Work Text:
The sun is shining
and the birds are singing
and because today is the very last day
they will sing forever.
(listen while you can)
----
#33
“What would you do if you were stuck in a time loop?”
“Hah?” Marcy answers eloquently. She’d been regaling Sasha with everything she’d learnt about Amphibia’s constellations while they waited for the sun to rise before Sasha broke in with the question.
“Y’know, like if the same day or week was just repeating.”
“I know what a time loop is, silly. You’re just not normally into this kind of stuff.”
Sasha simply shrugs, “Maybe I’ve spent enough time around you this week to catch some of your nerdy thoughts.”
“Rude. Okay well, where is the loop happening and for how long?”
“Lets say, here. And for a week, starting from when we all came back to Wartwood from the volcano.”
Marcy rubs her chin, mulling over the possibilities.
“Gosh, I guess I could do anything, right? If I remember the loop that is.”
“You remember it.”
“Okay then, if the loop is a week then I could go anywhere, right? Unless a part of the rules is that I have to stay in Wartwood, but if not then I could spend a day travelling to Newtopia and the rest reading everything in the royal library.”
“You’ve spent three months in there already and the first thing you’d do is go back to read some more? Nerd.”
“Hey!” Marcy knocks Sasha’s shoulder with her own, though not too hard as she didn’t want them to lose balance from their current seat on top of the fwagon.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s not a bad idea though, travelling I mean. Amphibia is pretty accessible when you’ve got a giant sparrow mount.”
“Right? And we’ve probably only seen a fraction of what Amphibia has to offer so far. Imagine all the places we could visit if we had more time!”
“Oh totally. I mean there’s Lilly Paddington, Bog Bottom, Swamp Shiro, Bittyburg, Ribbitvale-”
“Woah. You sure know your stuff, Sash.”
She shrugs it off again, “Toads handle tax collection. Saw a lot of maps back at the tower.”
Marcy has seen a lot of maps too, has pinned many of them to the wall of her room back in Newtopia, and she knows some of those places are far from the Southern Toad Tower’s reigning area. Sasha and Grime must have been more well travelled than Marcy had considered.
“What do you do when you’ve seen it all?”
“I guess I’d- look for a way to break the loop, right? I mean, I’d probably do that on the side when I was travelling anyway.”
“And what if you can’t? What if that’s it? You're just- stuck,” her voice takes a solemn tone.
“There’s gotta be a way to break it though, people don’t just get thrown into a loop for no reason. It’s either scientific, like some big experiment that goes wrong, or emotional and mystic, a greater power trying to teach the hero that they can’t change every mistake they’ve made and to appreciate their life.”
“That’s just how it is in stories though.”
“Well duh, it’s not like these things happen for real. At least, no one from earth has recorded anything like that happening that I know of. Though I suppose there could be records of it happening in Amphibia, gosh I wish I was at the library now.”
Sasha gives a non-committal hum. “Would you redo anything this week?”
Marcy put a pin in her research plans and considered the week she’d spent together with her best friends; the first week the three of them had been together since coming to Amphibia. There had been tension, for sure, she wishes maybe she’d spoken up a little sooner at their dinner the first night. During charades, Sprig had mentioned something about Sasha letting go of Anne’s hand and nearly dying at Toad Tower and Marcy still hadn’t worked out how to ask for a follow-up on that. Or at band practice, maybe if she’d mediated Anne and Sasha’s disagreement on the song then Sasha would have stayed with them all day, instead of joining them on stage at the last minute. It had still been a great performance. She just wanted more time together, all three of them. She always wanted it to be the three of them.
“That bad, huh?”
“Oh! No, sorry, I was just thinking about everything we did this week,” she smiled sheepishly. “I guess it doesn’t matter how this week went because we’re together now, y’know? And we’re going to stay together forever.”
“Forever and a day.” Sasha agrees and Marcy's heart swells. “Hey, can I kiss you?”
“Wha- I... Are you messing with me?”
“No, not about this.”
“I…”
“Sorry, this was stupid.” Sasha averts her gaze before squaring her shoulders “It’s fine though, the sun’s nearly up. Today’s almost over.”
