Well hello and welcome, please take a seat. You are cordially invited to the third and final installment of the Foundlings trilogy. From here on out the gloves are off, nobody is safe and nothing can be assumed. I've been working on this plot for... since I started writing Adventure Time fanfic, and that's been a while. So, yeah, I've had a long time to work on this.
As per usual with the Foundlings series there will be OCs aplenty, action, character deaths and plot twists. I've also gone a little off script with backstory and some of it might not all be 100% canon compliant. But you're ok with that, right? There'll be some surprises I hope anyway. And just like the other two stories in the trilogy there will be some homoerotic sexytimes, so if you're not down for that then DO NOT READ IT. Anyone who sends me flame reviews because there's gayness in the story will be summarily mocked.
So, without further ado: sit back, grab your popcorn, enjoy the chapter and do not forget to drop me a review and let me know what you think.
Content Warning: implied offscreen character death, agony, not-graphic hetero sex, feels.
The sun had just set, the kids wanted to play and their grandmother was more than happy to take them outside and shoot some hoops. It was an idyllic family scene, she was just kicking back with the kids and having fun. There was nothing at all to indicate that she was about to fall out of the air writhing and screaming with instantaneous agony.
Kim was closest to her; he reeled back in horror and yelled to his brother to be heard over the inhuman screaming.
"TV! What the hell did you do?"
"I didn't touch her! She just started screaming!"
"Grod, TV, go get Dad!"
"Fuck, can vampires have strokes?" Is that something that can happen?"
"Just shut up and get Dad!"
"Gran Gran? Can you hear me?"
Only just, through the horror and pain thrashing loose in the back of her skull, but Marceline was vaguely aware of her grandson's voice. Even still she couldn't reply. Only choked wails of pain escaped her lips and she arched back with the agony, trying to free the awful recoil in her mind. There was a severed connection that should be tied and her whole being was reverberating with the horrifying, dizzying sensation that something had ripped free that should be fixed to- something-
"MATILDA!"
And there it was. That was the agony, the broken connection. She knew who'd been lost if she tried to push past it, fight upwards against the torrent of indescribable pain bearing down on her mental defences. Her psychic landscape was churning like a ship in a storm, bright and intense agony filled every fibre of her. Where there'd been two thick ropes of mingled blood and magic leading off into the distance a second before, now there was only one. One throbbing mental connection, glittering and vital, that lead to Zoe's mind; too far off to influence but always subtly there in the back of her head reassuring her that Zoe was alive and still linked to her. The other connection- the only other member of her lineage- thrashed like a raw nerve caught in a storm, cut away from its anchor point. And that meant, oh Matilda-
"Tilda."
Jake arrived at a gallop with TV at his side and the other pups backed away, letting him crouch by his mother and wrap his magically lengthened arms around her. She was aware he was talking to her in a low and urgent voice but couldn't make out the words, the pain was too consuming. But he was lifting her now, she didn't weight anything anyway and he was a strong guy. Cradled in her son's arms she whimpered and sobbed against the steady pulse of agony flooding her brain. It was lessening, slowly. The connection was dying like a tree root left exposed to the sun. Matilda was dying.
"I used to be the one who carried you when you were sick." she whispered blearily to Jake. He smiled sadly down at her.
"I remember. I'm taking you home, Mom. What happened? Are you ok?"
"Matilda's dead." she replied with a horrified shiver, guilt and the ghost of agony turning her limbs to water. "I can fly, I think." she mumbled after a couple of minutes. But Jake shook his head and held onto her more firmly, she was shamefully glad of it. If the pain came back she'd fall out of the air, she didn't trust herself to move just yet.
"You felt it when she died?" Jake asked in a voice full of horrified sympathy after a few minutes.
"Mental Sire link. It snapped. I didn't know that's what it would feel like or even that it could happen over such a great distance. Jake, she's dead. She's been around almost for as long as I have, she was there for me for nine hundred years. And now she's just gone. What the hell happened? Who killed her?"
