It has only been a few minutes since Valeriana has disappeared and the group has left the utterly devastated cave. Anne is still holding her arm around Marcy's shoulders as she suggests to Sprig and Maddie that they go ahead so she can take care of Marcy properly.
For several minutes after the two frogs had already left, Anne and Marcy remained at the archway.
"Should we start walking back to Wartwood, too?", Anne asks empathetically.
Marcy slowly shakes her head and walks with Anne over to a nearby knee-high pillar that can be conveniently used as a seat, where the two of them also immediately lie down. There are clear signs that this pillar used to be considerably taller.
Ever since she and Anne emerged from the archway, Marcy has not spoken a single word. Instead, she clings to her friend and is unwilling to leave her side.
Marcy is lying down with Anne merely sitting next to her, gazing at her with a heavy heart. Any joy on Marcy's face is gone. Her curiosity is gone, too. Just like the always hopeful glance in her eyes. Everything gone and replaced by pain, sadness and... anger. Never in her entire life has Anne ever seen Marcy like this, and she feels horrible and helpless. In fact, Anne would like to just hunt down all those who have hurt her friend so much and give her all the joy and love and beauty within this and every other world there is instead.
Suddenly, Marcy straightens up and pulls out her diary and flips through it for a while. Contrary to Anne's surprise, every single page in it is written all over and there are even several cute drawings in there.
Marcy flips back and forth a bit, as if looking for something, until she finally tears out several pages with a frustrated growl. She pulls out a thick pen and draws a glyph directly over her written diary entries. Anne unfortunately doesn't recognize exactly which glyph it is. Marcy then draws the same glyph on the other few pages.
Marcy indicates that she wants to get up and Anne, of course, is immediately ready to help. Marcy slowly leads Anne in the direction of Yunan's abandoned tent. Once there, she suddenly stops, and Marcy stares at the tent with nothing but pure anger in her eyes.
Marcy activates the first glyph and a fireball appears in her hand, startling Anne and causing her to step back. Marcy's gaze remains locked on the tent. Fortunately, the fireball, which lies directly in her hand, does not seem to hurt her.
Suddenly, she throws the fireball at the tent with all her might.
And another.
And one more.
And then the last one.
Marcy is panting heavily, but as the now riddled tent gradually burns down in its entirety, Marcy seems to be calming down slightly. Anne joins her again, just before Marcy leans her head on Anne's shoulder and they both watch jointly as the tent gradually turns to ashes.
Even when the tent is nothing but a smoking pile of ashes, Marcy just continues to look at it. Anne would really like to know what's going through Marcy's mind right now, until suddenly she picks her head back up.
"Let's go back..." she merely says.
For almost an hour now, the two girls have been walking side by side in utter silence, and so far, they've probably only just made it halfway until Wartwood.
Anne hates this silence. She wouldn't mind normal silence and even this slightly uncomfortable silence, when you don't really have anything to say to each other, is still somewhat bearable. But this... To have someone with you, whose gorgeous heart is completely in shambles and to not be able to find any words that could even begin to be helpful and not make everything worse.
Anne looks at Marcy, who walks beside her with her head down. Her feet barely leave the ground as she continues to walk through the dense forest. Anne's gaze continues to wander to her hands. Suddenly, Anne gets an idea how she can at least show Marcy that she wants to be there for her.
As the two girls continue to walk side by side, Anne reaches out to Marcy and takes her hand in her own, both their hands now interlocked. Somewhat taken aback, Marcy now looks at her hands first and then lets her gaze travel up to Anne's face.
A warm smile graces her face. It's the kind of smile that makes your heart jump. The kind that creates butterflies in your stomach. The kind that says, "I'm here for you. You are important to me. I don't want to be without you anymore".
And indeed, a tiny smile now appears on Marcy's face as well as she lowers her head again and blushes slightly. Anne's smile only grows stronger as a result.
Another half hour passed and the two of them gradually approached the edge of the forest and are hopefully near Wartwood.
"Say, Marce", Anne starts to break the renewed silence between the two girls, "Don't you think it's kind of strange that we haven't been attacked even once in this forest? I mean, I didn't hear a single mantis roaring, for example..."
Marcy, still holding Anne's hand, doesn't answer that.
"Maybe Valeriana has something to do with it. I mean, she did teleport into the cave just like that, right?", Anne adds.
"I... don't know.", Marcy says suddenly, looking up at Anne from the ground, "Do you trust her?"
"Valeriana?", Anne inquires. Marcy nods in affirmation. "Why do you ask?"
"What she showed us... I- I can't believe that's true. There's no way King Andrias would order Yunan to kill Luz just to keep some place a secret... And I also can't believe that Yunan was willing to attack Luz. It just doesn't make sense...", Marcy says in frustration.
"You think what we saw was just made up?"
"Luz had talked about illusion magic once, right? Maybe none of what Valeriana showed us was true…", Marcy hopes while Anne doubts it.
"Marcy, even before Valeriana arrived, Maddie had already showed us Yunan's marks... And she was also friends with Luz", Anne argues. Marcy thoughtfully wraps herself in silence again as both of them finally leave the forest and find themselves on the edge of a far-running wheat field with Wartwood nowhere to be seen.
