A hot pink scar arced across the dusky purple sky. Although it hadn't reached its full red splendor, Amphibia's bloodmoon cut an intimidating figure. As it asserted itself over the heavens, a multitude of beings fled.
The sun went first, limping west and taking its warmth with it.
Then, the town went quiet. The haggling of merchants, the clatter of cobblestone, and the braying of snails all vanished, replaced only by cricket song.
The chatter of animals followed next. Woodland creatures of all shapes holed up in their burrows, taking their squeaks and squeals and their snapping of twigs with them.
Eventually, even the monsters threw in the towel. As stars twinkled into view, there were no echoing roars, no testing of claws on wood, no thunder of huge feet. Even the fiercest of Amphibia's creatures needed their rest, it seemed.
Wirh one exception.
The day's last holdout stood tall and rigid, sword in hand. She had work to do, and just a little more time to do it. The burgeoning moon and the last stubborn embers of the sun gave her just enough light to see by, and she would not waste it.
She leaped on aching legs, soaring towards a hapless scarecrow. She struck in a pink blur, slashing through the sound barrier and laying another scar amidst dozens of peers.
As the slayer of farm equipment landed, she leaned forward and carried her momentum. The girl sprinted up, and off a nearby tree, and pirouetted over the gangly bundle of straw. For its troubles, it received another wound, square onto the meat of its sword-arm shoulder.
That was all the trouble its assailant could manage, though.
Sasha followed her strike through, but let her blade scatter off to the side. She had asked her body for one ninja trick too many, it seemed, and she'd have to pay for it.
The teen lost control of her spin, and clunked across the ground in a heap. She avoided getting tangled in her cape, and even managed to dig her fingers into the ground to stop her skid.
For a brief moment, she considered calling the session there. Only a brief moment. Her routine had one, maybe two more moves in it, and she'd be a quitter if she couldn't find the strength to finish.
She flung herself forward with all four limbs this time, bounding in range of her dance partner. With all her remaining might, she swung a heavy boot low, down where the thing's "leg" met the ground.
To her surprise, she made it all the way through. Either she had landed the perfect blow, or a day's worth of hard kicks had loosened the log. Either way, she ignored the stinging in her shin, and watched the strawman fall onto its back.
The opportunity to transition to the ground was a rare one indeed, so she burned enough fumes to pounce on it.
She landed hard atop the fallen warrior, and let it carry her weight. She pressed an elbow into its torso, and snuck up a leg to kick its stumpy sword away.
Finally, she pinned her hands on its shoulder, and trapped its wide, spread arms under her knees.
A surge of satisfaction washed over her. Even in her tired state, she had seized her chance, executed her plan to perfection.
She grinned down at her brown, twiggy captive.
Stand up now, she bid the dummy.
The absolute dummy.
She dared it to stand up and do something cool. To make a fool of her.
But all the complete, absolute dummy could do was lay there. Because she was too strong for it. Of course she was. She always had been.
Ever since the stupid, stupid, total moron of a dummy was small Sasha had been stronger than it. And it never seemed bothered by that fact before.
The cheer captain realized she was no longer smiling. She was glaring down at that dumb, ungrateful little dummy.
And, under a certain fang of the red moonlight, it seemed to stare back. The many cuts tracing its head leered like eyes, and one deep gash at the bottom practically smirked.
And so she pummeled it. The blows came out weak and depleted, but they came in numbers.
A backhand chased after an open palmed slap. One sloppy punch became three which became five until the joints of her gauntlets filled with straw.
Why did it think it could do that to her? Embarrass her, treat her like a bad person? Why did it wait until the most inconvenient moment to spring its little rebellion?
A fresh shot of pain ended her thrashing. A piece of fat, golden straw poked out of her sweaty forearm.
That was enough to get a snort out of her. It figured the stupid thing would find a way to fight back, in however small a manner.
At least all her new friends weren't around to watch her get embarrassed this time.
Sasha exhaled the last of her impotent fury, and looked down at the scarecrow. Its body was in tatters. All day she had laid a patchwork on it, of fancy cuts she'd seen in movies, and practical stabs learned from toads.
Its head was gone. She wasn't proud of her outburst, exactly, but she was a little impressed that she had done so much damage in her depleted state.
Not that it mattered. If she really had the fight she just imagined, Sasha wouldn't, couldn't do that to... her. No matter what.
All the same, she gave the poor heap of cloth and twigs one last appraising look.
"And just what did you mean 'a long time ago?'" she murmured aloud, for no one else to hear. She let her words hang in the air for a moment, though it was clear no one would answer, again.
Only a real dummy could drop something like that on a so-called friend without giving them a chance to answer.
Sasha put a pin in the thought. She'd air it out later, when she had an audience.
Until then, all she could do was get stronger.
The exhausted teen posted up on her hands, and found the strength to stand. A nagging thought in the back of her mind told her that she had forgotten a move in that last drill, but she didn't care. The light was gone, and her adrenaline was fading.
She finally left her training partner behind, and gathered up her sword. Her back creaked as she bent over, and she felt like the shiny pink blade had put on a few pounds as she sheathed it. Her boots were heavier than she remembered, too. And had her knee always popped when it bent?
She tried to ignore the aches and pains, as they popped into existence. There was nothing he could do about them, either to treat or avoid altogether. They were a necessary evil.
The girls on the cheer-leading team had a little mantra to help them push through hurt. "Beauty is pain" they said. They repeated it during those extra miles of cardio in the afternoon, or when they had to forego a tantalizing carb, or let someone land boot-first on their shoulder, or wax something.
The phrase had brought Sasha comfort in the past, but it had lost its power in her swampy new reality. There was nothing beautiful about punching and smacking things with a sword until one was unable to walk a straight line.
Ever since Toad Tower had fallen, and taken all the comforts of the past with it, she had relied on a new mantra. One that a gym teacher had probably cribbed from a kung-fu movie, or something.
"Pain is weakness leaving the body," she told herself. It was macho, and meat-headed, and a little noble in its own way.
She repeated the phrase in her mind, as she lurched to the mill. And suddenly, it was a respectable sort of lurch. She wasn't a miserable, aching teenager stumbling her way home. She was a warrior, returning from battle, growing stronger with every step.
