He held up a glowing hand to silence her. "I am disappointed it has come all the way to this...".
Her eyes shifted from queen to prince. "...come all the way to...?"
"I've heard everything, Fionna. Don't try to hide it any longer!"
She gulped, taking a step forward. "Okay...stay calm now."
"I am DONE staying calm!" he shouted, casting a fireball to the ground with his fist. "You have been plotting to off me this whole time, have you not? That bears no reason for me to stay calm!"
"No, prince, listen," she said, palms out. "I haven't been planning to off you. Really, I haven't. I'm not gonna kill you."
The prince's eyes narrowed and he slowly raised a hand, one flaming finger extended and pointing to the queen. "But she will."
Ice Queen frowned and crossed her arms, hand near her pocket. I knew saving the Flame Shield would be a wise idea, she thought proudly.
"No, not gonna happen like that," Fionna assured him in a low, calm voice. "I'm in charge here. I'm calling the shots. Nobody's going to kill you, not on my command."
"Lies," he returned, hand re-igniting in fire. "You were just now speaking about how to stop me, how to silence me."
"How to CONTAIN you," Fionna corrected. "You're a dangerous guy, and we seriously need to keep you under control so our world doesn't burn up. You've gotta understand that!"
He took a step forward, flaming finger raised to her face. "That is not fair! You would have me snuffed out, or at least imprisoned, as even my own mother had done to me! You are not being fair to me, Fionna!"
"I'm afraid that's life for you, Prince," Ice Queen spoke up, fondling the jewel in her pocket. "All royalty is destined to make sacrifices for the greater life."
"What life?!" he demanded. "A life of naught but solitude and forced duty? Hardly a life worth calling mine!"
"What duty, if I may ask?"
"My mandated, fruitless task," he said bitterly. "To light the kingdom in days and nights of darkness. To shine forth as a lamp's beacon, the lighthouse among molten seas!"
"Lighthouse?" Cake asked, scratching her head.
The prince closed his eyes. "Why else should I find myself imprisoned in that despicable lamp? Too hot-headed and unstable for this world, my duty as the prince was to shine forth as a beacon to the lost fire people, that they might find their way home. Pah! As if there might be any wayward fire-souls living outside the kingdom. And then when my mother reintroduced our brilliant 'Tu felix Regnus Ignim nube' campaign, my duty as a lamp evolved from that into attracting a potential mate, like a moth to an open flame. All and only for the good of our kingdom."
Ice Queen cocked a wispy eyebrow. "Well you're right about one thing, that does sound like a pretty terrible life."
"Yes, duh," Flame Prince responded before regaining his regal composure. "So you can therefore plainly see that I am well aware of life's relative unfairness...that is, until I was set free. None of you can fathom the importance I place on this newfound freedom."
Fionna looked down at her shoes. Guilt was stacking around her heart like a fort of broken bricks. She opened her mouth, but Ice Queen cut in before she could get a word out.
"I don't blame you for enjoying your sudden freedom." She pulled her hand from her pocket and held it behind her back. "But the fact remains, you are simply too dangerous to be kept roaming about in the open like you do. You'll melt all the things I hold dear in my life at the rate you're going!"
"Too dangerous to keep alive is still what I'm hearing," he responded through clenched teeth. "I can't help being what I am! And what I am is a living candle. Did I not tell you just that, Fionna? I can't stop being a candle!"
"Bad analogy," the queen argued, again cutting off Fionna's attempted response. "A candle is confined to a lump of wax. You're a forest fire gone out of control."
"Not out of control," he said, rearing back. "FREE!"
He leaped up and crashed down fist-first into the ground where Ice Queen had been standing about a half-second ago. She rolled herself away and clambered to her feet. "Flame Shield!" she shouted, throwing the jewel to the ground. It exploded in a streaming blue light that encircled and enveloped her, invoking the spell's familiar barrier.
The prince rose to his feet and cut loose with a series of fiery jabs and kicks, fire bursting and blasting from his limbs with each thrust. The queen held her ground, blocking and dodging and occasionally firing back a bolt of ice. Fionna and Cake quickly followed suit, activating their Flame Shields to join the fray.
