[ honestly I think the funniest idea is that he's just hanging out in the coffee shop, browsing, but when kyoko shows he just gets frozen in terror. what concoction will she create next ... ]
Ah. Hello? Enjoying the new sights? I know they aren't Australia or anything.
Ah, it's a Kingdom of the Neverafter. We border Jubilee and Reverie, though ... Greenleigh, and Jubilee, and Reverie too I suppose are all no longer standing. So I guess in that case it was in the Neverafter.
There was a long time before Elody found you. You got turned into a frog when you were a little boy. A regular night in a cold pond, not knowing how to get back to your family, not knowing if you'd ever get home, living amongst the lily pads out here in the woods at night.
A frog leaps onto a lily pad next to you.
“Hey. Do you… Are you a-Yeah, yeah. You know, you'd think that with a fairy godmother running around turning kids into frogs, that there'd be more kids who were turned into frogs, you know?”
Croak.
“Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Well, I'm going to call you Fred.”
A beautiful figure emerges from the wood line, and you see with beautiful white feathers and a long beak a heron emerges from the wood line and takes a stately couple of steps, a tall, long-legged, very stork-like bird, and walks into the shallows of the water's edge.
Croak.
“ ... Hello?”
You say hello. It sort of comes in this small, little froggy voice. Like the other frogs around. The heron doesn't seem to respond to spoken words.
The heron steps over, and you see that Fred hasn't really made eye contact with you because Fred can't make eye contact, because he is a frog. Croak. The heron goes down and kills Fred.
It grabs the frog and it crushes his spine. It breaks, and it swallows him and eats him, and Fred dies with only you knowing that his name was ever Fred, and the heron eats him, and neither of them experience any emotion or sense of self as that happens.
You panic.
The heron steps over in your direction, looks around regarding everything, and you suddenly hear… an whoosh. And an arrow pierces the thing's side, and one of the royal hunters comes out and just grabs it and snaps its neck. Ah. Got it. There’s supper. And starts to walks away from the lake.
“Wait! Hold! There's been a terrible misunderstanding. I'm actually a prince, and I would like to go back to-“
The hunter barely pauses - he lifts up his boot and is going to try to squish you. All you see is the bottom of shoe as you dart off back into the safety of the darkness. But you’re running - hopping, really - going to run in the direction that he was coming from.
“You have more… I'm going to be… You're going to be in trouble, because I'm a prince, and once I start being a prince again, you're fired!”
But as you’re yelling, a dog - one of the castle hunting hounds hears the sound and runs up and grabs you in its jaws - teeth immediately sinking into your flesh (you are so, so small) in a blinding shock of pain and blood.
You wiggle helplessly in its mouth. You're a frog. This is how you’re going to die— But then you hear a whistle in the distance and the dog drops you out of its mouth as it's called back.
When you come to, you're covered in blood. There are huge punctures in your frog body from a dog biting you.
Do you go back towards the castle where the dogs are, or do you go back to your frog pond?
It’s a pretty loaded question. There’s not really a decision to make.
You go back to the pond.
It’s years of this.
Years of that go on before a young Princess Elody first comes by. Much younger, in this memory - the same age you were at the time. Around 14, maybe 15. But the young maiden who will one day fall in love with Prince Gerard. This is the first thing that's not one of the royal hunters or their dogs or a heron. You see she's out playing, and this wonderful golden ball rolls away. You know, after years of that you still have a human intellect.
The golden ball rolls into the pool, and the maiden gasps - on the edge of tears.
”That's very important. That's an expensive toy.”
You’re little afraid of humans, now. You don’t say anything.
It's sunken into the water, so you'll have to swim down to go get it. Swimming down. Eating is hard. It's hard to get enough food to not be hungry. It's hard to keep yourself safe in this place. Do you want to really burn the energy it's going to take to shove this incredibly heavy golden ball up out of the muck and the weeds at the bottom of the pond?
