Frogs.
( inspired by 'The Frog Prince" )
The duck completely lost track of how far up the creek bed he wandered, before he finally reached a place where there were smalls pools of water in the creek bed where he found some spongy damp moss to nibble on. Once he'd eaten that, he continued up the creek bed a long way farther until he found an actual pond in the shade of an impressive linden tree.
The pond was very muddy all around its borders, but that didn't bother the duck. He waddled through the mud so he could get into the pond and swim out to the middle of it, where he paddled around in a circle until the mud washed off his feet. Temporarily contented, the duck shut his eyes and snuggled his head onto his shoulders and dozed a bit.
The air turned colder as evening came on, and the duck started to feel like he was being watched. He looked around, though, and couldn't see anyone watching him. He looked under the water and still didn't see anyone watching. If the pond had any small fishes, they must have been hiding. Feeling less tired than before, the duck became more concerned about how hungry he was. There was, however, surprisingly little vegetation underwater that he could see from the middle of the pond.
The duck paddled in a slow circle around the more shallow sides of the pond, and found a little bit of tender-leaved water plants to nibble on. It was beginning to look as though he would have to get out of the water and go back out across the mud to look for something more to eat.
Sighing heavily, the duck started to wade through the mud. Suddenly, he saw several small pairs of very round, bulbous eyes looking at him from the mud. Stopping, he looked around to see if he could count how many, but most of them disappeared back into the mud. One pair of eyes didn't, however, and instead lifted up out of the mud to reveal they were attached to the top of the round little head of a little frog.
"You sigh so loudly that you woke us from our hibernation," the little frog said.
"I'm sorry." Said the duck. "I didn't mean to disturb anyone."
"But why do you sigh so loud, o duck?"
The duck sighed again, but not so loudly this time. "I have come from a place where everyone is hungry, and I traveled a long way to get to this forest, and also long way through the forest, and I still am hungry. It is nice to have found water, and this seems like a peaceful place, but I need to find more substantial food than a few tender leaves and tufts of moss."
"Ah!" said the frog, "I see the trouble. Most of us frogs will hibernate until the weather warms and all the bugs we like to eat come out, but you cannot do that, can you? What if I show you where you can find more food nearby? There is a hidden place where the birds and other forest creatures haven't eaten all the good things up. You can also rest there, so you don't disturb my relatives by walking through the mud here and sighing all the time."
"Oh, would you? I'd be ever so grateful if there is such a place around here. Is it far?"
"Oh no, not far." The little frog said, pulling herself up out of the mud and blinking cheekily. "But how grateful would you be? What will you do for me, if I show you the way?"
"O little frog, I am so tired and hungry that if you show me a safe place to rest where I can eat my fill so that I won't be starving anymore, I will do anything you ask that is in my power to grant."
"All I want," said the little frog, "is for you to stay and hibernate with me until the weather turns warm. I want to sleep snuggled up under your wing where I can stay warm and cozy, instead of down in the mud."
"Oh, yes!" The duck agreed quickly. "Certainly I will do as you ask, only show me where the good food is, for I am so very hungry."
So the little frog led the duck to where a little stream hiding under some thorny bushes fed the pond, and up that stream to where it came out of the ground. At first it looked like a little burrow, a hole under a tree root just big enough for the duck to squeeze through, but inside it was a snug little cave with a cheerful little spring coming out of the ground, which left the cave through the hole.
Some phosphorescent lichens on the ceiling provided enough soft light to see by. All around the inside of the cave grew delicious-looking mushrooms within easy reach, and some soft tender moss with tasty-looking buds grew on either side of the water. Under the mushrooms were some plump grubs of the sort that a duck would enjoy snacking on.
Happily, the duck ate his fill, and washed it down with plenty of nice clean water from the spring. He had all but forgotten about the frog by the time he settled in near the spring, snuggling down to sleep on a reasonably dry patch of soft moss.
"Ahem." The little frog croaked.
Surprised, the duck looked over to see that the frog had stayed there, watching him the whole time.
"Oh, hello." The duck said, pretending to have forgotten his promise.
The frog hopped closer. "Don't forget that you promised to stay until spring, and let me sleep tucked up under your wing where I can stay snug and warm."
"Oh, but ducks don't hibernate."
"I know. You can stay here though. The mushrooms and the moss will keep growing, and there will always be plump grubs and lichen on the ceiling, and the spring will keep flowing, so you will have everything you need."
"But... don't you want to hibernate with your relatives?"
"What I want, is for you to keep your promise."
"Oh, very well." The duck sighed resignedly. He lifted up a wing for the little frog to crawl under, and scooped the frog up so that she could snuggle close and secure. Whereupon, the frog went to sleep.
