Hey everyone! Guess who's back! Finally...

I'm very sorry for the delay but I hope that this will be worth it. As promised, the spark is back! No more lazy chapters or rushed updates to meet deadlines.

Enjoy :)

Finn looked out at the smoldering landscape, drawing his gaze across the fiery aspects of Flame Princess's homeland. There were wide plains of blackened and occasionally heat warped stone. Glowing magma pools ranged in size from puddles to lakes. Finn watched as a thick bubble rose to the angry surface a nearby pool and burst with a spray of molten orange shrapnel.

The splash reached nearly to his foot, painting itself across the smoke stained ground and digging a small furrow in the already heavily pitted ground. Despite Flambo's heat resistant spell, Finn felt a drop of sweat slither down his back. No amount of supposed imperviousness would be able to completely quell his ingrained discomfort.

He could handle Flame Princess. He could deal with the heat and the burns when they came from her. This, however, was lifeless and deadly fire.

There was no affection to dull the pain, though the spell was apparently meant to take care of that.

"Well," Jake said, his voice sounding dry from the heat in the air, "Here we are, Flame Kingdom territory. You ready?"

Finn looked down at the blueberry bulldog and chuckled, "You kidding? Let's get this junk done!"

Jake nodded stoically and said boisterously, "That's the spirit! Let's get in there!"

With that said, Jake ran ahead, charging forward into the searing kingdom. Finn took a second longer to follow, looking back at the green land behind them for a moment before turning away and heading on.

As he headed into the Flame Kingdom, he couldn't help thinking about Flame Princess and wondering where she was right then. Thinking about the girl managed to bring forward a memory that he wasn't totally sure he wanted to keep.

Finn walked through the trees toward Flame Princess's house. It had only stood erect for a few weeks now and Finn had had a bit of trouble finding the clearing. After searching around for a while, he managed to find his way there.

Stepping out from the forest, Finn smiled as he saw the house pyre. Just looking at the building reminded him of the days spent here with Flame Princess. It had taken a long time to get the construction lit and even longer to drag together that much timber and refuse. The whole time she had been there, laughing and joking around with him while he worked.

Well, she hadn't been there the whole time. She'd disappeared for a little bit right near the end. Finn laughed, thinking about how much easier it would've been to light the pyre had she been there.

Even as he laughed, Finn heard Flame Princess giggle from somewhere nearby. He stopped, standing silent for a moment, and listened. The sound came again and Finn determined the direction it was coming from.

"Hey Flame Princess!" Finn called out, heading in the direction of her laughter, "I'm here. Ya' ready to go?"

Her voice called back to him a moment later, "Yeah, one sec. Heheh, you gotta come look at this."

Finn wondered what it was she wanted to show him, and rushed around the pyre toward her voice. He found her sitting cross legged on a large rock with her back toward him. She was leaning on one of her arms and looked intently at something on the rock.

Her other hand was in the air, and as Finn neared he saw a spark shoot from an extended fingertip.

"So what's going on…?" Finn said, hopping up on the rock beside her.

His jaw nearly dropped off when he saw what she was doing.

"Oh glob! What the heck!" he cried.

Skittering back and forth, a lizard was trying desperately to escape. The neat circle of scorch marks that surrounded he creature was enough to tell Finn what had been happening. Not to mention, Flame Princess had her hand raised and was in the process of launching off another spark.

Taking its chance during the pause, the lizard darted away from Flame Princess and off of the rock. The creature disappeared into the grass near the forest edge and was gone.

Finn's disturbed gaze flew back and forth between Flame Princess and the scorched circle. Flame Princess was staring up at him a curious look on her face.

"What the flop were you doing!?' Finn screeched out, his voice cracking slightly in the stress of the moment, "What is wrong with…"

His voice died out as his eyes settled on Flame Princess's face. She looked confused, scared, and hurt too. Golden tears were starting to well up in the corners of her eyes.

"But I was… it's just a game… I…" she spluttered out, trying desperately to find the words to explain herself.

Finn sighed, utterly defeated by the realization of what he had said. Of what he had been about to say.

"I'm sorry," he said sadly, crouching down beside her, "I'm sorry for yelling out you…"

He had trouble looking at her. Finn felt ashamed of himself for freaking out like that.

"It's just that… that's not a nice game," he tried to explain, "You were really scaring that little guy. You could have hurt him too. Just… please don't do that anymore..."

Flame Princess looked up at him, that sad look still on her face, but she nodded.

"Now come on," Finn said, shaking himself and putting on his best smile, "Let's go have some fun."

