Disclaimer: I don't own Amphibia!
Title: War and Peace
Summary: After a few turns, she speaks again. "How was the mall? Your father tells me old frog turned green."
Warnings: Spoilers for Hop Till You Drop!
...
Everything Anne's read about the art of war says it's like a complicated game of chess, only with lives instead of pieces. Anne's never been good at chess. She's also not good with keeping people alive (granted, only one potential failure in her books so far, but the look on Marcy's face as she slumped on the steel that had impaled her was more than enough for Anne, thank you).
Anne downloads a chess app.
She spends more hours on it than she probably should. She lets it sit on her first screen, mocking her with its cheerful little knight piece. Lets it suckle on her battery. Lets it kick her ass day in and day out. She should be getting better at this, Anne thinks, but it honestly starts to feel like she's getting worse. Anne likes to pick her brain with puzzles- bits she can slowly slot together into a beautiful picture. Chess is, arguably, the opposite of that vibe- it's taking down homes, and people, and banishing evil newt kings or killing them or whatever. And maybe she's letting feelings cloud her judgement again. Whatever.
She's halfway through another round when Mom comes out of the kitchen with a cup of tea. Anne doesn't acknowledge her at first, bouncing her leg restlessly. Her other hand holds an orange soda- her one main indulgence since returning home, she reflected with some level of sadness. It wasn't that Anne didn't want to dive back into meaty meals or chocolate or proper dairy, but five months has rendered her stomach a wuss. (She remembers, vaguely, having the same occur her first few days in Amphibia, but Anne honestly hadn't put two and two together. Anne was busy trying to survive in a cave. Anne just assumed she was stressed as vegetable after vegetable left her.)
"Are you winning?" Mom asks.
"Yeah," she says, but Anne knows not to trust that. Chess is sneaky. The CPU is probably about to rip the rug out from under her at any moment. Like Andrias did. (Is she personifying it too much? God, probably.) "Wanna watch me get my butt kicked?"
She leans on her as an answer. Anne struggles not to feel too self-conscious about it, but five months without human contact has made the soft fabric of Mom's sweater itchy against her. Sure, she had Sasha and Marcy, and they'd hugged a lot, but they reeked of mud and sweat and Amphibia. Mom smelled like the restaurant- like comfort food.
Anne realizes, with a sudden burst of humiliation, that she hasn't showered in a couple of days. She'd been going hard on her dental hygiene, but it was hard to remember she could just. Have warm water whenever she wanted now. She must smell terrible to them. How is she supposed to save the world when she barely remembers how to function like a normal human being?
After a few turns, she speaks again. "How was the mall? Your father tells me old frog turned green."
Anne bit her lip and tried to find a good answer to that. It'd... sort of been a success? But also it really hadn't. "I missed food court smell," she settled on. "And I saw Gabby. So it was good."
"It's good to hear you're hanging out with your friends," Mom hums, but Anne sees the worry etching its way across her face. "What did you tell her?"
She shrugs. "I told her more or less the truth. Went to hang with family on a remote farm. Just got back. That sort of thing."
Mrs. Boonchuy breathes a soft sigh of relief. Part of Anne feels jealous of her- of the Plantars. That they were allowed to be secreted away when she had had to walk to town every day and be insulted for existing those first few months while she tried to sell wares. That she'd had to break an arm to be respected when they were just- loveably themselves and it all worked out. But that's really not fair of her, and she knows those were very different circumstances.
The CPU claims victory once again. Anne sighs and lets her phone fall to her lap. She pressed the cold rim of her soda to her forehead. "I'm- worried about them, mom. The dangers in this world aren't as obvious as they are in Amphibia. They think that just because we don't have mantids the size of mansions or get dragged off by parasitic wasps it's safer here. They're gonna get hurt."
Mom frowns, touching Anne's arm. The little kid in Anne wants to point out the scar under her fingers- to get comfort for something that happened ages ago now. It's silly, and fleeting, but it's strong. "Everything I've heard about Amphibia is... hardcore," she muses. "I'm so glad you got home without getting hurt."
But I did, Anne thinks, but could never say, could never dash that fragile hope in her mother's features. She didn't need to know about giant newt kings or best friends almost getting murdered. Not until it was all over and they could laugh it off as a distant memory, at the very least.
"I guess I got pretty lucky," she says, thinking of that cave, that cage Sasha was held in, and those steps that Marcy plunged down. Marcy's echoing pleas in her ears- I gave you this, I gave you everything, as if this world of living, sentient creatures was a birthday gift. And she knows Marcy was scared, and acting out, the same way Sasha did with rebellion and Anne did by breaking rules- but it's going to take time for that all to be okay. It's going to take time for Anne to be okay. "The least I can do is return the favor."
Author's Note: More of a character study than anything, but hot dang is Anne under a lot of pressure right now. And her parents are so sweet, and they honestly think their baby girl had a fun, wholesome adventure that only got complicated at the end, and she needs the support they don't realize is needed bc, again, they don't know. It's sad all the way around.
-Mandaree1