As weakness poured out of her like sweat, she limped on and on, drawing ever closer to the orange glow of her hideout. That light flickered bright enough for her to catch something out of the corner of her eye.
Something she had forgotten. That attack routine didn't end with a low kick. It finished with a knife throw at a distant bullseye.
It was hardly distant, at this point, sitting a few meters away. But, she may as well finish strong. Sasha reached back and gripped the handle of her dagger. Even in the dim light, she only had to size up her quarry for a moment.
She flicked out a hand, and her knife whizzed towards the target. The blade sunk in, and sproinged away its extra energy.
The lieutenant ambled up to her mark, and smiled. Bullseye, once again. All that practice was still paying dividends.
As she reached to retrieve her blade, though, something snuck up on her.
St. James' halls buzzed with all the sounds of another passing period. Lockers squeaked and clanged, shoes scrabbled on tiles, and teachers called warnings over the chatter of their students.
Amid all the chaos, down the center of the hall strode two out of three BFFs, looking as innocent as could be.
Sasha and Anne walked shoulder to shoulder, in lockstep. They looked straight ahead, with curt little smiles on their faces, and not a hair out of place. The two may well have been the least suspicious people to ever grace the middle school's halls.
At least, until Sasha gestured right. There, a wild jock hulked, gathering things from his locker. When he felt satisfied, he reared back, ready to slam it shut, and sprint to class.
Until, unbeknownst to him, a stealthy pencil whizzed straight into the door's hinges. He followed through on his slam... And, upon its failure he tried again, and again, growing more frustrated with each attempt.
The girls didn't so much as giggle at his predicament. At least until they had put a few lockers between themselves and their mark.
"That was a tight shot," Anne whispered, with unconcealed awe. "How did you get so good at that?"
Sasha smiled at her friend. "Hand-eye coordination is a must," she murmured, trying to keep a veneer of humility. "But really it's all down to practice. And I've been practicing a while."
The blonde spotted another mark. Subtly, she tugged at the hem of Anne's skirt. After a moment, the Thai handed her another piece of ammunition.
The pair passed by a greasy poindexter, carrying a tower of books and files well over his head. They were balanced quite precariously, and it was truly a shame when a well aimed projectile sent them sprawling to the floor.
"Oh, fiddlesticks," the nerd mumbled, as he scrabbled to collect falling papers.
Yet another victim of the St. James' phantom pencil sniper.
Sasha snickered when he was far enough in the rear view, but Anne had put on a frown.
"By the way Sash, have you ever thought of, err... practicing with your own pencils?"
That was enough to put a frown on the cheerleader, as well. "No, Anne, I haven't." She reached into her bag to produce one of her own writing utensils. "Because I don't use pencils. I have these stupid monogrammed pens."
Anne gawked for a minute, as if it was her first time seeing one. Or maybe just because they were neat. The pen was a smooth, elegant little thing with a royal purple body and the letters "SW" filigreed on the tip. She twiddled the pen between her fingers for effect, and watched in amusement as Anne's eyes followed it.
"If I were to start throwing these around, people would catch onto who's been messing with them pretty quick." With that, the young Waybright stowed the tool away, and looked back at her friend. "Why do you ask, anyway? I thought you liked this hallway ninja stuff."
Anne pawed at the back of her neck, and forced a chuckle. "I mean, I do," she said, "But you do it a lot, and I only have so many pencils."
Sasha rolled her eyes. "They're just pencils, Anne. Who cares? Just ask your mom for more, or something."
Before the brunette could respond, Sasha spotted a particularly juicy mark.
The school's elderly librarian doddered down the hall at a snail's pace. Her eyes, magnified comically by her glasses, seemed to stare off into space. Her hair, a towering white beehive that might have been in style sixty years ago, bobbed with every step.
She was perfect.
She tugged at the hem of Anne's skirt, and when Anne hesitated too long she tugged again.
Finally, when the moment was almost lost, she handed Sasha another pencil, which she quickly flicked away.
The little missile ricocheted off a row of lockers, and rebounded up into the air. Finally, it plummeted down, sharp end first, onto its mark.
If the old woman felt the pencil sticking straight out of her hairdo, she didn't show it. As she passed the two glowing girls, though, she looked up and waved.
"Hello, dearies," she sang, unaware that she had become a geriatric unicorn.
"Hey, Ms. Cartwright," Sasha sang back with a smile.
When they had passed a few more feet, her smile widened. She beamed with pride. That bank shot may have been the hardest thing she'd ever landed.
She looked over at Anne and saw... gloom. What a buzzkill.
"What is it?" she asked, trying not to sound too annoyed, "Are you still thinking about pencils?"
Anne fidgeted with a lock of hair, and wouldn't make eye contact. "Well, I mean, I'm down to my last one now. And it's barely a stub. What if it breaks when I'm taking notes?"
Sasha scoffed. "Then you copy Marcy's later, like a normal human?" At this point it felt like her friend was messing with her.
"Oh," Anne murmured, as if the thought never occurred to her. But she still didn't look satisfied. "But, I've been asking my mom for new pencils an awful lot lately. And she's getting kind of annoyed. They don't just grow on trees, you know?"
Now Sasha was certain Anne was messing with her.
She cut the girl an incredulous stare. Anne seemed to realize what she had just said all too late. "Anne, they are literally made of trees. Just make something up about some jerk who keeps taking them, or something. I'm sure she'll buy it."
The tan girl hid her eyes behind her hair. "Right, got it."
She didn't sound like she got it, but Sasha didn't want to pick a fight when she was trying to look unsuspecting.
Right before the two made it to the end of the hall, another premium mark appeared.
Sasha had to tug not once, not twice, but three times on the hem of Anne's skirt before she gave up the goods. She was glad she hadn't had to break out the "I'm serious" tone.
The school janitor hummed a tune as he worked at the underbelly of a drinking fountain. He honed in on his wrenching and turning so keenly, that he seemed lost in his own world. Unaware of the school's noise. Unaware of passersby. Unaware that his loose fitting jeans and his hunched over posture left a certain crack exposed.
He became aware very quickly, when a stubby little pencil lodged itself where the sun didn't shine. He yelped in surprise, and clonked his head on the machine he'd been tending.
