prisoners they have. Says he's pretty nuts, just talks to himself all day." "Ice King cracked up, huh? Well, he was never exactly sane to begin with," I remark. I open my mouth to say something else about the Ice King's situation, but something behind Bob distracts me. "Uh, could you excuse me, Bob? It was great catching up." I push past him and move closer to what distracted me: a pair of glowing eyes in the dark alcove behind the waterfall. It could be nothing, just a forest critter, but I won't take any chances that something could threaten to ruin any part of Jake's big day. I hop across some large stones over to the alcove, the spray from the waterfall getting me a little wet as I move behind it, my sword drawn. The alcove isn't as small as I thought it would be; it's actually more like a small cave. Suddenly, the face that haunted me all last night appears in front of me. "Don't stab me, okay?" Marceline asks as I jump in surprise.

As I try to recover from the scare she gave me, I remember her cold expression from last night. She's not wearing it now, but I'm sure it'll appear soon. "Would you even feel it?" I ask bitterly, putting my sword away. "Okay, I deserve that." She closes her eyes and exhales loudly, then looks at me again. "Finn, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said all that stuff last night." I glare at her, waiting for the punch line. "Then why did you?" She shakes her head, then gives me a pained look. "I don't know, I just... I was with my dad yesterday for a visit and I shouldn't have mentioned you to him, but I did, and he laughed at me and reminded me how stupid it is to ever get involved with mortals. I tried to defend myself and I just ended up fighting with him, and then I came home and saw your note and I felt really... bad... guilty I guess, that I didn't tell you the truth, which is just insane, considering I almost never tell anyone the whole truth about anything, and when I saw you, and you were so mad, I don't know, I just kind of snapped." She looks surprised at how many words have just escaped from her mouth. "Ugh, I sound just like you now. I hate this." "Hate what?" I ask cautiously, not wanting to let my guard down. "Talking about... feelings," she says, looking like there's a bad taste in her mouth. "What feelings? Guilt?" I ask, confused. "No, dummy." She rolls her eyes. "Feelings, like caring about this. Us. You and me and whatever 'us' thing we are now. Caring about you," she finishes reluctantly. I knew it. I knew she cared. I try not to let a grin spread across my face at her admission, but I do step closer and take her hand. She takes it back though, and sits on the damp cave floor. "It's just so stupid." I frown, and sit facing her. "What's so stupid about it? Why shouldn't you care about me?" "Because you're going to die," she says plainly. "My dad's right. Getting involved with a mortal is pointless. In sixty or eighty or a hundred years, you'll die. And I won't." She sighs. "It may seem far off to you, but to me, it's like a blink, and you'll be gone." I think about this for a moment, but it doesn't add up. There is a way I wouldn't have to die. "So, why not turn me?" I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me. She scoffs. "You don't want to be a vampire, Finn." "No, I really don't," I tell her honestly. "But I want to know why you don't want me to be one. If you don't care enough about me to want to keep me around, then why would it matter so much to you if I died?" She brushes the hair back from her forehead, all the sarcasm gone from her face. "You don't get it. You're good. You're everything that's good about being alive. You're sunshine and baby bunnies and saving the day from evil," she pauses and looks at the ground. "I don't want to lose you, but keeping you would mean turning you into a monster. And that's not what I want. As annoying as your goodness can be, it's what you're all about. You're the hero." "Yeah," I say quietly, "and look where that's gotten me."

"Being the hero isn't about what you get out of it. It's about helping people, saving them. Inspiring them. Making them want to be better." She leans toward me and puts her hand back in mine. "You know that, right? You make people want to be better," she says, then moves her gaze to the waterfall. "Even people... who can't be good like you." And suddenly, I can't take it anymore. I reach my hand through her curtains of hair and pull her toward me, kissing her with everything I have. It feels more real this time, kissing her now feels so much more meaningful than any of the times before. It feels like I can finally breathe after suffocating all night and day, thinking I'd lost her. She doesn't resist. I'm not sure how, but I can tell she feels the same. She doesn't want to care about me, but she does. She tried to push me away to save us both the trouble, but I won't go that easily. Shock waves of electricity course through my body as she wraps her limbs around me, making me forget all the obstacles in our path. She remembers though, and after a moment she whispers, "So, what now?" I know she means for us, and how do we get past the fact that I'll die and leave her behind. Add to that: daylight, her father, the fact that I am a shining beacon of good and she works so hard to be evil. But we won't worry about those things now. So I just smile and tell her, "We go watch Jake get married, and we party all night." "Fair enough," she agrees.

We don't have time to get cleaned up before the ceremony begins, and our little reunion in the cave has left us wet and dirty. However, Marceline betrays me and removes her overcoat before we take our seats, to reveal a pristine black dress with red trim, the first time I've ever seen her in clothing that isn't torn somewhere. I worry that I'm the only one looking so shabby, but, holding her umbrella for her, I notice a few twigs in her hair, and it's definitely messier than usual. "What are you smiling about, weenie?" she asks, noticing my stare. I shake my head. "Nothing, you just look..." I hesitate. "What? I look what?" she asks accusingly. I shrug. "Pretty," I answer, and brace for contact with her fist. She doesn't leave me hanging. Her punch lands hard on my shoulder. "Ugh, you are really pushing it, kid," she warns me, but I just smile back at her. "I must be crazy," she concludes. We choose a squishy yellow pillow in the front row that's big enough for both of us. I plant the umbrella in the ground behind her and she lets me hold her hand, but can't help an eye roll. Loads of guests have arrived by now. Everyone I invited yesterday, plus practically the entire Candy Kingdom, and tons of folks I've never met or haven't seen in years. Most give me a nod or wave as they settle in. I get a cold "Hello" from Tiffany. That guy has always been jealous of me. "Double nerd alert," Marceline says, nudging me with her elbow. I turn and see Princess Bubblegum and the Ice Prince arriving, and they've brought their own, much fancier looking pillows than the ones provided. They place them gingerly on the ground, several inches away from one another, and sit down. "Oh man,"

Marceline laughs. "In a royal couple contest of coolness, we would beat them by about a zillion points." I can't suppress my grin, or the uncontrollable urge to kiss her. I'm probably a little over-zealous as I do though, because I can feel multiple pairs of eyes on us as she eventually pushes me back to my side of the pillow. It doesn't bother me though, and the grin never leaves my face. Marceline laughs at me and rolls her eyes yet again. The sun's beginning to go down. Finally, Bob and his wife, Ethel, sit down next to us and the forest wizard appears out of thin air a few feet away and starts chanting quietly and sprinkling some shimmering stuff on a tiny hill in front of everyone. Everyone quiets down and waits for the ceremony to begin, although there's still no sign of a bride or groom. Suddenly, they come into view in the sky over us, Lady Rainicorn soaring with Jake on her back. They swoop in and land dramatically on the tiny hill where the forest wizard was doing enchantments. Every bursts into an uproar of applause, and I can't help looking behind me to see how large the group has actually become. There are guests so far back I can't even make out their faces. I guess Jake's a pretty popular guy around here. I swell with pride when I realize that his wedding has an even bigger turnout than Princess Bubblegum's did. The wizard chants some more and does some colorful magic around Jake and Lady. He conjures a giant bubble around them, and they float a few feet in the air while he says some stuff about their love. The moment the sun sets, they kiss, the bubble pops, and we all jump to our feet and applaud even harder than before. Man, my bro had the right idea; all weddings should be like this. After the ceremony, as we head over to the tables set up for spaghetti scarfing, Marceline's still letting me hold her hand without complaint. She looks preoccupied. "What's turning your gears, toots?" I ask as we sit down. "Hmm? Oh," she says, seeming to rejoin me. "I was just thinking about Nick." My face turns sour. "Uh, cool." She laughs and shakes her head. "No, dummy. Not like that," she says, reading the hostility on my face. "It's just, I heard he was back in one piece a while ago, a few decades, maybe. I figured he might come after me, to try to kill me, or get revenge or whatever, but he never did. He's such a non-threat, I kind of just forgot about the whole thing. How did you find out anyway? What did you hear?" she asks, pulling a twig from her hair. That's right, I'd been so angry and engrossed in our argument, I'd completely neglected to mention to Marceline my actual reason for hating her husband so much. I quickly recount for her what I know between mouthfuls of spaghetti. She listens intently, but doesn't get a chance to comment, because as soon as I finish, we're joined by P.B. and Ice Prince. "Hello Finn, Marceline," the princess says, managing to sound friendly yet distant at the same time, an art she's had mastered for years. Her dress is baby blue, matching her husband's crisp, fancy suit. As they sit, I look down at my own dirtsmeared clothes, Marceline's disheveled hair, and for some reason, the drastic contrast between us and them makes me smile. "Hey guys. Pretty sweet wedding, huh?" I note casually.

The Ice Prince, who has never actually spoken to me directly, looks at Marceline. "I don't believe we've been introduced," he says, flashing his perfect, dazzling smile at her. Marceline raises an eyebrow at him. "Nope," she confirms, then turns back to me. "I wanna dance," she demands, and pulls me up by the arm, dragging me to the middle of a large gathering of guests on the makeshift dance floor. She pulls me in close to her, pushes my hat back just a bit on one side, and brushes my ear with her lips. My eyes go wide at the sensation, until she whispers, "That guy is evil." It takes a moment for me to recover, and I look at her, confused. "Who? The prince?" I ask. "Nah, I'm pretty sure he's just a tool." She gives me a patronizing look. "No, kid. Evil can recognize its own kind, and I'm telling you, that guy is lousy with it." I'm not sure how to react. "Huh," is all that comes out, along with a shrug. "Should we... kill him?" I suggest half-heartedly. Marceline throws her head back and laughs. "Oh man, you're too cute. No, let's not ruin your dog's party by murdering a royal guest, especially when his only obvious crime is wearing that lame suit." I nod, then feel a hand grab the back of my shirt and drag me across the dance floor. I look behind me to see a grinning Jake reeling in his stretched out arm that has a hold on me. He pulls me back a little too far, and I crash into him, knocking us both onto the floor. Jake's brother, Jermaine, appears and helps us both up, laughing. We catch up for a bit, dancing and gorging on ice cream. Jermaine asks me to point out my date, then reacts with a "Yikes, little bro," when I do. I just chuckle. To everyone's delight, Marceline agrees to perform a few songs, and I watch from behind the crowd, leaning against a bright red tree, smiling contentedly. "She's quite talented," a familiar voice says from behind me. "Yeah, she's somethin' else," I reply. "And you seem happy with her." I shift my gaze to Princess Bubblegum, now standing beside me. "I am," I tell her. Her eyes look tired, and her thoughts seem to take her far away. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way Finn, but please, be careful. It can be dangerous to give your heart to a person of," she pauses, searching for the words, "questionable morals. I would hate to see you get hurt." Blood rushes to my face, but I keep calm and turn my gaze back to Marceline in the distance. "Again." "What?" she asks. "You'd hate to see me get hurt again," I correct her, meeting her eyes, trying not to glare. She looks flustered. "But you don't have to worry. See, she and I are actually together. She actually cares about me. She's basically the opposite of you, the one person who ever really did hurt me. So maybe you shouldn't worry so much about my heart and who has it now. Worry about your own heart, and the questionable morals of the person you gave yours to," I advise harshly, but I when I look back to her, I immediately regret my words.

Her eyes well up with tears, but they don't spill over. "I may have hurt you, Finn, but it's not because I didn't care," she says softly. "I know exactly who it is I'm married to, and why." She turns and rushes away before I can apologize. I hang my head, feeling ashamed for managing to hurt her feelings, yet again. How is it that ladies always twist everything around like that? She made me angry, but I'm still the one feeling sorry about what I said. I'll never understand how they do that. Marceline finishes a song and I see her scan the crowd for me. She slings her axebass onto her back when she spots me and floats over. "Why so down, boy-toy?" She grabs me by the collar and lifts me a foot off the ground to kiss me, then smiles. I think she's going to drop me back down, but instead flies higher and sets me on on a low branch, then sits down next to me. Looking down, our legs dangling next to each other, we have a perfect view of the party. The vast array of colors, not just of the decorations, but of the guests as well, is almost dizzying. "I'm not down," I say, draping my arm around her shoulders. "Every time something bugs me, you show up and make me forget all about it. How is that?" She sighs, settling in close to me. I expect her to make fun of me, but she doesn't. "Kid, that's been going on for years. You just noticed?" "I guess I'm not the smartest," I admit. We sit in silence, enjoying the party from our secluded little corner in the tree, so much like we did on the dock at my "birthday" party. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how much things have changed since that night. She's not wrong to be worried about the future, but I'm still trying to adjust to now. The fact that there's a girl in my arms, and that she's so very different than the one I thought would be there. I try to imagine Princess Bubblegum sitting in a tree with me, covered in dirt, content to take a quiet break from the party just to be together. I can't do it. No one could take Marceline's place next to me in this moment, and for the first time, I realize how glad I am that the princess got married. "Looks like our pals are leaving," Marceline notices, pointing to P.B. and the Ice Prince. She's marching away from the crowd, and he's following obediently behind. "Ugh, good," I groan. "I can't seem to say two words to her anymore without being all rude and making her mad at me. I don't know what the problem is." Marceline laughs. "The problem is she's married to that pretty-boy prince and she's jealous of how awesome you and I are. Me in particular." "Makes sense I guess," I agree. "I tried to find out what kind of evil that guy's up to," she adds, "but I couldn't figure him out. There's something about him that seems so familiar. I even danced with him, but he just kept asking about you. It was pretty creepy, but not exactly evil." "That's weird," I remark. "He's never said two words to me." "Yeah, well, let's not waste anymore quality dance time worrying about those stiffs," she says, then yanks me from the tree by the wrist and flies us back to the dance floor. We dance all night. I mean, all night. Jake and Lady's wedding will go down in Ooo history as one of the most epic parties of all time. The happy couple hugs everyone and says their goodbyes sometime after midnight, but the party doesn't stop in

their absence. When Marceline and I finally decide to call it quits, we can see the first traces of sunlight peeking up from the horizon. "Come on, we'll crash at my house, it's closer," Marceline suggests, and I don't argue. We're both exhausted from dancing, and neither of us have gotten much sleep at all the past few days. She skips the boat and flies us over the lake to her house, and we immediately crash on her giant, cushy bed. For the first time since we became more than just friends, neither of us even entertain the thought of doing anything more than sleep.

