BREATHE | bubbline ✓

" behold, the splendour. "

"THE FOREST'S...DANGEROUS," Phoebe calls nervously to the figure slinking behind the tree. She grips the basket in her hands a little tighter. She swore those were bat ears and wings she saw earlier, just giant versions.

But,,.whatever that thing was, it was injured. She wasn't going to leave it out here to die. She was going to be a doctor, and it won't do if she couldn't nurse it back to health. There'd be no way she could ever treat people then.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Phoebe inches closer to the tree, gulping. "I promise."

"Stay away!" The big bat-thing hissed and lashed out with a clawed hand, hooking into the trunk of the tree and leaving a foreboding trail of gouges in the bark.

Phoebe flinches. "I just want to help."

"Humans are not to be trusted," it growls, "they took Simon from me."

"Simon?" Phoebe squats by the roots of the tree. "Is he your father?"

"They took him from me..." the voice grows distressed. A sob surfaces. "I'm...alone."

"You can come with me," Phoebe coaxes soothingly, and sets her basket on the forest floor. She plucks a small, red berry she had picked earlier and holds it out to the figure. "We can find your father together."

"He wasn't my birth father." The figure stands, and Phoebe stumbles back with a shock as she catches sight of the twin long, narrow fangs that peeked out the corners of the towering girl's mouth. "But he might as well have been."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Phoebe keeps her hand up, though it quivers. "Please, come with me, you're terribly wounded."

"I'll be fine, human." The girl snaps, but her snake-slit eyes linger on the berry in Phoebe's hand.

With no warning, the berry is snatched, and the girl is scurrying away, back into the shade of the tree trunk. Phoebe falls back from the startle, and watches with mild horror as the girl uses her fangs to sap the red colouring from the berry, leaving a grey husk behind.

She looks up.

"I'm!" Phoebe swallows again, and she fumbles for her basket, producing another berry for the girl to take. She knew of the lawless gang that robbed and killed for pleasure. "I'm Phoebe. You are...?"

_________________________

The moment Bonnibel steps out of whatever prison she had been in, she is hit with humid air and the smell of soot...fire.

"The Nightosphere gladly welcomes you, Marceline, as its third ruler," Abadeer chuckles, waving an arm over the landscape. "Behold, the splendour."

Below them, pools of molten lava flow, separated and divided by the dark rock that snaked through the land. Monsters of all shapes, sizes and grotesqueness trod and stumble over the uneven terrain, moaning and growling in their pained state.

There is a constant...gloom in the smoky air, and Bonnibel feels her chest grow heavy with so...so many things.

She glances at Marceline, who was being escorted by some anthropomorphic beetle — the cuffs that bite into her skin are rings of fire, writhing and seeming to delight in her discomfort — that is, if she was even bothered by it at all.

"You brought us to the Nightosphere?!" Marceline acts up, struggling hard against her bonds, so much so that her guard is thrown unceremoniously off the cliff.

"There would be no way to bring you here otherwise," Abadeer says thoughtfully, amidst the cries of the guard as it is swallowed by lava.

The demon escorting Bonnibel shoves her to the edge of the cliff with a flick of its lizard-like tail.