The Coals Are Beginning To Glow

Chapter Sixteen: Don't Let The Fire Die (Part One)

Chapter Sixteen: Don't Let The Fire Die (Part One)

Finn's POV:

  I watch Adam take one last step before leaving, then he's gone. Going somewhere.

  I don't know whether to be happy or sad. Happy, because the machine worked. Sad, because he had to leave and I couldn't come with him.

  Flame Princess walks over to me, "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah,"

  She nods, "I'm happy you didn't go with him."

  Me too, I guess," I say the last part quietly.

  "We should get going before Princess Bubblegum tries to do anything just because I showed up,"

  "Yeah, she did think you were dead. Well, at least until Adam and I did the plan," I say, walking away from the Candy Kingdom.

  "It would have been better if you would have just let her think I was dead,"

  "She'd find out you were alive eventually, then with you being alone she would have tried to kill you again,"

  "Or maybe she just wanted me to watch them die,"

  I cringe, "I doubt Bubblegum is that cruel, she can be mean, but she wouldn't do something like that."

  "Where are we going?" she asks, making me stop in my tracks.

  I look around and notice I'm standing in the middle of the forest, "I don't really know. We should probably either go to your house or mine, just so you're not alone if Princess Bubblegum shows up."

  "Let's go to your house, it's safer there and we can both go inside," Flame Princess says.

  "Okay," I start walking and we reach the Tree House in what seems like hours but was really a silent 20 minutes or so.

  We go upstairs to the living room and Flame Princess sits on the couch, which is still wrapped with aluminium foil from the other day.

  "I'm going to go upstairs right quick, I'll be right back," I say, going upstairs before she can respond.

  I set my backpack on my bed. I then look under my pillow and find the note Flame Princess gave me.

  I go downstairs, the note still in my hand. "Do you remember this?"

  She looks at the note in my hand and nods, "It's the note I gave you after we..., broke up."

  I sit down at the far end of the couch, "Do you remember what it says?"

  "Not word for word. Finn, why are you asking me this?"

  "Because, it says that all you're after is honesty. I was honest this whole time-," I say.

  She sighs, "I know what you're going to ask and the answer is no. I don't want to be with you right now,"

  "That wasn't what I was going to ask. I want you to be honest, do you still believe that you're evil?"

  "I don't know,"

  "I don't think you are," I say.

  She doesn't say anything, instead she sits closer to me and puts her hand on mine.

  The pain doesn't bother me, instead it makes me feel something I haven't in a while. Alive.

~  The cool nighttime air startles me, and I fall into a sense of alertness as I watch her. Her flame making her stand out against the dark sky surrounding us. She seems to glow like a candle, flickering the slightest bit every now and then. Yet I watch her every move, calculating in my head where her next footstep will land, when she'll breathe, when she'll open her mouth to speak but say nothing.