You swim back up, and as you do, you look up and see this young woman who appears really forlorn. She sort of reaches in to see if it's closer to the shore, looks. You see that she's clearly maybe not supposed to have been playing this recklessly or this far out in the grounds away from the castle with this.
“Okay, please don't, like—“
She shrieks.
“I’m sorry! I thought it was-“
“Ah! Who is that? Is it a ghost?!”
“I’m a frog! I'm a frog, I'm a frog.”
“Who's a frog? … You can talk!”
“Yes, listen, you probably shouldn't be out here. There's, fairies and stuff who turn people into frogs, and whenever I ask for help, people just think that a talking frog is kind of weird, and then they try to step on me, and then they sic their-“
“That's awful! … I don't want to step on you.”
“Really?”
“No. I don't, frankly, I hope it's not weird to say, I don't really want to touch you either.”
“No, that's fine. No, I'm a fucking frog.”
She gasps. But also seems sort of impressed. “You said a full curse word.”
“I mean, I'm a frog. I can say whatever the fuck I want.”
“Wow, cool.”
“So you're, okay. So you're cool to talk to me? Because I've been talking to other frogs for a really long time.”
“What do the other frogs say?”
“They just croak. It's insane, it's maddening. I'm going crazy here. Why are you cool with this?”
“I don't know, it wouldn't occur… I don't even know what would make me not cool with it, so I can't really answer the question. Why did the… You said a fairy or someone?”
“Yes, yes. I was admittedly… I was admittedly a little bit of a prick when I was younger.”
“How old were you?”
“ … like 10?”
“I don't think you can be that- I don't think you can be a prick when you're 10. I think you're just 10. I mean, you can be bad when you're 10, but that's not- … What'd you do?”
“I was just kind of being a jerk. Just kind of, I don't know. I would just, like, run around, and honestly, I would … I was just, like, yelling a lot and stuff. I'd be like, look at me, Mom and Dad! Mom and Dad, look at me! Running around.”
“Sounds like you were starved for attention from your parents.”
“Yeah, no, and they haven't looked for me that hard. They really haven't, because I've been missing.”
“I’m so sorry. What's your name? I'm Elody.”
“It's been so long since anyone's asked me that. My name is Gerard. I'm from Greenleigh. Im the prince, the prince of Greenleigh. I don't know if there's been missing posters or anything like that?”
She doesn’t seem like she believes you at all. She gets up, starting to dust off the dirt on her dress. “Okay. Nice talking with you, Gerard. That's very nice.”
“Okay, see, this is what I was afraid of. Okay, I'll prove to you that I'm a prince by showing some royal chivalry. I will fetch your ball for you and prove to you that I am indeed a royal prince. I saw it. I think I could get down there. What is it?”
She stops. “Would you fetch it? Do you know where it is? … It's an heirloom. It's not really a toy, but I just love the feel of it and I like to play with it. It belonged to my mother.”
“You said that in the past tense. Is your mother no longer with us?”
“Neither my mother nor my father. I'm steward of this place, and when I'm old enough, will be tasked with ruling. But it would be nice to have some company, I suppose. Would you fetch it? It would mean a lot to me.”
You dive down. You roll the ball back up, and she admires it and looks and says,
“That's a very noble thing. Even if you are just a frog that learned to talk, it is very princely of you to do something that noble. Do you like living in the pond?”
“No, I hate it.”
And you see she takes a handkerchief and puts it on the ground and says, “Do you want to hop in that and I'll take you to the castle?”
As you’re walking back, she asks: “What ends your curse? Do you know?”
[It's been a deeply strange day, and it's only Monday so far. These memories on memories... they're interesting but they also feel personal. She can't imagine people would want to share these things if it wasn't for the effect.
But she's always liked learning.
This memory feels like the frog prince, from what she knows about it.]
I'm glad you were able to get out of the pond.
[It did seem terrifying for a child to be cursed as a frog. Nobody to speak to. She finds she agrees with Elody's view point. You can't be a prick if you're only ten. That's just what ten year olds are like.]