Marcy looks around thoroughly, turns left after a moment's consideration, and walks along the edge of the forest with Anne. Anne is already worried that she and Marcy are completely lost, until at some point, however, the first tents appear at some the distance.
Anne sighs in relief and notices that Marcy is now holding her hand a little less tightly, what she initially hasn't noticed in the first place. Anne looks down at their hands, which Marcy apparently notices and jerks her hand back tightly against her own body.
"I'm sorry", Marcy mumbles softly to herself.
"For what?", Anne asks sympathetically trying not to read too much into her actions.
"I... I almost squished your hand until just now...", Marcy says guiltily, her head continuing to hang down towards the ground. Contrary to her own expectations, Anne starts laughing.
"Oh MarMar, I l- um, I think it's cute that you think I would mind. Besides, you'd really have to train your hand muscles a lot to be able to do that in the first place."
Marcy now looks up at Anne as if she's just messing with her.
"Heey, that was mean…", Marcy complains jokingly. She tries to look at Anne in offense, but fails miserably, as Anne's laugh overshadows everything, and Marcy's smile returns again, along with a slight, partially embarrassed blush.
Anne is proud of herself that she has once again managed to distract Marcy a little from her negative thoughts.
As the two girls gradually walked toward the tent city just outside Wartwood, Anne begins to feel like she is being watched. And indeed, many of the frogs were looking wide-eyed and expectantly at the two humans.
"Why do you think they're looking at us like that?", Anne whispers to Marcy as unobtrusively as possible. Marcy, on the other hand, doesn't bother to keep her voice particularly low.
"We're humans.", Marcy flatly points out, "I wouldn't be surprised if most people who aren't from the immediate area have never seen anything like us before..."
"Oh, you're right... I forgot", Anne replies, waving at a couple of the frogs who are glaring at the two of them, while Marcy doesn't respond further to the stares. "Wait, why only now and not when we were sitting on the fwagon earlier?"
"I dunno... Maybe it was too early in the morning", Marcy shrugs her shoulders and Anne looks ever so slightly nervous as both walk on more briskly now.
Along the way there were a few frogs and newts who wanted to approach Anne about something, however she had rejected them each time as kindly as she could and kept walking.
"I think, I know exactly what they all want from me", Anne whispers to Marcy, "And they're definitely not surprised at our appearance... There are not enough pitchforks and torches for that.", Marcy chuckles at this, but only until she realizes Anne was serious.
"Wait, you're not kidding?"
"Have I ever told you about my first encounter with Sprig before?", Anne asks Marcy, to which she shakes her head after a moment's thought.
And so, Anne tells Marcy the brief story of her first run-in with the Plantars and how Sprig managed to soothe the angry mob of townspeople to not kill Anne.
"How nice of them...", Marcy comments jokingly. Anne rolls her eyes, to which Marcy chuckles.
"Can you actually still activate glyphs?", Anne suddenly asks. Marcy pulls out her journal and draws a Small Glyph on a page, which she then taps. Nothing happens.
"Nope. I guess the magic I picked up in the cave has already dissipated".
"Too bad"
As they both gradually approach the Plantars' property, a mob once again approaches them. More precisely, the very same mob they encountered several hours ago. Instead of joyfully excited, however, they are all now rather disappointed. Anne approaches them about it.
"Hey... Why so sad?"
Many of the frogs pay no attention to Anne and simply walk past her, some angry, sad or disappointed. Ivy is the first not to do so.
"Oh, hey Anne. Um... We've wasted hours now waiting for gifts that don't exist...", Ivy explains sounding rather sad. Anne now, just like before, doesn't understand what exactly they're all talking about. She kneels down to Ivy.
"Okay, enlighten me: What kind of gifts are you talking about? Mrs. Croaker mentioned something like that earlier...", Anne says.
"I'm not surprised you don't know about that. Apparently, you all forgot", Ivy says snarkily, "Well, a while before you all left for Newtopia, a few of us had overheard that and asked if it would be possible to bring back something for them from there. I wanted a red sunshell to match Sprigs blue moonshell-"
"Oh my gosh, that's soo romantic", Anne suddenly interrupts her, squeaking.
"Anyway", Ivy continues, deliberately avoiding Anne's comment, "Hop Pop first meant he was going to grab the presents for everyone, disappeared for a few hours, but came back with Polly and had confessed through fake tears that he completely forgot about the presents"
"Yeah, um... I had learned on the way to Newtopia that Hop Pop had acting skills. Was quite surprised", Anne admits, "But I should go check on him. Thanks for telling me, Ivy."
"You're welcome", Ivy says goodbye and Anne and Marcy continue toward the farm. They don't get far as suddenly another resident runs up to the two girls. However, he seems rather panicking compared to the rest of the mob.
"Anne... Other human, it's soo good to see you two...", it's Mayor Toadstool, who seems to be quite out of breath, "Do me a favor: Hide me. There's a monster chasing me."
Without waiting for an answer, he cowardly tries to hide right behind Annes back. Obviously not a good hiding place, considering that Toadstool is many times wider than Anne.
She and Marcy exchange glances until Anne sees behind Marcy exactly what the mayor is running away from.