"So what exactly is our plan here?" Cake shouted as she shoved the prince to the ground from behind.
"Don't know, don't care!" Ice Queen replied, firing an ice arrow from between her fingers. It melted before even making contact. "Just get him!"
Rolling to his feet, the prince brought his fist around in a wide arc, which Fionna blocked with the broad side of her sword. She countered by planting her foot against his chest and shoving him off. Hesitantly, she took a defensive stance and waited for the prince to get back on his feet.
"Fionna!" Ice Queen growled, "If you plan on winning this fight, you're going to have to ATTACK him, not wuss around!" She produced her familiar ice blades in either hand and charged forward.
"But...!"
"No butts unless you're kicking his!"
"Unlikely!" The prince taunted as he stopped an oncoming ice blade between his palms, evaporating it almost instantly. He took a knee to the ribs and a kick to face for it.
"Come on, Fionna!" Cake joined in. "We could really use some help here!"
"...right!" Her voice was full of apprehension. She knew fighting was the best course of action at the moment, but something inside was holding her back. Regret? Self-doubt? The fact that she was siding with Ice Queen, which meant sympathizing with evil and therefore betraying her own alignment? Whatever it was, she only knew for certain that she needed to get over it, now.
For the good of all, right?
She ground her teeth together and dashed forward, sword at the ready. Flame Prince dropped low to avoid Cake's war club fist, just in time to sweep kick Fionna's ankles and send her tumbling face-first into the dirt. She quickly righted herself and took a wide swing at the prince, missing completely.
"I am hurt that even my so-called wife has turned on me," he said, hands ablaze and trailing fire wherever he waved them.
"Of course I did! You can't just go around attacking and mucking crud up with your hot bod, dude!" Fionna tried to argue, making another wild swipe. "I know you can't help it, but we gotta keep you under control!"
"I'm not attacking anyone, Fionna! I'm only being what I am!" He lashed out, sending a cascade of fireballs her way. "I never attacked your girlfriend, only came to her kingdom and by course of nature began melting everything around me. Her world simply was not ready for me."
"That's why you learn to adapt, dude! Control yourself to suit the world!"
"Why should I adapt to this world? This world should adapt to ME!"
She danced and twisted her way around the prince's onslaught, slowly advancing her way toward him. "Dude, you gotta give us time! We don't know HOW to deal with you yet! Your whole everything is like totally brand new to us!"
"You have had a hundred years now! Surely SOMEONE out there has been developing a stronger Flame Shield, or learning how to, as you so eloquently say, 'control' us!" He spun around in time to shut down the approaching Ice Queen with a fiery uppercut.
"Prince, you're not being fair!"
He glared at her. "LIFE isn't fair...".
Fionna paused, teeth grinding, then charged forward, ducking under one final fireball before tackling and pinning him beneath the broad face of her sword. She straddled across his stomach, bearing down hard. "Is that your excuse for all the damage you've caused?" She growled. "Are you not even sorry?"
His body temperature was climbing with each moment. She could feel the fire inside, stoked by his own raging emotions, as it slowly ate away at her Shield. A familiar stinging sensation flashed across the parts of her body he'd burned last time.
"I am not sorry, Fionna," he said in a low voice. "You knew the risks, yet you touched my flame anyway. You disregarded the warnings of your cat and your womanfriend. YOU are just as much to blame as I am for your own pain!"
She pressed down on him harder, the crystal sword slowly melting against his body. Her teeth were clenched so hard they ached, and she was visibly fighting back tears. He was right. She had been the one who started it all. All the fires, all the scars, all the drama brought into Ice Queen's life had grown out of decisions she'd made.
"...Flame Prince...I'm-"
CRACK!
She instinctively rolled backwards off the prince just in time to see a huge shaft of ice come crashing down atop his chest. The sharp tip had melted in the intense body heat before it made contact, though; the resulting blow felt more like being hit with a hammer than being impaled. Struggling to catch his breath, he scrambled to his knees and crawled out of the way before Ice Queen landed, ice blade sticking into the earth. As a parting move, he somersaulted to his feet and hurled a fireball in her direction. Missed.
