Fear Not

by roronoapedro

Summary:

Sasha Waybright saves the world again. At least the parts she cares about.

Notes:

This acts like a finale of sorts to a loosely-tied-together trilogy of stories about Amphibia. You can read them alone just fine, but if you want more in this style, check out the collection this story is a part of.

A bright young girl in a handmade, very heroic cape and boots outfit looked down from the top of the stairs. At least thirteen steps separated one floor from the other. Other less bright, less heroic little girls would probably fear the primal urge to jump; step away from the edge and go back to their toys.

Not this little girl, though. You see, she was a superhero, and this was a quest. 

“EVIL BEWARE!” Yelled Sasha, taking out a small cardboard sword hilt from her pocket. She was about to save the world again. At least, the parts that she liked. 

Sasha Waybright, age five, jumped from the top of the stairs, expecting to fly. 

It didn’t work. 

This could have been the end. The last great adventure. She made the one wrong move and, if she was anything other than the perfect little girl, she would have dealt with the consequences of her actions.

With the greatest of ease– as much ease as someone can have when they realize they absolutely messed up and are about to die, at least– she landed with her two feet in the middle of the stairs, which was actually really impressive if you thought about how far she would have had to jump in order to get there.

Unfortunately, momentum demanded her to keep moving. She sprung from the middle of the staircase all the way down, like if someone had kicked a child-shaped silly spring that kept going and going and going.

She managed to fall on her belly, which was better than falling on her back. The wooden floor wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be, and she actually slid like a cute seal for a second. As her movement finally stopped and she felt her arms and legs again, Sasha got up from her prone position and stared at the wooden mountain she had just conquered. 

“I AM VICTORIOUS” she yelled, arms stretched up in victory. 

The ruckus attracted her parents, who should have probably assumed their hyper-active courageous daughter would need constant supervision. 

“Sasha?” Her mom asked. “What did you do?”

“I flew all the way down from the first floor!” She exclaimed proudly. 

Sasha’s father looked like he was barely hearing her, instead simply staring at the top of the stairs, as if trying to calculate her last couple actions. Eventually he gave up and decided to see if the child was hurt in any way. 

“Did you jump?” He asked, serious. Sasha stopped smiling. 

“I… no, I was flying. I-I just needed–”

Her father held her by the shoulders, tighter than he had to. Between the adrenaline leaving her body and the new injection of fear, she was in a lot of pain.

“Sasha.” He said, unblinking. “Look at me. You can’t fly. You’re not gonna do this again, do you get it?”

“I’m sorry.” She said, crying. She didn’t understand why he was so scary, and she didn’t understand why he was hurting her. 

“You have to tell me you're not gonna do it again.” He kept holding Sasha to make her unable to escape. 

“Herbert, she’s not hurt, just let it go.” Sasha’s mom said, somewhat uninterested. She was already looking back at the room they were just in, where a TV kept blabbering about some new type of paranoia she was very interested in. 

“What if she does it while we’re not here? Sasha, say it to me. You cannot fly, and you’re not gonna try to again.”

“I-I’m not gonna do it. I’m sorry daddy.” Sasha just wanted the whole thing to end. She felt stupid. “I can’t fly.”

---

The wind made a mess out of Sasha and Anne’s hairs. Sasha wouldn’t let go of her convertible for anything, but in longer drives it did sort of destroy any hairstyles she bothered committing to. It made them look really funny though, which both women appreciated.

“It’s not actually that far away, I thought we’d be driving for hours.” Anne mentioned. 

She was wearing khaki shorts and a white shirt, with a little frog foot emblem on the chest pocket. Sasha joked that she had changed from one uniform into the other. 

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to go to it for months, just didn’t have time. Thank you for doing this with me, also.”

Sasha’s newfound appreciation for summer dresses with little jackets over the shoulders suited her. She was always ready for anything, from fun days out with friends to bar fights. 

“Oh totally, I wouldn't want to miss this. Probably better than what I had planned for today anyway.” Anne played with her hair, which, hairband or not, would never behave.

“I thought you had me planned for today.”

Anne laughed. That had become a lot more common ever since they reconnected during Marcy’s last visit.

Sasha never realized Anne was hurting so much with the way her life was going. Ever since Anne came out about it, they had been spending a lot more time together, and falling into some old habits that she missed. Relying on each other, being there when the silence inside them got too loud. 

For a while Sasha thought their relationship was something both of them outgrew, but the last few months had proved her wrong. 

Bakersfield was some hours away, but Sasha’s unique interpretation of speed limit laws could bump that down to one and a half hours tops. It was fun to see civilization end and begin, with vast swathes of country and nature in-between towns. Both cities were weird mirrors of each other in random ways. There was even apparently a reptile museum nearby, which had them making jokes for a while. 

More than anything, it was good being alone with her best friend. 

“Where did you get these tickets again?” Anne asked.

“From a raffle at work. I got a grill, someone else got these tickets. I figured this was cooler so we switched.”

“Didn’t you want the grill?”

“I mean yeah, but I ran out of date ideas.” 

Anne poked her. This was going to be a nice day. “Oh, hey, it’s right there.” She pointed it out.

It was a new aviation field that had opened right next to the city. There were a few planes scattered across a large distance, and they could see a few tourists taking pictures and talking to instructors. It was far less fancy than either of them expected, but when they thought about it, it was probably good that it was a sparse and empty field without lots of things to get in the way of the ships.

They parked and walked up to where the nearest crowd was. Someone with a bomber jacket and a helmet approached them and collected their tickets. They were surrounded by ships of all shapes and sizes; probably as much flying equipment as they’d seen since their war against Andrias.

“Dude, that is so cool.” Said Anne, pointing at a small, futuristic-looking airplane.

“Ah, that? That’s the Icon A5! Our first amphibious craft.” The guy stared at them while they both snickered at his innocuous comment. 

Sasha always wanted to fly a plane. It was one of those pipedreams she assumed everyone had at some point– always wanted to take over the world; always wanted to write the Great American Novel; always wanted to fly a plane. Normal stuff. 

Fantasizing about it was one thing. Being there, listening to instructions, being able to actually go inside the cabins was another entirely. She never actually expected it would happen.

The instructor kept explaining to them how to tell good wind conditions from bad ones; how it felt like when you lost a guff of air that was doing most of the work for you; what buttons looked like in the panel and why it wasn’t that crazy like the movies made it sound. 

Anne didn’t look like she understood that much of it, but Sasha kept telling herself it made sense. Sorta. She was sure it was very interesting. It’s just, Anne and Sasha kept finding new ways to have fun, even in silence– new jokes, new gags, new ways to make each other happy. The planes were interesting enough, but they were mostly enjoying each other’s company. Being far away from home, where no one really knew them, was its own reward. 

She found herself holding Anne’s hand every once in a while when she wanted to move, and was almost surprised Anne didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t exactly platonic, but they’d known each other for so long, it just happened. At least that’s what she kept telling herself.

“Never saw myself as a flygirl.” Anne said eventually, as they watched some of the planes going up. “But this is awesome.” 

“Always wanted to try; I just figured it was crazy expensive.” Sasha stopped. “I mean, I guess it would have been without these tickets.”

“Great date idea, dude.” Anne got closer to her, touching Sasha’s arm with her own. “If I knew it was this easy to convince you to drive around the state with me, I would have asked a long time ago.”

As much as she didn’t want to admit, a part of Sasha’s mind was completely blank right now. Anne was really close. 

“Ah, you know. Special treatment for my second-in-command.” 

She thought about them sometimes. 

There was a non-insignificant portion of Sasha that knew Anne was the best girl she would ever meet. She was kind, supportive, sincere; basically everything Sasha had to make an effort to be, Anne effortlessly personified. Added to that, something about the way the sun hit her face and illuminated her eyes as she looked up and saw the planes made Sasha’s heart beat a lot faster than normal.

But then she remembered everything they had been through. Specifically everything she had made Anne go through. And then she wondered how much of what Anne struggled with at this point in her life was actually Sasha’s fault.

The bad part of being a child psychologist was knowing exactly how traumatized kids grow up to be traumatized adults, and how a lot of life is dealing with that one time when you were ten years old and something went horribly wrong, but no one helped you. In their case, it had happened over the course of several years, and at some point involved interdimensional travel and at least two military uprisings. She didn’t exactly get the answer about how to deal with that from her textbooks.

“Sash? You good?” Anne asked, assuming she was looking at something behind her as opposed to staring longingly at her face.

“Oh, yeah, just,” Sasha replied, breaking contact. “Just haven’t been out this way in a while. It’s very nice here.”

Anne didn’t push it. That kind of call and not-really-a-sincere-response had become somewhat common in their days out. She didn’t seem to mind; at least Sasha hoped she didn’t. A lot of Sasha’s thoughts ended with “and I hope she doesn’t mind,” now that she thought about it.

“... hey girlie, it’s your turn to sit in the cabin.” Someone said to her.

Sasha snapped out of it. Right, they did come here for a specific reason. Cool planes. Lifelong dream. Flying.

She didn’t have to stay that long inside the cabin to realize she had no god damn idea what she was supposed to do. Turns out she had completely missed the explanation, even the redundant parts. While the instructor was very nice to point some things out in a “I have shown this to literal children before” kind of way, Sasha’s mind was still not super receptive to input.

The first drop of rain on the cockpit’s window signified that being easily distracted was okay that day. 

“Oh, crap.” She heard the instructor say, looking over the horizon.

A system of clouds was approaching from the Pacific. At least, that’s what the man who was paid to know these things told her.  

