Chapter Text
350 years ago…
It was mid-day when Marceline woke up, half a snore still in her chest. There was something in the air that was making her tremble and ache. Her joints were throbbing and she instinctively wanted to let her wings explode out of her back and fly away. Her skin felt too tight and her stomach bubbled like lava. Marcy imagined this is what a worm felt like when someone overturned a rock on a sunny day.
She rolled over and pulled one of her furs closer and tried to go back to sleep by burying her face in the pillow. She hated waking up to a panic attack, especially when she couldn't remember what kind of dream had caused it. She was shaking with that sweaty kind of chill one gets when they were too sick.
Her body felt like it was thrumming like an engine. Frustrated, she wiped the sweat off her brow and threw the blankets off. Nothing to do but take a shower about it.
She grabbed last night's beer off the bedside table and drained it before floating to the bathroom. While she waited for the water to heat up, she prepared her hair while staring at herself in the mirror and groaned at her own exhausted face. The bags under her eyes were deep enough for a tropical vacation. If only.
She and Bonnie had been up all night arguing on the phone. For her part, Marcy hadn't slept in three or four days and that was a lot for her, so she'd been cranky even before the yelling had started, so she started drinking to deal with all the frustration. That hadn't helped how mad Bonnibel was with her, unsurprisingly. There weren't really a whole lot of things that made Bonnie happy anyway, so getting her bad side was a constant. Might as well drink. There were a few bumps of something much stronger, hidden in one of the hollow knots of the tree downstairs that were sounding amazing right now, but she didn't want to deal with Bonnibel finding out about that. Better to keep that kind of partying for the tours. But she knew if she needed something even stronger, she could get a magical fix from Ash.
What she really hated was how calm and pleasant Bonnibel was in front of all the people she wanted to impress - all the kingdoms that came and went around her over the centuries - but as soon as they were alone she started unloading all her stress on Marceline. It wasn't like Marcy's job was easy either. Being a rockstar was insane - appearances, deadlines, promotions, traveling. The last thing she wanted on her at-home time was to be holding onto an active hand grenade, but that's what she had to do literally every time she tried to talk to her mate.
She'd gotten to sleep about three hours after sunrise when Bonnie had angrily hung up the phone because she needed to get ready for work, and that was only after Marcy had drained all the beer in the treehouse. She'd even started in on Bongo's stash, and now he was mad at her too. Mostly cause she'd then thrown up in his bed because ghosts and vampires don't mix well and it was definitely a bad choice on her part to drink ghost beer.
Lord, this headache wasn't going away! She stepped under the spray of the now steaming water and groaned again. God in hell, what a hangover. She didn't think she'd gone quite so hard. Maybe she was just having a bad reaction to the ghost beer. Marcy usually knew better than to drink straight up poison like that, but she'd been pretty desperate for the blackout.
There was a weird smell in the air, something that made her nose burn and filled her guts with nausea. It made her feel twitchy. It reminded her of nuclear waste. Her body felt claustrophobic and tight.
Nervous, she shut off the water. There was something super wrong here. She zipped back to her bedroom and started digging through the wardrobe for daytime clothes. She wasn't sure where she was about to go, but she needed to get in the air and do a visual sweep of the area.
Fully covered with a hoodie and a welding mask, she shot a few miles above Ooo, and scanned the area for the thing that was making her skin crawl. There was a dark cloud shambling towards Ooo over the horizon and her body felt too light all of a sudden.
In her memories she heard the warble, fade, and crackle of a dying radio signal. “There's something out there……… to any survivors out there, if you see the sun darken… run. Don't hide. Just run.”
There was a creature that she'd read about in her spellbook. A primordial evil that destroyed worlds. Marceline could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.
She'd never seen the Lich before, but she'd seen the way he'd carved trails of destruction across the world. She'd survived in the fallout. While she'd been busy growing up, learning to fight vampires and demons and oozers, she'd heard of the monster that came from the bomb on the lips of other survivors. She knew that there was a creature so evil out there that it would kill every single living thing that it walked past.
Marcy had only ever been able to hope that she never ran into it herself. There was less than twenty years between the bomb dropping and the nuclear ice age that came afterwards, and in that time the monster had managed to raze most of the planet. There were only pockets of humans left across the world, most of everything else was mutants caused by the magical radiation left behind by the Lich.
