The Isles of Amphibia

A Helping Hand

"Really?" Sprig asked.

"Sure thing, buddy," Anne assured. "What's the problem again? You didn't give me enough time to process it last time."

"Okay," The pink frog began, sniffling. "So, this one girl is like really good at bard magic, right? We have the same class together, and we're both really good at playing our instruments. I can't perform magic with it like she can, so she is always bugging me about it. She's gonna target Polly if I keep trying to ignore her, and I don't know how to get her to go away for good without being mean to my sister afterwards."

Anne tapped her finger on her chin. "You said something about potions. What kind of potions can you make?"

"There's healing potions, regeneration potions, explosives, potions you can use to spy on people, potions that can hold back curses, enhance magic-"

"Hold on, you can enhance magic?"

"I think I said that, yeah."

"With this," Anne had stars in her eyes. "You can probably create a potion that lets you do bard magic!! That girl will get off your back in no time once she sees how powerful you are." She spoke as if she had any idea what either of them were talking about.

Sprig gasped. He had stars in his eyes as well. "Oh my frog, that is so smart!!! How come I never thought of that? But she's gonna get mad at me if I use potions to.. yeah."

"She won't know."

"And how can we make sure of that?"

"Simple. Don't tell her."

He gasped again. "Ooooohhhhhhh!! That makes sense."

"Problem solved," Anne gave him a thumbs up.

"I'm Sprig Plantar," Sprig introduced himself. "What's your name?"

"Anne Boonchuy," Anne said. "Glad I can help."

They stood there.

"Umm," Anne mumbled, breaking the silence. "Do we need to, like, get the ingredients?"

__________

Sasha looked at her nails as she sat next to a tree. She always did that. She thought it looked badass (it really didn't she looked goofy af but she's popular so).

__________

Sprig and Anne were at Sprig's house.

"HOP POP! WE NEED YOUR BOOK OF POTIONS!"

An orange frog walked into the kitchen. He had grey hair, a moldy green overcoat, and yellow shirt. His pants were brown.

"Sprig, what is it this time? You know that using potions to boost your magic is cheating."

"Don't worry, we're not doing that!" Sprig started sweating as he lied. Hop Pop glared at him.

"You better not," He grumbled. He went to his room to retrieve the book.

"Ehh? Ehh?" Sprig held up one hand, and then the other. Anne smirked.

"Here you go-" Hop Pop jumped. "HOLY MOLY WHAT IS THAT?!" He pointed to Anne.

"Hi I'm Anne"

"Yeah, what she said," Sprig added. "She is my friend, and she's gonna help me with something."

"Fair enough," the old amphibian shrugged. He passed the book to Sprig. "Don't get hurt, and don't cheat."

"Will do!"

They skimmed through the pages until they saw a page that said Magic Enhancement at the top, in fancy, dark blue letters. Sprig grinned widely, and sprinted out the door. Anne followed behind him.

"Wait, Sprig, what are the ingredients!?!?"

__________

Sasha was still sitting at the tree. She thought about her flawless victories over Sprig, and smiled maliciously. She had her hopes up as high as her ego; there is no way Sprig would be a coward any longer. It's a win-win situation. Sprig would probably be a little tougher, and Sasha will get what she wants: a defeated pink weakling.

While she had her fun daydreaming another day where she could make his life hell, she ended up thinking of something else. This sort of feeling she had- this sense of power. The euphoria of such power over somebody else. It reminded her of someone. Someone who didn't give her that serotonin one day.

Someone who cared about her. Someone who sat with her on the swing set.

She hadn't thought about a swing set in a hot minute. She didn't even know she still knew what that was until now. It made Sasha feel.. strange. It was a wistful feeling. She felt nostaglic, but regretted something. Something she couldn't point her finger at. There was a feeling of emptiness. She felt all of it at once, and she didn't know how to describe any of it.

She tried not to dwell upon it too much, but she couldn't help it. She tried to remember the face of the girl on the swings, but it was a blur. The sounds of a broken tree branch interrupted her deep thinking. It was probably best not to think too hard on something that happened so long ago, anyway.

Sasha stood up and brushed herself off. She turned around and saw two individuals by the trees ahead of her. One of them looked like that frog who was so easy to piss off. The other looked human.

Why does that frog look human?  Her eyebrow arched.

She started to walk towards them. With every step, it looked more and more like a familiar wimp and some human. She growled and walked faster, almost stomping.

"HEY!" She yelled.

The mysterious peeps looked back fast, and exchanged a few words with each other. One of them hopped out of there, the other one frantically started grabbing stuff. The brat ran towards them, and they left, much to the annoyance of Sasha.

"You know what? Fine," She hissed. "Have it your way. We'll know who you are sooner or later." She grumbled as she stomped back to her thinking tree. "Such a stupid waste of my time."