Chapter Text
Frog’s Gambit
“Time is a storm, in which we are all lost.” ~ William Carlos Williams
“Stop waiting for the perfect time. The perfect time is Now.” ~ Unknown
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Andrias lazily lounged upon his throne as one of the Generals, Yunan, gave their report on messages of importance. As per usual, there was nothing really happening. Sure, there was a political uprising in the works in The Valley, following the example of some elder frog. The Toad Towers were already preparing to put the potential rebellion to bed before it could even rise. A typical modern toad response really, nowadays they did not tolerate losses well. It was all so routine after a thousand years.
Yunan coughed, catching Andrias attention. “And the traitor, Grime, is still at large and currently being aided by a-.” jumping aside, the newt General dodged a messenger wasp, with a yelp, as it brought forth a large scroll…well large by the definition of his subjects. For him it was honestly quite small.
Humming to himself in satisfaction, Andrias paused for a moment to put on his reading glasses, and opened the scroll. It was a normal scroll for the most part, save for the tiny envelope fastened to the bottom. Swiftly scanning the contents of the message, Andrias announced, more for the sake of getting to dismiss the general early more than anything, “It’s a message from Marcy! It seems like she is making progress,” Suddenly noticing Leif’s sigil in one of Marcy’s paragraphs, Andrias froze as the set of his shoulders tightened for a moment before he reasserted himself, “We can further address the political situation of the outskirts and how to handle the Grime situation tomorrow. It’s getting late and if we continue we will be here past midnight.” Pausing only to reroll the scroll back up, eyeing the sigil one more time as he did so, Andrias rose from his seat.
Ignoring the soft, confused “Sire?” from General Yunan, Andrias strode past her and made his way through the halls of the castle. He meandered to the rarely used hallway with the statue of his father. He paused there, standing and looking up at his father for a minute, thinking. If his father was not assimilated into The Core, what would he say. A faint echo of, ‘Forget those childhood friends of yours ,’ echoed in his head as he turned his gaze downwards to the letter. He felt like his eyes were burning into the portion of the letter where he knew Leif’s sigil would be, before he made his choice.
Andrias turned away from the statue and the hidden passageway towards a private reading room set aside just for him. He ignored the disapproving eyes of the statue glaring holes into his back as he walked away from it. He had to finish reading the letter in full, get an understanding of everything that Marcy had found before he presented it to his Lord, anyway. Bringing this all to it now would just earn him further disapproval for not getting all of the facts together. Ignoring the pinprick, phantom sensations of long replaced limbs with the ease of long practice, Andrias let himself imagine that he could feel the soft cushions and supple satin textures of the furniture instead of the vague impression of pressure that the prosthetics provided as he eased himself down into a comfortable looking chair. There was precious little of him that could truly feel such things, nowadays. Sighing, Andrias set the scroll up so that he could read it again. It was only an afterthought which placed his reading glasses onto his snout so he didn’t have to strain his eyes in the waning evening light and the dim candle light.
Within the scroll, Marcy had detailed her group’s exploration of the First Temple and the grand success of repowering the Wit gem. Smirking to himself as he thought, once again, of the prophecy coming undone at the hands of it’s very subjects. A more ironic twist on things than His Lord’s desire to just kill the girls. A flash of Marcy’s innocent smile flared in his mind’s eye as and a wave of guilt burned through him for an instant. Turning his gaze back to the rest of the letter, he let himself be absorbed by Marcy’s excitement as she described an adventure that they had within the depths of the Plantar family’s basement, or would it be a dungeon within it’s various layers? He pondered that for a moment before settling on the term dungeon, more because it amused him to imagine a farming family having an expansive dungeon under their dwelling than anything else.
Once Marcy had finished describing the sentient vegetable that had been contained within the dungeons, and how Anne had brought up the idea that it may been created by something akin to a special fertilizer that the townsfolk made use of, Andrias allowed himself to contemplate the thought of adding this fertilizer to his barracks for use as a potential siege weapon. The thought of using an enemy force’s own food supply against them tickled that so-called juvenile part of himself he kept lit. He could almost imagine how Leif would-.
Releasing that thought into the void and refusing to contemplate on it further, Andrias smiled at how Marcy mentioned that they were working on the logistics of bringing the sentient vegetable to Newtopia for the Royal Guard to inspect. The creature itself had proven to be relatively docile once it was outdoors and taking in sunlight, so long as the young Plantar boy was kept away from it. She speculated that the mobile vegetable might have potential use as a form of steed or draft animal, with a potential secondary use as a food source should the seeds the creature spewed prove to be edible.