"You let him escape, Fionna!" the queen hissed, picking herself up. "What the flake were you thinking?!"
"What was I thinking? What were YOU thinking?!" She held out her sword, disapprovingly scowling at the melty warped section left by the prince. "You could taken my head off!"
Ice Queen spit to one side. "I was aiming for his."
"Same," the prince coughed, striking a defensive pose.
"Go! Hit him! Now!"
"What? I can't! Not now! I mean, look at this sword!"
"If you can't hit him then you're of no use to me!" she screamed. "You may as well run on back home, you little COWARD!"
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!" Fionna stormed her way up the queen.
The moment she got there, both were thrust to the ground by a fire burst, landing together in a tangled heap. Fionna spit out a mouthful of white hair. The queen pulled herself up, her hand accidentally cupping a breast not her own. Their eyes made glaring contact for a half a moment, only to shift focus over to the prince again as he approached them.
"You both shall fail to incapacitate me" he said, blazing hands at the ready. "I thought perhaps a chance for the acceptance of my people might yet exist, but I have been proven wrong. So be it. But let me say this. Though you may never treat us as equals, I will be the better and accept your intolerance. You will continue not tolerating me as long as I live. And continue to live I shall...at the expense of your own safety."
"What are you prattling about?" Ice Queen demanded.
"No longer shall I stay contained!" he shouted, putting fist to palm. "I have been liberated, and like a wild blaze I shall remain so! I refuse to again be imprisoned by my own personage, even at the price of this world's well-being! My life is mine to live, and I need not look out for the safety of those who will not give the same unto meeyeEEKH!-"
"Quick, somebody do somethin'!" Cake shouted, holding the prince upside-down by the ankle with her tail. "While I still got Flame Shield!"
Checking her own fading shield, Fionna stepped up. "FP, I got no issue with you being free, really. I'm not trying to take away your identity or any junk like that." The sword raised to point at his chest. "But if you're gonna do it by screwing up and down all of OUR stuff, then we got issues. I can't allow that biz, hero's honor."
She spun on her heel and hit him hard in the stomach with the broad side of the blade. Between the intense heat and the force of the swing, physics kicked into play and the crystal blade sheared off in two. The prince doubled at the waist in pain, then very suddenly changed form. His entire body become a raging fireball, and he slipped right out of Cake's grip, spreading himself out into a roaring mass.
"IS THIS THE GAME YOU WANTED TO PLAY, FIONNA?!" He shouted in a crackling, burning voice. "IF YOU ARE SO KEEN ON PROTECTING YOUR WORLD, THEN SHALL WE SEE IF YOU CAN STOP IT FROM BURNING TO ASH?"
She made a move to dash forward, then stopped, staring in shock at her stump of a sword. Nearly all of the blue glow from the Flame Shield had worn off, and the familiar sensation of being enveloped in heat washed over her once again. She stepped back and stared helplessly at the fire, completely at a loss for plan of action.
Ice Queen picked up the slack and dashed forward, blistering flurries of powder snow bursting from her hands. "Fionna! Get your head out of the sand and let's MOVE!"
"But...but I don't have anything else I can use! I can't punch fire!"
"This is real bad, ladies!" Cake shouted, pulling Fionna back from the imminent flames. "He's gonna ignite the whole globbin' forest!"
"HELP ME THEN!" Ice Queen screamed, leaping back beside them and away from the firewall. "I can't fight him alone!"
"Ice Queen, this ain't workin'! We need a plan! We shoulda had one before we even got into this clusterbomb!"
"Clusterbomb nothing, this is a straight-up firefight now!"
Fionna's swimming head suddenly began to calm as an idea revealed itself. She shook her head and cast her broken sword aside as she landed back in reality. "There's no time to plan, Cake. We can't always have a plan...sometimes we just gotta roll with it!"
With that, she grabbed Cake's arm and started running uphill. "Fionna, what the hayloft?! Don't you remember how we got in this mess in the first place? We are NOT takin' on another one of your totally dingus ideas!"