The feel of her soft lips on mine wakes me. I'm not sure how long I've been asleep, but I imagine most of the day has passed us by. There's one of the most obvious complications of our relationship. She's a creature of the night and, though I enjoy a moon-lit party now and then, a hero's work is mostly done by day. She pushes this thought away for me though, as she slowly crawls on top of me, floating an inch away, her kisses turning more ravenous. I reach up instinctively to my head, but realize that my hat is missing. She must have removed it while I slept. My hands aren't exactly sure where to go next, so I plant them on her hips. This seems to be the right move, because she stops floating and lets her weight down, settling into me, and I get the sensation that my whole body's on fire. My eyes fly open for a moment, just to be sure that it's all in my head and none of her demon powers have activated. The room looks normal though, the soft purple light glowing dimly around us, and I relax, until I feel a cool hand venture up my side underneath my shirt and my heart starts pounding like an enormous drum. She stops and looks down, not at the sound of my blood pumping, but at a loud growl coming from my stomach. "Hungry?" she asks, smiling slyly at me. "You haven't eaten in almost a whole day." I shake my head vigorously. "I'll starve, whatever, who cares," I mumble and pull her back to me, kissing her feverishly. Food is not important. Only this. She pulls up slightly to argue with me. "I'll get you something to eat," she says, but I hold tight to her. "No," I whisper, and swiftly turn over, on top of her now, pressing my body onto hers, tilting my head down to the bite mark scar on her neck, dusting it with my lips. Her head falls back and a tiny squeak escapes her, and she lets me continue down to her collarbone before she stops me. "Humans need food," she declares, and I'm suddenly on my back again. I try to pull her back down to me, but she floats away, breaking my grip. I prop myself up on my elbows and frown at her. "Relax," she says, and lowers herself back down for a moment to gently kiss my frown away, then she floats over to the ladder. "We have all night," she reminds me with a teasing smile and disappears from the room. I reach up and run both hands through my hair, slamming myself back down onto the bed as I try to catch my breath. "Oh man," I exhale, and frantically try to think of any advice Jake's ever given me that might pertain to this situation. Silently, I curse myself for always blocking out his sometimes too in-depth descriptions of his physically romantic encounters, although considering the vast differences in our species, I doubt anything he's said would help me. My stomach growls again and I glare down, still angry at it for interrupting. If she hadn't left the room to get me some food, I wouldn't have so much time to dwell on how nervous I should be. After a few long minutes of staring at the ceiling above Marceline's bed, wondering exactly how far she wants to go and agonizing over whether I'll be able to do

anything right at all, I hear the unmistakable sound of a dish breaking downstairs. I get up immediately and head to the ladder, barefoot and hat-less, to check on Marceline. When I reach the kitchen, I find the broken plate on the floor, along with a now fallen apart sandwich, and the back door slightly ajar. I push it open slowly, not sure what to expect. A chilling wind hits me, and I step out onto the dock, my jaw falling open. Floating midair a few feet above the water is a huge swirl of darkness, like a black hole. After about half of a second, though, I recognize that it isn't a black hole at all. It's a portal, and it's not one I've ever been through before. Marceline is nowhere in sight. I look behind me to the broken dish on the kitchen floor. Adrenaline surges through me and a sudden anger begins to boil in my guts as I realize that she must be in danger. Someone or something has taken her. I don't hesitate for a moment. I take a deep breath, run toward the portal, and jump in.

Chapter 10

The cold water shocks me, and I look around, trying to figure out what dimension I've just jumped into. Then it dawns on me. "No!" I yell furiously, and climb back onto the dock. I haven't gone anywhere. I'm still in Marceline's cave. She and the portal are both gone. Dripping wet, I run back into the house, avoiding the broken plate with my bare feet, and dash up the ladder. I quickly pull my socks and shoes on, retrieve my hat from the floor next to the bed, shake out my wet hair, and replace the hat on my head. I grip the handle of my sword for a moment, then hesitate. What now? I bite my lip. I have an idea, but it might turn out to be my worst one ever. Leaving the sword in my backpack, I sling it onto my back and head back into the kitchen. In the refrigerator, I find what I'm looking for: a carton of bug milk. I take it back to the living room, draw a smiling face on the wall, and splash about half the contents of the carton onto it. "Maloso vobiscum et cum spiritum," I chant, hoping I pronounced the words correctly. I did. The drawn face glows bright yellow, turns red, then rips the wall open, creating a doorway filled with fire. In a matter of a few seconds, I watch internal organs appear, followed by bones, then muscles, skin, and a suit, arranging themselves in the form of Marceline's father. The looming figure takes a step through the doorway and straightens his necktie. "Marceline?" he calls, looking around the living room. "She's not here," I tell him, and he looks down, noticing me for the first time. A horrifying smile spreads across his face. "Oh, it's the mortal I've heard so much about," he muses, then looks around again as the doorway of fire closes, the room returning to normal. "You summoned me yourself?" I exhale anxiously. "Yeah, I did. Look, I know you and I don't exactly have the greatest relationship-" "What's your name, human?" he commands. I'm struck silent for a moment, lost in the deep crimson pupils of his yellow eyes. I shake my head a bit, trying to stay in the game. "Finn, it's Finn." "Finn, the human," he repeats, smiling wickedly. "Marceline may have a soft spot for you, but what would make you think for even a moment that I might share her reluctance to kill you?" "I thought I should risk it," I explain hurriedly. "Something happened to her." He tilts his head curiously to the side. "Something? What?" "She disappeared, into a portal. I think someone kidnapped her-" "Kidnapped?" he snaps. "That's ridiculous. She's one of the strongest beings in any dimension, aside from me of course. How could anyone have taken her?"

"I don't know, okay!" I shout at him. "I just know she was here with me, then she went downstairs, she said she'd be right back, and when I went to check on her, she was gone. There was a portal I've never seen before. I tried to jump through it, but it disappeared. I landed in the stupid lake." I gesture to my still soaking wet clothes. "So, I summoned you to tell me where the portal might have led, and who would want to take her, because I have to go help her," I growl, forgetting for a moment that he could suck out my soul and tear my limbs from my body without even trying. "Now," I add forcefully. He looks taken aback for a moment, then his expression changes. If I didn't know better, I'd think he looks impressed. "Okay, human. What did the portal look like?" "Black, swirling, huge," I tell him, shocked that he's actually asking. "Most of the portals I've seen show a glimpse of the dimension they lead to, but I couldn't see anything through this one. Just darkness." "A portal like that leads to the Underworld, boy, and it disappeared because you're not allowed there," he scoffs. My eyebrows furrow. "But, I've been to the Land of the Dead before," I argue. "Maybe, but only to Death's domain," he says. "There's a corner of the Underworld where true evil resides. It's where Marceline grew up, and it's where she became immortal. If she's there, she's not in danger. She's home." "No, I know someone took her against her will," I insist. "She wouldn't have left without telling me. She was making me a sandwich," I say lamely, feeling like I'm wasting time arguing with him. He glances past me through the open door into the kitchen, and sees the mess on the floor. "She dropped that before she was taken?" he asks, looking back to me, slightly baffled. "She must have been caught off guard." "Yeah, that's what I've been telling you. Someone must have surprised her and taken her through the portal. I have to help her," I say again, almost pleading this time. He looks at me strangely for several moments, like I've spoken a different language. "You tried to jump through the portal, without knowing where it led? It could have killed you." I don't answer, but give a determined nod. "You love her, don't you?" he asks incredulously. I open my mouth, then close it again, and give another quick nod. He sighs. "All right, human, I'll take you there." My eyes widen at him. "You will?" Not bothering to answer, he pulls a shiny silver pocket watch from the inside of his coat. He opens it, clicks a couple of things around, and points it at the wall where the doorway to the Nightosphere was just a few minutes ago. A new portal appears, a huge mass of swirling blackness, identical to the one I'd attempted to jump through. He grabs me roughly and pulls me next to him, putting his arm around me. "Let's do this thing." I glance up at him apprehensively, and my brain has just enough time to realize that I'm about to enter a realm of pure evil, completely unknown to me, with an

immortal soul-sucking fiend, whose daughter I happen to be dating, as my guide. Yep, worst idea ever. Entering the portal feels like stepping into molten lava and letting it envelop my entire body, scorching my skin, melting my internal organs. Maybe it is, after all, mortals aren't supposed to travel this way. But the burning stops as quickly as it started, and we arrive the Underworld. It looks a lot like the place I visited years ago with Jake, but instead of a bunch of skeletons hanging around everywhere, the only folks I can see anywhere near us look to be vampires. A few give me odd looks. They're either wondering why a human is in their midst, being escorted by Marceline's dad, or they're thirsting for my rare and oh-so-tasty blood. We pass by them swiftly and make our way up a stone path. When I finally look ahead of us instead of at all the potential enemies who are eyeballing me, I see that we're headed toward a massive castle. You forget I'm an ancient undead queen? Marceline's words echo in my head as we approach her royal domain, and I smile. I didn't exactly forget, but I couldn't have imagined her ever living anywhere like this. The multiple towers and arches surrounded by mist, look dark and foreboding, even more so than the rest of the Underworld. My guide stops me before we reach the guarded door. "Are you prepared?" he asks me. I turn toward him. "Uh, yeah," I answer, unsure. "You mean, like, emotionally?" His exasperated eye roll shows a family resemblance I choose to ignore. He presses his hands together and puts them to his lips, then shakes his head at me. "Weapons, son. If Marceline truly has been kidnapped, a weapon may help you inflict some minor damage before whatever creature that took her kills you. Then I'll destroy it and rescue her." I frown at his glaring lack of confidence in my hero skills. "Oh. I've got my sword," I tell him, retrieving it from my backpack. He looks it over quickly. "Useless," he decides, and takes out his pocket watch again, or whatever it is that looks like a pocket watch. He fiddles with it some more, pointing it at my sword, and before I can object, the blade has turned to wood. "Hey!" I protest. "Steel might kill mortals, but it's no good here," he says. I examine my sword with disdain, unsure what damage it can possibly inflict in this form. He takes it from me, though, and tucks it back into my backpack for me as we approach the guards. "Good evening sir," one of the guards addresses Marceline's dad. "Unfortunately, the queen is not accepting visitors tonight-" We don't get to hear why the queen won't accept visitors though, because the vampire crumples to the ground in a colorless heap, his eyes vacantly staring at the space in front of him, as I watch his soul being sucked from within him. The other guard tries to come to his aid, but quickly meets the same fate. I turn, open-mouthed to my companion. "Uh, was that really necessary?" I scold him. "And, what the zip? Do vampires even have souls?"

He gives me a heavily satisfied look. "Of course they do. They're just hidden away, usually forgotten, underneath layers of evil," he tells me. "I can still extract them, although they're not as useful to me as the souls of the pure." I shrink back from him slightly, wary of the way he's leering at me. "Okay, good to know. Wanna do this thing?" I remind him, gesturing to the door. "Right," he says, straightening his tie. "Let's go." We enter the castle warily, expecting more guards, but we find the vast entrance seemingly deserted. I can't help but notice that this place is the exact opposite of the castle I'm most familiar with, in the Candy Kingdom. Everything in sight is gray. No colorful plants, no sweet little candy people running around with jobs to do. No one at all. I follow my escort to a wide staircase, the rails decorated with half melted candles and wilted, dried-up roses, spiraling along the walls of the huge foyer. "This is too easy," he notes as we start up the stairs. "Either she's not here, or it's a trap." I nod. He may be right, but we don't exactly have a lot of options. "I doubt it's a trap for me," I point out. "I couldn't get through the portal alone, and whoever took her probably didn't count on me summoning you." He chuckles. "I'm still a bit surprised about that myself, human. I suppose I can see why Marceline is... entertained by you." "Uh, thanks, sir," I say a bit awkwardly, and smile to myself. Landed a radical chick, and even her dad likes me. Oh yeah, everything's comin' up Finn. That is, of course, if I can find her, battle her kidnapper, and make it out of this evil dimension alive. At the top of the stairs is a long, candlelit hallway leading to enormous black double doors. There are a few other doors in between, but we leave them, heading for the grand ones at the end. Still no one in sight. My new friend and I glance at each other, neither of us sure which of his theories is correct. We each take a door, and swing them wide open, ready to brave whatever might be on the other side. Marceline is the first thing I see, and I let out a relieved breath. She's across the vast room with high ceilings and detailed murals depicting what look like undead royals, all in shades of black and gray, with touches of red here and there. I've never seen her look more queen-like, sitting on an intricately carved marble throne, looking irritated. Her expression isn't surprising, considering the throne is encased in a small prison, almost like a birdcage, made of, what? Crystal? I'm distracted though, by a circle painted on the floor directly in front of us that has started to glow. I realize there's a happy face in the middle of it and I look to Marceline's dad, alarmed. It's too late. He looks to me, and I watch helplessly as my one chance of survival is sucked back into the Nightosphere. I'm on my own. I look back to Marceline's throne, and realize it's one of a pair. The other one isn't caged, and in it, sits a man with a small gray crown sitting on his short black hair that sticks up a bit on top, wearing tattered black jeans and a white shirt, looking quite pleased with himself. He's got one leg slung over an arm of the throne, the other dangling casually, and it looks like he's chewing gum. There's a green holoscreen above him showing the foyer and staircase where I came in. He pushes a button on the arm of the throne and it disappears.

Not sure what else to do, I dash across the room toward them. His casual tone stops me just as I reach them. "Well hey, little guy," he says cheerfully. "Pretty cute hat you've got there. So listen, I apologize. Even though I was expecting you, the castle's kind of a mess," he winces mockingly. "See my wife and I had a bit of a spat, and I've been away. But none of that matters now, right babe?" he asks, tilting his head toward Marceline, but holding eye contact with me. "All in the past. And ya know, that's marriage. Forgive and forget, am I right?" Confused, I turn to Marceline, who rolls her eyes. "Are you okay?" I ask her. "You shouldn't have come, Finn," she tells me, still sounding irritated. "It was a trap. Nick wants to kill you." The man who I already guessed to be Nick looks insulted. "Now, hang on. We're just talking," he says, still sounding annoyingly casual. "No one's killing anyone yet. We're having a nice little chat, aren't we bro?" "I'm not your bro, dude," I spit. "And I don't want to chat with you. You slaughtered my ancestors. Destroyed their home, almost wiped them out." He shrugs, smiling. "Yeah, the missus mentioned you were miffed about that one. Guilty. But you should be thanking me, man. I got them out and about, let 'em see the world a bit. If I had followed my orders, I would have killed them all outright. Admittedly, I got a little greedy. It got me in trouble with that giant, who went and set the humans free." "Wait, what orders?" I inquire. "Orders from who?" I look to Marceline, who shrugs. Nick ignores my questions, his grin showing off dimples in both of his pale cheeks. "Ya know, sometimes I can't get over what a small world this is. I mean, think about it. I'm forced to let the humans go. They make happy little families on the surface, and they manage to produce you. And when my boss finally gives me the go-ahead to finish you off once and for all, I find you, of all places, in my wife's house, puttin' the moves on her. I mean, what is that?" he asks jokingly, as if he's talking to an old friend. "I tell you what that is, little buddy. That's fate. Or, kismet." He shakes his head. "I've never really known the difference. But what it really is, is justice. I was going to kill you quickly, you know, just do my job, get on with it, but after I saw you with her, I'm not gonna lie, it got me pretty steamed. I had to stop myself from ripping you apart right there. But I stepped back, and I thought to myself, Nicky, take back your woman, let the kid come to you. And here you are. Nice, right?" "I'm not your woman, you psycho," Marceline chimes in. I look to her. "You can't get out of there?" I ask. "Turn into a bat or something?" She sighs. "No, I tried, but none of my morphing powers are working, and I can't break it. This ice cage has some kind of mojo on it." "Ice cage?" I repeat. "Oh, yeah," Nick answers, finally floating up from the throne. "I've got me some sweet ice powers," he says, then raises his arms, pointing them menacingly at me. This is a move I'm all too familiar with, and my instincts take over, drawing the sword from my backpack and deflecting the ice he's conjured at me.

