Chapter Text
Anne’s hands hesitated over the box, anxious energy bubbling through her as she tapped her foot in the dirt. She was cold. She was late to her own birthday party. She’d just stolen something for the first time in her life. She was, overall, just not having a good time.
But… Sasha and Marcy were here. Sasha had that grin on her face she always did right when things were about to get interesting, and Marcy was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, her eyes glittering with focus as she stared at the box in Anne’s hands. Her friends were here, and they were having fun. By all means, Anne should have been having fun too. Sasha had called her a buzzkill earlier… had she been right?
Well. Better give the people what they wanted. She would just open the box, ooh and ahh over whatever was inside, and then run home as fast as humanly possible. If she was really fast, she might even be on the early side of late, and avoid too harsh a scolding.
“C’mon Anne, open it!” Marcy said, voice pitching into higher registers in her excitement. Anne didn’t know what was so interesting about this random thrift store box. If she hadn’t taken it directly from the store, she’d have thought that her real present was inside, and the weird frog box was just Marcy’s nerdy wrapping.
“It’s a music box, right? I wonder what kind of music it plays.” Sasha commented, leaning further over Anne’s shoulder.
“I guess we’re gonna find out.” Anne mumbled, not really caring to enunciate. She pushed down her senseless nerves and attempted to flick open the lid with a single thumb. The wood ended up being heavier than she’d expected, so she tried again, placing her whole hand on it before lifting…
Light exploded from inside, made even brighter amid the early evening shadows. Anne found herself blinded, her cries of surprise mixing with that of Marcy’s and Sasha’s before she slammed the box shut, exactly what had Marcy given her??
The light didn’t stop. She’d closed the box but
the light hadn’t stopped.
She fell off the bench in an attempt to get away from it, dropping it in her hurry. She heard it thump to the ground beside her, giving her no refuge from the luminous onslaught.
She whimpered as she lay on the grass, the intensity of the box’s light burning itself into her retinas even through her eyelids. She was so confused, what in the world was happening?
After what felt like an eternity, yet not long at all, the light faded. Anne was left staring up at a bright blue sky, more saturated with color than she ever remembered seeing it. She blinked. She blinked again. The sky was still there, and still just as blue.
That wasn’t right.
She closed her eyes, not reopening them as fast this time. Something was wrong here. Something was really wrong here. Just moments ago she had been sitting on a bench at six PM on an overcast May evening. Six PM on overcast May evenings did not feature eyestrain-blue skies. Nor did they typically include temperatures like this, because it had to be over eighty degrees. At least.
She took a deep breath, hot, muggy air filling her lungs, the likes of which she hadn’t expected to encounter for another month or so. She opened her eyes again, whining faintly upon seeing that nothing had changed since she’d last looked. It was so wrong .
She took another deep breath. Then another. She pushed herself into a sitting position and-
…What?
Her legs were blue.
Her legs were blue . They were short, glistening, and blue . One of her shoes had fallen off, and she could see the outline of her toes through her sock in the sunlight, all two of them. Her breath shook as she sat up further, bringing her hands in front of her face. Just like her toes, she’d been left with only four stubby fingers on each glistening, blue hand.
Anne fought the urge to puke.
Her breathing sped up as she twisted her hands around in her vision, inspecting them as closely as she could, as if there could have possibly been some little detail that could identify these as human hands. Anne knew what human hands looked like, she used to have a pair, this was not it.
She touched one of her arms with her other hand, and watched in horror as a long, ropey string of mucus came away.
She didn’t even try to fight the urge this time.
She stumbled to her feet, away from the puddle of sick. Her vision had still been blotchy from the strange assault of light, but she had a feeling the darkness creeping around the edges of her sight was not that.
She kicked off her remaining shoe, suddenly finding it too small and too big at the same time. Her skirt practically fell off of her too-small form as she scrambled away, she couldn’t be bothered to care about that though; she had bigger problems than her modesty, which was taken care of by her suddenly over-large shirt anyway.
