(Anne's Pov)
I looked over to Alex as he slept. He looked so peaceful right now and I would feel bad to disturb him. He hasn't slept in almost a week, how he didn't pass out earlier will always amaze me. I moved some of his hair out of his eye and I looked back to the woods when he moved a bit in his sleep. I looked to my coffee and I drank some of it before I moved the mug away and looked back to Alex. I would look back to the woods and then back to Alex for I don't know how long but Alex finally woke up and I looked to him.
"Have a good nap?" I asked and he nods a bit at this and he scratched his chest a bit and yawned then shook his head.
"Hmm, sorry for sleeping." He mutters.
"It's fine… you didn't sleep much at Newtopia." I say to him and he nods.
"Yea… still." He mutters as he gets up and I get up as well. He grabbed his mug from the side and just as he was about to head down the tower, I grabbed his arm and he looked to me.
"You, ok?" He asked. I tried to say something, I wanted to just talk to him more but what could I say.
"Anne?" He asked and I take a breath.
"Can… can we talk for a bit longer?" I asked and look to him and he nods.
"Yea of course." He says and I let go of his arm and we go and take a seat once more.
"What's on the mind of little Anne?" I hear him ask. I didn't say anything as I fiddled with my thumbs a bit and I take a breath and looked to him.
"You saw the note I left?" I asked.
"Oh yea, you said there was a second message in there, haven't found it yet." He says as he pulled his journal out and I look to him a bit.
"Would you be mad at me?" I asked and he looked to me.
"W-why would I be mad at you?" He asked. I look back to the woods then back to him and I hold my hand out a bit as I looked to his journal. He looks to me then hands me the book and I open it and look for my second message I left and then looked to him.
"I… I don't know but… here." I hand him the book back and he looked to me and I looked away as he looked to the Journal.
"Hey Alex, I want you to know that I like you." He read out loud and I look to him and then looked down.
"Anne… I… Are you sure?" He laughs a bit and I look to him to see some tears and I place my hand to his cheek.
"Yes, I know I just… I know why I missed you and Marcy it's just… scary." I tell him and he nods a bit at this and laughed as he wiped his tears.
"It's just… it's kind of hard to believe you would actually like me." He laughed a bit and I look at him.
"Why would that be hard?" I asked and he looks at me.
"I mean… look at me… look at what I did." He tells me and I smile a bit.
"Look at what you are doing now… you aren't like who you were, you are trying to be a better person, I see that." I tell him and he looked down a bit at what I said.
"I know, you said that I shouldn't feel responsible for you or anything but that doesn't mean I shouldn't care about you." I tell him. He still doesn't look up and I move my hand a bit and he puts his hand on mine and kept it on his cheek and I look to him and he looked down then back up to me.
"Do… you want to date?" He asked and I nod a little and he nods too.
"Ok… what uh…what do we do?" He asked and I laughed a bit at this and I move my hand away.
"You talked a lot about dating yet don't know what to do?" I laughed and so did he.
"Yea, Yea but I mean… do we hold hands more or act like we normally do for now I mean?" He asked.
"We can hold hands here and there, whatever makes us comfortable, ok?" I asked and he nods.
"Yea of course, I'm cool with that." He says and nods and I smiled at how cute he looked. It was just a in the moment situation but I lean up a bit to him and then kissed him. He didn't kiss back immediately but he did kiss back. I feel him put his hands on my cheeks and I put my arms around his neck.
"Hey Anne we- WOAH WHAT THE?!" We both hear and pull apart quickly and Alex gets up from the ground red in the face.
"So, yea I'll get to work on that, yep." He says as he quickly heads down the tower stairs and I look to see Sprig as he looked to me in shock and I turned away from him a bit.
"So…. Alex?" He asked as he came over to me and I nod.
"It's just… Alex?" He asked.
"He's changed Sprig… and I've liked him for a long time." I tell him.
"I mean I'm not… against it." He says and I sighed and looked to him.
"Sprig I just…I like him, I want to be with him, and I don't want you or Polly to try anything to break us up." I warn him.
"Ok, ok but the first time he gets out of hand-."
