Chapter Text
It was a fairly average day for Marceline, and that meant it was a very boring day. She’d woken up like usual and gotten the chance to fiddle on her guitar in the morning while Simon had made breakfast and Betty had written up a list of errands they’d have to do. Unlike in previous days when she was younger, and they tried never to separate, sometimes one person would split off from the rest of the group and do something on their own, and the other would take Marceline with them. Today, though, she was given some autonomy.
“We’ve been thinking about what you asked on your birthday,” Simon mentioned, and it was true that they had. Him and Betty often spent their nights laying awake and talking about the day's events, occasionally reminiscing on a flicker of a memory that had returned to them and that they wanted to preserve. They also often took the chance to write things down in their journals, and more than anything else, to talk about Marceline. Both had agreed it would be good for her to get some agency, and so they came to a compromise.
“I can go adventuring on my own today?” she asked excitedly, even though she knew that wouldn’t be the answer. Betty and Simon could be pretty stuck in their ways when it came to raising her, though Marceline sometimes wanted to tell them that whatever they’d read in their latest parenting book wasn’t always helpful. Still, she knew they loved her and that she loved them, and that love tended to override her feelings of annoyance. That was why she didn’t complain when she got her response.
“Well, no.” Betty said before adding something else. “But, we thought it would be a good idea to start letting you pick who you spend the day with when it comes to chores,” Betty explained, and she hoped that Marceline would appreciate it. Secretly, she always worried that Marcy loved her less than Simon, and that she was doing a bad job being a mother figure to her. After all, Marcy’s dad had been absent, while she had to live up to Marceline’s mother, which seemed like an impossible task, not helped by her own low self-image.
“Hm, gardening with dad or actually going out and doing interesting stuff with mom?” Marceline mock pondered, showing it was an easy choice, “Yeah, I’m going with mom on this one,” she said as she grabbed her guitar, which she’d already woven an shoulder strap for, and set off with Betty to do some trading for the day. “So, what’s on our list?” she asks asked as Betty scanned over what they needed to acquire. Far from a trip to the grocery store, they’d have to go individually trade for any items they wanted.
“Well, we’re headed deeper into the forest to trade seeds with the wood sprites, and then we’ll be talking with the foxes to see if they’ve come across any human tech. The last thing we have to do is find some ammo for my gun, and see if we can trade for a new stake because my old one is wearing down,” Betty answered and Marceline nodded, before beginning to strum idly at her guitar, seemingly trying to take inspiration from their daily tasks as song lyrics, which Betty enjoyed immensely as they walked.
“Deep into the forest, the belly of the beast, will the seeds provide sustenance, or will we become a feast? Searching for tech from the foxes that scavenge day and night, will they trade it peacefully or not without a fight? Gathering weapons to make vampires run, but are they the true monsters or is that who we'll become,” she sang, still learning how to construct song lyrics that weren’t just direct observation. Unfortunately for her, things went perfectly fine unlike in her song, and before she knew it they were walking back home.
“Sorry that nothing cool happened, Marceline,” Betty admitted and while she was certainly glad there hadn’t been any disasters, she knew that Marceline craved the sort of excitement that a quiet life in the woods just couldn’t provide. As for Betty, however, she could live the rest of her life without anything big or important happening and be just fine with that, considering she’d had enough excitement for many lifetimes. The fact that talking animals, forest sprites, and vampires had become a part of her daily routine was excitement enough for her.
“It's fine,” Marceline said, trailing off, as she stopped walking to pick up a stick and draw in the dirt. “Hey, can I ask you something?” Marcy questioned, and Betty perked up because the idea that Marceline was coming to her for something, anything, made her puff up a bit. She nodded and Marceline began her question. “Do you think you and dad will ever have a kid?” she asked, and of all the questions that Betty could have expected Marceline to want to know the answer to, this one was very low on her list.
