the_seafarer | The Frog Prince, or: Kate Was Right All Along

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The Frog Prince, or: Kate Was Right All Along

The world is larger now.

Not just larger; taller, stranger. Everything caught in odd angles, flat and imposing. Blades of grass tower over him, ants the size of small dogs bump into his feet, and he startles --

Sending the world into a spinning, alarmed leap. A blink, and everything has shifted; he might be miles from the door, for all he can tell the difference.

The tea. It could only have been the tea. There was a splash of warmth, and his shirt soaked in a crooked strip, and deep violet plumes of choking smoke, and then everything grew horribly large and strange. Could it? Truly, there have been times when he'd been warned off food or drink in this place in the past, but he'd always felt tea would never betray him in such a fashion.

It appears Milliways is not yet through with surprising him.

Be that as it may, he cannot continue in this fashion. Large eyes blink, bewildered, at the green, long-fingered hand replacing his own; he attempts to edge towards his right and finds himself catapulted into the rough wood of the back step. A twitch forward sends him sailing in an arc that turns steadily less graceful as he tumbles back into the ground, heart thrumming a panicked pace somewhere nowhere near his usual steady beat.

There must be a way to reverse this spell, whatever it is. A wizard, perchance, or sorcerer, if he can find one -- but any attempt to move back into the bar proper would result in a scramble to keep from being trod upon, and in his present state, he can hardly call for help, or draw attention to himself.

He sits, for a moment, shivering in a clump of tall grass, flips into a bewildered cut of a half-leap at a bugling call sounding nearby, a sharp whinny that freezes him into a shell he cannot seem to break from for a lifetime's worth of worried breaths and buzzing pulse.

The horses. The stables. Possibly, there, he might find aid -- there are fewer feet to trample him, when the horses are in the stalls, and the place is peaceful enough he might find a moment to think, or plan.

It has simply never seemed such a very insurmountable distance, before.

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"At least simpler, and more direct," Marian supposed, looking from Kate back to Caspian in her hands. "Knowing who to look for."

Marian isn't really one to argue. Well, she is. With Robin. With every momentary level of eyes, and hold of tongue, or slip and snap of it, in the presence of the Sheriff. But not with her friends, and not over things they understand that she doesn't. Magic, especially of another world, Milliways and Arch has trained both trust of friends and patient reticence toward strangers deeply into her.

Kate, being of the first caliber, and category, of course. A dear friend, and one who would not lie to her or lead her in the wrong direction. Especially in dire circumstances. If she says that this is Caspian and that somehow being his friend will help this, then Marian will believe her. Even if she does hesitate with something incredibly fleetingly like a small grimace when she studying the small green, very much so still a frog in her hands. With a sad, bright little crown.

"Only one way to find out, then," Marian said, straightening her shoulders and spine. To herself. To the-frog-that-was-supposedly-Caspian. To Kate, perhaps, even. Before she takes a breath and gives up whatever hesitation she has. Lifting the frog a small way, but more so bowing her own head, down toward the frog and her piles of skirts billowing beneath him and her hands. A curtain of curls drifting against the back of her cheeks.

Closing her eyes, and pressing her lips to the bumpy green skin in front of the small, pointed golden crown.

Marian's lips touch his forehead, and the world pauses.

Ceases previously ceaseless spinning, sends the universe whirling around it, instead, in a backwards spiral that pulls at the center of him like the moon tugging the tide.

A breath is held, and released with a low, dull break of sound that hits the air around them like dragonfire, bursting into a blossom of rainbow light, rapidly expanding and shining brilliant and clear, racing ahead of a strong, sudden wind.

Clearing the air into the scent of seawater, and deep woods. Of lilies, and clean grass.

And leaving Caspian, dazed, kneeling in a patch of grass with the sun warm on his bare back, Marian's lips warm on his forehead, and a headache threatening to shatter his skull from the inside out, starting with these blasted hammers thumping at his temples.

Edited 2013-02-24 07:40 (UTC)

Kate sways in the sudden blast, taken aback by the startling clarity of it all. Hair moving in the wind, eyelashes fluttering, breathing deep the sweet scents.

The surprise clears, and the realization that something worked strikes like a hammer on hot steel before

well.

Before.

"Good heavens."

That is one very naked man.

Her hat is the first to be shoved at him, her eyes toward heaven. Her duster is quick to follow, dumb limbs frantically shrugging it off.