"Sprig… I don't want you or anyone getting involved with mine and Alex's relationship… we can work it out together… please just do this for me?" I asked him and he nods and I nod and I look back to the woods.
"I just want you to be happy." He says.
"I know, trust me I know but I just want this to work out." I tell him and he nods.
"I know." He says and I rubbed the back of my neck a bit.
"So, what did you want?" I asked him.
"Oh right, Grimes, Yunan and Ms. Croaker wanted to have a small meeting with you and Alex." He tells me and I nod and I get up and grabbed the mugs and we walk back down the tower and I get some more coffee for Alex along with some for the others and I follow Sprig to where everyone was and I go over and hand Alex his mug and he nods to me as he takes it. I hand the others their own cups and Sprig helped me.
"So, Anne and I are going to head back to the caverns to find this Mother Olm that she mentioned." Alex says as he points to the map on the table.
"We can head back to Wartwood and set up camp at least." Grimes mentioned.
"We'd have more land and could make more weapons if needed." Ms. Croaker says and they all agreed.
"Alright, when are you and Anne setting out?" Grime asked.
"We can head out today if that's ok?" He asked and I nod.
"We can leave today." I say.
"Alright, we can get you the supplies you'll need." Yunan says and I nod and we all finished the meeting as we got ready to go.
"Wait so we can't go with you?" Sprig asked.
"I think you all should go back to Wartwood with the others." I say as I helped pack a bag.
"Or you just want more alone time with Alex." Sprig mutters.
"Sprig." I tell him and he raised his hands up.
"I mean I'm not wrong, am I?" He asked.
"Yea you are, we just want to figure all this stuff out." I tell him.
"But we always work together." He says.
"I know but right now Alex and I need to work on finding my temple." I tell him.
"Why do you want to go home so fast?" He asked.
"Sprig-."
"You can stay here longer; you just want to hurry up and leave with him." He argued.
"Sprig hold on-." HopPop tried to say.
"No, Anne just wants to be around him, what about Spranne against the world?" He asked me.
"Sprig you have to understand-."
"What do I have to understand? He use to be a jerk to you." He says.
"I told you he's changed, you were talking to him when we traveled you didn't have a problem with him till now, what is going on here?" I asked.
"You're just in so much of a hurry to go home, we just got back here." He says.
"Sprig, I have work in my world, I have to help Alex out more when we get back home, and Marcy too… they haven't been home for ten years, I just want them to be able to go home like I did, it's not fair to them, and it's not like I want to leave you guys, I love you guys so much, but we have to get Marcy back and I have to try and help Alex if he even goes back home." I tell them.
"If he doesn't want to go home then you shouldn't be trying to help him." Sprig says and crosses his arms and I sighed a bit and take a seat as I look to all three of them.
"Sprig, what if Alex does want to go home? From as far as I know he's going to need help with schooling and trying to find a job like Anne did, don't you think he should at least have that opportunity?" HopPop says and I look to Sprig.
"But Anne just said-."
"Boy don't you think Alex should have that choice though?" HopPop says and Sprig looked to him.
"What if he stays?" Sprig asked and he looked to me.
"I can't stop him if he really wants to stay here." I tell him.
"So why date him?" Sprig asked.
"Wait you two are dating now?" Polly asked and I nod a bit.
"Weird." She says and I laughed a bit.
"Why date him?" Sprig asked again.
"Because I like him-." I stopped when I hear a knock on the door and it opens to show Alex.
"Sorry um… you ready?" He asked and I nod as I get up and grabbed my bag. He walked away and I turn back to the Planters and sighed.
"Can we talk about this when I get back?" I asked them.
"Of course, Anne." HopPop says and I nod and I followed Alex. We walked away from Toad Tower and through the woods a bit before I feel Alex move a bit closer to me and I look in the corner of my eye and see his hand move a bit but then move back and he looked forward. I smile a bit and grabbed his hand and I look to him as he looked to me and he turns red as he looked forward again. He takes a breath and he holds my hand a little tight but not in a hurting way just in a reassuring way.
"Are you ok?" I asked and he nods quickly and I laugh a little at this.
"Is Alex Speechless?" He nods quickly again as we keep walking.