"Uh oh...", Anne lets out. Marcy wanted to turn around to see it for herself as well, but Anne holds Marcy's head and warns her forcefully. "You better not look behind you right now"
Marcy just looks at Anne puzzled and confused. She is about to ask what exactly is behind her when a familiar voice approaches. Marcy twitches as she hears it.
"Where could the good, honest, and definitely not corrupt Mayor Toadstool possibly be hiding? Oh... Good afternoon, Anne. Master Marcy."
It is General Yunan who has deftly weaved her way between the mob of village residents and now stands, blades extended, directly behind Marcy. Marcy tries to keep her composure, while Anne already realizes that this is already doomed to failure. Anne currently has an 'Oh fuck' look on her face as Marcy's continues to slip away from her while Yunan continues to ramble on, not noticing Anne's warning look. "I've got some good news: I've already been able to take out two corrupt people in power. Toadstool is now number three, for multiple attempted-"
"Shut up!" mutters Marcy with gritted teeth.
"Huh, pardon me?", Yunan inquires, having merely heard Marcy say something, but not what exactly. Foreshadowing what's about to happen, Anne scrunches up her face and prepares for the worst.
"I said... SHUT. UP!", Marcy yells at Yunan, who now merely stares at her with her mouth open in shock. Never before had Marcy raised her voice like that against her. "That you even have the guts to just walk around here after what you did- Although, you probably have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about..."
Yunan merely looks at Marcy, perplexed. Marcy continues
"I sort of just found out that you attacked Luz. Luz... Who was my friend... You were willing to kill her just like that..."
Marcy has stopped screaming by now, but there is still an enormous amount of power and rage behind her words. Yunan, on the other hand, absolutely doesn't understand anything.
"What are you talking about?", she calmly asks, whereupon Marcy growls in frustration and walks away enraged. Anne, being somewhat more rational just now, takes over trying to explain.
"We were just in a cave with a bunch of gray crystals everywhere, and with the help of some crazy magic stuff, we found out that you were there a while ago too-"
"You know about the Source?", Yunan asks, aghast.
"Didn't know the place had a name until now, but yeah", Anne explains, and for some reason, Yunan seems more concerned with this realization than Marcy's current tantrum. By the way, while Anne is explaining the situation, Marcy is about to capture the mayor with a net-trick arrow and bring him back to Yunan, who has taken advantage of the conversation between the humans and the general to flee again. "Anyway, the point is, you attacked our friend, but you actually lost and your memory of it was wiped", Anne clarifies, seeming unusually calm compared to Marcy. While she is also angry at Yunan, knowing that Luz is safe, helps her tremendously in keeping her composure. Marcy walks back into earshot gradually with Toadstool in front of her.
"Normally, I wouldn't put up with such an insinuation", Yunan began, sounding somewhat offended, "However, that does explain why I don't remember anything when I woke up there... Somehow, anyway..."
"AHA! So, you're confessing you were there", Marcy, arriving next to Anne again, accuses her. Yunan merely takes a deep breath in response, while Marcy continues to pant furiously.
"King Andrias had actually forbidden me to tell you or anyone else about it, but you already know about it now anyway, so it doesn't matter anymore. I was supposed to find a place called The Source, whose whole existence was something of a myth until recently, I guess. Once I located it, I should do my best to prevent the knowledge of this place from spreading, and I should do so at all costs. I was just following orders..."
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?", Marcy yells angrily, "That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard!"
"You do realize that giving and carrying out orders is sort of the whole point of my job, don't you?"
Marcy is well aware of the fact that Yunan is right, but that doesn't help her relieve the pain within her heart. Yunan on the other hand currently shows no signs of emotion as she talks. She is nothing but a cold, unrepentant soldier with a gap in her memory right now, which is why Marcy finds it difficult to blame her further for not telling her about it.
Marcy is angry. At Yunan for attacking her friend and it would be pointless to yell at her about it because Luz erased her memory of it. She's mad at King Andrias for ordering Yunan to do it and she can't yell at him either because he's all the way in Newtopia. She's even mad at Anne for some reason, even though she hasn't done anything to her yet. Perhaps it is only a matter of time, as it has been with everyone else. At some point, everyone would hurt her.
Tears form again in Marcy's eyes as she frantically stutters, searching for words to express her anger.
"This... You... You... You big... Salamander!", having yelled this in Yunan's face, Marcy now runs away again, crying. Anne still tries to reach after her, but Marcy was too fast for that. Contrary to Anne's understanding, General Yunan now seems to be seeing red.
"Ouch. That must have hurt", Mayor Toadstool says flatly, to which Anne throws a disparaging look at him.
'Damn,' Anne thought to herself at that moment, 'Marcy's running off, a probably angry General Yunan wants to arrest Mayor Toadstool or something, and Hop Pop could probably use my help right now too...'
She weighs the options against each other, even though she already made her decision.
'I have to find Marcy'
Before Anne chases after Marcy, she catches the General approaching Mayor Toadstool, who is tied up, telling him that he is being arrested and charged for corruption. He looks rather frightened and glances at Anne. Part of her wants to intervene, but her priorities are elsewhere right now. She turns her back on the mayor and runs after Marcy, who has run back somewhere toward the nearby forest the two girls came out of shortly earlier.
