Adventure Time with Fionna and Marshall (Fiolee)

The Return

"Are you sure you don't want me to come?" Marshall leans next to the door frame while I gather things into my pack.

"Yeah," I snap my green backpack shut and secure my sword at my side, "It's super sunny out today, I don't want to risk you getting hurt." I walk towards the front door and he moves to block the door with his bod.

"Are you sure? Are you not telling me something, what happened last night?" He gives me a serious look and holds me back.

I sigh, "I'm fine, I'm just gonna meet Cake for an adventure. Believe it or not, but I had a life before you." I stand on my toes and give him a peck on the cheek and smile sweetly to make him move.

He cracks his own crooked smile and sighs, moving to the side, "Be careful." He says as I close the door behind me.

I feel the patch of grass again; looking up into the endless blue sky I wonder if this is right.

"Hello?" I call into the wood, not as intimidating now that its day, but still only have sparse patches of light throughout.

"The Treessss," the familiar whisper crawls across my skin, chilling my body even in the bright noon sun.

I take a deep breath, "Does this have to do with where I'm from?" I ask the invisible voice with my hand resting on the hilt of my sword.

"Yessss," it answers, rustling my hair in a soft breeze.

I nod and consider this. "It's the only lead I have..." I say to myself. I draw my sword and head past the tree line, leaving the brightly lit path behind. The wind sweeps around me, pushing me forward through the dense brush. It swerves me around trees, pushing me to move faster, I start to trip over my own feet.

I run faster and faster, I look back, knowing I'll never be able to find my way back, when I run smack into a Cliffside. I knock my head hard against the sudden wall, falling flat on my back and sending my sword grazing across my calf. "Glob," I sit up and hold my head in my hands till the world stops spinning, then direct my attention at my leg. I pull my sock down a bit so a not torn part of my sock covers my cut as an improvised bandage.

I lean on the cliff to get up, "Now what?!" I call into the woods as I bend over to pick my sword off the ground.

The winds brush against my skin, blowing my hair ahead of me along the cliff. I put my sword away now to prevent future injury. I let my hand trail along the cliff side, feeling all the bumps and ridges along the surface while the wind guides me a bit more gently now.

I suddenly emerge from the trees, leaving me in the ruins of an old city, a human city. I stop to take it all in; I've never been on this side of Aaa before. The wind pushes me along, shaking me from my trance, and leads me to a stair case leading under the street. 'This seems familiar', I think to myself walking down the mossy, over grown steps.

The confined staircase opens up into a huge underground cavern, lit only by the light emitting from a cauldron in the center of the room. A little warning bell goes off in my head, making me hesitate my next step, "Wait," I take a step back and the wind whips around me, curling around my legs and makes me move forward. "Stop it!" I brandish my sword and swing it through the air, accomplishing nothing to resist my movement towards the swirling pot.

"Come," the voice hisses in my ear. I'm pushed against the pot and held there, my hands gripping the sides and making me gaze into the churning, sulfurous liquid.

"What are you trying to do to me?!" I shout into the encroaching darkness.

"Only trying to help you, Fionna." Red eyes glow from the corner, "We're here to show you the truth."

That voice, "Peppermint Maid!? And what do you mean 'we'?" I yell.

She emerges from the shadows, looking a little worse for wear; her body is cracked all over and looks as if she were glued back together, and not very well. She sees my shocked face at her appearance, "Oh, this?" She gestures to her disfigured bod, "This is courtesy of that vampire-demon of yours." She looks me up and down, "I see you look well." she snarks, "Alive, surprisingly." She paces around me, "Well it's funny how things work out, isn't it?"

I try to push off of the boiling pot, growing hot under my hands, "Why am I here?" I demand.

She steps up on a stool on the other side of the pot so she meets my eyes directly over the churning liquid, "I'm still here to help you," she says innocently, "I brought you here to tell you want you want to know: who you are."

I break contact with her, not falling for any of her tricks, "I don't want to hear anything you have to say." I mumble.

"Oh?" Invisible fingers turn my face back towards her, "Even if it's the absolute truth?" She dangles a tiny crystal bottle over the boiling pot.

I open my mouth to talk, but hesitate at the possibility, and that gives her enough indication for her to throw it into the liquid. It smokes like crazy; I hold my breath not wanting any of it. When the smoke clears, the previously sickly yellow liquid has turned to liquid shimmering gold. "Look into the pot." She urges, like I have a choice with a force pushing down on my head.

The gold shimmers until an image forms; an image of Peppermint Maid standing in a room full of crawling babies. But on a closer look, they all have fish heads. The image swirls and this time she's holding a big blond baby then she moves to put a doggie hat on his head, "Samuel," I whisper out loud in shock.

I can tell where this is going and I close my eyes, not wanting to know anymore, "No, stop it," I plead.

"No! Look into the pot, look at who you are! What you are!" My eyes snap open against my will as a blurry Peppermint Maid holds up a baby girl with long blond hair. She cradles it in her arms before stretching a bunny hat over her tiny head.

"Stop! No!" I try to twist my way out of her grasp on me.

"You are nothing more than one of my experiments! You have no parents! You don't belong here! You belong underground with the rest of my mistakes!" her words echoing in my head long after she's said them.

"No!" My hand claws across my bod to try to reach my sword, my fingers gracing the handle.

"I'm reclaiming you! You had your time to roam the world, now it's time for you to go back where you really belong." With a wave of her hand, a pit opens up beneath my feet and I'm sucked down into it.

An invisible force pulls me through the tunnels, dropping me down onto a hard dirt floor, and I feel my right shoulder pop out of its socket. I grit my teeth in pain, this has happened to me before but Cake was always there to put it back. I try to mimic her motions from memory, but I only end up hurting more.

"Hope you're comfy. Welcome to your new home." Peppermint Maid sneers from behind an iron barred door. "By the way, I'm permanently sealing the entrance to these catacombs and no one will know you're here." She promises.

"Mar-, err, people will look for me! And they won't stop till they find me." I support my limp arm in my other.

"They can look all they want, there's no way in or out of this place; I assure you, they'll give up, I've seen it a thousand times before." She chuckles to herself, "Even your deranged vampire will give up, perhaps sooner than the others." I look up at her incredulously, "Oh yes, what are you to him really? A speck in his thousand year life, he'll move on easily, don't worry."

I try not to let her words touch me, not penetrate my shield, but she found the faults and chipped away at them, exposing my sensitive under belly. 'I'm nothing. I'll be forgotten. I have no family. I'm no one.' Circle in my head, threatening to ruin me.

"That's what I thought." She finishes and leaves me to myself and my four dirt walls.