“Sasha…” Marcy’s mind, which had until that moment ground to a halt upon Sasha uttering the word ‘kiss’, finally kicks back into gear. She replays their conversation at rapid speed until her mind produces a conclusion that feels equal parts wonderful and terribly cruel.
Sasha Waybright wants to kiss her. The sun is about to rise and Sasha Waybright wants to kiss her but Marcy knows, she just knows she’s not asking out of the bravery, and frankly cockiness, her best friend normally embodies. Because the sun is about to rise, and one day is finally ending as another begins.
She tries to be brave, like she knows Sasha could be, as she rests her hand on Sasha's cheek.
“Tell me sooner next time.”
Their lips brush together as dawn breaks.
----
#17
The night air is still. Sasha lays flat on the cart's bed, hands bound in front of her, a blank expression on her face as her eyes remain trained on the stars above. Anne looks down at her from where she’s perched on a box in one of the cart's corners, ready to give chase if her friend springs up and tries to make a run for it again.
“I only joined the cheerleading squad because you were into tennis.”
Anne is so stunned by the seemingly random admission that she doesn’t know what to say at first, which turns out not to matter because Sasha isn’t done talking.
“I thought I’d be able to cheer at your games but it turned out we only did the football games. I felt so stupid when I worked it out. I mean, you’re only meant to politely clap at a tennis match, of course there isn’t a cheer squad. But I’d already been there for like two months so I just kept at it. And obviously it had other benefits. It's a lot easier to convince the football jocks to leave the head of the chess club alone when you’re doing their half-time shows.”
The head of the chess club is currently steering the snail that’s pulling the cart Anne and Sasha reside in. Anne glances back but Marcy makes no indication she’s heard Sasha’s ramblings, probably still feeling exhausted from the several scuffles they’d had with Sasha that day.
“I never really considered that before. That’s actually sort of sweet, Sash.”
Sasha just hums in acknowledgement.
As the conversation lulls, Anne takes a moment to listen to the surrounding chitter of Amphibia’s nightlife and tries to arrange the words to a question that had been repeating in her mind the past few days.
“Why’d you run from Wartwood?” she finally asks. Why’d you run from us, she thinks.
“I was going stir crazy.”
“You’d hardly even been there a day.”
Sasha lets out a laugh that borders on manic. “Oh trust me, a little town like that can make a day feel like forever.”
Anne frowns at what feels like a slight against the town that she's grown so fond of the past few months.
“When I first landed in Amphibia they locked me up in Toad Tower. Like, ‘threw me in a cell and chained me to the walls’ locked up.”
Anne’s frown only deepens. That was not the version Sasha had told her over hot chocolate when they’d first been reunited. But Anne hadn’t really thought to question the story Sasha had presented to her, that the toads had welcomed her into their ranks after seeing her leadership qualities. She was Sasha Waybright, head cheerleader of Saint James Middle School, of course she landed on top, she always did.
“They interrogated me for weeks. Who sent me? How'd I get here? What did I want? They even had your shoe. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“Grime had my shoe?” Anne asks dumbly, still reeling from each new revelation Sasha keeps dropping.
“Yup. Made him think we were some invading force of Converse wearing creatures. If those herons hadn’t attacked then then I’d probably still be rotting in there.”
The cart jostles them slightly as the road becomes less even.
“I’m starting to think maybe I never left. I’ve just swapped one cage for another.” The laughter that follows this time rings out hollow.
“Sash-”
She finally sits upright as the cart continues to sway before throwing one last curveball Anne’s way.
“I wish I had kissed you after we won. But it’s just never the right time, is it?”
Anne's cheeks suddenly light up but before she can get a word out she tumbles forward as the cart hits a pothole. When she looks up, face still burning, Sasha is leaping over the side of the cart and taking off into the surrounding woods.
“Wait, Sasha! Marcy, stop! She’s-”
But she’s already gone.
---
#9
Everything about this day was off. After Marcy had eaten breakfast with the Plantars she’d agreed to run into town to drop an invitation to dinner that night to Sasha and Grime. Everyone still seems a little on edge with them around now but Marcy didn’t have a problem with it, plus Joe Sparrow made the trip fairly trivial. Or he would have, were he anywhere to be found. After double checking he wasn’t bothering the snails again, Marcy figured he was out stretching his wings nearby and reluctantly started the walk into Wartwood.