The duck lost count of how many days he stayed in that little cave, keeping one wing always close so the frog would be kept secure. But although the frog had said she wanted to be kept warm snuggled under his wing, she always seemed to be very cold and clammy and the duck found it very uncomfortable. Not to mention that he wanted to go back out to the pond so he could swim for a bit and stretch his wings.
"Maybe it'll be alright if I tuck the frog into a blanket of moss, just to go out for a bit. I can come back later."
He could tell the frog's heart was still beating, although very slowly, and he couldn't really tell if she was even breathing. But she was as cold and slimy as a stone sitting in icy water, and even seemed as heavy and solid as a stone. He started to tuck the frog into a pile of moss, carefully so as not to wake her, but then he heard a chirping insect at the cave entrance.
"Liar, liar. Liar, liar." It seemed to say, and then the duck heard a little tiny voice say, "if you go away and don't keep your promise, you will be lost in the forest forever, always starving." The duck looked around but couldn't tell where the voice came from. He heard the spring bubbling and trickling, but nothing else for a moment.
"If I only leave for a little while, I can come back..." the duck said, feeling uncertain.
"Liar, liar. Liar, liar." The insect at the cave entrance chirped again. "If you get lost, you won't be able to come back."
Sighing, the duck tucked the cold, clammy little frog back under his wing, and did his best to tolerate the situation. Several times more as the days went on, he thought about sneaking away... but every time he did, he heard an insect chirping at him just inside the cave. He tried to see where it was, but never could, so he gave up on that.
One day, the duck woke to the sound of other insects chirping a different tune from outside the cave, and as he listened further, he also heard distant birds singing. He longed to go out and stretch his wings and swim in the pond, and he dearly wished to look for something more to eat, different from mushrooms and moss and grubs. He checked to see if maybe the frog might show signs of waking soon, but to his surprise, he couldn't detect any signs of life at all in the little frog.
Shocked, the duck dumped the round, stone-like frog onto the moss and looked closely at her. She even seemed to have turned into a frog-shaped rock.
"You're never going to wake up, are you?" The duck shouted angrily. "Well, I'm not going to stay here forever and keep a dead stone tucked under my wing!" He kicked at the stone, and it skipped across the spring and struck a rock in the cave wall with a large 'crack!'
The duck was about to leave, when suddenly the light from the lichens on the ceiling changed color, and the spring bubbled more loudly. Looking around, the duck saw the frog-shaped stone start to wiggle, and heard some more cracking. Even more surprised than before, the duck approached and looked closely.
The stone cracked and opened up like an egg shell, and out stepped what looked like a little gosling.
"Thank you!" The gosling peeped. "Now we'll go help my family."
Dumbfounded, the duck followed the gosling out of the cave, and down the little stream to the pond. As they walked, the gosling grew bigger and bigger, until the duck realized that it was a swan, not a goose. By the time they came to the mud where all the frogs had been hibernating, the swan was fully grown and stunningly beautiful.
She gracefully stretched her wings, then reached down into the mud with her beak and started pulling the frogs out. The duck helped, and once they had all been dug out of the mud, he saw that all the frogs hibernating there looked like they had turned into stones, too. And, like the first one had done, they all started cracking like eggs, and hatching out what looked like goslings but quickly grew into beautiful swans.
"Thank you, thank you!" they all called out, then bowed to the first swan and called her their princess. They told the duck that they had all been cursed to be turned into cold little frogs, and had been trapped in the forest by that little pond for years, waiting for someone to come along who would promise to keep their princess warm for long enough to make the curse break.
"Now will you marry our princess?" they asked the surprised duck. Before he could answer, though, the princess spoke up.
"Not so, my family. The duck did help break the curse, but he wouldn't have if my nursemaid hadn't scolded him many times, telling him to keep his promise."
Then the duck saw a little old swan standing by the princess, who nodded and said, "That's so, that's so," in a voice the duck recognized as being the one he had heard while he was in the cave, and had thought an insect was chirping at him.
"But we thank you, o duck, for helping us, and so we won't leave you here to be lost in the forest. On our way back to our own country, we will take you to a nice place with a beautiful lake and plenty to eat all around it. You can fly among us on the way there, so it won't be a difficult journey for your old wings."
"Fair enough." The duck confessed. He thought (but didn't dare say) that he hadn't wanted to marry a princess anyway, even if she was the most beautiful swan he'd ever seen. 'After all,' he thought to himself, 'I am just a simple old duck from a country farm. What would I want with a princess, and all these swans, and a country? No, thank you, and a nice lake with plenty of food will suit me fine.'