"You can talk to me." He shakes his head at this and he looks forward.
"Think you'll say something stupid?" I asked a little amused that he seems to be acting like a flustered teenage boy. He nods again at this and I squeeze his hand gently and he looked to me.
"Come on, I can't talk to myself here." I say and he takes a breath and nods a bit.
"I just… don't want to say something stupid." He says.
"I get it, don't want to embarrass yourself in front of me… even though I've seen you fall flat on your face plenty of times trying to help Marcy and me." I say and he sighed a bit.
"I was a weird kid." He mutters and I laughed and kissed his cheek.
"Yea but it was sweet in its own way." I say to him and if he could be even more red, I think he would be. We walked for a good while before we get to a point where we had to take a break. We stopped by the waters which looked surprisingly clean so Alex washed his face a bit and I fill up our water bottles. I look over to him as he looked around the area a bit and I hand him his water and he took a drink.
"So, what were you and the Planters talking about? I mean if you want to tell that is, I don't mean to pry." He says quickly and I look to him as we sit near the waters and I think.
"Sprig just thinks I want to head home as soon as I can." I tell him and I look to the waters. I could see his reflection in the waters and he was looking at me so I only saw the side of his face.
"Woah hold on he knows you would have to go home at some point, right?" He asked.
"Yes but… don't be mad but he's kind of blaming you I think, I'm not sure." I tell him.
"Blaming me?" He asked and I look to him.
"He's just… mad I guess, I don't know I asked if we could talk about it later so it can give him some time to cool down." I tell him and I put my hand in the water.
"Does he not like me?" Alex asked and I look to him as he looked into the water staring at his own reflection.
"I think he's still upset about everything that happened; I mean he seemed ok it's just… he's protective too." I explained and Alex nods.
"I get it, I don't blame him." He says and I look at him.
"But he shouldn't be blaming you for me wanting to go home, I mean I just want to help you and Marcy get back home at least, I'm not trying to actively leave them I don't want to be away from them they're family too." I explained to him and he looked to me and he moves his head side by side a bit.
"Hmm I can see where he's coming from though, I mean you are his big sister, and I was from what he recalled his last interaction with me wasn't so… appealing I mean I was a jerk to him too, didn't like him." He says and laughed a bit at this and I hold his hand gently.
"But you two just need to talk it out." I say.
"And we will, when we get back, we can talk it out… unless he wants to come out from his hiding spot right now." Alex says and I was confused and looked around a bit.
"He's in the tree to my right." He whispered and pointed to the water and I see Sprigs reflection in the water and I turned quickly to see him as he yelped in shock and tried to hid behind the branch.
"SPRIG!" I yelled and he fell from the tree and Alex hurried and caught him and I look to Sprig as he sets the frog down gently and Sprig looks to us.
"POLLY IS HERE TOO, AND HOPPOP!" He yelled and Alex laughed at this to the point he had to hold his stomach as the other two frogs came out of hiding.
"Oh god he ratted them out and I didn't know they were here." He laughed as he walked away a bit.
"What are you all doing here?" I asked and crossed my arms.
"We always go on adventures together." Sprig says and I glared at him and then sighed.
"I… uuugh." I mutter and rubbed my head a bit as I tried to calm down.
"Oh, come on Anne, this is a little funny." Alex says and I look to him.
"I just… hmm." I was a bit upset at them for following us.
"We're sorry Anne we just always did everything together, you know?" Polly asked.
"I get it, it's just… I didn't want you three here for this." I mutter and Alex rubbed my back.
"We'll we're here now." Sprig says and I look at him. I shake my head a bit as they go take a seat on a log and I look to Alex who looked to me and smiled just a little bit.
"I guess we can break for lunch hu?" He asked and I nod a bit and he patted my back a bit.
"I'll get some logs for the fire." He tells me and I nod and I go and get some of food ready and looked to the planters.
"What?" Sprig asked.
"I just… do you not trust Alex that much?" I asked getting a bit upset.
"Not to be by yourself with." Sprig says.
"That's why you're here? Because you don't trust us alone? You couldn't trust us on our own?" I asked. I was a little upset by this when Sprig nodded at this and I felt a bit hurt.