"Whoa, a feisty little guy," he comments, attempting to throw a few more icicles my way. I deflect them all and swing my sword toward him. He dodges, then laughs. "This is going to be more fun than I thought." I growl at him. "Who ordered you to kill me?" I yell. "Why would I tell you that, human?" he laughs. I pause for a moment, then decide to change tactics. I relax my stance slightly, and smile widely back at him. "I'm just wondering why I'm fighting the minion instead of the boss." His grin fades instantly and his eyes narrow at me. "I'm no one's minion. I'm the Vampire King," he snarls at me. I tilt my head in exaggerated confusion. "But, you just said your boss sent you to kill me, and that he was the one who wanted the human tribe dead." "I owe him a favor is all, and it's not like killing humans is a big chore for me," he defends himself, still throwing spells my way. "Must have been a big favor," I note, copying his casual tone while dodging ice blasts, "to have the powerful Nick the Vampire King owing him." He snickers. "Yeah, well, it's not every day someone brings you back from the purgatory your hag of a wife sent you to for almost a thousand years," he explains, glaring behind him at Marceline. She smiles proudly back at him. "He put me back together, and in return, I promised to help him rid Ooo of the last remaining humans. A promise I'm happy to fulfill today." He tries again to smash me with ice boulders, but I'm too quick. I manage to deflect his spells, and slide out of the way of his attacks. "You're starting to annoy me," he says, frustration creeping into his voice. "Yeah, well, this fight's old hat for me," I tell him casually. "The Ice King was my nemesis for, like, five years. I could do this all day, dude." "Ice King? That fraud?" Nick snaps at me. "The only magic he had was stolen from" He stops, then grins at me again. "Oh, you're clever. Trying to distract me into giving up information?" he scolds. "Oh man," I chuckle. "If you think I'm clever, you must be even dumber than your wife told me you were." A twister of freezing air and snow whips through the room, almost knocking me to the ground, but I hold steady, crouched behind a giant block of ice. When it passes, I stand back up. "Yeah, she really only brought you up once in conversation, something about being so pathetic, you weren't hard to overthrow," I egg him on. "It's a little fuzzy though. We were in her bedroom, and it got pretty steamy after that." He growls, his eyes turning fiery red, and he lunges at me. Marceline cries my name as I hit the ground, sounding worried for the first time since I walked in the room. Nick's fangs are bared and he's finally given up the ridiculous charade of chumminess with me as he moves in toward my neck. He's not as strong as I might expect an evil king to be, and I manage to hold him off. Of course, I'm used to Marceline's attacks, and playful or not, I can tell now that she's much stronger than he is. I don't understand though, how Marceline beat him in the first place if he could have used ice magic on her. Ice magic... like the Ice King's.

Exactly like his. It dawns on me, and I look up to the crown sitting on top of his head. "Pretty cute hat you've got there," I grunt, struggling to keep him from sinking his teeth into me, and he hisses, distracted for one precious moment. I wriggle slightly to one side and manage to work my elbow up to knock his face to the side. The crown slides, but doesn't fall, so I push him as hard as I can to the side. Finally, the side of his head meets the ground with force, and the crown falls. As he realizes what happened, his attack lets up and my arm is freed. I grab the crown, roll it toward Marceline's throne, and she reaches through the icy bars of her cage to catch it. Immediately, she throws it to the ground and stomps on it with a red boot, breaking it in two. Her cage, along with all the other ice in the room, transforms into water in an instant, splashing us while we're still struggling on the floor. "Get off my boyfriend!" Marceline bellows as the room gets dark and she transforms into an enormous monster bat and plucks Nick off of me like a bug. I struggle to my feet, completely soaked in the freezing water, and pick up the pieces of the crown. "Wait, Marceline, don't kill him." They both turn to me, shocked. She shrinks back down to girl-form, but holds Nick firmly by the throat against the wall. "What?" she asks me. Marching up to them, I shove the broken crown at his face. "Where did you get this?" I demand. All we can hear is wet gasping. Marceline loosens her grip just enough so that he can speak. "Don't kill me, okay, plea-" She puts a finger to his lips and smiles innocently at him. "Shh, you pathetic creature. No begging for your life, it's too late for that," she says in a sweetly sinister voice. "I could forgive the stalking and the kidnapping, and even the fact that my new boots are now ruined because of your stupid ice water flooding my castle. But you almost broke my human, and that, you're going to pay for. It's up to you how quickly we get through this. Now, are you going to answer Finn's question, or should we find out how many pieces I can chop you into this time?" I'm fairly sure that my own expression is at least as horrified as Nick's, if not more so. "Holy stuff, remind me not to make you mad," I mumble. She turns to me, her eyes blazing, and I cower. "The wizard," Nick blurts out. We both turn back to him, remembering that I asked him a question. "What wizard?" "The one who saved me, put me back together, the one who wanted me to kill the humans, and you," he stammers. Man, Marceline wasn't kidding about this guy being pathetic. I can understand now why she chopped him in half after less than one day of marriage. "He has the same powers that he forged into the crown, except stronger." "Who, the Ice King?" I ask, confused. Ice King is imprisoned in the Crystal Dimension, his powers stripped. It couldn't have been him. "No, I told you before, Ice King is a fraud," Nick chokes out, still in Marceline's vicegrip. "The only magic he had was stolen from the wizard." "Yeah, yeah," Marceline says, getting impatient. "So where's your wizard boss now?"

"Living in the Ice Kingdom with his new wife," Nick answers, and my eyes go wide. "Marceline, please, we can work this out, babe. You know I did it all to get you back," he says frantically. She reaches down and grabs my hand that's still holding onto my root-handled sword with the now wooden blade. Wrapping her hand tightly around mine, she points it at Nick menacingly. "I was never yours," she says flatly, then plunges the sword into his chest. She lets go of his neck, and the sword, and turns around, surveying the damage to the room. I look to Nick's unmoving body, then to my hand on the handle of the sword, still in his chest. "Whoa," is all I can come up with to say, and I let it go. He falls to the floor, then explodes in a cloud of dust, leaving my sword to land with a thud. "This place is a mess," Marceline complains, wringing the water from her hair. "You actually killed him," I say, in just a bit of shock. "No, you actually killed him," she corrects me. "I can't, remember? Vampire rules." "Uh, right." I look back at the small pile of dust that used to be her husband. She floats over to me and roughly turns my face back to her. "Don't get all squeamish on me, kid," she scolds me, her eyes narrowed. "You've killed plenty of monsters in your time, and he was no different. His ridiculous infatuation with me didn't make him any less of one. He tried to kill you, and if we didn't kill him, he'd try again." Her glare softens, and she straightens my hat, which was slightly askew. "It was him or you. Okay?" she says quietly. I nod. He seemed so helpless at the end, but she's right. And if Marceline had been the one he'd tried to kill, I'd have done the same thing she did. Killed him without a second thought. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, satisfied that we understand each other. I walk over to Nick's throne and press the button on the arm, making the holoscreen appear. I shake my head at the image. "I can believe I walked into his trap that easily, but it's hard to believe your dad got pulled back to the Nightosphere before he even got a chance to put up a fight." Marceline laughs. "If Nick hadn't seen Dad coming and prepared the portal, there wouldn't have even been a fight. Dad would have sucked his soul out so quick, we'd have been home by now." "He wasn't a fan of Nick?" I muse. "I would have thought evil dad loved evil son-inlaw." "Yeah, not so much," she says. "More than anything else, my dad hates cowards." She pauses, giving me an intrigued look. "By the way, do you want to explain that whole situation to me?" "What situation?" I ask. "Uh, you, showing up here all buddy-buddy with my dad? I knew you'd figure out some way to get here, but that's definitely not what I expected," she admits. "I mean, what were you thinking? And how did you convince him to not kill you?" I shrug. "Oh, he and I are good pals," I tell her, grinning mysteriously. She looks at me skeptically, one eyebrow raised. "Really. You and my dad. Pals."

"Totes, man," I answer casually, ignoring her sarcasm. "He's not so bad once you get to know him," I continue, earning me a punch on the arm. We laugh for a moment, but then I let out a heavy sigh. "Well, looks like I'm back to this. Full circle, dude." "What are you talking about?" she asks, looking confused. "I've gotta go to the Ice Kingdom and rescue a princess."

Chapter 11

"I don't understand at all." I groan. "Jake, we've been through this. We're wasting time." "Okay, okay, just go over the part where the guy that's been married to Bubblegum for months now is actually evil." "That's what Nick told us," I repeat for the third time. "Nick the Vampire King," Jake confirms. "Former king," Marceline interjects from the kitchen of the tree fort, helping herself to a bowl of strawberries. We asked Jake to meet us here to go over our options for a rescue mission, but so far, all we've done is attempt to catch him up on the situation, rather unsuccessfully. Jake rolls his eyes. "Nick the former Vampire King, who kidnapped her," he points a thumb at Marceline, "and tried to kill you." "Yes," I answer. "So we're going off something a crazed evil vampire said right before you sent him to a dusty grave?" He looks at me skeptically. "Am I the only one who thinks this info might not be the most reliable?" "I was about to kill him," Marceline explains exasperatedly as she takes a seat next to me, draping her legs across my lap. "He was scared. Finn asked him where the wizard who sent him to kill the humans was now, and he basically told us that he was posing as the Ice Prince. Nick wasn't exactly the type of guy who'd protect someone else's identity instead of saving his own skin. He thought I'd spare him if he told us the truth. He was wrong," she finishes darkly, popping a now-gray strawberry into my mouth. Jake shudders, unable to mask his unease in the presence of the monster with whom I've become so smitten, then turns back to me. "Okay, but, I mean, if the Ice Prince had this evil agenda and he's secretly a wizard, why hasn't he just come after you himself? And, think about it, Bubblegum is pretty happy over there. He hasn't hurt her." "Not that we know of," I point out, swallowing. "She was acting... weird at your wedding. Depressed or something." "And I smelled the evil on that guy as soon as he looked at me," Marceline adds. "I talked to him for a while, and even danced with him. I couldn't really pinpoint that he was a wizard with massive human hatred, but he was uber-creepy," she says with a sneer. "Seemed like he might be a religious nut too." I look at her, confused. "What makes you think that?" She shrugs. "Said some junk about the Cosmic Owl smiling down on the wedding, or something like that. Sounded old school. Of course, if he was around to rescue Nick from his watery resting place, and he's the one the Ice King stole his magic from, he's gotta be way older than he looks." She chuckles. "Wonder if Bonnie knows her handsome husband is really some old creep."

"Yeah," Jake says, his voice thick with sarcasm, "cause it's totally gross for an ancient evil creature to be all lovey-dovey with an innocent seventeen year old goody-two-shoes-" Marceline hisses, her razor-sharp fangs bared at Jake, her eyes a fiery red. "What's that, Jake?" "He's kidding!" I pipe up, just as Jake cowers down, shrinking until he's about four inches tall. I turn her face toward mine with my hand. "He's kidding," I assure her, kissing her demon cheek. She morphs back to a less terrifying form, but her glare at Jake remains. "Anyway," I say loudly, trying to bring focus back to the conversation, "I don't know exactly what kind of danger P.B. is in, or how much she knows. I also don't know why he's never attacked me, or why he wants humans dead, or even why he hides his magic powers, if Nick was right about them." I let out an exhausted sounding sigh. "I just know that I'm sick of finding clues that only lead to bigger mysteries. I need to know once and for all what happened to my relatives, and why. Ice Prince has the answer. I can feel it." Jake nods as he grows back to his normal size, and Marceline drops her glare to smile encouragingly at me. "So," Jake says, "what's our plan?"

Working out what to do next didn't take long. Jake and I were all for crashing the castle and serving the Ice Prince a steaming bowl of butt-kick soup, but Marceline brought us down. "You did that in the Underworld and almost got yourself killed," she reminded me. "Let's do a little recon first. See what we're up against." Recon to Marceline consists of Jake and me freezing our buns, hiding out on a snow-covered hill in the dark, staring at the castle, while she uses her invisibility to get a closer look. "Why do we even need to be here, dude?" Jake complains. "Seems like your girl's got it covered." I scowl at him, rubbing my hands together vigorously to try and keep warm. "Something could go wrong," I remind him. "Marceline's worried about me getting into trouble, but she's the one who got kidnapped last night. I can't have that again, man," I say, shaking my head. "I went so crazy worrying about her, I summoned one of the most evil demons I could think of just to get her back." "Yeah bro," Jake chuckles, "that was pretty nuts. I'm glad I wasn't there to see your future father-in-law in all his evil glory. Although I do kinda wish I got to see his face when he saw that it was your scrawny butt that summoned him, heh-heh." "I'm not so scrawny these days," I argue, then pause for a moment, taking in all of his comments. "And hey, I'm not getting married or whatever!" I exclaim. "Just because you're seeing everything through newlywed goggles doesn't mean that's what everyone's doing. Marceline and I just started this thing. Need I remind you that you waited more than five years before you popped the question?" Jake smiles knowingly and waves a hand as if my words mean nothing to him. "Yeah, but the bachelor life suited me well for those years. It took time for this wild stallion to be tamed," he says, looking wistfully into the distance. "You're more oldfashioned. Traditional." I raise my eyebrows. "Traditional? I know you haven't forgotten that the chick we're talking about here is Marceline." I grab his ear and stretch it toward me, and speak loudly into it. "A crafty vampire who's out doing our dirty work for us right

now. I seriously doubt she's gonna want to be my 'traditional' apron-wearing housewife." I let his ear go, and sigh. "I'm not even really sure where we stand, once all this biz is over with. She's immortal and I'm not. Physically, I'm already a year older than her. You think she'll still be into me when I'm ten years older, or twenty, or fifty? And if I'm still into her when I'm old, well, that's just creep status." I shake my head, and Jake wraps his arm around me. "Things'll work out, brother," he says confidently. "You've just gotta take it day by day. We live in a pretty mixed-up land. I've seen stranger things end well than just a human and a vampire in love." I look at him skeptically. "Yeah? Like what?" "Oh tons of stuff!" he gushes. "Hot Dog Princess and that carnivorous clownserpent, for one. Lady and I doubled with them for a movie night a few weeks ago. They've been going strong for over a year!" A laugh escapes me, and Jake joins in. "You always know what to say," I tell him, pulling on the sleeves of my yellow sweater. They barely cover my wrists anymore. Time for Beemo to knit me a new one, I guess, though this one's only lasted a few months. I've just been growing too fast these days. "Hey weenies." Jake and I both yelp, then turn abruptly around to see Marceline floating behind us, with a smirk on her face and a pile of pink fluff slung over her shoulder. After the initial shock, I feel a wave of relief course through me at the sight of her, here with us and safe again. Apparently I was more worried than I even let myself admit. Then I mentally kick myself, since I should know by now that she's at least a thousand times tougher than I am, and can totes handle herself. Still, I can't help letting out a happy sigh, feeling at ease for the first time in hours. "So, there wasn't much going on over there," she begins, not bothering to give us a chance to ask her how it went. "Nothing creepy or evil, anyway. I got kind of bored trying to figure stuff out, so I brought this back with me, since maybe we'll have a better chance of knowing what's up if we just ask." She flings the pink bundle down onto the snow next to our oil lamp, where Jake and I had just been sitting, and I gasp, getting a good look at what she's taken from the castle. "Marceline!" I yell in a panic. "You were supposed to check things out, not kidnap the princess!" I drop to my knees next to Princess Bubblegum and brush the bright magenta hair away from her face. She doesn't stir. "What did you do to her?" Marceline crosses her arms across her chest and frowns. "I just scared her a little until she fainted," she defends herself. "It's not like she's hurt or anything. You're welcome, by the way." I look up at her in surprise after checking P.B.'s vitals. "Are you kidding? This was not part of our plan," I say, unable to keep my boiling anger from revealing itself in my voice. "Plan?" she laughs. "You didn't have a plan. You wanted to rush in there, swords blazing, and tear the place up with no real info. I made a new plan," she says in an unapologetic tone. "One that actually makes sense." "No," I argue, standing back up to face her. "You made a mess. How are we supposed to explain to Princess why she's been kidnapped from her home by the good guys? And what about Ice Prince, huh? You think he won't notice or mind that his wife's gone missing in the night? What were you thinking?" I yell.

