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Continued directly after Cheers!
Simon didn't get any sleep that night.
Sleepless nights were not unusual for him, yeah, but the deep feeling of dread was. He felt like that all night, like there was a huge pit in his stomach. He also felt really cold, though sweaty at the same time.
And though he closed his eyes, adjusted his position, and willed himself, he couldn't fall asleep.
He rolled onto his back, resting his hands on his abdomen. He felt so restless, and he really did not like it.
He opened his eyes, his vision blurry from a combination of exhaustion and bad eyesight. His gaze drifted to the side and he turned his head. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw what he had looked at.
The crown.
It started right back at him with its glittering gems, a shiver ran down his spine as he looked right into them. Though, in an odd way, the sight of the crown also brought about a wave of comfort. In this place, he recognized it, he knew the crown.
Such a familiar sight, and yet..
He blinked.
The crown was doing this, wasn't it?
Simon rolled onto his left side and laid completely facing the crown now, and kept staring with bleary eyes.
“Of course it’s the crown, Simon.” he whispered to himself.
He knew he shouldn't have put it on, and he regretted it every time he cast so much as a glance at his own skin, but what could he have done? They would have all been doomed otherwise. It was something he had to do.
..That was the point, wasn't it?
This whole thing, it was all a cycle. He always had to be Ice King, always had to wear the crown.
With Marcy all those years ago.
And with Fionna and Cake now.
He took the crown into his hands and brought it close, nearly hugging it against his chest. Its surface was cold and the edges sharp, just as he remembered it.
Simon examined the thing, even without his glasses he could tell it was quite clean. He would assume that meant it was relatively new, but the chest sure wasn't, and the crown had a….deceptive nature, from what he’d experienced.
As he turned it around in his hands, he began to hum. It was quiet, and he didn't pay much attention to it. In fact, he hadn't even known he had been doing it.
“..Simon?” Fionna mumbled wearily, sitting up and looking at him. Her eyes were unfocused and half-lidded, and her slouch was tired. “What are you doing?”
Simon realized he might have woken her up, and smiled sheepishly at her.
“I'm sorry for waking you.” He sat up, reaching out to grab his glasses and bringing them to his face.
“Oh no-” Fionna is interrupted by a yawn, “No, no I liked it.”
“Oh.” Simon chuckled softly, fiddling with the crown absentmindedly.
A silence fell over them, broken only by Cake’s cat snores. Fionna looked around, obviously uncomfortable with the silence, but neither said anything for a while.
Finally, though, she broke it.
“So…” She nodded to the object in Simon’s lap, “The crown?”
Simon glanced at it.
“Just- couldn't sleep, is all.” he shrugged.
Fionna nodded, though she averted her gaze and stared at the ground, tracing a circle idly with her pointer finger.
“You- you're okay, right?”
The question felt rather out of the blue.
“Yes?”
“The crown is not- It's not doing weird stuff to you, is it?”
Simon felt like he shivered, and whatever kind of smile he had fell to a frown.
“..no.” He shook his head, putting on a reassuring smile. So what if it was, anyway? The end was all the same for him. He could deal for however long it took them to find a magic battery, he already had once before, a long time ago.
What was the other option? Leaving Fionna and Cake to die?
It was his fault they were here, so he felt obligated to help them.
He wasn’t living for anything as Simon anymore, anyway.
“But- Simon, you're blue.” Fionna remarked, making his smile falter.
“That's- that’s fine. Just a side effect.” He could rationalize it all he wanted, say it was a true statement, say it was for Fionna’s sake, but he was lying. He was lying and it didn't feel great.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Well,” Cake started, frowning, “looks like we're stuck.”
All three travelers looked at the ravine ahead of them, it was wide, and stretched very far down. They couldn't possibly cross it.
They couldn't, not without…
He didn't want to think about that.
Cake turned her gaze to them both, “We’ll have to go back.”
“Aww, but it’ll take hours to even get back to where we slept!” Fionna complained.
“And Scarab’s back there, if he breaks out of the ice, that's where he’ll be.” Simon reminded them, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the mere mention of Scarab hadn't summoned him.
“So, we're stuck.” Cake’s tail flopped and she glared down at the ravine.
Fionna sighed.
“We're stuck.”
Simon thought of a solution, but he bit his tongue.
Fionna thought of her own, the remote, but Cake pointed out they did not know how many jumps they had left. There likely wasn't anything more magic here, though they still didn't want to waste a jump.
Fionna and Cake were impatient, he could tell, they just wanted to get back into his head.
He exhaled sharply.
What could it hurt? He had already done it once, and this was only one more time. Additionally, this would only be for a short time.
On and off, no harm done.
“I can get us across.” He spoke up, drawing the attention of both of his teammates.
“Just give me the crown.”