The Fire Kingdom somehow seemed to burn darker around Finn and he managed to shiver in response to the memory. He hated thinking about how he had yelled at Flame Princess, almost made her cry, but it had caught him by surprise. He was just glad she was able to forgive him afterward. They'd gone on to have a good time, but the memory of that lizard still nagged at him.

He'd always insisted that she wasn't evil, and he'd always known that it was the truth. Her passionate nature was just mistaken as evil. But it was hard to believe the denial when he had seen what would easily have been counted as proof by anyone else.

He didn't want her to be evil, and he didn't want to believe that she was. He couldn't, really. He knew her. He knew who she was and what she was like. She wasn't evil, not the Flame Princess he knew. But then there were moments like that that came as a surprise, sticking and staying in his memory like burrs and upsetting his certainty terribly.

Finn just wished that he could be sure again.

"Hey, Finn…" Jake said, snapping a pair of blue sausage fingers in front of Finn's face, "Wake up buddy, you okay?"

"What? Oh, uh… yeah," he said quickly, "I'm fine. We almost to the castle yet?"

Even as Finn looked around, Jake responded, "You really were out of it. You didn't even talk but I… yeah. We're at the castle right now."

Finn realized that they were standing at the base of a high wall. He looked upward and saw that it was actually the side of a tower. The surface was covered with large stone outcroppings in multiple shades of dusky grey.

"Oh… huh."

"Yeah…" Jake said, giving Finn a weird look, "Well, hop on my back I'll give you a lift up there."

Finn looked between his brother and the wall and shook his head, saying, "Nah, I'm gonna climb it."

"You sure?" Jake asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, I gotta… I've got some junk to think about."

"Eh, suit yourself," the dog said dismissively. Without further conversation, he twisted his body into a spring and launched himself high into the air.

Finn watched Jake disappear in the distance then he turned his attention to the wall. It was a pretty easy climb with all of the stones jutting out. Finn took hold of a couple of them and hoisted himself up onto the wall. With some little effort, Finn began his ascent.

Hand, hand. Foot, foot. Hand, hand. Foot, foot.

It was slow, monotonous work. Handholds and footholds were numerous and he had no trouble in finding them. It was so easy, in fact, that he didn't even have to think about it. This left his mind free to wander.

Another memory slipped into his head and he found himself reliving the unsettling scene.

When the event had occurred in truth, Finn had been distracted. This was the first day he had met Flame Princess. He had been so full of emotions that what was really happening had never occurred to him. Finn didn't realize what was happening at the time, but now he did. The urgency of the situation, the worry and fear and panic, they all melted away to create a sort of pseudo-memory where Finn was truly able to see what was happening around him.

The snarling inferno rose high above the goblin's city, standing tall and mighty so that her head was even with the clouds. He could just make out her face inside the fire, formed from the fire itself. The fire that was quickly devouring the city.

Flames danced on rooftops and among the streets as Finn ran into the fray. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, floating around in thick clouds of oily blackness. A cart lay on its side, fire jetting from it.

Finn looked up and he could see the form of Flame Princess up there, wreaking havoc upon the city. She threw fire down and laughed as it engulfed things like buildings, trees, carts, and people. Sparks rained down from the air at her call, lighting fires where they touched.

Finn climbed one of the buildings, rushing to reach the peak. He had to get up there, he had to stop her. This was crazy, senseless destruction. He had to stop her from destroying everything, from killing anyone.

He scaled the wall as quickly has he could, hoping to reach the top before anything else could go wrong.

Finn snapped back to the present and found himself clinging to the side of a tower. He quivered slightly as he hung there.

There was another one. Another point of proof that managed to nullify even his most sincere argument. She'd nearly destroyed a city. How could he possibly redeem her from that? Oh, he wanted to, he did. But it just didn't seem possible.

If she was evil, it didn't seem likely that Finn could change her. Not likely at all. She would be stuck that way, evil and destructive, despite Finn's attempts to help her and to change her.

But he couldn't give up. There was no way he would. Most of her was amazing, totally great. It was just the fact that she was evil sometimes. He couldn't just stand by and let her do things like torture lizards and burn cities.

Maybe he could teach her to be good. Maybe that would work, just maybe. Finn wasn't sure, but he had to have some kind of hope.

He was going to get her candles, and then he was going to go back and teach Flame Princess how to be good. It probably wouldn't be easy, in fact it might be the most difficult thing he ever attempted it. But by glob it was worth it.

Finn gritted his teeth and kept climbing, determination pervading his mind as he moved along.

So...

Was that worth the wait? Was it good? Am I rusty? Review! Review! Review! As I said its a little darker than before, but it all works out. I'll update as soon as I can (as of this update, I'm currently juggling six stories...)