Work Text:
"Perceval, take the sword. Find a pool of calm water... cast the sword into it. Do as I command. One day, a new King will come, and the Sword will rise again."
—John Boorman, "Excalibur"
"So, what's its name?" asked Sasha suddenly at dinner one night.
They were sitting by a corner in the Resistance Camp's cafeteria. The Plantars and Grime were there too, nearly done with their dinner. Anne's parents were walking around the tables, serving citizens and soldiers alike. The residents had taken to their Thai-Amphibian fusion food like a... Well, like a frog to a pond.
Anne chugged down the rest of her stew. "What's what name?"
"That weapon of mass destruction you have attached to the hip."
Anne took offense to that. She picked her weapon from the handle on her back.
"This." She dropped the scythe over the table. "This is a scythe. It's a farming tool, first of all. And yes, it packs a bit of a punch, but it has saved our lives in quite a lot of situations. So a bit of respect would be nice, you know?"
The 'tool' was a sight to behold. Nearly as long as the table, the shaft was made of a blue, steel-like material that had some fluidity to it; like water not cold enough to become ice but almost there. The heart-shaped finial at its top was the literal heart of the scepter. From it sprouted the scythe's blade, like a flower did from the ground. The blade's crescent-shaped form was bent down until it touched its own staff. Even from a distance, the blade couldn't be seen as anything less than the sharpest blade in the room; yet it projected no light at all. It sucked light in.
Sprig lifted his face full of grub from the bowl. "No offense Anne, but I can testify that it is pretty destructive. I have seen it turn frobots into onion slices like they were nothing."
"Not to mention that statue in Newtopia it completely obliterated," grumbled Hop Pop. "Is a good thing we're at war with Andrias now, or I'd be paying for that thing the rest of my life."
Anne hand-waved all that whining. "The statue was an isolated incident. And all the other times were because I was using it. Trust me. It's harmless in anyone's hands but mine. Go ahead. Give it a touch."
"Don't need to tell me twice!" Shouted Polly and hopped to touch the blade. First, she touched the blunt end of the blade, then the sharp side. Finally, she gave it a powerful kick. "Hey! This junk's sharpless. What's the deal?"
"Exactly," said Anne sharply. "It's not as much of a weapon as it is an 'instrument'. One only I can play. Also, it can turn into a sick guitar, but that's not important now," she added.
Grime, in uncharacteristic toad fashion, wiped his face clean before speaking.
"Instrument or weapon, it needs a name. Its-" he burped, rustling everyone's hair" -sorry, too much stew. Anyway. Whatever you call it, that thing is your companion. It battles with you. Shed the blood of your enemies. You spent time with it. You, in particular, Anne. I don't think I have seen you five minutes apart from that thing."
Anne scoffed. The tiny skulls that were her pupils did too.
"Grime's right," said Sasha. "Weapon or tool, it's not something you use. It tells your story. Here." She put her red heron sword over the table. "This one's 'Unstoppable'. I got it after my first heron hunt, but I earned it way before when I fought my first heron at Toad Tower. Herons are vicious beasts. Even toads fear them. When I defeated one, they began to respect me. That one was the first time I figured out my own strength. I wasn't just a pretty face with good talk. I could beat up anything that stood in my way. So I named my sword to remind me of what I could do, what I was capable of. And this one."
She dropped her other, blue sword on the table.
"Too many weapons over the table," Hop Pop hummed. "Guess that's something we're doing today, uh?
"This one is 'Noble'," said Sasha, ignoring Hop Pop's subtle nagging. "Grime gave it to me the day when, well, you know."
"Do you mean the day you betrayed me and Marcy and tried to usurp the throne of Amphibia?" said Anne.
"Right. That's my point." Sasha lowered her head.
Sasha Waybright, bowing. The things you see these days, in post-apocalyptic Amphibia…
"That day I staged a coup against a king and succeeded," Sasha proceeded. "I beat the noblest of all nobles and took over a kingdom like it was nothing, but I still felt like crap." Sasha's head went even lower. "It was only a few days later when I was slashing frobots to defend the people of Wartwood that I felt like I was doing something important. Good, even. That day, I chose to make a change. Become someone deserving of being your friend. Someone better. Nobler."
Anne muttered and 'ah' and that was as much as anyone said. Nothing could beat a true Boonchuy-Waybright table silence.
Mrs. Boonchuy dropped by, carrying a pot full of some stew so powerful it was shocking it hadn't melted the pot yet. She always left Anne's table as last, so she could drop by and see how her daughter and adoptive frog children were doing.
"Who wants seconds? There's still a little bit at the bottom." Mrs. Boonchuy asked and served a spoonful of spicy-smelling, mildly hot stew in everyone's bowls, regardless of their answers. She stopped as she was serving Anne.
"Honey, we talked about this. No weapons over the table. That goes for you too, Sasha."
Sasha dragged her swords off the table but Anne just groaned.
"It's a tool, mom. AND my companion too."
"Ok, what's its name then?" Sasha insisted.
As Anne thought, Mrs. Boonchuy broke in. "Oh don't even ask her," she scurried in between Anne and Sprig. "Anne is terrible at picking names."
Anne scoffed. "I picked my own name, didn't I?"
"Yes. From a cartoon character you liked. That doesn't count." snickered Mrs. Boonchuy. "Remember when we brought Domino home with us? Dad and I were squeezing our brains thinking about what to name her. Remember what you said then?"
Anne sweated cold. Her skull eyes shrinked small as sand grains. "Uh, I-it was a hot while ago, I don't-"
"You said 'she looks like a domino piece. Let's name her Domino'."