"I trust Alex." I tell him.
"But I don't." He says.
"Sprig I'm not a kid, why are you having a problem with him now?" I asked.
"Because he was a jerk before and he can be a jerk again." He says.
"And you're being a jerk too sprig, should I not be around you anymore because you're being a jerk right now?" I asked him.
"But I'm not-."
"You are Sprig." HopPop says.
"Yea, you are being a bit of a jerk Sprig." Polly responds. I hear some movement and look to see Alex coming over with some logs and other stuff to start the fire. He sets the logs down and looks at all of us a bit confused.
"Um… should I leave?" He asked.
"Yes."
"No." I say and glare at Sprig as he looked to me and he crossed his arms and I roll my eyes and I look to Alex who looked to me a bit, he looked to be a little uncomfortable at the fact that Sprig said that but he started to work on the firepit and I helped him and grabbed my lighter and he looked to it, grabbed it and lit the hay and leaves he had in his bag and started up the fire. He looked a little uncomfortable and I place a hand on his shoulder and he looked to me and smiled just a little bit.
"I'm going to go for a walk." He says quietly and I look at him and nod a bit as he gets up and walks away from us and I rubbed my head a bit at this.
"See he's being a jerk." Sprig mutters and I look at him.
"Sprig." HopPop warned.
"He just left-."
"Because he's uncomfortable around you." I tell him.
"He shouldn't be."
"Sprig… let me put it this way… would you feel comfortable being around a Mantis right now?" I asked.
"No." He says.
"Well Alex doesn't feel comfortable around you because he knows you don't trust him, you're like a Mantis to him… especially now because you just basically said he should leave when all we are trying to do is get any information we can, you can't trust him around me apparently." I tell him.
"And I doubt what I'm going to get it through your head right now and right now I don't want to argue about it, but right now keep the peace and don't say anything to Alex unless there is something nice or if he needs to know anything, got it?" I asked and he nods and I take a breath as I tried to calm down. HopPop helped make some of his soup and I looked around and Alex hadn't come back yet so I get up and tell them I'm going to look for him and that no one is to follow me. As I looked around the woods in the direction that Alex had gone in, I see him as he is looking over his sword a bit and hitting a tree with it from time to time and I smile a bit and I watch him as he doesn't notice that I am here and I take a seat on a fallen tree.
"Fuck." I hear him mutter as he hit the tree again but the sword got stuck in it and he let go of the sword and stared at it.
"You can cut through a lava beast and a giant rock man but you can't get through a tree trunk?" He asked the sword and I covered my mouth a bit as I giggled and he turned to look at me.
"Oh, uh h-hey." He says and leans on the tree and hides the blade and I look to him.
"Do you need to sharpen it?" I asked as I got up and he pulled the sword out of the tree and looked to it.
"It's a bit dull I guess." He says and I look to it then back to him.
"Squeak toy isn't with you, is he?" He asked and I shake my head.
"No Sprig is not." I tell him.
"Hmm…. So out of randomness since I don't want to talk about what I had heard, so let's guess where your temple could be." He asked as he took a seat on the ground and I was sitting on the log and he looked up to me.
"Hmm, could be somewhere here in frogvalley." I suggest.
"I think it could be on an island." He says.
"Why is that?" I asked.
"I mean if mine was I'd think they'd make it hard for you too and make it on an island as well… or somewhere, where we don't know." He says and I nod.
"Ok, could be." I say and think a bit.
"I mean it could be in frogvalley, it's be easy for us but… I don't want Darcy near there." He says and I nod at this. I look at him as he looked to his sword a bit and I sighed a little.
"Alex you can talk about it." I say as I place a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you think I could be a jerk again? I mean I'm not going to do it actively you know but… I don't know I heard Sprig and it got me thinking." He says.
"I think at some point you might but you would try and correct it as best as you can." I explained and he takes a breath.
"I don't think he's going to really trust me after what I did." He says.
"It'll take some time, like you said you'll talk about it, maybe not now but I told him to keep the peace for now." I tell him and he nods.
"Ok… I can deal with that." He says and he gets up and I watch him.
"I'll try my best to keep the peace but… can't he trust me a little while we travel?" He asked.
