The floor was cold. She absolutely hated the cold. Why was she somewhere cold? The cold sucks.
Groaning, she sat up and looked around; she was in an ice cave. Her flames were doing virtually nothing to the ice, and looking about the cave, she found out why.
The Ice Prince, while cunning, needs to stop letting himself slack off so much, she thought.
In the corner was a large, frosted comfort chair, and its occupant was sleeping soundly. In her current position, she could only look at him with utter contempt. They hated each other, and they both knew it, but her status as a princess in the Fire Kingdom made her a target. Because of that - and that alone, she was sure - he chased after her fruitlessly.
She still remembered his first...'proposal'.
"I would find the entire world easily defeated under the armies of fire and ice."
His eyes were filled with a lust for power. His grin was savage. She felt fear, and forced it down; she would not bow to such a force.
"You...you're not a prince," she said, "You're a monster.'
She sighed quietly, removing herself from her bitter reminiscence. Then, it had felt justified, but as time went on, it became more and more of a scar on her memory. With each passing day, she felt more and more that there was something...wrong with saying that to him.
"Yo, Flame Princess!" Jake whispered as he rounded the corner, "I've got his cage-key!" he said, holding up a ice blue key.
"You really are right there whenever I need you, aren't you?" she whispered back, a grin on her face.
"Always at your service, Princess! You should thank Flambo, though, since he's the one who told me Ice Prince got a hold of you." The cage door clicked and swung open, its hinges creaking eerily. The pair held their breath for a moment as the Prince muttered something in his sleep, shifting into a slouch.
"Let's get out of here; I don't want to see what would happen if he woke up and caged you, too," she whispered.
The forest was serene. Idle chit-chat mixed in with twittering birds and other such natural sounds, when an echoing scream of rage emanated from the Ice Kingdom, causing the pair to flinch for a moment; the sound was quiet, but the emotion behind it was tremendous.
"Geez, he really needs to quiet down sometimes, doesn't he?" Jake joked, grinning slightly.
"Y-yeah, he...he really does."
"You alright, FP?" Jake asked, peering up at Fiona's concerned visage.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little nervous, that's all," she said, forcing her expression to return to neutral.
"Ah, don't worry, I've got your back!" he cheered, wiggling his arms.
She smiled lightly, amused by her friend's antics, but the back of her mind continued to dwell on something. It was a small something that came every time she heard him roar, and it would fade after a while, but the feeling was nostalgic, in a way. It was like a memory, if anything. It was a basic feeling, but for her, it held so much more.
She felt an urge to turn around, to run into his chambers and console him. To hold him, as he held her, and not in the forceful way when he tried to force her to wed with him.
The feeling haunted her, and scared her more than the Ice Prince himself ever could.