Turning his attention away from Marcy’s frenetic speculations on the gourd-beast, its potential uses, and the unusual fertilizer; Andrias eyed the next paragraph with a weary eye. Leif’s sigil stared back at him unerringly. Taking a deep breath and setting his resolve, Andrias continued reading. Marcy described having gotten separated from the group at one point during their explorations and finding Leif’s sigil burnt into the wood of the door underneath the Plantar family sigil. She had been unable to open the door at the time, and had brought the Plantar family back to it when the mystery of what was behind it kept her awake that night.
The group had to use some kind of book that the Plantar family possessed to open the door and gain access to its contents. Behind the door, there had been a surprisingly humble room (at least in comparison to the rest of the rooms that the Plantar family had encountered). A small bed, made to the standards of smaller frogs often found in The Valley, a writing desk, a hanging rack with Leif’s sigil on one of the cloaks…Andrias could only conclude that Marcy had somehow stumbled upon Leif’s hideaway. The red envelope attached to the bottom of the scroll contained a single sheet of red paper, seemingly blank. Marcy had mentioned including it in the hopes that they could check it to see if there was any hidden writing on the paper.
Quickly putting his reading glasses on, Andrias could see Leif’s handwriting on the envelope itself.
To: Andrias
Love Leif <3
With a shaking hand Andrias traced a finger over the writing softly, as if even the softest breeze would steal those words away like the frog who wrote them. Seeing that the words were still there, even after tracing them, Andrias steeled himself before carefully opening the envelope. Inside, more of Leif’s elegant loops and characters danced across the page, hidden from the sight of most with that ingenious method they had devised together so long ago.
My Dearest Andrias,
This message may never reach you, but I hope it does. I know you must hate me, but please hear me out. After hiding the Music Box on Earth, I knew I could never return to the kingdom. Change was scary and it was hard for me to open my heart to others again. But I’m glad I did. We spend our lives afraid of change, but after many years I realized the beauty of life is the change.
And through it all, I had such wonderful memories of you. For even though you, Barrel, and I are no longer together, the two of you never really left my side. In the end, my only remaining wish is that somehow, someday; my love reaches you. So I’m begging you, my dearest friend, don’t close yourself off. Open your heart and follow it.
With Love Always,
Your Leif
Reading through it, brief imaginings danced through Andrias’ head. Leif; building a home, living under some assumed name, and finding love. Pollywogs and young frogs running around a gardening Leif, all of whom were similar in appearance to her…Leif growing old, shrinking a little, wrinkling up. Leif sitting down at some miniscule writing desk that he and Barrel might have once teased her about, and writing this letter in her old age. Tears beaded in his eyes, and a soft sob wracked his body. The first sob was followed by a second, harder one, which in turn was followed by a gut wrenching cry. Reaching up to his crown, he tossed it aside, haphazardly, as he bent over this letter, this last fragment of one of his dearest friends and let his tears flow.
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Andrias did not know how long he had cried over the letter, but he did know it was late. Fireflies danced about the night sky, winking in and out of visibility among the stars. His Lor-…The Core, was likely waiting to hear if there had been any important news. He had kept it abreast of the situation involving the temples and The Core was eager for news in regards to the success or failure of the Gem’s energy transferal back to the Music Box. It was pretty unlikely it had accessed the Crown module to gather information due to the risk of exposure. Whatever other methods The Core had for getting its information, it was unlikely to have anything about the events of the last few hours.
Andrias already knew he could not let things continue as they had been so far. He could not be party to the machinations of The Core anymore. The acknowledgement of one of his dearest friend’s weighed him down, preventing even the slightest temptation of it. His father, The Core, neither were ever going to truly acknowledge his efforts…were they? You have almost made me proud…almost, echoes in his head with resounding clarity. There had been so many ‘almosts,’ but he cannot remember the last time there had been an actual declaration of pride. Mind made up on what to do, as the happiness he had found in his connection with Marcy, and in others, Andrias’ will surged onward with purpose in mind.
Sighing, Andrias turned away from the window and went to the hall with the secret entrance. It would not do to leave his former lord alone to doubt his allegiance to it for any longer. He gave the judgemental statue of his father a glare, before pulling the lever to activate the secret entryway. Andrias dipped down into the now revealed stairway and made his way into the depths of the castle. Brushing aside a trio of Shadowfish darting through, he came to the resting room of the Core.
Kneeling, Andrias took off his crown in a show of deference to the Core. His head down and turned away from the mechanical conglomerate, eyes closed, as was usual for initiating a report for it.
“The Prophecy is being undone as we speak, My Lord,” he stated. Leif’s words echoed in his head, and his heart ached with longing for those who had long left him behind, one walking away of her own accord and the other pushed to the outskirts by Andrias’ own actions. He missed them more now than he had in over eight hundred years. Eyes burning in his skull, faded memories of old friends blazing in his mind, Andrias continued, “We will have our revenge.”