Disclaimer: I just own an imagination, a word-processor, and a bit of time.

General Warnings: This fic will be consistent with the current manga chapters. If you're nowhere near 370, and you like your character's secrets revealed in all good time, well, maybe you shouldn't be reading this. While actual plot won't be spoiled, back-story sure as hell will be.

The Frog Prince

(Not exactly a fairy-tale.)

Prologue

He remembers three things by the time he is able to sit and think, by the time he is out of that very long dark place and can see the sky again.

One: he had not always been this cold.

Two: there were once people with him, people who kept him warm and gave him food and surrounded him with things.Bright, colorful things that did not break even when he threw them.

(A word comes back to him: boat.)

Three: there used to be a lot of people and a lot of houses and a lot of sound. He went to school.

He sits down to remember and he sees a lot of black and feels a lot of cold, even through the thickly padded blue woolen clothes the lady with long hair mommy put on him a while ago.

A while ago? He does not remember how long he has been sitting here, looking at many trees and, squinting, seeing a lot of flat ground and a lot of black and hearing a lot of quiet. His stomach hurts, and he tries nibbling at the red things on the bushes next to him ,the ones he saw the little brown thing with long teeth eating before (another word: squirrel, said skwrel) and it had eaten a lot and usually when people eat a lot they are very hungry and the food is very good.

Mommy used to be happy when I ate a lot? Mommy always said to wait quietly and not cry when she is home late. Mommy said busy, put a key around his neck and said, wait, wait.

He is waiting. He touches the place around his neck, under his clothes, where a small bronze key dangles from the end of a white string severely knotted in a loop.

He eats as many red circles as he can find and some of them leave red stains on his blue outfit. His stomach seizes so he licks at the spots until the red turns grey, and then he feels a bit better.

When he is tired—overwhelmed, he sleeps.

---

The small villages dotting the edges of the Greater Countries had their own unique cultures and laws and rules and differed greatly in many ways from each other, especially as they carefully crafted lives specially suited to those who struggled to live between vicious enemies bend on destruction and domination. However, despite the hours their inhabitants worked and the number of children with consistently occupied parents, a well known legend that frightened the otherwise stoic villagers living outside ninja protection prevented them from ever leaving their children alone for too long.

Out in the woods it was said that if you leave a young child alone for too long, he will lose himself and become a changeling, a demon, and you can't ever get him back.

The villagers were right to be frightened; after all, it had happened before.


Author's Notes: And there you have it, the first chapter of "The Frog Prince." For all of you who're caught up with current Naruto manga-canon, you know exactly what inspired this (or maybe you don't, I'm not that bad at being subtle, you're wondering when I'll give you an answer and, seriously, next chapter—promise). I originally was going to write this as a series of quick one-shorts (and it still might turn out that way eventually!), but Kishimoto you screw with my head.

This is still further down on the list than SPEEDOMETER and my upcoming Fafner fic, but depending on what happens next in the manga and reader response, that might change.