“Well, we’ve talked about it but… the world is dangerous right now, and the idea of trying to give birth with things being the way they are…” she offered before trailing off herself. Marceline figured that would be the answer but it sort of bummed her out anyway because writing about having a new sibling, and maybe writing some more serious lyrics about feeling replaced in her own home, would have made for a great emotional subject for a song. “Besides, we’ve already got the best kid in the world,” Betty added,
“Well, I can’t argue with that logic,” Marceline said, trying to project cool confidence. “Do you think I’ll ever fall in love like you and dad did?” Marceline asked, using the stick she’d picked up to draw a heart in the dirt. She didn’t really think that she would, or at least not if she wasn’t willing to marry a vaporous forest spirit or a talking lizard. Her parents seemed to her like they were made for each other, and with how weird the world was, she highly doubted she’d find anyone she felt made for in that way.
“Well, I don’t know.” Betty admitted, and it was true that considering the very likely possibility that there weren’t any humans left, she’d be out of luck. But, she also knew that new life, new ways of being alive, were being created every day. “What I do know is if you do fall in love, it won’t be like me and Simon did. I was head over heels for months and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything; same with him. You’re a lot braver than we’ve ever been,” she said before adding something else. “Don’t grow up too fast on us, okay Marcy?” she said and Marceline promised she wouldn’t.
She didn’t even really care about romance to be honest, it was just something that existed in concept for her. It was something she read about in books and saw in her kitchen when her parents would give each other a kiss just because they felt like it. It wasn’t exactly something she was chasing, what she was chasing was newness and freedom, and on that count Betty was also right that Marceline was much braver than they were. It was why that night, when Simon and Betty were asleep, she enacted her plan.
She wrote up a note explaining that she wasn’t running away, that she was armed, and that she’d be back before sunrise. That she just needed to experience adventure and freedom because being cooped up in this house was driving her crazy. And she put that note on top of her pillow, slung her guitar over her shoulder, and grabbed a stake which she hid under her clothes, before climbing out of her bedroom window and beginning her journey. The world seemed so different, late at night.
Usually their last chore before going to bed was barricading the windows and doors against vampire attacks, but Marceline had purposefully not done the one in her bedroom so she could get outside easier. She did block it from the outside once she was out, to ensure her parents weren’t attacked by vampires in the night, but now that it was done she could do whatever she wanted. She took in the night sky, and how many stars she could see from just where she was standing, tried to remember the names for them her mom had taught her.
She had nowhere in particular to go, so she walked, thinking about stars and how far away they were, despite how brightly they shined. She wished at that moment that she could fly and get a better look at them. How amazing it would be if she had more powers than just the ability to eat people’s souls. She thought about vampires and how unfair it was that those jerks got to do a bunch of cool stuff, and they wasted that power on being nuisances that liked to hurt people. She was so lost in her thoughts that she jumped when she heard rustling in the nearby bushes.
Her hand immediately flew to her stake as she stalked closer and closer to it, thinking about how if she could take down a vampire on her own, she’d be able to prove to her parents that she should be allowed to explore on her own. It did cross her mind that it was possible the vampire would win, but that thought made her nervous and she tried to suppress it as she readied herself for combat. Whatever was in the bushes clearly hadn’t heard her, and that meant it was up to Marceline to rip the bushes open and start the fight.
“Gotcha!” Marceline said, stake readied over her head, trying to project cool confidence as she opened her eyes to reveal… something that was not a vampire. It wasn’t a vampire, and it wasn’t a mutant, it was a human. A little boy who seemed to be about the same age as Marcy was when Simon and Betty found her, and when he saw her standing there in the dark, weapon raised above her head he screamed and ran. This startled Marceline, who also screamed and ran quickly in the opposite direction.
She’d wandered pretty deep into the forest, and that meant she’d very predictably gotten lost as she did her best to weave through rows of identical looking trees and animals who seemed very confused as to what she was doing here, and very frightened of her loud screaming. Her mind was racing a thousand miles a minute as she tried to process what she’d just seen. An honest to Golb human being. As Marcy did some quick math based on their age, they would have had to have been a baby when the bombs fell, or not even alive. Which meant there must be other humans taking care of that kid.