"Well… it's hard to tell him to trust you but when it comes to an emergency, I think we can all make an acceptation." I tell him and he nods.
"That's all I ask… I don't want him to think I won't help him and his family." He says and I nod and I get up and kissed his cheek gently.
"I'll let you be, HopPop made some soup." I tell him and he nods as I head back to the others as Alex does what he needs to do. I go and get a bowl for myself and we eat for a bit before I see Alex come back and he made himself a bowl and ate and I smiled at him and he smiled back to me. When night came by the Planters were sleeping and I was looking at Alex as he was looking over his journal and I looked to the map on his side and I look at it a bit.
"Got to update the maps a bit, make them bigger when we find more land masses." He says and I look at him.
"That would seem great especially if we want to show them there's more than just Amphibia." I say as I looked at the map more. I then looked up to see Alex had just stopped writing and he was looking at the fire and he sighed a little and closed his book and leaned his back to the log and crossed his arms a bit. I feel bad for him because of what Sprig said, I would feel bad if someone only remembered me for what I did in the past but didn't look at who I am now. I wasn't the same person I was when I was thirteen, I grew up, I could think for myself and I changed my life around as I got older. Of course, I made some mistakes in the past but I learned from those mistakes and changed for the better. Alex changed too and I could see it, yes, he got angry at Marcy but he had so much built-up emotions and I can't blame him when Marcy said it was a game, granted I should have never told him to agree that we should let Marcy think it was a game and not real, and that was my own fault.
"What has you thinking?" I hear and look to Alex as he looked to me.
"Nothing important." I tell him.
"Has to be important if it has your face scrunching up like that." He commented and I looked to the side a bit and rubbed the back of my neck.
"Just how we changed as we grew up… How we can fix ourselves and how yes, our emotions can sometimes come back up… like how you got angry at Marcy but you had your reasons to be angry… and how I told you to act as if it was a game for her sake and how I was wrong for doing that." I explained and I hear him chuckle.
"Anne… you grew up more than I did." He says.
"And why do you say that?" I asked.
"You… how do I put this… you aren't the same as you were when you were thirteen… you're independent, you're strong, you're smart and you worked on yourself in a positive way… kind of makes me a little jealous but not in a bad way just… it's nice to see you still so kind and caring and wanting to make everyone happy and make compromises for both sides." He explained and I smile a bit at this.
"You changed too though." I tell him and he looks to me a bit then nods.
"Yea… yea I have." He says and I smiled at this.
"You're strong, your smart in your own way, you helped everyone willing to help in the rebellion, you're writing your emotions down instead of going off on people, you're kind in your own way, and sadly you put yourself in danger in order to keep someone else from getting hurt… you sometimes act like you deserve it which makes me a bit sad." I tell him and he looked to me.
"I uh… I don't think I deserve it… I'd rather get hurt than someone else because they have people here that love them." He says quietly.
"You look up to Grime as if he was your dad." I tell him.
"Yea but… I don't know." He mutters.
"Do you think he doesn't think of you as a son?" I asked.
"I…" He stopped and took a deep breath as he looked to be thinking about what he was going to say next.
"I think right now he thinks of me as one of his best solider, and I'm not going to complain about that in anyway… but I don't personally want him to think that I'm like a son to him because what if something happens? I'll feel like total crap if I make that brute cry in front of many people that look up to him." He explained.
"Ah, you don't want him to show emotions because you don't want him to think that others would look down on him?" I asked.
"I know people won't but… you know with my parents I had to hide my emotions especially with my mom and how she is… dad never stepped in to say 'Hey son it's ok to show how you feel, emotions are ok.'… blah blah blah." He says and I watch him.
"I know you are ok with your dad… but… I think Grimes is a better father figure to you." I tell him truthfully and he chuckled a bit at this.
"Yea… I can see that now… haha… see." He mutters and then touched the bandage on his eye.
"Need me to change them?" I asked and I thinks a bit and nods and I grabbed the bandages and medicine in my bag and he comes a little closer to me and I removed the old bandages and help clean his wound.
"Need to get you an eyepatch… remember when we were in that Peter Pan play and you were Captain Hook?" I asked and he chuckled.
