In the golden hours of the morning, lounging atop its nest, chirped a bird. Steady and loud it sang, letting the contentment in its heart spill out for all to hear.
Sasha hated it.
Its sharp, shrill call nagged at her like a buzzard nagged a carcass. The sound tugged, and yanked until the warm of oblivion of sleep was out of her reach.
She wanted to lie there, and enjoy a bed that felt particularly comfortable and warm, that morning. But, a twittering stooge had taken that from her. She couldn't let daylight burn.
Her eyes flickered open, and darted to the window. Despite all her grog, her mind registered two things.
First, she caught the position of the sun. The bright ball perched higher in the sky than it did on a typical waking. She had slept in.
Then, she noticed what had woken her up. Her sonic assailant sat high in the branches of a nearby tree. It was gangly, and long, and powder blue. And, despite the awful sound of its song, it looked cute, in its own way.
Sasha's resentment melted into pity. Cute things had a hard time in this world. If she knew anything about Amphibia, some hungry, winged nightmare out there was also picking up the little singer's broadcast. She wished the songbird luck.
That was all she could do.
She stretched her arms above her head, and winced as they creaked and groaned. Every morning the sequence of pops and cracks sounded longer, and their tones grew deeper. Her muscles felt ever more taut and the aching in her bones grew sharper.
Stronger, she reminded herself. It all meant she was getting stronger.
When she finished stretching, the ever-stronger teen looked down, and saw something amiss. Perhaps it wasn't her imagination that made her think her bed was particularly comfy that morning. Atop her cape-turned-blanket sat another sheet, which she didn't quite recognize.
She pulled it closer for inspection. It felt much heavier than her cloak, and warmer. It seemed to be made of some unknown leather, and was slightly damp to the touch. And... it gave off a marshy, toady sort of scent.
That old softie.
She flung the toad's cape over her shoulder, and kicked off her own. In all of her unkempt, shorts-wearing glory the Toad Army's second-in-command sprang to life. Her legs and especially her blistered feet didn't appreciate the sudden shock, but she hadn't asked for their input.
Mindful of the armor and weapons scattered around, she forced out her first step, and then her second. She received an encore of creaks, snaps, and pain, but she paid them no mind. She soldiered on, and told herself all about weakness leaving the body.
After a few steps, her stilted marionette dance became more of a walk. Soon she was striding over to the front of the mill.
She found the toad she was looking for exactly where she expected him. To her surprise, though, he wasn't doing what she had expected him to.
The Toad Army's first-in-command lounged on his fat couch as normal. Instead of fixating on her phone as usual, though, his attention rested on something else.
He grappled with a fistful of wriggling centipedes, trying to trick and dare them to enter his mouth without the use of his tongue.
As she drew near, he looked up.
"Good morning, Lieutenant," he called, in between failed bites.
"Morning, Grime," she answered, before tossing his cape down next to him. "I assume I have you to thank for that?"
"Yes," he nodded, before he caught a wriggling victim. He chewed his prey for a moment, before adding "Thought I saw you shivering last night."
She frowned, and mulled his words over. She hadn't remembered last night being particularly cold... but, a wet pillow could make anyone shiver.
"Well, thanks," she remembered to say. "I appreciate it."
"No prob," he called back, in between bites of bug. Then, he held out his clenched hand, and shook the last remaining beast at her. "Breakfastpede?"
She grimaced at the offer. Necessity had taught her to closer her eyes, hold her nose, and pretend all manner of things were lobster. But, she drew the line at creatures that still wriggled. "No," she said, as politely as she could, "I'll stick with whatever Braddock left me."
"Suit yourself," he said, and shrugged. With that, he condemned his last snack to his waiting maw.
Sasha turned to the crate that had become their makeshift dining table. Percy and Braddock's plates were already clean, and Grime's held only a few crumbs. Hers, though, sat full, yet mysterious. The mill's resident chef had left a napkin on top of it, to keep things warm.