There's a crazy sudden, very strong, blast of wind. At least she thinks it's wind, even as she's sure somehow, that it doesn't just blow past and around her, but slams straight through her. Warm, and wide. The way sunshine in the full of summer falls through the thickest of bright emerald leaves on Sherwood trees older than the oldest people and stories she's ever heard. Alive and more beautiful than words can contain.

A startling, confusing thing all in itself. Causing her to breathe in and blink. Right before there are hands being thrust between them, startling her and seizing her shoulders. Before the gold of Caspian's hair is cut with the off-white of a well-timed cowboy hat suddenly blocking a good chunk of the alarming view that widens her blue-grey on the first flush of recognition. With the fact it is Caspian.

Caspian. And Caspian's sun-bright hair. That had been tickling against the skin of her mouth and chin, making her pull back. And see. Caspian's skin. A lot of Caspian's skin. All of Caspian's skin. And no clothing. When she can't even decide if the bigger problem is that she can't remember to breathe, while blinking at him, unable to shift yet, like those horrible moments at home, in court, when she's frozen display, except with, here, with, at Caspian, Caspian, Caspian no longer a frog and incredibly -- and Kate's hands and hat.

Or if she did and it turned out it couldn't be air, it turned into that confused tiny gasp of suddenly all too aware alarm that is rushing warmth to her cheeks like she's suddenly in the middle of a fever, startling her gaze anywhere else but at his hair, hair face, the rise of collar bones and span of a leg right below the hat, and knees. Pulling back startled, even in the swamp of skirts that don't help. But at least aren't. Aren't. Everything they aren't, when they fill up her vision, but can't blot out the race of shock.

She's almost too frantically glad when there's a coat being shoved between them only a second after that. But breathing might take a moment.

Edited 2013-02-24 08:15 (UTC)

He feels suddenly washed overboard, into a cool fresh sea, sunlit and sweet, buoying him back to the surface in a rush and the feeling of being smashed through a pane of glass that turns out to be water, shattering in a brilliant burst and a rising wind.

And Marian, kneeling in front of him, now eye to eye, blinking wide, startled eyes, face pale aside from the pink starting to fill in her cheeks. Shocked, rather than triumphant. As if his disenchantment had opened up the ground beneath her, or --

A sudden flurry of cloth pushes between them; ivory hat and tan duster that fills his hands and is shoved past them, covering skin laid bare and -- and --

He isn't wholly certain it mightn't be preferable if the blasted theory hadn't worked and he'd remained the frog.

Marian is looking away, long past startled, well into the utter loss of lacking words or action, but Kate has, thankfully, gained her sense back well enough to help him cover himself, a deep blush heating his face and the frog, now released, taking up residence in his throat, forcing him to clear it three full times before trusting any words to his voice.

"Thank you," he says, with as much grace as he can muster, despite the sun on his naked shoulders and the duster clenched firmly in front of him. "Your -- aid is much appreciated, Marian." His voice does something odd on her name, and he has to look away from her, a little desperately, searching out Kate, who at least is doing more than staring at him.

"Kate. That was..." A slight pause, tone as even and calm as he can make it . "Quick thinking."

It really is a lovely day, isn't it? The sky is such a perfect, deep shade of blue, Kate can't stop staring at it.

She politely refrains from remarking on the hitch in Caspian's voice as he utter's Marian's name, smirk already threatening at the corners of her mouth but resolutely being penned in. She catches his eyes quickly, running her hand through her hair.

"There are suitable clean clothes in the tack room. Might be a size or two big."

Best not to bandy words and get straight to the meat and potatoes. Er, so to speak.

Her eyes stray skyward again.

"No." It struggles out of her throat. Faltered, into firm. Marian is very uncertain what is lodged in her throat, but action.

Action is so much easier to move toward. Action. Reaction. She's moving, very suddenly but not very quickly. There is surprise, but nothing like panic allows itself to exist in her face any longer. It's the kind of trained grace, in the worst of easily turned to deadly, and possibly even more deadlier, situations, that has only deserted her in the few times she could barely stand under her own volition.

"I'll get something that fits from the Bar." Her fingers are in her skirts, spreading them back out, and her eyes forcing themselves to meet across Kate and the only partially duster laden Caspian. If her gaze flickers, features flicker, on the second, the set of her shoulders and the hold of her chin never does. Milliways. Milliways always excelled at finding way to make one unfoot themselves from everything.

If it takes the effort of the second, to settle on Caspian's face, and nothing lower than gold hair and such reddened cheeks, it's with the knowledge that she'd want no less than to crawl under the grass if it were her, feeling half undone. Fingers too comforted by heavy cloth under them, which annoys her at herself. Knowing that he'd probably do no less if she needed his help. Like anytime she ever had.