She wasn't expecting a reply and he knew it. He just hugged her closer and began to hum the same comforting ancient tune she'd sang to him and his siblings on hundreds of sleepless nights when he was just a puppy.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one to lives there.
She was once a true love of mine.
Marceline smiled despite the lingering pain and the grief that was beginning to push through the numb shock. Jake was many things but right now he was sensitive and kind; of all of her children she was glad he'd been there when it happened. Jake wasn't someone who would waste time with unnecessary panic.
He had stretched his legs to almost a hundred metres long, sweeping them along the path from his grasslands home back towards the Candy Kingdom at a swift speed. As they walked Marceline's mind raced, trying to find answers without even the smallest amount of information. Zoe and Matilda had simply disappeared one day, gone looking for some mysterious threat that nobody had any idea about. If they'd found anything they hadn't sent a message to let her know. Marceline had no idea what had happened to them since they'd left Ooo, it didn't stop her trying to desperately search the Sire link to Zoe for clues.
"It's my fault."
"No it isn't. They left of their own accord. They knew it was a risk."
"I'm responsible for them. I'm their monarch and Sire."
"They made a choice and you're not to blame. You sound like Mama."
Marceline shook her head with bittersweet fondness.
"For shame, Jacob Dog Abadeer. Playing one mother off against another is bad karma. Your Mama is an excellent queen-"
"-To everyone but herself." Jake finished with a wry smile. It had been their secret joke since he was old enough to notice that Bonnie didn't always take good care of herself the way she did everyone else. "I know. And right now you sound like her when she's being stubborn about something. So just- oh, speak of the demon."
A figure was hurry towards them through the gloom, she must have seen them coming from the window of her study and come down to meet them. It was unusual enough for Jake to come up to the palace since their fight a month ago; Marceline was still sad they hadn't properly made up. She hated conflict within her family.
"Jake? What happened? Why is your Mom covered in dirt?" Bonnibel demanded as they strode into the courtyard of the palace that had been Jake's childhood home. She tried to pry Marceline from Jake's arms but he held on stubbornly.
"Hey, I'm not well enough for you to play tug-o-war with me." Marceline mumbled, closing her eyes against the awful pounding that was still achingly present in the back of her head.
"Marcy? What's wrong?" Bonnie asked again in a gentler tone. Marceline carefully disentangled herself from Jake's arms and risked hovering forward. When she didn't immediately fall out of the air from the agony she wrapped her arms tightly around her wife and buried her face in her soft gummy hair, inhaling the comforting scent of strawberries and sugar deeply.
"Matilda's dead." she whispered after a moment, still too far in shock to try to cushion the blow.
"Tilda's-? How?"
"Dunno. I just felt it in my head, I felt the connection snap. It was agony."
Bonnie tightened her grip around the other woman and let a shudder of grief run through her for the sweet and mischievous woman that had disappeared as abruptly as she'd arrived. Zoe would be crushed, she knew. Zoe would be wandering aimlessly, completely bereft, or else still in danger herself.
"I should get back, the kids, you know." Jake mumbled awkwardly.
"Oh, yeah sure. Tell Lady I'm sorry I couldn't stay."
"Thank you for bringing her home, Jake." Bonnie said, placing a swift kiss on his cheek, almost smiling at him despite the obvious friction that still lingered between them. That was some kind of tiny silver lining at least, Marcy thought.
He nodded and hugged them both before his legs stretched a hundred metres long again and he strode off into the night.
"Are you ok?" Bonnie asked her wife quietly when they were alone.
"No. Really, really not ok. So far from ok I feel like I could be sick. But I can pretend if you need me to." Marcy replied just as quietly.
"Oh love, you don't need to pretend with me. Do you just want to go to bed?"
"No, we should tell Stefan and the other kids. They'd want to know."