The teen pulled off the bit of cloth, and eyed her breakfast. She found a baked potato with a smiley face carved into it, a pair of lumpy muffins made of unknown dough, and a grilled mantis le- green lobster claw.
For some reason, Sasha couldn't muster an appetite.
"Oh, Lieutenant," called Grime, as he picked little legs out of his teeth, "I need your help with something."
She wheeled around. "Really? With what?" Despite her fatigue, something warm crept into her voice. She could only imagine what the old warrior wanted. Was he working on battle plans, or squad tactics? Had he worked out a means to track down Anne and the frogs? Heck, did he just want to spar?
The possibilities were endless.
The toad reached around under his pillows, and pulled out a familiar blue device.
"A genie has commandeered your phone," he explained. "And our negotiations have fallen through. If you could exorcise the spirit so I can continue my tactical human research, I would appreciate it."
Many, many blinks passed between the two of them.
Sasha wasn't sure which part of his statement to puzzle over first. She wanted to wonder what he meant by "a genie," but she also couldn't neglect how confidently he framed his TV binges as "research."
After a few more moments of silence, the toad added "Please?"
That was enough to snap her out of her stupor.
"Sure," she said.
He handed her the phone, which was mercifully light on his slime this time. He was learning.
She clicked it on, wiped away her lock-screen, and began her genie hunt. It didn't last long.
"Hello Sasha," beeped a familiar, grating digital voice, "How may I provide you with excellent service today?"
"Can it, Cheeri," came her automatic response.
"I lack the canning materials and the antecedent I would need for that, Sasha," the personal assistant answered.
She rolled her eyes, and groaned. The geek who programmed this stupid thing must have thought he was the funniest guy in the world.
"See?" said the haggard amphibian, "That blasted thing has been taunting me all morning. Do you know how to be rid of it?"
Sasha nodded with some amount of sympathy. Cheeri was a stubborn program. She had hated the thing ever since it became standard on her phone of choice. "Yeah," she told Grime, "I know how to exorcise this dork."
The toad grinned a crocodilian grin.
Sasha understood how Grime might have trouble with Cheeri if he activated it. The snarky little voice had no "X" on its screen, no "Exit" button or obvious means of waving it away. One had to press the app key, which fanned out all active applications, to get the personal assistant to shut up.
Sasha prepared to do that, before a thought struck her. Grime had been arguing with this digital brick wall all morning. And, for all its faults, the app did have a "History" feature.
She was morbidly curious.
She spared Cheeri, for the moment, and opened up its conversation log. Right at the top she saw her own question, so she scrolled down. Far down.
Cheeri did not record its own responses in the logs, only the things asked of it. Probably to make it easier for the government to spy, or something. But, even with one half of the conversation in view, she had a ways to go.
Grime had had a war of words with her phone's phantom voice.
She reached the bottom, and began to read.
"WHO GOES THERE?" read the first line. Already, he was yelling.
"WHAT? SINCE WHEN DO YOU SPEAK?" he went on. She wondered how she had slept through this.
"WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT? GO BACK TO MY PLAYS!"
She scrolled through the initial shock and awe, and saw that eventually he stopped booming.
"So you're some kind of oracle?"
"You answer questions?"
"I just ask, and you'll tell me?"
She could picture the wonderment on his grizzled old face.
"This won't cost my soul, will it?"
"Alright then, how do I raise a toad army quickly?"
"Well, fine. How do I get my fiefdom back from the stupid king?"
She did her best not to chuckle. Poor Grime.
"How do I make a human girl happy again?"
Sasha's gaze retreated behind messy blonde hair. Her lower lip wanted to smile, and her upper lip wanted to frown. So, they met in unhappy compromise, forming a tight line.
She took a moment to gather herself, and decided not to pry into the cyclops' personal thoughts. She scrolled back up, but took a brief pit stop when she saw the caps come back out.
"WELL WHY DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING?"
