"Find yourself a girl, and settle down, live a simple life in a quiet town, steady as she goes." - The Racounteurs
"Ah, excellent, a hibiscus..."
"Now you can make the potion, right? Right? It was kinda difficult finding all this stuff, you know!"
Molly crossed her fingers. It did take her the better part of the Summer season collect only three ingredients and she was far enough into this bell thing to realize that if she didn't start making a teensy bit more headway, she'd never stop hearing Finn's nagging.
"Of course. Hold on just a moment..."
She watched him gather some items from the shelf and sit down at his table. She was curious about how glorified butter, ground corn and a flower could turn someone from a frog into, well, a person. But she never was very good at waiting or standing or doing much that required things like patience.
So she meandered around the Wizard and his little wooden table, poked at a few cupboards and smelled a couple of questionable substances.
Molly always liked the way the Wizard's house smelt. That wasn't odd, was it? It was a nice blend of coffee, teas and an odd hint of spices thrown into the mix. It reminded her that her own house could use a little of that stuff from back home. What was it's name again?
Right. Fabreeze. It would definitely prevent Finn from complaining about the 'farmy' smell of his make-shift bed in her sock drawer. She really would have to find a way to procure some...
"It's done. We can go now Molly." The Wizard cocked his head in her general direction but seemed oddly unfazed by her excursions into his cupboards.
She gave the jar closest to her one last tentative sniff, prompting the Wizard to eye her slightly more suspiciously.
"Molly, those are..." the Wizard attempted to chide.
"Super awesome magical crafting ingredients?" Molly chirrupted and clasped her hands. She was sure that the yellow and white powdery substances had to possess some sort of unique and wonderful magic property.
The Wizard sighed and shook his head.
"...No. They're my baking supplies."
"...Oh," Molly attempted to make a 'tsking' sound with her tongue and instead wound up with an entirely foriegn noise. "...I was hoping for an answer more like 'This lets me turn people into pink frogs' or 'This is what I put in Luke's coffee', you know, something exciting." she ploughed on, relatively undetered by her questionable noise.
"I...don't put those beside my stove..."
Molly failed to see why not. Where else would you make magical potions and crafts? Some of her best ones came from her kitchen! Well, maybe when she was five, but the point remained the same.
"Don't put them beside your stove...usually?"
The Wizard shook his head again.
"They are...more important. We should...see the Witch now." his voice was monotone, as it usually was, so Molly failed to see the urgency but she supposed it was his time and magic that she was pestering for.
"Fiiine. I guess that might be a good idea..."
Molly found it odd that no matter how terrible the weather was, Fugue Forest was always in the same perpetual state of overcast. Then again, she'd only been on Castanet since Spring and Summer was only just starting to draw to a close. Maybe she just had bad timing? It was one of those questions she'd been meaning to ask Finn but somehow slipped her mind whenever they were alone together.
Oh well. She supposed that now she had gotten through to the Wizard maybe it was time to put away questions to assault him with. She had remained somewhat restrained and they were nearly at the Witch's Hut. Sure, she had asked him a few simple things like why there were so many typhoons and why there was no public transitbut she never got more than a few words out of him at a time.
Quiet people are just so boring. It was a good thing she was such an excellent conversationist and made time pass by so quickly. I mean really, they were about at the front doorstep of the Witch's house now!
"She's just inside the house here, I think. Frogs don't usually move too far, right? Especially witch-frog hybrids? I don't have much experience with them, but um, I guess you might." Molly ventured after the latest bout of silence and procceeded to open the door to the hut.
As expected, the pink frog was still stationary and in almost the exact spot the farmer had found her. In a rather unexpected twist, she looked rather unhappy and shot a particularly sour glace at the Wizard; or, as sour as a pink frog could look anyway, Molly supposed. Either way, he didn't look very bothered by it as he stepped towards the table and closed his eyes in concentration.
"Tch..." she thought she heard him begin, however the rest of his words were barely audible. Both the Wizard and the pink frog glowed an eery amount and before Molly could even voice her concerns, the room was enveloped by a flash of purple light.
Somehow, the scraggly limbs of the frog had morphed into arms and legs and the protruding mouth had transformed into a woman's delicate features; even the slimey skin gave way for clothing. The hat however, remained the same.
Truth be told, Molly was a bit jealous. She had been expecting a typical fairy tale witch complete with the sagging, pot belly and warts. Maybe spending time as a frog could trim her excess bulk and do wonders for her complextion. Her bust could use some of that enlarging too, come to think of it.