"No time to argue!" she insisted, tugging Cake along. "Ice Queen, get ready to try something really, REALLY big, okay?"
The queen frowned, then dutifully nodded and dashed back into the forest.
"What the what? Did she just ABANDON us?" Cake flailed in disorientation. "WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT'S GOIN' ON?!"
"Cake," Fionna said in the most serious tone she could manage while huffing her way uphill, "Do you trust me?"
"Not one flippin' blip, no!"
"Well too bad! I'm gonna make this work! I just hope you still got enough Flame Shield for it...".
By this time, the blazing wall that was Flame Prince had taken notice of his adversaries' departure and started a swift pursuit after them, razing the greenery beneath him while lighting up the night.
"So you givin' out any clues on what this incredible plan of yours is?" Her claws involuntarily extended, digging into Fionna's arm. "It better not involve usin' me as your personal shield, neither!"
"Nope," Fionna said with a slight wince as they neared the peak. "We're fighting fire with fire!"
"Not with ice?"
Before a response could be uttered, they found themselves completely encircled by crackling flames. Fionna scooped Cake up in her arms, much to her protest, and backed up closer to the summit. Closer to the open rim of the volcano.
"Flame Prince, wait!" she said, holding out her free hand.
"No."
In one big rush, the flames gathered together, coalescing into one full-sized conglomerate blaze, which then shrunk and condensed itself back into the shape of Flame Prince. He lunged forward and grabbed Fionna by the shoulders, his hands burning right through her shirt and charring the bare skin beneath. Ow. Ow.
"Tell me Fionna," he said scathingly, "why I should not simply push you and your cat right into this volcano's bubbling blood. You have both proven that naught but my destruction will satisfy either of you. For what reason am I to allow you to live on?"
"No, Prince, listen!" Fionna begged, biting back tears from the singeing pain in her shoulders. "I admit it, I was gonna try to destroy you. I thought I could use you to get back at my enemy, that was the only reason I came to see you that first time. I only wanted you for your hot bod...and that was wrong."
A small tongue of fire licked over the prince's lips as he brought his hands away from her shoulders, down her arms to elbow level. He still held them tightly, skin still burning against hers. Ow. "So...you never intended to marry me. Not once did you truly want to be my wife. This a very bitter notion and it is not improving your case for salvation, Fionna."
"I know, I know!" she said, eyes moistening over. "That was wrong of me! I shouldn't have tried to use you like that. I get that now! That's why I wanna make peace with you and basically plead for our lives!"
Cake looked up at her questioningly, fighting back the urge to take action against the prince herself. No, she told herself, you'll mess up Fionna's plan and she'll never forgive you. Gotta let her play this out her own way.
"You say you're willing to recompense," he continued, leaning forward and holding her out over the rim. "But I have yet to hear a sound reason for me to keep you alive!"
"Prince, no! Don't!" she cried, quite literally. "You gotta understand! I'm willing to change! I legit wanna be your friend here! I wanna get to know you more, try to understand your people so I can accept you into this world! I'm not gonna try to kill you anymore, I'm not gonna try to put you down! I can't even do that, you're too powerful for me! I realize all that now, and I just want to put all this behind us so we can go back to the way it could have been when I first met you!"
Flame Prince watched as she struggled in his hands, tears flowing in tiny streams down her cheeks. He could almost hear the flesh burning as he moved his hands further up her forearms, fabric turning to ash beneath them. Conflicting feelings of anger, vengeance and sorrow swirled around in the pit of his stomach, rising up into his heart. He needed to make a decision. Now.
He released her arms. In the fraction of a second she began to fall backward, barely a breath of time, Cake fell out of her arms and the prince snatched her by the neckline of her shirt, pulling her back to safety at the cost of burning a straight chasm down the middle of it. The shirt was now a tattered vest. She clutched her heaving chest as she landed on her knees, tears still falling from the pain of seared skin.
The prince looked down on her. "For being such a champion, you have undeniably proven weak against fire."
She turned her head up, looking first at Cake, then at Flame Prince, then at the volcano. "...that's because I can't fight fire...WITH ANYTHING BUT FIRE!"