Her mouth pressed, trying to curve toward something like a firm reassurance, aiming to catch his grey eyes. "I'll be right back."

And she will. At least it did not do her any disservice in getting to move quickly back toward the bar.

He nods, glancing up to meet her eyes, seeking self-containment enough to school his features, still the muscles that want to send him either burying into the ground or fleeing for the cooling, covering safety of the water. "Thank you."

This can be relied upon, at least. The measured words, calm voice. Lessons wrought into him, woven over each other, year by year, in the castle rooms long ago. Necessary for interactions with Aunt Prunaprismia, and, to a lesser extent, the dignitaries of his later years. Perfect control of tone, timbre, word choice; the mantle of manners that has served him so well.

That is so less than the most helpful sort of mantle he might have at this exact moment, but threadbare though it is, he clings to it like he clings to Kate's duster, doing his best to cover -- well, whatever he can with the worn brown cloth.

None of it can keep relief at Marian's disappearance from appearing on his face, and he chances a look at Kate, staring so determinedly up at the blue sky above.

How long, he wonders, will it be before he can clear his throat without expecting it to come out as another pathetic ribbit?

This one works, at least. "I'm grateful, Kate. And I -- apologize for the disturbance."

"Oh, no. No, no bother at all."

Nope. No bother, no fuss; this is a perfectly normal conversation shared between two perfectly respectable friends in a perfectly ordinary setting. Certainly neither of them are as naked as a jaybird, or trying desperately to rein in laughter.

"Things here have a way of takin' you by surprise. I'm only glad it ain't permanent, an' that we don't hafta go huntin' for some villain through the bar proper."

She absently points to the horizon.

There's a bird.

Birds are a safe focal point.

"Y'might want t'shift things an inch t'the left, however."

Ahem.

He hazards a glance, colors brightly, and adjusts the borrowed duster.

Caspian has been raised to move with grace since birth. He is not prone to nervous tics, or allowing surprise or shock to get the better of him.

But Kate will perhaps understand why, once he has made certain that the duster has made him as decent as might be expected, one hand lifts to scrub through his hair, rub over his jaw. Or why he coughs, uncomfortable.

"Surprise, aye.

"I must say, this was somewhat unexpected."

To say the least.

Edited 2013-02-24 18:14 (UTC)

"Could y'fill me in on more'a what happened now?"

Now that he can speak.

Now that he is — at least somewhat decent.

He shakes his head as his hand lifts away from it, and his eyes, when they find Kate again, are clear but bewildered.

"I wish that I could. One moment I was introducing a newcomer to the Bar, and the next --"

The hand lifts, palm up, then falls back to the duster. "I remember there being a bump. Someone accidentally nudging into me. There was spilled tea, and a purple cloud, and then, well..."

That hand makes an aborted attempt to return to his hair or the back of his neck, but he manages to keep it still, with an effort. "The rest, you know."

Kate frowns.

"It's lucky Marian was about."

Sounds very much like one of her world's stories. Vaguely, she's impressed they were able to communicate as well as they did without words or significant looks or ... opposable thumbs. More than that, she's pondering the implications of why and how this worked. Not that she had any doubt that it would, but it says something about Marian and Caspian's relationship that neither of them are prepared to voice for themselves.

Her lips twitch.

"That is t'say, with her status as a law enforcer here, and her — privileged relationship with you. King Caspian."

If she were looking right at him, you might call her look Pointed.

That word, and the pause before it -- privileged -- might make more of an impact, were he not nearly pained at the next.

"Kate, that isn't necessary."

It isn't a part of his life here, and his life here is all that is left, now.

(King of a lost land, Prince of an abandoned country)

Still, the grey eyes are level, and apologetic. "I have no title here."

She shakes her head softly, dismissing the apology with one of her own. Blue eyes the color of the sea during a storm, lightning splitting her brow.

"I'm sure there's a whole big story behind that one, but now ain't the time for it."

A smile, scant and encouraging.

"I'm jus' glad you're all right. Hopefully no worse for the wear. This'll jus' be our secret, all right?"

To that she adds a wink.

The wink won't do much to smooth his mood today, Kate, but he might appreciate it, under better circumstances.

As it is, he meets her gaze with lips pressing slightly, aware that the time spoken of is likely to come sooner than he might otherwise enjoy.

But, "Thank you," is all he says, simple. He owes Kate, if not his life, certainly his humanity, for her quick thinking and action, but his gratitude, while entire, can't quite keep him from wondering about the form those actions took.

