Title: The Lost Hour
Fandom: Adventure Time with Finn and Jake
Rating: all ages
Length: 2400 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Thanks to G. for believing I could do this.
Summary: There's something in the woods.


Truth be told, Cinnamon Bun had first reported the phenomenon (Princess, Princess! There's a skeery monster in the woods!) over a week ago. He was, however, as notoriously excitable as he was unreliable. No one paid him any mind.

Then he disappeared. (Don't worry, Princess, I save you!)

Eventually, his absence attracted some notice. Peppermint Butler needed several heavy barrels of fondant hauled and couldn't find Cinnamon Bun anywhere, in the castle or out. Cinnamon Bun was his go-to for manual labor, eager to help and rarely remembering to ask for payment. Around the same time, LSP came poking around for one of their regular gossip-and-stuff-your-face dates. When she couldn't find him, she kicked up a huge fuss. Her tantrums, however, were about as well-received as Cinnamon Bun's stories, so nothing came of it. The barrels got hauled and life went on.

Then Lady Rainicorn and Jake slammed into the castle. They were returning from a leisurely romantic picnic. When they flew over the Far Forest, they saw something "spooky" and rushed home.

Finn had been hanging around the castle. Idle and restless without Jake, he'd been fooling around in the armory and challenging everyone he came across to swordfights and fart-offs. Princess Bubblegum had locked herself in the laboratory to get some peace and quiet while Peppermint Butler suddenly found himself itching to go organize the library's card catalogue.

Marceline was lurking in mid-air, just outside the lab's window, tossing little chunks of rock candy and shards of almond bark at it. The princess was doing her best to ignore the harassment, but when when Lady zoomed past, hit the wall and tumbled downward, only to slither into the castle, Marceline smacked into the window and careened through.

As Marceline floated back upright, she picked spun-sugar glass shards out of her hair and told the empty room, "No, I'm fine, thanks, don't worry about *me*."

The princess had already rushed out of the lab, searching out the ruckus. Peppermint Butler came huffing and puffing up a secret passage, pulling cobwebs off his chest as he pushed through the gathering crowd.

The Candy Kingdom *lives* for drama. It's not just the endemic sugar high, either.

The princess tried to calm everyone down -- My sweet friends, please, quiet! -- but Jake kept tugging at her skirt and Lady swirled around the ceiling, dipping down, whispering urgently in Korean.

Over at the exit, Marceline crossed her arms over her chest and snickered. "Nice leadership, there. Really compelling."

"Hey," Finn protested, pushing up the visor on his marzipan bascinet. "She's a great leader."

Rolling her eyes, Marceline pushed herself away from the wall. "Whatever. Wanna go see what all the hubbub's about?"

"WAY AHEAD OF YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU--" Finn ran at a breakneck pace out of the great hall and down the steps into the night. He had to stop after a little while, with a stitch in his side. The sweat on his face was making the helmet uncomfortably sticky.

He gripped his knees and struggled to take deep breaths.

After a long, boring wait, Marceline strolled up with a mini-Jake on her shoulder. "So I thought I'd find out where we're going first. You know, before we take off."

Jake laughed and pointed at Finn. "She's talking about you, dude!"

"Har, har," Finn mumbled. He lifted the helm off his head and set it carefully on the porch of a nearby house. When he licked his lips, he could taste vanilla and sugar. *All* clothes should be made of candy, he decided. "Where are we going, oh most mature ones?"

Marceline shrugged. "Dunno. Tootsalot here just said the Far Forest."

"Haha, now she's talking about *you*, dude," Finn said.

"Because," Jake said, raising his voice, "you'll see it when we get there."

"Where's Lady?" Finn asked when they were airborne, he suspended from Marceline's cool, strong hand, Jake still clutching her shoulder.

"She's coming along with PB in a minute," Jake shouted over the wind. "Needed to do a little mob control first."

"Mind control?" Finn asked.

"Same difference," Marceline put in. Finn tried to glare at her out of loyalty to the princess, but it was pretty funny. And it was hard to glare when you were dangling from someone's arm.

The night was warm as they flew onward. Shreds of clouds striped the sky here and there; the stars were bright, though there was no moon. They passed over the Duchy of Nuts and then the contested Spearmint Territories before finally arriving at the dark, foreboding edge of the Far Forest. Close-ranked fir trees pierced the sky, their boughs waving sharp and fearsome as katanas.