Cake knew a cue when she saw one. She swept her tail at the prince's ankles, throwing his balance, then jumped into an overhead kick, connecting with his jaw and sending him tumbling right up and over the rim.
And that was, in fact, a second cue. A glowing silhouette to the girls' right flew high into the air, shining vibrantly against the moonlit column of smoke pouring from the mountain's mouth. Lava's glow revealed a familiar face as the silhouette's brilliant form took perch on the rim and released an enormous surge of blinding arctic energy.
Fionna and Cake both scrambled to the rim to get a better view. Against the glare of the ice magic, Fionna barely caught sight of the prince as he surfaced from within the magma, body radiating brighter than ever. All around him the lava began to supercool from the sheer force of the queen's magic, solidifying into solid rock.
He raised his hands in defiance, casting fireballs to the surface. Fortunately for the queen, Flame Shield had not yet given up and absorbed some of the blows. The rest she took head-on, leaving sharp cracks on her skin. The prince flailed for a moment in desperation, watching the lava slowly solidify all around him. He took a deep breath.
Focusing all the energy left inside him, he arched back and screamed, bringing the whole mountain to rumble from it's very core. The remaining lava shifted and swirled. "Get down, it's gonna blow!" Cake screamed, tackling Fionna and rolling with her down the mountainside.
"Not yet!" said the queen, continuing her assault. "I've almost got him!"
"No, NOW!" Cake shouted back.
The ground heaved as a burst of noxious gases spewed forth from the volcano's maw with a deep, gut-wrenching belch. The impact sent the queen flying into the distance. Fionna strained her eyes against the night sky to follow the body. THERE. She had been thrown back into the forest.
The smoke billowed and bellowed out of the top of the mountain, but the rumbling slowly began to subside. A few loose rocks skittered down the slopes, and the air was choked with an acid stench.
"Is...that it?" Cake asked hesitantly. "No lavabombs or nothin' like that?"
The mountain resembled nothing more than a giant, stinking chimney now.
"I'm a little more worried about the prince than the lava," Fionna said. "Should we go up and scope what happened to him?"
Cake brushed herself off. "I ain't goin' back up there, not without another Flame Shield."
Looking down to examine the battle damage she'd taken, Fionna responded with "So I guess we'll just trust that Old Snowballs did her job right and he's basically a goner. Speaking of which, we'd better go find her right quick."
Cake cocked an eyebrow. "Right now? Why? She can take care of herself."
"You don't know that," Fionna said, jogging back down to the campfire, which, amazingly enough, was still slow-burning. She snatched up a mid-sized branch from the firewood pile, ignited the end, then held it overhead like a torch. "Besides, it's a hero's duty to ensure that the citizen asking her for assistance comes out okay in the end. So I gotta go make sure her end is okay."
A sigh. "Fi...".
"Look, you can come with me or you can stick around to see if Flame Prince is still alive and still wants to kill us. Your choice."
Cake shook her head disdainfully, but followed her nevertheless back into the forest.
"You're insane," she said, stepping over a fallen log. "Just hopin' you were aware of that little tidbit."
"Don't give me those cramps, Cake. I had to do something crazy. Something he wouldn't expect. How else could I get him to hold still long enough for you to jank him down?"
"You lied, too."
"What, about wanting to be his friend? I had to lie, Cake. I had to get him to let his guard down."
"And here I thought I raised you better...".
"Oh hush. We made it out alive. And we did it because I'm an awesome on-my-toes thinker!"
"Yeah, one that doesn't even let her teammate know what's up first...I was flippin' SCARED, girl!"
"Eh, I knew you'd pick up on it," Fionna glazed, "You and me, we got this psychic link thingy where we know what the other person's thinking like, usually all the time!"
"No we don't."
"Whatevs."
"You see?" Cake said, pointing, "You see that right there? That shrug-off thing you do, that's what bugs me! That's disrespectful and a good example of bad communicatin'! No wonder I can't trust you on barely nothin'!"
"You still gotta learn to flex more," Fionna responded as she tried unsuccessfully to pull the edges of her burnt shirt together. "I told you, I make stuff up as I go!"