Sasha could make out muttering about "darn kids and their pranks" as she passed. She choked back her chuckles. Maybe that'd teach him to be a little less gross.
Her mirth fell away when she looked over again, though. Her companion didn't seem amused one bit.
She could be so, so difficult sometimes.
"Look, dummy, if you care about your pencils so much, maybe you should go ask for them back."
The Toad Army's First Lieutenant scowled, and stowed away her dagger. There were few things she hated more than when one of those things found her. Those stupid, useless memories.
They had a way of ambushing her, when she had nothing else to occupy her mind. And it was her fault.
Right after the fall, she had all but invited those vultures to come to her. She sought them out, dug through them one by one, searching for a rebuttal. A defense. But try as she might, no matter how rosy she thought something was, they all... had a common thread, in the end.
They were a waste of time. So she had stopped searching. But the damage was done. Like Anne in the cemetery all those months that felt like years ago, she had opened Pandora's box. And she had to live with it.
Distraction was her best defense. Training kept them away, as did plotting revenge with Grime. Even making small talk with Braddock and Percy, or sneaking into town to "borrow" supplies could keep the wolves away.
But standing around and doing nothing was unacceptable. She was a sitting duck.
The girl forced out a wobbly step, and then another. She was close. The door was in sight.
As she trudged, Sasha tried to focus on the pa- on the weakness leaving her body.
And quite a lot of weakness left her body. It flowed out of every pore, nagged at every muscle. She could scarcely feel a part of her body that wasn't... getting stronger.
Her feet were growing particularly powerful. It had become obvious over the last few months that Toad Tower's armorer had never dealt with human proportions before. No matter how she tried to adjust, her feet rattled around in her great, clomping combat boots.
If a surface on the edge of her foot wasn't already blistered, it was red, and tender, and waiting to be. Eventually, those blisters would form calluses, but that future was too far away for her liking.
Still, she pressed on, clattering and thudding up the hill, towards the stairs. The orange light was on her now, and she could practically feel the heat of lanterns. Grime grinned at her from the confines of his wanted poster. But, she stumbled on one of the last few steps, and slammed one of her blisters against the wall of her boot.
The mighty officer lurched forward, steadying herself against the threshold of the door.
She swallowed an expletive, but still cursed that oafish blacksmith in the back of her mind.
He may well have made the least comfortable pair of boots she had ever worn, and that was saying something. A pair of boots that didn't nag at least a little was a rare thing indeed.
The aching Waybright took a moment to catch her breath. A moment too long.
Two pairs of little feet drummed in tandem, trailing giggles in their wake. Under the supposedly watchful eye of Mrs. Waybright they ran, with their ponytails flapping, and their plastic bracelets clacking, and their mouths gawking at everything in sight.
Sasha thought this "outlet mall" might have been the most wonderful thing she'd ever seen, and she was sure Anne would agree. It was like a tiny town, except all the houses were stores, and all the stores were filled with amazing treasures.
The elementary schooler skidded to a halt in front of a women's clothing store, and her best friend stopped just short of smacking into her.
"Check those out," the little blonde murmured, pointing up at a series of jackets in the windowbox.
"Oooh," went Anne, behind her. "Those are neat. They're like, modern, I think."
Sasha nodded. That sounded like the right thing to call them. Of course, they would probably be considered retro by the time she and Anne were big enough to wear them. Most of the prettiest clothing was far too big for the girls, but they didn't mind. The striking shapes and smart colors wowed them all the same.
Anne pointed out another store down the way, and their window shopping campaign continued.
They saw a shop dedicated just to belts, and one that specialized in bowling shoes. They scoffed at a repository of little boy clothes, and scratched their heads at the store full of peace signs and six-pointed leaves. They dashed past salons of all types, and let the gleam of the jewelry shops dazzle them.
Sasha was in the middle of sprinting towards a shop full of tiny purses when she noticed something. All the clopping and giggling behind her had stopped.
Once again she skidded to a stop, and wheeled around to look for Anne. For a moment, she feared the "stranger danger" that she had heard about, but soon her worries died.
Anne stood a few blocks down, entranced by a window box she must have missed.
"Hey, dummy!" Sasha called out, as she ran over "Let me know when you're gonna stop, alright?"
The Thai girl pried her eyes from the window, and looked back at her friend sheepishly.
"Sorry, Sash. I just got really distracted by..." Already, her attention drifted. "By these."
Sasha frowned a little, and turned to see what was so impressive.
Immediately, she stopped frowning.
In the window of the shoe store sat the trendy line of boots that all the older girls wore. Only, they were small enough for a kid to wear.
She could see why Anne was so amazed. She could also see why the older girls wanted these things.
They came in every color of the rainbow. And brown. And black. And white. They were cute without being cutesy, and stylish without being tacky. And, perhaps most importantly of all, they were supposed to be incredibly comfortable.
Each pair was trimmed by and full of a soft, fluffy material that could make you feel like you were walking on a cloud. Or, so she had heard.
"Those might be the prettiest shoes I've ever seen in my life," Anne murmured.
Just then, Sasha thought to study her friend. Her mouth hung open, and her hands rested on her cheeks. Her eyes were starry... and trained on one set of boots in particular.
The purple ones.
Sasha smiled. Those were her favorite, too. They were tyrian purple, laced in hot pink and fringed with white tiger print fur. They were the shining star of the display. The young Waybright could only begin to think of all the outfits she could build around them.
After a while, the girls managed to pry their eyes away. It wasn't like either of them actually had money with them. Staring at merchandise could only entertain for so long.
"I should ask my mom for a pair of those," Sasha said, as the pair ambled away from the shoe shop. "They're really well designed."
Anne sighed. "Yeah, they were nice. But I think I'd be better off forgetting them."
Sasha quirked an eyebrow at her gloomy looking friend. "What? How come? You seem like you liked them even more than I did."
Anne found a very interesting part of her sneaker to stare at as the kept walking. "The price tags all had three numbers on them. That's way out of mom's price range for one pair of shoes."
That didn't sound right to Sasha. "Wow, not even for your b-" The blonde covered her own mouth, as a plethora of lightbulbs lit up in her head.
Anne looked up at her, full of curiosity. And Sasha, in her most genuine and honest voice, said "Actually, maybe you're right. You should definitely not think about those boots for, like, a few weeks, at least."