Once she arrived and located Grime she found her whole trip had been pointless because he already knew about dinner. Which was weird, right? Marcy didn’t remember any of them talking about it the night before when they’d dropped the duo off at Wartwood’s only inn, but Grime was adamant that Sasha had mentioned it that morning before leaving to “obtain more suitable attire” as he’d put it.
After another wasted hour walking back to the Plantars, Marcy figured she might as well get her own outfit ready and check back in with Anne on the schedule for the evening. She’s helping Frobro straighten the large table he’s carried outside for them when Joe’s telltale squark rings out above them.
“Joe!”
The bird lands on the path beside where the dining area is being set up and before she can begin to question where he’d been she sees him trying to pull something from his saddle.
“Whatcha got there, buddy?”
Sasha’s cloak hits the ground.
“Why does he have that?” Anne asks, having apparently been drawn over by Joe’s call.
“I don’t know. Joe, have you been out pranking Sasha? She’s gonna get mad if you’re out here stealing her stuff.”
Joe hops around agitated and makes gestures to Marcy for her to climb up. Which is sort of worrying because it probably means Sasha had gotten herself into trouble, enough trouble that Joe couldn’t pluck her out of.
“I’m- I’m going to go check out whatever Joe wants to show me, okay? I’m sure we’ll be back before dinner.”
Anne eyes the dark green cloak in Marcy’s hand. “Yeah, no, if she’s gone and done something stupid then I’m not letting you handle that alone.”
They’ve barely climbed into Joe’s seat before he’s taken off with a powerful flap of his wings. Wherever Marcy had been expecting Joe to take them, the third temple they’d just been to the previous day was not high on her list.
The entrance to the temple, which they’d needed Frobro to lift open last time, has been pushed up just enough for another large piece of stone to be wedged between it and the ground. It creates an opening just big enough that they can crawl through it.
The inside is as hot as before though thankfully none of the lava monsters appear as they approach.
“This is weird, right?” Anne asks, wielding her tennis racket like a sword, eyes darting all around them.
“It’s… kind of spooky? It’s like walking through a theme park ride that’s been shut down.”
As they slip through the doors of each trial area Marcy takes in the damage to their handles and hinges, the discarded hammers nearby. She wonders if they no longer open with the same ease they did the day before.
It isn’t much of a surprise when they find Sasha in the middle of the final trial room, hunched over the podium they’d charged the gem from yesterday. What is surprising is the gem in Sasha’s hand, the gem that should be safely in the music box back in Wartwood.
“Sasha, what are you doing here?”
Sasha startles at Anne’s voice and hides the gem within her fist, which is when Marcy notices what a mess her ungloved hand is. It’s covered in scrapes, cuts and what she thinks might be burns. She assumes the left hand that does still have it’s glove on is only doing marginally better.
“No, stay back! Just. Don’t come any closer, okay? It’s not safe.”
Anne and Marcy freeze in place.
“Okay.” Anne says softly. “What’s not safe, Sasha?”
“This thing,” she lifts up her fist, the gem still clenched within it, “it did something to me! I just need to- to put it back and things will go back to normal. I just don’t- I just have to figure out how.”
Marcy looks to Anne, who returns her gaze with worried eyes.
“Sash, what do you mean go back to normal? Anne and I have done two of these temples before we came here and nothing happened to us.” Marcy tried.
“Maybe it’s not here- the others? No it’s this one, it all starts after this one.” Sasha mutters to herself as she places the gem back on the podium.
Marcy takes a few steps towards her but as Sasha catches sight of her she scoops up one of the discarded war hammers and points it at her.
“I’m serious, Marcy, stay back, I’m not letting you get dragged into this with me.”
Anne quickly intervenes, placing herself slightly in front of Marcy, “Okay, Okay. We’re staying right here, aren’t we, Marcy?”
“Right. Whatever it is you’re trying to figure out, we’ll work it out together, okay?” Marcy tries to sound agreeable.
And maybe Anne can't help herself but she pleads with a voice that strains painfully to sound casual, “And maybe don’t swing that around the mystic gem that’s our ticket home.”
Sasha’s eyes flick between the girls, the hammer and the gem.
“Ah.”
She raises the hammer high above her head—
“Sasha don’t!”
—And slams it down with a steely conviction.