This couldn’t be real .
“Sasha? Marcy?” Anne called, instinctively reaching for the comfort of her friends. Her face felt weird, her mouth felt weird, in all likelihood they had changed the same way her arms and legs had.
No one answered her. Anne backed away from the little clearing she’d woken up in, head whipping back and forth in search of anything remotely familiar. There were strange scraggly trees surrounding her, reaching for her with their wooden fingers, the shadows only further pronounced by the unnatural sky; even the air felt unfamiliar; it was muggy, but the cleanest she’d ever breathed, seemingly untouched by the smog she’d lived in for years.
“SASHA?? MARCY!!” She called again, louder this time. Her legs shook, threatening to give out under her. She clutched at her shirt, chest heaving as she battled for breath, her vision spinning.
Clearly when she’d fallen off the bench, she’d hit her head. She’d like to wake up from this nightmare now.
Moments later, she blacked out.
[break]
Hopediah Planter was a simple frog. He’d given up on any dreams of grandeur years ago, and was now content to run the family farm, and take care of his two troublesome grandkids. Honestly, he would be content to live the remainder of his life that way. Just like that. No unnecessary surprises.
Unfortunately he knew that was a little much to ask for. Even for a simple frog living a simple life, the world could come at you fast sometimes, and it paid to be able to roll with the punches. Everything had been fairly idyllic for a few years now, so truthfully he was expecting something to come along and disrupt the status quo.
The day had started out normal enough. It was an inventory day, taking stock of everything they had and everything they’d need for the coming months. Neither Polly nor Sprig were big fans of inventory day, but that was fine. They weren’t big fans of most farm chores, so he was used to wrangling them into doing it anyway.
“Hop Pop!” Polly called from the kitchen. He’d hidden all the candy, so he’d trusted her to take food inventory this time.
“What?” He called back, stowing away what he’d been counting.
“We’re out of truffles!” She huffed, hopping into the living room.
“We’ve been out of truffles for weeks, Polly.” Sprig said, popping his head out of the basement. “We always run out within the first week after we get them. Plus, it’s been over four months since we last got them.”
“So then we’re going to go get more today, right?” she said, turning on Hop Pop.
“Well, I was thinking that we could go without-”
“We’re going to go get more today, Right? ” She glared at him, and Sprig giggled.
“Ahhh fine. The things I do for you kids.” Hop Pop relented, sighing. “But we have to finish the inventory first!”
“Yes Hop Pop!” They chorused back, returning to their tasks.
Of course, truffles weren’t exactly at the top of the shopping list, even when inventory was complete. He could admit that the endless whining was motivating them towards record time, though. By the time they were finished with everything that needed to be done, there was more than enough daylight left to go truffle hunting. The local shops didn’t carry them, so they had to go out searching in the woods themselves.
The kids bounced incessantly in Bessie’s seat as they started trekking off the beaten path, the snail’s nose leading the way. He hadn’t realized Bessie was a truffle sniffin’ snail when he’d bought her, but he certainly wasn’t complaining.
“Wow! I don’t think we’ve ever been this far out looking for truffles before!” Sprig said, leaning dangerously over the edge of the speeding snail.
“Sprig! Sit your butt back down before you hurt yourself!” Hop Pop said, pulling the froglet back into his seat. He furrowed his brows. They were quite a ways outside of where they usually went for this, but he trusted Bessie. She had a good reason for it.
They gained speed, leaping over rocks and ledges, flying over branches and logs. Sprig and Polly were cheering, but Hop Pop was holding onto the reins for dear life. Really, where was this old girl taking them?
Bessie came to a halt so suddenly that Sprig and Polly tumbled out of her seat and onto the ground, head over heels. The only reason Hop Pop hadn’t was his iron grip.
“Kids! Are you alright? Bessie, what’s gotten into you?” Hop Pop asked, hopping down onto the springy earth himself and running over to check on his grandkids, who were already giggling and sitting up.
