The Thief and the Swordsfrog Chapter 8
By Silent Elegy
Frog went home. He needed to think in the peace and quiet solitude that the Cursed Woods provided him. There was something very, very wrong, that much was obvious. What he didn’t understand was how Mariel could fit into the picture.
Thinking about Mariel made him wonder exactly how Magus had managed to have a daughter. Oh, certainly, Frog understood the mechanics involved. But who in her right mind…
And with Magus…
Frog shook his head, choosing not to think of such things. All that mattered was that Magus had a daughter. What that meant exactly was what Frog needed to find out. He wanted to assume that everything that was happening was her doing. She was Magus’ daughter, after all.
Frog pulled off his cape and breastplate and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Not for the first time, he missed his friends. Crono, ever silent, who never really had much to say. He was smart, though. Their enemies tended to underestimate him, thinking he was stupid because he hardly spoke. They never usually lived long enough to make the same mistake twice.
Princess Nadia. Frog hadn’t been very comfortable simply calling her Marle when he found who she was. She was always so happy, though. A bright ray of sunlight on a clouded day.
Lucca, the inventor. She was a genius. Such wonders that Frog had never seen were commonplace to her. Her Wondershot, for instance; it seemed like an elaborate crossbow, only it shot bolts made of light instead of metal. Truly incredible.
Thoughts of Lucca reminded him of Robo, the metal man, or robot as he called himself. He looked like something Lucca could have built. Frog wondered, not for the first time, how anything like that could be created without the use of magic. He wondered if Robo had a place in the new future, if the robot was happy there.
Ayla hadn’t quite been able to pronounce robot. She’d always called him a “rawboot”. Frog laughed at the memory of his prehistoric friend. Ayla had been the chief of the Ioka tribe. She was primitive, but hardly stupid. She was very strong, too, both in physical strength and will power.
Finally, there was Magus. Or maybe he called himself Janus now. Though there was no love lost between the two of them, Frog couldn’t bring himself to hate Magus any longer. The dark wizard had gone through more pain than anyone should ever have to. Not that he hadn’t gotten revenge on half the world for it, including Frog himself and his best friend Cyrus. But the past was the past, and Frog simply could not hate Magus anymore. And that was the one thing that kept Frog from blaming everything that had happened on Mariel.
.
Frog kneeled next to his fallen comrade Cyrus as Magus and Ozzie jeered at them. He looked around in wild confusion. Had the past thirteen years been a dream? A dream! Of course, he was dreaming. Except that people weren’t supposed to know when they were dreaming, were they?
The scene was frozen. It reminded Frog of when he, Magus, and Marle had used the Chrono Trigger to go back and save Crono from Lavos. The world was grey; the air was dead.
Frog stood, but his body felt strange, and the ground was rather farther away than he was used to. Quite a bit farther away, in fact. Frog put his hand on his head, trying to ward off the dizziness that assailed him. He pulled it away again almost immediately. There was no color, the details were fuzzy, but the hand was human.
Frog’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at his other hand. It was human, too. He put his hands to his face. Human skin, human hair…his eyes were closer together, making him feel cross-eyed. But he was human again.
“Not quite,” said a voice from behind him. Frog whirled around to face the speaker, but there was no one there. “Don’t be fooled by appearances,” said the voice, again from behind him. Again he turned but saw nothing. “Or sounds, for that matter. I could be anywhere. Here.” The voice came from his left. “Or here.” The voice was on his right. “Nothing is real, Glenn.”
Frog blinked. “Glenn…tis a name I hath not been called in years. How doth thou know it?”
“I know more than that. A lot more. I’ve been there with you ever since the beginning, though you didn’t know it. You and Cyrus couldn’t have defeated Masa and Mune without me.”
“But what art thou?” Frog persisted. “What is thy name?”
“I am what I choose to be. My name…” A blurry form appeared in front of Frog. At first, he couldn’t make out what it was. It was just an amorphous mist, the color of its surroundings. Gradually, it took on color and definite form until it resolved itself into a creature that looked like Masa or Mune. “My name is Doreen. We met in Enhasa. That’s why I came to you.”
“When did thou come to me? I hath only seen thee in Enhasa.” Doreen smiled. “Look at you. So fuzzy, like your memory. Has it really been so long? I wouldn’t know; I’ve been asleep.”
“It hath been thirteen years.”
“Wow. It has been a while. No wonder you don’t remember what you looked like back then.” Frog swallowed the cry that welled up in his throat. It was true. He had long forgotten what he looked like when he was human. Oh, he could remember a few details that stood out, such as his green hair, or the fact that he was too skinny. But he didn’t really remember.
He was fine, though. He was happy enough.
“For a frog?” asked Doreen. Even before Frog could form the question to ask it, she answered, “Yes. I can hear everything your thinking. This is my dream, Glenn, not yours.”
“But tis mine memory.”
“True.” Doreen disappeared, reappearing next to Cyrus. “You asked how I’ve been with you. Think, Glenn, and think carefully. Why does the Badge of Courage interact so well with the Masamune?”
Realization dawned in Frog’s mind. He looked at Cyrus, though it hurt him to do so, and saw the Hero Medal held loosely in his hand. “Thou came to me…I understand. But what is thy purpose now?”
“That’s for me to know. You’ll find out soon enough.” She faded away, and the world around them followed suit.
As Frog awoke, he heard her say, “Oh, one more thing. I’d like to give you back your memory…”
.
The King of Thieves sat with his feet on a table in the back room of his bar. He was staring out a small window, waiting for someone to show up. This person was the best of the best, and one of his two greatest spies in the Mystic kingdom. This person had also cast an illusion so astounding that it had the entire kingdom of Guardia fooled.
Something black flew into the window and bounced off, and the King nearly fell out of his chair laughing. He stood to go open it, but a rather feminine voice said, “Don’t bother.” In a puff of smoke, Flea appeared in the room rubbing his head. “Jerk,” he muttered.
“So, Flea, what’s going on on the Mystic side of things?” the King asked, trying not to laugh too hard.
“I’d thank you to remember that I could incinerate you with a thought,” Flea said, his voice dripping with acid. The King sobered immediately, though he was still laughing inside. “Mariel ran off today; I don’t know where she’s gone. There’s still no sign of Magus-”
“I don’t know why you keep worrying about him,” the King interrupted. “The last I heard, that frog killed him.”
“Hmph! Show how much you know.” Flea turned his away in a gesture of annoyance. “If Magus was dead, Gle-ahem…I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Nothing that concerns you. Now, do you need anything else from me? I need to get back.”
“No, that’s enough.”
Flea harrumphed and disappeared in thick cloud of smoke, causing the King to cough horribly and throw the window open. He grimaced as he heard Flea’s laughter drift by on the wind. “Damn you, Flea,” he muttered. “If I didn’t need your help…” He didn’t finish that thought aloud. Instead, he pondered what Flea had been about to say, and wondered why he had stopped himself.
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