"WHAT IS INTO-NET CONNECTION?"
"JUST GO BACK TO THE TINY THEATER, YOU UPPITY ROCK!"
Grime's diplomacy was getting better. She felt impressed that he had tried to pass that off as a "breakdown in negotiations."
She fanned out the apps again, and prepared to send Cheeri to its temporary death. At the last moment, though, a cleared throat interrupted her.
"Is something amiss?" asked Grime, who must have noticed her dawdling. "Is the genie proving too difficult to slay?"
The word "No" almost slipped out of her lips, before she caught it. In that instant, lightbulbs went off in her head.
The easy thing to do would be to banish the snarky app and give Grime back his toy. But would that be the right thing to do?
Her little friend was letting himself go, day by day. Television made him complacent, enabled laziness. Would she really be much of a friend if she facilitated that?
It was all magic to him, anyway. She could say that the snarky voice had taken full hold of her phone, and he'd never know the difference. Then, his mind would be free to plot once again. His body would be free to train.
The teen looked down at him. At his ever growing belly. His creeping stubble. His... expectant little eye, full of hope. His claws, clacking gently, in the most polite show of impatience.
She looked away, and saw the crater the door had made when she slammed it open last night.
And then, she decided.
With a swipe of her finger, she slayed the smug genie, and brought Grime's TV app back to the fore.
"Here," she told him, as she flicked the phone back into his hands. "Go nuts."
His scarred face lit up, and he clenched a triumphant fist. "Excellent," he croaked, pawing at his prize.
A smile teased at the corner of Sasha's lips. She could practically see stars in his eye.
She turned to gather her gear, but his voice stopped her.
"Lieutenant, perhaps you could join me for tactical recon, today? I think you'd like the series of plays I've been watching."
She looked over her shoulder, and waved the offer away, politely. "Can't," she said, "I've got work to do today."
Again she turned, and took only one step before he called. "Ah. You're uh, training again, eh?"
Once again the girl looked over at him. The stars were out of his eyes at this point. Something else was already settling on them.
"Yep," came her curt reply.
He let her take another step before he piped up again. "I saw you murdered another scarecrow."
Sasha wrinkled her nose. He was messing with her, now.
She calmed herself, and said "Yep. What can I say? It looked at me funny."
To her recollection it had, after all.
"You may joke about it, but you've been burning through them lately. How many do you plan on 'borrowing' from the fields?"
Decorum grew harder and harder to maintain. She wheeled around on a blistered foot, but still managed a calm tone. "Who cares, Grime? They're just scarecrows."
"Farmers rely on those things, you know. And they don't just grow on trees."
Her eye twitched, and she swallowed her first response. She let the toad's softball whiz by her head, while she considered her answer.
This line of questioning was likely a smokescreen on his part, but it still had her attention.
Scarecrows were made of trees, and Amphibia had nothing if not trees. But, the fact that scarecrows were easily obtained didn't mean she should keep "borrowing" them for kung-fu practice.
Why steal something that's practically free?
"I'll just make my own," she decided aloud. That got a reaction. Shock flashed across Grime's face, and before he could say anything more, she went on. "How hard can it be to make your own scarecrow? It's just some straw crammed into some cloth, tied onto sticks. I bet I could do a better job of it than some lumpy old farmer."
In fact, she was certain she could. She was already imagining new sparring partners. Ones that need a whole day's worth of whacking to kick over. Ones that didn't need so much imagination to get mad at.
For his part, the Captain seemed disappointed. His lips curled downwards, and he already seemed to be searching for another nag.
Sasha frowned, and tried to hurry off towards her bed. She knew he didn't care about the farmers or their stick-men. And, she knew this round of twenty questions wasn't over. But if she left fast enough, she might be able to-
"Have you ever thought of taking a day off?" he asked her back.
Like a disheveled ballerina, Sasha spun about on her heel for the millionth time. Politeness was out of her reach, and she had already spared him one zinger this morning.