The girl bobbed her brown little ponytail in sullen agreement.
Internally, Sasha was giddy.
A few weeks later, at a certain friend's seventh birthday party, Sasha was externally giddy.
The party itself was a far cry from what Sasha was used to. The Boonchuy household just hosted a few extended family members, a handful of classmates, and herself. The whole thing really boiled down to a bunch of adults gossiping in the living room while the kids tried to find places to play and wait for cake.
But, none of that mattered to Sasha. As soon as she set her powder blue box onto the gift table, she couldn't keep a smile off of her face. The festivities and the games and the food all passed in a flash, until finally it was time for Anne to start opening things.
The whole congregation circled the birthday girl, and took turns handing her their gifts. Sasha drummed her little manicured fingers in growing anticipation.
She clapped along with the rest whenever Anne opened another stuffed animal, or shirt, or book. But, in truth, all she could think about was how her BFF would react to her gift. Finally, after the last of the rabble was opened and stowed away, Sasha handed Anne her box.
Anne, for her part, was no fool. The girl had noticed that Sasha spent the majority of the day grinning like she knew something everyone else didn't. It wasn't just Sasha who had high expectations for the final gift.
So, Anne milked it a little. She felt the weight of the neatly wrapped package, and shook it to hear its sounds. She zoned in on the dimensions, and tried to guess what type of box it could be.
The little tease was driving Sasha nuts. Anne was right about to find the balance point when Sasha finally cracked.
It looked like she'd be doing this out of order. It was always meant to be kind of a two-parter, but it might be necessary to start with the second part if her friend wanted to be so difficult.
Sasha unzipped the backpack that had been causing speculation all day, and pulled out a pair of-
Anne gasped deep enough to suck half the air out of the room.
"Are those- did you? Is- Wha- For?" the newly minted seven year old babbled.
The sentences weren't coming together, but Sasha got the idea.
The girl sat the very same pair of purple fur boots Anne had ogled all those weeks ago in her lap, and waited for her friend to remember how English worked.
This reaction was even better than she was hoping for.
When Anne got her wits back, somewhat, she stuttered out "A-are those f-f-for me?"
Her eyes were starry, and fat little tears were forming in the corner. Sasha could only grin at her.
"Ah-ah-ah. You've still got to open your present."
With no further showmanship, the girl wrestled the bow off of her box. The paper was an afterthought, and the lid practically hit the ceiling as she flung it off to reveal... her own pair of fancy fur boots.
A blue pair.
Wide eyed wonderment became confusion, as Anne compared the boots in her hands to the ones in Sasha's lap. They were... different, for sure. Their primary color was more of a muddy cobalt, and they were laced in simple black. Instead of the pretty tiger fur, they were trimmed by black-and-blue stringy material that looked like the fringe on a throw pillow.
She looked at hers, and then Sasha's, then back again at least a dozen times before the blonde took that as her cue to explain.
"Surprise!" she chirped. "I remembered how much you liked those boots we saw a while back, so I knew I should get you a pair for your birthday."
The dumbfounded birthday girl nodded along, although a few things still weren't adding up.
"And, I remembered how you loved the purple ones. So I thought I'd get you those." Again, Anne nodded. And Sasha smiled, because this was really the genius part. "Buuut, I started to think about coordination. You normally wear kind of plain outfits, you know?" She gestured to the boots in her lap. "These things are kind of a... statement. They'd overshadow a lot of your clothes. So, I thought those blue ones might fit you better."
Anne still looked confused.
"Oh!" Sasha remembered to add, "And I bought the purple ones for me so we could match! I bet we'll look so cute."
And with that, the blonde beamed like a little ray of sunshine.
When she explained it like that, it made her sound like such a good friend. People always say that it's the thought that counts in gifts, and Sasha had thought very hard to arrive at the conclusion she did.
The easy thing to do would have been to give Anne the purple ones, but that was a bad call. Anne hardly even wore purple. Besides her skirts, sometimes. And her shirt, sometimes. Something a little more subdued fit Anne's style better.
When she finally peeked her eyes open, Anne was still staring at her new blue boots.
The sheer thoughtfulness of it all must have overloaded her English abilities again.
Mrs. Boonchuy broke the silence. "Anne, remember to say 'thank you.'"
Her reminder also prompted the rest of the guests to clap. Apparently they had been too impressed, too.
Finally, Anne looked up, again. Sasha couldn't make out the look in her eyes, but she was smiling very wide.
"Thank you, Sasha." she said, as if she had just woken up.
"You're welcome!" Sasha chimed back, and pulled her friend into a loose hug.
And then, Anne's mother cleared her throat. "Um, why don't we all move on to cake, now?"
That got a cheer out of the hungry children, and even the adults seemed to be happy to get up.
Before Sasha rose, though, she remembered to slide on her new boots. She tested them with a few odd steps, and confirmed that yes, they did feel like clouds.
Silly Anne, for her part, was so overwhelmed by her kindness that she forgot to do the same.
Wood shavings curled as heavy gauntlets dug grooves into the mill door.
It had to be fake.
The ragged blonde gnashed her teeth together, as if to grind up that so-called memory. There was no way she had actually done that. Even at that age, she couldn't have thought that-
She stomped her feet like a petulant child, and had to stop herself from kicking the stairs again.
It was true. She knew it was true.
When she thought back, she could remember things that supported the memory. She remembered Anne wearing those blue boots day in and day out, back in early elementary. Even after the birthday letdown, she had worn the fugly things until they had holes in them.
Sasha was pretty sure the purple pair ended up at a thrift store after she outgrew them.
Her empty stomach churned with bile, and her clenched jaw began to ache.
It was a novel feat that her mind had accomplished. Those stupid, useless memories had tugged all manner of emotion out of her, but she couldn't remember one making her angry before.
She couldn't let that sit.
The painted Grime watched as she planted a hand on his face, and shoved with the force of a hundred baleful teens.
The door whammed loud enough to rattle the wall. And yet, inside, the actual Grime didn't seem to notice. He didn't look up at the noise of the door, or the hard clomping of her boots. His eye didn't rise when she kicked her awful footwear sky high, but he did shift when she slammed the door shut.