---
#32
Olivia makes her way through the castle towards the library. Morning light streams through the windows, hitting the row of armour that lines the walls and illuminating her path further. She’d been greeted with reports that young Marcy’s mount had been spotted descending near the colosseum, before taking off once more. That wasn’t a typical drop off point but Marcy wasn’t known for her orthodox behaviour while she’d been in their care.
Still there’d been no sign of her or her friends with the castle or hotels and thus Olivia made her way into the royal library. It wasn’t uncommon for Marcy to be so excited about something she’d learnt while on a mission, that she would rush to research it before even reporting the success of the mission in question.
There is a human in the library, as it turns out, though not one Olivia has had the pleasure to meet before.
“Miss Waybright, I presume?”
The girl gives her a passing glance before returning to the book in her hand.
“Big presumption. Maybe I’m Anne.”
“While I may have met few of your kind I can say with assurance that you are not Anne Boonchuy.”
“It’s the hair, right? I should have stuck a leaf in it, you’d never be able to tell the difference.” She closes the book she’d been reading, From Above: A Field Guide to the Constellations, and pulls another from the shelf in front of her.
“Miss Waybright, may I ask where Master Marcy is?”
“Still in Wartwood I imagine. Probably wondering where Joe is and going to ask Anne to look around town for him.”
“You mean to say you travelled here alone?”
“I did mean to say that, yes. You catch on fast.”
Olivia didn’t know why she was surprised that of the three humans she’d met, the one who had managed to become a fugitive within such a short time had an attitude problem. She idly wondered what Marcy saw in her, so clear was her adoration for her friends whenever she spoke of them.
“Young lady, might I remind you that while you are a friend of Master Marcy you are also still considered a criminal at large, alongside your Captain. Coming here unannounced without your friend to vouch for you was an incredibly foolish move on your part.”
“Is it hard to run in that dress?” Sasha inquires.
“Excuse me?”
“It just looks pretty fancy. Made for leisurely morning strolls around a castle, important parties and all that. And I’ve heard this rumour, right? That there’s a terrible creature lurking in the castle. Apparently it’s already defeated the city’s best general once. But don’t worry one bit, Lady Olivia.”
She tucks the copy of ‘Mapping Time: A History of Calendars’ under her arm while her hand came to rest on the hilt of her blade. The warmth of the morning sun is lost within the shadows cast down from the rows and rows of bookshelves surrounding them.
“It’s only you and me here.”
The soft scraping of metal armour echoes around them as Sasha passes her by.
---
#13
“I can’t believe we won!”
“C’mon Anne, it was- it was no big deal,” Marcy struggles to get the pun out before breaking into a fit of giggles.
“Boo!” Sasha calls from behind her as they make their way down into Anne’s room.
Anne flops down onto her bed, still wearing her costume and a smile that hadn’t left her face since they’d taken the stage together hours ago.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to see whatever Grime had planned though, we looked pretty grumpy about it,” Marcy pondered.
“Grumpy is just his resting face, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it couldn’t have topped us anyway,” Sasha waved off the girl’s concern.
“Thanks again for letting me do that song, Sash. I know this isn’t your normal style.” Anne popped herself up on her elbows to better see the girl in question.
“We found a good compromise, right?”
“Yeah girl, you look amazing!” Marcy jumped in, “Like a punk rock moth.”
“Heh, I’ll take it. Hey, c’mere, you’ve still got glitter everywhere.”
“Man, I miss proper makeup removers,” Anne sighed, but sat up as Sasha took a cloth and began rubbing her cheek clean.
“This is why I just went with the eyeliner, way less to take off afterwards.”
“I was committed to my vision and my vision called for sparkles,” Anne grinned up at her.
She’d forgotten how much she’d missed this, the physical closeness they all had, the ease in which they came and went into each other's spaces. She might not want everything they’d had before Amphibia, but she was glad they still had this.
“There,” Sasha held her chin lightly, turning her face this way and that, checking for any sight of sparkles on her cheek “all de-glittered.”
Oh, she’d forgotten this too. The part where staring at Sasha, when she was doing their makeup, in the middle of a half time show, over the lunch room table, was sort of like staring at the sun. Warmth bloomed in her cheeks under that sun's glow.
“T-thanks, dude!”