Anne struggles to make her way through the crowded village center and heads toward the forest.
"MARCY!", Anne calls into it before entering it. As expected, there is no answer, and she enters the forest with virtually no idea where to start looking for her.
She has only walked a few meters and by the time she turns around, Wartwood is no longer visible among all the bushes and leaves. Only wild chatter can still be heard from there. As she continues to walk on for what has been twenty minutes so far, she calls out Marcy's name loudly every few minutes. Each time with the fervent hope that she will respond. Even the slightest noise from her could help Anne find her.
'Come on Marbles… Where are you?'
Anne continues walking for several more minutes.
"MAAARCYY!", she calls again.
Again, no answer. She keeps walking.
As time goes by, however, Anne begins to think that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to leave without any help, navigation points, or clues into a forest whose canopy is so dense that Anne could only guess that the sun is still up in the sky merely by just looking up. Shouting loudly to make her position known to any creatures that might ambush her is also a potential problem. Should something attack her, and she currently has no weapons with her to defend herself. If she should die just now, no one would ever know...
Suddenly Anne startles thinking that she has seen something crawling around on the floor. In fact, however, she was merely absorbed in her thoughts and imagined it.
She looks around wildly in all directions and immediately realizes that she has not paid attention to where exactly she has come from. She also doesn't know how long she hasn't paid attention anymore.
"Oh no... I'm lost", Anne mutters to herself.
Anne's pulse begins to accelerate and her breathing speeds up as well. Beads of sweat form on her forehead, her heartbeat pulsating audibly in her ears... She starts feeling anxious. Anne knows full well that she can't make any smart decisions in this state, and tries to remember a calming technique Marcy showed her a few years ago to deal with her own anxiety issues, which were unfortunately not uncommon at her home.
'Okay okay okay okay okay... How did that trick go?', Anne asks herself, it's hard for her to think clearly.
She sits down on the forest floor with her back leaning against a wide tree and performs a breathing exercise for several minutes in a row.
'Inhale...'
'One... Two... Three... Four...'
'Exhale... And again'
She repeats this several times which eventually helps her to calm down. Her breathing steadies and she feels a little clearer in the head again. Only the audible heartbeat is still present. Anne is somewhat irritated at that. She takes one of her arms in her hand and feels her pulse. But what she hears and what she feels do not correspond with each other.
She slaps her hands over her ears to see if this changes anything. Maybe the sound is coming from somewhere in the forest... In that case, Anne would run away as fast as she could, no matter where she would appear later.
Anyway, her test was successful... Well, partially. Covering her ears doesn't change anything, unfortunately. But when Anne happens to turn her head, she notices that the volume of the heartbeat changes.
She turns her head to the left, it gets louder. To the right, it gets quieter.
'Oh no... I hit my head somewhere along the way and somehow ended up in DBD...', Anne thinks to herself although she knows exactly that this is not the case. But nevertheless, she has to make a decision now.
All her instincts as well as all her logical understanding advise her to run away in the direction where the heartbeat is the quietest. The alternative, to go in the opposite direction, directly towards the point of origin, does not actually feel so wrong down deep in her heart. Even though it might still be a bad idea.
Anne gets up from the ground, ready to go in the direction where the heartbeat is loudest in her ears. Before she leaves, however, she looks around the ground for a possible weapon to defend herself, in case she does walk into a big trap.
She finds a solid branch that must have fallen from one of the trees, which she can use as a club just in case.
'That'll have to do,' she thinks to herself before carefully walking off.
Unlike before, where Anne walked off on blind faith, Anne now consciously pays attention to every step she takes. She looks behind every tree, in every bush. Her own pulse rises again, due to the tension, while the heartbeat she hears fluctuates as well. At times it was slower, then again, a little faster, and all this while the volume of sound remained constant.
As she pierces suspicious bushes with her branch and continues forward, she lets her thoughts circle once again, mainly about what this heartbeat means.
'So far, it's only been constant heading in the exact same direction. Is this a compass guiding me somewhere? Or, in addition to my other "superpowers", do I now have super hearing and I can hear the heartbeat of one single living creature? ... Hold on, wait a second...'
Anne arrives at a part of the forest whose canopy is not quite so dense, and that's when she notices that her vision has a slight blue tint.
'But of course...', Anne thinks to herself disappointedly, yet she continues walking.
After what feels like an eternity of walking, Anne realizes she is approaching a familiar place and the sound of a heartbeat quickly fades within her ears.
Anne pushes aside a few bushes blocking her view, revealing a small clearing in the middle of which lies a hollow fallen tree trunk covered with mushrooms and moss embedded in the mud. From within it, Anne hears muffled sobs.
Carefully, Anne tiptoes around the fallen trunk and takes a peek inside.
'Still exactly as I remember it...'
The dark, rotten wood with holes all over it, where rays of light are clearly visible due to the dense air. Moss and grass all around. Scattered glowing mushrooms further illuminate the bark. And in the middle of it all lies Marcy, curled up in a ball.
"Marcy?", Anne whispers sympathetically. Marcy's head snaps up, directly at Anne. With teary eyes, she throws herself into Anne's arms.
"Oh Anne, I'm soo sorry...", Marcy mumbles as she continues to cry.