"I should have a missing hand, not eye." He laughed and so do I.
"Well let's be glad your hand isn't missing." I say to him.
"And why is that?" He asked as I wrapped the bandages again.
"I like your hands." I tell him and he looks at me.
"You like my hands?" He asked and I nod and I hold his hands a bit.
"They fit with mine… a bit callused from all that hard work you've done… they can be rough in battle or soft and gently near me." I tell him and he grips my hands gently and he felt a bit warm and I smile at him.
"You're trying to fix a lot of things; you are trying to help as best as you can and that makes you a great man… you aren't like you once were and you are trying to fix that." I tell him and he chuckled.
"Tying to give me a big ego?" He asked.
"Maybe a little." I joke and he shakes his head chuckling.
"Thanks… I needed that." He says and I nod.
"Glad I could help at least a little." I say and he nods and lets my hands go gently and I look to him.
"Let's get some sleep." He suggests and I nod as I scoot a little closer to him and lean my head on his shoulder and I feel him place his arm over my shoulder a bit. We fell asleep for a good while before we were woken up and I feel Alex shift a bit and I moved my head a bit and looked to him as I see him looking around a bit.
"Hmm… morning." I say and rubbed my eye a bit.
"Morning… HopPop is making-."
"Chocobeetle pancakes." He interrupted Alex and I smiled a bit at this.
"You told me you wanted some before." Alex mentioned and I nod as I helped HopPop and Alex watched a bit.
"Ah trying to learn the Planter recipe?" HopPop asked and I quickly move my hand to tell Alex no and he looked to me weird and then to HopPop.
"Uh, no just trying to see why Anne likes these so much." Alex says and smiled a bit.
"Oh right, they're like chocolate pancakes but with beetles." He says and Alex nods at this.
"Smells good." Alex commented and then gets up and looked to me.
"Going to go wash my face, humidity is killing me." He commented and he left to go to the waters and I look at HopPop.
"Seems like he wants to try and make your favorite food." He says and I nod.
"Yea… he's trying." I tell him.
"I can see that… I wish Sprig would but I get it, he doesn't want you to get hurt again." He tells me and I nod sadly at this.
"I know… I suppose I was a jerk to him about it but… I felt bad that Sprig acted that way after we spent days together with Alex… he even talked to him, so it's just… I don't know… I know trust is hard to gain and give." I tell HopPop and he nods.
"Oh yea, that is true… don't worry one day they'll get along and look back at this as a funny memory." He says and I nod at this. Once we finished Sprig and Polly came over and go their plates and filled them up. I grabbed a plate for Alex and I and I looked over to the direction he had walked in and then looked to the plates and thought for a bit.
"Anne… I'm sorry for being a jerk to Alex." Sprig says and I look at him.
"I think you should tell that to him." I tell Sprig honestly and he looked down.
"Ok." He says.
"But I know you care about me Sprig… I get it… it bothers me a bit but we can work it out." I tell him and he looks to me and nods. I was eating one of my pancakes and heard someone walking over to us and I look up and dropped my fork as I look to see that Alex had cut his beard a bit so it was more clean looking and he cut his hair shorter like an army cut.
"Wow you know how to clean up." Polly says and I nod at this.
"Thanks." Alex laughed and he comes over to me and I look to him.
"You good?" He asked and I nod.
"Y-You look good." I say and he smiled a bit.
"Thanks." He says and I hand him his plate and he nods and tries one of his pancakes and he looked like he really like it.
"Wow, it really does taste like chocolate pancakes." He says and covered his mouth a bit and I laughed a bit at this.
"Why thank you, I take pride in my cooking." HopPop says and I see Alex nods.
"I can see why." He tells him and we ate some more. I see Sprig looking over to Alex a bit but he didn't say anything but I didn't try and push the matter. I'd let him do it on his own time. When we finished our breakfast and cleaned the plates, we packed our bags and we began walking to the caverns and I see Alex looking around a bit and I grabbed his hand gently and he looks to our hands and then looks forward and I can see a slight smile on his face.
"Sorry… hands are a bit sweaty." He laughed and I smile at this.