They entered the palace together, Marceline walking again, remembering other times she'd foregone flying to for the feel of that same solid ground against her boots. Her feet had slapped angrily on the tiles while Zoe and Tilda floated behind her, braiding Billy's hair and giggling silently to each other. That had been the first day they'd come here, the first time she'd seen them in centuries. And she'd never see them together again, she realised. They'd never giggle again. Never smile, never laugh or tell their awful ancient jokes again, never shift into their kitten forms and go hunting for mice just for fun again-
Her cheeks were wet. Marceline, who hated crying more than almost anything else in the world, was quietly sobbing because her friend was dead. She'd lost plenty of people before, not all of them painlessly at a grand old age surrounded by their loved ones. But Matilda... she'd never thought anything could hurt the mercurial redhead. She was far too canny, too resourceful. But then she hadn't been, in the end. Something had gone badly wrong and now she was dead.
"I'll get Phoebe." Bonnie murmured at the top of the stairs, and she hurried off down a side corridor towards their daughter's bedroom. Marceline stared after her for a second, lost and still numb from shock, before she slowly turned and floated up into the air again and silently drifted towards the only other occupied bedroom in the royal family's wing of the palace.
She knocked on the door but got no reply; that wasn't unusual though. He was probably asleep, or more likely doing something disgusting in the shower like most seventeen year old boys did. She strained her ears but couldn't pick out the sound of running water or snoring. Frowning, Marceline reached for the door handle.
"Finn? Can I come in?" she asked quietly through the small crack she'd let the door slide open, not wanting to catch him at something she really didn't want to know about. But there was still no reply and the room was dark. She pushed the door open fully and stared about the silent bedroom, a whole new chasm of fear opening in the pit of her stomach.
The room was in full darkness and completely deserted. Her youngest son's windows were flung wide open and a thin rope ladder hung from the balcony. Finn was nowhere to be seen. For a few appalling and dizzying moments her brain insisted it was just like that night sixteen years ago all over again, seeing the empty nursery for herself and the whole world tilting with horror because her infant sons had been snatched by a madman. If her heart had still been beating Marceline would have had palpitations.
But soon common sense reasserted itself; there was the replica axe Finn had insisted on having made, almost identical to her own save for the lack of frets and bass strings. It hung innocently over his empty bed exactly where he always kept it, razor sharp edges gleaming battle ready in the yellow light flooding in from the hall. There was no sign of a struggle and no scent trail in the air; he'd covered his tracks just in case she came looking for him. At least this time he seemed to have left voluntarily. Marceline sank to the floor and let her tears fall, she had no more energy to fight them.
...
"I gotta go home." Finn mumbled past his grin, still floppy and breathless from euphoria.
"Those are the first words out of your lips? If you weren't so hunky I'd be offended. Not yet. Stay a bit longer?"
He let his mouth be claimed by cold lips and his eyes flutter closed as the icy weight in his arms shifted, moving slowly with deliberate friction against his still sensitive body.
"Baby, I really have to go. My Mom'll be looking for me."
"Mommy's boy." Victoria teased with a gentle sigh. "Sometimes I think you love her more than you love me."
He could have denied it but Finn just grinned at her and let her grind against him a little more.
"Y'think I let my Mom do this with me, mm? That's really messed up. Look down for a second then ask me again who I love more."
She squealed adorably when she saw when her actions had stirred in him. No doubt about how much he loved her at least.
It was thirty more blissful breathless minutes before he finally took his leave, grinning smugly and posing shirtless in the mouth of her cave because he knew she went crazy for the way the moonlight rippled across his muscles. Victoria sighed and stretched and pouted at him and despite his lassitude a very insistent part of him wanted to stay all night but he hadn't been lying when he said he'd be missed. The last thing either of them wanted was vengeful parents of any variety tracking them to their secret cave and interrupting mid-coitus. Ice King loved Finn, he was glad Victoria had such a nice boyfriend, but he might draw the line at catching them naked and writhing against each other.
With one last flash of his lady-killer smile Finn took off into the night. He jogged carefully along the frozen path that lead from their mountain and down to where his borrowed steed waited. With a slide and jump down the last frozen steps he let out a whoop and landed on The Morrow's back.
"Home, boy! And quit glaring at me, Mama won't have missed us at all."
