Grimm Tail [Apotheosis & Wolf]

It was true, what Wolf--Zalgiman--suspected, at least in part. Lana had chosen to gift him the FISH suit knowing that he had no way of logging into Savior, especially when her own FISH was far too small for him to fit into. She'd spent precious little time on Savior since Zalgiman came home (as this is how she thinks of it now--he's come home to her, come home to their home even though she is the sole owner), and she intended to fix that, but... it was so difficult to justify being on Savior if they couldn't be online together.

The ring is a convenient ploy to get him to play with her, so that he won't have to think about Chimera or about answering anyone who might be messaging him for a 'freelance' date (even though she'd ensured he was off the market). Although she won't deny that the idea of him giving her a ring at the end of it all will be a thrilling sort of joy in of itself. It may only be a ring in Savior, but perhaps, eventually, when enough time has passed in real life...

Apotheosis shivers with a little anticipation-chill, something that brings her back to reality as she looks at Zalgiman and listens to his words. Her eyes spy the pond and the frogs within, croaking and swimming here and there, before her violet eyes return to Zalgiman. "Well, it's a dungeon based on fairy tales, yes?" she asks. "Think for a moment. What popular fairy tales involve frogs?"

She can already think of one, but this is their together-time, their together-moment. And she doesn't know if she's right based on the first thought that comes to mind.

There’s only one story that Wolf can think of that contains frogs. Or rather only one fairy tale concerning them in any meaningful way, but he can’t imagine what relevance it holds here. He looks at the hopping creatures and finds himself hiding a secret little smirk. “The frog prince.” He says crouching down to look at the various frogs.

This close he can see that there are in fact a few different colors to the frogs. Red, blue, and the more common green color, though the green is a vibrant green color that makes his smile fade quickly. The frogs looked like a picture he’d seen once of tropical frogs. Black and colorful. He couldn't remember what the article had said about them though.

How dangerous could a frog be though?

Wolf looks up at Apotheosis. “Does that mean that you need to kiss them all?” He arches an eyebrow at her. “That’s how it goes in the story yes? The beautiful maiden; the princess kisses the frog and it becomes a prince.”

Not that a prince would be overly useful in this situation.

Apotheosis can't help but smile when Wolf identifies the story in question. She loves how he can pick up on her thinking process already; how they were so obviously intended for each other with their knowledge already of how the other thought. It's a little bliss to think of it this way, to think of their relationship developing this way since he'd come home.

(He was truly promised to her.)

"I don't think it's a good idea to kiss all of them," Apotheosis responds, staring harder at the frogs. "Some of them may be poisonous--the brighter colored ones. That's a common twist on the story of the frog prince these days, you know--kiss the wrong prince and he will be your doom."

Then Apotheosis offers a bright smile at Wolf. "I don't intend on kissing a frog if I can help it, and if it really does require a kiss--then I'll ask your permission and offer an apology to do so. Now, can you help me find a frog that might be different from all the others?"

Wolf nods to Apotheosis, looking around the room for the one frog that was different than the others. At first there’s no luck at all. All the frogs look exactly the same as the others. Red. Blue. Green. Red. Blue. Green. He even picks a few up to try and get an idea of if their patterns are more subtly different, but he can’t seem to find anything that’s different about them. He picks up a red one and a blue one at the same time and the little things croak at him in discomfort.

He hushes the little animals and twists and turns them. Nothing. They look exactly the same as each other; only one is blue and the other is red. He sets them down after a long moment and rises to his feet only for the world to swim before his eyes. Hurriedly he puts out an arm to catch himself on the wall of the cave. What’s wrong with his vision?

Suddenly he feels rather sick to his stomach and there are odd colors shifting through the air and… He looks around for Apotheoisis. Stupid him! They were poisonous! Not only to eat, but to the touch! “Don’t…”

His word makes him wince in pain as his eyes seem to see the word dance through his vision. That was all sorts of wrong. “Touch the frogs.” Every word made him want to throw up worse than the word that had come before it. He dropped to his knees a bit haphazardly and rubbed his head. Slime spreading across his temple. Slime? He looked at his hand.

Why was there slime on his hand?

A little tiny gold frog danced and skittered across his vision quickly. Hopping into the dark far faster than the other frogs had been. A hallucination? He couldn’t tell.

Apotheosis is looking, not touching, when Wolf calls out to her. Her violet eyes study each and every frog to try and find some minute difference. Maybe a dark spot here. A slightly heterochromatic frog. (The idea reminds her of Chimera and puts her into a little dark mood again--)

"Zal--Wolf?" She has to stop herself from crying out to him with his real name as he goes to put his hand on the cave wall. "Are you okay? Is there something wrong with your hands?" She kneels down to get a look at his hands, to assess them for some obvious sign of wrong-doing.