When the brief freeze came, Marceline had gone into hibernation. When she was awoken a century later by her tomb being opened, the Lich was little more than a whisper of memory.
She'd thought that was that. She should have paid attention to the Enchiridion. It had an entry on the Lich King and even said it was an unstoppable force.
Marceline stared at the cloud. It was him. She knew it in her bones. It was heading this way.
Fuck. She needed to hide the spellbook. First she needed to get to Bonnie and give her the lowdown.
Unfortunately Bonnibel would probably ignore her call, considering how much yelling had been done last night. She'd have to go in person.
The princess was in the middle of her lunch break with Lady Rainicorn when Marceline came through the window. Bonnibel stiffened in her seat, less than pleased to see her other half. She scowled at the vampire for the interruption.
Lady politely sipped her tea and watched silently. She and Bonnibel had been friends for a few years now, since Lady had come through a portal from her home dimension and moved into a derelict barn on the edge of the Candy Kingdom. They had a weekly lunch thing.
“Your majesty,” Marceline lightly bowed and tried not to sound too sardonic when she greeted her lover, but the long fight was still wearing on her as well. “We have an emergency.”
“It can wait,” Bonnibel replied tightly.
“No it can't,” Marcy snapped, bristling at the princess's tone. Lady shifted from hoof to hoof, eyes shifting from one woman to the other and waiting to intervene if necessary.
“Whatever constitutes an emergency in your world does not constitute one in mine,” the princess said, tolerantly setting down her teacup and turning a full glare onto the vampire. “I'll get to you when I have the time, liebling.”
Marceline really, really hated hearing terms of affection being used like bullets this way. She set her teeth and growled softly. She lunged at her mate and shot back out the window while the gum struggled in her arms.
“Put me down!” Bonnibel shouted, punching Marceline's shoulders and thrashing. The vampire tightened her grip.
“You really want to be dropped from a mile up?” Marceline snarled, flying higher. The rainicorn was following after them, slowly. Lady could fly at the exact speed of light, much faster than Marcy who could only break the sound barrier when she was at full strength. That she was letting them be ahead of her seemed a little odd but Marcy was thankful. Perhaps the rainicorn could also sense the evil in the air.
“I…” Bonnibel started arguing with her more, but her voice trailed off when she saw the dark cloud and the path of destruction it was carving behind it. It was heading towards them. “What is that?”
“The Lich,” Marceline said quietly. Even Bonnibel had heard of the monster that gouged the life out of the earth after the mushroom war. She'd left Mother Gum just over a century after the ice had come. The world had still been melting when Neddy had found his tree, and in her years as a scavenger she'd heard plenty of stories of the creature from the children’s children of the original survivors.
But at this point it had been well over six-hundred years since the war, and the Lord of the Undead was a whisper of a myth now. “Where did he come from?”
“Guess some poor bastard found the place he was lying dormant,” Marceline responded. “We need to leave, Bonnie.”
“What?!” Bonnibel's head jerked in her direction, that bubbling rage in her eyes. “What about my kingdom?”
“Your kingdom is about to be destroyed,” Marceline snapped.
“No!” The princess shouted. “We'll stop him. Give me to Lady!”
The vampire didn't want to yell about this. She set her mate on the rainicorn’s back without argument. “Do what you want,” Marcy gnashed her teeth. “I've got to go get the Enchiridion before the thing gets to Ooo.”
Bonnie stared, uncomprehending, and said, “Your book? Why?”
“He can't get his hands on it,” Marceline said. “The book has warnings in it about him specifically, and he cannot be allowed to have access to that kind of magical power.”
“But the kingdom…! We've got to stop him!”
“You don't stop him, you just contain him,” Marceline groaned. She couldn't tolerate the idea of her mate going into combat with anything, let alone an evil more powerful than Hunson. She was going to have to put herself in the fray of a very dangerous battle, wasn't she? “I'll be back as soon as I can. I'm going to take the book to Mannish Man and the Key-per.”
“Seriously?” Bonnibel shook her head. “I can't even rely on you when I need you this much?”
Marceline flinched.
“Fine. Whatever. Go hide your stupid book. Lady, we've got to go find Billy. We'll need his help.”
They left.
Wracked with guilt, Marceline returned to the treehouse.