The flight home was leisurely and in its own way just as thrilling as the stolen moments with Victoria had been; ever since he could remember Finn had been utterly addicted to flying. His earliest memory involved swooping with his Mom up the sheer drop of a waterfall and watching her skim her hands into the water to pluck out a salmon in mid leap, holding it up for him to inspect for a second before she dropped it back into the river above its insurmountable obstacle. Flying was everything that was right with the world, flying meant nothing could touch him and he was invincible. Just like his mighty eagle soaring above the heads of mere mortals. It was the same way he felt when Victoria lay back and pulled him forwards onto her and met his lips with eager, hungry kisses.
He grinned again, delighting in the cool whip of speeding wind around his still shirtless chest. Long before they arrived home he let out another whoop of pure ecstasy, legs locked tight around the great eagle's neck and arms reaching out into the night air as though he was soaring on his own.
Finn landed almost silently on the ramparts of the palace, well away from where the bumbling Banana Guards were changing their rotation. Even if they had caught him he'd just wink and tell them he was on Official Royal Business. Not that he ever had any official business to take care of, his mothers didn't trust him to even carry the flag on holidays, but he was the youngest prince after all and the Banana Guards were pretty dumb.
The Morrow huffed at him and took off for his perch the instant Finn slithered to the ground but he didn't care, he jogged along the walls until he came to the thin grey rope ladder underneath his window. At a distance it was invisible against the sugary pink wall of his home, close-to he still had to scan the gloom for a moment before he spied it.
"Perfect crime." he muttered to himself as he hauled himself up over the balcony railing and landing quietly.
"Really, you think? Pretty sure you've been found out."
He froze, one hand reaching towards the open door to his bedroom. Nobody was there; he stared around into the darkness. Nobody was especially sitting invisible on the railing. There was a patch of nothingness right by where the rope ladder let up that his brain insisted was somehow even more empty than the surrounding nothing. Finn hung his head in defeat. He knew his Mom's magic, he'd seen her slide out of existence plenty of times since he was a baby.
Suddenly the nothingness was full of angry green eyes ringed in red and long black hair that shifted restlessly despite the lack of wind. Oh man, she was really mad at him. His temper flared at the exact same moment as his guilt reflex. He was an adult, he could sneak out at night if he wanted. They both stared speaking angrily at the same time.
"Mom, look, I can explain-"
"Do you have any idea how worried we've been? How scared? I had no idea where you were-"
"-didn't mean to leave without telling you where I was going!"
"-made your poor Mama go to bed with one of her anxiety migraines and you caused it-"
"-out with Jake and I forgot the time-"
"-after what happened when you were a baby and the comet and everything, we thought you'd be more careful-"
"-besides I'm an adult now and-"
"YOU ARE NOT AN ADULT, YOU ARE AN IRRESPONSIBLE CHILD, FINN!"
That shut him up. He stared at her while the echoes of her yell reverberated around the courtyard below for everyone to hear; the whole Kingdom knew his Mom had just screamed at him. Traitorous tears prickled the corners of his eyes as all his bravado melted. She might get mad, she might hiss and her gaze might flash red, she might ground him and tell him she was disappointed in him, guilt trip him into good behaviour. But she never yelled at him, she never raised her voice and she never fucking cried-
"Mom? What's wrong?" he whispered, horrified.
"I came to find you to tell you that your Aunt Matilda is dead." she choked out, turning her face away so he couldn't see the awful agony he knew that news had caused her.
He was across the balcony in two steps, clinging on to his Mom for dear life and sobbing into her shoulder. Aunt Matilda had helped raise him, she'd taught him to fish and track rabbits, she'd been the one who'd trained him and sparred with him when he'd had a brief interest in being a ninja. She'd been a constant in his life since before he could remember, she'd even helped save his life when he was only a baby. She was his Guardian, the person he'd turned to when he had embarrassing personal problems that he didn't want to tell his mothers about. It just wasn't possible that she was dead.