The duck completely lost track of how far up the creek bed he wandered, before he finally reached a place where there were smalls pools of water in the creek bed where he found some spongy damp moss to nibble on. Once he'd eaten that, he continued up the creek bed a long way farther until he found an actual pond in the shade of an impressive linden tree.
The pond was very muddy all around its borders, but that didn't bother the duck. He waddled through the mud so he could get into the pond and swim out to the middle of it, where he paddled around in a circle until the mud washed off his feet. Temporarily contented, the duck shut his eyes and snuggled his head onto his shoulders and dozed a bit.
The air turned colder as evening came on, and the duck started to feel like he was being watched. He looked around, though, and couldn't see anyone watching him. He looked under the water and still didn't see anyone watching. If the pond had any small fishes, they must have been hiding. Feeling less tired than before, the duck became more concerned about how hungry he was. There was, however, surprisingly little vegetation underwater that he could see from the middle of the pond.
The duck paddled in a slow circle around the more shallow sides of the pond, and found a little bit of tender-leaved water plants to nibble on. It was beginning to look as though he would have to get out of the water and go back out across the mud to look for something more to eat.
Sighing heavily, the duck started to wade through the mud. Suddenly, he saw several small pairs of very round, bulbous eyes looking at him from the mud. Stopping, he looked around to see if he could count how many, but most of them disappeared back into the mud. One pair of eyes didn't, however, and instead lifted up out of the mud to reveal they were attached to the top of the round little head of a little frog.
"You sigh so loudly that you woke us from our hibernation," the little frog said.
"I'm sorry." Said the duck. "I didn't mean to disturb anyone."
"But why do you sigh so loud, o duck?"
The duck sighed again, but not so loudly this time. "I have come from a place where everyone is hungry, and I traveled a long way to get to this forest, and also long way through the forest, and I still am hungry. It is nice to have found water, and this seems like a peaceful place, but I need to find more substantial food than a few tender leaves and tufts of moss."
"Ah!" said the frog, "I see the trouble. Most of us frogs will hibernate until the weather warms and all the bugs we like to eat come out, but you cannot do that, can you? What if I show you where you can find more food nearby? There is a hidden place where the birds and other forest creatures haven't eaten all the good things up. You can also rest there, so you don't disturb my relatives by walking through the mud here and sighing all the time."
"Oh, would you? I'd be ever so grateful if there is such a place around here. Is it far?"
"Oh no, not far." The little frog said, pulling herself up out of the mud and blinking cheekily. "But how grateful would you be? What will you do for me, if I show you the way?"
"O little frog, I am so tired and hungry that if you show me a safe place to rest where I can eat my fill so that I won't be starving anymore, I will do anything you ask that is in my power to grant."
"All I want," said the little frog, "is for you to stay and hibernate with me until the weather turns warm. I want to sleep snuggled up under your wing where I can stay warm and cozy, instead of down in the mud."
"Oh, yes!" The duck agreed quickly. "Certainly I will do as you ask, only show me where the good food is, for I am so very hungry."
So the little frog led the duck to where a little stream hiding under some thorny bushes fed the pond, and up that stream to where it came out of the ground. At first it looked like a little burrow, a hole under a tree root just big enough for the duck to squeeze through, but inside it was a snug little cave with a cheerful little spring coming out of the ground, which left the cave through the hole.
Some phosphorescent lichens on the ceiling provided enough soft light to see by. All around the inside of the cave grew delicious-looking mushrooms within easy reach, and some soft tender moss with tasty-looking buds grew on either side of the water. Under the mushrooms were some plump grubs of the sort that a duck would enjoy snacking on.
Happily, the duck ate his fill, and washed it down with plenty of nice clean water from the spring. He had all but forgotten about the frog by the time he settled in near the spring, snuggling down to sleep on a reasonably dry patch of soft moss.
"Ahem." The little frog croaked.
Surprised, the duck looked over to see that the frog had stayed there, watching him the whole time.
"Oh, hello." The duck said, pretending to have forgotten his promise.
The frog hopped closer. "Don't forget that you promised to stay until spring, and let me sleep tucked up under your wing where I can stay snug and warm."
"Oh, but ducks don't hibernate."
"I know. You can stay here though. The mushrooms and the moss will keep growing, and there will always be plump grubs and lichen on the ceiling, and the spring will keep flowing, so you will have everything you need."
"But... don't you want to hibernate with your relatives?"
"What I want, is for you to keep your promise."
"Oh, very well." The duck sighed resignedly. He lifted up a wing for the little frog to crawl under, and scooped the frog up so that she could snuggle close and secure. Whereupon, the frog went to sleep.
