Chapter Text
It’s kind of dumb, actually, how it starts.
Satoru just wanted frog legs for his potion. He always feels kind of bad for catching them (mostly because Suguru never stops guilt tripping him, that asshole) but he didn’t have a choice, okay? How else was he going to make that memory potion for old man Wasuke?
He had every other ingredient in his cauldron already. All that was left was a pair of Xilifus’ frogs’ legs, a little bit of magic, and a lot of stirring. So, as things tend to go, he decided to go out searching for it.
Suguru tagged along this time because “I don’t trust you to not mess up The Bog, Satoru. The last time I went back the pixies told me you left their windgrass stores in disarray.” Which, firstly, isn’t true, he’d put them back as nicely as he could, and secondly, he's perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He has like, a good hundred years on Suguru, damnit, but all his partner does is snort.
Which is why they’re both here at The Bog, their brooms left at the side against a tree. Suguru casts a spell to make their footfalls quieter as they trek across The Bog. Xilifus’ frogs were very sensitive to sound since they were blind, after all.
They’re also not very fond of showing their ugly mugs that day, it seems. Satoru was growing more and more frustrated by the minute, though Suguru’s mostly just amused. He’s always found his suffering funny. Sometimes, Satoru wonders why he chose to spend his life with him.
Then, finally, finally, Satoru spots one across the swamp. There’s an unusual four-pointed star on its head but Satoru didn't really care right now. He just needs this to be over and done with.
“Satoru-” Suguru starts in a warning tone, but Satoru isn’t having it. Suguru should know better than to talk right where the target frog is.
“Shhh,” Satoru hushes, murmuring the spell for a simple magic net. It fell, as expected, onto the frog, which tries to jump but is unable to get out of the net.
“Satoru-” Suguru says more urgently, but Satoru’s too busy congratulating himself on his success, thank you very much. He’ll make the death quick so Suguru stops bitching, and-
“Let me out,” the frog croaks, and holy shit, were frogs able to talk?
“Holy shit, since when could Xilifus’ frogs talk?” He yelps in surprise. Suguru vaguely looks like he wants to slap him.
“Let me out,” The Frog repeated, “or I will curse you.”
Satoru couldn’t help but scoff. “You? A frog? Curse me, the greatest witch of all time? The strongest? The-”
“Satoru,” Suguru stressed, and Satoru shut up, but it was too late.
There was a terrifying glint in The Frog’s yellow eyes. “I’ll show you what I can do, supposed Great One,” and recited a spell from a language Satoru had not heard in a millennia.
What followed was quicker than Celeritas Supido dialed to the max.
In a blink of an eye, Satoru found himself standing in the middle of many large leaves, and across the swamp was The Frog, looking about a hundred, no, a million times larger than it previously did.
It looked smug, if a frog could look smug. Satoru heard Suguru swear behind him.
“Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” Suguru bemoaned, and for the first time Satoru realized that oh, he’s not tripping, they’ve actually just become smaller. Like, maybe insect-level small.
“You didn’t stop him,” that bigass frog croaked, and goddamn, was it always this loud? Suguru just groaned, pulling at his face, which means Satoru will hear about how it was definitely his fault later, which… Yeah, okay.
“Anyway,” The Frog sounds more interested in the conversation all of a sudden, which probably is a cause for concern. “Now, you look… incredibly edible,” and the damn thing darted its tongue out. A taste of what to come, if you will.
Horrified, Satoru turns to Suguru and whispers one word:
“Run.”
Just as they take off, scrambling, a long, giant tongue comes slapping down at where Satoru had been, and then where Suguru had been. They heard the pads of the frog jumping after them, and swerved to where their brooms had been as quickly as they could.
Suguru rushes to hide behind the horse hair, but Satoru - sue him for panicking in a moment of adrenaline - touched his broom and willed it to fly.
Should Satoru have thought about how he was smaller than usual, and his broom was larger than usual? Yeah. Should Satoru have considered that the magic he used to awaken the broom should have been scaled? Yeah. Should he have considered that if there wasn’t enough magic, the broom left precariously against a tree would fall at the slightest push? Well…
The last thing he sees is his trusty, loyal broom falling towards him, and then it snaps to black.
Satoru did not get a concussion.
“You did, and I had to save your sorry ass from actually getting squashed by your broom! Your own damn broom! Have you a single braincell in that thick head of yours, Satoru?”
He does, and Suguru is a horrible, no good liar.
“How am I the liar? You’re the one who provoked that stupid frog, anyway. I was going to remind you that that white star means it’s magical, stupid. Aren’t you supposed to be the smarter one?”
Well. He can’t really argue against that point.
He winces as he tries to sit up, but Suguru just pushes him back down, rambling as he drops a dew into Satoru’s mouth from the leaf above.
“Stay down, you need to rest. Do you know how terrifying it was, to have you out in the open while that frog comes gallivanting at us, right where we were? I couldn’t so much as breathe, in case it spots me and then you’re really just left to die. Also, are you aware of how heavy you are? Because dragging you into this shade away did not happen easily, let me tell you.”
“Couldn’t you have just… I don’t know, levitated me or something?” Satoru grumbles, feeling the ache on his arms and torso.
At this, Suguru just smiled back sheepishly, seeming to have calmed down after his rant. “I didn’t really know how much magic to use, so when I tried with the amount I normally use for you, you may have just… Shot into the sky…”
“And you dropped me,” Satoru glares, not a question, because his back is stinging a little.
“In my defence, this was all your fault, so you deserved it.” Suguru sighs. “Do you have any idea how we can get back to normal size?”
Satoru frowns. “The only way to do that is to undo the curse. I can do that, but I need to find the language it was spoken in first. Or, if we can find a spell that’s similar, we can try the counterspell for it.”
“Maybe Deminuo? But that’s for objects.”
“It doesn’t hurt to try,” he says, and casts a quick Dilatare on Suguru. Unfortunately, the man doesn’t budge an inch.
“So we have to find the language, then.” Suguru thinks about it. “Would the books at home help?”
“Yes, but it’s a bit far from here without the broom and we haven’t got ahold of our magic yet.” Damnit, surely there had to be somewhere nearby that had books? Surely…
“Oh! We could go to Megumi’s. It’s far, but still closer than home. I know he keeps a book on all existing and existed languages, that nerd.”
Suguru laughs. “Okay, great. Which way are we due?”
“Probably east. Let me check. Circumgressus, ad Megumi vade,” he casts, and a large compass spins overhead before finally settling northeast.
“Well, if you’re feeling better now, I guess it’s time to get going.” Suguru stands up and offers him a hand.
Satoru takes it gladly. “Let’s go.”