One last voiceless year...
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 118089
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Lila was not quite so far gone that she threw her arms around Ginnie in a grateful embrace, but she did, for a moment, consider it. Ginnie did inform her the following day that, since she was spending her allotment of Lila time on trying to develop a remedy for her voice, Lila could expect to spend most of her time until it was ready as a toad. Lila was disappointed, but understood the logic. She couldn't really complain too much anyway—Ginnie had a lovely enclosed garden, full of insects and safe from predators. She could while away plenty of time there. And she did. In fact, there wasn't too much time left to be whiled away before she began to feel terribly lethargic, as the weather became colder and colder. She hoped and assumed that Ginnie would know where she'd disappeared to, and not disturb her. And she found a nice hidden nook in the garden to nestle down and fall into a long sleep. This time, when she woke up, she didn't move for a very long time. She felt older than she ever had. But... it was clearly good for her, living here, because she still had strength she hadn't expected. She wriggled out of her hole—and at once recognized the croak of Tandrus, the only other remaining toad. Ah yes. It was that time of year. She was anxious to present herself to Ginnie, but she submitted to amplexus, because she had long stopped fighting her instincts, in whatever form she was in at a given moment. Tandrus rode around on her back for a full day, Lila getting progressively more stressed, before Ginnie came into her garden to water her plants. Lila was overjoyed to see her, and let out a little chirp to draw her attention. Ginnie set down her watering can and approached immediately, crying, "Lila! And Tandrus! Oh, I've so missed the two of you. So much has changed in the months you've been sleeping." She smirked in amusement. "I see the two of you are... busy... and may be for a while yet. Well, in your own time. You know where to find me." They didn't see Ginnie again in the next two days of amplexus, but they did see the human forms of some of their other companions coming in to tend to the plants. Lila was incredibly relieved when Tandrus finally detached from her, for multiple reasons, and after finding a nice quiet place to rest a while, she headed inside to seek out Ginnie. "Lila!" cried Ginnie upon seeing her, rising from her chair in the library and setting down her book. She paused. "That is you, right?" Lila let out a weak chirrup. "Good, it's hard to tell sometimes. Oh, here, might as well." She waved a hand, and Lila felt herself growing—a sensation she was by now quite used to. She shook her hands out, and went to grab a robe hanging from the wall to cover herself—most rooms in the tower had a couple of those, for this exact reason. "Oh, you know Lila, you really haven't changed a bit. You know, toads in captivity—not that I want you to think of yourselves in captivity! You know what I mean—can live much longer than they would in the wild. Your human body is still quite old, but I'm effectively giving you more years simply by letting you live here!" Lila smiled vaguely at Ginnie. Ginnie went on to describe what had transpired in the half-year of hibernation: one other "helper" (as she often called them) had failed to return from a task, but she still had ten left. Some were doing better than others; many had shed a few years, even a few decades, after successful missions, while others were still barely holding on to sanity. There were now eleven left. At last Ginnie got to the point Lila had been waiting for: "Darling, I am so close to completing the concoction that should return your voice, I can taste it! You woke up at almost the perfect time. A few more weeks, I would say. You can handle being a toad for that much longer, can't you?" Lila nodded, excitement at the nearness of the prospect rising inside of her. She enjoyed a few more hours in her human form, and then went back to spending her days mostly as a toad in the garden. It was a simple enough life, but sometimes she thought anticipation might really kill her. It was quite a job trying to calm herself down.
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5/10/2021 7:41:19 AM
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