Finn *lived* for all these things. Fearsome and foreboding were among his favorite words. He gripped Marceline's wrist more tightly and swung back and forth, excited and anxious.

From above, the Far Forest looked like an endless, tangled mat stuck through with sharp, unwelcoming needles.

The three hovered in the warm breeze, gazing downward, until finally Marceline cleared her throat. "What are we looking for?"

"Yeah, man, it's just a haunted forest, no big whoop --" Finn said, but as his lips popped out the puh-sound at the end of whoop, something started moving below.

At first it was a glimmer of light, then several points that moved together in a wriggling line. When Marceline dropped a little lower, they saw more clearly that the points were not separate things at all, but scales rising from the back of...something.

"Something *spooky*, I told you," Jake whispered. "Watch!"

From some angles it resembled a massive snake, as long as the castle was high; then it would turn, and it looked more like a dragon, or a lion, its midsection stuffed to bulging. Despite its huge size, it moved through the forest silently, leaving nothing disturbed in its wake, as if it really were just light.

"Get closer," Jake urged Marceline.

"*You* get closer," she hissed back. "I don't --"

Finn let go of her hand and fell toward the tallest tree; Jake shot after him, managing to catch him in an approximation of a hammock just before Finn would have crashed through the forest canopy and onto the creature.

"Dude!" Jake scolded.

"I'm fine, man," Finn said, and grabbed a nearby branch. He swung from it with both hands, then somersaulted and got his legs around it. Upside down, he studied the creature. Its flank was diaphanous (not a word he knew, but the most accurate), mere scales of golden light through which the forest was still visible.

When he looked closer, however, he realized that he was looking into an altogether different forest. Snow clung to the branches there, and blanketed the ground below; the trees were not firs, but oaks and yews. When he shook his head and blinked, the scene changed again, to a meadow on the outside of a forest, where saplings waved in a breeze he could not feel.

"What is this?" Finn breathed.

The creature wound through the forest, wriggling and streaming, almost as if it were in search of something. From some angles, it no longer looked like an animal or monster at all, but a sheet of golden light dancing up and down over the trees.

Marceline came to rest on the top of the next tree over. "I don't like it."

Surprised, Jake glanced over. "You? You're not scared of anything."

She stuck out her tongue. "Didn't say I was scared. I just don't like it."

"I'm goin' in," Finn announced. He swung off his branch, down to a lower one, and from there got ready to drop on the creature's back.

"Don't touch that thing!" a voice yelled.

Finn froze where he was.

Princess Bubblegum loomed over them, perched on Lady Rainicorn's head. Her hair blew back, bright and streaming against the night sky. She looked fearsome, and foreboding, and even slightly mad.

Momentarily cowed by her authority, Marceline, Finn and Jake followed the princess meekly down to the forest floor a safe distance from the creature.

"It's simply too dangerous to interfere with," Bubblegum told them.

"Look, the picture's changing!" Finn ran up to the edge and stopped short, catching himself on low-hanging branch. He squinted to get a better look. "Princess, I see you! You're..." He tilted his head. "What're you doing?"

"Knitting," she said, from right behind him. He hadn't noticed her get close, but suddenly, all he could feel was her warmth, her sweet smell and sweeter voice. She sounded a little sad, actually. He looked up at her, confused and a little freaked out.

The Bubblegum inside the light looked slightly younger; her hair was done in braids, her cheeks were just a little rounder and she was frowning at the knitting in her hands, her tongue caught in one corner of her mouth.

"It was a present," the real Bubblegum said and then, a little more loudly, she added, "I told you I made you something."

"Whatever," Marceline said. "I never saw anything."

"It got lost, I told you."

Jake poked Finn's leg. "Dude, what's that?"

Finn looked back at the light. The scene had changed again; they were looking at one of the more disreputable neighborhoods of the castle village. Around one corner a shape moved, dragging a big bag after it.

"Oh, nothing to see here!" Jake shouted. "C'mon, everybody, let's --"

Marceline threw a pine cone at him. "Shut up! That's totally you, isn't it?"

Jake's eyes were round and panicked. When he spoke, he sounded like he was reading someone else's lines. "I don't know what you're talking about, young lady, I certainly do not. No, sir."