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," he called, without looking away from her phone. The flashing lights of some schlocky TV show flashed across his face as she strode towards him.
"It's night," she told him, and that finally got him to look up. He glanced out the window and saw a sky full of gleaming stars and an angry red wound.
Surprise flashed over his good eye. "Oh," he muttered, "so it is." And then he chuckled. "I didn't even notice. I've been awfully wrapped up in this little box's theater routine."
She could tell. His maw played host to crumbs and beer stains, and she saw the beginnings of stubble on his chin. Television was doing a number on the mighty warrior.
At first, he thought her phone was some kind of soul-stealing witch totem. He had warmed up to it in time, but the girl couldn't help but wonder if he was right the first time.
And then, her phone's thrall caught sight of his second in command. His beady eye widened, and a plethora of expressions flashed on his head.
"You look, uh..." he searched his vocabulary, twirling a claw all the while. "Uhhh..."
Ragged? Disheveled? Haggard? Terrible? Like someone who had lost a fight to a monster made out of sweat?
"Seasoned," he settled on with a snap. She had to admit, it could have been worse. Little by little, he was getting better at the people skills thing.
But that wasn't her concern at the moment.
The seasoned teen was in the rarified air of someone who wanted to punt their seven year old self into orbit. And that just wouldn't do.
"Thanks," she muttered. And then, she snatched the magic totem from his claws. "I need this for a minute."
The toad frowned. "Hey, make sure you don't lose where I am in that play," he whined. "It's just gotten good."
The girl rolled her eyes, and turned towards her bed. "It automatically saves where you are, Grime," she explained. For someone who spent all day staring at it, he still had a tenuous understanding of the machine's features.
As she pawed at her phone, and swiped away from the TV app, she noticed something. The captain had left a layer of... grime, on the device. Its sides were ever so slick, and it gave off a marshy, toady sort of smell.
"You know you don't have to hold it in your hand, right?" she called over her shoulder, "You can prop it up if you're just going to watch TV."
"Noted," he called back. After a moment, he followed. "Now, wait a minute. You're not going to do the thing, right? You know, the thing you asked me not to let you do?"
The teen set her teeth, and kept walking.
She was absolutely about to do the thing she asked him to stop her from doing.
"Just give me a minute, alright?" she grumbled. He must have decided to oblige.
She stopped in front of the straw-stuffed flour sacks she called a bed, and fiddled with buckles.
As she shucked out of her armor, and laid her weapons bedside, she couldn't help but notice the silence.
Grime had no further quips, and not so much as a burp. Braddock and Percy, who normally snored loud enough to wake the dead at this hour, made not a peep. Her dramatic entrance had no doubt woken them.
She mentally apologized.
She could feel five beady toad eyes watching her, as she collapsed. She pulled her cape over her, like a little tent, but she still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.
Finally, she held her phone up to her face, and tried to ignore the toady smell. She swiped through her lock screen, and sniped at the menus until she found her target: the messenger app.
This was a dangerous game. To her recollection, she had lost every time she played it.
But giving herself the best present at Anne's birthday party would NOT be the last thing she thought about before bed.
She looked through her message threads, and found the one named "BFF" with the little blue heart and tennis racket.
She had trained herself not to read the most recent messages, exchanged on that fateful birthday.
Up, and up, and up she scrolled, until she was at a few weeks prior. The conversation was dense, owing to Anne's tendency to ramble. She could send two, even three full sentences at once in one message. She was always so eager to chat, throwing emojis and smiley faces and emphasis on every thought.
Sasha tried not to count how many times she'd responded to one of Anne's excited novels with "Yeah," or "Good idea," or "k."
She scrolled harder, flicking the screen from top to bottom. Colors and shapes and words blurred together in a green and blue slurry. She passed images, too, that she had most likely revisited before. No use going over the same memory twice.
Finally, she thought the scroll bar looked like it was in a novel position, so she slowed down.
The dates on the texts confirmed her thoughts. She was near the very beginning of seventh grade, now. As far as she remembered, the year had started strong. It was currently a nightmare, but there might be something worthwhile at the start.
She scrubbed along, looking for conversation threads that might lead her to a memory. But, they mostly just talked shop about classes, and classmates, and locker positions. Not exactly exciting material.
The makeshift camper scrolled up, once again, and found something that looked promising.
It was a series of photos, sent by Anne, of the two of them on the beach. They struck cliché poses, made overdone faces, and looked like they were having the time of their lives.
She remembered that beach trip. The had ventured out on one of the dog days of summer, when Marcy was preoccupied with family affairs.
Missing one BFF hadn't dampened their spirits too much, as the blonde recalled. It was... a good day.
She was sure of it. It had to be a good one.
Gulls squawked out their messy songs above the steady rhythm of the waves.
The fading August sun, fat and orange, cut a lovely figure on the horizon. Its light seemed to hollow the clouds, leaving them pretty and pink against the violet sky.
Sasha thought it was a pretty sweet backdrop for selfies.
She and her BFF capitalized on their good fortune, and caught half a camera roll of themselves as they walked. She was sure Anne would send her the highlights later.
Soon, though, the girls had cycled through every pose and expression they could come up with, and they didn't want to beat a dead horse.
Anne stowed her phone in her bag, and for a moment they walked in silence. Or, relative silence.
Sasha could just barely hear the sound of her bare feet breaking sand, while Anne's goofy flipflops swooshed with every step.
"This was a great day," the dark haired girl chipped in, as they neared the parking lot. "If summer's got to go out, I'm glad it was with a day like this."
Sasha nodded, even though Anne couldn't see from up ahead. "Oh, definitely," she agreed. "Heck, I'd say it turned out nearly perfect."
She had to add "nearly," because even after a day of trying she still hadn't managed a tan. She hadn't gotten burned, either, but she didn't give out points for not failing.
Other than that roadbump, though, the two of them had hit every high point one could hope for on a trip to the beach.
They had practiced every swimming style they could think of, and made quite a game of racing each other. They had ogled a few beach hunks, out flexing during the last dregs of beach weather.
They had even sparked out a pair of high school girls in a pickup game of volleyball. The looks on their faces when a pair of tweens got one over on them was priceless.
