The Bogfrog Cycle

It has been eleven years and the bogfrogs were finally grown.

The realization did not fully settle on Menthe that morning, nor the next. The realization did not settle until a large frog unhinged its jaw and swallowed one of her cows. She had snapped up the bogfrog, taking care to crunch it before it shot its tongue down her throat and choked her. That’s how her nestmate died many years ago.

Similarly, the human that was rolling over the giant eggs in the water like they were a toy those eleven years ago had grown.

Menthe barely noticed the growth of the human over the years either. It was there, but never truly present. The human’s height changed, her hair grew long, and within the last few years, she began to bleed frequently, a body function Menthe did not understand.

Today the human was helping Menthe clear out the cow manure from the ramshackle pen they created. Menthe never wanted the human, but she had found her abandoned as a small child in the forest river, not too far from the bog.

Menthe had eventually named her Mishyde, after a special dragon she had lost. Mishyde could never figure out if Menthe regretted giving her the name or not. She did not even know who the original Mishyde was to Menthe.

“Menthe,” Mishyde said. “We haven’t flown in a month.” She dragged the back of her hand across her brow. Sweat, another inconvenience of a fleshy body.

“We have not flown because you threw cow waste at the farmers, and without the farmers, we cannot get tools or clothes for you. Furthermore, we do not need them poking around after us. And you know the strain it does on my wings.”

“What could they do to you? You’re too tough for their pitchforks. Besides, I did not throw the stones like I planned.” Mishyde twisted the corners of her mouth into a smile. Her calloused hand scratched at Menthe’s nostrils. The girl learned long ago not to ask about Menthe’s deformed wings and what had caused them to become so weak.

“Hmph,” Menthe allowed her to continue scratching. “Regardless of stones or waste, we are creatures of dignity and nobility. We do not pick on those below us.”

“I-” Mishyde gaped a bit like a fish in the water. “I am not a dragon. I don’t have green scales like you, or talons or wings. I’m one of them- the lesser.”

“You are more,” Menthe stated. “You are mine, not in blood but now in heart.”

“Then when can I call you my mother? You tell me of your egg-bearer, and you tell me stories of the humans and their mothers.”

Menthe could not answer. She did not fully understand humans, except for what was passed in stories. What she did know however, is that humans seemed to attach themselves to anything living or not. Mishyde used to carry a certain rock around that she named Notto. Mysteriously, Notto ended up in the muddy dregs of the bog one day after Mishyde claimed that Notto was nicer than Menthe. In a similar fashion, the human was attaching herself to Menthe as thought she were her mother. This did not surprise Menthe, but the need to please that drove Mishyde made her perfect for all the tasks Menthe needed help with, such as the cows she decided to raise in lieu of hunting.

Menthe found it hard to enjoy hunting after the incident.

“I will let you call me mother when you truly become a dragon. Until then, let us enjoy each other’s company without fretting.” She got up from her spot by the cow pens and made her way to the forest where Mishyde’s hut squatted between two trees. Menthe created the hut for the girl soon after she pulled her from the bogfrog eggs she found Mishyde rolling around in.

It has only been five years since Menthe found the human. Much to her amusement, the little human liked to draw Menthe in the mud. Her teeth were extra long and sharp, her wings a little too rounded, and her six horns stuck out around her head like those silly little desert drakes the nomads ride.

Dragons did not draw, but they told stories. Many ages of memories were passed down generation to generation to generation when hatchlings are in their eggs, but myths and legends were told when they were still in the nest.

Little Mishyde loved the stories. Menthe told her of the dragons who hung the stars, the leviathans who controlled the tides, the dwarves and their braided beards. Mishyde seemed to pick up from the stories that she was a human, although Menthe often watched the young human look in the water to see if her teeth were sharp.

“In a time before our egg-bearer’s own eggs were laid,” Menthe said, the same as she started all her stories. “There was a dragon named Prynth who’s scales were made of gold. Everyday Prynth would slowly shed his scales and hang them around the mountain he called home. The morning sun would reflect off each shiny scale and scatter wonderful light to the farmers’ crops down below the mountain. He had no fear of humans or dragons or any bogfrogs taking his scales. Everyone had a place in the world, a reason to live, a task to fulfill, and his was to help the lesser humans who foolishly built their farms in the shadows of the mountain range.

“One day though, there was a human who wanted more than what the world had gifted him. The man was a candlemaker, a person who could control fire for his home. The other humans loved him for his candles and would trade with him for his beautiful light.

“The man was greedy and wanted more gifts than he was given. He knew of Prynth and his gold. He found the dragon and began his dastardly plans. With sweet smelling candles, the man made Prynth fall asleep. The man took all the gold scales and stamped them with his emblem, flattening them into little round mockeries of what they once were. Soon trading gave way to the man’s new coins, and gifts once thriving now were lost as people focused on the best way to earn the coins. The candlemaker continued to excel, the only person to know how to make light in the dark. The only person who knew where to find Prynth and his constantly shedding scales.

“Prynth awoke many years later gift-less and scale-less. He followed the scent of his golden scales to the candlemaker. The man had made himself a king off Prynth’s gold. The dragon was angry, but he knew how the world should be balanced. For every give there was a take. The dragon wanted the king’s fire. He wanted the power of those candles to hold a flame. The king. So, in the way of the human, Prynth stole. He grabbed the king and in a mighty surge of hateful power, he sucked his control of fire right out of the old candlemaker. Gift for gift. Everything comes in a circle, balanced and true.”