As Sasha’s hand dropped from her face Anne turned to see Marcy sat uncharacteristically still on the floor beside them, watching the scene with owlish eyes.
“You good down there, Mar-Mar?” Sasha questions as she passes the girl by, ruffling her hair as she goes. Marcy smiled at the touch, nodding at Sasha’s question. Seemingly satisfied, Anne watches as Sasha moves to the corner of the room where Anne had set up a small hand mirror and finally starts to remove her eyeliner.
“Hey, you guys had fun this week, right?” Sasha asks, her back turned to them as she sees to her eyeliner.
It’s a strange question given that they’d just came in riding the high of winning the battle of the bands but Sasha seemed to be really trying to work on herself, so Anne figures she’s trying to do another check-in instead of presuming everyone was having the same amount of fun she was.
“Yeah, dude! I mean I was a bit nervous before we all had that dinner together but everything just clicked, y’know? Dinner was amazing, we stopped that mantis from getting at Croaker’s cowapillars, you found Mr. Flour’s lucky rolling pin and got Mayor Toadstool to foot the bill for the after party tonight. I don’t think things could have been better if we tried!”
“For sure! This week has been amazing and I’m so glad we’re finally back together and enjoying it with each other.” Marcy agreed, giving Anne a bright smile.
“How about you, Sash? Good week?”
“Yeah… yeah this was- it was a good one, the best- I wanted it to be the best it could possibly be. Just, a perfect week to see us off before tomorrow.”
“Well, I think we nailed it. Perfect week in Wartwood? Done!”
“I just really hope this works. I’m- I’m ready for tomorrow, y’know?” She still had her back to them but Anne could hear her voice straining to remain even.
“Sasha?”
“Sorry, sorry. Frog, this is so uncool.” She frantically scrubs at her face as Anne and Marcy get up to join her in the corner of the room.
“Hey, hey. Having emotions is actually really cool, right Marcy?” Anne threw her arms around her.
Marcy nods emphatically, flanking the other girl's side to complete the group hug, “Super cool.”
They stayed like that for a while, drawing patterns into the girl’s back as Sasha held onto them with a desperate grip, shoulder shaking, an occasional hiccup filling the air. Anne couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her like this, or if she’d ever seen her like this, in fact.
“Can I stay here till sunrise?” Sasha's voice is muffled between them.
“Of course. You can stay as long as you need.”
“I just need tomorrow.”
---
#14
“Simmer down, everyone. Simmer down. Ahem. Now I know we've all been a little on edge since Sasha and Captain Grime came to Wartwood.”
“Where is Sasha?” Marcy whispered.
Anne took in the crowd, it wasn’t hard to spot a human among them and yet only amphibians met her eyes.
“Weird, I don’t see her. Maybe she’s still not feeling well?”
“I’m kind of worried. I haven’t actually seen her since we came back from the last temple. I hope the trials didn’t, y’know, wear her out too much.” Marcy rang her hands together.
“Boonchuy! Wu! What’d I say about simmering!”
“Sorry!” Ann called back.
“We’ll go check on her after the wheel spin, okay?”
---
#15
“All right, everyone. Get your teams together and start rehearsing. Wartwood is having a Battle of the Bands!”
“Yo Grime, is Sasha still not feeling well?”
“Not feeling well?” he squinted his one good eye at Anne.
“Yeah, I mean, you guys did pass on dinner the other night because she was sick.”
“I don’t follow.”
“How are you not following this?”
“Sasha informed me that you three were doing some important human friendship ritual and you wouldn't return for several days.”
“That’s- That’s not what happened? Wait, when was the last time you saw her?”
“The morning following our arrival in Wartwood.”
“You haven’t seen her in four days?!”
“I thought she was with you!”
---
#25
“Oh! Oh! It’s Toad Tower exploding! When we blew it up! Toppled the toad army. Come on, you guys were there.”
“I’m not sure if that’s-” Anne tries to interject.
“No, I think Polly’s right. That top bit is where Anne chose us, y’know, over her friendship with Sasha,” Hop Pop supplies.
“Oh! And there she is letting go of Anne’s hand and plummeting to her possible death!”
“Guys!” Marcy snaps at the group, finally silencing them. Putting aside the fact that Anne had apparently told her a much more sanitised version of hers and Sasha’s reunion, the girl in front of them had yet to say a word despite the heckling.
