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Marcy was terrified of forgetting.
Of course, that sounded ridiculous. How could one possibly forget what had happened to her? She’d gone to another world, gotten manipulated, stabbed, possessed, and then some.
But those weren’t the things that were important to her. At least, they weren’t important to her in the same way. They weren’t the things that had changed her as much as they were the things that held her back. There was a difference. That difference seemed to make no sense to her parents or doctors or news reporters, but she insisted upon it.
Her experience with The Core had hardened her, but what had truly changed Marcy was the unconditional love.
It was living in a world she understood, and knowing that wherever she went, she would be treated with respect and patience.
It was sunny days in the castle garden, playing flipwart by the fire as the rain poured down outside, the wind in her hair as the ship rocked up and down with the waves.
It was Olivia’s gentle smile as she took her for a walk in the forest, and her lacy handkerchiefs gently wiping away her tears.
It was Yunan’s toothy grin and obnoxiously loud laugh, and her removing her cape and wrapping it around Marcy’s shoulders on cold nights at sea.
It was Andrias, before everything, placing a massive hand on her shoulders and telling her she was loved, and Marcy finally being able to believe it, because no one in the city made her feel otherwise.
All of those things were what made Marcy Marcy, and she clung to them like a little kid clinging to a stuffed animal.
She was most afraid of losing Newtopia to time, forgetting the things she couldn’t photograph or journal.
Every few days, she made sure to dig into her memory, to replay the sounds of Yunan’s clicking boots or the castle garden’s windchime in her head so they wouldn’t disappear forever. To remember the sensation of the building shaking whenever Andrias laughed. To relish in what Olivia’s hugs felt like, cool but also warm in a way she couldn’t quite describe.
Her constant obsession with that stimuli might explain why most of her dreams seemed to take place in Amphibia.
Some of them were nightmares, in a world drowning in green fluid or shrouded in The Core’s eternal darkness.
But most of them were just… normal.
Sometimes they took place in real places and sometimes in conjured ones, new rooms of the castle or a different, nonexistent spot on the beach, each full of new treasures to discover, but then she’d wake up and find her hands empty.
She’d look out her window and see the lifeless mundanity of suburban Massachusetts instead of the sprawling metropolis of Newtopia.
And her mother would be screaming at her to wake up for school, instead of Olivia’s gentle nudging as she opened the glittering curtains.
Marcy’s parents were still dead set on sending her to some prestigious Ivy League school for some prestigious scientific degree. But Marcy quickly came to detest earth science. It was quite literally the study of the world, the reality she hated, and even the magic of biology seemed dull and achingly simple compared to that of Amphibia. Almost every subject seemed to follow this pattern. She completed her schoolwork with little to no care for its quality, and though she was still effortlessly getting As, she brushed off her teacher’s suggestions of clubs and AP classes with a simple “I’m good, thanks.”
She’d rather focus on her art and writing.
Through them she was able to express her love for the things, places and people she loved, and her world could once again be filled with yellow and green fields and sparkling blue seas, accompanied by colorful salamanders with vivid colors and personalities.
Her work caught the eye of her classmates and she quickly befriended other young artists, and by college she had finally started to feel happy again. It was a different kind of happy, and it was never the same, but she was happy nonetheless.
But there was still that distant ache that never went away.
What hurt the most is that her found family hadn’t been a clean split like Sasha and Anne’s. Andrias’s betrayal and her confession and Darcy and everything had left her and the newts with so much unresolved baggage she didn’t even know for sure if they still had a good opinion of her when she left, or if they were just being polite because of the situation.
She didn’t think she’d get a statue erected in her honor, or be remembered fondly by the general public. She’d brought them so much trouble.
So all she had to go off was Olivia, Yunan, and Andrias.
Would they tell her story? Would they keep her a part of the city she still loved, even after everything?
Or would her only mark left on her first ever real home be the initials she’d carved into the stone when no one was looking, or a forgotten hairpin left in some dusty crevice?
She wondered what had changed. Maybe they’d finally put railings on the staircase she fell down. Maybe the sparkling blue tiles had lost their luster over the years, and they didn’t catch the light the same way they used to. Maybe her favorite burger place was something entirely different now.
Or maybe the city wasn’t even there at all. Maybe they’d decided it was too broken to be fixed, and everyone moved somewhere new, where the buildings were too bright and shiny and lacked the wear of a thousand years of cityfolk and all the history and stories that came with them.
Maybe it lie in ruin, no different from the day she left it, besides some vines and mold and wild crustaceans roaming the hallways she used to. Nothing would change because no one would care to change it.
She couldn’t decide if that thought was comforting or not.
And some nights she’d wrap herself in her old cape and cry, shoving the dusty old fur in her mouth so her parents or roommates wouldn’t hear her, and she’d simply remember and reflect and grieve for hours before finally drifting off to sleep.
Did they miss her like that too?
At least once a day, she thought about it.
What is Lady Olivia doing right now? Is she still finding new messes that I left behind?
Does General Yunan remember the night we bonded whenever she climbs up those rickety old stairs to the upper deck of her ship?
What about Andrias? Does he still miss me, even after everything?
Do they think of me as much as I think of them?
And Marcy would never know, but they did.
Olivia thought of Marcy every time she tended to her old plants, which had been relocated from her castle bedroom to the sunniest windowsill of their new cottage in Wartwood. Said bedroom remained untouched in the Newtopia ruins, but sometimes Olivia would come by to dust off her old treasures and re-fluff her pillows, as if to keep it tidy in case she returned.
Yunan thought of Marcy every time she spent a day at sea. Her old ship had sunk under the rotting Newtopia docks a long time ago, but she had named her new one the S.S. Yulivia, the ship name Marcy had given them after she explained what shipping was. She hadn’t appointed a new first mate since Marcy left. It didn’t feel right. She did start sailing with a crew again though, and every night she’d regale them with stories of her adventures knowing Marcy would’ve loved it. And though she’d never, EVER admit it, sometimes Yunan would sit on the upper deck and cry about how much she missed her old crewmate.
Andrias thought of Marcy anytime he wasn’t thinking about Leif. He thought about the good memories, the bad memories, the things he didn’t want to think about but forced himself to anyway, because that’s what she deserved. Some days his guilt would paralyze him, and other days it would motivate him to rebuild and replant. The Core’s old robotic shell, Darcy’s scythe and armor, and that awful fire sword he had used to do his worst deed were all buried deep in the dirt to rust then planted over with wildflowers. Every spring Andrias would wish on the fuzzy dandelions, Marcy’s favorite flower, for her happiness and success back in the human world.
And Marcy’s old golden statue stood in the center of the scattered ruins of Newtopia, leaving her to forever watch over the city she loved.
Once she got old enough, Olivia and Yunan’s second adoptive daughter would come to explore the city, to run through the old castle halls giggling and quietly observe the abandoned rooms, imagining how her parents’ lives might’ve played out there.
And every time before she left, she would leave a cool rock or a piece of coral or a fuzzy dandelion in front of Marcy’s statue, to honor her namesake.