If there really is a golden frog, it's escaped her notice for the time being, as all of her attention is on the man that she loves. The man who has, unwittingly, poisoned himself just by touching the frogs. "Do you need me to do something for you?" Apotheosis asks, already scrolling through her inventory to find a potion that could help. Where's a Restoration potion when you need one? she thinks.

"Zal--Wolf?"

Her words swim through his head like an aching melody. He wants to tell her not to talk, because it aches but if he talks again, he’s going to throw up. He just knows it. Everything is becoming far more discombobulated. Each passing moment is a riot of colors making him dizzy, the world is spinning on an axis and he can’t figure out which way is up. Isn’t sure that up is a reality.

Wolf closes his eyes, trying to minimize the fact that the world has gone absolutely wrong. He presses them tight as he can, but the world still feels like it’s moving. He actually hisses when she touches his hands, trying to keep them to himself so that she doesn’t accidentally touch the poison he’s now certain is on his palms. Isn’t he? There’s something on his hands. What are hands?

He groans, eyes cracking open and has instant regret. Wolf’s body starts to slump to the side.

It’s clear at this point, that he desperately needs an antidote. There’s probably one nearby, quests like this usually keep such things as rewards or in secret caches. If it hasn’t killed him yet, it probably won’t, but he’s clearly not doing well either.

He obviously needs help. Help that she cannot give on her own; she can heal HP loss but not cure conditions. She'd opted for the Haste skill instead, something which she's distinctly now regretting. Her Wolf is hurting!

"Hold on!" she tells him, and she turns to survey the walls of the cave. There might be a secret 'tile' in the cave walls that contains an antidote. Something that hides away the precious treasure that will save her Wolf--

She finds something. A bit of rock that falls away, almost like a sheet, and she gasps in amazement when she sees that it contains a little potion with the universal icon for curing poisons within Savior on the bottle. There it is!

"I found an antidote!" Apotheosis calls, walking back over to Wolf. She uncorks the bottle and gently puts her hand on his chin. It'd be a much more sensual and intimate gesture if they were in a completely different context than in a cave filled with frogs. "Open wide."

He couldn’t seem to manage to close his eyes again. The world was swimming with colors beautiful, wild colors. Somewhere distantly he could see words floating toward him, but he couldn’t make sense of what they were. It didn’t feel like it mattered terribly what they were. “Wow.” He says, watching the vibration of his words spread out over the colors. He could feel the coolness of the ground underneath him. It felt nice against his skin. Everywhere he was burning up, but the places where he touched the ground were cool.

Urgently he sprawled out on the floor.

Hop, hop. A frog over his chest, hopping along. He smiled at the rainbowed creature, the expression feeling lopsided on his face. “Hey there.” More vibrations spilling out across the world, seeping into his chest. They felt nice. “Words are nice.”

The frog turned toward him and spoke. Words of wisdom. It sounded like it had a familiar voice but he couldn’t place it. “Kiss ‘de girl.” Such a strange accent.

Hop, hop. A frog hopped away from his chest. He could feel someone touching him and he grumbled a little. Hot. He was too hot to be touching. The thought made him giggle manically. He was too hot to handle. There was a swirling mass of colors pressing something against his lips and he wondered it it was water.

Water would be nice right now.

Only his tongue didn’t want to cooperate. It felt like a huge sponge in his mouth. It hadn’t a moment before. Only now that he was thinking that drinking something sounded nice did his tongue disobey him. He should say something. Make his tongue shrink by use of word. “Thirsty frog.”

There! Success! Eagerly he drank down the liquid. Only to find it horribly bitter. Poison! He’d been poisoned by the swirling colors! “Why?” He croaked unhappily. He’d trusted them. Now… The colors were slipping away, slipping… Leaving Lana - no, Apotheosis in their wake and Wolf shook his head, eyes refocusing. He was drenched in sweat. Covered in dust and dirt and frog slime. He blinked a few times up at her and gave a small smile of relief.

“You saved me.”

"Wow?" Apotheosis asks, tilting her head, and then her confusion only increases when he exclaims that words are nice, and that there's a thirsty... frog? Yes, only confusion remains on her face, and she tries her hardest to help him drink the liquid...

And then he looks up at her with that little smile of relief, lucidity returned to him again. She flushes as she realizes her hand is still on his chin in that rather... gripped formation, a stance on his face more aggressive than she'd ever dreamed of touching him with, but it'd been necessary to help him with the potion. She adjusts her hand so that she pets the side of his face lovingly for a moment, comforting him before letting her hand fall away. "I'm so happy you're okay. I just wish I knew how to cure conditions like that," she says with a little frown. "My familiars Hugin and Munin can help me heal, and they can do damage, and I can escape from combat and quicken my allies to help them do damage, but... I guess in my quest to learn how to do a bit of everything, I really am a master of none, huh."

She sighs and looks at him for a moment longer before she holds her hand back out. "Were you having a vision of some sort? You were murmuring odd things. Something about a... Thirsty frog?" She really didn't know what that was about.