Chapter Text
One: New Faces Revealed, New Places Concealed
The kitchen’s atmosphere is heavy with steam and the smell of cooking – heavier, even, than the muggiest summer nights in the valley. As a vat gurgles, belching more steam into the air, a pair of hands carefully measure out ingredients. Now, this next step calls for a gentle hand – easy now, easy. Ground mantis shell is no weak ingredient, nor is it easy to come by. Just a pinch too much, and it’ll ruin the soup. Any amount less, however, will leave the meal dull and unappetizing. The secret to perfect dung beetle stew is getting this proportion just right. Not many have perfected the art, but Petunia Plantar prides herself on being one of that select few.
She lifts a bit of broth to her lips using an old ladle and samples it thoughtfully, before shaking some pepper into her palm and tossing it into the pot. As she stirs this in, she calls across the house, “Dinner’s almost ready, HP, why don’t you come on down?” No answer.
“Hopediah! Dinner!”
“Wh-uh!” her father-in-law grunts, startled. Petunia hears the sound of a heavy book closing as he responds, “Yes, I’m coming!” He enters the kitchen and begins to set the table for three.
“How’s the egg doing?” Petunia asks casually, but with a careful eye on the older frog as he hesitates.
“Erm, same as always, I suppose. Nothing new.”
“When’s the last time you checked?”
Silence.
Petunia faces him fully. “You haven’t even been paying attention, have you?”
“I’ve been multitasking!” Hopediah says defensively.
Petunia sighs good-naturedly. “Look HP, I’ve got no problem with you reading old plays while we wait, but we both know how you get lost in your books, and when you actually wander off to the other room – I can’t hardly call that staying on task.”
“I know;” the older frog says, downcast, “it’s just that my favorite chair is in there, and it’s so much more comfortable–”
“–And in the name of comfort, you also like to open the window – the same opening that a pair of centipedes almost got into last week,” Petunia reminds him. “We just can’t have that happening again, so sorry HP, but you’re in time-out.”
They continue setting up for dinner in silence, but soon enough, Petunia feels a grin tug across her face.
“But isn’t it exciting? Your first grandbaby is due any day now!”
“It sure is, Miss Mother-To-Be. You sure you’re up for the job?”
Petunia gives him a smirk. “Well, I’ve been taking care of two Plantar hooligans for years, what’s one more?”
“Gosh, she’s right,” says another voice. Petunia turns around to see her husband smiling fondly in the doorway. “Whatever would we do without you?”
Petunia grins widely and strides forward to meet his embrace.
Scottie Plantar has always been the candle to her glowshroom, and as they meet again after a day spent apart, marigold and lavender, Petunia can’t help but thank the stars for this sunbeam in her life.
“You’re home early,” she observes as they finally part, “slow day at the stand?”
“Very,” he says, “But actually, there’s something you need to see…”
And with no more warning than that, he opens the door farther, allowing a little – something – to stumble into the house.
Petunia and Hopediah gasp. “What is that? ”
It’s like nothing she’s ever seen before – balancing on two legs, balled fists with too many fingers, a pair of vaguely unsettling brown eyes on either side of a peculiar little bump, all under a wild fuzz of hair. As they gawk, it burbles happily and starts to investigate its new surroundings.
“Well, I’m not exactly sure,” Scottie admits, “But I heard it crying while on a walk in the woods, and it seemed so lost and scared, so I took it home.”
Hopediah eyes the creature suspiciously as it totters across the room. “So you don’t know what it is? What if it’s dangerous?”
“It’s clearly some kind of baby,” Petunia offers, “surely it can’t be that bad.”
“When it comes to wild creatures, age doesn’t matter,” her father-in-law mutters darkly. “When I was a youngster, I tried to take in a Coastal Killapillar – and sure, it looks all cute ‘n cuddly, but next thing you know, you’ve got a full-on monster in the house!”
“Are you implying that this looks cute and cuddly?” Scottie asks.
“That wasn’t the point, it was a cautionary tale!” Hopediah blusters.
“But do you?” Petunia asks, now curious.
Hop Pop shrugs. “Well if you squint and kinda tilt your head, like this–”
Just as he demonstrates, Petunia spies the creature lifting something off the floor into its mouth.
“No, don’t you–” she gripes, removing the object – the cap to an inkwell – from its grasp.
“Hey!” it complains suddenly, reaching to have it back.
“Woah, you can talk?” Scottie yelps as the child continues to whine and struggle for the cap. “No, you can’t have that – wait!” He pulls a toasted cricket leg out of his shirt pocket and offers it to her. The baby only swats it away.
“No!” she squeaks, “No bug!”