"Well butts to you then! I got no time for your unpredictable brain games, you hear me? You wanna play the wildcard, you do it with Ice Queen. And KINDLY leave me out of it."
Whether against the chill of the night or the very personal thoughts that had gone through her head just now, Fionna shivered and took stock of her situation. She was certainly cold, probably due to the sudden extreme change in temperature. Her sustained burns didn't seem to be causing her much pain at the moment, though that may have just been shock. Or maybe numbness from the air temperature? Maybe not. It was cold out here, but mostly just in that familiar way that makes your hair and sometimes nipples stand on end. She stopped to adjust her bra with her free hand and noticed something familiar lying on the ground at her feet.
"Hey, I found her tiara!"
She picked it up, brushing away the tangled moss and wet leaves it had accumulated on impact. The queen was nowhere in sight. Must have fallen when she got blasted...
As it rested heavily in her hands, she swore she could hear the faintest wind-whisper on the edge of hearing that bore the words "Take me back...".
Okay, that part HAD to have been her mind.
"We should probably find the queen and get this back to her," Fionna said, squinting into her dark surroundings. "She might die without her crown."
Cake rolled her eyes. "Ooh, and we just can't have that, can we, lover girl?"
"Shush. I told you, I can't let her die. I'm on a hero's mission quest thingy, I got a responsibility to make sure I fulfill it."
Cake replied by sticking out her tongue.
Fionna turned her attention back to the search. The more she tried to focus, the more she realized it might be impossible to locate the queen, bright skin and all, in the darkness of night. She might have to wait until morning at this rate.
The faint whisper returned, whispering another word. She had to really concentrate to hear it this time. "Divination..." it sounded like.
Divination? That weird outstretched hand thing Ice Queen used to find the prince in the first place? What about it? Use it to find the queen too? Wait, how did I come to THAT conclusion?
And why am I listening to something I'm probably probably imagining?
Some deep, hidden brain process began spinning. She really didn't have any other bright options, did she? Something tugged at her brain and compelled her to give it a shot. She passed the torch to Cake, who gave her a weird look.
Holding the tiara at her hip, she outstretched her other hand and closed her eyes. She pictured the forest as she was just able to see it, and cleared her mind. The whole world fell away from her mind's eye bit by bit. She was falling into a sea of imagination. It swirled around her to form a thin vapor fog, replacing everything with a wispy mist of transparent smoke.
And there she could see herself in the middle of it all, balanced precariously atop what looked like a high flagpole. She was watching from some other perspective, like an out-of-body trip. This other Fionna had one hand probing outward, seeking something. From her point of view down on the ground, she tried to reach out to the image of herself. The image mirrored her, reaching out in the same direction, further away from her. It seemed that although she was seeing herself from beyond her body, her motions still controlled it.
Curious, she tried turning away from the image of herself and reaching out in the opposite direction. She felt a tug on her wrist. It pulled her forward, down off the flagpole. She walked forward. She couldn't see herself coming, but felt she was getting closer. Something called her name in the distance, but the voice was warped and muted. She knelt down and brought her hand down slowly, cupping a shoulder.
A very cold shoulder.
In an instant, she fell back into full consciousness and quickly darted her eyes around the scene. Trees. Fallen logs. Moss. Cold. Long white hair, draped haphazardly over a tangled net of underbrush.
She realized where she was. She had found the queen, lying unmoving on the ground, and was kneeling beside her. Cake stood just behind, arms crossed and frowning. "Are you even listenin' to me?"
"Huh?" She set the tiara next to the queen's head and looked back up to her sister. "Was that you calling my name?"
"Who else would it be, doofus? What the hex happened to you, anyway?"
Fionna blinked. "...I think I might have just used the tiara. It told me to divine my way to Ice Queen."
"You did what?!" exclaimed Cake, nose to nose and pinching her cheeks. "Girl, that ain't safe! You have any idea how much trouble that coulda got you in just now?"
"Yeah, yeah," Fionna said dismissively, pushing her away. "Point is I found her and here she is."
"That's all you're worried about right now? Really? She looks already dead, anyway."