“Sash?” she called, rising from her seat.
Sasha’s eyes drift over to the dessert Grime had brought which Marcy now realises has grown to an alarming size.
“I wish you’d never caught me.”
The volcakeno explodes.
---
#26
“You know, I somehow doubt that skulking around the town's graveyard is going to do anything to endear us to your friends, which I am once again finding the need to remind you is currently of the utmost importance.”
Sasha makes no indication that she’d heard Grime as he approaches. She’s knelt down by one of the headstones, brushing aside some of the dirt layered on it, seemingly trying to make the name carved into it more legible.
“All their graves are tiny,” she finally says after a moment.
“I assure you they are of average size. You humans are just excessively tall.”
She ignores his comment but rises to her full height beside him, eyes trained down to meet his own.
“Do toads have graveyards? There weren’t any around the tower.”
“It would be bad for morale to have a graveyard where soldiers are posted,” he sighs. “I’m sure if you look, there are probably a few toads in here but no, traditionally we cremate our own.”
She nods before surveying the graves around them once more.
“There are a lot of Plantars here.”
“You’ve discovered generational farming, wonderful,” Grime doesn’t bother to hide the irritation in his voice now.
“I think those are the kids' parents,” she gestures to his right where two well-kept headstones stand side by side. “The dates are sort of recent.”
“Well, they live with their grandfather, so that is a fair assumption.”
“There’s a lot of them like that. Young, I mean.”
Ah. So this probably wasn’t a ‘moody teenager wanting to hang out in the most moody teenager place a small town had to offer’ type of thing. Grime supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that his lieutenant was questioning the mortality of those around her, especially now that their rebellion was drawing closer. This was turning out to be a trickier conversation that he had first anticipated.
“I’m sure you’re familiar by now with the large range of threats our local wildlife brings. We’ve had a fair share of scrapes with them already.”
“Shouldn’t the toad army be posted out here then? Like, as town guards or something? Just, y’know, protecting little frogs or whatever.”
“The Toad Lords follow the will of the crown and currently that will’s concern is on enforcing tax collection and stamping out any hints of peasant revolt. Which, ironic as that is given our plans, works tremendously in our favour as the crowns eyes are trained elsewhere.”
“I get it, the call is coming from within the house and all that. I’m just saying that there isn’t going to be much left to rule over if all your subjects get eaten by herons.”
“Sasha, once we have the throne I’ll let you send a garrison to every third rate village of your choosing. But before you make it your new life's mission to save each frog in The Valley we need to take that throne first. And to do that, I need my best lieutenant razor sharp and ready to make the best impression at dinner tonight. Now come on.”
He turns and makes his way toward the graveyard's entrance. After a few moments the sound of his lieutenant’s footsteps joined his own.
“When I die, you should drop me into that volcano. That’d be like next level cremation.”
“Lieutenant, I did not catch you from an exploding tower just to drop you into a volcano. You’ll be living a long life, full of many glorious battles, as we reign over this land. We are Barrel’s chosen after all.”
“Didn’t he die protecting some third rate village?”
“That’s why we’re sending the garrisons, lieutenant. It’s called delegation, try to keep up.”
The punch to his arm was strong, but Grime didn't mind as he spotted the first hint of a smile spread across the girl’s face.
--
#42
“Oh, Oh! It’s a tree!”
“Woah, Sash. You’ve gotten crazy good at drawing!”
Sasha shrugs as she takes her place back on the sofa.
---
#20
The night air is still. Sasha lays flat on the cart's bed, hands bound behind her, a blank expression on her face as her eyes remain trained on the stars above. Marcy looks down at her from where she’s perched on a box in one of the cart's corners, ready to give chase if her friend springs up and tries to make a run for it again.
“Do you miss playing the violin?”
The question catches Marcy off guard and she doesn’t know what to say at first, which turns out not to matter because Sasha isn’t done talking.
“That was a pretty lousy thing to do, making you be the drummer. I could only picture violins in big orchestras and I wanted to have a band that was just the three of us. Anne had already started messing around on her mom’s old guitar so I just rushed into forming the Sharps.”
