A light rain of ash was gently falling all over the Fire Kingdom, which, while quite enchanting, also greatly reduced visibility. The citizens of the land were frequently bumping into each other as they went about their daily business. Several of the golems walking around had smashed right through the mysterious floating rock orbs scattered across the lava lake.

From her balcony at the fire palace, Flame Princess pinched the bridge of her nose, sadly shaking her head. There would be a lot of cleanup after this one, and who knows how long it would take. The king just hoped that no one would get themselves killed with the reduced sight that now blanketed her kingdom. She mumbled to herself.

"Ugh, one thing I never missed was this stupid ash rain."

A few dots of the black substance got sucked into her nostrils. The fiery ruler twitched a bit before letting out a massive sneeze. The after effect caused her flames to shoot up immensely into the air, momentarily blinding some of the fire people below. Already dealing with difficult visibility, several of them suddenly crashed into a wall or others that had also witnessed the flash.

As a multitude of shouts and panics ensued, Flame Princess turned a bit red, aware of how she was not helping. Not wanting to create more chaos, the king began retreating back into the castle.

However, before she could, a long bang was heard far of in the distance. Turning back around, FP ran back to the edge of the balcony and scanned the outskirts of the land. Several miles away, far from the borders of the city, a few pillars of volcanic rock had collapsed to the ground, leaving behind a large cloud of dust and soot. She glared at the area.

"Just what I need, more crud floating in the air."

A moment later, another pair of pillars fell over, causing the fiery ruler to double-take.

"What the heck? Is someone purposely doing that?!"

As yet another pillar came tumbling down far away, the fire elemental grinded her teeth and her fire expanded to encompass the entire platform where she stood.

"That's it! Whoever it is, they're gonna burn!"

The flame king shot off of the palace, gaining incredible speed as she flew in an arc toward the epicenter of the massive dust cloud. Upon getting a better view of the site, the fiery girl began scanning the ground to find the one responsible for the destruction. This proved difficult, seeing as the ash was still clouding her vision. That and the soot from the collapsing rocks made the task near impossible.

Strangely enough, her sight was not the source that managed to discover a presence in the black fog, but instead it was her hearing. Flame Princess swore she could hear someone shouting in the debris, along with a very strange noise which she could not recognize. Confused and aggravated, she dove into the mess below, hoping to find and punish those who were messing with her kingdom.

Unfortunately, when the girl landed, her sight was virtually useless. She was now enveloped by the cloud, unable to see even two feet in front of her. Putting her hands out, FP tired her best to navigate through the dust, ever listening for the odd noise and the shouting.

Eventually, both sounds entered her ears, and this time they seemed to be getting louder. After finding the direction from which they were approaching, the young king turned to face it and drew up fireballs in her glowing fists. She waited, waited for the butt that was breaking her land to show his or herself and reveal what the heck was making that weird noise, which sounded like a loud humming.

All at once, a pair of lights cut through the black fog, growing larger with every passing second. The humming noise increased drastically, as did the shouting, which was now fairly distinguishable.

"Whooo!"

Whoever it was, they appeared to be enjoying the mess they were making, seriously ticking off Flame Princess. As the sounds and lights grew closer, she prepared to fire her flames straight at the intruder, hoping to teach them a lesson. However, what came next was something the king could never have predicted.

Right as the twin beams came within reach of the fiery girl, she suddenly felt herself slammed with incredible force by a fast, metal object. It had never been a better day to be wearing armor. If the she were wearing a simple dress, the impact would have caused some serious damage. Amazingly enough, FP was able to hold onto whatever had rammed into her as it continued its unstoppable charge.

The humming was directly in front of her, while the continued whooping was a bit further back. She had no guess as to what kind of creature she was hanging onto, all the king knew was that she was suspended a good deal above the ground and definitely didn't want to let go on the risk of being trampled.

Instead, the fire elemental struggled to look ahead at the source of the shouting. Oddly enough, two strange rods appeared to be swiping back and forth, removing a buildup of ash that was covering whatever was underneath. FP was completely shocked when that thing underneath turned out to be a familiar face.

Finn the Human, grinning widely and shown as the source of the shouts, was happily staring ahead in the direction the king was being dragged. Of course, he immediately grew an astonished look as he saw the helpless elemental getting pulled along with whatever object he was riding in. FP didn't even have time for anger; she simply stared back in disbelief.

"Finn!?"

"Flame Princess!?"

Without warning, the construct shoving the fire elemental rapidly decelerated, causing the girl to be swiftly thrown to the ground and sliding a good ways before finally grinding to a halt, groaning in pain. The metal object had ceased its motion, and suddenly stopped its humming. A click sound was heard followed by rapidly approaching footsteps.

"Oh my Glob! Flame Princess, are you ok!?"

The human's mind held a slightly altered thought.

I am so dead.