Sasha had even humored Anne when she wanted to build sandcastles like a dork. In truth, she enjoyed it more than she expected.
"Shame Marce couldn't make it," Anne mused.
"Yeah," Sasha chimed back, "We'll have to make sure to take her, next year."
Idly, Sasha wondered if the sandcastles, the volleyball game, or even the swimming would have worked out the same with Marcy klutzing around. But, that didn't matter. They would have found other ways to have fun.
Then, a harbinger of the approaching Fall blew by. The chilly gust earned a shiver from Sasha, who was not equipped for cold.
She thought she had filled into her simple white bikini nicely. But, its overwhelming lack of coverage, and her wet hair were a poor combination to resist the breeze.
She unfurled her beach towel, and slung it over her shoulder like a silky purple matador's cape. Even though it looked a little goofy, it kept the wind away.
Up ahead, Anne seemed to fare a little better. She had chosen a black one piece, with teal trim by the shoulders. It wasn't exactly an eye grabber, but it was functional, and very... her. And, probably a lot better at holding body heat in.
Still, as the little gales kept coming, Anne flung out her towel, too, and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was black, and matched the tone of her suit nicely. But, it was dappled with snakes, and skulls, and guns and all manner of machismo.
With the gaudy thing wrapped around her black attire, she looked like an edgy superhero for dads.
"What's the deal with that thing, anyway?" Sasha piped up. "Did you pick that out?"
Anne peeked over her shoulder. "Hm? Oh, this?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders for emphasis. "It's not mine, it's my dad's. It's commemorative, or something."
She could see a glint forming in the tennis player's eye. Sasha recognized it. That little shine only appeared when Anne got excited to talk about boring things that no one else could ever care about.
"He got it from some festival forever ago." she went on. " And it's got all his favorite dad band logos on it. Well, actually, I think he may have won it, and-"
Sasha nodded along for a while, to be polite. But when the narrative started branching off into tangents she raised a hand.
"I get it Anne, it's some kind of heirloom or something. I wasn't asking for its life story."
The brunette forced out an awkward chuckle. "Right, right. Uh, long story short, he lent it to me."
Idly, the Waybright wondered why Anne didn't just have her parents buy her her own beach towels. But, over the years she had learned that lines of questioning like those never panned out. So, she kept her thoughts to herself.
After a bit of awkward silence, the teens reached the edge of the beach, where it met the blacktop.
The awful, awful blacktop. Sasha pinched the bridge of her nose, and cursed herself for forgetting this part.
Some cruel architect or vile urban planner must have concocted the beach's parking lot. It was a huge, fenced in square of pitch black tar that every single beachgoer had to funnel through to get home.
There was no sidewalk to break it up, no roofing or pavillions to offer shade. There was only tar, which became magma in the hot summer sun.
To someone with no shoes, it was a nightmare.
But, her mother was waiting out there, to pick them up. She had to find some way to get across.
Sasha toed the hard surface, gently, and confirmed that it burnt like hot coal.
Up ahead, Anne stopped when she noticed Sasha wasn't following.
"What's the matter, Sash?" she called, while the blonde wondered how she had made it that far.
And then she looked down. Of course, Anne had flip flops.
The girl sighed in relief. This wasn't nearly as much of a problem as she had though.
"Anne, can you help me with something?" she called sweetly, prompting her friend to walk towards her.
"Sure," Anne nodded, "What do you need?"
"Welll," Sasha began, in a sing-songy tone, "The other day I had a pedicure and a foot treatment, so my feet are really sensitive, right?"
Anne nodded, and Sasha continued. "And this stupid parking lot is like, glowing with heat, right?"
Again, the saleswoman waited for her mark to nod.
"If I were to walk on the blacktop with my feet, I could get blisters, or something." Sasha recoiled at the very thought. The black-clad girl nodded along at every line, now. "And, you know, school's almost here. Cheer-leading is going to start in like a week. How am I supposed to run and jump and twirl with gross blisters on my feet?"
One final time, Anne bobbed her head in agreement. "That is kind of a problem, isn't it?" Her fingers found her chin. Gears began to turn in her mind, as she started to scan the area around them.
Sasha wasn't sure what her friend was doing, but she felt confident that she had almost reeled Anne in.
"Sooo," she trailed off, as she waited for Anne to see where this was going. "Do you think you coul-"
Anne snapped her fingers, and smiled. "I know just what to do!" she declared.
"Does it involved letting me borrow those flip flops?" Sasha asked. She hadn't appreciated being cut off.
Anne quirked an eyebrow. "Huh? Oh, no. I've got a way better idea than that."
The blonde frowned, unconvinced. Anne was getting awfully close to testing her patience, now.
"Anne, you better-" her scolding began, but it died as soon as Anne slid off her flip flops. Seemed she had come to her senses after all.
Sasha reached out a waiting hand, but no protective footwear ever graced it.
Anne walked back onto the beach a few feet, and then whipped around on her heels. She sprinted as fast as one could, in sand, and almost blurred past Sasha as she did.
Before feet met tar, though, Anne carried her momentum into a leap.
Sasha thought her long jump form needed work, but she couldn't deny that the girl got some distance. She had bounded all the way onto one of the yellow lines that marked parking spaces.
"Haha!" she cheered, "I can't believe I made that."
Sasha gave her a golf clap, before she asked the obvious question. "What do you think you're doing, Anne?"
"I figured out a way you can cross the parking lot!" She called back. She bounced on her heels, as if to demonstrate how not boiling they were. "See, this yellow paint doesn't get nearly as hot as the black stuff. It has something to do with colors absorbing light, or something." Anne shrugged. "I was only half paying attention that day."
The ever-less-patient blonde scoffed. "Yeah, cool science lesson, Marcy. So, why don't you walk on that grimy paint, and throw those flops to me?"
Anne tapped the side of her chin and tried to look contemplative. "Welll, I could do that... but I think it'd be more fun if we did it my way. It's like playing 'the floor is lava,' you know?"
Sasha's eyelid twitched. What had gotten into Anne? They had had such a nice, peaceful day, and now the girl tested her at every turn.
She just couldn't grasp it.
Before she could think of something to coax Anne back, though, the other girl dug herself deeper.
"What's the matter, Sash? Afraid you can't make the jump?"