The duck lost count of how many days he stayed in that little cave, keeping one wing always close so the frog would be kept secure. But although the frog had said she wanted to be kept warm snuggled under his wing, she always seemed to be very cold and clammy and the duck found it very uncomfortable. Not to mention that he wanted to go back out to the pond so he could swim for a bit and stretch his wings.
"Maybe it'll be alright if I tuck the frog into a blanket of moss, just to go out for a bit. I can come back later."
He could tell the frog's heart was still beating, although very slowly, and he couldn't really tell if she was even breathing. But she was as cold and slimy as a stone sitting in icy water, and even seemed as heavy and solid as a stone. He started to tuck the frog into a pile of moss, carefully so as not to wake her, but then he heard a chirping insect at the cave entrance.
"Liar, liar. Liar, liar." It seemed to say, and then the duck heard a little tiny voice say, "if you go away and don't keep your promise, you will be lost in the forest forever, always starving." The duck looked around but couldn't tell where the voice came from. He heard the spring bubbling and trickling, but nothing else for a moment.
"If I only leave for a little while, I can come back..." the duck said, feeling uncertain.
"Liar, liar. Liar, liar." The insect at the cave entrance chirped again. "If you get lost, you won't be able to come back."
Sighing, the duck tucked the cold, clammy little frog back under his wing, and did his best to tolerate the situation. Several times more as the days went on, he thought about sneaking away... but every time he did, he heard an insect chirping at him just inside the cave. He tried to see where it was, but never could, so he gave up on that.
One day, the duck woke to the sound of other insects chirping a different tune from outside the cave, and as he listened further, he also heard distant birds singing. He longed to go out and stretch his wings and swim in the pond, and he dearly wished to look for something more to eat, different from mushrooms and moss and grubs. He checked to see if maybe the frog might show signs of waking soon, but to his surprise, he couldn't detect any signs of life at all in the little frog.
Shocked, the duck dumped the round, stone-like frog onto the moss and looked closely at her. She even seemed to have turned into a frog-shaped rock.
"You're never going to wake up, are you?" The duck shouted angrily. "Well, I'm not going to stay here forever and keep a dead stone tucked under my wing!" He kicked at the stone, and it skipped across the spring and struck a rock in the cave wall with a large 'crack!'
The duck was about to leave, when suddenly the light from the lichens on the ceiling changed color, and the spring bubbled more loudly. Looking around, the duck saw the frog-shaped stone start to wiggle, and heard some more cracking. Even more surprised than before, the duck approached and looked closely.
The stone cracked and opened up like an egg shell, and out stepped what looked like a little gosling.
"Thank you!" The gosling peeped. "Now we'll go help my family."
Dumbfounded, the duck followed the gosling out of the cave, and down the little stream to the pond. As they walked, the gosling grew bigger and bigger, until the duck realized that it was a swan, not a goose. By the time they came to the mud where all the frogs had been hibernating, the swan was fully grown and stunningly beautiful.
She gracefully stretched her wings, then reached down into the mud with her beak and started pulling the frogs out. The duck helped, and once they had all been dug out of the mud, he saw that all the frogs hibernating there looked like they had turned into stones, too. And, like the first one had done, they all started cracking like eggs, and hatching out what looked like goslings but quickly grew into beautiful swans.
"Thank you, thank you!" they all called out, then bowed to the first swan and called her their princess. They told the duck that they had all been cursed to be turned into cold little frogs, and had been trapped in the forest by that little pond for years, waiting for someone to come along who would promise to keep their princess warm for long enough to make the curse break.
"Now will you marry our princess?" they asked the surprised duck. Before he could answer, though, the princess spoke up.
"Not so, my family. The duck did help break the curse, but he wouldn't have if my nursemaid hadn't scolded him many times, telling him to keep his promise."
Then the duck saw a little old swan standing by the princess, who nodded and said, "That's so, that's so," in a voice the duck recognized as being the one he had heard while he was in the cave, and had thought an insect was chirping at him.
"But we thank you, o duck, for helping us, and so we won't leave you here to be lost in the forest. On our way back to our own country, we will take you to a nice place with a beautiful lake and plenty to eat all around it. You can fly among us on the way there, so it won't be a difficult journey for your old wings."
"Fair enough." The duck confessed. He thought (but didn't dare say) that he hadn't wanted to marry a princess anyway, even if she was the most beautiful swan he'd ever seen. 'After all,' he thought to himself, 'I am just a simple old duck from a country farm. What would I want with a princess, and all these swans, and a country? No, thank you, and a nice lake with plenty of food will suit me fine.'
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