Before the Princess, there was the Witch (Calley)

((ooc: Continued for Calley from Dirty Boys.))

The woods were nice. Quiet. No one ever disturbed you here, pretty much. Which was exactly what Calley needed. He... needed to disappear. Just for a little while, and think. Maybe for an hour. Maybe two.

...Cafas was going to be ticked enough as it was. Calley might as well take until night fall. But he should probably go back again, though. Eventually. Because if it was him sitting on the couch, he maybe would have thought that the cat boy's "I'll be back" meant "after I get clothes on." It wasn't his fault if Cafas misinterpreted his words.

There was definitely nothing to misinterpret in Cafas'.

"...I think I love you."

So. First off, (Calley noted, as he kicked a rock,) that was unnatural. Wasn't it? 'Cause... Cafas was a guy. And he was a guy. And yes, guys and guys could, and did, and had whole parades about it, but they could do those things without involving Calley. Right? Right.

(The rock skittered across the ground, and hit a tree.)

Secondly, they'd known each other what, a few months? That love at first sight thing was a joke. Not that Cafas' had said it was love at first sight--which would worry Calley a whole lot more, since the teen had first seen him as a mouse--but still. They'd been roommates, but they hadn't gone on dates, or anything. Except for watching movies together. And getting dinner. But that's just what guy-friends did. In a manly capacity. That didn't mean--that--

And third, were you just allowed to come out and say it like that? It just... it wasn't...

He'd almost drowned, an hour ago. What. Was that supposed to be a turn-on? Yeah, Cafas had saved him, but Cafas had been the one to toss him into the water in the first place.

(The rock was stuck under a root. Calley picked it out, and threw it; it clipped the bark on another truck, and disappeared into the underbrush.)

Was he supposed to have an answer for--? Right on cue? Was he supposed have lain awake at night, pining over questions of whether his roommate was more than his roommate? Had Cafas?

He just--

No.

Calley found himself at the edge of a shallow pond. He glared into it: his reflection glared back.

He did not want to think about this. He had to think about this, but he didn't want to think about this now. Now, he just... needed to not think. For awhile. He was going back at sundown, right? Right. So he had plenty of time until then. To not think.

The pond was still glaring back. Calley returned the emotion, with full vehemence. He had almost drowned. So. Maybe it was about time he finally learned to swim. For once, it was the lesser of two evils.

Calley glared at himself, and tried to shift to something safe, and relatively buoyant. A duck. (He just felt... ugly, right now. Cafas. Sucked.) His reflection shifted, too.

That's when everything went wrong.

The toad on the ground was large, fat, and muddy green. It sat in the neck hole of a shirt, perfectly sedate.

>> "Slate?!"

One bulb-like eye twitched towards the splashing. The other wandered lazily off to stare at a tree.

>> "I told you I was a witch!"

Silence: the sound of a toad jerking its back leg, convulsively.

>> "...Um..."

Silence: the sound of it moving a front leg, and listing to the left where it sat.

>> "Slate?"

Calley's long legs hung limply out behind him as the teenager plucked him up. His other eye twitched, and tracked back to join its twin in staring at her. The problem with his powers: new forms were always a little slow on the uptake.

>> "I am going to conclude the shape-shifting cancelled your telepathic powers."

Calley was not a duck, and Calley was not Slate.

The toad's chest inflated, like a slow balloon. Croak, it protested, into her face.

Calley suspected he was being insulted. He didn't have long to ponder it, though, before she was tilting him right--

and tilting him left--

and swinging his legs.

One of the toad's legs twitched, twitched, twitched convulsively, in clear protest.

>> "Do. You. Understand. Me?"

Insult. To. Injury.

With great effort, the toad inflated himself again. He was aiming for another croak. What came out instead was his tongue, aimed on a collision course for her forehead.

Altogether, Calley found this more satisfactory.

Whoever this girl was, he could see why she and Slate got along. Listening to her talk was like listening to a reference book narrated by a librarian.

>> "I am going to take that as a yes, even though the evidence is not conclusive. I suggest you find a more definite way of expressing your thoughts."