Anne, for whom this hug was quite unexpected, is stiff for a moment, but ultimately gets on board and comfortingly runs her hand through her hair.
"Shhh... It's all right...", Anne whispers in a soft voice.
"I... I was going to go back, but... I lost my focus, and I didn't know... where I came from...", Marcy sobs.
"Don't worry, I'm here now and we'll find our way back. Together."
Marcy backs off from the hug and looks Anne in the eyes. She is a rather puzzled
"Anne... Your eyes..."
Anne looks away from Marcy, reddened in embarrassment.
"It is possible that my powers helped me find you, because I was equally lost..." she admits.
"You... followed me into the forest...", Marcy wipes a hand over her teary eyes.
"But of course I followed you. I never want to leave you alone again...", Anne says determinedly. Marcy's reaction to this is not what Anne had hoped for but feared.
"Why?"
"... Why?!", Anne asks incredulously. A very simple word as a matter of fact, which right now fills Anne with complete incomprehension. She grabs Marcy's face with both hands and holds it close in front of her own. "Marcy... We have known each other for our entire lives. There were hardly any days when we didn't see each other and not a single one when I didn't want to spend time with you. You are just amazing, Marcy. And I'm ashamed to say that I haven't always been as good a friend as you deserve- Please, hear me out, okay? For far too long I've taken you for granted and neglected your needs and interests. I'd like to slap myself for not realizing sooner how great you are and appreciate you the way you deserve it..."
Marcy tilts her head and smiles slightly. Anne continues.
"And now that I have you back in my life and see how much you've developed and grown here, I'm only more convinced that I never want to lose you again. You are incredibly smart, compassionate, you care so much about the lives of people close to you and want to make their lives better... I truly admire you, Marcy... You deserve all the joy, love and beauty of this world and every other"
Anne had closed her eyes in the meantime while pouring out her heart, but now opens them again and sees a now shyly smiling Marcy kneeling in front of her, her head still being held by Anne.
"I love you too", Marcy whispers softly. Anne's hands snap back in sudden surprise, just before Marcy pulls them back into her own hands.
"But... I didn't even...", Anne stutters sheepishly, blushing beyond measure.
" You didn't need to", Marcy replies to her, still smiling.
"... You knew?"
"No"
"But how-"
"I don't remember when exactly I realized it. Maybe it was back in Newtopia, maybe it was back on Earth that I realized I had deeper feelings for you... I have to admit, the same was true for Sasha for a very short time back on earth, but since I met her here, I don't recognize any of the things I liked in her anymore", Marcy's smile turns to a sad one as she speaks.
"Marcy...", Anne starts sympathetically, but she gets cut off.
"Before Yunan dropped me off at your fwagon, I was with her at Toad Tower, here in the valley. At first, I was pretty optimistic that I could work something out with her and Captain Grime, regarding the rebellion, but he didn't seem interested in that. Sasha joined us later and after the official meetings we had taken the opportunity to talk, just her and me. It got completely out of hand. I was genuinely scared, Anne..."
"What happened?"
"I had just told her that you and I had found each other in Newtopia, and she started yelling at me. She said... I was cutting her out of everything and... I never intended to help her. She said we hated her and that I was stupid when I said I didn't..."
"Oh Marcy...", Anne started with the purpose of saying something encouraging, but Marcy apparently isn't done yet.
"When Yunan dropped me off with you guys later, I was soo overjoyed. I was back with you and I never wanted to leave", Marcy's smile returns and she looks straight into Anne's eyes, whose brain is probably still processing what she just confessed to her, "And... I'm sorry for freaking out like that earlier."
Marcy lowers her head in guilt just before Anne suddenly leans forward and gives Marcy an unexpected kiss on her cheek.
"You don't have to apologize for that. I know you needed and deserved that"
"But I still feel bad for yelling and insulting Yunan like that...", Marcy says under guilt.
"Insulted?"
"I called her a salamander. In Newtopia, that's considered a serious insult", Marcy explains.
"Oh... I think she'll understand too", Anne assures her with confidence in her voice.
"You sure?"
"Marcy, nothing bad will ever happen as long as you and I are together", Anne promises. Marcy blushes.
"To- together? You mean, as... as-"
"Girlfriends? Yes.", Anne confirms excitedly before slowing herself down, "Well, only if you want to-"
"YES!", Marcy flings herself forward onto Anne, throwing her onto her back and completely littering her face with little kisses, causing Anne to giggle.
After a good minute of incessant affection from Marcy, Anne throws a question into the air.
"I guess you've been accumulating those for a while, haven't you?"
"Yeah", Marcy grins sheepishly. After a moment, she looks back up at Anne, who appears to be just as happy right now. Yet she changes the subject.
"You know, as much as I'm enjoying this moment, I think we should make our way back to Wartwood... I'd hate to be sleeping here again already."
"Again?", Marcy tilts her head in confusion. Anne chuckles.
"I told you how I met Sprig..."
"Uh-huh", Marcy nods affirmatively.
"Turn around", Anne teases her, pointing to a section of tree bark. Marcy turns around and recognizes a carving.
"Anne was here...", Marcy's eyes light up and she turns back to Anne. "You slept here?"