I brace myself for a fight, setting my jaw and jutting my chin toward her, showing her that whatever demon power she throws out won't intimidate me, not while I'm this angry. She doesn't yell or transform, though. She just lets her feet touch down on the snow and shakes her head. "I was thinking that you'd be relieved to have your precious Princess out of harm's way," she says. "I was thinking that all of this, the recon, the inevitable battle you're planning, it's all to get her back anyway, so I saved you the trouble. Now you get to find out about your enemy from the person closest to him, and she'll be safe and sound while you go defeat him. Then you return, the triumphant hero, and you get the girl you wanted all along. Happily ever after and all that," she laughs humorlessly. "But if you don't appreciate my help, then fine. I'm out." And with my mouth hanging open idiotically, she springs up from the ground and flies away. It seems to be her preferred method of ending our arguments. Jake exhales loudly behind me. "Wow, that was awkward." I glare at him. "Saying it out loud doesn't help." "Finn?" a small voice below me asks, sounding confused. Instantly, I forget about whatever I was saying to Jake and kneel down again in the snow. "Yes, Princess, it's me," I tell her. "I can explain everything, but first let us take you somewhere safe." She looks around to take in our surroundings, worried, but lets me pick her up without protest. I climb on Jake's back and he grows to the size of a large horse, with long legs that reach the ground below the mountains. We reach the Grass Lands in a matter of minutes, and just as we do, Princess Bubblegum goes rigid in my arms and grasps me tightly. I look down at her, slightly alarmed. "Oh Finn," she says, her voice shaking. "You don't know what you've done." No, I guess I don't. But I stay silent, putting a comforting hand on her back, letting her cling tightly to me until we're safe inside the tree fort.

The princess sits in silence for too long. Jake keeps looking to me, asking me with his eyes why I'm not pressing her for information. But every time I open my mouth to ask her a question, her somber face- staring down into the hot cocoa Beemo made for her- stops me in my tracks. I'm not sure how to continue, if I should explain to her why she's here, or jump right in and ask what she knows about her husband's involvement in Nick's plans to kill me. So I stand in the middle of our living room rather stupidly until I see tears falling down her pale pink cheeks, and I go to her. Jake retrieves his favorite blanket, the green one he's had since he was a puppy, worn thinner over time, but still so soft, and gives it to me to wrap around her shoulders. I do, and she buries her face in my chest to cry. No sobbing or sniffling or labored breathing, just tears soaking into my shirt. Finally, I can't take it anymore. "What did he do to you?" I ask quietly, but my voice is firm. She looks up at me with her tired, glassy eyes. "He wouldn't hurt me, Finn. He loves me," she says simply, her voice steady despite the tears. "It's what he's going to do to you. How much do you know?"

I decide the truth, with no sugar-coating, is the best answer. "He's not who he says he is. He's an evil wizard who hates humans and yesterday he tried to have me killed." "What?" she gasps, sitting up stiffly and pulling away from me. "That's impossible! He couldn't have!" she says frantically. "He did," I assure her. "Princess, why don't you tell me how much you know. And why exactly you never spoke up until now if you knew he was some kind of a threat to me." She shakes her head in protest. "No, you don't understand, I didn't tell you because he wasn't a threat!" she exclaims. "At least, he promised he wouldn't be." "That doesn't make sense," I tell her, feeling confused.. She lets out a long sigh. "Okay, okay." She closes her eyes and seems to gather her thoughts before speaking again. "I don't know where he came from, but he's been looking for you for a long time. He heard tales of a legendary hero of our land, a human, and he came to Ooo to find you, and to kill you. It was a happy coincidence for him to find the Ice King here as well, who he still claims is his father, but I don't know if it's true. It's so hard to tell what's true anymore." She pauses, looking defeated, but then continues. "But he says that when he saw you with me, his plans changed. He told me that he fell in love with me so completely that he gave up his quest to end the human race, and he set out to find my father, so he could prove his worthiness to me, and make me forget about you. Of course, I didn't know any of this at the time. I was grateful that he brought back my father, and I still can't believe I have him back. But nothing could have made me stop caring for you, Finn. Not even my father's request that I marry the man who rescued him." I hold up a hand to interrupt her. "But that's what you told me. You said it was your royal duty or some junk." She swallows, and looks at me meaningfully, with what looks like regret in her eyes. "I couldn't tell you the truth, because I knew you would have put yourself in danger trying to fight for me. When I denied his proposal, he felt he had no choice but to threaten you. He told me that if he couldn't have me, he'd have to destroy the person who stood in his way. I know you're strong Finn, but I was afraid for you. I saw him defeat the Ice King and mercilessly banish him from this realm. He somehow located my father easily, when Ooo royalty had teams of experts searching for him for years, and had finally declared him dead. I knew he had so much power and I was afraid. So we struck a bargain." I shut my eyes tight as if somehow, I can stop her next words from coming, because I know those words, and everything they mean will shatter my world. I know it won't work, so I give her what must be a pained look, and beg her, "Please, don't say it." But I know she's going to go ahead and say it, and I brace for the truth, which just a few weeks ago, I fantasized about hearing, and now, I'm scared it might break me. "I married him, and in exchange, he made a Royal Promise never to hurt you." Dropping her chin down and looking at her lap, she lets her words and their unspoken meaning resonate in my core. She married him to keep me safe. She married him because she loves me.

Chapter 12

I've never been good with words. I can battle monsters all day, I have an unspoken understanding about almost everything with Jake, and apparently I'm pretty successful at showing girls, or one particular undead girl, how I feel in a less than verbal manner. But knowing what I'm supposed to say when Princess Bubblegum, the girl I naively thought I loved for so many years, admits to giving up her freedom to save my life? There aren't any words at all. She's still looking down, wringing her hands in her lap, and it feels like she's worried she's said too much. She meets my gaze again and bites her lip. "Please understand, I never intended for you to find out. I really believed that he wouldn't hurt you. He's never told me about his reasons behind wanting to kill you, other than as a romantic rival, and he really did seem to give it all up when we got married. He's been kind, and patient with me. He believes that I'll come to love him over time. I guess I thought maybe I could too," she says, then looks down again, suddenly preoccupied with smoothing out the wrinkles in her pink nightgown. "And you've moved on. You're happy with..." she trails off. She doesn't need to say her name. "But if what you say is true, then he's found a way around the Royal Promise by having someone else attempt to kill you." "Not just any someone," Jake pipes up, startling both the princess and me. He's been so quiet during Bubblegum's confession, we both seem to have forgotten that he's still in the room. "The long-lost vampire king," he says indignantly. "A.K.A. Marceline's husband. A.K.A. Dusty McStaked-Pants. Crazy dramatic coincidence." The princess looks at me, confused. "Is this true? He's enlisted the help of a vampire?" I nod. "There's more. Nick, is- or was, considering he's a pile of dust now- the same vampire that wiped out most of my ancestors, the ones that you helped me develop the photographs of. Ice Prince was behind that as well. With Billy's help, my grandparents and my parents managed to survive, at least long enough to have me," I explain solemnly, trying to mask any emotion I might be feeling at the thought of my family's fate. "I'm still not sure what happened to them. Maybe he got to them too." "See what I mean?" Jake exclaims, pounding a fist onto the table. "Drama-bombs exploding left and right!" I flash Jake an angry look, letting him know I don't appreciate his interjections. He shrinks slightly. "Sorry, man, just trying to break up the tension a little bit." I roll my eyes, then turn back to Princess Bubblegum. "So, now that we've been honest with each other," I say, causing her to look at her lap again, "what can we do about all of this?" She sighs, the worry showing on her face. I always thought she looked the most beautiful when she was trying to solve a problem, but that seems like such a long time ago now, and the stakes were never quite as high as they are now. "I need to go back, before he realizes I'm gone," she says resolutely. "He never enters my bedroom, but if I'm not in the royal dining hall for breakfast, he'll be suspicious. He'll send someone to look for me, and he'll figure out I'm gone, and who I'm with. He'll come after you."

"I'm not afraid of him," I start, but she holds up a delicate pink hand. "I know you aren't, Finn, but you should be," she tells me, with concern in her eyes. "Even if the vampire he sent after you is dead, who knows how many more evil beings he has under his control? He could send someone else to kill you at any moment. But if I go back to the castle, I can try to dig up information. Figure out his next move. See if he has a weakness you can use." I grit my teeth. She's right. I have no doubt that I can fight off whoever and whatever he sends after me, but I'm sick of fighting defensively. I want to go up against the big bad wizard himself, once and for all, and I want it to be on my terms. Jake looks at me and knows I agree with the princess. He pats me on the back. "I'll call Lady. She'll take her back to the Ice Kingdom before sunrise." He turns to Princess Bubblegum. "No one will know you were gone," he assures her an a serious tone I so rarely hear from him. He goes into the kitchen to talk to Lady Rainicorn while the princess and I sit in silence. Finally, after several long moments of brooding, I can't take hold back anymore. "You didn't have to do this for me," I tell her, my tone coming out more angry than I intend. "You could have told me, I could have protected you from all of this. That's the way it's supposed to be, not the other way around." She lifts her hand from her lap, hesitates a moment, then places it in mine. It's warm and comforting and familiar. I guess I still haven't forgotten how it felt. "How many times have you saved my life, Finn?" she asks gingerly, clearly not expecting an answer. "How many times have you been hurt because of me? How many years have you devoted to being a hero? To helping everyone in need? How much have you sacrificed?" she asks, searching my eyes. "And what have I ever done for you in return?" She gives me a tiny smile while her eyes shine, threatening tears. "This was my chance to save you." And suddenly I speechless, but beautiful sitting I'd be a fool not feel choked up as well. Once again, her declaration has left me this time, she's not hiding from me. She looks so vulnerable, so here, looking me straight in the eyes and laying it all out for me. to take it. So, I answer the only way I can think of. I kiss her.

I've kissed her before, but never like this. I'm not some shy kid anymore, and I'm not afraid. I'm strong and insistent, and though she's surprised at first, soon I can feel her relax and almost melt into me. She tastes sweet, like bubblegum, and when this thought enters my mind, I almost laugh. But the urge leaves me, along with any humor in the situation, and suddenly she's too sweet. Too warm. Too alive. This isn't right at all. I draw back while her eyes are still closed, and I frown. Quickly, I stand, and bury my face in my hands, as if blocking out my vision could somehow erase what I've just done. She looks up at me and is about to speak when Jake walks back into the room. "She's on her way," he announces, not sensing at all what just went on between us in his absence. "Okay," I say loudly, ignoring Princess Bubblegum's wide-eyed stare. "I need to go take care of something. Jake, after the princess is safely back in the Ice Kingdom, I need you and Lady to do something for me."

"Sure, brother," he says. "What is it?" I wince, like I always do when I'm about to deliver bad news. "You're not going to like it."

Knocking on Marceline's door, the guilt of what I've done really starts to sink in. I try to work out in my head what to say before she answers the door, so I won't muck things up even worse than I already have. Somehow, I need to get across to her that she was wrong before. That winning back the princess isn't what I want, that the right girl for me has been here all along, and I've just been too full of stupid to see it. Unfortunately, I also live by a code of honor, which means I have to be honest, and tell her that what led me to this realization was kissing Princess Bubblegum. Good thing I don't bruise easily. I sigh and knock again, worried for a moment that she's given up on me and decided to disappear for a while, or worse, that someone more powerful than her ex has come to kidnap her. I'm relieved for a moment when the door opens, only to be confused by who's on the other side of it. "Oh, hey Finn, what's up?" Lumpy Space Princess asks in her usual apathetic drawl, wearing a towel around her head. "Sorry, I took so long, I was in the shower." "Huh? L.S.P., where's Marceline?" I ask, looking past her into the house. "Jeez," she says haughtily. "Nice to see you too." I roll my eyes. "I'm sorry, okay. I just really need to see her." She squints at me suspiciously, takes the towel from her head and throws it onto the couch, flipping her head as if she has a mane of long luxurious hair instead of nothing but a thin layer of purple fuzz. "What's going on with you two anyway?" she demands. "I know you're secretly dating, and I know you got in a fight late last night, because she came back here all upset." I raise my eyebrows. She was upset? She seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing when she left us on the snowy mountain. "Well, uh, that's what's been going on. It's not a secret, but we're dating, or we're together, or whatever you want to call it," I try to explain. "And yeah, we had a misunderstanding last night, and I need to talk to her about it. So, could you tell me where she is, please?" She claps a hand over her chest and inhales sharply. "You're here to make a grand romantic gesture and tell her how much you love her!" she exclaims excitedly. "Uh, yeah, defs," I say. Anything to appease this crazy girl and get her to give up some information. "I knew it!" she cries dramatically. "I told her not to leave. I told her you'd come for her, her sweet, handsome hero!" Oh boy, this could go on all morning. "L.S.P., please. I need to know where she went, so I can go romantically gesture to her, or whatever. Where did she go?" I enunciate purposefully. L.S.P. seems to snap out of the little dramatic bubble she's created. "Oh, she went to the Ice Kingdom. I was in here watching movies when she flew down here and told me I could crash in the house instead of in my tent out back while she was gone." She huffs and rolls her eyes. "She left a huge mess in the bedroom though,

a bunch of old books and photo albums all over the bed. I don't know why she had to leave in such a hurry." I'm torn in two directions. The hero part of me wants to immediately rush out of the cave and storm off to the Ice Kingdom to find her. The smaller, logical part of me is gnawed by the question of why she rushed out so haphazardly. For once, I actually let logic win. I push past L.S.P. and hurry up the ladder to Marceline's bedroom. She really did leave it in disarray. I look down at some of the books strewn across the bed and the floor. Most of them look like they could be as old as Marceline herself. One catches my eye: a photo album that's laying open on top of a pile. It's the one with the faded flowers on the cover, the one Marceline showed me the night she told me about her human life. I pick it up, and study the page she left it open to. There's a single photograph in the center of the page of Marceline as a young girl, perhaps seven or eight, smiling without the benefit of her two front teeth, with an older man and woman on either side of her. They aren't her parents, although the woman does resemble Marceline's mother. Her grandparents, maybe? There's nothing I can see about this photograph that would cause her to go challenge the Ice Prince on her own, if that's even what she's out doing. Just a smiling woman in a blue dress and a serious-looking man in a black jacket with an odd-looking white square at the neck. I put down the album and rifle quickly through the other books. The ones that aren't photo albums mostly have to do with the old world, and judging by the state of them, I'd guess they date back to before the Great Mushroom war. The ones that look the most decrepit are full of symbols I don't recognize, and I'm afraid that if I even touch the pages, they'll crumble in my fingers. Some of the newer looking books are about the Cosmic Owl, and religion in general. Not surprisingly, it's a subject I know almost nothing about. I give it up as a bad job. Either there's no connection between these books and photographs and and Marceline leaving so hurriedly, or I'm just not smart enough to see it. Either way, I'm wasting time. Rushing back downstairs, I yell a quick goodbye and thank you to L.S.P., and I'm out the door. I climb into the tiny boat and row faster than I ever have before out of the cave, and across the lake toward the glacier that makes up the Ice Kingdom's coast. The sun's moved slightly up past the horizon, painting orange reflections on the lake's surface, and I make fast work of climbing from the boat onto the glacier and scaling it until I reach level ground. I can see the castle in the distance. Princess Bubblegum will be back there, in bed or getting up for a royal breakfast, pretending she never left and betrayed her husband's secrets to me, while hopefully, Jake and Lady are well on their way to completing the task I entrusted him with. Jake's been known to foil plans before, but he knows how important this is, even if it isn't much of a fail-safe. But if I do get into a bind, it could be the only thing that saves me. As for Marceline, I'm hoping she hasn't made her presence known to the Ice Prince yet, or that she has a genius plan I just can't figure out. No matter what, I just have the feeling that I need to hurry. When I reach the pathway that leads to the castle, I wonder if I should be attempting to act a bit more stealthy as I approach. But without Jake's stretching or Marceline's powers at my disposal, I don't exactly have much choice other than to walk right up to the door.

