I'm back, not much substance to this chapter but some attempts at humor. Please let me know if any of it was actually funny or if I should just stick to the romance. I seriously rewrote the beginning of the this chapter like five times before I settled on this. At first it was gunna be Jake talking to Finn directly after the date-ish thing in the last chapter. But that seemed kinda boring so here we go. Read, Enjoy, Review, however that second one is entirely up to you( Yes, the other two are mandatory, or I'll have you arrested and such. jk) And originally the title of this chapter was going to be Cursed Critters and the Search for the Fiery Female, but apparently there's a limit on chapter titles.
Finn was wandering through the woods, truly aimlessly. In the manner of someone who is looking for something, but has no idea where to find it. But what was he looking for? Flame Princess. It had been a few days since they'd talked and Finn hadn't heard from her since. And Finn wasn't known for his extreme patience, so he went looking for her. Jake had said he'd found her in the woods, so that was where Finn was going to look first. Then the Candy Kingdom, then the rest of the world.
His search hadn't been very successful so far, though. All he'd found was a bunch of trees and a stupid looking sigh saying something about a forest of hotel, hostel, hospitality. Yeah that was probably it. Why else would all of the little woodland creatures be watching him so intently from all directions. The only things moving were their eyes as they followed the boy along the path.
Finn decided to make a game of it. For every, umm, brown animal that Finn saw, he would whistle. His eyes darting around, Finn saw a squirrel, and it was brown, so he whistled. Then he saw a, um, a tree. Trees are alive right? Finn whistled. Then he saw another tree and whistled again. Or at least he called it whistling, but in reality it was more of a high-pitched raspberry.
Then suddenly there were small furry things all over him. And they were biting him and scratching him and all that crazy stuff. And they were screaming too. "Stop it!" "Stop it stop it stop it!" Finn looked down at himself and saw that he was covered in the small animals he had been looking at earlier.
Finn screamed and started running haphazardly. He tripped over a rock, then a hole, then he ran into a bush and got stuck for a second. The little beasties kept attacking him all the while. Finally Finn ran into something waist-high and solid. He flipped over it and fell onto his back.
And suddenly the animals weren't attacking him anymore. They were just sitting there watching him with weird little expressions on their faces.
Finn decided to try and backtrack, maybe he had passed Flame Princess in the struggle. He took as step back toward where he had come from and suddenly the little animals were all over him again. "I'll kill you!" they were screaming. And Finn started screaming too. He jumped back behind the invisible line of safety.
Then he considered asking. Maybe he was trespassing or something. "Umm, I'm sorry little guys. But can I go through your forest?" They just stared at him. They probably couldn't talk. But if they could, they would be saying yes. Finn started to step back into their domain.
Ten billion little furry creatures attached themselves to his bare shin with their teeth. Finn screamed as dozens of tiny jaws ripped his skin. He jumped back and yelled, "What's wrong with you guys? Why do you keep attacking me?"
The squirrel stepped forward and said, "I dunno, I'm just feeling really mad for some reason."
A fluffy little bunny rabbit stepped up next to the squirrel and muttered, "Yeah, I just look at you and start feeling all vicious inside."
Finn felt confused. "What do you mean? Are you saying I'm ugly or something? Do I have something offensive stuck to my face?" Finn started trying to stretch his face around to where he could see it.
"No, there's nothing on your face." A wicked sounding voice said, 'It's the forest, I cursed it."
Finn started to look around wildly for the source of the voice, but found nothing. "Where are you?"
"Right in front of you…" Suddenly one of the shrubs stood up and morphed into an ugly stubby tree thing with beautiful flowing Finn hair.
"Tree witch!" Finn growled, "Why are you making the animals attack me?"
"Cuz I'm evil." The witch said, "Duh."
"Oh yeah," Finn muttered.
"So now you're stuck here, forever."
"Couldn't I just go that way?" Finn said, pointing in the opposite direction.
"Nope, I cursed it."
"When?" Finn asked confusedly.
"Right now" The witch said, waving her arms magically in that direction.
Finn slapped one hand over his face and groaned, "Darn…"
"Hey guy."
Finn looked down at his feet. The little forest animals were gathered around him. "What?" Finn asked.
"Put his in that backpack of yours, if you do that we won't be able to attack you."
Finn's eyes grew big, betraying his excitement, "Wow! You'd be cool with that?"
They nodded collectively.
"And you're sure you wouldn't get out and rip me up?"
"Yup," The squirrel said, "But we might chew up your stuff and pee on it a little."
"Eww," Finn groaned, "But I guess I'll have to deal with that. Is this everyone or are there more out there?"
"Everyone's here," They huddled together and whispered for a moment. "Yeah, everyone but the bear."
Finn sighed, "Seriously?"
"Yup," the animals said cheerfully.
"Fine…" Finn started scooping them up and placing them gently inside his backpack. "Let's get this over with." Taking a deep breath, Finn began to sprint through the scary woods of everything trying to kill him all the time.
"I'll kill you!"
"Let me outa here!"
"I'm gunna tear up your face!"
"No! No! No! No! Noooo!" Finn screamed as he ran. Behind him there was a gigantic bear and it seemed to be faster than Finn. It was quickly gaining ground on him and soon it would catch up to him.
"I hate this forest!" Finn shouted.
"Raur!" The bear shouted.
Finn could feel sweat dripping down the back of his neck, and his legs were feeling weak from all the running. His heart was pounding in his ears and Finn knew that he would have to rest soon.
Up ahead he saw a low hanging branch. Maybe he could jump up to it and stay out of the bear's reach that way.
Building up even more speed, Finn prepared to leap for the safety of the branch. His feet left the ground and a moment later his fingers wrapped around the gnarled wood. Just as he was about to pull himself up, though, a nasally voice began to chide him.
"No, no, no, no climbing in my trees."
Suddenly the branch withered in his grip and became nothing but air.
Dropping through the air, Finn felt time slow as the bear approached. It's teeth looked extremely sharp and Finn couldn't help letting out a yell as it closed in on him.
But the bear never reached him. Because at the last moment, a wall of deterrent fire was erected around Finn, causing the bear to stop.
It was a few seconds before Finn realized he was still alive. And a few more before he realized the nature of his savior.
"Flame Princess!" Finn exclaimed with a smile, "Is that you?"
A face materialized in front of him, complete with a smile of its own. "Who else would it be? Besides, what are you doing this deep in the forest?"
"I was looking for you," Finn said, smiling even more as he saw blotches of red form where her cheeks would be. "Hey I've got an idea" he said, his mind racing from the residual adrenaline. "How about you get a house closer to me and Jake so I can see you all the time without almost getting killed?"
"Haha yeah, that sounds great. Come on let's go, I've actually got this place I've been looking at."
The wall dissipated until Flame Princess was standing beside him. The bear was nowhere to be seen, and it was just the two of them. Flame Princess started to tentatively lead him by the hand.
Jake was sitting alone in the tree house. Finn had returned from the forest to drop off his backpack and then had immediately run off to do something with Flame Princess.
But as he sat there, Jake started to notice a weird smell coming from Finn's backpack. Moving slowly, Jake went to investigate it.
Opening the main pouch, Jake slid his rapidly sniffing nose into the mysterious innards of the backpack.
"Ouch, my nose!" Jake exclaimed, falling backward surprised.
Suddenly several dozen small creatures leapt out of the bag and started to pile all over Jake, chewing ferociously with their tiny, tiny, painful teeth.
Jake screamed and leapt out the window, woodland creatures still in tow.
In the far off distance, the tree witch snickered to herself. "Heh heh, never suspected that I cursed his stupid backpack too…"