"Yeah... For the first month I slept partly here, partly in a small nearby cave. there were so many critters...", Anne shivers at this memory, "But somehow I had to pass the time, so I left some graffiti, like what I carved into the bark."
Marcy gets an idea. She pulls out a bolt that she would normally load her crossbow with if she runs out of arrows. She turns to the carving and covers it just enough with her back so Anne can't see what she's doing.
"Ta da", Marcy proudly says as she finishes after a short time, revealing the view to Anne again.
"Marcy was here too", Anne reads the new carving aloud. Anne's and Marcy's names are framed with a heart. "Aww, MarMar…"
Marcy grins wholeheartedly.
"But yes, we should go back", she says, crawling past Anne, who in turn takes one last look at the cravings before following Marcy. She's already standing outside the fallen trunk, holding out a hand to Anne for support. Anne accepts it, stands up and doesn't let go.
"Sooo... since you said you used to come here, you must know how to get back from here, right?"
"I sure doooo... n't.", Anne looks embarrassed. Marcy is confused.
"What?"
"Nothing. Um... I have no idea", Anne admits. Marcy begins to think about their options, purposefully letting her gaze slide over the canopy of leaves above them, through which sunlight barely peeks through.
"Idea", Marcy suddenly began, "Your powers. Through them you found me, maybe you can lead us out of the forest..."
"Um, I don't know how to trigger them on command. Sorry", Anne confesses.
"Then I'll help you with that later. And who knows, maybe we'll find out about my powers in the process", Marcy says optimistically before gasping, "Maybe we can fly."
Anne giggles and Marcy continues.
"Okay, okay... We don't have any land points to use for orientation and the dense canopy prevents us from locating the sun- Anne, do you have your phone with you?"
Anne checks her pockets and shakes her head.
"I think it's still in the fwagon."
"Dang it... Mine too..."
Marcy's gaze travels toward the canopy again, and her mind suddenly fills with many different very fast pacing thoughts.
'Okay, sun position not discernible, making it impossible to figure out where which cardinal direction is. There are no sun rays piercing the canopy, but the forest is not completely dark. Illuminating mushrooms grow on the ground and on trees. Do they illuminate the forest? ... Irrelevant, has nothing to do with the problem. According to the map I saw a while back, the forest extends from the edge of the valley to the unnamed ocean in the south that surrounds Amphibia. Don't know the scale of the map, so can't say exactly how big the forest is. The north is the valley, the east goes towards Toad Tower, the south and west eventually lead to the ocean. Odds if we just head off somewhere and not arrive at Wartwood are seventy-five percent.
Climbing trees and looking for signs of civilization is not possible. Bark too slippery, branches not available below several meters in height. Arrow as a climbing aid? Too unstable. Emergency bolt? Possible. Chance of breaking off if used is unknown. Further study needed. Searching for own tracks on ground? Promising to start with. Chance of success decreases, as distance increases.'
Marcy suddenly looks at the ground and it seems to her as if she recognizes colored glowing boot tracks in the mud, just before she gradually comes back to reality and notices Anne standing wide-eyed in front of her. Marcy blinks several times and looks around at her surroundings to get her bearings. She hasn't moved.
"Is... everything okay, Anne?"
"Your eyes... they were glowing green when you were in the zone", Anne recounts what she saw. Marcy is surprised.
"Wait, seriously?", Marcy asks, to which Anne nods. "Cooool... Then my powers are probably based on zoning out combined with... improved senses perhaps? I'll definitely have to explore that further later-"
"Well, that's nice MarMar, but it won't help us find our way back...", Anne notes.
"Don't worry, I know where we need to go", Marcy says confidently.
"You do?", Anne asks in surprise.
"There are my boot prints over there. We have to go that way", Marcy explains, pointing to the ground where she just saw her prints, which have now disappeared. She looks there initially before dismissing them, grabbing Anne by the arm and running with her off back into the forest.
Just fifteen minutes and two breaks later, the two girlfriends reach Wartwood once again. Relief spreads across their faces as they leave the last few trees behind them.
"Ugh, finally... I've had enough forests for ages today", Anne bemoans jokingly as she takes a moment to breathe after all the running. Marcy, who is actually a bit less athletic than Anne, doesn't feel any better. While Marcy had been dragging Anne behind her at the beginning, by now it was Anne dragging Marcy behind her. Marcy is completely at the end with her power and heavily panting.
"I... may have... some bad news... when we're going... to the first temple...", Marcy wheezes.
"Marce, are you okay?", Anne asks slightly amused. Marcy, on the other hand, just gives a thumbs up.
"I think... I'm just dying right now... Nothing... to worry about", Marcy chuckles while Anne bursts out laughing. They're both having a short, sweet time right now.
"I completely forgot about the temples...", Anne confesses after a while, "Is that seriously in another forest?"
"Yup. But don't worry, I prepared a map for it", Marcy notes proudly. The two girls gradually approach Wartwood's village center. Again.
"You're the best, Mar-Mar"
"But of course. I'm your girlfriend, after all", Marcy says, whereupon Anne loses herself in thought for a moment.
"Girlfriend...", Anne mumbles to herself thoughtfully, "It still seems so surreal..."
"Maybe it'll seem less surreal if I do this", Marcy takes Anne's hand, "And this."