"Have you ever thought of having a day ON, Grime?"
Her angry little barb bounced off his leather skin. "I asked first," he told her, totally unmoved.
For a moment she fumed. But, soon she tried to settle herself.
Even dating back to her days in the cage, anger had never gotten her anywhere with the Captain. It was like the toad was cold blooded.
"No, Grime," she said, mostly calmly, "I have not considered wasting a day doing nothing."
"Oh? You think rest is a waste of time?" He was on a roll, now. The goofy mirth that ruled him so often had disappeared. Though his voice was soft, he was wearing his old, serious face.
She chose her words carefully. "It is to me, Grime. All I care about right now is getting stronger. I can rest when we have the tower back." She hoped appealing to their shared goal would be enough to get him off her back.
"You think running yourself ragged every day is going to make you stronger?"
Sasha clenched her jaw. He was being difficult, today.
"Uh, yeah, Grime, I do. Working out is kind of... designed to make you stronger, you know?"
The toad had set her phone down some time ago. He drummed the pads of his claws together, and called back to her. "If you do a week's worth of training every day, all you'll end up being is hurt."
Sasha's fists balled up at the hem of her sleep shorts. It had been months since she'd had this much trouble getting an idea across to Grime. She could hardly fathom why he was being so difficult. Why he couldn't just turn back to the circus she had so graciously provided him.
And then, a thought struck.
"You know," she offered, "we humans have a saying about training, and working out, and getting stronger. Want to hear it?"
She could tell that piqued his interest. Curiosity filled his little eye, and he waited expectantly.
Satisfied that she had his attention, the teen cleared her throat, and tried to sound serious.
"Alright, get this. We say that... pain is just weakness leaving the body."
It sounded a lot more like a dumb action movie line when she said it out loud.
But, it seemed to work.
Grime's serious frown sprouted into a grin. He scratched his huge chin, and chuckled, and turned the phrase over in his mind.
"That's good," he finally told her. "That's really good. Heh, that sounds like something I could have come up with. Something to keep those sorry soldiers of mine upright after a long march or a hard fight."
Sasha smiled, and felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Finally, she had found a way to speak the salty veteran's language.
Once again she turned on her heels, just in time for his next line.
"Total load of tripe though."
Her graceful exit halted again. Slowly, deliberately, with all the dread in the world she turned.
He seemed quite confident in his challenge, so she stood and waited for him to elaborate.
Grime, for his part, seemed happy to have her undivided attention.
"Pain might be part of the strengthening process," he began, "but it's not the only one, or even the most important one."
He flicked a claw up to his bad eye. "Look at this," he commanded. "This still hurts at least once a day. Do you think that makes my eyesight any stronger?"
Sasha winced.
Then, the old toad pawed at his side table, and produced his sword. He spread out the fingers of his left hand, and pointed the tip of the blade at one of them.
"If I lopped one of these off, how much weakness would leave with it? Would I be at my strongest if I slashed off-"
He stopped himself, and swiftly set the sword aside. Sasha realized that she must have been making quite the face.
"I mean, uh..." the suddenly-less-concerning toad searched, "Uh, if I were to... stub my toe against the wall, would uh.."
"Point made, Grime," she told him. "Move it along."
He nodded, and tried to think of where he was in his little diatribe. "Look, the point is, pain is just more weakness if you wallow in it, or let it take over you. You can only get stronger when you take control of it. You know, put it behind you."
And then, a good line came to him.
"Weakness only leaves the body when you heal, I think."
The Lieutenant let the little lecture linger in the air for a moment. There went that mantra, she guessed.
Grime, who had picked up her phone in the silence, and turned on the screen.
"So," he interjected, "I'm going to sit here, and see if I can't heal up my pride, a little. When I've done that, maybe I'll be a little more willing to go out into the meat grinder with you."
The prospect intrigued her. Once again, enthusiasm oozed into her voice. "Oh, is that right?"
