Marceline the Vampire Queen floated lazily around Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum’s bedroom, waiting for her to return from the latest set of candy kingdom business that had interrupted them. Marceline had been stuck on a song for a while; she wanted to write it but just couldn’t get it to sound right. Finn, Jake, BMO, LSP, and Lady Rainacorn had tried to help her with it, but to no avail. So she’d come to Bonni. She’d hummed the melody and strummed a few bars on the bass for the princess and watched Bonnibel spring into action over a keyboard. They’d finished the song, now they were just waiting to do a final mix and set equalizers. PB returned and sat down in front of the portable sound board she’d constructed years ago.
“Marceline, Finn and Jake’s Christmas Sweater party is coming up and I was thinking about asking them to have it here.” Bubblegum said as she worked with the knobs.
“Okay, sounds cool. You could get a bigger screen then they can and make better food. That’ll be cool.” Marceline responded distractedly. “Hmm I think that part sounds empty, run it back and try to add something deep because the bass is really hot there.”
“What about this?” PB hit a button and the speakers kicked out a hard kick drum rhythm. “I’ll slow it down to match the rest.”
“Perfect.” They listened on.
“Well I was wondering if you remember much about Christmas, because I want to decorate with the lights and the shiny metal stuff, but there aren’t any books on Christmas decorating.” The pink princess confessed finally.
“Sure I remember a little. I’ll come over tomorrow night with some lights and ornaments, the stuff isn’t hard to find. I have a bunch of it because I thought I could make a stage show for tours and stuff. Thanks for the help with the song.”
“No problem. It was fun. See you tomorrow, then.” Marceline gathered up her bass and was beginning to float out the window when she turned.
“I could use some low quality red for the road, if you don’t mind.” She proposed sheepishly.
“You can pull it off of some of my old clothes. I’m a little tired and I have a busy day tomorrow, we both know that it’s never for the road with you anymore.” Bonnibel smiled at her though, walking toward the window. “If you’re still hungry, maybe tomorrow I was planning to draw up a sketch of how we want to decorate the ball room.”
Marceline grinned at her. “Sounds great BubBubs.” She floated to the closet and grabbed a shirt before flying out of the window.
The next night Marceline returned with three cardboard boxes. She flew in to Bubblegum’s room and sat them down before sinking onto the bed to wait for her princess to discover her. She didn’t have to wait long because the Guardians always alerted their ruler of her presence within a few minutes, so she was just getting comfy.
“You’re a little earlier than I expected, but we can get to work. What did you bring?”
Marceline floated up and pointed at the boxes. “Bottom one is full of lights and extra bulbs. Middle one has tinsel and some weird ball things. Top one has pictures of angels and trees and families and stuff.”
“You were going to use these for a stage show?” Bubblegum questioned as she rifled through the top box.
“No, those were just with the other stuff. I kept ‘em in case something like this ever came up.”
“Alright!” PB exclaimed as she pulled a sketch book from a pocket. “I drew up a sketch of the basic area we have to work with.” She flipped it open to the ball room. “I left out the fourth wall because I figured the screen would take most of it up.”
Marceline came near and peered over her shoulder. “Usually Christmas stuff is hung where walls meet, but I was thinking we could make like light silhouettes of all of us on one wall and use the tinsel to fill in the details like Ice King’s beard.” She pulled a pencil from her pocket and began sketching in the rough idea on the left hand wall. “The other wall, I’m not sure about. I was thinking like the Land of Ooo, but that might be hard. You have anything in mind?”
Bubblegum quirked her eyebrows. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this. I don’t know what to do with any of it. You want to start laying an outline on the wall? We could use sugar ink so we have something to lay the lights on.”
“Let’s go. Bring the sketch book.” Marceline moved out of the room and started heading for the ballroom. “Where do we get the sugar?”
“It’s already in there, with some paintbrushes. There’s a couple different colors, so we can differentiate between the light strings and tinsel, and whatever else.”
The ballroom was completely clear, the windows curtained and the decorations pulled from the walls with a drop cloth on the floor. Bonnibel had set up a table with four different colors of ink on it and two sets of brushes with different sizes. She floated to the middle of the room and looked at the space, consulting the sketch. “Maybe we should block out all of them first. Use different colors for people close together. I can help.” Bubblegum whistled and a miniature version of The Marrow flew in. “I spent a few weeks coming up with a dwarf marrow for indoor or delicate work.” She stepped on to the bird. “I’ll get Jake, Ice King, Lady Rainacorn, and you. You get Finn, me, LSP, and BMO.”
Marceline nodded and floated up to the wall, beginning to lay down the outline. Dawn was beginning to light the sky when they finally stepped down and looked at the outline of Ooo they’d finished. “So we hang the lights tomorrow?” Marceline asked.
“Yeah. Hopefully it’ll be quicker. Would you mind asking Finn if he’s okay with having the party here?”
“We’re this far and you still haven’t asked Finn?”
“He always says yes anyway.”
“Okay, I’ll ask.” The Vampire Queen floated out of the castle through the window.
The next night she showed up through the same window, trusting that the princess had moved the boxes into the ballroom. She had assumed correctly, and the princess had a few of the candy citizens starting to hang up the lights on the map of Ooo. She joined in and helped Scruffy with his strands.
Princess Bubblegum came in and ordered the rest of the citizens out. She and Marceline decorated the rest of the land of Ooo and then moved onto the other wall. The two of them finished the walls and moved onto stringing the tinsel on the lights.
“Finn said he was okay with it. He can’t wait. Jake’s still bringing snacks.”
“That’s great. Thanks for asking for me. Thanks for all of this really. This has turned out a lot better than I thought when I came up with the idea. You really came through for me.”
“No problem, Princess. I had fun doing it.”
“Oh, well I was going to pay you back with a kiss, but if it’s no problem.”
Marceline flew over to her. “No it was horrible, I didn’t enjoy anything. The kiss should be with tongue.” She swooped Bubblegum off of her feet and pecked her on the lips. “I’ve been waiting to do that for hours.”