Marcy gives Anne a little kiss on her cheek, whereupon an embarrassed smile comes out on Anne's face. Marcy loves that view.
"You're right...", Anne admits, but gasps a moment later, "Should we actually tell the others yet?"
"Why? Do you think they wouldn't be okay with it?", Marcy asks.
"Nah. They love me. They love you. And we love each other, it's fine. I actually meant, if we should just go on like this for fun, like we have no idea and are completely oblivious..."
"Uhh, that sounds very tempting... How long should we keep up the illusion though?", Marcy inquires.
"Whew, I don't know. Until someone calls us on it maybe...", Anne suggests.
"That could be fun... Count me in!", Marcy confirms with a smile as the two girls enter the Plantars' property. This time, however, there is no sign of a mob.
"Say Marce, do you have any idea how long we've been in the woods?"
"Well, now that I can see the sun...", Marcy does some calculations in her head, "It's been about nine to eleven hours since we left with Sprig and Maddie to look for Luz."
"Seriously?", Anne asks in surprise, "It feels like we spent more than a month in there..."
Marcy gives Anne a skeptical look.
"Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean".
"Yeah, I know"
Arriving just outside the house, the girls notice that something seems to be missing.
"Anne?"
"Marcy?"
"The fwagon is no longer here"
"I can see that"
Suddenly the front door bursts open and Hop Pop comes out.
"That's because Polly and I have already unloaded everything alone and moved the fwagon into the barn", he explains with a serious pose and arms crossed standing in the doorway. Anne gives him an amused and at the same time questioning look.
'So much for being concerned about the mob', Anne thought to herself.
"Tell me, HP, have you been standing in front of the door all this time?", Anne asks, to which he nervously tugs at his collar.
"Uh n-no, of course not... That would be ridiculous", he stutters sheepishly. At the same time, Sprig comes up behind him to the front door, holding a cricket-and-berries-sandwich he started eating.
"He's been standing outside the locked door for at least two hours waiting for you guys. By the way, glad you're back", he says cheerfully, but with his mouth full.
"I completely agree with that, dude…", Anne exclaims, while Marcy now just seems a little disappointed.
"I was actually thinking I could sleep in the fwagon-"
"Oh nonsense. You're sleeping with me down in the basement", Anne clarifies.
"A good idea", Hop Pop confirms, "and in the wise foresight on my part, we've already brought your stuff downstairs."
Suddenly Sprig clears his throat, and everyone looks at him.
"Ugh, fine... It was Sprig's idea", Hop Pop admits in frustration, "Betrayed by my own grandson..."
As Hop Pop feels sorry for himself, Anne and Marcy walk past him into the house and Marcy is in a state of excitement as she actively notices the interior for the first time.
"Oh my god... This is where you've been living all this time?", Marcy asks in a completely upbeat manner, which Anne mistakenly perceives as something pejorative for some reason. Perhaps because she was a little distracted by a certain someone.
"Yeah... It's nothing-"
"Oh Anne, I'm soo jealous", Marcy exclaims, to which Anne's eyes widen questioningly.
"You what now?"
"This house is soo full of history... I mean, from the outside it already looks like a sawed-off tree stump that's been hollowed out, which must have been a gigantic amount of work..."
Hop Pop suddenly brightens as Marcy rambles on.
"Well Marcy", he begins, "it may interest you to know that this house is one of the oldest in the entire village."
Marcy's eyes begin to sparkle, and she turns to the old frog.
"Tell me more"
These words are like music to his ears. Immediately, Hop Pop offers Marcy a comprehensive tour of the entire house and takes her directly to his study, which, next to the entrance hall, is the most recent room, with an estimated age of a few hundred years.
Before both of them left, Anne had forbidden him to show Marcy the basement, because she would like to prepare the place a bit for Marcy beforehand. No objections come from either of them and Anne quickly disappears into the basement. Sprig, who wasn't really part of the conversation and is still standing at the front door, closes it, takes another bite of his sandwich and walks leisurely back to the living room.
Arriving in her basement, Anne immediately notices the huge chaos that reigns down there. She sighs.
"That's the mess you'll inherit if you don't help clean out the fwagon, Boonchuy..."
She stares discouraged at the tons of clothes on her bed, quite a few crates of stuff, some of which consists of stuff she took from Newtopia, such as at Hop Pop's order some of the towels provided at the hotel and soaps, but also the butterfly, which is meant as a gift for her mom. The other half consists of stuff belonging to Marcy, which she had taken with her when General Yunan dropped her off at the fwagon. Anne takes a look inside the boxes, two of which are completely filled with various books and a third that contains nothing but folded maps.
Anne puts the rather heavy boxes aside for now so that Marcy can deal with them later. Next, she looks at the clothes on her bed. Since Anne has only three outfits in Amphibia, two of which are for special occasions, she used the royal credit card in Newtopia to buy new fashionable outfits. Among them are two pairs of shoes, which are in fact brown Newt boots, a pair of gray leggings that are just slightly too short, a new plain T-shirt that says 'Happy Birthday, King Andrias' in sewn in big letters, which she got for free, and two light gray hoodies. She would have liked to buy more, but not only was Hop Pop against it, the selection for human body shapes was pretty limited for obvious reasons. Everything else in the pile of clothes are custom made clothes for Marcy.
