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He’d been human once. A few years ago, when he still took his skin and flesh for granted. He had a name then, not a title. Now he was someone else. Now he was something else.
His true name had been lost long before his face, buried freely in the impulsiveness of youth. He told himself that he could afford to abandon his identity, if he had the chance to forge a new one. That was when he joined his first rogues guild, at the ripe age of sixteen.
They taught him many things: How to lighten someone’s pockets without making a spectacle. That the kind of people who counted their coins weren’t a safe target, and there were plenty that had so much wealth they had no need to count their coppers. He learned how to carve a mask out of his own flesh. A rogue’s tongue could be a powerful weapon, if one knew how to wield it. They taught him not just how to live in the shadows, but to live as one himself, an unseen target in plain sight.
It was safer to hide, he knew that. But stealth was not the only thing his mentors believed in. It was safer to hide, yes. But, if you couldn’t hide then you could become something that others hid from. He had met plenty of head-takers during his training to know that.
He chose to stay close to the first rule, and lived most of his life as an embodiment of stealth in human form. Thieving made enough wealth to keep a man afloat, afford a room at the inn and a few drinks at the tavern. They was risk in his profession but he so often reaped only rewards.
He had a good life. Then he met her.
The job seemed so simple, take a few journals from some old researcher, a frail man that often kept to himself.
It was just an old hermit, one who refused to share his research. His only wealth was knowledge, but the amount of coin that buyers were offering for it? It was enough to set their party up for a whole year.
They shouldn’t have needed a full crew for this job, he could handle it himself. He would be in and out before the rest of his party had woken up, then they’d be proud of him for earning them all an extra day of rest for themselves.
The house was not what he had been expecting. It was exceptionally clean for a man who could apparently barely walk the length of himself half the time, and it was filled with so many novels and trinkets. There were enough treasures to have been gathered during five lifetimes, nevermind a single one. From what he’d heard this man was human, no traces of elf heritage lingering in his blood. How had a poor man managed to get so many things in such a short life?
The rogue had no trouble finding the few books from the list. It’s true the full collection was as full as a dragon’s hoard, but they were all labelled neatly in common and easy to skim over.
He had grabbed the last, when he suddenly felt unable to move an inch of his body. Slowly, a figure began coming out of the shadows as if she owned them, and the rogues had merely been granted a temporary boon. Not one of her steps made a sound, as if she wasn’t truly there. She was young, tanned skin with long dark hair, and was covered in an assortment of red and black fabrics. It was no old hermit that lived here.
There were hundreds of books lining the walls of the cottage, yet with the wave of a hand and a gust of power she had managed to pull the few the rogue had grabbed and slot them back into the shelves perfectly, as if they’d never been touched. A spare ring that had fallen into the rogue's pocket found itself back inside the woman’s jewellery box. She could recall every detail of the room, she didn’t need to count her belongings, she had them written into her memory. She knew exactly where he’d been and what he’d done.
He tried to apologise, silver words slipping out in a frenzy, anything to save his own skin. She didn’t care for his excuses, looking down with a sneer. Silver words were nothing to a siren song.
She began muttering in a language the rogue had never heard before, one he was never meant to understand. He still tried to justify himself with lies but she heard none, instead stepping closer as she finished her chanting.
“A shame, your tongue might just be the only talented thing about you. It’d be a shame to rip it away.” She held his chin in between two fingers and looked him up and down before smiling, clearly pleased with herself. “I know exactly what to do with you little thief.” She spoke softly, the last words the rogue heard before he promptly fainted.
When he woke up it was daylight. He was in some kind of plains, nothing but empty fields surrounding him. He couldn’t have been anywhere near the previous town, it had been so drowned in forests one couldn’t tell the grass from the fallen leaves.
The rogue never believed in an afterlife, so he assumed he probably wasn’t dead. Had the witch let him go? He pulled a hand towards his face in an attempt to try and dull his headache. He was not met with a hand.
The appendage in front of him had only four fingers and was a slimy green colour. He panicked for a moment, trying to throw the creature away from him before he realised the limb was his own.
He managed to eventually catch his reflection in a nearby stream. He couldn’t recognise himself, he looked like a frog masquerading as a human. The witch had not let him leave untouched, now he was this, some kind of abomination.
His past was the same but no longer felt connected to this body, and his future had been rewritten though he no longer felt like the author.
He needed to leave, find a new town, someone to fix him. His clothes felt itchy now, he could feel the cotton actively stealing the moisture out of his newly formed skin. He could still speak in this form, but his tongue felt heavier in his mouth.
He couldn’t stay like this, every moment after he was transformed into this creature felt as if it was tinged with anger and resentment. The feeling only grew when no one could turn him back to what he once was.
He’d already buried his name long ago, and now his face had been buried for him. He travelled for a few years, avoiding bigger cities and towns, anyone that might recognise his voice. At one point, he came across a ruin made of stone, not a single building fully intact. Apparently the ruins had a name, ‘The Blue Kingdom’, he learned as he was chased out of the land by locals, as they chased him off like the animal he was.
Blue Kingdom. If he was being truthful, it wasn't much of a kingdom anyway. Luckily enough there was another ruin close by, instead the destroyed buildings were made from wood which had been burned in some parts and was rotting in others. He was quieter in his approach this time, watching a group of six talk freely in the sunlight.
Eventually one of the group caught a glimpse of him, and he chose to reveal himself, diving down into the water below. He was quick to rise out of it, he may be a frog, but he found he could not breathe underwater on his own.
Apparently he was now in ‘The Red Kingdom’. The people there seemed hesitant to trust him at first, weapons quickly drawn, but once they’d heard how he’d been treated by the other kingdom they welcomed him in with open arms. Frogue the rogue had happily joined the red’s ranks.
He’d been there five weeks now, they’d had two monarchs in that time, the shortest reigns he’d ever seen. Their decrees had done nothing, they amounted to nothing that would actually protect their kingdom.
They were delusional, really did they think they could have true peace? There were already talks of merging the kingdoms back into one. The Red Kingdom split for a reason, they would not just dissolve back into the tyrants they fled from. They needed a king willing to do what was necessary. Frogue was willing to take that role.
He’d keep his friends close but his enemies closer, and never mistake them for a friend. There could be safety in fear, but more when that fear came from their enemy. If they wanted to resolve into one kingdom it would be under the red kingdom’s control. If his people doubted his ways, he would just have to remind him just how big of a threat the blue kingdom could be.
He could protect his people from themselves, and teach them to protect each other from their enemy.
He had a purpose now. He was so far gone from that newborn amphibian he had been turned into years ago. Still, every moment was tinged with that familiar anger as the resentment still brewed.