Bonnibel spotted the dust clouds of Billy's motorcycle in the distance and she pointed Lady in that direction. They flew overhead and Bonnie called down to the speeding hero.
“Princess!” Billy greeted in his lisping cheer. Canyon nodded from her seat behind him, equally cheerful. “We were just heading in your direction to warn you of the evil approaching us from the east!”
“We saw him,” the princess responded. “Now we've got to stop him.”
“Contain,” Canyon corrected.
“You don't stop an evil like the Lich,” Billy expanded, gunning the throttle of his motorcycle and speeding faster. They were still heading towards the Candy Kingdom. “You just hold him in place until the next time he breaks free.”
Marceline had said something similar. Bonnibel didn't think it was as hard as they were making it out to be. Even if the beast was deathless, he could be stopped. Even Hunson Abadeer could be held in chains.
“What makes you think that?” She wondered.
“I'm a hero,” Billy replied with a grin and a wink. “I know a thing or two about monsters.”
They made it to the baked pretzel gates of the kingdom, where the two giants dismounted their motorcycle. Billy adjusted his gauntlet and turned to the princess, his usual carefree grin in place.
“Then tell me what you know of the Lich King,” the princess said. “I want to know everything.”
“He's got a source of power here in Ooo,” Canyon told her. “I found it once while looking for clean water.”
Bonnie jumped off Lady's back and approached the huge naiad. “How do you know it belongs to him?”
She shuddered. “That kind of evil energy is unmistakable. Plus it's all nuclear waste, and that's like the Lich's whole thing. It's in a human ruin, just ten or so miles northeast of the Ice Kingdom.”
The banana guards opened the gates for them as they approached, and they headed for the castle to discuss the matter and so Bonnibel could access her small armory.
“I would think that he's coming to Ooo to access his full power. He must be extremely weak after being dormant for all these centuries,” Billy said. “Therefore we need to make a decision on how to deal with him as soon as possible.”
“Judging by his trajectory, I think we may have just under an hour before he reaches us,” Bonnibel supplied. “Do you think that's enough time for Peppermint to get a spell together?”
“Certainly not,” Billy said. “But have him start one anyway. We'll need as many barriers as we can get.”
They entered the armory and Bonnie headed over to her favorite shotgun to prepare it. She also tucked a laser pistol and a silver-plated blade into her belt. Silver was a holy metal, it should be useful for protection against the evil thing.
“Princess, I do have an idea on how to contain him,” Billy informed her, picking up a sword from the wall. He examined it critically and put it back.
“Go on.”
He hesitated. “I've used the resin of your tree in traps in the past. I think given the elemental properties of the tree it may be a good base for a prison.”
“Absolutely not!” Bonnibel said immediately, bringing her fist down on the table. “If he's as evil as everyone says, I cannot have that kind of thing poisoning my… kingdom.”
In truth she could only think of Neddy, curled up in the roots, as fast asleep as he always was. Right now only two people knew of his existence and she preferred to keep it that way. Strangers often reacted explosively when seeing a dragon in any context. Protecting Neddy was priority number one, and she couldn't ask him to leave his tree behind. He wouldn't leave anyway. Not to mention, the tree wouldn't be magical if he wasn't attached to it. Disconnect the dragon and the resin wouldn't be able to hold a beetle at bay.
“It may be the only option,” Canyon replied. She was testing a sling on the other side of the room, carefully weighing metal shot in the pouch, releasing the energy of pre-combat jitters. “We don't have a lot of time to make this decision.”
“You do understand what's at stake here, right?” Billy looked up from another sword, a deathly serious look on his face.
“(The destruction of all life in this dimension),” Lady said. “(Even my people have heard of this creature.)”
For a beat it was silent as the princess took in the declaration, then an alarm started going off somewhere down the hall. Peppermint burst into the room a moment later. “Your highness!”
“We know, Pep,” she told him, not looking away from the two heroes.
“Thirty minutes until the creature reaches Ooo’s borders,” Peppermint announced, looking intently at a phone-sized device in his hands.
“Make a choice, princess.”
There really wasn't a better one, was there? In the back of her mind, she felt Neddy huff in his sleep.
The group hurried through the hallway. “Lady, you’ll be taking Billy to the Lich. The two of you will fight him in this direction. Keep him from that well. We'll do the rest.”
Billy and Lady shot out of the window, and a moment later there was a massive boom as Lady broke the sound barrier.