“Well, we’re about to close anyway, so I don’t think it will be safe for the rest of the group to fly today. Sorry.” He informed her. “But hey, you can come back later. That ticket’s good for a month, I’ll sign you a receipt on that. Weather is crazy this time of the year anyway.”

It really could not be understated how desolate the place got without any tourists there. It was the literal middle of nowhere, USA. Anne looked around as their nice day seemed to wash away earlier than expected.

“Aw, man.” Anne said, bummed out. “Sorry, Sasha. You were really looking forward to that.”

“Eh, it’s cool.” She watched the clouds move closer into their position as she suddenly realized her convertible was not going to like that. “I guess we should start packing up?”

“Hmmm” Anne looked at her phone, looking for something. Then, a smile. “Hey, why not come here? It’s a short drive, and we should be able to wait out the worst of the rain.”

Most of Sasha’s thoughts morphed into different versions of yes. Spend more time together. 

---

Anne was right. The drive downtown was nicer than Sasha expected, and the rain actually helped out with how warm she heard the town was. 

They left the car by a parking spot near the department stores and walked to the Park at River Walk. Anne had shown her a picture of fountains and walks full of puppies, which were not exactly happening during the drizzling rain at the end of the afternoon. That did mean that, excluding people who did not care about rain and some fishermen, they were alone. Free to be goofy, run around looking for small olive trees, and watch the clouds rain over the mountains from a comfortable distance.

You don’t usually get to see rain like that in California. February wasn’t that far off, but still, it was somewhat unusual. It made for a nice spectacle when you had good company and a great view.

“Sorry you didn’t get to fly a plane, Sasha.” Anne said it again. Sasha almost wondered if she thought it was somehow her fault. “Today has been really great, but I feel like you didn’t get to do what you wanted.”

“What? Dude, I got to hang out with you. It’s been a great day.” She smiled warmly at Anne, whose face kept being hit by droplets of rain washing from her thick hair. Sasha kept trying to stop coming up with dumb similes about how Anne’s face looked. “Seriously, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Everything has been great.”

“It really has!” Anne apparently needed to hear that to go back to her usual cheery demeanor. “Hanging out more often has been really important to me. Thank you so much. I’ve been looking forward to it every week.”

“Me too. I guess I kinda forgot how much fun we get to have together.”

They talked to each other only half-paying attention, as they watched the water spectacle around them. Even though they were under a barrack, it was getting relatively cold now that the sunset was almost done.

Over the mountains, rainbows formed in the sky as the yellow and orange lights dove deep into the west. Sasha couldn’t have picked a better time to come here if she tried. 

With a glance, she realized Anne was trembling a bit. The reaction was natural and innocuous– she took off her own jacket, which was hiding some decent sleeves from her dress anyway, and put it over Anne’s shoulders. The other woman didn’t realize what was going on until Sasha was already touching her, drooping the fabric over her cold arms. 

“Geez, no wonder you’re never cold, this thing is great.” Anne’s eyebrows went up as she smiled in comfort. “Look at you, throwing gifts at me.”

“Look at you, pretending to be cold to steal my jackets.”

“Hey, whatever works.” 

They both laughed. Sasha didn’t return to her place further down the table. She sat right by Anne this time.

“For real, I really like this.” Anne said, in a very natural, if low tone. The relaxed atmosphere made her yawn comfortably. “I loved today.”

Something about the sentence didn’t quite register right with Sasha. The sounds might have been muffled by the wind and rain. The low tone felt too familiar; the situation felt too much like past ones, with other people, in other contexts. It brought up a familiar answer she had said many times before. Besides it just being in her mind, I mean.

“I love you too.”

The panic that rose through her body started in her stomach, making its icy way through her liver and encompassing her heart in about as much time as it took to say the sentence. She snapped to look at Anne as if she was sure she would start laughing or screaming or crying or turn into a monster and eat her. Instead, Anne looked like she legitimately didn’t listen. 

The jacket was too comfortable. Anne fell asleep on her seat. 

---

The brightness coming off Sasha’s computer screen destroyed her eyes. It was past midnight and she had to go to work in a few hours. But Marcy was awake, and Sasha had decided sleep was not going to happen very easily. 

“Okay, so, now that you’ve pressed the engine button, you have to know what altitude you’ll be flying…” Said Marcy through the speakers.

Of course Marcy owned Flight Simulator. Of course she loved everything about it. Of course she was stoked about Sasha trying it out after vaguely hearing about the adventure.

Sasha was actually doing pretty well, all things considered. Having Marcy take the time to explain the basics of an airplane between her 10-minute-long tangents was soothing. It gave her time to put her thoughts into place and then scramble them all over again, making no mental progress at all. 

“So, so, that’s what you don’t want to do, see you’re going down right now, Sasha, SASHA–”

She startled back to the game as her ship crashed into a mountaintop. A polite “Press any button to try again” message appeared on her screen. 

“sigh. Sorry Mar-Mar. Got kinda distracted for a second.”

“It’s okay. Do you um, wanna talk about anything?”

“Ah, it’s weird. I don’t know. Maybe.” 

She closed the game window and saw herself face to face with Marcy, hailing from the strange otherworld of San Francisco, a few hours north. It was weird to think that Marcy was now relatively close to where they started their lives together, but not nearly close enough for her to be able to participate daily. This was their version of reconnecting. Staying up way too late and playing Marcy’s games. She had so many games. 

“It’s Anne.” Sasha said after realizing Marcy was still waiting for an answer.

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s fine. She’s great, actually. Going on dates has been doing wonders to her, it’s–”

“Wait, dates?” Marcy’s eyebrow went up. “Um, Sasha, are you two…?”

“No! I mean, I… no, we’re not.”

“Because I thought you said you didn’t want to do that.”

“Yeah, I know, I just… ughhh.” She covered her face with her hands, pressing in as if to keep her thoughts from leaking. “I just forgot how freaking gorgeous she is, you know? And how nice things are when we’re together, and how we like so much of the same stuff, and…”

She let the sentence trail off, and finally looked back back at the screen. Marcy’s face was a mixture of being uncomfortable and cautious, as if she didn’t exactly know what to say. 

“Well, uh…” Marcy started, unsure of herself. “Are you over that guy? What was his name?”

“Hm? Ah, yeah, I… I’m over Matt. It wasn’t like that, we’re cool. He was nice, I just… yeah.” Sasha broke eye contact again, looking at the rest of her table.

She didn’t like thinking about it, but she collected a lot of mementos from previous relationships. It wasn’t like she was always dating someone, but over the last few years, there had definitely been a few more than usual for her. Sometimes she didn’t tell all of her friends about it until after the fact, or even let stories blend in with no names to differentiate partners for other people. It made things easier.

But that pet rock definitely came from Edwyn. The Black Sabbath album– an actual, honest to Axolotl compact disk– came from Lisa. The little fidget toy that she was playing with right now came from Matt. Most of these had ended without a big fight, or a huge meltdown. Usually the same way. Usually coming from her.

“I’m just not sure what I’m looking for anymore, I guess? And I… I don’t know Marcy, today got weird. I… uh, I… I heard something wrong, and…”

Marcy’s head drooped to one side, like a child tired of standing straight. 

“.... kindasaidiloveyououtloud.” She muttered and slurred her words, but Marcy’s hands went up to her face in surprise.

“Sasha!”

“She didn’t hear it! She fell asleep! It was an accident!”

“But how do you know that? She could have been faking it!”

“It’s Anne! She can’t fake anything! She laughs telling jokes she doesn’t even think are funny! It’s so cute!!” Sasha realized what she was describing and put her hand over her face with embarrassment. 

“Sasha, you can’t do this to Anne. You two wouldn’t… you know, it’s too much.”

That hit her the wrong way.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I– no, sorry, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t be together. That came out weird. I’m just worried for you two. You’re both kinda…”

“... yeah?”

“Well, it’s… things… they blow on your faces a lot when you get close, I… no, not like that, it’s like you two jump before looking, or… wait, no, wait…” 

Marcy kept interrupting herself like she was trying her hardest to rewrite her own lines. For some reason the scene annoyed Sasha.

“... things get kinda dramatic when you’re serious with each other.”

“Oh you’re saying that, huh. Because you’re so calm all the time.”

“No no, Sasha, please, don’t fight me, I… you can see how I’m struggling here.” 

Sasha bit the inside of her mouth when she saw Marcy’s worried expression. Hold it back, mean girl. 

“Sorry.” 

“Me too. But, what I’m trying to say is… ahh, hang on Sasha.” Her tone shifted, a quiet whisper that the microphone almost didn’t pick up. ”Yeah, say that again slower…” 

Sasha stared, confused, as Marcy took out pen and paper and wrote something down, like she was listening to someone.

“Uh–” She was going to ask something, but was interrupted by Marcy reading from her notes:

“Fear not hearth and companionship; do not assume romance to be the end of all intimacy. There is beauty in friendship everlasting; as much empowerment in a warm kiss as there is in comfortable contentment. Intimacy is connection is power. There is no endgame to love, no singular shape. Love is what you feel for those important to you. Only you get to decide what it is.”

Sasha assumed her eyes were bugging out with how surprised her expression was. Marcy finished reading, put the notebook back on her desk, and looked at the screen like she had just ordered some food and was waiting to explain the delivery instructions.

“So, I guess wh–” She tried picking it up, only to be interrupted by Sasha freaking the hell out:

“What the HELL was that!”

“What? It was j-j-just something that came to mind!”

“That stuff just COMES TO MIND TO YOU? How does that just COME TO YOU–”

“It’s, it’s, it’s– it’s from my webcomic!”