Farming sucked. It didn't help her minor problem with clogged pores and her extra pounds had quickly melted away and gave way for a more stocky, muscular figure. If the the witch was built like an hourglass then Molly supposed she was built more like a brick. In the grand scheme of things, it was hardly fair that she was brought to the small town already at a disadvantage. Alas, life's a bitch and you deal with the cards you're dealt; no matter how unfair.
"What took you so long? I was stuck as a frog forever!" the Witch, luckily for Molly, directed her gripes at the Wizard next to her. Forever? Some people were just so impatient.
"And I had to eat flies and I was slimy!" Well, Molly could hardly fault her for that one, actually, her point was quite valid.
"Well, I told you not to use that spell..." the Wizard started.
"You left me as a frog to teach me a lesson? You're so...mean!" the Witch continued to fume.
He seemed amused by this. Well, as amused as stoic wizards tend to get.
"Well, did it work?"
Molly didn't predict this fight in her list of logical outcomes. She expected the Witch to be eternally grateful and her words to be more along the lines of 'make sweet love to me now'; she was even expecting to hear it directed to her or the Wizard, or possibly even both of them. Molly liked to think she was open minded. An argument between magic users just seemed dangerous and not the good kind of dangerous either.
"I hate you! You make me so mad! Get out!"
The Witch even had the gall to slam the door behind them. Suffice to say, Molly was a teensy bit offended. Collecting the ingredients to turn her back wasn't exactly easy.
"Well, that wasn't exactly nice of her. Hmph. All that trouble..." Molly sighed, talking to the Witch was really her only plan of action.
"...It looks like I'm done here," The Wizard began making his way towards the exit. "See you later."
"Wait!" Finn shot out of her pocket and began to shout, complete with little arms reeling.
"It's not going to do us any good Finn, he's gone already"
Finn began to sob. "But...we need... the Green Bell..."
Oh dear. Molly figured now would be a good time to utilize a distraction before he launched into full blown temper tantrum status. "Let's just try going back in. No biggie, right?"
"R-Right! As long as we get that bell!"
"...You helped the Wizard right? I hate him, but... I guess you seem okay. I'll talk to you! What did you want to know?"
"Umm, how ol--" Finn gave her a swift jab in the side. Were Harvest Sprites even allowed to do that? "I mean, do you know anything about the Green Bell?"
"Hmm, I do have some green stuff... Let's take a look!"
"But...It's a bell! A green bell! In fact I think I see it right behind those scrolly-things," Molly pointed "right there!"
Really, she was no rocket scientist or even a regular scientist, but even she knew what a bell looked like! No wonder the Wizard left her...
"Oh, this?" the Witch held up a suspicious looking leaf that Molly could have sworn she saw before (and might explain the strange scent in the Witch's home).
"Is...is that pot?"
"No silly! I think it's a leaf..." replied the Witch.
"But I wanted a bell...That one! Right beside it!" Molly decided not to press her anymore about her 'leaf'. Besides, the bells were far more important to Finn's self-esteem!
"This right here?" this time she held up a worn bell.
Finn flailed about beside her. "Molly! That's not..."
"Yes! That's the one!" Molly ignored Finn's protests. They weren't anything new anyway. Besides, what did he mean it wasn't the bell? The Harvest Goddess really could have sent her a brighter companion...
"Oh! That is it! That's the Green Bell we need!" Finn really was a little slow.
The Witch seemed miles happier than she had been a few minutes ago. "Tee hee! Well, you did help me, so you can have this! But promise me something, okay human?"
Molly reached out to take the bell from her. More favours? Couldn't the people here stand on their own feet just a little more?
"Okay," Molly relented after spending a few more seconds mulling over the decision, "but you need to start calling me 'Molly', not 'human'. It's getting kinda degrading..."
"Deal, but I want you to promise me that you'll visit me! I spent months as a frog and nobody even knew about it... It's kinda lonely out here you know!"
Molly figured that wasn't such a bad thing to promise. She barely had any friends since moving anyway and socializing with only the Harvest Goddess and sprites were liable to make her crazy. Sure, the Witch had her idiosyncrasies, but Molly would be lying if she said she wasn't a little lonely too.
So she complied and agreed to visit more often and the Witch even agreed to maybe come up to her quaint little farm.
"There's just one other thing... Maybe stay away from that meanie Wizard. I know what you're thinking: 'Oh, he's so gorgeous and deep and that tattoo is so...so...' What's that word the lighthouse kid has been saying? Right: 'badass.' But he isn't so you're better off staying away from him and visiting me!"
Actually, she wasn't thinking anything of the sort. In fact, what Molly was thinking was more along the lines of 'Wow, he's scrawny and how is he so tanned when I never even saw him outdoors for the first season I lived here?' But now that she mentioned it...
Luke was still more her type anyway.