The dazed king held a hand to her head, trying to escape the throbbing sensation in her temple. As Finn reached the fallen girl, she finally registered what was happening. A scowl formed on her face as her flames lashed out, forcing the boy to back up from the blaze. Standing up with a small wobble, Flame Princess growled at the frightened human.

"WHAT IN GROD'S NAME IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Her fire expanded further, causing Finn so cover his eyes from the light. Luckily, his apparent flame shield protected him from the actual combustion emanating off of the enraged elemental. The hero tossed aside his fear and took a step forward.

"FP I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going and that dust makes it hard to see!"

The fire elemental stamped forward and grabbed the boy's shirt.

"You're causing that you idiot!"

The human was a bit scared again but managed to shake it off and looked solemnly at the fiery girl.

"Oh…Shoot. I never thought about it. I sponked up big time didn't I?"

His tone was sincere, telling the flame king that he was being honest. Somehow, it calmed her down a bit, lowering the range of her flames. However, she was by no means going to just let it slide. The elemental shoved Finn back, nearly causing him to stumble. Her glare remained.

"Do you know how much work it'll take to fix all this? You'll be lucky if I don't banish you from the kingdom!"

Finn seemed greatly struck by the declaration, immediately frowning and lowering his head to the ground. Flame Princess walked back up to him and crossed her arms.

"Well? What have you got to say?"

The hero let out a sigh.

"I understand princess. I'm responsible for all this jazz."

He looked up hopefully at the king.

"If...you let me keep coming back, can I ask that you let me take care of all the clean up?"

FP failed to hide a little shock. She hadn't really expected the boy to offer his sole service in rounding up all the debris his actions had caused. Her anger managed to slip down a few more notches as she stared down at the human, who was patiently waiting for a verdict. On the inside, the flame king had a respecting smile.

Come on FP, he is a hero, of course he'll throw all he has into correcting his wrongs.

On the outside, she was thinking hard, wondering if Finn deserved a break. She decided based on several factors. He was insistent on doing the whole job himself, so no extra effort on her part. It would teach him a lesson about doing stupid stunts in her kingdom. She realized that she never liked the way those pillars looked in the first place (a bonus). And, she would get to have him visit for a few days while he did his duty.

The last reason was a bit awkward to think about, but nevertheless, she had made her choice.

"Finn…"

The boy stood straight, eager to receive his sentencing.

"Very well, you have a deal."

The human's face grew an expression of relief and excitement.

"Thanks so much FP! I promise I'll get it done as fast as I can! And uh, I promise not to joyride through the kingdom anymore."

Flame Princess looked behind the boy to gaze at what he had been riding in. There stood a large red vehicle of sorts, sporting four flame shielded wheels and what appeared to be a heavily reinforced front end. This explained how Finn had crashed through the rocks, and her. Speaking of which…

The king raised her fist and leveled the human right in his nose, causing him to flinch and bring a hand to his now bleeding face. He shouted out from the pain, but recovered enough to look back at the fire elemental with question. She shot him one more glare and pointed to the red vehicle.

"That's for hitting me with that thing!"

Finn realized he had forgotten about the near death he had caused to the girl and frowned with concern.

"Oh man, I'm really sorry FP. I totally deserved that."

The flame king sighed and gazed into the boy's despairing eyes. He was clearly feeling the full weight of his actions at this point. She let the last of her anger out and took a deep breath, letting it out a moment later.

"I suppose it was partially my fault for just standing there thinking I could burn down whatever was coming at me. But I appreciate that you understand how stupid your idea of fun was. By the way, what is that thing?"

The human perked up slightly as he looked to the red machine behind him.

"Oh. It's a truck. It's kind of like a carriage but it uses some complicated science, lots of metal pieces, and mini explosions to move instead of horses."

He scratched his head.

"Although all the detailed stuff is still hard for me to understand. My brain's not there yet."

Flame Princess looked curiously toward the pickup, studying its features. Wanting a closer look, she took a step forward, only to suddenly feel a sharp pain in her leg. The girl shouted out and got to one knee, unable to fully stand. Finn rushed to her and offered support, which she accepted by leaning on his shoulder.

"Oh man, I think I might have broken something when I hit you."

Flame Princess gave him a scowl before letting it go. Right now she had to focus on her injury.

"Here, I know what might help."

With that, the human picked up the fiery ruler in his arms and began walking to the truck. The fire elemental was blushing slightly. Upon reaching the back, Finn used his leg to kick down the tailgate and gently set the king on top of it. Afterward, he ran to the front compartment and reached over to the glove box, opening it to retrieve a strange bottle. Running back to the princess, he carefully uncorked the glass container and held it up to the girl's hurt leg.

"I'm not really sure if this stuff works on fire elementals but it's worth a shot."