Only there is no door. Not anymore, at least. There are broken pieces of what once was the door, which I suspect fell victim to one of Marceline's famous vampire kicks. I approach warily, peering inside to find an empty foyer. I can hear voices in the next room though, so I venture inside. When I get closer, I can hear through the open doorway that the voices belong to Ice Prince and Marceline. I flatten myself against the wall and try to listen to their argument before rushing in. "...and you don't even remember! It's only been a thousand years, and I haven't changed nearly as much as you have," Marceline is yelling. "I don't know what you're playing at, girl, but it won't work," Ice Prince retorts in that silky smooth voice of his. "Your trickery make fool other, less enlightened beings, but I have dealt with vampires before and I know your ways." "You know Nick's way, which is to say and do anything if he thinks it will benefit him. Or that was his way, until I killed him the night before last," Marceline says. "Nicholas is dead?" Ice Prince asks, not sounding very upset, or even surprised. "Hmm, then I'll have to resort to my alternate plan to kill your little human pet." "While it's always good to be prepared during a murderous rampage, you won't need to bother," Marceline says coolly. "You won't be going anywhere near Finn." I smile at this, and almost storm into the room to help her, thinking that she's ready to fight, but instead, she keeps talking, and I hang back. "This whole thing is ridiculous," she continues. "I don't know how you got this way, and I don't know why you don't remember who you are, but I do. And this plan of yours to rid the world of humans?" She pauses, and I think I hear her let out a sigh. "I understand why you feel it should be done." My jaw drops. Not only does Marceline know the Ice Price personally, but she understands his reasoning for killing my relatives? For trying to have me killed? I can't take anymore listening from the sidelines. I draw my sword and step into the large room. The Ice Prince and Marceline both turn toward me at the same time. "Finn, no!" The sound of her voice crying out my name is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.

Chapter 13

I can feel her brushing the hair away from my eyes gently with familiar hands, soft and warm. When I look up, she's surrounded by light, her face darkened in contrast. I can't make out her features, but I know her. I know I am safe in her arms. "I have to leave you now, baby," she whispers. I want to cry out for her to stay, but the sound catches in my throat and I can't seem to speak. She kisses my cheek, then puts a hat on my head. She whispers something else, but I can't make out the words. The sound of her voice is distant, and though I want nothing more than to chase after her, stop her, keep her with me, I cannot move. I close my eyes, feeling helpless and alone. Suddenly, I'm in Margaret's arms, warm and safe again. She's squeezing me and kissing me and I snuggle into her, relishing in the feeling of her soft fur against my face. I never thought I'd feel this again: secure and protected by the only mother I've ever known. She's been gone for so many years. I don't know how it's possible that she's holding me now, but I don't want it to end. "He's going to need you, Jake," I hear Joshua's voice say. My father. He's here as well. "I've never seen anything quite like this boy. He's all alone in the world." I turn my face from Margaret's shoulder to see a young and wide-eyed Jake nodding at our father, looking serious. "He's going to need someone to watch out for him," Joshua continues. "A brother." My vision blurs and the image of my family fades away. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again, wanting to hold onto the scene, but it's gone. Instead of the old house I grew up in, I'm on a hill where the Grass Lands meet the Ice Kingdom, and Princess Bubblegum is looking down at me with adoration. "Thank you, brave knight." There's so much I want to say to her. I'm sorry for all I've put her through. Her life is a mess and it's all because of me, and I'm so sorry. But none of that comes out when I open my mouth. "Oh, I'm not a knight. I'm a boy," I hear myself say. I sound young and innocent, yet very sure of myself. "Well then, thank you, brave boy," the princess says, and leans down to kiss me on the cheek. In spite of myself, I let her. When she draws away, she's looking at me curiously. "You've grown so much," she whispers. "Have I?" I ask, and I'm startled by my voice, so much lower now, and I realize I'm looking down at her instead of up. "You were my first love," I tell her. I want to say more, but I'm distracted by a figure walking toward us in the distance. Princess Bubblegum looks behind her, then back to me. "Go on then," she says, and when I look back down, there are tears in her eyes. "What about you?" I ask. "I'll be all right," she says, and places a delicate hand on my chest.

Before I can respond, the image of her dissolves into the air, tiny pink specs of dust falling to the ground before they disappear completely. I turn around to face the figure approaching me, and a broad smile makes its way to my face. "Hey stranger," she says in her melodic and mischievous voice, and wraps her arms around my neck. I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes. "I thought I'd lost you," I say softly. She tilts her chin up to kiss me and I don't hold back. I wrap my arms around her, clutching her close to me, my lips locked fiercely onto hers, scared she'll disappear like everyone else has. It feels right having her in my arms again, feels like I'm home, and yet somehow, I can't shake the idea that something is off. "This isn't real, is it?" I ask her, my eyes still closed. When I open them, I'm surprised to see that she hasn't faded away. I gasp slightly when I get a good look at her, and I have to study her face, searching. She is Marceline, but at the same time, she isn't. "This is more real than anything you've known," she says. Her eyes aren't black or red or electric blue flames, but a rich shade of golden brown. There's a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her cheeks are flushed pink against the otherwise olive tone of her skin, instead of the pale gray I'm used to. "It just hasn't happened yet." I open my mouth to speak, but instead I can't help looking around when I notice that our surroundings have changed. Instead of the sunny hills in the Grass Lands, we're in a dark place I don't recognize. Foreign trees, dilapidated houses with broken windows, and smoke in the distance billowing toward the blackened sky. There are no Kingdoms in this place, only ruins. "But this is the past," I say to the strange version of Marceline. "It already happened." "And whose fault is that?" a gruff and bitter sounding voice says from behind me. I turn to see Marceline's family standing in front of a tilted and broken down house. I turn to Marceline, and she smiles and takes my hand, leading me toward them. Her mother and grandmother, who both look so much like this version of her, are smiling warmly at me, and even her father acknowledges me with a respectful nod. It was the old man dressed in black who spoke, who's glaring contemptuously at me now as the women embrace me and curiously touch my hair and face. I keep my eyes on him, and watch his image begin to flicker slightly. I squint, unsure if I can trust my own eyes. "I don't understand," I say, my voice sounding odd and distant, unable to tear my gaze from the old man. The flickering continues until his face changes, making him appear handsome and young, barely older than me, but his hair remains snowy white. He smirks at me and I get a chill. Marceline reaches up and touches my cheek softly, turning my face toward hers. "Sure you do," she says, and the rest of them melt away, leaving only the two of us and the darkness. She kisses me again, enveloping me in a warmth I've never felt from her before. "Finn," she breathes against my lips. "When the time comes, will you choose me?" "When what time comes?" I ask, still holding her close. She looks up at me with those unfamiliar golden brown eyes, and bares her fangs. It's not in a threatening or taunting way like I'm used to seeing, but rather,

questioning. She hesitates, waiting for my answer. I tuck a stray lock of hair behind her pointed ear and watch as her freckles disappear and the hue of her skin changes from healthy to pale, and she floats up a few inches until we're eye to eye. I smile at her, trusting her completely, and nod, tilting my head to one side. She kisses my cheek lightly, then moves to my neck and bites down hard. I can feel the blood leaving my body, but the pain I expected doesn't come. There's only a euphoric feeling of rightness. Suddenly, I can feel her start to slip away from me and I begin to panic, tightening my grip on her. "Don't disappear, please," I say frantically. "I'll choose you, of course I will! Just stay with me," I beg. "Marceline, I'll choose you, I love you!" A tiny smile appears on her blood-stained face right before she turns to dust in my hands. I let myself fall to my knees, still staring at my hands after the dust vanishes. The suffocating darkness is all around me now, but if I listen closely, I can still hear her voice. "Finn?" she calls quietly. She sounds so far away. "Finn!" I open my mouth to shout back to her, but find that my voice is completely gone. She's calling to me louder now, and if I could just make a noise, any noise, she wouldn't sound so worried. I mouth her name over and over, willing my voice to come back until finally"Marceline," I choke out. The cold hits me before the pain does. I have no clue how long I've been out, but it's long enough for the icy air inside the castle to have chilled me to the bone. I lift my head slowly, pain hitting me in waves, spawning from the back of my skull where it connected with the floor when I fell. No, not fell. Was attacked. I sit up, adopting a defensive pose, scanning the room for the Ice Prince. "Easy, kiddo." I turn swiftly at the sound of her voice, ignoring the dizziness and stabbing pain in my head. The relief I feel at the sight of her- the real Marceline and not some concussion-induced dream- instantly warms me despite the ice prison I appear to be trapped in. I get to my feet clumsily and run to her, grabbing her through the ice bars that separate us and pulling her close to me. "I thought I'd lost you," I hear my muffled voice say as I bury my face in her hair. Feeling confused, I force myself to look down at her, just to be sure this is real after all. "Don't be so dramatic, weenie," she says with a smirk. A laugh escapes me and echoes through the familiar room and I hug her tighter, no longer doubting her identity. "I thought they'd destroyed these cells when the Ice King was banished," I say, finally looking around us. The room is fairly large for being located at the peak of the topmost tower of the castle. Some of Ice King's old things are still here, obviously untouched since his departure: his drums, a few piles of soiled laundry, a desk with a broken holo-puter. There used to be one large cell for holding captured princesses but eventually, Ice King split it into two, claiming that he needed a separate cage for Jake and me since whenever he put us in with the princesses, more often than not they'd end up falling in love with one of us. "No," Marceline replies, "just sealed the tower off." She moves out of my embrace, but lets me hold onto her hand. "I've been trapped in too many magical ice cages

for my liking lately," she says with disdain. "How's your head? That spell knocked you out for a while. Ice Prince is more powerful than I thought." I shake my head. "I'm fine," I tell her, and rub the tender spot on the back of my head. "Just a bump." She rolls her eyes and lets out a huff. "You idiot," she scolds me. "Didn't I just explain to you the importance of making plans and figuring out what your enemy is up to before you rush in and get yourself killed? What are you even doing here?" "I, uh, I'm here to rescue you?" I say lamely, considering I'm as trapped and helpless as she is at the moment. "Nice job, hero," she says with sarcastic sweetness. "Some of your best work." "Hey, I can't help it if my brain gets extra stupid when I think you're in trouble," I say honestly. She smiles ruefully. "Well, I guess that's a good excuse. Besides, I'm not really in a position to criticize rash and impulsive behavior at the moment." She shakes her head and sighs. "I just thought I could reason with him." "Marceline, before we get into that, I really need to tell you something," I start, swallowing uncomfortably. "I went to your house to find you because-" "No, me first" she interrupts. "It's important. The reason I came here without telling you, it's the Ice Prince. I know who he really is." I nod grimly. "I do too," I tell her. "He's your grandfather, isn't he?" Marceline's jaw drops open and she makes a few confused sounds before actually forming words. "How- how could you know that?" "I'm not sure," I say, shrugging. "I guess my brain is smarter when I'm unconscious." "Huh?" she says, looking utterly lost. I shrug again, not having a better explanation for her. "It doesn't matter. The real question is how. How did he get this way? I thought he was human, and I thought he died over a thousand years ago." She sighs, letting her hand slip out of mine, and floats toward the other side of her little cell. "I thought so too," she says a little sadly, tracing the line of one of the ice bars up and down with her finger. "He and I were never all that close. He hated my father and I think he believed I was a monster or a demon, even though I looked mostly human back then. He never really said as much, and he tolerated me because he loved my mother and my grandmother, and they loved me, even though I was half evil. I think it was harder for him to accept me, since he was a man of God." "What's God?" I ask. She pauses, thinking for a moment. "An old story that he used to tell me when I was a kid. I kind of figured God was a simple way to explain all the mysteries of the world, sort of like Santa Claus with Christmas." I frown. "What's Christmas?"

She lets out a huff. "Forget it, it's not important. Anyway, as I got older, I realized my grandfather was really serious about all that God stuff, and he blamed God for letting the world be ruined by the war. Over the years, he got more and more angry. My grandmother told me that he had lost his faith. I didn't really know what that meant, and she explained that he didn't believe in God anymore. I asked her why he was still so angry if he didn't believe in the thing he'd been angry at, and she said she didn't know. She said anger like that didn't just disappear, that he'd find something else to blame for the way our lives were." Marceline pauses, ruffling her hair absentmindedly, glancing up to the ceiling where an icicle is slowly letting drops of water fall to the floor in front of her. "I thought she meant my father, and by association, me. My grandfather already hated us, and he knew we were real. When my mother died, he sort of lost it. I couldn't stay with them, knowing what he thought of me." "Marceline," I interrupt, unable to hold back. "He was your family. Maybe he was mad, but how could he actually hate you? It wasn't your fault your mom got sick." She floats back over to me and looks at me wisely through the bars. "Of course it was, Finn. She wanted me to grow up on the surface, not underground. She always stayed topside too long, even when she knew she'd get sick, because I loved it so much up there. She got sick because of me, and she died because of me. I've always known that," she says with a sigh. Ignoring her distaste for tender gestures, I place a hand on her smooth cool cheek, rubbing my thumb lightly over the place where teardrops might be, if she were a different girl. She indulges me, and doesn't push me away, but her humorless smirk tells me silently that I'm being ridiculous, looking for emotions in her that just aren't there. "Stop feeling sorry for me. I used to be pretty messed up about it," she says in a voice that almost sounds gentle. "But I've had a millennium to forgive myself." She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against mine. "I'm just really sorry you got caught up in all this." "What do you mean?" I ask, still holding her close. "Well, he obviously hasn't forgiven me," she says. "His homicidal rampage is my fault." I shake my head. "No, that doesn't make any sense. He claims not to remember you, right?" "Yeah, but-" "And how would hunting humans be getting even with you? You haven't been human in a long time." "I know, but-" "And if this was about you, why wouldn't he just kill you?" I point out. "We know he can't kill me himself, because of the Royal Promise, that's why I'm locked up. But he could have killed you. He had the chance." She shakes her head. "No, only a mortal hand can slay me, remember? He's found a way to make himself immortal. He can't kill me." Suddenly, she's gone from my arms. Not slowly faded away like in my dream, but ripped away from me violently by a chilling wind, and I stare in horror as icicles pin her to the wall of her cell.