Lady Rainicorn laughed and said something at length. Blushing, Jake shrank down until he was the size of Finn's shoe.

"I lost my way," he squeaked from the ground. "I didn't know the difference between right and wrong."

Marceline scooped tiny-Jake up and tried to juggle him, while Lady Rainicorn hooted, attempting to stop her.

Mesmerized by the light and what it contained, Finn ignored them. He reached out his hand to touch it, but the princess pushed it away before he could make contact.

Behind them, Marceline and Lady played keepaway with Jake, their laughter and shouts dimming down, out of range, when Bubblegum put her arm around Finn's shoulder.

"Is it...memories?" he asked, unable to look away. A hulking figure crossed the scene on a diagonal. It set down a squirming bundle, looked back and forth anxiously, and paused, as if trying to make a decision.

The branches around the figure started to shake then. Startled, it dropped to all fours, bounding away to disappear into the forest.

"No, Finn," the princess said. "I think this is a piece of time."

The little bundle remained in the clearing. It rolled from side to side, then tried to sit up, revealing a baby's face, dark and streaked with tears.

"Hey, that's me!" Finn almost dashed into the light, but Bubblegum wrapped both arms around him and wrestled him backward, down onto the ground. He spit and kicked and fought to get free, but she was older and heavier (and he loved her) and eventually he surrendered, breathing hard, his eyes burning.

The scene had changed. They could see another town, different from anything he'd seen except in Marceline's memories: the roads were smooth rock, and there were bare trees strung with black wires marching up and down on either side of the roads.

"We can't," Bubblegum told him. "We can't go in."

Finn pulled his knees up to his chest and sniffed back all the snot crowding his nose. He wanted to cry, and run away, and other, utterly unheroic things.

"That was *me*," he said, but his words had no heat, no force.

"I know," she said gently. She patted his shoulder and sighed. "And that was me losing Marceline's present, and Jake, and this looks like Marceline's old home now."

She tried to explain time - it was a river, or maybe a woven tapestry, or maybe it was like melted sugar in boiling water - and Finn tried to understand, he really did. A river had currents, tapestry had fibers, sugar melted into filaments. However you wanted to think about time, this particular thread had come loose, worked itself free and gone feral.

"So we tame it," he said. Every time he spoke, he felt more weary. "We could trap it, and put it down, and --"

"No, Finn," she said, and sounded about as drained he was. "We just let it go."

He leaned his head onto her shoulder and closed his hand in the fabric of her trousers. Bubblegum didn't seem all that regal or powerful right then.

They fell into shadow as Marceline floated up and whacked Finn's head affectionately. "What about Mr. Sticky in there?"

"I beg your pardon?" Bubblegum asked.

"*Look*," Marceline insisted and pointed at the light.

On the other side of the light, Cinnamon Bun waved heartily at them. He looked, somehow, *different*. His expression was less dopey than usual, his posture somehow straighter.

Finn leaned forward. Bubblegum restrained him, but he shook off her hand. "I'm not touching it, don't worry."

He drew his sword and poked it at the light. The surface bent inward, farther and farther, until, finally, the point pierced through.

"Get back!" Bubblegum shouted and Marceline swooped down, yanking Finn back from the torrent of golden time that poured forth.

Cinnamon Bun wiggled free of the hole and stepped back into their world. "Thanks, guys."

He sounded different: his voice was deeper and more confident. His spindly arms and legs looked rounder, his bun surface firmer, the icing glaze thicker and far less patchy.

"Cinnamon Bun?" the princess asked, taking a cautious step forward. "Is that you?"

"Hi, princess," he replied and stuck his hands where his hips would have been. "It's me! I feel *groovy*!"

"Oh, Cinnamon Bun!" Bubblegum threw herself at him, hugging him as best she could, rocking him back and forth. "You finished baking! You're so big now!"

"Size queen," Marceline muttered under her breath, but when Finn looked at her, she was smiling almost like a normal person.

No one suggested they leave; they all came to the decision simultaneously. Bubblegum and Cinnamon Bun rode home on Lady Rainicorn's back, facing each other, chattering away like long lost best friends. Finn flew back holding Marceline's hand, mini-Jake tucked into his backpack.

He couldn't help looking back. The lost hour glinted and shifted in the depths of the Far Forest, a slumbering dragon, a forgotten history. Its tail thumped the earth as they departed.


[end]