That was a mistake.
"Oh hohoho," Sasha chuckled, from deep down in her gut. "Is that what you think, Anne?"
The girl across the parking lot flashed her a confident little smile, and sealed her fate.
Clearly, someone didn't understand how much work it took to make cheer captain as a sixth grader.
Sasha glared a few dozen daggers at her, before she turned away.
Then, she snapped around, and bounded towards her defiant friend. Her form was perfect as she leapt. She could have landed a pirouette with all the air time she managed, but she was too livid for flourishes.
She landed on the pads of her feet, square in the center of Anne's painted line. In the back of her mind, she registered that Anne wasn't lying. The yellow surface wasn't as hot as the rest of the lot.
The brunette, oblivious to the danger she was in, clapped in earnest for her friend.
"That looked great, Sash," she declared.
But Sasha was unfazed. She trained her glare directly at Anne's face. "Anne," she said, seething so hard her voice came out calm. "You're going to hand me those shoes, and you're going to apologize for making things difficult. Got it?"
Sasha's BFF twiddled with a piece of hair, and tried to disguise her little backsteps. "Well, I guess I could do that," she considered. "If you catch me."
Sasha dashed forward, but Anne still made the first move. She turned and traced the line with ease, following it to its spine and weaving between the bumpers of cars.
Sasha had to give her credit. She was slippery, and she navigated the path well. But anything she could do, Sasha could do better.
The blonde took off after her quarry, slipping between tight parking jobs and bounding over empty spots.
It was a unique challenge, to maintain speed without slamming into one of many hazards. Like balance beam, and track, and hurdles all in one. She watched as Anne reached the end of their section of parking spots.
Instead of stopping, though, the insolent girl slid around the corner, and leapfrogged to the next set. Immediately, Sasha saw her opportunity. She took a hard left, between some clown who didn't know how to park his jeep, and some jerk who drove a hummer. The fit was narrow, but the hunter kept up just enough speed to make the jump.
Her gambit paid off. She was a few cars ahead of Anne, now. She took a stand in the center of the aisle, and waited for her prey to admit defeat.
"Hey Sash," chirped Anne, barreling towards her at full steam.
Sasha blinked. What on Earth was she thinking?
Anne came dangerously close to barreling into her, but at the last second she hopped up and slid across the hood of a car.
"Bye Sash!" she called, already sprinting again.
The befuddled blonde wheeled around, and and howled "Oh, come on!"
But no one was around to hear. Somewhere along the line, little old Anne had found some serious agility.
In some sense, Sasha was impressed. But, the cheer captain wasn't about to just eat her proverbial dust.
She sprinted off down the line, until she finally clapped on eyes on her friend again.
They ran like that for who knew how long, but the story was the same the whole time. Just when Sasha thought she had a leg up, Anne dug in and pulled away again.
After a while, the purple cloaked hunter noticed her prey laughing as she ran. And, after a while, the giggles proved contagious.
Despite the narrow confines of the painted yellow lines, there was something loose, and freeing about their little chase. Sasha felt like a little girl, again, sprinting down the streets of some tiny town with her best friend.
The wind whooshed through her hair, and her towel-cape flapped dramatically in the breeze. And somehow, the chill in the air was gone. If anything, she felt warm.
Like all good things, though, their little game eventually came to an end. Anne hand cornered herself on the final row of spots, and Sasha finally closed in on her.
"Got you," she said, clapping a hand on Anne's shoulder.
There was no malice in her voice, though. Somewhere along the way, she had outrun her anger.
"Still want these?" Anne asked, twirling her flops around by their straps.
Sasha shook her head. She had decided to give Anne a pass for her little outburst. Just this once. She was right, after all. Her way had been more fun than what Sasha was thinking.
Anne smiled a proud little smile. And then a question popped into her mind. "Did you see your mom back there, anywhere?"
Sasha clicked her tongue in thought. Come to think of it...
"No," she answered "I didn't see her back there anywhere. But she should definitely be here by now."
Then, a pair of honks rang out.
The girls turned, and saw none other than Mrs. Waybright, waving impatiently behind the wheel of her little coup. In the column of parking spots across the lot from the one they had been running in.
Sasha waved at her mother, and eyed the space between her and them. The world's most evil lot consisted of two huge columns of parking spaces. In between sat a central fairway big enough to accommodate cars and pedestrians at the same time.
By Sasha's estimation, the longest spaces she and Anne had jumped across were about two cars wide. The gulf separating them and her mother had to be three, if not four cars long.
Sasha thought it might be possible to make the leap under the best circumstances. But, boxed in by cars as they were, they wouldn't be able to get a good enough running start.
"That is, uh..." Anne began sheepishly.
"Quite a jump," Sasha finished.
"Yep."
And, it was a gross one, at that. Being the primary artery for the lot, that central fairway saw a lot of traffic. And all that traffic produced a lot of filth. There was the expected grit and grime native to all parking lots, but the searing heat of the black tar brought other contaminants to the surface. Many different shades of car drippings gleamed on the blacktop, along with the bubbling remnants of melted food.
Sasha could hardly bear the thought of walking on regular molten tar, let alone this special breed of filth.
"Think we could go around? You know, loop back to the beach and then jump to the other column from there?"
Sasha nodded. "Yeah, that could-"
But her mother cut her off by laying on the horn again.
The girl winced. "Actually, we'll get an earful if we try that. We've been goofing off for a while, and Mom didn't really want to come get us in the first place. She's not going to be happy if we take much longer."
Anne chewed over the new information for a moment. And then, she snapped her fingers.
"I know how we can get across."
At that point, Sasha was all ears.
"You can walk over on my flops, and then toss them back to me so I can cross." She smiled. "Should be simple. You're pretty good at throwing stuff, after all."
Sasha thought it was awfully clever to play to her ego. But, she was pretty much over the flip flop thing, at this point. And while Anne was talking, she noticed another solution right under her nose.
"That cooould work," Sasha offered, "But I've got a better idea."
Anne quirked an eyebrow.
The blonde went on. "See, that jump looks nasty because we can't get good head start. But, if we could cut down the length a little, and give ourselves room to run, I think we could make it across, and keep running on the lines."