Flame Princess reluctantly nodded, sliding apart the armor on her leg to expose some of the golden glowing skin underneath. Finn gently tipped the cyclops tears until a few drops fell off the lip of the bottle, splashing with a light hiss onto the fiery ruler's leg. She grunted a bit, feeling the water-like substance strike her flaming body.

Luckily, the magical liquid seemed to soak in rather than simply evaporating away. A few seconds later, FP felt the pain start to dissipate. She slid her armor back in place and carefully tried standing up, Finn being nearby to catch her just in case. The tears had worked, as evidenced by how the king was able to walk normally around the truck's rear end.

She gave a small smile to the hero.

"Thanks Finn. I was worried I'd be out of it for a while. And there's way too much to do to have that happen."

As the human returned the grin, FP looked back to the truck.

"So where did you get this?"

Finn gazed at the vehicle with pride.

"I found it one day a few weeks back. Jake and I didn't know much about trucks though so we invited our friend Banana Man over to help us fix it."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"But then it kinda blew up after we were fighting this crazy lizard monster at the Candy Kingdom."

Finn walked over and patted the truck's surface with a look of admiration.

"The truck was so awesome that I couldn't help wanting to fix it again. Although, that was a lot harder considering all of its parts were broken, and on fire."

Flame Princess was a bit shocked. The boy continued his story.

"Well you know me, stubborn as can be. I convinced B Man to help me restore it all over again. It took days of endless searching, welding, cranking, cleaning, and painting before we were able to get it back in working condition."

Finn slid his finger over the crimson metal.

"After we were done, we added some totally rad 'additions' so that it wouldn't get as busted up as last time."

Thus explained the reinforced bumper. Flame Princess stared at the amazing machine, having never seen one before.

"Wow, that's pretty cool."

Finn smiled at his ride.

"Yep. Plus, I can use it to get this job done faster…if that's ok."

He nervously looked to the flame king, who pondered the thought. Make it harder for him or make it faster for her? Either way was satisfying, but, she apparently still had a soft spot for the hero.

"Alright, go for it."

The human looked relieved and grinned happily, knowing that he was getting a significant amount of mercy considering his dumb acts. Flame Princess smiled back then turned away, preparing to blast away. Before she could, Finn held up a hand and shouted after her.

"FP wait!"

The fiery ruler looked back to the human and held a questioning look.

"What is it Finn, I'm pretty busy."

The hero rubbed his arm nervously.

"Yeah, that's kinda what this is about. Look, I feel really bad for ruining your day with the whole 'nearly running you over' thing and blowing up those rocks. Maybe you could use a little break from the king biz?"

She didn't show it, but the king was intrigued.

"What did you have in mind?" she asked, crossing her arms.

Finn grew a little more nervous.

"Well, how about a movie? The latest Heat Signature just began playing and I know this awesome place to go see it. It's outside in the beautiful night sky and everything. What do you say?"

The flame king raised an eyebrow.

"Go out to a movie?"

The hero caught what she meant and defensively held up his hands.

"This is not a date! I swear. I just thought you'd like it. I hear there's lots of fire and dudes getting blown up."

FP lowered her guard, believing the reasoning to be genuine. She smiled again.

"Well…ok, that sounds nice. How about later tonight after I'm done with all the official duties and junk?"

Finn beamed happily and nodded.

"Sure. We can even take Hot Daniel over there so we have an awesome view of the screen."

Flame Princess was confused.

"Who?"

The boy realized he never explained the name and cleared his throat.

"Oh yeah. I forgot. That's what I named the truck."

The fiery girl thought it strange to name a metal object, but was also curious as to the odd choice of naming as well.

"Why 'Hot Daniel' though?"

Finn's face grew a little red as he looked away from the king's eyes.

Well, uh."

He couldn't quite get the words out. FP gave him the 'warning' look.

"Finn, you know the rules."

The human sighed and gave in.

"Yeah. I know. I named it that because I though the truck was awesome and I remembered how awesome you were when you saved me back in that dungeon from the goo skull so it just came to me."

He shrugged, embarrassed at the explanation. The flame king was, admittedly, also blushing a bit, but luckily her flames were hiding it enough for the hero to not notice.

"Oh…ok. That's, nice."

Finn rubbed his neck again.

"Yeah…"

The two teenagers stood there for a minute in awkward silence, unable to move along the conversation. At last though, Finn pushed it forward.

"Well, I'd better get to work. I'll be here when you're done with your king stuff ok?"

Flame Princess nodded with a light smile.

"Ok. See ya."

As she waved and slinked away, Finn returned the gesture and watched the girl as she flew off back toward the palace. He just couldn't help staring.

"See ya…"

That's right, I agree with SCIK's reasoning on the whole 'king' deal. COT has Finn getting married to the little lady so i figured it's not that big an issue there to keep using 'queen'.

Anyway, hope you enjoy and please review!