“NO IT’S NOT! I READ IT!”

“I DON’T PUBLISH EVERYTHING OKAY!” Marcy got extremely red when she was embarrassed, and it acted like a distraction for both of them.

They laughed for a good while, an act perpetuated by the fact that the sound of each other’s increasing laughter made both of them laugh harder. 

Sasha was still chuckling when she finally got something coherent out.

“Ahaha… okay, but that was pretty cool… what was it anyway? Love is what you decide or, or something? I–ppppffffhahahah frog alive girl oh my god.”

“I don’t know anymore okay, it’s so late. I just worry about you two. I want you to be happy.” Marcy kept laughing until a breaking glass sound could be heard in the background, and she looked like she smelled something. “Wait, what’s th– oh, no NO NO I KNOCKED IT OVER AGAIN NO NO BYE SASHA SEE YOU LATER.”

Sasha happily waved Marcy goodbye as her world ended on the other side of the screen. She would have been more worried about whatever electronic was catching fire if this didn’t happen literally every week.

Some of those words stuck with her, at least. The part about the warm kiss or embrace or whatever would make for a cool car decal, if she was ever drunk enough to be that extra.

She really almost fought Marcy over Anne. She felt the exact moment when rational thought turned into emotional backlash and she just wanted to flip her lid; defend herself even if, in retrospect, she barely knew what Marcy was trying to say.

As she prepared to go to bed, Sasha wondered if wanting to be happy too fast didn’t bring out the worst in her. Committing to the most obvious version of something before she knew what she would have to sacrifice in order to make it happen. Forcing her way through and only doing whatever made her happy, sustainability be damned.

Oh, maybe that’s what Marcy meant. Huh. Yeah, it was a decent point.

---

Grimes realized, to his annoyance, that he couldn’t breathe. 

When he came to, he was staring at a pink, burning sky, from the floor of some sort of cave entrance. Soot and burnt oil tinged the smell of the world. Air could barely enter his lungs without making him want to cough. The wound in his chest made the exercise futile, anyway. It probably damaged something important. 

He moaned loudly in pain, trying to get up. He would not die on his back, not in the middle of–

“Stay still, Grime, you moron.” 

Sasha’s annoyed voice brought him out of his wounded stupor. He could barely see her; his eyes were having the hardest time adjusting. Her signature armor and long hair made her look like a blur of red and yellow, frantically moving around him.

Where were they? He could barely recall what he was doing in this state. Something about…

“L-lieutenant.” He grumbled. “Status report. The battle– how goes the battle?”

“I’m not gonna do this a third time, Grimes.” She answered, pulling away to grab something. “You keep asking me that and then falling asleep. Stay up and I might tell you again.”

The sensation of having his wounds rubbed with some sort of solution woke him up proper, a sharp pain spreading across his chest.

“Filthy frog spit!” He couldn’t remember the day. He could barely remember how to string sentences. “Careful, woman!”

“It’s either this or you die, now be still and let me treat you.”

The last half of that sentence was barely something he managed to understand. He could feel it. He was slipping away again.

Explosions from a distance. Screaming. The battle wasn’t over. She must have dragged him to safety.

“S-Sasha, go back. Go rejoin the offensive. They need you, th– uuuukhkk” 

She applied pressure to his wounds as he lost his breath. He’d suffered worse, but it never got any easier.

“I’m not letting you go, and I’m not letting you pass out again, okay?” 

The panic in her voice was palpable. She wasn’t a battlefield medic. She wasn’t supposed to be the only one available for this.

“Just hang on. K-keep talking, the stuff I have should be enough for you to make it until help arrives.”

“Uuuuugh– lieutenant. Our rules of engagement are very clear. You shouldn’t worry about a lost comrade when we still have so many… so many others–” The world was a blur. Sasha’s mess of blonde hair and red armor kept coming in and out of focus as she moved. “It’s… it’s alright.”

“No it’s not, but keep talking.” More healing gel of some kind. More gauze. More pain. “Come on Grimesy, this isn’t the first time you’ve been hurt. Tell me about the others. Y-you’ve been fighting all your life, right? You gotta have some cool stories.”

His body was so warm, but losing so much of its strength. Grimes’s only good eye kept rolling in its socket. 

Sasha knew she couldn’t do this. She hoped the battle was almost over. She just had to keep him stable.

“Tell me!” She yelled at him, waking him up.

“I… one time, against… a rival Toad Tower. I was still just a toadling. Couldn’t have been over 15…” 

He coughed, ruining his own focus, but, as she said, this wasn’t his first rodeo. That was part of it. 

“Some little tadpole, couldn’t have been half your height, c-came at me screaming. Clearly someone’s child. Armor barely fit him. I-I couldn’t rightly run him through with my sword, it would be unbecoming of a toad of my honor.” 

He drew breath, trying to keep it together. 

“At least, that’s what… uuughhh… what I thought at the time. I didn’t see the bag of boomshrooms he had under his arm.”

“A whole bag of boomshroms? How many were there?”

“Enough that when he tripped and fell over them, we were both thrown into another battlefield.” Grimes winced, and then relaxed. "I recruited the little fellow months later. Never grew past a frog’s size. I used to throw him like a grenade at people. Called him Boom-Boom.”

Sasha let out a chuckle, which Grimes reciprocated. The sweat was gluing hair to her forehead. She kept looking back, fearing some robot finally managing to find them.

“Oh… oh dear, it was another time. Toads fighting for the right to raze frog villages. We were so stupid. We couldn’t… we…”

The cave shook as an explosion rocked the structure. Dust and water moved as Sasha realized the battle was getting more violent before the end.

Grimes’s neck and head went limp, rolling to the side. For a second, Sasha felt her heart stopping. Not like this. It couldn’t end like this. 

Then, after what felt like an eternity, he coughed, whispering to himself through delirium.

“... just fly away, little bird…” 

“What?” Sasha asked, confused. “Grime, still with me? Grime? Commander!”

She shook him, which brought him back to reality.

“Oh? Oh. Apologies, lieutenant. I seem to have fallen asleep.”

“What’s that about a bird?” 

She checked the makeshift bandages. The bleeding was slowing down. Color was returning to the afflicted region. The gel was working. Stay awake, please. Please.

“I… oh, it’s embarrassing. Hhukk.” She assumed that was him trying to laugh. “See, when you first arrived, all those months ago, at first I didn’t know what you were. S-some naked mutant frog or some… ungodly beast from beyond the veil.”

“Well, one of those was right.”

“But when the herons attacked… when you fought them on their own element and came out victorious, when you donned your crown and heron sword… I thought, oh, that’s it. She’s a bird.” Grimes’s eye gleaned at her, in good humor. “It’s the only logical explanation. She has to be a bird.”

Sasha took two seconds to absorb the information before bursting out in laughter.

“A bird? Dude, I don’t even have wings! How would I be a bird?!” 

“I still don’t know! Maybe you humans are more bird than toad, have you ever thought of that?”

“Humans are like, primates or something!”

“What the devil is a primate?!”

Both of them laughed, even if it meant Grimes hurt a lot more. But it circulated air through his body. It released painkilling-substances through his blood. It gave him something to think about.

“I thought you’d just fly away one day, Sasha.” His voice felt deeper somehow, like he was confessing something. “That you would change our lives and disappear. I never met anyone quite like you in my career. Such a remarkable warrior you are.”

“Oh, that’s… nice of you to say.” The sudden compliment stunned her slightly. Fortunately not for long, as she got closer to him already back to being annoyed. “And it better not be some last words garbage; you’re getting out of this one.”

“Just… I want you to know I appreciate your time with us. All of us. We captured you, we–we tortured you, and…” 

“You guys said mean things to me, and then I repeated them back, and all of your soldiers cried.” She replied. “You were really bad at torturing.”

“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to say!” A bigger groan, as something inside him didn’t move quite right. The color in Sasha’s face drained a bit, but he reassured her with a wave of his hand. “Look at where we are, Sasha. Look at who we’re fighting– we are the sworn enemies of the immortal king of Amphibia, and we are giving him a run for his money! All of this evolution, this–this efficiency, it’s unheard of. It’s downright heretical. You flew down from your world and showed us what we could have always been. A well-oiled machine of battle and conquest! Amphibia’s greatest soldiers! Our own masters!”

“It was all you, man, you know that.” Humble bragging didn’t suit her, but she meant it this time. The war against Andrias had convinced her of this. “I just came in and got everyone into dieting and exercising. My part was over almost right away, you all kept it going.” 

As she finished her sentence, Sasha noticed the noise outside had subsided considerably. She heard screams, but also cheers. The creatures that were attacking were no longer screeching infernally. Her soldiers must have destroyed a mind-control collar from one of the huge beasts. 

“Yes, but despite that, you’re still here.” Grimes grabbed her hand, trembling. “You’re still with us. You’re still making sure we’re in tip-top shape. This… Sasha, this wasn’t your battle, but you made it so. You could have left at any time, you could have joined the enemy side and lived a life of riches. You didn’t just fly away. None of us can ever repay you for that.”

She realized, upon a few moments of silence, that this was the first genuine compliment she had gotten in months. No expectations, no sinister twist. No implication that she only got where she did by stepping on other people. Someone was thanking her for not ruining things.

It felt novel.

“Thank you.” She finally got out. “I didn’t know you thought of me that way.”

“Why, the image I cultivate doesn’t allow for this kind of attitude, lieutenant.” He leaned back, trying to be more comfortable. “I will deny these niceties for the rest of my long life, of course.”