It was hard to tell who was redder; the whole table, with how much they were laughing (especially Sasha, who recalled the event in question), or Anne, whose face was blood red.
She spoke, trying to save her leftover dignity. "Let's not generalize-"
"Oh, oh, I got one!" said Sprig, delivering the killing blow to Anne's dignity. "Remember the Blue Back Ramming Beetle that we killed and came back as a ghost to kill us? You named her 'Blue'."
"She is blue."
Hop Pop added. "What about your other scythe? The one you made with a tree branch. You named it 'Twiggy'."
"It was a twig! Kinda."
Polly jumped in too. "And I've heard how you refer to your missing shoe as 'Lefty'"
"And let's not even mention Domino 2."
"ALRIGHT."
Anne's whisper resounded through the cafeteria, bouncing on the cave walls, like thunder in a clear sky night. All living souls (and the few non-living ghosts crashing at the Plantar's basement) went deadly quiet, slowly returning to their chatter as they saw nothing bad had happened. Just Anne being Anne.
"Alright" Anne breathed out, not in her Voice, but her usual voice. "Suppose you guys are right and I'm not the best at naming."
"You really are not."
"Absolutely."
"Hmm-mmm."
"Tell me then, geniuses. What name should I pick for it?"
Sasha shook her head. "Not how it works, Anne. Your weapon, you name it. There has to be a significant meaning on it from where you can come out a name."
That's selling it short. Even since she discovered scythes existed in Amphibia, Anne had felt irredeemably attached to them. She haven't had this one for more than a few days, but she couldn't imagine being apart from it. When she was forced to unsummon it for 'safety reasons', she hated it. Made her feel naked.
"I don't know," she said. "I get what you guys are saying about personal story and companionship and whatever, but with me, it's more complicated." She slid a finger over the metal of the shaft and a cold breeze went up her back. "This isn't a weapon. And is not a tool or instrument either. It's me. Part of me. I made it with the dark matter of the Universe, but that's just because that's what I'm made of too. That and flesh. Dang it, its heart is essentially my heart, just not made with gross, real meat. This scythe is literally me; my will given form." She scoffed. "But I guess calling it 'Anne 2' would be too on the nose for you guys."
There was a general acknowledgment around the table. The air felt colder and tenser, and Anne looked smaller. Or she was getting smaller? Can she shape-shift now? With Anne, you never knew what to expect.
"Look, forget I said anything, alright?" said Sasha, truly remorseful. "You don't have to name it if you don't feel too."
"But she has! It's a tradition for-agh!" grunted Grime as his foot was stomped by Sasha's heavy boot.
"What I mean is, everything is going pretty well around here. With the rebellion and, you know," she said, and that 'you know' was a whole thesaurus. "I would hate for this to cause a rift between us."
The following silence was even more deafening, aggravated by Anne's blank stare.
"What did you say?"
Sasha paused. "I don't want this to cause a rift between us?"
Anne's eyes opened so wide, you could see the wonder glistening inside the pupils of her skull-shaped pupils.
"That's it! That's the name." Anne jumped over the table —ignoring her mother's protests. And as she did, her regular clothes turned into her gold and black reaper armor, matched with her cape of stars and the lotus flower halo hovering over her head.
She lifted the scythe, blade out, as high as she could.
"I name thee… Rift."
It was one of those moments. You know the ones. When you find out you aced a test you thought was a flunk, or you discover a twenty inside the pocket of the jeans you haven't worn in months. It was not as much a moment of discovery, as it was one of seeing the evident. A moment of truth.
"Wait. But that doesn't really work, does it? As a name I mean," asked Sprig.
"Sure it does!" Anne beamed. "I used it to open the rift back to Amphibia, didn't I? And the first time I summoned it was when I finally stopped holding back and accepted both parts of me. The human part and the Reaper part closed the rift. Aaand if anybody tries to mess up with me or my family again I will just..."
Anne made an arc with the scythe, slashing the molecules of air in half. Everyone lowered their heads, not so much for fear of losing them, as Anne would never hurt them. Their hairs were fair play, though.
"I'll rift them apart!" Anne proclaimed, loudly and proudly.
Hop Pop choked on his own saliva. "But that's- I don't think yer using that verb right, Anne."
Mrs. Boonchuy cut him off. "She can use it however she wants. It's English. It doesn't make any sense anyway. Trust me."
"Aight then. It's actually 'Froggish' but you can call it whatever you want, I guess," Hop Pop mumbled.
Mrs. Boonchuy smiled triumphantly. "It's a pretty name sweetheart. Now, can you and Rift please get off the table?"
Anne stepped down. As quickly as it was brought up, the topic was dropped, replaced with strategizing for future battles, playfully sibling banter, and a not so playful conversation about whenever Amphibians spoke English or humans spoke Froggish.
Everyone participated in the talk. Everyone but Anne.
Rift. Such a simple silly thing! Names were grossly overvalued. Anne changed hers when she figured out she was a girl, and nobody cared. Well, nobody who was important to her.
But maybe she was wrong. Perhaps the day she saw that magical girl in the cartoon, Anne had made an important —maybe even transcendental— decision. Names were overvalued, yes. But she had chosen the name. For her, and by herself. Just as she had chosen a True Name for another part of herself today. It was like solving a puzzle. Another piece of the picture that was Anne.
With her mind at ease, she shrank Rift until only the heart was left, now roughly the size of a bottom. She put it on like an earring. Nobody would take it away from her. And nobody would see it coming when she pulled it out and showed her true colors.
She finished her stew, with a warm feeling, in both her belly and her heart.