“Canyon, I want you to use your elemental powers to manipulate the canopy of the tree into a cage. Get the resin flowing.
“Peppermint, I need you to find the most powerful barrier spell you can. Doesn't matter what it takes to get it going, take what you need from the storage room.”
“What about you?”
“I'm going to the lab to get my force field generators.” I'm sorry, Neddy, she thought at the sleeping dragon below. He didn't get a choice in this, but what could she do? When the Lich reached his well, it was over. Protecting her kingdom meant making it into a fortress against the ultimate evil. Keeping her brother safe meant using him as a guard dog.
Maybe Marceline could have come up with a better answer. She shook her head. No, it was a good thing that the vampire had left. In fact, she was glad Marcy was gone. She didn't need the distraction, and things would go more smoothly without an undead to worry about.
“Damn you, Marceline,” she muttered to herself, rushing through the halls. No matter what though, she just wished that her lover was there for support. But that stupid book was more important than the entire kingdom that they'd built together!
And so she had to make an absolutely impossible decision without the time to consider her options.
Marceline flew as quickly as she could towards Mannish Man’s mountain stronghold, Mt. Cragdor. Bonnie didn't understand how important it was that the book be hidden from the Lich. He couldn't be allowed the opportunity to reach other worlds or dimensions. He'd destroy absolutely everything. The book said so itself.
Hiding it inside the labyrinth was the best choice, she thought. It wouldn't stop the beast, ultimately, but by the time he got to the book Marcy will have taken Bonnie far away from this place. Maybe they'd get Lady to take them to the rainicorn dimension and they'd travel from there.
Maybe they'd even have enough time to get the band gathered up and they'd go on their first interdimensional tour!
She landed outside the door to the mountain stronghold where the Key-per stood a constant watch. He jolted when she appeared in front of the massive doors. He was a strapping young lad, and an eager guardian of the labyrinth.
“I need to see Mannish,” she said to him firmly.
“I'll send for him at once. Wait here.”
She looked over her shoulder. She could still see the green-tinted black cloud over the horizon. She shuddered. Perhaps it was a good thing that she wasn't near the thing. Her stomach hurt at the idea of Bonnie standing her ground against the Lich and hated herself for having to do this.
Even at a state of near deterioration the Lich was a deadly foe. As a rainicorn, Lady was naturally immune to forces of darkness and was able to get close enough to gore him with her horn.
The creature wailed as she unleashed a massive prismatic beam while her horn was lodged inside of his abdomen. He grasped her with his skeletonized hands and threw her away from his ragged form. She hit the ground with a thud, but was up and galloping through the air an instant later, circling the creature.
Billy was no slouch and he was able to grapple the beast with his gauntlet. The gauntlet had a particularly powerful gemstone embedded in it, and the weapon was partially sentient, so as he wrapped it around the monster's neck, the gauntlet let out an explosive beam of pure hero energy, in perfect tandem with its master. Billy wore a matching power gem, embedded into the place where a nose could have been on his face.
The Lich was launched through the air, towards the Candy Kingdom. The small, walled town was filled with the sounds of warning sirens and the citizens were being led into the underground tunnels by hurrying bananas. The Gumball Guardians were standing at the ready, stanced like linebackers before the whistle blew. Bonnibel stood on the left one’s head, shotgun in hand. Her forcefield generators were powered and ready to go inside of the hastily constructed canopy chamber.
Canyon was standing on top of the root beer tree, using her magic to hold a cage of resin and branches at the ready. She was a water elemental, so her powers worked best on that, but she could manipulate most liquids with some simple concentration, including the water inside of plants.
From somewhere down below, a magical charge was beginning to fill the air as Peppermint prepared the biggest spell of his life. It was going to involve a few sacrifices, but it was always nice to see Death when such things happened. Death couldn't interfere directly, but he was happy to give Pep a nod as he collected the souls of the mint’s sacrifices and vanished again.
It was going very smoothly. It was like artwork when a plan came together like this. Bonnie still felt like she couldn't breathe. She kept scanning the sky around her, searching for her vampire. She said she'd be right back. The longer her lover was away, the more her despair grew.
Yet it was poetry how everything moved like a well-oiled machine. Every part played like choreography on a stage. Lady blasted the beast through the air with a huge prismatic explosion, and Billy punched the Lich towards the tree like he was at bat. Canyon caught him in the cage of branches like a fly ball in a mitt while the Lich shrieked in indignation as all their force came together to hold him back from his purpose.