His voice cuts through me like a frozen blade. "Actually, that's incorrect." I whip around to face the Ice Prince, my anger coursing through me, so burning hot in my veins I feel like I could melt the bars of ice just by grabbing them, but they remain solid in my fingers. "Let her go!" I yell. He ignores me and speaks to Marceline. "I'm not immortal. I've been allowed to live for a very long time, working to fulfill one very specific divine purpose." "Divine?" Marceline growls, struggling to free herself from the wall. "I thought you didn't believe in God anymore." He laughs coldly. "God? God abandoned this world," he says flippantly. "That's why demons such as yourself are allowed to roam free." "See Finn, family or not, he's always hated me," she spits with rage. Loose strands of hair fall in her eyes as she thrashes around, and I watch helplessly. "Vampire, my hatred is reserved for his kind," he says, gesturing to me. "Although, your presence is grating in a vaguely familiar way," he muses. "Perhaps you were right. Perhaps we have met before. I have very few memories from my life before my purpose." "And what is your purpose, exactly?" I yell at him, still futilely shaking the bars of my cell. "Genocide? Why? What could you possibly gain from murdering my family?" Ignoring me, he unlocks Marceline's cell door and strides calmly toward her. A voice inside me is screaming No no no, don't let him get near her, stop him, do something, do anything. I take a breath and spit at him, the only weapon I have left, but right before it's about to hit him in the side of the face, the lugey freezes midair, and falls to the ground. He doesn't even flinch. "Yes, there is something in you that I recognize," he says, studying Marceline's face. "Something about you..." He uses one pale finger to lift her chin, but she jerks away in disgust. She growls at him, and I can tell that she wants to morph right now, set him on fire with her eyes, crush his body like an ant, but something about his magic is preventing her. He laughs. "But, what could it possibly matter? You're only alive now because-" "Undead, not alive," Marceline interjects. "Why does no one remember to make that distinction?" Ice Prince glares, but continues as if she hadn't spoken. "I want the beast to know suffering as he watches me destroy you, just as I watched as his kind destroyed the world." "No!" I hear myself cry out, gripping the bars so tightly my knuckles turn white. "Please," I say, my voice thick and unfamiliar, "I'm the one you want, just let her go." For the first time, he looks at me straight in the eyes. I feel a chill hit the back of my neck, as though an icy grip is holding me against the bars, and I can't move. "Oh, I would, beast," he says to me bitingly. "If this were the first time I'd laid eyes on you, if you hadn't caused so much trouble, I would let your vampire go, and simply do away with you. You see, ridding the world of humans is my noble purpose. You asked why. The answer, beast, is justice. Humans destroyed the world. They nearly destroyed themselves. So, having given up on God, I summoned

a more primal force, an ancient creature full of wisdom, one who oversees the balance of the universe." He pulls on a dull golden chain that was tucked into his shirt and pulls out an ancient medallion with an etching of a large and very serious-looking owl. "The Cosmic Owl?" I say. A disturbing grin spreads across his face. "He gave me abilities, made me young again, and in exchange, I pledged to bring the world back into balance. And here I am, on the brink." He pauses, moving closer to me, and I can see the determination in his icy-clear eyes. "You are the very last of your filthy kind." I swallow a bitter lump that's formed in my throat, and blink back tears that would probably freeze if they fell. I am the last of my kind. It's one thing to think it. To think that it's probably true. To think it that it's incredibly likely. To think it is not to know it. Hearing it said out loud without a hint of doubt, the knowledge wrenches my insides, twisting my guts around painfully. Knowing it... knowing it is probably the worst thing I've ever felt. "My parents?" I manage to quietly choke out, my eyes narrowed and accusing and filled with hate. "Stumbled into a nest of fire-dragons while on the run from me," he says. "I thought they were the last. I didn't realize they'd hidden you away. But when they were gone and yet I found myself still here, still unchanging, I knew that my purpose was still unfulfilled," he explains with a sigh. I grit my teeth. "Well at least they went down fighting dragons, and not by your hand, you frostbitten creep." He nods. "Your fate, I'm afraid, will not be such a heroic one." Anger boiling inside me, threatening to explode, I bark at him, "Why? Why do you hate me so much more than the others? What did I ever do to you?" Snow appears out of nowhere and swirls furiously around my face as he grabs a fistful of my shirt, freezing it solid. "You wouldn't let her go!" he booms, his voice echoing throughout the tower. I shake my head slightly in confusion. "Wouldn't let..." And then it dawns on me. "Princess Bubblegum." I say quietly. "Don't say her name, beast," he grunts. "She's the first thing I've cared about in a thousand years. When I finally found you, I knew I was about to finish what I started, my quest would be complete. That's when I saw her." He turns away from me now, talking more to himself than me. "I would have given it up for her, all of it. I took on this persona, the non-magical son of a pathetic old fool, I battled Death and won back her father's soul, just to gain her favor. But none of it was enough, because you were already in her heart," he seethes, glaring back at me over his shoulder. "But I knew if I killed you, my time in this world would be up, my mission complete. It's so tragic it's almost funny. Your existence was the one thing in the way in both of my reasons for living. My purpose, and her. But killing you would mean leaving this world. And her." He pauses, and shakes his head. "In the end, just a simple threat to you was enough to convince her to marry me. I thought she would forget about you. It should have been simple enough. A crass human beast, possessing no superior intelligence, no magical powers, nothing to make you

special or remarkable, other than being the sole member of an otherwise extinct species. I thought, with time..." The tower falls quiet after he lets his voice trail off, except for the sound of Marceline still struggling. I glance from her back to the Ice Prince, who looks troubled and lost in thought. If he weren't a murderous villain, I might actually feel bad for the guy. "But she couldn't let you go," he continues, a quiet contempt in his voice. "She watched you from afar, cried over you at night. And after seeing you at that ridiculous wedding, she locked herself in her room, refusing to speak to anyone." My eyes go a bit wide at this, guilt gnawing at my insides as I replay our argument in my head, remembering the tears that had filled her eyes when I snapped at her. I may have hurt you Finn, but it's not because I didn't care, she'd said. Even Marceline falls silent now, waiting for the Ice Prince to continue. "That's when I gave Nick the order to finish you off," he says with a sigh. "When I finally saw that she would never return my feelings for her, I no longer cared if my life ended along with yours. Of course, Nick being the incompetent fool that he was, that plan failed as well, and somehow, right under my nose, you got to her," he accuses, looking back at me again. "I could smell your human stench all over her, and worst of all, for the first time in months, she was smiling." He spits the word with disdain. I raise my eyebrows at the implication, and part my lips, but no sound comes out. When I let my eyes dart to Marceline, who just looks blankly back at me, her reaction impossible to read. The Ice Prince turns to Marceline as well, but she keeps her eyes on me. "Selfish human beasts," he says to her. "They care only for themselves, never consider others, never consider the consequences of their actions. This one," he says in a rather controlled voice, almost hushed, unsheathing my wooden sword that he must have taken from me while I was unconscious, and pointing it in my direction, "this last remaining beast is the worst of them all. Perhaps now, he will realize why justice is no longer enough. From him," he says, glancing meaningfully at me, "I must have revenge." He turns back to Marceline, who closes her eyes and juts out her chin defiantly. The sharp angles of her face -her cheekbones, her eyebrows, her jaw- make her look regal and queen-like as a blast of cold wind blows back her hair. The image burns itself into my memory, my brain holding onto it, unwilling to let go as the Ice Prince plunges my sword into her heart and she's finally freed from the wall, her body slowly crumbling to dust and falling to the frozen floor.

Chapter 14

I've been afraid of the ocean for as long as I can remember. Jake would always tell me that it's full of life, weird plants and awesome critters, that it's amazing and beautiful. I could only ever see it as terrifyingly vast, an endless void waiting to swallow me alive and never let me go. My old fear seems so stupid now. So trivial. Compared to losing Marceline, the ocean seems like nothing at all. The ocean stays on my mind as I sink to my knees, no longer held immobile against the frozen bars of my prison cell. My vision is blurred and I'm having trouble breathing. My face feels wet. Am I drowning? Another dream. Please, let it be just another dream. I'm vaguely aware of surges of movement around the tower. Jake and the Ice King bursting into the room. A giant block of ice forming around the unsuspecting Ice Prince, a triumphantly vengeful sneer frozen on his face. Jake using a key-hand to unlock my cell, running over to me, shaking my shoulders. His voice, muffled in my ears, like I really am underwater. Finally, he shakes me so hard, I look up and meet his eyes. "It's my fault," I say, without realizing I'd been about to speak. "What's your fault, kid?" Jake asks, looking worried. "What happened?" I blink, and more water drips onto my face. Or, no. I guess they're tears. Weird. It doesn't feel like I'm crying. "He killed her to hurt me. Because of what I did." Jake shakes his head and lifts my shirt, using it to wipe my cheeks dry. "The princess is safe, dude," he tells me. "Lady and I busted the Ice King out of jail in the Crystal Dimension, just like you told us to, then Lady got Bubblegum out of the castle and took her to the Candy Kingdom." He keeps talking, but I just shake my head. "Marceline," I say, her name feeling sharp in my mouth. "He killed Marceline." I look past him to the pile of dust that used to be the girl I love. One red boot is lying on its side a few feet away. She must have kicked it off when she was pinned to the wall, struggling. I'm still focused on the boot when the Ice Prince explodes out of the block that was trapping him, sending shards of ice everywhere. Without knowing how, I'm on my feet again, hero instincts taking over my body, and I'm reaching for a sword that isn't there. My sword killed her. My fault my fault my fault. Luckily, he doesn't attack me first, but goes for the Ice King instead, whose presence I've barely noticed until now. They're flinging spells back and forth, and to my surprise, the Ice King is actually holding his own. The jovial fighting style he always used in the half-hearted battles against Jake and me is replaced by a determination fueled by rage. After all, he always sort of liked Jake and me. It seems clear he has no such affection for the man who banished him from Ooo. Speaking of rage, mine is becoming so white-hot, it's enough to melt the glacial layer of my despair. I charge the Ice Prince full-speed, sliding feet first on the icy floor when I get close to him. I grab at my sword, sheathed on his belt. It's halfway out when he grabs my wrist, freezing it to his hand. He's still distracted by the Ice

King's attacks though, and I'm quicker than the frost creeping up my arm. I let out a bellow that sounds like a war-cry, and rip my arm painfully upward, taking my sword with it. Jake rushes to my side and tries to land his fist on the prince's jaw, but he overshoots and ends up with a frozen arm as well. I growl, and swing my sword with as much force as I can muster, connecting where Jake missed. There's a hollow thud sound when I hit the Ice Prince, and he goes down, stunned. I silently curse at myself, knowing that if my sword were still made of steel, the blow would have been fatal. I bring down the sword again, but he rolls away and flicks his wrist in my direction, sending half a dozen razor-sharp icicles flying at my face. I dodge out of the way in time, but one manages to rip a gash in my cheek. Reflex brings my hand to my face, and my fingers come back slick with blood. In my moment of distraction, Ice Prince sends a spell pinning Jake and the Ice King to the wall, freezing their bodies in place. I raise my sword to come after him again, but he's too fast. In a blink, I'm up against the wall next to Jake, unable to move. "Foolish beast," the Ice Prince spits. "I'm tired of playing with you. This is done." I'm about to ask how exactly he plans on killing me without breaking his Royal Promise and facing the Guardians, when he reaches into his shirt and once again pulls out the medallion bearing the face of the Cosmic Owl. He holds out a hand toward the corner of the room, palm out, and the temperature of the room drops even further as a swirling arctic tornado forms in front of us. "Creatura sapientiae, vos ego appello," he chants, his silvery-clear eyes bright with excitement, and tosses the medallion into the flurry. I turn my head as much as the ice will allow to exchange a look of apprehension with Jake. "This can't be good," he mutters. I can see the medallion floating in the middle of the tornado, a ball of light forming around it. The light grows quickly, until it takes up the whole corner of the tower, and I'm forced to shut my eyes and look away, the light is so blinding. A moment later, the light is gone, as is the snow, and I have to blink a few times in disbelief at the enormous creature that's appeared before me. "Whoa," Jake says, which was pretty much all I could think of to say too. It's as tall as three of me, and nearly as wide. A faint glow surrounds it, as though it doesn't really belong here, like an image from a dream magically transported into reality. "The Cosmic Owl," I whisper. Jake's jaw is hanging open in awe. "No. Way." "Who summons me to this plane?" a high yet commanding voice inquires, and I realize, though its beak didn't move, the voice is coming from the Owl. The Ice Prince drops to one knee and bows his head to the creature. "Your servant, Wise One," he says in a formal tone. "I have served you faithfully since the end of the old world and the beginning of this one, and my mission to restore balance is about to be completed." The Owl tilts its head curiously at him. "Balance?"

"Yes," Ice Prince replies proudly. "I have exterminated the species who brought such destruction to the world. I have cleansed the world of the toxic plague of humans. All but this last," he says, gesturing grandly to me. The Owl just stares at me, my reflection looking beaten and bloody in its enormous, unblinking eyes. My eyes dart back to the Ice Prince, whose expression strikes me as sort of pathetic all of a sudden, like he's a child trying to show off his latest accomplishment to an uninterested parent. He clears his throat. "Certain... factors are preventing me from killing him myself, but I thought, perhaps that you-" "You know nothing of balance," the Owl's clear, high voice rings out. The Ice Prince looks up at the unearthly creature, stricken. It takes a moment for him to find his voice again. "But, my purpose-" "Your purpose does not serve this world," the bird proclaims calmly, in the same even tone. "You serve yourself and possess only vengeance. You have lived for too long. You forget yourself. You abuse the power I gave you. You have upset the balance." He shakes his head vigorously, his silvery eyes wide with panic. "No, I have done well by you," he argues desperately. "The humans-" "The humans have suffered enough. The boy will be allowed to live." Just as the Owl announces it, I feel the cold around me begin to evaporate, the ice shimmering with golden light, and suddenly, it's gone. Not melted, just gone. I move my arms around slightly, revived by the immediate warmth that courses through me. Looking to Jake, I can see that he and the Ice King have been freed as well, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The Ice Prince's voice calls out once more, and he sinks down on both knees. "Please, Wise One, I beg you to reconsider." His voice cracks toward the end, obviously aware of his failure. I look up to the Owl, about to thank it for my freedom, but its ethereal voice rings out again before I get the chance. "You are done with this world," it says to the Ice Prince. Before any of us can react, the giant bird opens its beak, wider than I would have thought possible, bends down and grabs the Ice Prince, and swallows him whole. My jaw drops practically to my chest. The Ice King and Jake both back up slightly against the wall, eyes wide. "That... was incredibly disturbing," Jake says, and the Ice King shudders. The Owl turns its attention to me, and even though it already said I'd be allowed to live, I can't help shrinking slightly, not wanting to be the second course. I sort of expect it to say something poignant, something profound. Instead, it just tells me, "I will return to my own realm now, human." Its wings start to shimmer with golden light, and I can tell that it's about to fade away, but suddenly, a thought pushes its way to the front my mind. When the time comes, will you choose me? A memory of a dream that might not have meant anything at all, but I have to try.