"Eh it's fine I've held worse." I tell him and he laughed at this. We kept walking for a bit and I would look to Alex a bit then to the side here and there.
"Soooo… it's pretty quiet and I think we should… Talk about something?" Sprig asked and Alex shrugged a bit and I look at him as he looked like he was thinking about what to say.
"Um… what uh… do you want to talk about?" Alex asked and it seemed he was trying to be careful with his words and I rubbed my thumb to his hand a bit.
"How'd you get so buff?" Polly asked and Alex looked to her and then laughed and I did too.
"Worked out a lot… that's pretty much it… I mean protein and other stuff I just… hmm it's… I mean everyone is different." Alex tried to explain but it seemed he was struggling a bit.
"It's different for everyone out there." I say and Alex nods at this.
"I want to get buff too." Polly says and Alex nods and keeps quiet. He looked a bit scared to talk to the Planters so he just kept to himself and I talked with the Planters a bit and Alex would look around a bit. We get to the abyss again and Alex helped me down into the abyss and he helped the Planters too. Once he helped HopPop who was the final person of the group and we head into the caverns and Alex looked to the words that were written on the wall.
"Steve stinks?" He asked and I look to the writing and then to Alex.
"Dang, Steve is being called out." I say and he laughed at this.
"Hey look, what does this say?" Sprig asked and we walked up to the writing and Alex looked confused.
"What?" I asked.
"The Olms of these lands have fled the area due to the light breaking through from the drills." Alex tells us and I look around.
"There's more of them?" I asked and he nods and we go further into the caves and we looked around at the ruins of a city. There were many light patches coming through the top of the cave and I look over to Alex as he hops down a pillar and looked around more.
"There has to be something here… telling us where they went." I hear him say and I look around some more.
"I don't think anyone is here, Olms are pretty sensitive to light and with all this… damage to the caves." I try to explain to him.
"What if they have an evacuation situation… somewhere where they could go incase something like this happened?" Sprig asked.
"Yea what Squeak toy said." I hear Alex mutter and I looked to him and sighed.
"They could have but this is a lot of damage." I tell him.
"Wouldn't hurt to keep looking." HopPop says and I nod and we all look around. I looked into some caves and I see a steep slant in one cave and I see some small flames.
"Hey guys I think I found something." I say and they come over to me.
"Looks steep." Sprig says but goes in anyway and I sighed and we all go in carefully and I look around.
"You know any fun facts about Olms?" Alex asked and I smile.
"So, Olms have many different names in our world, one of the names is Human fish, they also have whiteish pink skin, but you can see their organs so translucent." I explained.
"Oh gross… I mean cool but gross." He says and I laughed.
"But they are kind of cute… I mean if you're like me and think that way." I say to him.
"Eh you know me, more of a dog person." Alex says and I gasp at this.
"Oh, I don't think Domino Two is going to like you." I say and he looked to me.
"Oh god no I didn't mean to-."
"Nope, I'll go find Domino Two and we will fly away together." I say and he looked to me confused and I laughed.
"Wait hold on." He says trying to think and I smiled.
"When did your cats learn to fly?" He asked and I laugh some more.
"Domino Two is a Kill-a-pillar, or well Kill-a-moth." Sprig says and I look to Alex.
"… Grimes told me his Uncle Magnus was killed by one of those things." Alex says and shivered a bit.
"Well Domino Two is pretty cool… they didn't eat anyone." I say.
"That we know of." Polly says and I sighed.
"Ok, ok, but they are cute." I state and we keep walking till we reach near the bottom. I helped HopPop down as his knees began to hurt and I offered to carry him but he declined and I nod as we head into this big area with lights and drawings all around the room and I see some familiar drawings.
"Is that us?" I asked and Alex comes by and looked to the drawing and I feel Sprig hop on my head as he looked.
"Looks like it." Sprig says and then the ground shakes a lot and I looked around to see a giant Olm come from the ground.
"HOLY SHIT!" Alex yelled and the Olm looked at us.
"Oh… hello." She says and waves and I wave back to them.
"I uh… are you Mother Olm?" I asked as I walk up to her.
"Why yes I am… and you are?" She asked.