The Sharp’s third band member is currently steering the snail that’s pulling the cart Marcy and Sasha reside in. Marcy glances back but Anne makes no indication she’s heard Sasha’s ramblings, probably still feeling exhausted from the several scuffles they’d had with Sasha that day.
“I should have thought about how to incorporate it instead of forcing you to take up drums. I mean, you won all those contests when we were kids, it was such a waste of talent. Not that you’re bad at drums, you’re amazing at them too. I’m just- I don’t know, sorry I just made you do what I wanted.”
“I don’t miss it. I like the drums. I like playing with you and Anne. And you weren't wrong, violins aren't exactly garage band vibes.”
“Do you still play?”
“Not really. I liked it as a kid but my uh, parents were way more into the recitals and stuff than I was.”
“I remember those. I actually tried begging my dad to take me to one of them but he never had the time.”
“That’s… really sweet, actually.”
The conversation lulls and Marcy takes a moment to listen to the cart's wheels rolling over the dirt path, psyching herself up to ask the question that had been looping in her mind the past few days.
“Why did you leave Wartwood?” she finally asks. Why did you leave us, she thinks.
“I’d been there forever and a day.”
“Sasha, you’d literally only been there less than a day.”
“Was it? Gosh, time really loses all meaning in small towns, huh?” Sasha’s chuckle builds into a laugh that borders on manic.
It’s unsettling to see her like this. She’d been so cool and collected at the temple, swatting away lava snakes with a war hammer without breaking a sweat, an impressive feat to pull off from within a volcano to be sure. Yet a few days on the run from Wartwood seem to have completely undone her. They should have all thrived from the adventure Amphibia was giving them, Marcy knew she had and she was positive Anne had too, so it didn’t make sense that Sasha seemed to have spirals in the total other direction. Sasha was always in control, no matter what world she was in, so Marcy just couldn’t imagine what could have happened between the temple and Wartwood that could have stripped that away.
“Y’know when I heard you and Anne had been hanging out, going on adventures for the crown I went a little nuts. Beat up some toad guards, went on a quest to find a legendary war hammer, found the hammer, lost some friends.”
Marcy’s a little afraid to ask what Sasha means by losing friends. Amphibia is a dangerous place if your party goes into battle unprepared. Marcy’s stomach turns while the cart jostles them slightly as the road becomes less even.
“I thought I was good at keeping things together but I’m not so sure any more.”
She finally sits upright as the cart continues to sway before throwing one last curveball Marcy’s way.
“I’d probably lose you too if I tried to kiss you, right?”
Marcy’s cheeks suddenly light up but before she can get a word out she tumbles forward as the cart hits a pothole. When she looks up, face still burning, Sasha is leaping over the side of the cart and taking off into the surrounding woods.
“Wait, Sasha! Anne, stop! She’s-”
But she’s already gone.
----
𝄆
“Which do you prefer, sunset or sunrise?”
“Aren’t those basically the same thing?”
“One is rising and one is setting, they're totally different!”
“I’m going with sunrise, Mar-Mar.”
“Since when is Miss Five-More-Minutes a morning person?”
“Since she lived with farmers for five months, though that’s not to say I don’t still appreciate a few extra minutes in bed.”
“Oh interesting, you’ve levelled up your morning resistance!”
“Alright nerd, how about you? Answer your own question.”
“No fair, you still haven’t answered either, Sash! Well whatever, sorry Anne but I’m taking the sunset. I’ve always been a night owl and sometimes it feels like the day is only just starting when the sun starts to go down!”
“Looks like you’re the tie breaker then Sasha.”
“Yeah no pressure, but the sun is listening and will be judging your answer here after.”
“No preference.”
“Boo, cop out!”
“Yeah come on, dude, there’s gotta be one you like over there other.”
“Alright, fine, then I like them both. They’re both pretty and you can’t see one without the other anyway, you need them both otherwise you’d just be like, stuck in an unending day or night.”
“Aw, I like you too, Sasha.”
“Wha-”
“Yeah! We love you, dude.”
“I’m leaving.”
“No, no, come on, stay and watch the sunset with us.”
“Yeah, stay and we’ll get up early to watch the sunrise since you like them both so much.”
“I can’t believe we’re friends.”
“We’re best friends!”
“Best friends forever, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, forever and a day.”
𝄇