“Marceline!” Simon said as she slammed into him in her frantic running, and he grabbed tight to her. When she looked up, Simon and Betty were staring at her, clearly frazzled and terrified, tears pin-pricking in their eyes, Betty clutching Marceline’s letter in her hand. “Are you hurt? Did something hurt you?” Simon asked as he rapidly checked her arms and legs for scratches, and her neck for any vampire bites. “What in the world were you thinking?” he asked as soon as he’d confirmed she wasn’t injured.
“Humans!” Marceline blurted out, still processing the information she’d just learned. “There are other humans, I saw another human, and he was so young that there must have been other humans, probably nearby we’ve got to go find them!” she said, grabbing Simon and Betty’s hands trying to pull them back into the woods, something which quickly failed. “Come on, we have to go, if we run maybe we can still catch him,” Marceline added, and her parents just looked at her disappointed.
“Marcy, we thought something horrible happened to you!” Betty said seriously. “We woke up, and you were gone, and then we heard you screaming… you could have been killed.” She insisted, and that idea made Betty feel awful. Had Marceline really wanted to get away from them that much, that she’d risk her own life? Marceline looked down at her feet, embarrassed as they escorted her home, and informed her they’d be having a serious discussion in the morning. Once she was back home, Betty and Simon returned to their bedroom to talk.
“Princess, did you hear what she said? There are more humans out there after all,” Simon said as he seemed to try and process the information he’d been given. He’d all but given up on the idea of finding more people, and now here he was with the chance to find some, the first real lead he’d ever had. “We need to go looking for them tomorrow.” he insisted, and Betty felt a pit grow in her stomach as those fears she thought she’d put to bed years ago were revived in her head, the idea of Simon needing more than she could give.
“Someone will need to watch Marceline, though, right? I mean, after what she did tonight she can’t exactly be trusted to stay on her own,” Betty offered, hoping to put a damper on Simon’s plans at least a little. Of course, that just led to a new fear, that he’d go on without her or Marceline and abandon both of them in the pursuit of new people. Betty knew that Simon would never even think about doing something like that, but knowing and accepting were different things, and she couldn’t accept that Simon would stay if he had other options.
“Flo-Jo over there can come with us. She may be in a lot of trouble, but this means a lot to her, and she did find us that lead,” Simon said, and his mind was still racing thinking about what this could mean. A human settlement could mean a community, friends for Marceline, a new group to brave this brand-new world with. Other people who might have information on how to make a freezer, which would massively improve their lives. Or maybe there’d be a doctor, and their conversation about having kids could be unpinned.
“Okay,” Betty said, suppressing her own feelings because she lacked the ability to do anything she thought might push Simon away, especially now. She’d slept fitfully that night, and breakfast that morning had felt more like a death row meal, as the three of them ate in silence, each contemplating the ways their lives would change if they found humans. And the ways their lives would change if they didn’t. Betty had insisted on washing the dishes before they left, delaying the inevitable.
“I found the kid right here,” Marceline said once they reached the same bush that she’d been at before, still damaged from where she’d ripped it open. “And then he ran that way,” Marceline added, pointing straight ahead, where small footprints were still left in the mud as evidence of her claim. The three took each other’s hands, very carefully walking to avoid messing up the tracks as they maneuvered through the forest and into yet another clearing, only about two miles from where their house was.
“Woah…” Betty said, staring, as she looked upon a thriving settlement of actual living humans. At that moment, all of her worry and fear became only background radiation to the feeling of seeing so many people again, alive and surviving. She watched mother’s cuddle with their babies, teenagers in the corner talking and someone she presumed to be in charge speaking with someone writing down his words. And Betty began to cry, something which alerted the other people of their presence.
“That’s her!” The little boy Marceline had met earlier announced, and that seemed to be some sort of signal because everyone ran and hid in terror. Marceline didn’t care in the slightest though because she’d been right, and she’d seen humans. She saw people her own age, doing things and while maybe they were scared of her now that could change. She would have friends, have something to write songs about, have something to make like an adventure. She’d taken a risk, and this here was the reward.