She must have looked more excited than she sounded, for the toad shot up defensive hands. "Maybe," he stressed, "Maaaybe. No promises."
Sasha rolled her eyes. She hadn't gotten her hopes too high.
Still, the air felt lighter, between the two of them, and Grime had his distraction box in hand. She felt confident enough to turn around for, hopefully, the last time.
That earned her a sigh.
"Can't you just do the healing thing, for once?" he murmured, in as quiet a voice as a toad could.
Suddenly, the teen was glad she was no longer facing him. He had tried his best, but he still didn't get it.
The pain she felt when she pushed herself to the limit out on her training course was the lesser of two evils.
She knew she had something she needed to heal. But, it wasn't scrapes, or bruises, or muscles that felt like they'd been through a taffy machine. She couldn't even imagine how miserable she'd feel if she spent a day or two sitting around, licking wounds.
Those stray memories of hers would eat her alive.
He was still watching her. She could feel it.
One final line came to her. She looked over her shoulder, and said "I'll heal when I can, Grime. Just, know that I'm not wallowing in pain when I'm out there exercising. I'm controlling it."
That one seemed to get him. Something that looked like understanding flashed over his beady eye. But, he didn't look any happier.
She'd have to take what she could get.
She strode towards her bed, and earned no objection from him.
The warrior stepped into her pile of equipment, and grabbed her sword. She slung it over her shoulder, and began searching for the bottom layer of her armor.
As she looked, though, she still felt a certain eye trained on her.
Carefully, subtly, she glanced out of the corner of her eye, to see what the stubborn old croaker was up to.
Unsurprisingly, he was just sitting. Idle. Staring at her.
With a familiar look on his face. That distant, sad look that she couldn't place.
All at once, it snapped together.
Powerlessness. The look of someone who wanted to make a human girl happy again but who didn't know how.
She sighed, and contemplated. He could be obstinate. And he could be difficult. He could stick his nonexistent nose where it didn't belong.
But he was trying his best. And he was her one remaining friend, at this point.
If she had gleaned anything from those nagging vultures, it was that friendship demanded the occasional compromise. Even if one friend could strong-arm, argue, and haggle themselves into getting their way every time, they probably shouldn't.
The girl scratched her chin, at the thought of those lingering memories. Just then she realized that she hadn't had one all morning. Maybe she didn't need to do exclusively military things with Grime to keep them away.
And heck, what was TV but an extra layer of distraction?
The sword slipped out of her fingers, and she reached instead for her cape. She slung it over her shoulder like a matador, for no other reason than to look cool.
Her blistered heels spun around, one last time, and she called to the Captain.
"Hey Grime! What are you watching, anyway?"
The chubby warrior fumbled with her phone, as if he had been staring at someone instead of watching it. When he was settled, he cleared his throat, and announced "Well, it's really quite interesting. It's about human girls in a place called 'The High School.'"
As he rambled on, she approached.
"You see, the play features many low status females vying for social position. But a high status female, who has hair like yours, torments them, and makes their lives-"
Sasha stumbled, and choked on her own spit a few feet away from the toad. Soon, though, her sputtering and snorts morphed into laughter. Of all the things he could have picked, it had to be that particular teen drama, didn't it?
"Huh? What's wrong with you?" he asked.
Sasha wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Nothing," she told him. The girl picked up her breakfast plate. "But, pick a different show, Grime."
If he had an eyebrow, he would have raised it. "What? Why?"
"I don't want to watch that one," she told him, as she took the spot beside him on the couch.
He had to process the sentence for a moment, before it all clicked. She could see every little dagger in his big fat mouth when he grinned.
The excited amphibian followed her lead, and wrapped his own cape around himself. Then, he began flicking through the menus of his favorite app, until another thumbnail caught his eye.
"How about this one," he offered, "about a human male who gets sucked into a bizarre alternate world?"
She tried to give him a flat look, but a treacherous little grin ruined it.
"Keep looking, Grime."