(Decided to deviate a little and try a Fionna and Cake fanfic. This takes place soon after the events of the Fionna and Cake comic.)
"En… envah… va… l… loo… en… ve… lope! Envelope!" Flame Prince finally pronounced.
"Haha, awesome! That's right!" Fionna exclaimed with a grin, holding up a flash card with a picture of an envelope on it.
The hero and the fire elemental sat on the tree house floor facing each other. Fionna with a stack of cards in her hand, and Flame Prince seated on a sheet of tin foil. Cake walked into the room with a plate of snacks for them.
"How's it goin', guys?" Cake asked as she placed the plate beside them.
"Great!" Fionna replied. "I gotta thank Gumball for giving us these cards, they're really working! FP's learning fast!"
Flame Prince smiled at the compliment. "Thank you." he said carefully.
It was true; Flame Prince was learning the English language exceptionally fast, and could understand it perfectly. He was far from fluent in speaking it though, still having trouble pronouncing many words, and had to speak slowly and carefully. His biggest weakness was stringing words together into sentences, something he's been working hard to improve on.
"Ok, how about this one?" Fionna held up a card with an apple on it.
"Oh! Apple." FP responded with ease.
"Yup!" Fionna looked at the cards and raised an eyebrow. "Hm. I think these might be too easy for you now. Hang on, I'll go get some harder ones." She got up and walked out of the room.
Flame Prince looked over at Cake, who was already helping herself to some snacks. "Cake?"
"Yeah?"
He decided to speak to her in cat, rather than waste time trying to tell her in English."Meow meow meowmeow mow meow meow mow? (When Fionna gets back, can you tell her that I really appreciate her taking the time to teach me?)"
"Oh sure, baby. No problem!"
Moments later, Fionna returned with a new stack of cards and sat back down.
"Hey Fi, flame booger here wanted me to tell you that he thinks you're super hot and wants to have a million babies with you." Cake said nonchalantly.
"HRRRMMMMMM!" FP growled as he scowled intensely at Cake, the flames of his hair blazing. Cake merely giggled at his reaction.
Fionna couldn't help but smile a little, but she saw FP didn't find it quite as funny."Pfffff. C'mon, Cake. Don't be a jerk." she said.
"Alright, alright, fine. Y'all can't take a joke…" she muttered, rolling her eyes as she left the room.
They continued with the lessons for a while, during which Flame Prince was mentally preparing for something he wanted to ask Fionna. But he didn't want Cake to translate it for him. He wanted to ask this one himself. With full sentences being his weak point, he'd been practicing this one over and over for a while now. He finally gathered up the courage to ask her.
"Um, Fionna?" he asked.
"Uh-huh?" she said as she shuffled through the cards.
"Do y-you… wuh…want to gah… go… ah… ow…" He blushed in embarrassment and twiddled his fingers as he tried to sound out the words. Fionna tilted her head at the sight.
He took a deep breath and tried again, thinking about each word. "Do… you want… to go… out… with me?" he said slowly.
Fionna stared at him for a few seconds, her mouth open slightly. She broke the silence with nervous laughter.
"Heh, uh, good job on the sentence there, FP!" She said with an awkward smile. "But I don't think you know what you just said there. You see, 'going out' means something different. It means, uh… well…"
"No…" Flame Prince interrupted. "I know…" He looked her in the eyes and repeated, "Do you want to… go out with me?"
She began to blush a little as she realized he knew what he was saying. "R-really?"
FP nodded his head, "Yes."
"Woah, um. No one's ever asked me that for reals. And I… didn't know you felt that way about me, heh…" She scratched the back of her neck. "Uh, yeah, sure! I'd love to!" She said, smiling at him.
His face lit up, both figuratively and literally, at her response. He happily smiled back at Fionna, but his smile faded when he saw something behind her. He pointed over her shoulder.
"Huh?" She turned to look behind her to see Cake with a huge, sly grin across her face. "Gah!" Fionna jumped back in surprise. "H-how long have you been there?"
"The whole time." Cake replied. "Oooh, I just knew it! I knew you two were into each other from day one!" she bragged, wiggling her hands and hopping up and down. "Hang on, I gotta get the camera! I just need a picture of my baby sister and her first boyfriend!" she exclaimed as she ran upstairs.
"Ugh." Fionna grunted. She turned back to Flame Prince. "Hey, let's bail before she gets back!"
"Ok!" Flame Prince chuckled.
The new couple excitedly left the tree house. They weren't exactly sure where they were going, but they didn't really care. They had each other's company, and anything was better than Cake bawling and obsessing over them.
(This fic came about when I was thinking about how there must be some sort of transitional period between FP only speaking cat and being able to speak English, and how cute it would be if he tried to ask Fionna out during this period.)