I grumble as I shuffle to the door

"ALRIGHT! I'm coming for goodness sake. "

The banging stops as whoever it is hears me yelling, and the door stills in its frame.

I yank the door open to find the boy standing there. Eyes red rimmed, like he's been crying. I look at his clothes. Not cheap, that's for sure.

"Ha! You! Found true love, did you? You little wart. Found some manners to go with it? Or are you here for revenge? It didn't go well for you last time, it won't this time either" I say with an aire of nonchalance, leaning on the door way, trying to make it not look like I'm scrambling maniacally on the shelf for the damned wand. Best land plans, and here I am, in the face of this snot, without the thing.

"Please. Help me!" The young lad cries as he bursts into a fresh round of tears.

I am extremely taken aback.

"Help you? Why? Whatever's the matter? Did you not find your true love? That spell should absolutely have worked. What happened?"

He falls into my arms, sobbing, clutching me.

"SHE'S HORRIBLE!" He wails.

I am genuinely astonished. This snot nosed little brat was an absolute horror, with not an ounce of decency or civility in him when I turned him into a frog. I didn't really think he'd find his true love. That wasn't part of the plan at all.

"Alright. Alright. Stop snivelling. Come in. Tell me what's happened. "

I try and haul him up and into the living room. He wipes at his face with the sleeves on those lovely clothes. I turn and snag the wand off the shelf and then guide him to sit on the sofa. I wait for him to gather himself, wondering what on earth is going on.

"I am sorry for what happened. Before. Last time. I mean, I know you probably don't believe me, but I really truly am. I was angry at first. For so long. Or at least, it felt like a long time. I guess time is different when you're a frog. "

He finally meets my eyes, and I give a sort of grim smile to show I understand and encourage him to carry on with a gesture

"Yeah. I was angry. But then, I wasn't. I was sad. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to come and apologise but everything looks so different when you're that small and I wasn't sure I remembered the direction and didn't want to dry out if I wandered away, so I just stayed there. Then when I was just swimming around one day, I saw the ball"

"The ball?" I query

"Yes. The golden ball. It just sort of sank past me, so I grabbed it and pushed it back to the surface. I was hoping to play with it or something, I don't know, but when I came up, she was standing there. Starting at me and the ball. She reached out to grab it and spoke to me. She was silly, really. She said, "Thank you, Mr Frog," so I just said, "You're welcome." Not really thinking. I hadn't been able to talk. I thought I'd just end up saying ribbit, but the words came out. "You're welcome," and she was so surprised that she dropped the ball again. So I swam back down and retrieved it a second time. This time, I pushed it right up to her. I realised then she must have been the one. She must have been my true love like the spell said!"

"Yes." I can't think of anything else to say. I didn't really expect that part to work if I was entirely honest.

He carried on, "so we talked, and I explained about the spell, and she kissed me and POOF! I'm suddenly back to being me, and she drags me off to tell her father, THE KING, BY THE WAY! about this new suitable suitor she's found in a pond, and suddenly I'm being measured for clothes by her mothers tailor and they contacted my parents to check who I was and now we have to get married in 6 months and her father absolutely hates me, and she keeps wittering on about nonsense and she's horrible to everyone except me and her father and she reminds me of me before, well, you, and I can't take it and she's not my true love. She can't be, and if she is, I don't want to be her true love. It's all too much. Please change me back!" He wails the last word as he bursts into tears again.

I sit back, pondering what to do.

"You need to bring her here," I say to him, a bit loudly so he hears me over the noise of his wailing. He stops and looks at me

"What? Why?"

"Because the spell isn't wrong. It never is. She really is your true love, but if she reminds you of you before your little adventure, then maybe she needs the same lesson?"

He takes a deep breath

"Do you think that would work?" He asks hopefully

"It worked for you, didn't it? Go back and ask her to go for a walk, or maybe even make it look like you're eloping together. Make it like an adventure. Bring her here. I'll turn you both and make the spell end when she's learned her lesson."

He looks at me for a long minute. Peering into my eyes, trying to make up his mind

"Ok. I'll go and get her"

He jumps up and runs out of the house.