“Aye, commander.” She kept holding on to his arm. It seemed most of the danger was over, as long as he stayed awake.

“Even if I were to die today, I know you’d stay. Lead us to a better world. You’re not afraid of what lies ahead. You have nothing to be afraid of. Heheh. Heheheh.” He chuckled to himself, a bit more ill than he wanted to admit. “Our crazy little bird girl. Fly us to victory, yes... fly fly fly.”

---

She hadn’t dreamed of Amphibia in a long time.

Sasha woke up looking at the ceiling, and hadn’t really moved since. The sun had barely risen and broken through her curtains. Sometimes she wondered what Grimes would say about how her life turned out. 

She assumed he expected her to somehow apply her battle expertise and tactical genius in a literal way; to have her grand talent for violence be at best only a couple degrees separate from the path to a comfortable lifestyle. But here she was, helping children not grow up to be like her.

She wondered if he would be proud, and then wondered if it said something about her that she cared so much about what he would think.

Fly fly fly.

At least the reason why she remembered that battle was relatively obvious. Her brain wasn’t made for subtlety. Hammers and nails, and all that. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Sasha remembered the tickets. One month, the instructor said. 

---

Sasha thought she had it good with this psychepedagogue position at the local district school. She got a pretty chill office– spacious enough that she could have individual kids come in for checkups and counseling sessions, but not enough that it got dirty by itself if she didn’t clean often. Decent pay, good hours. Lots of free time during which she pretended to be working. 

Peer counseling was relatively easy for her. She felt like she was made to inspire others, and using her own experiences mostly meant she didn’t have to do that much research. 

Sure, it got awkward explaining around her tenure as a war general, but overall kids could always get the gist of what made her like she is. A lot of insecurity, a lot of being told 'Yes' when a 'No' would have been healthier, and vice-versa. And a lot of projection. A lot of it.

But she rose through. She had everything she needed now. Even if not everything she wanted.

It was these kinds of thoughts that kept her distracted from this recurring fight between siblings.

Tommy and Juanito usually settled their differences with screaming and punching. Two adopted kids from down the street whose parents officially couldn't spare enough time for, but also just didn't care about. Big part of peer counseling was attaching herself to kids who ought to have better people attached to them, but, since their parents wouldn’t do it, they'd have to make do with Sasha Waybright instead.

She had listened enough to understand that it was basically a five year old's version of a metaphorical debate, in which nothing was really being said but both sides kept doubling down. But they refused to talk her through the specifics, instead choosing to continue to apply the Socratic method by throwing different classroom utensils at each other.

A few cusses and bruises had already been exchanged. The burnt out teacher had already receded into a half-empty pack of cigarettes with a horrifying image of death on the cover. Sasha was alone on this one.

The world seemed to run in slow motion when she realized Juanito had just thrown a stapler at his brother in full force. Crayons, sharpies and erasers were okay. That could actually hurt someone.

Sasha let her training from so long ago take over. She weaved between them like a snake, grabbing the flying object with a loud noise of flesh meeting metal. Both of them clearly didn’t expect that to happen. 

“Enough, you two.” She used her responsible adult voice on them, which was just her strong-headed lieutenant voice but weaker. “Explain, right now.”

“He’s a liar! And stupid!” Juanito snarled. Tommy went right back into screaming. Kids had one speed and it wasn’t pleasant. God, they deserved a better home. 

“Am not! I can f–” 

Sasha wanted to keep hearing it, but she knew the real problem was how none of them knew how to interact without violence. Which, yes, she understood to some extent, but– bzzz.

Great, now her phone was vibrating. 

“Listen, both of you, in my office, right now. We’re gonna let nice Ms. Geralds continue her class.” 

The nice Ms. Geralds didn’t seem to really acknowledge bzzz her. Sasha held her breath so as not to sigh, taking the two children back to a place where she could at least get them to talk it out. 

“Alright, let’s talk about this.” She said, sitting both of them down. “You guys know the rules. You can only fight in here if you convince me it’s a good fight.”

Somehow the students didn’t rat her out to the rest of the school for saying stuff like that. She had the entire student body convinced that she was the coolest and bzzzz who the hell is messaging her at 10am.

The kids were actually doing a bit better now that they were outside the classroom. One of them said something about how the other was always calling him a liar, which brought up something else about how the first one always got more attention… that’s the good part of knowing your clients; you know when the session is really about just making them get together without, and they do the rest. 

She glanced at her computer screen. Her phone was connected to it. Right when a fourth message arrived.

hey sasha

can we talk about the other day?

it feels werider not talking about it 

weirder

It took the power of years worth of student debt for a Psychology degree in order to avoid breaking her poker face while reading Anne’s messages.

The children clearly cared about what they were saying and she was absolutely supposed to care as well; sibling disputes can turn into lifelong rivalries that benefit no one, but oh god, oh god, oh dear god, oh no, oh my god, it’s happening, it’s all coming down.

wym she typed extremely fast, except the two children clearly saw her do it. 

“No no, keep going, you were uh, you were saying? Juan? About your brother?”

“Um, I think…” 

so like, we’ve been goign out for a while and i kinda don’t know if this is us trying something else or not 

These kids needed to get the hell out of her office.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great Tommy,” she said, louder than whatever brother was saying. “Have you considered not hitting your brother anymore?”

“Hey, he star–”

“No no no, we’re done with the blaming part, tell your brother you’re not gonna hit him.” Sasha interrupted the kid, which made his brother laugh. “And you know you shouldn’t be mean to your brother either.”

“I didn’t s–”

“Both of you!” Sasha’s hands went up in annoyance. “We do this every week! I know what happened! You both know what happened! The problem isn’t what happened today! It’s that it happens all the time!”

None of them said anything, embarrassed.

and i wanted to just ask you what’s up

“What did we say about the whole I didn’t start the fight thing?”

“It doesn’t matter because we both keep the fight going.” The brothers said, in resigned unison.

“And what did we say last time you did start a fight?”

Juanito talked first: “I said I wasn’t going to call Tommy names anymore.”

“And I said I wasn’t gonna hit Juan again.” 

Both of them looked down. Sasha hoped it was the kind of down that came from mutual understanding, and not just having their day ruined by responsibility.

its like, i wanna keep hanging out like this, but we gotta be real with each other. 

Frog’s sake, Anne. She sighed again.

“Have I ever told you two I really appreciate you guys just talking to each other like this?” She said, her mind going a million places, but attaching to this one in particular. The boys said no in their own way, she continued. “I used to be really bad at doing that. I just scared people and told them what to do.” 

“Whoa, you, Ms. Waybright?” Juanito’s eyes practically shined. Oh, great, he was going to grow up to like mean girls. “But you’re so calm all the time.” Either that or he was messing with her.

“It wasn’t worth it. I almost lost all my friends.” Sasha’s eyes wandered to the computer, but not to read them. She was looking at Anne’s profile picture. “Actually, I did lose a friend. My best one. I almost didn’t get her back, either. It was all my fault.”

“What happened?” Tommy asked. 

“Ah, you know how it is, boys. Sometimes you get so caught up in your own head that you force your way through things you shouldn’t. Everything stops making sense, and you just need to do what you want, no matter who’s on your way.” She made sure to point her head at both of them, to further her point. “Right?”

Tommy blushed. Juanito looked like he was going to cry, but not in a bad way.

“I just want you guys to know these things stack. They don’t just go away after the fight’s over. Eventually you’re only gonna remember today, and the day before, and every other time you guys fought. And maybe it’s going to be okay; maybe you’re gonna wake up a couple years from now and know you’ll always have your brother by your side, warts and all. But, for a lot of people, the fights start blending together. It’s not just a fight anymore. It’s the same fight, every day, for the rest of your life.”

Now both boys were crying. Not sobbing, just feeling one emotion at a time. In this case they were probably going through some regret, or some version of realizing they were alive, and their actions had consequences. Maybe a bit much, Sasha thought, but better here than out there.

“How did you get your friend back?” Juanito asked, 

Sasha sighed. Anne was waiting for a reply, but this was hitting her where she lived as well. She wasn’t supposed to get too emotional during sessions, but those were the perks of being a peer counselor. It’s not about your knowledge, it’s about you. 

“I told her I was sorry.” She said, her voice sounding more dour than she intended. “And I worked really hard to show I meant it. It took a while, but… we’re together again. We’re still together.” She smiled, her eyes staring at the boys. “Best friends forever.” 

There was a little more to their session, but the siblings definitely got it. She saw them leave holding each other's hand, guiding the other back to the classroom. Whether or not this was going to inspire them to wait at least two weeks before their next fight, only time could tell.

Anne hadn’t said anything else. Sasha pressed the voice message button on her phone.

“Hey girl, sorry, I was working.” She started. Then she deleted the message. “Hi Anne, I just got your messages. Oh no wait she knows I read them.”

Deep breaths.

“Yo, it’s me. Ack, no, the hell–”

“Hello Anne. No, too serious, why did I stop like that–”

What would you tell yourself, Sasha?

“... hey, yeah, we gotta talk. Can we meet?”

---

The warmth of the Los Angeles river didn’t quite mix with the cold wind and promise of fog and rain. Sasha wasn’t wearing a jacket. Why wasn’t she wearing a jacket?

Water made her feel weird nowadays. The river obviously wasn’t the ocean, but she remembered the last time she went to a beach. The ocean felt so big from where she had stood. A slightly above-sea-level walkway, where tourists could take pictures, pose with lovers, and then eventually stare into the horizon and realize, with a certain degree of horror if they allowed it to seep in, that they were insignificant. That no matter what they did, they would never be more important than the sheer volume of water on their planet. That the ocean was coming, seeping into land one millimeter at a time, and it would never stop. 