Billy fell on the creature from above and started punching him into the branches, hammering down on him with massive fists that cracked the canopy beneath him with the force of his power. Resin bubbled out of the wounded branches, coating the wailing form of the most ancient evil.
Waving bursts of explosive, shadowy tentacles lashed against Billy's unyielding body as the weakened Lich King tried desperately to escape the judgement of the hero. Billy paid no mind to the wounds that opened across his body, the bones that shattered under the weight of the evil, nor the blood that coated his skin. He roared with his righteous rage and rained his fists like meteors.
Together, with Billy’s fists and Canyon manipulating the flow of the resin and hardening it into unbreakable amber, they contained the world ender.
When at last the Lich fell silent, Bonnibel felt a bolt of pain through her head that went silent immediately. She thought nothing of it. Stress, perhaps.
The tree was manipulated back into shape. Bonnie raised her forcefields and watched Peppermint continue his barrier spell at the base of the canopy. With the kind of magic he was working with, he might be at this all day and it was important that someone be there as support now that he was in the thick of the casting. Canyon couldn't help with the spell aspect, unfortunately; she was a talented mage, but could only do the water magic. Instead she went looking for Billy.
Billy lay bloody and hyperventilating on the fluffy grass outside the castle walls. Canyon found a health potion in her bag and carefully poured it into his lips, taking his head into her lap. His bones slowly mended and his breath steadied.
“That was intense,” he said painfully. She helped him sit and let him sip the health potion slowly.
There was shouting from in the air. Bonnibel looked up. Marceline was back, and Lady was giving her a piece of her mind. “(...missed the whole thing! What if something had gone wrong?!)”
“Get off my dick, goddammit,” Marceline snapped back at the rainicorn. She floated down to where Bonnie was watching over Peppermint. Lady stayed in the air, watching the perimeter in lazy pattern eights. “So it sounds like everything went well.”
“No thanks to you,” the princess replied, stepping back from the vampire.
Marceline sighed and watched the motion unhappily. She crossed her arms and leaned against the trunk of the tree. “At least the Enchiridion is in safe hands.”
“I'm glad your book is undamaged,” Bonnibel turned her nose up.
“You can't seriously believe I ran off to do something unimportant?” The vampire growled, rolling her eyes.
“You didn't even believe we could stop him! But we did! Now he's in containment in the tree and-”
“The tree?!” Marceline jerked away from the trunk and shot into the air. “He's in the tree?”
“Yes. Canyon and Billy encased him in the resin. He's dormant now, and we're putting up multiple kinds of barriers to keep him that way. Stopped him. Saved the kingdom. Without you.”
Marceline gaped at the canopy cage overhead and gave Bonnibel a look of pure incomprehension. She started floating back and forth, her version of pacing. She looked ill. “Anywhere else…! What were you thinking?”
“I didn't have the luxury of taking the opportunity to think. I had to save my kingdom.”
They glared at each other. Billy and Canyon were approaching from below, his arm slung over her shoulder as she half-carried him over. He was still badly wounded, but he was upright.
“I can't believe you'd be so stupid!”
Bonnie slapped Marceline with a resounding crack.
“Hey, hey, whoa!” Billy pushed off of Canyon and shoved his way between them. “What is wrong with you?” He snapped at the princess. “You can't hit your partner!”
Canyon took up post watching over Peppermint’s circle as he continued to raise the massive barrier, but she maintained a watchful eye over them, her wary face focused on the princess.
Marceline gave Billy a baffled look. The dark handprint on her cheek was already healed away as she spoke. “No, it's really fine. We just do this.”
He turned his eyes on her. “You're smarter than this, surely.”
“Unfortunately not,” Bonnibel said tautly, peering around the hero’s massive body to glare at her lover. “She prioritized that stupid book over helping us!”
“The Enchiridion?” Billy asked. “It's good that she took it away, do you know how screwed we would have been if he'd gotten his claws into that thing?”
“Not you too!” Bonnie groaned, throwing her hands up in frustration. “It's just a book.”
“To the uninformed,” Canyon scoffed.
Vilified, Marceline shot the princess a grin. Bonnibel bristled at her and hissed, “Asshole!”