"I only wish aid had not been required. I owe you and Lady Marian an apology."

There's a faint question there, should Kate see fit to note it: namely, why Marian had to be involved at all. He's still not certain that there's any sort of privilege that might require her to be pulled in to a case such as this, and it would have mitigated his embarrassment most acutely.

The trip to the bar ends up a little more surprising than expected. When there are still a pile of Caspian's clothes near Mistress Bar. At least she assumes they are all his. It is one outfit, and at least the shirt she has seen recently enough to know it looks familiar since his return. Even if it is covered with a wide spill of something down the back of it.

Something she's wise enough by now, all these years later, to neither touch, breathe in or mess with.

Marian folded them carefully, avoiding touching the darker strain on the material, and placed it all on the bar. Fingers resting on the bar as she firsts asks to have it all and a note delivered to the Security Office. Conveying information about Royalty Frog Curses. Following it up with asking for another set of shoes and clothes of the same sizes and types.

That was gathered into her arms, and she was right back out the door, and across the grass. Toward where Kate still stood, a darker, duster-free, sentinel of color against the day and sky and grass, and Caspian kneeled on the grass, still, with the shielding jumper held tight to him, beside her. Marian took a breath in, finding at least that much easier, against and with her filled hands.

"Here you are," she said, once she'd gotten close enough. Crossing the last of the distance between. Enough to fill in the small smile lingering on Kate's face and the deep lack of any answering one, anywhere, on Caspian's face. "They should be the right sizes."

Before Marian's return, Kate assures Caspian that there's no reason for him to apologize. He couldn't have known what would happen. Besides, having folk beside you for your most humiliating moments — that's friendship, isn't it?

The questioning note in his voice gives her more pause, however. She isn't prepared to answer even as the Lady returns to them, though she does manage a soft:

"I'm sure she didn't mind."

She smiles at the other woman, glancing between the two, and recalls her manners. Turning abruptly, she brings her back to Caspian. For privacy's sake, should he change here or carry his fresh clothes elsewhere.

He's not sure that's entirely accurate -- though of course Marian would come to his aid, he never would, never could doubt that she might -- but it isn't worth arguing, especially once she can be seen once more, coming quickly from the direction of the bar and carrying what thankfully looks like his clothes.

Partly, anyway -- the shirt is missing, but Marian has provided an alternate, and he glances at both of them, once they've turned, before rapidly slipping on both pants and shirt, the latter loose but comfortable and, more importantly, opaque.

He simply has to try to forget the fact that two of his friends are standing nearby. Two ladies. Improper enough to be either naked or changing into clothes out in the open, where anyone might see; doubly, triply so in their presence, but there is simply no helping it. It is change here and now, or attempt to break for the stables or woods, and risk further eyes.

It does not make his decision to opt for the former any more pleasing or less mortifying.

Done, he shakes the duster out, folds it carefully over one arm, and proffers it and the hat back to Kate, tapping her lightly on the arm to get her attention without actually having to say words aside from: "Thank you, my lady. These serve most agreeably," directed to Marian, as he steadily ignores the rising warmth in his face.

It is a beautiful day, across the grounds. Blue rolling sky. Thin white clouds. Rolling green grass. Which might be true, or, more aptly, might be more helpful, if Marian didn't feel like she was looking through it, and beyond it, the way one did with the window panes of glass in Milliways and Arch. When she's seeing it, but she's not seeing it. Glancing to one side to Kate, who had at least found her.

Grateful that it had been easier than most of the things Security had ever dragged her in to, even in the spurt of the oddest restless awkwardness, facing away, while clothing rustled in quick movements behind them. A quick thing all together, when Marian is shifting the moment Kate's turning to look at being touched. Handed back her things with an expression on Caspian's face that looks so very, barely, mollified for the addition of the clothes.

That do fit. And are back where they should be. When she's not trying to reconcile the fall of his shirt on his shoulder and a slope of bone there. Milliways. Living to make things unexpectedly awkward. At least they had stopped it before anything else could happen to him. At least it was only them. That he was fixing them with that flushed, and all too courtly, expression, only settled to tug at something else in her.

Drawing her hands together in front of her as she nodded, as though it were a given. There was little he'd ever need ask of her, even when he couldn't ask, that she wouldn't try if she could. That was less troubling than the knowledge the expression on his face would take even longer to wear away, likely. "Perhaps, you'd be willing to explain what it was that put you in that state?"

