The Misadventures of a Frog-faced Wizard

A Change of Scenery

Perhaps it was the same instinct that led me to hunt for food and to find water that led me to magic. I am a wizard after all. I am a wizard. Not I was a wizard, I am one!

Without a sense of the passage of time nor of the direction in which I headed, I hopped still deeper into the forest in search of something I didn't completely understand myself. There were many hurdles to overcome, and I made a point of ducking into shadowy areas whenever the caw of a bird overhead rung through the woodland as well as always being sure to take advantage of puddles and ponds wherever possible. In particular, I prided myself in hopping from puddle to puddle when they had formed naturally in a line from one another. I realised with hindsight that these small reservoirs of water had not formed naturally, but were footprints and that once I found them that that was what I had followed.

Where the track became harder to follow I stopped. I spent a moment or so just breathing, just experiencing the energy radiating from the forest and sensing something I had not yet become accustomed to sensing in my new form. Danger.

To my left, peering at me through the leaves of a bush was an enormous great dragon. I spotted it after a moment and turned to face it, confident that if I took my eyes from it, it would lunge at me, and my fate would be sealed. It trudged forward, planting its fearsome feet into the ground as it advanced and began to flap its wings excitedly. Its scales were metallic, its eyes bright gold and while I was not sure whether red-eyed tree frogs were the preferred diet of such a creature, its sharp teeth bore a bad omen I'd have been a fool to ignore. Reflexively I began to growl a pathetic little rumble. In my mind I had wanted it to be fearsome, I had wanted the dragon to think twice about me as a meal, but my meagre mouth could hardly emit so much malice.

The standoff lasted for only a moment before we were interrupted by a voice crying out in my mother tongue through the woodland. It seemed to be calling after my adversary and at the sound of this, the dragon lost interest in me and sniffed the air.

Shortly thereafter, a young man came jogging through the underbrush. He was a little younger than myself and a fair bit taller, with skin a few shades darker than my own. Well, in my current form his skin was a completely different hue altogether, but that's beside the point. He wore his long black hair down his back and had a neat little beard. He still does. The dragon bounded up to him and with a flap of its wings, flew up and perched on his shoulder. It was then that I remembered my size and understood that it was no larger than a small housecat and had only seemed so large because of my stature.

The pair of them stood talking for a moment, or rather the man spoke to the dragon who then purred back affectionately. You know, the kind of conversation you have with a pet. Eventually, he got round to asking it what the fuss was all about and why it had fluttered away. It rushed back down to me with an excited gesture at which the man was initially confused and tried to walk away. I was startled by this, still uncertain of what was to become of me, but the dragon was insistent that there was some significance to me that its owner simply couldn't see.

Eventually, the owner gave up fighting with his pet and knelt down, taking a small jar from his satchel (which I have to imagine he had brought along for foraging purposes) and gently placed me in it. He emptied a little of his waterskin into the jar once I had made myself comfortable which I greatly appreciated and then placed the jar, now with me inside, back into his bag.

And then darkness.

Again, the passage of time during my frog form eludes me. All I can say is that I was not in the jar long enough to suffocate. I travelled with the pair for a while, being tossed and turned around in the bag, feeling the water sloshing about around me and struggling to keep my balance. In the end, I resolved to stop trying to fight the waves, and to instead just float. I was never that good at making myself float before. In my former life, my feet would always be inclined to sink to the bottom while my head remained afloat. While Elius and Lilith would lie on their backs and look at the clouds on a warm summer day in the local lake, I was forced to kick furiously to even remain vertical and above the water's surface. It's not such a problem now.

Eventually, I felt a stillness and saw light cascade in as the bag was once more opened. A hand came down, clasping around the jar and I was lifted and then placed on the surface of a workspace. Around me, there were burning candles, ink quills and colourful stones. The room was dimly lit. No curtains were drawn, and it was only the light of the flickering candles that illuminated the interior of the cottage. I believe it was a cottage. I'd have called it a cottage anyway.

When the water became more still, I turned myself around to see the owner of the dragon engaged in a conversation with a young woman. I couldn't make out what they were saying from the distance at which they stood, but I had to imagine they were talking about me. I had to imagine this because of how, when they were done talking, she walked over to me and picked up the jar, examining me with curious intent.

It was a fearful moment. For all I knew, these people were connoisseurs in the art of frog cooking, and I was to be the secret ingredient in their latest dish. Or perhaps they were witches brewing a cauldron of potion that called for "eye of newt" or some such nonsense and I was the closest thing they could find. One way or another, it seemed to me there were likely many more bad outcomes than there were good.

As luck would have it, the family bore no ill intent toward me. The woman who held my jar walked across the room to a large tank made of tessellated plates of glass both frosted and clear, both stained and colourless, all held together with metal. She unlatched the top of this dome, unscrewed the cap of my jar and lowered me gently down. She placed me in the centre of the dome, my jar landing on some soft moist earth within and she gave me the time I needed to nervously hop out of her reach and into what was to be my new home for a while.

I surveyed the area and found that it was a microcosm of the forest through which I had been travelling for the past however long. Before me was a small pool of murky water, tinted green with algae and moss, and beneath that was chiselled stone not dissimilar to the kinds I'd come across in the woods. There was a small plant of sorts to my rear (a large plant from my perspective, but a plant I now understand to have been modest in size) which looked like it might have been a young tree or perhaps a cutting from an older tree that had been planted with the hopes of springing anew. It did not look healthy. Around me in every direction were fallen leaves, some deader than others which themselves became one with the earth, and others that looked much greener and had bite marks taken from them. It was then that I realised I was not alone in the sanctuary. Caterpillars. Flies. Ants. Oh, what a marvellous feast had been prepared for me! It was as if she knew I was coming. How to thank her?

It was in this comfortable hole that I remained for a little while. Every day my benefactor would come and check on me, placing some new food down for me and replenishing my pond as needed. Whenever she opened the latch to my dwelling she uttered a few comforting words for me, but to my horror, I found that I could not understand them. She was speaking the same tongue I grew up speaking, I was sure of it! I recognised the words themselves, but their meanings eluded me. I began to fear that the same fate as had befallen my blue legged comrade was soon to befall me. My mind was going. I could feel it.