Oh he did, all right. He did. Using the leg he had somewhat under control (he knew how to make it start kicking, just not necessarily how to stop it), the toad vacated her lap in a truly impressive leap.

It would have been more impressive, if subsequent leg jerks weren't spinning him around in a circle. And if he didn't end up tangled in his own clothing.

The bundle of shirt and toad twitched. It blinked, its eyes dipping into its head before popping back out again.

Croak, it helplessly implored of the benevolent young woman.

...Yes. Yes, this was clearly a friend of Slate's. Observe her stating of the obvious; observe, also, her self-assured presumption that she was the one who'd done a thing. Observe, finally... that she was speaking in tongues?

One of the toad's eyes twitched down, and back up. She kept going, there, didn't she. And... going. He, ah, had to give her an A for effort.

Meanwhile, the toad took these few minutes to twitch. A vital and dignified element of his learning process, thank you. He learned, for example, where the 'off' switch on that leg was. And where the 'on' switches were for the others. Now, if he could just get them working in unison...

>> "Um... we might have a problem, Slate."

Wow. She... really thought she'd done this to him, didn't she? What was her power?

And she really thought he was Slate. Well. He would just see about that. The toad squared away his legs, one at a time, and looked up at her with the utmost of dignity. Croak, it declared. Croak, croack.

From here on out, any time she called him that, she was going to get a clear croak of protest. That would set her straight.

>> "I know, CROACK. I am very sorry. Let's go back to the Mansion, and I'll figure out a way to change you back."

Calley's censoring was engaged.

Going back to the Mansion was good. Right? Yes. Because while it was nearly spring, it was still getting cold at night, and he wasn't entirely sure what a toad was supposed to do about that. Did they hibernate, or just sort of... die? Toads were cold-blooded, right?

Also: as long as she didn't raise a fuss, she could probably slip him in under Cafas' radar. Which was also good. Because... he still needed time to think about that.

It looked like he was getting his wish.

The toad supervised her sloppy packing of his clothes with grave disapproval, and graciously allowed his plump body to get picked up.

And held hostage.

In front of her face.

>> "I am not going to kiss you."

No one was more relieved than the toad.

And then it got better.

>> "I don't think me kissing you would work. Since I am the one responsible for the transformation. But I might be able to find someone else. We lack royalty in this institution, but I am not sure if the bloodline is an absolute requirement."

Oh yes. This, clearly, was exactly the kind of reasoning he needed in his life. And exactly the kind of mind he wanted to be at the mercy of, for the next few days. The toad knew better than to struggle: struggling would get him no where when he was being hand-carried up a very long, very un-toad-body-friendly flight of stairs. In general, any time she was looking was a bad time to struggle.

If he was to be free, he first needed to learn how to use this body. Then, he needed to be crafty with it.

>> "Sorry for the inconvenience."

The toad croaked, in a non-nefarious manner.

Her room was... more lived in than his. Than his official, listed-in-the-Mansion-directory room, that is. Calley tended to collect rooms like people collected stamps. (Or toads.) For the moment, he seemed to have collected this one, as well. His eyes bulged and swiveled, taking in his newest domain.

Books (expected). Clothes (notable because of their absence from the floor, or general sight: this room, Calley determined, belonged to a female). Besides that, there was the usual Mansion default furniture: bed, dresser, chair, desk. All of them seemed rather big at the moment. And... vastly spaced. Calley prudently remained near the center of the desk, until he could control his limbs better.

>> "You know, when we said we'd practice people skills together, this is not exactly what I had in mind... I guess I'll have to find out what kind of toad you are exactly, and... umm, go from there."

Practicing their people skills? A cro-croak burped front the toad's throat. Practicing their people skills. That was cute.

Wait. That meant she still thought he was Slate.

The toad's eyes sunk into his head, then slowly, slowly bulged back out. It squared its legs against the wood, and drew in a deep breath.

CROAK, it protested. It lifted one foreleg, and slapped itself in the chest (a move that, given his current motor control, may have more closely resembled a localized seizure). Croak, it said again, with great determination.

He already knew what kind of toad he was. He was a Calley toad.