Sasha’s immediate instinct was to fight, but a far more grueling, loud instinct was to bask. The ocean was too large. The enemy was too strong. It was a challenge.

She didn’t used to think like this. Nowadays, she came here to remember what Amphibia was like.

Something about the salt of the Earth, the howling winds and the certainty of oblivion reminded her of those months stuck in frog land. Some of the best of her life, surely, but also a hell of a perspective shift. A reality check the likes of which she never managed to explain to her therapist, or put into words in general. 

The river was harmless, but the promise of something that big at the end of it made her mind wander.

“So…” Anne said, by her side.

All of these thoughts had failed to make her ignore the situation she was in.

“Can we talk now?” She continued.

“I guess we gotta.” Sasha replied, unenthusiastic.

The river was mostly calm today. The sound of water wasn’t as overwhelming as she wished for. Wind was picking up, but she could still hear Anne perfectly fine.

“Are you in love with me?” Anne asked, straightforward. 

She expected dancing around the subject and jokes. She expected anything that wouldn’t make her heart skip about five beats. Anything but that.

She didn’t know how to respond.

“Cuz we’ve been hanging out for a while, and I really like it.” Anne said, hugging her own arms, also looking at the water as if it held any answers. “But I know that’s not how you do dates.”

“Yeah? How do I do dates, Boonchuy?” Sasha asked, a bit or a lot more snappy than she intended. 

Luckily, Anne was her best friend, so she knew when Sasha meant harm or not.

“You bring guys or girls out to places you know they’ll like. You listen to them, you say what they want to hear. Then you go in for the kill.”

“You make me sound way more violent than I am.”

“Eh, a little less.”

Despite the situation, they both laughed. Violence was funny.

“Fine, but I'm not doing that with you. I don’t think that I always do that on dates, but… whatever, I’m not doing that right now.”

“Aren’t you?” Anne asked, with a concerned expression. “Listen, I’m… I…”

She didn’t actually complete the sentence. Sasha looked at her face, and realized Anne couldn’t look at her. The thought made Sasha sick. This wasn’t what she wanted.

“Sorry, I’m freezing up a little.”

“Hey, dude, if you don’t actually want to talk to me, it’s okay.” Sasha tried saying, concerned. “I don’t want to upset you like that. We can head out.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…” Anne looked at Sasha again, with some resolution reflected in her eyes. “Look, I like you a lot. You know that.” 

“You don’t gotta do the whole It’s not you it’s me speech, I get it.” Sasha really wanted to avoid a conversation like that. A part of her thought it would hurt too much. Another feared how she would react. All of her didn’t want to be here.

“No, no, Sasha, I love you.” Anne interrupted her. Sasha felt her heart stop. “You’re… the best friend I have, and one of the most important people in my life. I love you so much. I’m trying really hard not to make it look like I don’t.”

“Uh.” Sasha mumbled, mouth agape. 

She tried again.

“Uh.” Sasha repeated, as eloquently as before. 

“I just… god, I’m gonna screw this up, I’m screwing this up.” Anne’s voice reflected a fair bit of panic, which Sasha recognized, as she was in a lot of that herself. “Sash, I… don’t… argh.”

The anxious silence was terrifying. This was in the top 3 scenarios Sasha didn’t want to go through. She just wanted it to end. 

“What?” She asked, forcing herself to smile. Her voice and expression trembled a lot. “Not into girls?”

For Anne to blush, basically all the blood in her body had to direct itself to her face all at once. That’s what looked like it was happening right now. 

Sasha realized, detached, that she nailed it.

“It’s fine.” She grabbed Anne’s hand with both of hers, trying to ground her. The girl was shaking. “Anne, it’s fine. I swear. This isn’t bad.”

“No.” The girl forcefully closed her eyes, but her hand didn’t move. Or stop shaking. “You’re so special to me. I don’t want you to think you’re not. I really… I meant what I said.”

“It’s fine. It’s cool. You just don’t want to… yeah, no, I get it.” 

For all the nightmares she had, this wasn’t that bad. This was familiar, even. Someone was in crisis. It was her job to handle it.

“This is on me, Anne.” She said, and she meant it. Before Anne had a chance to say anything, she continued: “Look, I know what I’ve been doing pressures you a lot, even if I didn’t want it to. I’m sorry. That wasn’t cool.”

“It didn’t, seriously, I’m here because I want to. I’m not a kid.” Anne said, more annoyed than usual.

“No, no, that was messed up. I should have been real with you. I just…” She had to drop Anne’s hand for a second, and move a little. Away from Anne. “Every time I tell myself not to get closer to you, I do it anyway. Shoulda guessed I was going to do it again.” 

“Hey, come on.” 

It was Anne’s turn to get closer, and hold her hand. Anne was practically hugging her. She could feel the other woman’s warmth near her. It wasn’t as intoxicating as it usually was; it had a tinge of regret to it.

“Just because I can’t give you what you want doesn’t mean I don't want to be with you. By your side.” Anne finally put it into words. 

Sasha heard it, but not all of her registered it. Her mind was really heavy right now. 

“I-it’s okay if we don’t go out as often or whatever, that’s not what’s important to me. I know I said it really helps, but I can handle things myself without being checked up on all the time. I know it doesn’t look like that, but I swear it’s true.” Some part of Sasha realized Anne was trying not to cry. “You already helped me through so much. I just wanna know we’re okay. If we can keep talking. I-I don’t want to stop talking to you. Not again.”

Sasha asked herself if this is what was always waiting for her. Awkward conversation, tepid hand-holding, and the sinking feeling that she could never have what she wanted. That whatever she pursued would eventually fall flat, and not turn into what she was hoping for. 

That maybe, deep down, she didn’t even want it that much. That it was just some nothing objective she picked at random, something she knew she would never achieve. The need to force the issue. The desire to push forward regardless of her better nature.

She told herself, in her own head, that only a bad friend would listen to those instincts. That only someone who didn’t deserve to be happy would ever be as mean as she felt like being right now. 

“Are you sure?” Was the only thing she heard coming out of her mouth.

She saw Anne’s eyes widen, first in confusion, then in shock and hurt. Sasha didn’t quite know how to phrase it any other way. This was gonna have to do.

“It feels like you’d be better off without this.” Sasha continued. “Nobody wants some weirdo trying to hook up with them, do they?”

“Hey, you’re not like that.” Anne deflected. “That’s not what I said at all.”

“Yeah, but if we had just kept this going, you were gonna say it eventually. It’s just what always happens.” She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry. She was not going to–

“That’s just mean, you don’t know that. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“Oh yeah? What if I tried kissing you right now?” Sasha confronted her. “What if I just pulled you in? Wouldn’t that be bad? That’d ruin things and you know it. Might as well just say it.” 

“You’re being a jerk and you know it.” Anne lashed out. “That’s not fair.” 

“It’s all okay until it has to turn into something else.” 

Sasha was referring more to herself than to Anne, on some level. This was not inherently clear to Anne. Anne was so annoyed. 

“This isn’t just about you, okay. It’s about me too.”

“Whatever, I’m just being real.” Sasha shot back, mean girl act taking over. “I get when I’m not what people want, it’s okay. It happens all the time.”

“Ffffu—uuughhh.” 

Some part of her registered that she had just seen Anne stopping herself from swearing. There is no way to truly illustrate how rare that was. It brought Sasha back to herself, away from her worst version. She was going too far. 

This kept happening. She kept doing the work and then destroying it, scattering everything to the wind as soon as she didn’t get what she wanted. She kept going on about change but then anything that annoyed her always brought her back here. And the guilt didn’t go away easily afterward.

Her thoughts were going on about how to properly deescalate and apologize for the situation when she heard Anne say, unprompted: 

“You know what, dude?”

Sasha didn’t know how to react to Anne pulling her hand. She consciously knew she had about fifteen different throws to escape when someone pulled the back of her neck toward them, but she was too stunned to use any of them. In a way, it was convenient that her mouth was open.

Anne tasted like mint. Sasha couldn’t breathe, but she could smell it. She could taste it. 

Her heart felt like it was somehow growing and also trying to escape through her throat, but it also felt bad. This wasn’t the situation she thought her first kiss with Anne would be like. She didn’t think it was gonna be this stressful.

She had also imagined Anne was a better kisser, but that’s neither here nor there. It was still happening. The skill wasn’t important. This wasn’t some random guy she met at a night out. It was… Anne. The endgame. The one she kept thinking about. If she had to be honest, only the smallest part of her mind felt like it wasn’t right. The rest was ablaze. Between stunning and terrifying, it felt surreal. 

After what felt like an eternity, Anne released her, immediately letting go of her body. Their eyes met for a full second before Anne couldn’t handle it anymore and looked the other way, crossing her arms like a child who doesn’t want to play ball.

“See! Everything’s fine! No big deal!” Anne said, defiant. “I’m still your friend!”

Sasha’s heart wouldn’t calm down. Every second felt like an hour. She had no response. Her mouth was still drenched in the taste of mint. 

“What the hell” were words that eventually came out of Sasha’s mouth, but she didn’t know if she was talking to Anne or talking to God. “What the hell!” Sasha repeated, this time to anyone who was listening. She finally looked at Anne.

Still unable to stare Sasha in the eye.

“Y-you can’t just d-d-do that to someone, Anne!” Sasha said, a lot less forceful than she thought she would come off as. She was still out of breath, and very, very embarrassed. “That’s not cool!”