“Kettle,” Marceline coughed.
Bonnibel made a high-pitched noise of frustration and firmly told Marceline, “Just go help Peppermint raise his barrier.”
The vampire shrugged, still grinning, and sauntered over to the mint to add her infernal magic to the dark shield he was building. Now the spell would go much more quickly.
Billy shook his head, amazed.
“(Princess!)” Lady called from up above. “(There's an envoy coming from the Rock Kingdom!)”
Bonnibel rushed to the gates to meet the unexpected visitor. Billy followed after her wearily, suddenly disillusioned with the goodness of the princess.
Outside, a small boulder rumbled into the shape of a person at their approach. A few villagers from the nearby towns had followed it over and were muttering curiously amongst themselves. “We had reports of a great evil and followed it here,” he said, watching them with a face made of earnest pebbles. “Can you give us a report on what happened?”
Billy stood back from her, watching in amazement as her face changed from the angry frustration that led her to striking Marceline into a cheerful politician. His stomach hurt at the sight.
“Yes, it seems we had a run in with a creature called the Lich,” Bonnibel replied. The rock’s jaw dropped. “But we've halted the creature and it won't cause any more destruction.”
“It's true!” A villager called from the crowd. “We saw the whole thing! Billy defeated the Lich King!”
There was cheering. Billy couldn't take his eyes off of the princess to acknowledge it. Amazed, the envoy thanked them and rolled away to spread the news.
Lady landed next to Bubblegum. “(I think we should celebrate!)”
“A perfect idea!” Bonnibel replied brightly. “I'll get the wine. Billy, would you like to join us?”
The hero shook his head slowly. A lot of thoughts had rushed through his brain. None of them were good. He was shaken by the sight of a person he'd thought was so benevolent being so cruel.
He sighed. He felt defeated despite the great victory. The joy just wasn't there, just the pain of his wounds. For the first time, he wondered if he was too old for this job.
Wearily, he released his gauntlet. It left his hand with a hiss of air and a clang of metal on candy-stone. Bonnibel looked alarmed. “Keep that for when the Lich wakes back up, but do me a favor and lose my number.”
He pivoted on his heel and walked towards his motorcycle. At the sound of the engine, Canyon came running without asking what happened between them, and then the two giants were gone.
Bonnie and Lady shared a stunned glance. “Y’know,” the princess said slowly, “I think we should rain check the party.” Lady agreed.
The princess took the gauntlet to her armory and let her feet carry her to relative solitude down into Neddy's root chamber.
He was still in his sleep, silent and unmoving. His face was scrunched up and his breath was heavy. She sat down on the ledge next to him and watched him nurse on his favorite root.
Will you be okay?
He didn't give an answer. Too deeply asleep? What would happen to him from here, she wondered? Tomorrow she promised herself that she'd take samples of the river for testing. If he was going to be silent, she was going to have to find out on her own.
She was positive that Billy was going to be okay too. Battle weariness wasn't uncommon. Still… she resolved to keep his number. She'd only use it for emergencies.
But without a hero roaming around the kingdom, she was going to need something better than her current banana guards to protect her children, until he got back. She found a stick and started scratching plans for a robot on the ground.
Marceline found her there a few hours later.
“The barrier is in place,” the vampire reported, sitting down next to her. She was still looking pretty unhappy, but there wasn't much that could be done about that now. She looked over at the unusually still dragon. “Is he… okay?”
“I don't know,” Bonnibel replied, not looking up from her extensive blueprints in the dirt. “I hope he is. I know this was a triumph but I feel like I've done everything wrong today.”
Marceline threw an arm around her shoulders. “It's fine. It worked out.”
Bonnie nodded. Paused from her drawing and looked up at her lover, then reached out to put her hand on the vampire's stone cold cheek. “I'm sorry for slapping you. I got too heated.”
The vampire almost seemed thrown by the apology. “Come on, you know I like my sugar with a little spice.” She shrugged and nuzzled into Bonnibel's hair. “Besides, I'm much faster than you. If I wasn't okay with you hitting back, I'd block you. But I didn't. So don't beat yourself up over it.”
Bonnibel chuckled weakly. Things felt so shaky lately. Now more than ever, with her new job as warden of the Lich King. At least, despite everything, Marceline was still willing to be by her side at the end of the day. That was what mattered.