[ he's sort of gone into nostalgia mode seeing this again, and when she speaks he doesn't quite hear it at first - before he realizes that he's being spoken too and sort of nods numbly. ]
[ yo, he will come find her a bit later after everything has settled down (do things every settle down in shibuya? not really) but least after she's gotten sorted and a few other people have probably spoken to her. ]
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Weekened 0: Sunday
What did you think of our Reapers?
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[ he means this literally. they are actual children. ]
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Would you like a coffee?
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[ oh. huh. ]
Coffee ... ? Alright. Okay. It isn't made of something weird, is it?
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[She hands him one of the coffee cups.]
Hm? I don't think so.
[She has fully put salt and lingon berry sauce into this.]
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[ he takes a sippy sip
and then spits it out ]
Is it-- Supposed to be salty? What is that? Oh my. Extremely bad. Not good at all. No thank you! No thank you.
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[She offers a hand to get the coffee back, please. She will drink her horrible concoction.]
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[ he takes another sip.
and makes another terrible face. ]
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[But since he is drinking it, she looks pleased.]
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[ he does hate it. he does. ]
This is something ... you enjoy making?
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Yes. I enjoy special coffee blends. Mayonnaise and coffee pair well.
[She's the only person who thinks this.]
W0 - SATURDAY
Even though it was very odd and massively terrifying.
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I'm afraid I don't have control of how it manifests.
W1: Monday
It's nice to see some greenery. I was afraid all we were going to see was concrete.
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[ he kind of looks up like he hasn't actually ... seen the scenery until just now. it is nice, isn't it? ]
It's been a while since I've seen something so ... peaceful. It is nice.
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Haven't gotten a chance to relax in a while?
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[ woof ]
So, I suppose death is not so bad. At least there are parks.
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[She gives a nod.]
There are nice parks. It's an improvement after the last.
W1: Sunday
Gerard. How are you feeling?
[Their team had a difficult weekend, and that's putting it lightly.]
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[ it's. been so much. week 1000. ]
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How many people have asked? All of us?
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[ but ]
How about you instead?
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[ Thinking about it. ]
I dealt with it like a case. [ Go through it like work mode. Less attachment, more thinking. ]
I'm upset at how it went, and that Count D went after Rin at all.
W2 - MONDAY
gerard is at the sears, sort of going idly through the clothes. he doesn't seem all that impressed. ]
I don't know, I don't know ... doesn't seem quality at all.
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No? Were you looking for something specific?
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[ he looks down at his feet. ]
I once split through my boots entirely.
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Do you think wide shoes would fit you better now?
W3 - MONDAY
Ah. Hello? Enjoying the new sights? I know they aren't Australia or anything.
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Heehee. Yes.
[She's about to make the worst coffee anybody has ever seen for no reason at all.]
I'm not so sure why Haru is so insistent about Australia.
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And what is ... Earth. Like, the ground? We all live on the ground. Except for birds.
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I live in Japan, which is a country on Earth.
Where is Greenleigh?
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W4 - MONDAY
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But she's always liked learning.
This memory feels like the frog prince, from what she knows about it.]
I'm glad you were able to get out of the pond.
[It did seem terrifying for a child to be cursed as a frog. Nobody to speak to. She finds she agrees with Elody's view point. You can't be a prick if you're only ten. That's just what ten year olds are like.]
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Me too ... ?
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It's cruel to curse a child.
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I don't know. [ ... ] I did kill that fairy. Eventually. Doesn't seem like that's the trick to curse solving though.
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[There's a little pause.]
It's true love's kiss, isn't it?
W6 - SUNDAY
... At least your team is all together?
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It's been nice to see everybody again.
[Do you miss yours?]
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[ he'll just come sit on a swing too. ]
Hopefully it won't be long now.
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Our last week here, if everything goes as planned.
[Out of one mess, into another.]