“Well!” Anne couldn’t look at her. She was almost turning her full back to her friend. “Then don’t treat me like I’m five! You started it!”

“You didn’t have to kiss me to prove a point! Oh my god, what is wrong with you!”

“What is wrong with YOU?! YOU USED YOUR TONGUE!” Anne turned around and pointed at Sasha, indignant. 

Both of them stared each other in the eye for a second.

Then laughed their asses off.

They laughed, and laughed, and laughed. People were definitely staring, but they didn’t care. All of a sudden, all the tension and antagonism just vanished. They had just kissed. Their brains were trying their hardest not to deal with that for now, and so, they kept laughing. 

“Oh my god, Anne!” Sasha managed to get out, between laughing fits. It was hard.

“I’m sorry! I panicked!” She admitted, still laughing. “I thought you were gonna stop me!“

"Why would I stop you?! I’m the one who wanted it!”

“I don’t know! I never did anything like this! I didn’t know when to quit!”

They kept laughing, but it died down eventually. Even through her smile, something icy was turning in Sasha’s stomach. She had heard it correctly, there was nothing else Anne could have meant.

“Was this” Sasha said, trying her hardest not to break eye contact, “your first…?”

“Um.” Anne had completely given up and was just covering parts of her face with her hands. “Yeah, actually. It was.”

“Dude, really? After all this time?” Sasha turned her back to the water, supporting herself on the handrail. The conversation had turned a whole lot more casual, even if nowhere near less personal.

“I-I just…” Anne felt small. It sucked. “It just never happened.”

“And uh, you’re sure you…?” Sasha had no way of asking whether Anne was into boys or girls or anything else without coming off as desperate. Screw it. Embrace it. “You know…?”

“Yeah, no, I’ve had crushes. I think. If I liked girls like that, you would have been… ugh. Ugh, I hate this now. What was I thinking?” And, as the situation dawned on her in real time, Sasha heard Anne’s voice cracking. She was going to cry. “Why did I do that…?” 

Sasha realized, after a few seconds of Anne not moving, that usually she would be coming closer to her for a comforting hug. 

She decided to take the initiative and hold Anne by her shoulder, bringing her closer, but nothing else. Anne was tense, but didn’t fight it. At least she wasn’t shaking.

“Thanks.” She whispered, getting more comfortable. “I made it weird.”

“Sure did.” Sasha said, well-humored. “Me too. Sorry about what I said before. I was being an ass.”

“Yeah, you were.” Anne smiled. “Just don’t do it again.”

It was a nice afternoon. The view was beautiful. They both had their favorite person right next to them, sharing heat and affection. They had just kissed.

“We shouldn’t date, right.” Sasha said, a voice inside her screaming that she had to be the one to do it. “There’s just too much going on.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, no.” Anne said, some part of her also screaming she had to be the one to do it. “We’re really messy.”

“Yeah. It’s good messy when we’re hanging out, but…”

“We’d probably not be good messy with each other if we did this for real.”

“Ugh, but you get all my jokes, and how I think.” Sasha felt like her eyes were unfocused. It was just her and her feelings, for a second. “And you’re so god damn cool, Anne. You’re the best person I know.” 

Sasha didn’t mean to bring Anne closer in their hug, but it felt impossible not to. On some level, Sasha realized, she didn’t want to let Anne go. 

“It feels easy.” She continued. “Sorry, damn it, it– it feels like what I wanted when I was a little kid, and we met for the first time. It’s not fair that when I finally get anything like it, we figure it’s not good. That we’re not good for it. That sucks. God that sucks so much.”

She felt Anne breathing deeply. The reality of what she said sunk in. It was her time to blush.

“We can still… do this.” Anne held her hand. “We can still be best friends. We can still be close, more than other people; we’ve known each other for so long. Just…” 

In practice, there wasn’t much Anne could say, and she definitely didn’t know what else to try. 

“I’m sorry, Sash.”

Sasha couldn’t pretend her heart didn’t sink a bit. It wasn’t like she really expected Anne to throw herself on her arms and erase the feeling that she would never be complete from her head.

“I get it.” She tried her hardest not to sound bitter. “Hey, can we keep hugging for a bit? I kinda need a hug.”

“Yeah. Of course. Me too.” 

So they did. 

---

Sasha was at the staircase again. She was a child again. She was going to fall again.

Something about this dream felt wrong right away. There were too many steps. She didn’t have her cape on. No sword. No nothing. Just the certainty that she was going to fail. Fall down the stairs and cry. 

Tell me, Sasha. She heard her dad say, somewhere. He wasn’t here, but he was everywhere. She felt her shoulders hurting like he was pressing on them again. Tell me you can’t fly.

She got ready to jump. She knew it was a doomed mission, but she didn’t care. All she could do was jump. No looking back, no looking forward. Living in the moment; no tomorrow could hurt her if tomorrow wasn’t real. All that mattered is what she could claw out right now. All that mattered was the jump. Where she landed was never the point.

Things blow up in your face, she heard Marcy say. Like the nicest knife possible going straight through her back. 

It was like the steps were getting further and further apart. They extended infinitely. She was a girl-shaped jar filled with nothing but the expectations people had of her. The things they expected her to do. The things they told her she shouldn’t want. The things she stole and grabbed and never let go of.

We wouldn’t be good with each other.

Anne was always on her mind. She was always saying no. It felt like their whole thing was saying no.

She jumped. She fell.

You can’t escape your dreams. You can’t escape yourself.

Sasha never hit the steps. She just kept falling. She could see the step where she almost broke her leg beneath her, but she just kept falling faster, and faster, and faster. The voices followed her throughout. 

You can’t fly.

You can’t fly.

You can’t fly.

---

Sasha woke up with a startle. 

She was soaked in sweat. It was still dark out; the clock said she didn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours. Her arm was so tense she felt her muscles threatened to sprain. 

Part of her always woke up from nightmares thinking she was back in a fight. That somehow Andrias found their base and was attacking, and that she needed to go out and defend everyone. Do everything herself.

But here she was, a full decade later. What needed to be done had been done. She was a different person now. She didn’t sleep with a sword under her pillow. She didn’t smell rotten or eat bugs. 

So why wasn’t her mind settling? 

She cursed to herself, getting out of bed and opening the window. A cool breeze entered her room, bringing with it a strange smell that she could only find at night. Los Angeles never really went to sleep, but the noises changed after 1am. She never found the words to explain it. It felt like something only she experienced, even though it couldn’t possibly be the case. 

You can’t escape your dreams, Sasha.

She didn’t know where the thought came from. No one had ever told her that. But it kept coming up. Like some truth she knew from the bottom of her heart; something unexamined. 

No amount of looking at the faint stars that survived the city lights and dim fog would give her any peace of mind, and she knew it. She was thinking too loud. 

With all her mental health experience and the certainty that she didn’t have work tomorrow, she realized there was only one thing she could do.

 

“Uuuuugggh Marcyyyyy whyyyyyy.” Sasha said, drunk at 2am on a Friday morning. 

At this point their voice chat just stayed perpetually connected. Every once in a while Sasha could swear she could hear Marcy snoring, unaware she left the computer on. It wasn’t that big a surprise when she and her bottle turned on the machine and saw Marcy still awake, doing god knows what. She was probably working on her webcomic. 

That wasn’t on Sasha’s mind at this point, she was too busy being out of control.

“Sooo… it didn’t go well with Anne?” Marcy tried. 

She didn’t seem exactly worried; there’s only so much wrong that can happen when you’re drunk in your own bedroom. But this was not what she expected. 

“She doesn’t love mee-hee-heee.” Her drunk-crying always sounded fake, but it wasn’t. What kind of woman fake drunk-cried? It had to come from the heart. 

“Aw, come on Sash, don’t be like that.” Marcy, for some reason, made it so she was trying to pet her friend’s head. From the other side of the screen. “It can’t have gone that bad.”

“She kissed me and then said we shouldn’t date!” 

Sasha and Marcy entered some sort of impromptu staring contest for a couple seconds, which Sasha’s sleep-deprived, drunk gaze lost immediately. So it was just awkward silence for a moment.

“What happened?” Marcy eventually asked, so confused she couldn’t even come up with a reaction. “How did she kiss you? Wh- why? It’s been like, one day since we talked and all of this happens!”

Sasha’s version of events passed through a couple of filters: bitterness, drunkenness, bias, the sinking understanding that these things affected her way more than she cared to admit, followed by another shot of whatever liquor she had found. It was either soju or sake. She didn’t check, honestly.

Whatever the case, Marcy’s facial expression went through the full range of human emotion as she heard the story. By the end of it, she looked like she was trying her hardest to keep it together, it not entirely clear if she was going to cry or scream in frustration. Sasha was too busy figuring out where she put her ice tray to notice how quiet Marcy had gotten after the story ended.

“Hey Sash?” She finally talked.

“Yyyeah?”

“Are you doing anything this weekend?” 

“No. I mean not anymore. I was gonna…” She started saying, trying to remember how to put it. “Was gonna take Anne out. Found a cool Korean place. I’m not doing that anymore.”

Another shot. Axolotl above, help your tadpole. Christ, why did they talk like that?  

“Can I come visit?”

“wha?” She mumbled. “Dude, you don’t gotta, that’s expensive. I’m okay.” 

“No no, it’s fine, I got miles saved up. And I miss you, and…”

Sasha somehow found herself wobbling in her own chair, startling as she held onto the table. 

“... you kinda look like you could use some company.”

“I’m good.” Sasha said, filterless. “I got enough people who don’t want to date me.”