I wait for a few minutes and then start to laugh. Once it starts, I can't stop it. I am cackling like the witch I am. I laugh until my sides hurt.

Oh, this was too wonderful. After all the potions and powders and nonsense I'd gone through to try and force a true love for the brat. The universe had stepped in.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll have a kingdom in my palm, along with the hearts of two royal brats. It's not the one I wanted, but it's a start.

I look at the skull of my beloved, which rests on top of the dresser, watching all I do.

"Soon, my love," I tell it. "Soon we shall have vengeance.

The witch in question did not live in a swamp, like most of his ilk would say, but instead a sweet little prairie. The river beside it had been drained of it's water years ago when his father had taken the throne, and the grass had become significantly less green than when he'd first visited all those years ago as a naive little boy hoping for some peace away from home.

Originally, it was right beside that river he had been cursed. Even then, the only signs of water he had seen were the small puddles that formed from the downpour the day before, and a woman- The Witch -was staring at her reflection in one of them. Of course, as young as he was, Michael didn't know any better when he'd began talking to her. In fact, the two of them had a rather enjoyable conversation before he'd actually introduced himself.

The witch, who was neither as cruel nor as ugly as his family claimed she was, seemed to know everything. She spoke to him as if he were her equal, and was more than happy to tell him that in a village, just a few days on horseback away, there was an old friends of hers who'd made their own potions shop. He enjoyed her stories of big birds that flew and snatched up prey just as big as a cow, and was very quick to enthrall him with beautiful depictions of the other nations traditions with her magic forming their shapes.

Really, the entire thing was going well, and the witch seemed happy to have a company before the night had set and they both found that neither knew each other's names. Of course, Michael introduced himself, making sure to put some emphasis on his title as the prince just like dad had taught him. He was expecting the witch to rejoice or blush, like the other girls in the village, but instead she seemed to grow into a wild rage that made the clouds above grow and start thundering a sad sound. Even to this day, Michael couldn't remember what she'd said, just that she seemed to shout something towards the very heavens and Michael awoke the next day as a tiny ambphibian with odd coloring capable of doing the front crawl in the water.

It was... an experience, certainly. At first, being a frog wasn't much of a problem; it would only appear twice a day, always when the clocks began a loud chime, and only for as long as those gongs sounded. Michael, whose schedule was almost entirely in his control, was able to spare plenty of time for the transformation to be done away from prying eyes. He'd mostly just lay around on his bum in that form, but sometimes he would wander the castle knowing only the help would be around. Going through crevices between the stone walls, climbing himself up the towers to marvel at his lands beauty, and sometimes even found himself staring at the direction the prairie was in wonder. These were all common pastimes of his as a frog.

Slowly, however, the length of time he'd stay as an animal changed, became longer, until he'd had to constantly excuse him from lunch and be lost to everyone until the very next morning. Weeks of that passed, and soon Michael woke up as a frog who would stay that way for years until an interesting woman carried him to her home. She seemed rather odd to him at first; despite the obvious lack of funds, her face was constantly caked with makeup, and the clothes she wore seemed plenty out of leagues with her station. Amelia, for that was her name, often left at midnight frustrated and clutching a paper that smelled faintly of rosemary.

Often, she would curse some names out into the sky, most names spoken were not recognizable to Michael except his da, who had apparently died just days ago. It was... well, it made Michael wonder if the man had managed to find himself another heir to inherit his throne, but the papers Amelia left on the floor after a few tantrums told him he hadn't. Again, just like before, this pattern continued on for days. Michael would be fed with random insects sneaking in. Amelia would come and go to work, then return with angrily flushed cheeks and furrowed brows.

Finally, after a few more days, Amelia had huffed and looked at him. Really looked at him, enough so with a gaze that burnt through Michael's very soul. Before he could get a chance to jump away, however, Amelia had grabbed onto his slick body and gave him a hard kiss on the mouth before dropping him down to the floor and running to the restroom, no doubt to start scrubbing at her gums.

