Poor Anne. I really can't resist torturing her. Gonna give her a sort-of break tomorrow and Tuesday though! Marcy and Sasha are gonna get a turn in the torture chamber.
Again a very small mention of Anne's branches which are basically a permanent characteristic at this point in my brain.
Anne is alone
Anne has not been alone, truly, terribly alone in a very long time.
She had Marcy and then Sasha too.
The cave, she supposes, was the last time.
That first week in Amphibia when her nights were dark and cold and her days were filthy and desperate.
But then she had the Plantars, and even when she lost Sasha to Toad Tower she had them, and then she had Marcy, and then she lost Sasha all over again and Marcy for the first time.
And now.
She has no one.
Sasha and Marcy are lost to Amphibia and maybe Anne is too because her parents will never understand their little girl anymore.
All grown up and missing so many parts of her heart.
And the Plantars are still in Amphibia and Anne is lost to them because she fell on the box when Sasha tossed her through the portal, pleading and apologizing and begging Anne to move on with her life.
But how can she possibly move on when she left so much of herself in another world?
Her family, her amphibious friends.
Her girls.
So Anne is alone.
She wanted to go home.
She wanted to run to her house and cry into her parents arms and tell them everything.
But their daughter is unrecognizable.
Her skin is dark from days under the Amphibia sun and every inch of her skin is scarred from her adventures and the king, and her hair is a tangle of branches she cannot remove.
Her brown eyes glimmer blue now even away from Amphibia.
And she is alone.
And she stays that way.
She does go home eventually.
But when she stares dead-eyed at her parents, hair wild as her new-old home, they look scared.
It should be joyful, but her chest feels hollow, and the world is black around the edges like a dream. If she could just wake up, maybe this is all a nightmare.
She stays in their house for weeks, sorting out how to live on earth again.
They get it figured out, it takes months, and she cooks in their restaurant again, renting a small apartment.
Alone.
She leaves the stones on a shelf and just stares at them sometimes.
Willing them to glow.
Give her some sign her girls are alive.
But she knows.
She has…friends. But she doesn't invite them over and she does not let them see her hair.
They would reject her.
And she'd really be alone.