"How?" he managed after a moment. His voice wavered and cracked like it was breaking again, making him feel so much younger than his seventeen years. All his bluff about being an adult felt so ridiculous now; he was a bereaved child cuddling his Mom and sobbing because his favourite Aunt was dead. Marceline hugged him back tightly, he could feel her anger melting away under the weight of grief that cloaked them both.
"I don't know, darling. I felt the moment she passed, I felt the Sire link break. It... hurt. Aunt Zoe's coming back, I can feel her getting steadily closer. She's still a long way off though. She'll be able to tell us more when she gets here."
He nodded wordlessly, still too stunned to think much.
Aunt Matilda's dead.
It echoed around his head like a bad joke as they stood crying together. Eventually Marceline pulled back and looked him in the eye. She had to tilt her head slightly upwards to do that if she was on the ground these days. Maybe he'd been right, maybe he was getting close to being an adult. She wrinkled her nose as his fusty scent finally registered. Maybe not.
"Come on, you should let your Mama know you're back. And think of a better excuse than "out with Jake" because I was just at Jake's place and I know you weren't there. But maybe not as honest as "doing something entirely inappropriate with Victoria' because you know she wouldn't approve of you seeing that girl. And put your damn shirt back on, Finn."
He smiled sheepishly, already wiping those embarrassing tears away from his face.
"Victoria's not bad, Mom. She's really nice. Mama would like her if she just gave her a chance."
"Yeah she's a peach, shame about her crazy dad. You know it's not me who disapproves, Finn. You Mama has good reasons for wanting you to do better."
...
Somehow he'd always been able to smell it in the air when his Mama was sick. It was something that hung heavily in the aura of his parents' bedroom, something about the permanently drawn curtains and the various medicines and tonics that crowded her nightstand. It never made it any easier to hear her thin, fragile voice calling for him from the darkness though, it took him right back to his childhood. He was four years old again, snuggling into her too-warm side and telling her quietly about all the things Miss Trunks had taught them that day, wondering why her skin always felt paper thin when she'd been sick for a while and not learning until much later that it was an effect of dehydration because she struggled to keep even water down at first. Or he was eight and his Mom was telling him off for making too much noise outside her window while he pretended he didn't hear Mama violently throwing up in the bathroom and weakly calling for her wife to help her back to bed. He was thirteen and awkwardly apologising to his friends because he didn't want to go to the slumber party, not when his Mama was sick again. She might need him or Mom might need him, he didn't want to go anywhere in case something happened to her.
"Mama?"
"...Finn. Where were you?"
He winced at how tired and thin her voice sounded. He'd really screwed up this time, he'd deserved Mom yelling at him. She hated Mama being sick every bit as much as he did.
"I'm so sorry, Mama. I borrowed The Morrow and went flying. I'm really sorry." he bowed his head in shame and shuffled closer to the dark bed.
"...told you not to do that."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Not sorry enough to stop doing it. But I'm glad you're safe. Honey, your Aunt-"
"I know, Mom told me." he interrupted quickly, not wanting to hear those terrible words spoken aloud again. Finn came forward and carefully took a seat on the unoccupied side of the bed. He threaded his hand into his Mama's and rested his other cool palm against her brow.
"Thanks Finn. You know we only get angry because we're scared for you."
"I know. You heard Mom yelling at me?"
"...everyone did."
They sat in silence for long minutes, each racking their brain to think of what to say to the other. Finally Bonnie broke the silence.
"Can you help me sit up?"
Gently, without jostling her throbbing head, he helped her sit forward and slid a couple of cushions in behind her back so she could rest comfortably. Her hands trembled alarmingly when she reached for the glass of water his Mom had left by the bed and he darted out and grabbed it for her, raising it carefully to her lips so she could sip at it carefully. Too much and she'd be staggering to the bathroom to throw up again; he knew how to look after her through a migraine attack.
"Thanks." she mumbled after a couple of sips.
They lapsed back into silence.
"Finn?"
"Yeah?"
"There's ice in your hair. You shouldn't take Morrow up too high, he's old now."
"Sorry, Mama."