"I'm Anne, and this is Alex, HopPop, Polly and Sprig." I introduced all of us to her.
"Well hello to all of you… why are you all here?" She asked.
"I uh… I saw a pot that basically said to talk to the mother of olms… I mean basically you and uh… my friends and I are part of the gems used in this music box." I tried to explain.
"Music box you say? Three gems?" She asked.
"Yes, one is blue, one is pinkish, and the last is a green color." I say.
"So, the prophecy had changed." She says.
"Prophecy?" Sprig asked.
"Yes, there was a prophecy but it seems to have changed for reasons." She says.
"What do you mean it's changed?" I asked.
"Hmmm, can't remember sorry." She says.
"What the…" Alex tried to say something but he stopped as I looked to him and he looked to the Olm.
"Do you remember even a little bit?" I asked.
"All I know is that the old Prophecy is ten years too late." She says.
"Wait, we were supposed to fulfill this ten years ago?" Alex asked and she nods.
"As far as I remember…. It seemed that one gem didn't come back in time like they were supposed to." She says and I looked to the ground a bit.
"Oh, I do apologize, it was two gems." The olm says but that still didn't make me feel better.
"And the third gem is still in trouble with themselves." She says.
"Wait but I only went to my world… what is Marcy and Alex's gem have to do with this?" I asked.
"Ah, Alex doesn't have a gem." The olm says and I look to him then back to her.
"I have the powers of my gem; how can I not have them?" He asked.
"Alex was not in the original plan, there was a Sasha, that is why I said that the third gem is in trouble with themselves." The olm says.
"I'm not going back to being her." Alex tells the Olm.
"It's not so much as being Sasha, you don't have to be, but it seems your gem has changed and so have you, ten years have passed from the original Prophecy, you've all grown and have all changed, that means the prophecy has changed as well, but we don't know what it has changed to." The olm explained to us as best as she could.
"It went from pink to red." I hear Alex mutter.
"You said that when you went into your second temple it changed color." I tell him and he nods.
"Ah so you need to find the other temples?" The olm asked.
"Just mine, we had found Marcy's." I tell her.
"Hm, I have heard of this one, though it was supposed to be as a backup… your temple lies in the ocean, it comes up once in a while during a blood moon though." The olm tells me.
"When is the next blood moon?" Alex asked.
"A blood what?" HopPop asked.
"The moon turns red… when does that happen?" I asked.
"I'd say it happens rarely last time we saw one was when we summoned the giant bird but before that it was when I was a young tadpole myself." He says.
"But that's…" Alex stopped and I look to him as he looked at the drawings and writings.
"I am sorry but I cannot tell you any more than that, I truly am sorry." Mother Olm says as she goes back into her cave and I looked to the drawings.
"There has to be something here to tell us… I don't know something." I hear Alex panic as he looked around more.
"Alex." I say and placed a hand to his shoulder and he looked to me then back to the drawings and points to a red moon.
"Look, they have to have them here." He says as he keeps pointing to the drawing.
"She can't remember a lot right now, maybe we should set camp here until we know." I suggest.
"What about the others… I just… why is this so… fucked." He says as he paced the area.
"Alex it's ok." I say.
"No… it's not ok because I fucked up." He says.
"Why do you think that?" I asked as I stopped him.
"If I wasn't so… bitchy back then you would have listened to me when I said that Andrias was behind something… Marcy would have believed me, but instead I caused the problem by… being stupid." He says and clenched his fists a bit.
"Hey we can fix this, look at me." I say and he kept his eyes to the floor. I place my hands on his cheeks and he looks up a bit as I look to him.
"Trust me… we will find a way to my temple; this is just a little set back." I tell him and he takes a breath and calms down and nods.
"I'm sorry for freaking out." He says and I nod.
"And stop blaming yourself, you're not the only one at fault here." I tell him and he nods.
"Yea… sorry… working on that." He says and I nod and kissed his cheek and he looked back to the drawings.
"I'll work on translating anything, you said Olms are blind, maybe she can't read all the information if she forgot it." He says and I nod as he pulled out his journal and got to work. I helped the planters set up a bit of a camp and I watched as Alex looked at the walls then back to his book as he wrote anything and everything down.