Manners are a last bastion behind which he can collect himself; it's a way he holds himself, shoulders even and back straight, a particular precision of words used. And with Marian, particularly, it is easy to fall back on those old instincts: the court mannerisms, the calm and reserve that saved him through so many tense debates or requests impossible to grant.

"If I could, I surely would tell you all," he says, instead, grateful for the loose shirt and his pants, tugging on boots. The previous shirt is nowhere to be seen, and he can only assume Marian, having found the rest of the items, has seen fit to put it elsewhere -- likely in an attempt to find the thing that caused the transformation to begin with.

"I was making introductions to the lady Bar for a newcomer, when someone bumped my shoulder. I believe there was spilled tea involved, and a plume of purple smoke. Sadly, I can tell nearly no more now than I could share with Kate in my previous state."

At least he has words now, though. It certainly makes him feel better, useless though they might turn out to be.

She, supposes, she understands, even when she stays a polite distance, next to Kate. Watching him attend to boots, and keep himself in a far more defined posture now than he'd ever had with just the duster. Most certainly had not had while he was a small green frog trapped in her hand.

There were some days she really wasn't all that fond of the things that became normal side effects of choosing to be here.

"Tea?" Marian gave a half-aborted glance toward the bar.

Her thoughts turning with alacrity toward the waiting tea tray, and the shirt she'd sent away. Wondering if she had narrowly missed something. But, also, aware, it wasn't actually a very clear first-person accounting of what happened. Which was often the case her with magic gone awry. No one know quite what had happened, or how it had been caused.

"I did find your other shirt near the bar, and it had something on it," but she couldn't be certain one way or the other either. About whether it was tea, any more than why Kate had deemed herself any less of a friend to Caspian where it came to attempt breaking the curse. "But I sent it over to Security, in case this is only the beginning."

Other things, some less and some weirder, had started far smaller things. It never hurt to be safe. Especially here.

Kate looks at Marian.

She looks at Caspian.

Marian.

Caspian.

Marian.

It's as if she's watching a birdie fly to and fro between a pair of rackets, rather than an exchange of polite words and furtive glances that make it hard on her not to roll her eyes or grin. She succeeds for the most part with the former, but the latter proves slightly more tricky.

Maybe someday she'll fill Marian in on just exactly why her presence was necessary. It's a role Kate herself couldn't now or ever fill.

Caspian.

Marian.

Caspian.

(Sometimes, she just wants to lock the two of them in a stall until they sincerely talk.)

"Tea?"

At that, her eyes slide to Marian, expression more somber.

"S'pose that could have somethin' t'do with it. Though, I — well, I'm feelin' optimistic there won't be an outbreak of this across the bar."

"I certainly hope not. Though at least the cure seems simple enough. Particularly since it doesn't seem to distinguish whether the lady is a princess or not."

Marian isn't, after all, a princess. She is a noblewoman and a lady, but not royalty, in her land or any other, and she would be the first to admit that, readily. He's looking at her as he says so, and glances towards Kate after, to catch the flickering shadow of something that looks almost like a smile before it evaporates into curious interest.

It's odd. He glances between them, meeting Marian's eyes and holding them until his discomfort almost overcomes the manners drilled in over the course of a lifetime, years of them, of the proper words, the way to hold himself, speak to others. Kept in check even during times of war or strife.

Even if there is something that cannot even be called accusation in his voice, because Kate acted quickly and intelligently and broke the curse, whatever it was, but Kate also very likely didn't need to pull Marian into it at all, not if a princess was not required.

As his glance lands on her, her smile returns. It's softer and meant to be encouraging, if not soothing.

"In the story I'm familiar with, the frog an' the princess built quite a rapport before the spell was broken. I reckon station might not have much at all t'do with it, rather how their relationship grew."

She absently unfolds her duster, shakes it out, refolds it. Her eyes betray nothing, but were they to see beyond her carefully chosen words she wouldn't mind much.

"'Course, could be as simple as a kiss; the princess might've never broken the curse without knowin' the trapped prince within, but we'll never know what might've happened had she pecked 'im right off the bat. However, had I tried, I reckon we'd be caught up in a whole new world of awkwardness right now, seein' as how my lips are somewhat infamous, an' not in the good way."

As shocking as it's been figuring out he's got title and station she never knew about before, she can't rightly recall if he knows her moniker, or what all it entails. She glances at Marian, and then takes a deep breath.

"Anyhow, important thing for all of us t'remember is it worked. The how an' why ain't important. Right now."

Later, on the other hand ...

The Frog Prince, or: Kate Was Right All Along

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