Fionna rolled the queen on her back and looked her over. The blast had not been kind at all. Her face was smoke-charred and cracked, with purple blood smeared and dripping in many places. Her hair was a tangled, frizzy mess, but interestingly enough hadn't lost its familiar sheen. Her clothes were in complete shreds. A long purple gash tore all the way up her thigh.
After a moment, Fionna smacked her cheek. "Queenie? Ice Queen, you dead?" No response.
"Well is she breathin'?"
She put an ear up to the queen's mouth to see if she could hear anything.
"Put your head on her chest, you dope."
Fionna licked her lips and felt the familiar pink rushing to her face. She had been hoping to avoid this part. Cautiously, she stretched herself out across the queen's body and laid her head down against her chest, cheek nestled safely among her exposed beasts. She noted that they were predictably cold, but also quite soft. "Yeah, she's breathing."
"Good," Cake said firmly. "Then let's get outta here, find us some real shelter or somethin'."
Fionna picked herself up, sitting on her knees. "Cake, we can't leave her by herself. She's unconcho, what if something happens to her?"
"Not our problem, girl. Now let's go."
There was a hesitant pause. "...no."
"Fionna..." she warned.
"No, Cake. I gotta stay with her, at least until she can get up."
Cake threw her hands in the air and groaned. "Why? Can't stand to be separated from your girlfriend?"
"Cake, you stuff that mouth right now. She's just...she's all kinds of jacked up right now. I am too. We should stick close by, stay together. In case something else happens."
"Like what? And even if somethin' WERE to jump us, we'd be one girl down. No, I don't like it. Not a good plan at all."
"Well what if I DO like it?" Fionna asked, again trying to adjust her ripped shirt. "You're not the only boss, you know."
"Fionna, it is MY TURN to make a call here. All your decisions do nothin' but get us deeper and deeper into a nasty pool of poo water! It's not fair to me at all!"
"So now you're abandoning your hero's honor just because you think all the shots I call are bad? What's up with that? I thought you were gonna trust me more!"
"Yeah, trust ya to make the right decisions, not just try to save your enemy cause you're dyin' for more ice cream smooches!"
"Cake, knock it off! You're being a major wad!"
Disgusted, Cake turned away shaking her head. On some inner level she must have suspected that there was some truth to the statement, but she actively refused to show it on the outside. She opened her mouth to speak, but Fionna cut her off.
"...so I think I have an actual, legit plan this time."
Cake turned back to face her and waited to hear it.
"...if we take her back to her Ice Palace, she'll be safe, and we'll be safe too. We can spend the night there, even. Nobody will try to come attacking."
There was a moment's consideration. "...you sure you wanna go back to that creeper's cove?"
Fionna shrugged. "Beats taking her back OUR cove."
Considering it a moment, Cake nodded in assent. "Yeah, the only threat we'd get up there would be if Flame Prince survived and sniffed us out. That doesn't seem too likely, though. And I guess if you're so bent on keepin' this old hag safe, the least we can do is try to keep us safe too."
She looked down at the ground and quietly added, "...that's actually some pretty good thinkin' there, lugnut. Maybe you do call some good shots after all...sometimes."
"...thanks Cake," Fionna said with a smile. She rose up to a squat and lifted Ice Queen's head. "If I carry her, will you carry me until we get to her cave?"
Again Cake nodded. She helped Fionna gather up the queen, firmly affixed the tiara atop her head, then slung her over Fionna's shoulder. She was heavier than Fionna had expected. Upon realizing that there was no better handhold for her to use than the queen's plush rump, her face went tomato red. Never had she been more thankful for a night sky to hide behind.
Alright Ice Queen, you'd better appreciate this when you get up, she thought to herself. I took care of the problem I started, made sure you didn't die, and now I'm even driving you home. So don't you even try dying on me, got it? I'm putting out too much to have your purpley blood on my hands...
Just stay alive, you witch. Fight for your life. Even someone as weird and creepy and annoying as you deserves to live. Just please...don't die on me.
And again, just on the edge of hearing, she was sure she heard a whisper that sounded like "Long live the queen..."