BREATHE | bubbline ✓

" would you have done the same? "

SHE NEEDS TO do this. She's gasping, her legs aching—she was never the athletic type—from the run, but finally, she catches sight of the white building of the swimming complex. Collecting herself, Bonnibel bursts into the office, where a face she hadn't seen for quite some time stares back at her, bored.

"Oh, it's the human." Keila crosses her arms. "What do you want."

She barely cares that she had probably encountered the worst candidate to ask for help from. "Do you know how to get to the Nightosphere?"

Keila turns away from her disheveled appearance. "No, I don't. Only sorcerers and Hunson himself know how. Which is how that damned Ash trapped me here." She continues, muttering a little lower. "And Marshall doesn't want to leave just yet."

"Does Marshall know how?" Bonnibel presses. She's getting desperate. It has been two weeks since she had spoken to Ash, and she hadn't heard anything since then. It had been a nightmare trying to act like everything was fine when Jake and Finn — and basically everyone else — approached her to ask about Marceline's constant ailments. Remind her that Marceline was off to someplace dangerous.

"Yeah," Keila has finally noticed her despair, and is speaking softer. "What's up?"

"Marceline. We have to save her."

"Who cares about her?" Keila spits, crossing her arms. Her eyebrows are screwed together, anger is written all over her face, and Bonnibel feels her own frustration and worry spill. "She didn't care when she killed my friends."

"I do." Bonnibel slams her hand down on the reception desk, and Keila jumps a little. She knew nothing of the kindness Marceline was capable of, didn't know about the very thing that kept them tied to each other. "Whatever has happened to you is in your history and I can't care less about it. Where is Marshall?"

"Here." The door behind Bonnibel swings shut on its hinges. Marshall's looking down at her impassively, a spitting image of his sister; she can't tell if he's paler than from when she had met him. His green eyes flicker over to Keila, who was still very much shocked from Bonnibel's outburst. "Keila, you can stay, but I'm going to get my sister back."

"Marshall!"

He pauses drawing the fiery symbol when Keila yells his name, and he drops his hand. A small, unapologetic smile spreads across his lips. "She's still the only family I have left, and she's the only one left who cared for me."

"How about what happened to our friends, Marsh?"

His jaw tightens. "She was forced into doing it. We've had this talk before."

"So you're just going to forgive her?" Keila seems to be biting back tears at this point, her bat ears flattened back over her head. "After all these years?"

"It is because that after all these years...I no longer hold that grudge as strongly." He looks down, scratches the back of his head, a sheepish expression on his face. "She was forced to do something that I might've been forced to do too if I hadn't defected early."

Keila's lips are a thin line. "Would you have done the same?"

Marshall lifts his hand slowly, tracing the fire into the air again. He doesn't look at Keila the entire time till he completes the symbol, and when he does, her flashes her a sad smile. "I think I would."

_________________________

The Nightosphere was as hellish as ever, save that even the monsters that used to roam at the base of the cliff where the castle sat, overlooking the entirety of its kingdom, were missing. Cowering, perhaps, at the intensity of the battle that was taking place within the brooding castle.