“Okay, okay, no bug!” Petunia sweeps in, picking her up and setting her on the couch. “Now, calm down, please… shhh…”
Hesitantly, Petunia tries to hum a tune. She doesn’t know where to take it, but she continues anyway, and the strange baby soon settles down.
“Now,” she says once she’s certain there’s no more fuss, “little one, what’s your name?”
“Anne!” She declares proudly.
“Okay, Anne, where are your parents?”
“Home,” the child responds simply.
“Where is your home?”
“Home!” Anne insists again, before pausing. “Urf. On Urf.”
Petunia sighs, massaging her temples. “I don’t know what an ‘urf’ is.”
“Okay, my turn,” Scottie says teasingly, moving to crouch in front of the child.
“I’ll bring dinner down,” Petunia volunteers.
They continue questioning her, but there’s seemingly no more information to be given. At length, Anne begins to get drowsy, and before long, she is sleeping quietly, curled up on the tattered couch, one thumb firmly in her mouth.
Quietly, Hopediah slurps up the last spoonful of soup. “Great stew, as always, Petunia.”
“Ain’t nobody can do it like you,” Scottie murmurs in agreement, one hand on his too-full stomach.
Petunia gives a gracious nod, then returns her attention to the child. “So, I suppose we’ll be taking this one in for a while,” she speculates.
“Well yeah,” Scottie says, “we can’t just let her fend for herself out there.”
“We’ll take care of her until her family comes looking for her,” Hopediah decides. “Whatever they are.”
“I’ve honestly never seen anything like her,” Scottie confesses.
“Neither have I, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Hopediah says, “If one is here, more are bound to turn up soon enough.”
After a lengthy pause, Scottie piped up, “...There is one more thing you should see. When I found Anne, she was holding onto this.” He drags his satchel towards himself and reaches inside to remove a lump Petunia had assumed was a big squash from the market.
It was not a squash, it was a music box.
It was about three hands long, assembled from dark wood and plated in gold, and it sported three gemstones on its curved lid, all a murky gray. It looked… familiar.
Petunia looked at it long and hard, trying to recall where she had seen it before. Suddenly, it came to her. “Scottie, you remember when we were looking through some old records, just before we got married?”
“Is that it? Have we seen it in one of those books?”
“The Family Tome,” Hopediah blurts suddenly, snapping his fingers. Of course he’d remember something like that , Petunia thinks idly as both of the boys bounced off to the study, he’s got all the memory for musty old books but couldn’t tell you what he had for breakfast.
Moments later, the three of them are poring over the ancient text.
“Beware? Destroyed?” Petunia mutters, tracing the dramatic lettering with one finger. “What does it mean?”
“It says here that the Calamity Box was an ancient artifact that carried unimaginable power,” Scottie reads, “and that it vanished without a trace centuries ago.”
“And here it is, in our house,” Hopediah says. “Why did Anne have it? How does she have it?”
“But couldn’t it be some kind of replica or fake? What are the chances it has returned after being missing for generations?” Petunia asks.
“What are the chances I’d stumble across a weird baby in the woods?” Scottie responds. “And look at the weathering on the wood – if it’s a fake, this is the most convincing replication I’ve ever seen.”
“Then what should we do?” Hopediah asks nervously, “That kind of power…”
“I say we keep it somewhere safe and hidden,” Petunia suggests, “some place where curious little hands – or a Toad – wouldn’t find it.”
All three of them ponder it for a second, then Scottie says, “I think I have an idea…”
— — —
Many miles away, a toad woman cradles a similar creature in her arms in an attempt to lull her to sleep. This one’s hair and skin are both lighter, and it pummels one fist faintly against her captor, but she is clearly losing the battle against an oncoming nap.
“Are you sure this is safe?” another toad asks from the other side of the room.
“Don’t be silly,” the woman admonishes, “you’ve seen this thing’s teeth – they’re flat and dull. Little thing couldn’t hurt us if she tried.”
“And you still want to–”
“Take her in, why, yes. We can be her Auntie and Uncle for the time being. Besides, you’ve heard her name already.”
She peers down at the child. “Sasha Waybright, huh? Well, welcome to the gang, little thang. We’ll take good care o’ya.”
— — —
Far, far away from even there, deep in the oldest and most celebrated castle halls of Amphibia, an ancient king paces anxiously, alone with the voices in his head.
“My lord,” he mutters, one hand flitting to the side of his head, “it’s just an infant – no music box in sight – we have no way of knowing–”
He flinches.
“Let us watch and wait for a while longer. We will observe this human child, and perhaps she will give us some kind of clue. Perhaps she could be of use to us.”
He straightens and folds his arms formally. “As you wish.”