She came back moments afterwards to Michael slowly growing into his age, and the sudden push in height made it difficult for him to stand nor properly judge the distances between most things. After that and plenty of complicated politics that was mostly manipulated by Amelia, she and Michael had a tiny wedding. The end, happily ever after, freedom in his grasp and finally away from having to hunt for his own food in the vast wilderness.

. . . is what one would say, if Michael actually found himself liking this happily ever after of his. The entire thing was a sham, and clearly Amelia's attempt at getting a fortune and the lands that came with being the new kings wife. Now, he had to give it to her, she was very much good at the games she was playing, it's just that Michael wasn't very interested in those prizes. Hell, even before that prairie all those years ago, Michael found himself disliking the responsibilities of being the king very much.

That lead him to now, dragging his feet through dry ground to try searching for the witch who'd cursed him all those years ago. There were trinkets of hers scattered, a trail that Michael hoped would lead him somewhere, and one he followed with a bit of desperation - Auntie Milly had visited with a very detailed plan on the next trend for the city's architects to follow. After just two days of his quiet presence in the court room and he already found himself wishing for death.

In fact, if all went horribly wrong, that might actually happen! It would be a bit tragic, yes, but Michael also found it tragic how he couldn't extend his tongue to capture the delicious fruit flies he'd found in the bowels of the castle kitchens.

.

The problem, Walter thought, was that the witch had never set a time limit. He'd been young when he insulted her, a spoiled little brat spitting on an old woman. How she could do something to someone so young, he did not know—children are often little brats, especially young princes. He knew this to be true. To turn a child into a frog, and with such a specific stipulation, though, was cruel. He had grown up as a frog, and come into his own as one. The knowledge of running a kingdom seemed a distant memory, and when a princess finally came along that could free him from his curse, he didn't spare a thought toward his current life, remembering the splendors of his royal hall, the glittering gems of his mother's crown, all of the luxuries that coming with being a prince among men. Running a kingdom was a very old skill, but he'd have to blow away the dust and cobwebs and put his mind to work.

As promised, he offered Anna a place at his side as queen. She blinked, and gave a tiny smile at the offer. "Walter, I'm sorry, but... I have never heard of the kingdom you speak of. Perhaps your time as a frog has addled your mind?"

Resting a hand on his arm, she said he was welcome to stay here and become the king of her lands, if so desired, though it sounded like the kingdom he belonged to was much grander. Perhaps he should look at a few maps?

He did.

And then he spoke to the librarians, insulted at how these maps must obsiovusly be wrong, until finally a man with a beard down to his stomach suggested he speak to a historian.

The kingdom of Sauer had not existed for about 200 years. The last king, Hugo Sauer, had gone mad with grief when his only son disappeared and died 6 months after Walter Sauer vanished. The queen had ruled as best she could, but it was not long before the neighboring kingdoms started to enclose their borders. The legends say the queen vanished, and with no one left to rule, it was not long at all before the royal family of Sauer was gone, and with it, the kingdom. The people called it a small mercy that the king had died before his wife disappeared, just like his son had.

Walter had been a frog for two centuries. Never aging, never dying. Stuck, in a pond, in a different kingdom. Every last person he knew was dead. He'd known his friends would be older, would maybe not recognize him as a grown-man, but he had dreamed of telling his cousins of his time as a frog, of sparring with his father, of telling his mother of all he had learned about flowers and plants.

He lasted a week with Anna. It was not her fault, not at all—she was not the kindest princess he had known, but she cared for her people, and it was not like he was kind either. Her father was a bit disgruntled at having a so-called prince with no kingdom set to marry his daughter, but his wife comforted him with the fact he had other sons to marry for political advantages. The castle's staff were welcoming enough. The people of Meyer were hard-working, and kind, and did not mind an addition to the royal court.

It was much like home, but it was not, and therein lay the problem.

Who would give a child such a terrible curse? Who would force them to live as a frog for so long only to return to the human realms and find the world they knew was gone?

Witches lived for a long time, Walter knew. There was a good chance she lived yet. And if not, he could find another witch, and beg them to turn him into a frog, and let him age this time.

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