'The palace life does have its advantages', Anne thinks to herself, looking through the clothes one after the other with a bit of jealousy. 'Hmm... I'm sure Marcy wouldn't mind if I tried them on sometime... It's not like we didn't used to borrow each other's clothes all the time...'
Anne rummages through all the clothes on her bed until she suddenly notices that it's quite a bit higher than she remembers. She lovelessly pushes the clothes off her bed and notices that there is a second mattress on top of her previous one.
"That was my idea", Anne suddenly hears Sprig say. She turns around and sees him standing at the open basement hatch, descending the stairs. "I figured you and Marcy would rather not be separated currently, so Hop Pop and I brought a second mattress down to you from the fwagon here."
Many different emotions are moving through Anne's face right now, uncertain exactly how she can express everything at once. She rushes up to him and hugs him warmly.
"Thank you Sprig. You're the best friend I could ask for", Anne's voice is full of gratitude.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do. You know: Spranne against the world", he says smiling as the hug dissolves again.
"Spranne against the world", Anne repeats, just before Sprig sits down on the lowest step.
"Sooo... What else did you and Marcy do after Maddie and I left?", he asks in his innocent voice with a hint of teasing. Anne blushes briefly before she starts stuttering and telling him everything that happened and basicly recaps the whole day for him. Well, almost the whole day, because as agreed with Marcy, she keeps her new relationship a secret for the time being.
While Anne tells Sprig about the day, she is partially disassembling her bed. Well, not so much her whole bed, but more just one side of the frame so she can put the second mattress right next to it. The bed frame, whose corner posts consist only of tree trunks cut into cubes and joined together with much thinner and longer logs, lengthwise, which are now too short on two sides, Anne can simply replace with logs that are stored in the cellar anyway.
A while after Anne has largely cleaned up the basement, the basement hatch opens, and a rather excited Marcy appears
"AHHH, ANNE", she exclaims excitedly, "This is soo cool. The Plantars' family history goes back soo many hundreds of years. This is so exciting..."
Anne can't help but smile at the sight of her happy girlfriend.
"What if I told you there was an equally ancient tunnel system under the house, with even more history to study?", Anne teases her. Marcy eyes begin to sparkle.
From Anne's point of view, the day ends later than she had actually hoped, after she and Marcy, Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop once again enter the hidden basement behind the fireplace in the living room, as three of them have done before. Only with the difference that this time there are no unexpected traps or a slammed front door waiting for them and they can leave the place at any time. Marcy, however, did not want to leave. A hidden basement, filled with scientific experiments, old knowledge and being so rich in history, can't just be left behind by Marcy Wu. Anne had to invest a lot of time in persuading Marcy to return upstairs. One of the promises made was that she would train her superpowers with Marcy tomorrow and at least get informed about the rebellion. In the end, the most crucial argument came from Hop Pop, who offered to heat up some of the leftover travel provisions and serve them as dinner.
The dinner itself was pretty uneventful. Marcy had taken two books from the fireplace basement to read while she ate, and Anne really just wanted to go to sleep. Before getting up from the dinner table with Marcy, she had asked the old frog when his contacts would be back with the music box. After he said it would only be a matter of days, Anne wished everyone a good night and went down into the basement together with Marcy.
Marcy descended the stairs in front of Anne and carefully placed the two books on the bottom step. And that's before she stands in front of the bed, spreads her arms and drops face-first onto it.
"What luck that I gave you the softer mattress", Anne comments after she also descends the steps. Marcy rolls onto her back with some difficulty.
"Muscles... So tired... Head... So full...", Marcy moans, "Me sleepy".
"Naaw...", Anne unintentionally speaks out loud. Marcy looks up at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Sorry", Anne whispers awkwardly.
"Don't be embarrassed. I know I'm cute."
Anne is completely speechless, which in the long run only causes a stronger gleeful grin on Marcy's face.
"Say, where am I supposed to sleep?", Marcy asks to change the subject for Anne.
"Um... In the bed...", Anne replies slightly confused, but even more grateful that Marcy changed the subject.
"But this is your bed"
"MarMar...", Anne starts and lies down on the bed alongside Marcy, "This is your bed, just like it's my bed. What do you think the second mattress is for? Just for me? I don't think so"
"Oh, yeah... Makes sense... I've just never had a girlfriend before and it all feels so new and different, and yet-"
"And yet, nothing has really changed..."
"Exactly."
For a moment, both girls look at each other in silence.
"You know", Anne begins softly, "maybe more has changed than we think. We know how we feel about each other now, and nothing will ever be able to change that. The bond we both share now goes deeper than we ever thought was possible before... I actually don't know what the future holds for us, but as long as we are together, we will get through anything."
"Starting with our super strength training tomorrow", Marcy now interjects excitedly, destroying the romantic atmosphere Anne has been building. Fortunately, she doesn't really hold it against her. Still, she grunts in joking annoyance.
"I have to meet that Ben guy tomorrow too...", Anne reminds herself. Marcy sways closer to Anne and snuggles up to her arm.
"We'll be fine."
Anne gives Marcy a kiss on the forehead. She smiles.
"Sleep sweet Marcy..."
"I love you too"