Before I can think better of it, I yell, "Wait!" The Owl, still shimmering, tilts its head in question. I stare at the enormous celestial creature, then glance over to the lonely red boot and the pile of dust across the room. The gash on my cheek is still bleeding, and I can feel the warmth of the blood slowly dripping down my neck. It's a horribly unpleasant sensation, but I try to focus, clearing my throat audibly. "You can bring her back," I say, trying to sound sure of myself. It's not a question. If I ask like it's a question, there's a chance the Owl could say no. After a long pause, the high voice finally speaks again. "It is within my power." I close my eyes, relief washing over me like rain. "Please," I say quietly. "Please bring her back. I need her alive. Please." My last word comes out as a whisper. "Your wish is not my concern," it responds simply. My shoulders slump and my chin drops to my chest, the disappointment weighing too heavily for me to hold my head up anymore. I'm not sure whether to cry or throw up. "Well, it should be!" Jake yells, breaking the silence. We all turn to him and his confidence falters for a moment, as he clearly feels uncomfortable in the Owl's presence, considering we just watched it eat a dude. "Yeah," he continues, not quite as loudly as before. "If you hadn't made the psycho Ice Prince so crazy-powerful, Finn wouldn't be the last one of his kind! If you ask me, you were the one who set things off balance in the first place!" He stands taller now, pointing accusingly at the Owl as his argument gains momentum. "You owe him. Seems like bringing back the kid's girlfriend is the least you can do to make it right." Jake lets out a breath and nods at me, a gesture that simultaneously means "Don't worry, big brother's got your back" and "If I get eaten right now, I regret nothing." My chest tightens a bit, and I manage a lopsided smile in response. The Owl's unsettling stare is fixed on me. "The girl. Alive," the Owl says, and I hold my breath, hoping. "Very well." Its wings begin to shimmer again, more brightly this time, like all the stars in the sky turned golden and gathered together in every feather of its wings. The dust pile begins to glow as well, brighter and brighter until my eyes burn and I can't watch anymore. I turn away, covering my eyes with my hand, a warm sensation enveloping me, despite standing in a room made of ice. When the light finally fades, I look back and the Cosmic Owl is gone. The pile of dust is gone as well, and in its place, the crumpled but familiar form of a girl, her face hidden by impossibly long black hair, a red boot on only one of her feet. Jake punches my shoulder and I glance at him and grin. For once, he doesn't say anything. I feel another punch on my other shoulder and I look over at the Ice King, who's smiling awkwardly at me, trying to join in on the moment. I let out a silent breath of a laugh, and Jake leads Ice King toward the door, out of the tower. Looking back at Marceline, I get the overwhelming feeling that everything is okay. I found out that I'm the last human alive, she died, I came closer to dying than I ever have, a higher being saved my butt and brought her back- and somehow it's all okay.

I kneel down next to her, gently turning her head and pushing the hair from her face. When I get a good look at her, my breath catches in my throat. I pull her into my lap, cradling her head in my hands and I run my thumb over her olive-toned cheek. The freckles on her nose are barely darker than her skin, but they're there all the same. After a moment, her eyes flutter open, and I draw in a short gasp. Brown. Golden brown eyes looking up at me curiously. "Finn?" she asks. "I feel... weird. What happened?" I let my breath out in relief. Her melodic voice still sounds like my Marceline, cynical and bemused, even when asking the simplest of questions. She may look different, but she's still her. "Well," I finally say, pausing when I realize I don't have a clue where to begin. "Well," I start again, "the bad guy's gone, I'm pretty sure you're human now, and uh, your shoe's over there." She sits up like a shot, her eyes wide and locked onto mine. "Human?" she whispers, her hand moving up slowly to her neck, feeling the unmarred skin where her scar used to be. "How?" I take my hat off and scratch the back of my head, not taking my eyes off of her. "That's probably my fault," I say slowly. "I think when I told the Cosmic Owl I wanted you back, I might have said 'alive' instead of 'undead'." I grin sheepishly at her. "Oops?" Marceline doesn't ask me to elaborate, just furrows her brows and chews her bottom lip with very straight, very un-pointy teeth. I try to be patient waiting for her response, but she just sits still for a long time in silence. Finally, she looks up at me again. "I don't know how to be human," she says quietly. No sarcasm, no insults. I think it's the most honest thing I've ever heard her say. I pull her closer to me and tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "That's okay," I tell her with a smile. "Neither do I. I never really have."

Epilogue

I didn't exactly make the decision to stop wearing my hat. I just left it hanging on the bedpost one morning when I went downstairs to make breakfast, and didn't go back to get it. Marceline noticed right away, smirking and ruffling my hair like she always does when she sees it, and I somehow forgot to feel self-conscious without it. It's sort of the same way that Marceline ended up moving to the tree fort. One day I mentioned that it was stupid for her to always be running back home for clothes, and soon after, her clothes were here. No discussion or planning or analysis of deeper meaning behind the action. One day, it just happened. And it felt right. Not everything came so easily. It took her a while to be okay with sunlight again. For days, she shied away from it like it could still kill her. Eventually though, her curiosity started getting the better of her. I'd catch her, curled up by the bedroom window before dawn, waiting for sunrise, or lazily strumming her bass under the umbrella in the observation boat, dangling her bare feet over the side to warm them in the afternoon heat. One morning, I noticed her wiggling her fingers in the rays shining through the dining room window while she sipped her coffee, stirring the little specs of dust around in the air. She'd rolled her eyes when she caught me smiling at her, but I couldn't help it, and I dragged her up to the roof and showed her how to bask properly. We still spend most mornings up here, watching the sun until green spots appear in our vision. I try and see it through her eyes, try and imagine what it would be like to go a thousand years without it. I don't think Marceline is the type of girl you can ever fully understand, if there even is such a thing, but I still like to give it a shot every chance I get. I plant a kiss on top of her head, and she groans. "This is disgusting," she announces. I raise my eyebrows in question and she says, "Coffee. It's foul." I just laugh. "You always drink coffee. You drank it before." "Yeah," she says, sneering down at her cup, "but I couldn't taste it back then. It's not red. I only drank it because it's warm and it smells good and reminds me of my mom," she explains. I sneak a glance at her, but she's just staring off at the sun again. "O.J.?" I ask, offering her my cup. She dumps the coffee off the side of the roof and finishes off my juice. "Better," she says. I stretch my legs out and lean back on my elbows, crunching the surface of the treetop, letting the soft leaves press indentations on my skin. "Marcie?" "Finnegan?" she taunts, her cool tone meant to remind me how much she hates the nickname. "Are you glad that you're alive?"

She tenses, sets her cup down carefully, and stares off in the direction of the Ice Kingdom, where the sunlight dances off the eastern sides of the towers. I ask her this question every so often, only at times when I think the answer really could be yes. "Jury's still out," she answers after a pause, and I try not to show my disappointment. It's the same response I get every time, and every time it stings. I almost wish she'd spare my feelings and lie. She tugs my hair and gives me a half-smile. "Don't look so down, sunshine. It's not you, okay?" I nod, but stay silent, fixing my gaze on the horizon. "Mortality's a lot to deal with," she continues, climbing onto my lap to face me. She pulls me up to a sitting position by my shirt and studies my face with her very human eyes, absently running her thumb over the newest and most obvious scar on my cheek, compliments of the Ice Prince. "I'm working on it." I nod again, managing a smile this time, although I'm sure it looks a bit forced. She leans in to give me a reassuring peck on the lips, but I hold her to me, suddenly wanting her close, one hand weaving its way through her hair, the other finding the small of her back. She makes a little noise in protest, but doesn't push me away. I still haven't gotten used to the way she feels in my arms now, pressed against me, warm and softer than before, the reassuring thud of her heartbeat in her chest and blood pumping through her veins. It still surprises me a little every time she gets flushed and breathless, but it's also strangely satisfying, finally seeing that I can actually have an effect on her, the way she's always been able to affect me. My hands find her hips and she grabs fistfuls of my shirt, and suddenly I've completely forgotten what was upsetting me. She bites my bottom lip gently, an act that would have left me bleeding before, but in the absence of fangs, it's just enough to make my blood run hot. I've forgotten about my bad mood, the fact that we're outside, what day it is; unfortunately, Marceline hasn't. "How much time do we have?" she breathes, her hands traveling downward and resting on my waistband. I grunt a non-committal response into her neck. She starts to say something else, but I move my mouth back to hers and she gives up on trying to finish the sentence. It's not until I lay her down, leaning over her and pushing the hem of her dress up the side of one leg, that she finds her voice again. "I'm all for ditching out on your dumb ceremony today," she says in a throaty whisper, "but if we're gonna do this, we should move to the bedroom. Ice King's probably watching us through his pervy telescope." My eyes widen and I draw back from her in an instant panic. "Oh glob, what time is it?" "Relax kiddo," she says. "I think we've still got some time." I let out my breath. "Oh," I say, relieved, then flash a mischievous grin. She raises an eyebrow and pushes me off of her. "Not that much time. I still have to change, and you should probably do something about that mop on your head."

We get to our feet and she picks the leaves out of her hair. "Huh? You already have clothes on," I point out. "Yeah, well," she mumbles, looking away from me. "I have a dress." She hurries down the ladder and inside through the living room window. When I squeeze my way through, she's on her knees in front of the sofa, pulling out a white box. "Bonnie sent this over a few days ago," she says, planting the box on the sofa and carefully lifting the lid. "Well, actually, she sent it to my old house. I guess no one told her about us shackin' up." I bite my lip, feeling guilty. "It's just that I've barely talked to her at all since-" "It's fine," she stops me. "Really, that's not... Anyway, I think it's her way of trying to be nice, saying 'no hard feelings'." Curious about the peace offering, I peer into the box. "Uh, what am I looking at?" I ask, poking a finger into the soft yellow pile inside. Marceline sighs heavily. "That is a dress." "You're joking." "If only." "But, it's so..." "Yeah. I know." Grabbing her by the shoulders, I turn her to face me. "Marceline, you don't have to wear that thing. Really. You don't have to dress up at all. It's not a big deal." "It is a big deal," she says, straightening my shirt. "And I know I don't have to, but I think I should. This is obviously important to Bonnie, and if she's trying to be friends, maybe I should give it a shot too." I blink a few times, shocked. "Seriously? You're gonna put on some foofy yellow thing and wear it in front of everybody, just to show Peebles you're down to be pals?" "Shut up, before I change my mind," she says, poking me hard in the chest. "I'm sorry," I say, smiling ruefully and scratching the back of my head. "It's just, that doesn't really seem like you." She shrugs. "Maybe not, but she got a pretty raw deal. I mean, I guess we all did, but at least you and I have each other. She sacrificed everything, and now she's alone." I sink down to the sofa and run my hands through my hair, staring at the ceiling. There's an old wad of gum stuck up there that I'll probably never bother to scrape off. I'm about to say something to Marceline, but when I look up, she's disappearing up the ladder to the bedroom. She always manages to make a convenient exit whenever one of us mentions the princess. Neither of us have brought it up, but the truth is that if it weren't for P.B.'s sacrifice- if she hadn't married the Ice Prince in exchange for my safetyMarceline and I wouldn't be together now.

The guilt I feel knowing that my happiness has been at her expense gnaws at the back of my mind sometimes, but I sort of figured Marceline wasn't bothered. Considering other people's feelings has never been at the top of her list of priorities. I caught her caring about me back when she was still a vampire, but it took a lot for her to realize it, and even more for her to admit it. Maybe now, she can't bury her emotions like she used to. Maybe she's feeling more human than she lets on. When she comes back downstairs, she's wearing the new yellow dress and a fierce scowl. "Don't you dare say anything," she warns. Against my will, I feel a huge grin spread across my face. On her, the dress isn't as foofy as I'd imagined. I thought it would be a Princess Bubblegum-esque gown, but it's not so bad. It's actually pretty plain, with little white buttons down the front, the skirt swinging around her knees when she moves. The only thing that's off is the color, which isn't even that offensive, it's just not her style. But she's got her favorite beat-up old gray boots on, so she still looks like herself, and there's no danger of her appearing too fancy. "It was even worse before I ripped all this junk off," she adds, dumping an armful of yellow ruffles and bows and fluffy see-through netting onto the sofa next to me. "Let's just go before I change my mind about being seen in this hideous thing." She offers me a hand and pulls me up, then fishes through the yellow pile, pulling out my hat. "You want to wear this?" "Nah, I don't need it," I tell her, wrapping my arms around her. "If you can dress like a human, so can I." She responds with a low growl. "I hate you."

Everyone in the Candy Kingdom is bustling around, preparing for the festivities. A few little gumdrop girls walk straight into my ankles, giggling uncontrollably once they look up and recognize me. Marceline rolls her eyes as they scurry off. "My little celebrity," she says, shaking her head and lacing her fingers through mine. Peppermint Butler stops us as soon as we're within sight of the castle, holding a clipboard and projecting an air of importance. "Ah, Master Finn, you've arrived. I've been instructed to lead you into the staging area. Your lady may join the other guests in the Grand Hall while she waits for the ceremony to begin." I glance at Marceline for approval. "Milady?" "Do your thing, Master Finn," she retorts, punching me in the arm. I can't help but notice as I watch her entering the castle that from a distance, she still moves like she's floating. Peppermint Butler leads me around the corner, out to the courtyard and behind the enormous stage that's reserved for the most important kingdom-wide events. I keep my eyes open for Princess Bubblegum, immediately nervous about seeing her again, but she doesn't seem to be around. Before I'm even aware that he's in front of me, Jake grabs me roughly, pulling me in for a rib-crushing hug. "Ah, Finn!" he cries. "I missed you, buddy! I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks!"

I struggle out of his hold, but rub his head affectionately. "Yeah, I know, pal. Marceline and I are still in kind of... an adjustment period," I explain. He nods. "Yeah, I'll bet. Must be pretty weird for her, no more vampire-kicks, no flying, no super-strength-" "Actually, she's still pretty flippin' strong, man," I say, rubbing the spot on my chest where she poked me earlier. "She's only half-human, remember? She doesn't have powers, but she's definitely got her dad in her." Jake chuckles. "Oh right. By the way, what does ol' Papa Evil have to say about the whole thing?" I scratch the back of my head. "Well, he doesn't exactly know, in the strictest sense of the word." "Uh-oh," Jake says knowingly. "Yeah. But that's her biz. I'm officially done getting in the middle of those two." He slaps me on the back. "That's probably for the best. I'm lucky my in-laws are cool, and usually stick to their own dimension." "Hey, my besties!" an irritatingly familiar voice calls out. Jake groans and leans in closer to me as we turn around. "Dude, he's been calling me every day since I broke him outta the slammer," he says under his breath. "He sends cards. Gift baskets. Invites me to parties with just the two of us. I'm tellin' ya, I was happier when he was our nemesis." "Try to be nice," I say in a hushed voice. "He helped us out when we needed him. Hey, Ice King," I call, waving at him. "Easy for you to say," Jake complains. "He's still too scared of your girlfriend to stalk you like he does me." I shrug. "Just one of the perks, man." "Guys!" Ice King gushes as he pushes his way through a group of candy people to reach us. "Isn't this great? They actually invited me to the Candy Kingdom today, and not to arrest me or anything!" "Yeah buddy," I laugh. "Pretty awesome." Three loud claps silence our chatter. "Everyone, we're about to begin!" Princess Bubblegum's voice rings out. When our eyes meet, I give her a little wave and an awkward smile. She smiles back sweetly. She's always been better than me when it comes to social interactions. I suppose it's all part of being born a royal. Ice King notices our exchange and pulls on my sleeve. "So, she's single now, right?" I narrow my eyes, doing my best imitation of Marceline's death-stare. "You do realize that your official pardon only includes past kidnappings, right?" He just laughs as though I told a joke, and Peppermint Butler shuffles us toward the stage.