She was drunk enough to say it, but not drunk enough to not immediately realize how much of a meanspirited thing to say that was. Her head whipped straight as she looked at Marcy’s shocked reaction turn into profound sadness.

“Wait, wait, no, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry, I–”

Marcy turned the call off.

The only sound in Sasha’s room was whatever was coming from outside, and what felt like the sound of her blood flowing to her head. Eventually, it started to rain. The white noise of water hitting pavement made her mind feel like television static.

You can’t escape yourself.

---

Sasha woke up with the doorbell buzzing incessantly.

She had a horrible headache. No dreams after blacking out in her room bed, but no rest either. She felt like garbage. Her room and, somehow, her living room looked like garbage. Apparently she took the bender to other places in the house as well. Not that most of it was coming back to her, or anything. This was all very serious investigative work she was doing. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t drink all the memories away. She needed to call Marcy. She had managed to pick the single worst thing she could have said and casually used it. Why did she even start drinking? What did she think was going to happen?

The bell kept buzzing. Ugh. Come on, it’s… whatever time it is. 

She got up too fast and her head told her to stop doing that. The world was a blur of lights and pain and easily preventable repercussions. She stumbled her way to the door, struggling to unlock and finally open it.

“whhaaa” came out of her mouth, but her eyes didn’t adjust to light very well. She could barely see.

“Sasha?” 

It was Marcy’s voice.

Sasha blinked a few times until she managed to focus on the colors. Marcy only really wore blues, grays and greens, so that was immediately recognizable. She managed to finally focus on Marcy’s face, and it looked… conflicted.

“Mar-Mar…?” Sasha mumbled. “What are you doing here? We were just talking. Oh, sorry, also…”

“Sasha, it’s… two in the afternoon. I flew in.” Marcy sounded more worried than upset, which Sasha didn’t understand. “Did you just wake up? Um, can we go in? You’re… half-naked.”

“Ah?” Sasha realized that her penchant for not wearing a lot for bed had become an unfortunate lifestyle choice. “Ah, crap, damn it, frog spitting–”

She motioned for Marcy to walk in, stumbling into her own living room. Sasha looked into her dirty laundry bin and grabbed an oversized jersey from a team she didn’t recognize. She put it on wrong and crashed into the couch, head going inside one of the sleeves. She eventually felt Marcy pulling on the fabric and adjusting it so she wore it like people.

“I’m gonna make you some breakfast, okay?”

“Dddidn’t you say it was two…?” She mumbled, realizing she was very hungry. “J-just get me a prairie oyster, I’ll figure it out from there.”

“Eh?” 

“Get me a cup with a raw egg, salt, pepper, tabasco and–”

“Yeah no, I’m making you coffee.”

Sasha didn’t have the energy to argue. She was starting to get nauseous, too. How much of that bottle did she even have? Why was Marcy here? Why would she bother? 

These questions and whatever others came up were immediately erased as soon as Marcy approached her with freshly brewed coffee and two toasted egg sandwiches. She didn’t even remember she had that many ingredients in her fridge. Sasha practically inhaled everything, feeling herself get better with every bite.

“Oh my frog, you’re a godsend, this is so good” She kept complimenting Marcy between big bites, regardless of Marcy paying attention or not. 

Marcy didn’t reply. She was busy walking through the results of Sasha’s bender last night. She tripped a couple of times, but for good reason. Clothes and household appliances were thrown everywhere. 

“Um, is this usually how your house is…?” Marcy asked, cautious. “It didn’t look like this last time I showed up.”

Sasha wiped her hands, breathing deeply. “I was working through some stuff.”

That wasn’t necessarily false, but she knew she was lying by omission. Marcy could see how much takeout she ordered all the time. She could see how the dishes barely got cleaned. She was walking through weeks of chores Sasha just didn’t have time or energy for. Her life was always on autopilot until she found something she cared about, and then she ruined it.

The silence that replied to her comment got louder and louder in Sasha’s head. Marcy went inside her room for a second, leaving her alone with an empty plate and half a mug of coffee, made for her by a dear friend whom she had deeply insulted not twenty-four hours ago. 

Said friend’s reaction to being insulted was spending a cool hundred on a plane ticket to come check in on and take care of her. 

Sasha wasn’t overly emotional, but she was also still working through a lot of alcohol and a couple of bad days. She hadn’t had time to prepare her house for someone to come into it. Marcy was just staring at what her life was usually like, and for the first time in a while, so was she. The tears came easily.

“Frog, girl, you drank all of this in one night? Even I know this stuff is…” Marcy came back with an empty bottle in hand, only to interrupt herself. “Sash? You okay?”

She was not. Crying was weird, especially when she didn’t know what made her feel worse. She wasn’t supposed to act like this.

“I’m so sorry.” She let out, whimpering. Covering her face with her hands felt like the only thing she could do to have some control. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s… it’s fine.” Marcy put the bottle on a desk and came to sit on Sasha’s side, hugging her. “Don’t worry. I came here because I was worried. I’m not that mad.”

“I treated you like trash, you didn’t have to come here.” She tried saying. Whatever came out was more or less coherent, but definitely not eloquent. “I am trash. I suck, Marcy. I-I suck so much. Why am I like this?”

Marcy said something to the effect of there, there and held her head comfortably. It wasn’t too long until Sasha was laying on her couch, crying with her head on her friend’s lap. Marcy played with her hair to calm her down, and frog if it didn’t work.

“I don’t deserve you guys.” Sasha said, incapable of stopping. “I ruin it every time. I just say something bad or I do something stupid and I hurt everyone.”

Marcy took a second to reply, as if she was measuring her options.

“Don’t you think that’s a little much?” She replied. “We’re all still here. It’s not like we don’t screw up sometimes too.” 

“But I should be better than this!” Sasha buried herself on her friend’s clothes, which would be a lot more embarrassing if she didn’t have so much alcohol in her system. “I should have figured this out by now! I should be a better person! What’s the point of everything we went through if I’m still the same stupid girl who almost got you two killed?!”

She finally got up, which gave her headache newfound power. But it wasn’t enough to make her stop.

“You came all this way and I still keep being mean to you, why are you friends with me? I’m still as bad as I was when I was younger, I just– I-I– why can everyone change but me?!”

Marcy’s expression changed from focused and worried to a snarky smile. It fit the snorting laugh she made.

“Sorry Sash, but come on , you know that’s not true. I’m a mess.” She held Sasha's hand, comforting her. “We’re all messes. We’ve all always been messes. That’s never changed.”

Sasha managed to stop crying enough for her sentences to not come out broken and mumbling. 

“And being a mess is supposed to be fine.”

“Yeah.” Marcy brought her in again, this time just to sit by her side. “It’s not fun all the time, but it’s fine. Things keep happening either way. Just be better next time.”

“You would have never hurt me like that, though.” Sasha hugged her legs, looking down. “You wouldn’t have snapped at me like that, or-or been mean if I said I didn’t want to do something, or…”

“Are we really going to do the Screw-up Olympics?” Marcy asked, smiling and raising an eyebrow. “I sent us to Amphibia.” A part of her did see it as a competition and she did just get gold.

“It was good, though!” Sasha exclaimed. “I’m so tired of pretending it wasn’t! It was such a good time! I loved so much of it!”

“Still, it was a bad move. I should have asked.” Marcy changed positions, weighing her head on both her hands. “And let’s not pretend it was perfect. Me and Anne… died there. We’re lucky to be here.”

She saw Sasha was about to start piling on herself again, so Marcy followed up immediately:

“You’re allowed to have had a better time than we did! Seriously! It’s not your fault we ended up where we did! And even if it ended poorly for me, I had a great time at first. I really did, and so did Anne. You know how much she loves the Plantars, and how much she misses them.”

Sasha didn’t seem to have a self-deprecating comment to answer that. 

“I just feel like I never suffered like you two did” came out of her mouth eventually. “It’s not fair.”

Marcy motioned her to keep going, mostly out of confusion.

“None of this… stuff is as bad. I miss Grimes, but it’s fine. I got an okay job. My family sucks but they don’t talk to me that much. Oh, what, I can’t date my super supportive best friend, and I can’t insult my other best friend enough for her to give up on me? That’s… there’s nothing wrong with me. I got away with it. I wasn’t… I w-wasn’t supposed to get away with everything I did.” 

Sasha didn’t know where to look. It all sounded incredibly silly when she said it out loud. 

“But I shouldn’t be this sad if there’s nothing wrong with me. I shouldn’t be having nightmares all the time, I shouldn’t lash out so hard. I’m just messed up, for no reason. I’m just bad. People like you shouldn’t have to come by whenever I have a fit. I shouldn’t have fits, t-there’s nothing here, I…” 

She finally forced herself to look at Marcy, who had a bewildered expression of extreme confusion on her face. All of a sudden, Marcy seemed to listen to something, and mumble something like huh? Really? Okay… to herself before looking a little more determined at her. 

“That’s dumb.”

It must have been the alcohol messing with her ears. 

“What did you say?”

“That’s dumb. You’re being dumb.” Marcy repeated, woodfaced. She then poked Sasha’s nose. “Dummy.”

Had to be the alcohol. Or she was dreaming. Some logical part of Sasha felt like slapping herself in the face.

“What the hell?” She asked instead, with a tone between shock and irritation.

“What you’re saying is dumb and so are you.”

“Stop calling me dumb!” She chuckled.

“Dummy.”

“What the hell Mar-Mar!” It was stupid, the whole thing was stupid. She couldn’t help laughing. “Stop!” 