So far, Anne nodded along. "Good idea," she murmured. "But, how are you going to cut down the space, or whatever?"
Sasha smiled. "Well, that part's easy. You lay out your weird beach towel on the ground, and we run on it."
The girl in black blinked a few times, as if that course of action wasn't obvious.
"Why do we have to use my dad's towel?" she asked after a while.
Sasha rolled her eyes. "Uh, duhh, Anne, so we don't burn our feet on that grossness."
Had she even been following along?
Anne frowned. "No, I mean why can't you use your towel?"
If Sasha were drinking something, she was sure she would have spit it out. She couldn't believe the sheer audacity of the question. Was Anne really going to be difficult twice in one day?
While her mother gave the two of them another blast of her horn, the young Waybright strung together an argument.
"There are a couple of reasons, Anne. For one, mine's silk," she said, flapping it around to demonstrate. "If I get, like, an oil stain on it, that's not coming out. Yours is just a regular old towel. You can just throw it in the wash like anything else."
The stubborn girl didn't seem convinced, so Sasha continued. "And mine's purple. It'll actually show dirt and grime. Yours is black. No one is going to see if you get crud on it."
Still, the brunette kept a stiff upper lip. And still, the older woman across the fairway honked at them. The cheerleader's patience was at its absolute limit.
"Third, and most important of all, Anne, is that I call the shots around here. If I tell you to lay your stupid dadrock towel out so we can go home, just do it!"
Mrs. Waybright practically serenaded them. The blares were coming in bursts of three, now.
And still, Anne wasn't moving. Her hands clutched at the hem of her swimsuit, and her hair hid her eyes.
"Well?" Sasha asked, after another honking refrain. "Are you going to do it, or will I have to?"
Finally, the world's most difficult girl looked up at her.
"Can't we just do the flip flop thing?"
Sasha threw her head back in frustration. "Ugggh," she groaned. Crossing the gap was hardly the issue, at this point. It was a matter of respect, now. She shouldn't have let Anne off easy the first time. It seemed like the girl was going to make a habit of it, if she didn't intervene.
"It's a dumb towel, Anne," she boomed, in her most serious tone of voice. "Just lay the stupid thing out already! Why is this such an issue?"
Anne looked like she wanted to say something. But she didn't. She just sighed, and turned around, and threw her dad's hideous towel onto the ground.
Sasha felt like she exhaled five pounds when she sighed in relief.
She walked up, and patted her no-longer-difficult friend on the shoulder.
"See, dummy, was that so hard?" She asked. It was a rhetorical question, so she thought nothing of it when Anne didn't attempt to answer.
Without further ado, she ran forward. At the very tip edge of the cringy cloth she jumped with everything she had.
She soared through the air, over rivers of engine fluid and melted ice cream. She had to adjust a bit, the spring her toes out before landing, but she made it to the line.
She flapped her arms out for balance, and then stumbled forward. A bit of pride welled up inside her. That was a killer, killer jump. Definitely the farthest she had ever done. She waited for Anne to follow suit, but when she looked back, she gasped. Anne was just... walking?
Yes, walking straight down the middle of the fairway, with the silly towel under one arm. She made eye contact with no one but her feet.
Sasha supposed the length of the jump had intimidated her? Really, it kind of served her right for that teasing earlier.
So, Sasha followed along the painted yellow lines, over to her awfully, embarrassingly, miserably impatient mother. That was enough to get the woman to stop making a scene.
After a moment, Anne joined her.
"Did you see me stick that last jump?" the cheerleader asked. She didn't want to brag, but she did want to soak in a little admiration.
"Yep," Anne answered, without letting her eyes out from under her hair. "Good one, Sash."
For some reason, it didn't sound like her heart was in it.
As Anne pulled open the car door, and slid into the back seat, Sasha noticed something odd. The gloomy girl had her dad's lame towel scooped up under one arm, but in the other she... still held her flip flops.
It was a quiet car ride home.
The isolated light of the phone burned her eyes. That was why they were burning.
Off in the back of her mind, she added another tally to the loss column. One day she might win the phone game, but tonight wasn't her night.
At some point, Sasha became aware of tapping at the edge of her makeshift tent. It was quiet, and gentle, but also steady.
She let her solicitor sweat it out for a minute, before finally letting her cape down.
What a surprise. It was Grime.
"You, uh..." his good eye honed in on her phone. "You are... definitely doing that thing, aren't you?"
She closed her tired eyes, and sighed.
"Yes Grime. I am."
He chewed on his words for a moment, and cleared his throat.
"Well, as you know, uh... in situations like these, you've asked me to, um..."
Poor toad. It really wasn't fair to ask him to be responsible for her actions like that. But, on the other hand, a little accountability was what she needed sometimes.
So, she needn't be difficult about it.
"Catch," she rasped.
He ceased his floundering, and held out a paw. Curiosity etched itself on his giant face.
She tabbed out of the messenger, and put on the video streaming app again. Then, from her heaped position, Sasha flicked her wrist, and shot her phone into his open palm.
"Eh, good throw," he groused.
"Yeah," the depleted girl replied. "I uh... hm."
She decided against saying anything more. She didn't want to risk triggering another one.
Her unfinished thought didn't faze Grime. He looked down on her with an expression she couldn't read.
That was a rare thing, to be unable to tell what a toad was thinking by looking at them. Their big goofy faces made up half of their body; They had an awfully hard time concealing their emotions.
But, that didn't count for much when she couldn't put an emotion to an expression.
If she had to guess, the droop in his lips and the distant gleam in his eye were somewhere on the sadness spectrum. Not pity, exactly. Not grief, or misery. Just, something sad that she wasn't sure how to place.
It occurred to her that they were staring at each other.
She sucked in a deep breath, and mumbled out "Goodnight, Grime."
And that was enough to get him to put his vague distant sadness away.
"Goodnight, Sasha," he said with a nod, before waddling off to go rot his brain.
She closed her eyes, but kept her ears peeled. For a while, there was still that deafening silence, but soon the muted sounds of inane TV drama wafted on the air. The subdued chuckles of a chubby old toad followed soon after.
Then, the snoring began. Often, it annoyed her, but in this instance she welcomed it.
She felt a lot of weakness welling up in body, and she didn't want the others to hear it coming out.