The ceremony itself is a little surreal, pretty embarrassing, and majorly cheesy. Jake and I stand center stage, with Ice King off to one side while P.B.'s short, rather plump and pink-faced father, the Candy King, makes a big speech about what it means to be a hero. I'm oddly reminded of what Marceline told me right before Jake's wedding, when she told me I inspire people, make them want to be better. I smile in spite of myself, and try to pick her out in the crowd. Right away, I spot the black hair and the yellow dress behind all the candy citizens, and my smile widens, wishing I were back there with her watching, instead of up here as the center of attention. I've zoned out a bit, and when there's an uproar of applause from the crowd, I catch the tail end of the Candy King declaring it Hero Appreciation Day. I feel a slight blush rise in my cheeks, and silently hope no one notices. Princess Bubblegum comes forward, taking from her father three medals on wide pink ribbons. She plants a quick kiss on his cheek and over the noise of the crowd, I hear her say in a low voice, "Thanks for doing this Daddy." Of course, she's behind this whole event. A kingdom-wide celebration honoring me for my lifetime of heroism thus far? I should have known. She approaches the Ice King first. "Ice King, along with your official pardon, I hereby present you with this medal for your bravery aiding in my rescue. The Candy Kingdom thanks you." Ice King winks at me and wags his eyebrows as P.B. leans over him to place the medal around his neck. I curl my lip in disgust, and look the other way. "Jake," the princess continues in her very formal voice, stepping toward him. "This medal is to honor not only your bravery, but your unwavering loyalty. The Candy Ki-" she stops, shaking her head. "I thank you, my friend." Her eyes dart to me as she slips the medal over Jake's head, then back to him as he pulls her in for a hug. She laughs, and Jake makes a champion gesture, clasping his hands together and shaking them together on either side of his head. I punch him in the shoulder, but drop my grin when Princess Bubblegum moves in front of me. "Finn," she says softly, then catches herself and raises her voice again. "Finn the Human, you are truly the greatest hero that Ooo has ever known." My cheeks are burning, and I look to my feet, noticing the beginning of a hole forming in my shoe over my big toe. The thought runs through my head, not for the first time, that it's ridiculous to give me credit for rescuing her from the Ice Prince. After all, he was ended by the Cosmic Owl, and his own hubris, not by my hands. P.B. wouldn't have even needed rescuing if she hadn't been trying to protect me in the first place. I'd brought up these facts to her when she first told me about her plans for today, but she had insisted. She'd said that in the end, the specifics didn't matter. She just needed to find a way to move past everything, and to turn the experience into something positive. "Besides," she'd said, "you do deserve recognition. It's long overdue." "On behalf of the entire Candy Kingdom, thank you for everything you've done for us," she says, placing the medal around my neck. I nod, meeting her eyes and keeping my face serious. All I can think is how I'm glad this is almost over, but the princess continues. "We are so lucky to have had a champion of your caliber at our disposal for so long. Today, we wish not only to celebrate you, but to ask for your service in a more official manner, as Knight of the Candy Kingdom."

My lips part in surprise, and she gives me a little smile. I move my eyes from hers to the crowd, and I find Marceline. From so far away, I can't quite tell what her reaction is, but it looks like she's smiling. I take a deep breath and let it out, looking back to the princess's expectant face, and clear my throat loudly. "Uh, I am very honored," I begin, speaking loudly and clearly, trying to sound as proper as she does, "that you consider me to be worthy of such a title. However I, um, must respectfully decline." Princess Bubblegum's hopeful smile falls into a look of disappointment. "Princess," I say to her, then turn toward the crowd, all of whom seem to be hanging on my every word. "Everyone, it's not that I don't want to serve the Candy Kingdom. I do. But, I believe that to be a true hero, I can't pledge myself only to y'all." I ruffle the back of my hair nervously, reverting to my more natural diction. "I serve and protect all the kingdoms in Ooo, and everywhere in between. Anywhere I'm needed. I can't just be a knight here, but I do promise that I'll always be here for you-" I turn back to P.B. and give her my best reassuring smile, "-all of you- when you need me." I give a little nod, and P.B. nods back, and I hope that she understands. She turns to her father, who leads everyone in another round of applause, and finally, I leave the stage, letting out a breath in relief. I lean against a bright pink and white striped pillar and receive several pats on the back from the royal staff, and even a "Well done, m'boy!" from the Candy King as he waddles by me. "I'm sorry I sprung that on you Finn," the princess says to me as everyone's rushing away, heading into the Grand Hall of the castle for the after-party. "I wanted to surprise you, but I suppose I should have realized that you wouldn't want to commit yourself so heavily here anymore." "Don't be sorry Peebs," I say, almost reaching out to touch her shoulder, but thinking better of it at the last moment. "I wasn't just pretending to be honored that you asked. I really am. And maybe if you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I might've said yes. But, honestly, I don't need a title, or a day in my honor, or a medal. The only thing I really want is to know that everyone came out okay after everything we went through. You... you are okay?" She smiles at me so warmly, I can actually sort of understand how she melted the heart of the despicable Ice Prince. "I'll be all right," she assures me. "I did get my father back, after all, and I'm thankful for that." She pauses and looks at me for what feels like a long time. "Even if I did lose you," she adds. I close my eyes for just a moment, her words weighing heavily in my chest. She puts a smooth hand to the side of my face, and I take in the sugary-sweet smell of her. "Although, maybe I never really had you to begin with," she muses. I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "You belong to all of Ooo, like you said. And you're happy, and that's the only thing I really wanted." She sighs, and takes a step back from me. "I'll see you inside for the party?" I nod, but stop her as she's about to walk away. "Princess?" "Yes Finn?" she asks, turning back. "You did. Have me."

Her lips form an incredibly sad smile, aging her beyond her years, and she nods with closed eyes before leaving. Everyone else has already gone inside, but I stroll in the opposite direction, back out to the courtyard to collect my thoughts before joining the party. I sit on the ground against a taffy tree and look out to the stage where I'd been standing just a few minutes ago, now empty except for the one person I want to see right now. My heart beats a little faster just at the sight of her in that stupid dress, sitting on the edge of the stage with her legs dangling down and staring up at the afternoon sky, letting the sunlight warm her face. "Hey," I call out, and she looks at me with half a smile. "Hey stranger," she says, hopping down from the stage and strolling over.. When she reaches me, I stand up and kiss her cheek lightly. "I think I dreamed this." "Oh really?" she asks in a vaguely patronizing tone. "Yeah. Except you were nicer." "Hmm," she says, narrowing her eyes. "What else happened?" "I'm not sure. I can't remember." "So, anyway, that was a surprise, up there." I shake my head. "Yeah, I can't believe she asked me to be a knight, in front of everyone, with no warning or anything." "No, I meant I was surprised that you said no," she corrects me. I frown, slightly taken aback. "Really? Why?" She shrugs. "It just seems like something you would want. To be a knight. To be her knight." "Marceline," I say, taking her hand. "You don't really think that, after everything, I'd still want to be with her, do you?" "You mean after you were so completely destroyed by my death that you strongarmed a deity into bringing me back to life?" Her tone is sarcastic, but she knows her words are the truth. I shove my hands into my pockets awkwardly. "That's not exactly how it happened." "Well, that's how Jake tells it. So, no, kiddo," she says slipping her arms around my waist and looking up at me, "I don't think you still want your princess. Not after everything. But I do know how important this sugary little kingdom is to you. It just surprised me to hear you turn her down, that's all." "Yeah, well, I have other priorities these days," I say, hugging her close. Our height difference is all the more obvious now that she's always on the ground, but I restrain myself from teasing her about it, and she stretches up to kiss me. "So, wanna head in for the shindig?" she asks, breaking away. I lean down and kiss her again, slowly this time, the kind of kiss I wouldn't usually give her in the middle of the Candy Kingdom, where anyone could see us.

"I really, really don't," I tell her quietly. She raises an eyebrow. "You sure about that? You're the guest of honor, hero." "I don't want a party," I say, gently pushing her back up against the taffy tree. "I just want to go home, with you." She looks over my shoulder at the castle, then behind us in the direction of the Grass Lands. "I do want to get out of this awful dress," she concedes, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I wholeheartedly agree," I tell her in a serious voice before breaking out into my best evil grin. It's all the convincing she needs. She takes my hand and says in a low voice, "Let's go home."

After, we lay awhile in comfortable silence, my head propped up on one hand while I draw invisible pictures on her stomach with my finger. "That tickles," she hums with closed eyes, and swats my hand away. Her protest only encourages me though, and I bring my hand back, lightly tracing a large letter "F" in the middle of her torso, claiming her the same way she claims everything she thinks ought to belong to her. I chuckle softly to myself, wondering if I have an "M" somewhere on my body in a place I can't see, drawn while I was sleeping. "What's funny?" she asks, not opening her eyes. "Nothing," I whisper. I roll back on top of her and rest my chin on her chest, wanting so badly to ask her the question again, even though I already asked her today. I should know by now not to push things with her. No, I won't ask. I won't ask her if she's happy to be alive, because if she says no right now, it would probably crush me. Finally, she looks at me and brushes the hair away from my eyes. "What is it, sunshine?" she asks. I take a deep breath. "You could change back," I blurt, regretting it the moment the words leave my mouth. No taking them back now though. "Become a vampire again. If you're not happy." She frowns, furrowing her brows, her nose wrinkling slightly right where her freckles are. "That isn't what you want." "Since when have you decided anything based on what anyone else wants?" I expect her to laugh, but she doesn't. She just works her fingers through my hair and gazes at the ceiling, looking like she's deep in thought. "Jake thinks you probably could have asked for anything. When you asked the Owl to bring me back." "I didn't want anything else," I say with a shrug. "Just you." She smiles at me like I've said something funny. "He also thinks that you asked for me alive on purpose."

I shake my head, wondering when she and Jake have had all these heart-to-heart conversations about me. "That's not true." "That's what I said. I told him you weren't exactly blessed with the gift of forethought," she laughs. "But that doesn't mean you're not happy about the way it turned out." The way she says it irks me for some reason. "Of course I'm happy," I say a bit too defensively. "You get another chance to be human, and you're not alone this time." I push a lock of hair off of her shoulder with my nose. "And I get to have you, for real this time, not just for a tiny, insignificant portion of your endless un-life." She just stares at me for a long moment, her brown eyes unreadable. "If... that's what you want," I add sheepishly. "So, you really haven't thought of changing back?" She sighs, her hands still tangled in my hair. "Kid, the thought hasn't left my mind since it happened." I turn my head to the side, my ear to her chest, listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, wishing I hadn't opened my dumb mouth, pretending her words don't cut through me like a dull knife. The regularity of the sound is so comforting, it pains me to imagine having to give it up now. "My dad'll insist on it," she continues matter-of-factly, "when I finally decide to talk to him and tell him what happened. My royal advisers will too, and all my subjects, of course. My kingdom in the Underworld's not run quite as strictly as the ones up here are, but you can bet no one will be happy to hear that the Vampire Queen isn't exactly a vampire anymore." I close my eyes and focus on the ba-bum, ba-bum trying to memorize the perfection of the sound as it echoes in my ear. "This whole human deal- growing up, getting old, dying- it was never part of my plan," she says with a humorless laugh. "My plan was to live forever as one of the most powerful creatures of all time, Queen of the Undead, worthy of calling myself the daughter of the Lord of Evil." "Right," I say, keeping my voice low and even, despite how angry and insignificant she can make me feel with just a few simple words, no malice behind them at all, just honesty. I push myself off of her and sit up, swinging my legs off the bed, and planting my feet on the floor. I purse my lips, my hands making themselves into fists at my sides. "Finn." She presses against me from behind, wrapping her arms around me. "What," I say flatly. It's not a question. I really don't want to hear any more about how I've interrupted the life she had outlined. "Something you and I have in common?" she says. "We're both pretty sucky at sticking to plans." I stop pouting long enough to turn and look at her, and she plants her chin on my shoulder, an impish smile on her lips. I raise an eyebrow warily. "So?" I ask, letting the question of our future hang in the air. "So," she says, rolling her eyes, "I can't promise I won't miss things about being the way I was, or that I'll be happy all the time, or that I'll act the way a regular girl would." She sneaks her way underneath my arm and sits on my lap to face me,

wrapping her legs around my waist. Wearing a serious look, she smooths the top of my hair down in a way that I suspect is actually more comforting to her than it is to me. "And I don't know how I'll deal with getting older. I can't promise that I'll want to stay this way forever. But for now, I know that I want to try and do this human thing. With you." My hurt feelings instantly forgotten, I bite my lip and try not to let my idiotic grin spread too widely across my face. "Don't look at me like that," she says darkly. "Like what?" I ask innocently. "Like a stray puppy I finally let inside after it's been scratching at my door all night." I pull her in closer and rest my forehead against hers. "I love you," I tell her. As if on cue, she rolls her eyes and gets up from the bed, detaching herself from me. "Yeah dummy, I know," she says, retrieving a pair of ripped jeans from the dresser that used to be Jake's bed, leaving the prissy yellow dress on the floor. "It's still early and I'm hungry," she announces as she gets dressed. "Make me some spaghetti." I laugh and slide my own clothes back on. "Ya know, one of these days, you're going to have to learn how to cook something besides tomato sandwiches." "Ugh, no, that sounds awful," she says dismissively. "You cook, I'll sit on the counter and watch, making condescending comments as I see fit." I throw a sock at her. Immediately, she retaliates by launching a boot at me, hitting me square in the chest. It knocks the wind out of me, and I double over, surprised by how hard she can still throw. A devilish laugh escapes her, but she quickly covers her mouth and tries to look remorseful. "You okay?" she asks, stifling more laughter. "Whatever," I cough. I follow her downstairs, where she plants herself on the kitchen counter, just like she promised. "Hey Finn?" she asks as I'm stirring the dry noodles into the boiling water. "Yep?" "Do you still want to go to the Southern Islands?" she asks, picking up a clove of garlic from the cutting board and smelling it cautiously. "Like we talked about awhile back?" I smile, remembering the conversation that seems like ages ago now. "Yeah," I tell her, adding some salt to the sauce. "I do." "When?" she asks, handing me the pepper shaker. "Whenever you want," I say, sounding a little more cheesy and romantic than I'd intended to.

She hops down from the counter. "How about now?" she asks, and I have to look at her a minute to be able to tell that she's serious. "I'll pack a few things while you cook, then we'll leave after we eat." "Huh?" I ask incredulously. "It's almost nighttime, we'll have to pack a tent and enough food for the trip, and we don't have a way to cross the Squid Ink Sea once we get there, and-" Marceline pokes me in the chest and gives me a challenging look. "Come on kid, where's your sense of adventure?" Maybe it's the way she's looking at me, those golden-brown eyes full of mischief, or the fact that the mysteries of my past are finally solved and I feel more at ease with myself than I have in such a long time, but I realize that she's right. We don't need a plan. Unknown lands in the distance and Marceline by my side- it's enough. It's all I need. "You're right," I tell her. "Let's do it." -The End-