Marcy let her laugh a bit more. Then played at poking her nose again, which made her laugh more. It wasn’t long until Sasha was crying. From laughter or for real, it didn’t really matter. Her expression definitely looked more relaxed after she was done, wiping tears away.

“Now just tell me about what’s bothering you, and let’s work through it together?” Marcy asked, smiling at her. “Please? You know how this works better than me.”

“Frog, girl, I don’t deserve you.” Sasha hugged her. “You’re the best. I gotta treat you to dinner tonight.”

“I’d appreciate it. I’m kinda broke.” Marcy chuckled, and then sighed. “Also, totally unrelated, can I sleep here until Sunday?”

---

Turns out flying wasn’t that hard. 

The controls were intuitive once she sat down. The instructions were clear. 

The lady assigned to her plane was giving her some last minute checks, and she was nailing all of them. It just fell into place.

She looked out of the cockpit before taking off. Anne and Marcy were in the crowd. They were both smiling and waving, almost like they were rooting for her. Their cheerleading sucked. It was really funny.

The air pressure popped her ears almost as soon as they hit the first few clouds. It was a beautiful, bright day. She could see the entire town from up there; part of her wanted to open the ship and feel the clouds with her bare hands. 

Every memory of her imagining this moment came to mind, but then kept flowing, giving up its place to the next one. Like a line of moments that all led up to this, but didn’t have much to do with each other at all. If she had to be real about it, she had flown a lot in her life already. For some reason she didn’t think it counted, but this was second nature for a reason.

Of course flying came easily. Of course the sky felt like home. Of course, when it came down to it, Sasha could have flown whenever she wanted. She was a natural. A heron disguised as a human; fierce, fast and always impressive. 

And in the silent nothingness of the sky, surrounded by a layer of clouds and thin air, with an instructor trying to make the flight memorable by pointing out things about the experience, she realized it once and for all. The entire splendor of mother nature wasn’t enough. There was something missing.

All she wanted to do now was go back down and hang out with her friends. 

---

They were all at Anne’s place after the fact. The kitchen was a bit too hot for comfort, but light clothes, hair ties and electric fans made it bearable. Anne had been surprised at seeing Marcy in town, but Sasha noticed Marcy saying some things to Anne while she prepared the kitchen. No questions were asked. It embarrassed her just a bit.

Anne’s house wasn’t bad at all, but she could tell the girl was having her own struggles. It was a bit too small for the amount of things she owned, and the location itself wasn’t the best. It was close to her job but not much else. The neighbors were loud. The furniture was starting to look handmade with how much Anne decorated them, which she had to assume was becoming problematic as she could swear that the coffee table had been larger in the past. Some of it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. 

“So, how was flying?” Anne asked, trying her hardest to pretend she still remembered how to work with a wok. “Was it everything you imagined?”

“Oh, you know, it was okay.” Was her genuine response. “It was actually pretty easy.”

“You sound kinda underwhelmed.” 

The wok Anne was preparing caught on fire on the bottom; probably some leftover oil that dripped down. Sasha immediately adjusted the temperature to make it better. No one died. They barely registered the action.

“I guess a little?” Sasha was cutting some veggies, half-paying attention to the process. “I didn’t realize how much of it wasn’t… that special.”

“What did you expect?” 

“I guess I expected to feel more complete after it.” She poured the chopped bits of vegetables in a bow, passing it to Anne so she could braise everything. “It just felt like something I did because I wanted to. It didn’t give me anything new. Actually, no, I did feel something new.”

“Yeah?”

“I felt like you girls should have been up there with me. Would have felt better.”

Anne smiled. “Awwww, you’re sweet.” And then she burned the veggies. “Crap! Crap! Crap!”

Alongside the inferno building up, the parallel, unrelated sound of something falling in the living room told her Marcy had just suffered a Marcy moment. 

“Crap!” She dropped what she was doing with the wok, which Sasha immediately picked up on. It was second nature to pick up for each other when Marcy tripped, or set the house on fire, or walked into a well full of poisonous snakes. 

She had thought about what she was about to ask for a while, but never seriously. But Sasha could see it in her head.

“Hey, Anne?” Sasha asked, trying to sound casual. 

“Sorry! Sorry, Marcy found that hole in the couch where the cushions connect and got stuck between them, she didn’t even notice it cuz she was looking at her phone and those veggies are on fire.”

Sasha blinked and realized that she burned the rest of the food.

“AH COME ON–” 

Anne quelled the flames, stopping a disaster. That was three different situations dealt with around the same 60 seconds period.

“We used to know how to cook.” Said Sasha, trying to figure out how it went so wrong.

“You know, I wanted pizza anyway.” Anne said, nonchalantly. 

They both laughed, already starting to coordinate cleaning efforts. It was easy to work together. Even though Sasha didn’t know where everything was, she could sort of guess where Anne would put her supplies. 

“Hey, we’re a good team, right?” Sasha asked, somewhat suddenly. “That’s not changing?”

“Of course.” Anne mock-punched her shoulder, reassuringly. “Look at us, we just saved the world again. After almost setting it on fire.” 

“Yeah.” 

While she gathered cleaning materials to take care of the mess, Sasha tried her hardest coming up with a segue. She didn’t succeed.

“Do you like living here?” Blunt and to the point, hammers and nails, etc.

“Huh?” Anne was already walking out of the kitchen at that point, going back to check on Marcy.

She didn’t reply immediately, and Sasha accompanied her out, bag of inedible food in hand going into the organic trash. Part of Anne seemed like she was trying to decide whether or not Sasha meant that as an insult.

“I guess?” She settled, unsure. “I mean, it’s… not my mom’s house or anything. It’s cool. Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking. I haven’t had this much fun indoors in a while. I don’t think I like my place. Or being alone there, at least. Having people with you is really nice.”

Anne mumbled a noise of understanding after that last part. They both settled on the L-shaped couch, where Marcy was still playing on her phone after being rescued. Or working. Neither one of them could tell.

“You know, I think you’re right.” 

Anne looked for some delivery numbers on her phone, but then put it down for a moment. Marcy noticed they were having a serious conversation, starting to pay attention.

“If I gotta be real, living here hasn’t been great for me, even if the place isn’t bad.” Anne continued. “It’s hard to keep it together all the time when it’s just me. I barely know anyone in the building.”

“Oh, I get what you mean.” Marcy chimed in. “I had a roommate move out on me before I went to San Francisco. It was really rough. Nothing but you and the voices inside your head all the time.” The girls looked at her as if they expected her to elaborate. She did not. “I actually don’t have a roommate right now either, but I’m still feeling my new place out, so it’s fine? But, well…”

Marcy started mimicking something unknowable, that only made sense for her. 

“Yeah?” Sasha asked a few seconds later.

“... I’ve been coming here a lot to see you two, so I haven’t felt super lonely.” She smiled, embarrassed. “You make it better. You always do.”

“You two!” Anne said, covering her face, smiling. “You two are competing to see who’s gonna make me cry first!”

“Oh, it’s gonna be me.” Sasha replied, lounging on the couch, with her head close to Anne’s lap. “You two make me feel good enough. I don’t feel like that anywhere else. I put that into words this week.”

“Aaaaah!” Anne caved, small tears making their way out of her eyes. “It’s not faaaair stoppppp.”

They all laughed, and one of them laughed and cried at the same time, like a big adult who’s got it figured out. 

Fear not hearth and companionship. Love is what you feel for those important to you.

“Why don’t we move in together.” Sasha said, more an affirmation than a question. 

It didn’t make her as anxious as she expected. And the silence didn’t last that long either. 

“Oooh.” Marcy said, looking up. “That sounds good, actually. I couldn’t right now, but when my lease is done…”

“Don’t you have work in San Francisco?” Anne asked.

“Eh, it’s remote. I kept breaking things at the office so they just let me do it like this. Productivity is up 50% in the whole company!” She exclaimed, proud that her trail of destruction was completely contained to her home. “But… yeah, no, I could… that could work. I really miss this city. And having you two around.”

The whole time, Anne kept looking around at her apartment, as if searching for something. Maybe a reason to stay, or a reason to go. Her eyes never looked like they stopped anywhere specific. Sasha tried not to stare at her, but it was difficult. She had always thought about asking that question, but it felt like something other people got to do. Not her. People who deserved their happy ending. 

“Living together, huh.” Anne mumbled to herself, lost in her own head. “If it’s not too far away from the Aquarium… yeah. Yeah, I could see it.”

Sasha wasn’t anxious, but her heart definitely made itself known. She held back everything. This couldn’t be something she had to fight for. This– 

“You know, yeah, why not?” Anne said it louder, more confident. “I would love to move in with you girls. A giant sleepover that never ends sounds great.”

Marcy and Anne started to exchange plans, but Sasha just smiled. She would remember the words eventually, but she felt like a huge weight was taken off her back. Her head was now fully on top of Anne’s lap, and she realized how tired she had been. Exhausted by something she didn’t even know had been bothering her. The piece of a puzzle fit where it had to.

It just took some extra work. Some soul-searching. Some weirdly specific nightmares. But none of that had been enough to bring her down. She was Sasha Waybright. Evil beware, she saved the world again. At least the part that she cared about.

“Hey, wake me up when the pizza’s here. I slept like a toad.” She said, closing her eyes. 

It wasn’t long until she felt Anne playing with her hair. She didn’t see Marcy smile and place her hand on Anne’s shoulder, nor did she see Anne smile back. For the first time in a long time, their happiness didn’t feel like it had an expiration date. 

---

In her dreams, Sasha could fly. It felt good.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Lost in Amphibia