“Beep beep!” Bessie chirped. Hop Pop frowned at her. This was not normal behavior. “Beep Beep! ” She repeated, more sternly, and he realized she was pointing with her eye-stalks.
“Hop Pop, what’s wrong with Bessie? Why did she throw us?” Sprig hopped to his feet, running over to pat the snail’s neck.
“I’m… I’m not sure,” Hop Pop mumbled, eyes following the direction Bessie had indicated. There was an odd gap in the foliage, there. Bessie didn’t seem scared , exactly, so there probably wasn’t anything dangerous back there. Still, she obviously wanted him to check it out. What did she want him to find?
For a split second, Hop Pop thought he saw eyes shining from behind those leaves. Intelligent eyes, frog eyes.
“Kids, stay behind me.” He said, stalking toward the thick patch of underbrush. Something behind it squeaked, and he heard the pattering of feet scurrying away. He quickened his pace, pushing through the growth. On the other side he found a cave, spacious enough for frogs, but small enough to prevent mantis from getting in. Clever.
He heard Sprig and Polly enter behind him even as he saw a shadowy figure rounding a corner up ahead. He sprinted after them, rounding that corner, and then another one- and crashed into a wall.
“Ah! Oh my gosh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean- are you alright?” An unfamiliar, rather panicked voice said.
“Hop Pop! Are you- woah, who are you?” he heard Sprig say.
Hop Pop blinked the stars out of his vision, and picked himself up off the stone ground. He saw Sprig and Polly first. Both of them were staring at something he hadn’t seen yet.
A froglet was standing in the corner of the cave. She had bright, poisonous blue skin, and a mop of fluffy brown hair matted with mud and leaves. She wore a single garment, a large, tattered shirt that looked like it would have been more at home on a newt than a frog. She was curled into herself, as though trying to make herself look smaller. In the relative darkness it was hard to tell, but Hop Pop thought she may have been only a bit older than Sprig.
“Did you hurt Hop Pop?” Polly accused, raising her nubs menacingly. The mysterious froglet’s eyes widened and she tried to back up even more into her corner.
“No, she didn’t. I crashed into this wall all on my own.” Hop Pop said, flinching as he popped his spine.
“Oh.” Polly said, letting her arms fall. She sounded so disappointed.
“Um,” The froglet said “Why are you, I mean, who- what- uh,” She tried, floundering for a bit until Hop Pop sighed. He tried to take a step forward, but stopped when she flinched back.
“Let’s start over. I’m Hopediah Planter, but people call me Hop Pop. Especially these two gremlins, my grandkids.” Hop Pop said, smiling when the froglet started to relax. “This is Sprig, and this is Polly, and I swear they won’t hurt you. Well, Polly might try, but I’ll stop her if she does.”
“You can try .” Polly rolled her eyes. Hop Pop nudged her to be quiet. They didn’t need to scare the froglet off again.
“What’s your name?” He asked her. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Polly, but relaxed a little more when she turned her gaze back to him.
“I’m, uh, I’m Anne. Anne Boonchuy.” She nodded as she said the words, as if confirming them to herself.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Anne.” Hop Pop said cordially, and she nodded back.
“How did you get all the way out here? Why are you so beat up? Are you alone?” Sprig cut in, letting loose a string of rapid-fire questions.
“Sprig!” Hop Pop reprimanded, seeing Anne flinch back at his words.
“They’re gone… they’re really not here…” Anne muttered, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “I am alone, I really am alone here…” A sob broke her frame. Hop Pop dashed forward, catching her as her knees gave out, and she collapsed.
“Oh…” Sprig said, catching the glare Hop Pop sent him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s alright, sweetheart. You’re not alone, not anymore.” Hop Pop said to her. He tried to set her down again, but she clung to his jacket, sobbing into his shoulder.
They hadn’t found truffles, but he’d wager Bessie had led them to something much more important. Something that would hopefully last longer than a few months.