“But the cycle wouldn’t end, would it? Wouldn’t it never end? The king would get Prynth. And now Prynth does not have scales to protect him.” Little Mishyde asked.

Menthe snorted and licked down the hair on the little human’s head. “No, the cycle is done.”

“Why are the humans always bad?”

“Well,” Menthe pretended to yawn to give herself time to think. “Humans are lesser and make mistakes. They don’t know the way of the world like us dragons. One day you will be a dragon, and not weak and foolish like the humans. That’s why I tell you these stories.”

Little Mishyde frowned. Her full face scrunched up so much that Menthe thought she was sucking a lemon from the traders again. “I stomped on the worms again.”

“I told you not to pick on the creatures. Only hurt what you plan to eat, or only hurt to finish the cycle.”

“I think I must be bad.”

“You’re sleeping too little. You know, when I found you, I considered eating you, but you looked so small against those large eggs that I could not bring myself to do it, and now the tadpoles are as long as you. Isn’t that wonderful? One day you will be large like the tadpoles will become bogfrogs, and you’ll know you are not bad now, but just in a different stage. Come and curl up on my arm, it is time to sleep. I know if I let you into the hut, you’ll stay up all night playing with Notto again.”

It was a quiet year because Menthe had eaten all the bogfrogs. Faintly, she could smell the last group of eggs right up the stream in the forest. The parents of those eggs were smart to keep them from the bog that Menthe called home. Once she ate those, she knew she must find somewhere else to find food. She had tried to tend cows, but she did not have the hands for it. The moose that sometimes came to the bog from the forest filled Menthe’s stomach like nothing else, but they had grown smart and begun to hide in the forest. Ever since the accident that caused Menthe’s wings to break and heal wrong, she’d been stuck in the bog. She could fly – barely – yet she could not bring herself to leave the area.

The trip to the river took only an hour. By the end, mud caked her talons and the earthy scent of peat clung to her like a second set of scales. The fresh water dumping out from the river sent shivers over Menthe’s long body when she submerged herself.

There, up ahead.

Eggs, reflective and shiny in the midday light. Menthe could imagine how they would roll over her tongue and slide down her throat. The eggs vaguely resembled eyes. There was a single black dot in the middle of each, seemingly staring at her. These were a bogfrog’s legacy. A bogfrog’s child she would eliminate. Guilt gnawed at her, only present from the situation humans forced her into only a week ago.

She knew she could save the eggs, let them grow into frogs and mate and mate until they are plentiful again, but the taste…oh how could she resist? The last traces of guilt vanished.

The eggs were moving though. They should not be hatching for another few years. Something fleshy poked out from between the orbs.

A hand…?

It was not a frog hand. There were five digits wiggling like little worms above the eggs. A giggle sound bounced around the eggs. Menthe lowered her head into the water, the tip of her nose and horns poking out. She swam closer and looped around the eggs to get a better angle.

The human was maybe as tall as her talon was long. It had a short crop of hair curling slightly behind the ears. The human could hardly weigh anything, so Menthe considered the creature lucky that the river was almost still.

What a disgusting creature. But it would do. It would do nicely. Menthe briefly thought about the family that left it behind, then decided she did not care.

When the human child looked up from its new toys, the trees seemed to be closing in on her, trapping her, as a large beast raised over her with its maw dripping.

It had been fifteen years since Menthe decided not to eat the child, and there was a new set of bogfrog eggs. Menthe licked one longingly, knowing she would have to let this generation grow, just like the last. She would wait because what is another fifteen years to a dragon?

“Mother,” Mishyde said. Menthe used to hate the idea of Mishyde calling her that, but she came to peace with the idea. She always wanted to be an egg-bearer, but in the end, she became a mother. Her chances were always taken from her. Velneri, that coppery dragon who could talk to birds took away Menthe’s first mate. That toothless, lemon-snouted, cow-bellied slug. Then, her next mate lost his life to another dragon. And her final mate…she tried not to think about that.

Besides, in the end she got Mishyde. The now grown human did not have claws, or scales or eve sharp teeth, but she grew to be as cunning as her mother.

Yes, the term settled in her chest like a bird in a warm nest.

“Mother, you’re ignoring me again.”

Menthe chuckled low in her throat. “If I continue, will you continue to call for me?”

Mishyde sighed. “Years of begging to call you my mother for you to know beg the same. All those stories of feeling lesser and lonely for you to finally accept me.”

“I have another story for you, but I feel like you wanted my attention.”

“I do,” Mishyde tied back her long sandy hair. Muscles adorned her arms after years of working with Menthe in the bog. “I was talking to the villagers just north of here, and they have a building filled with stories. I can borrow them if I leave something valuable with them to make sure I bring the stories back.”

Menthe dug her claws in and out of the dirt. Sharing Mishyde with the humans was hard, but necessary. Banning her from her kind would only drive her closer to them. It was better she go to that village anyway. Humans needed humans for -well- human things anyway. Like the medicine Menthe used to trade old scales for when the dryads wandered through. As far as Menthe was concerned, so long as Mishyde did not go to the village beyond the forest, all was well.

“I have an old tooth hidden in the hollow tree you could use.” Menthe said.

Mishyde smiled and hugged her snout. “Thank you. The lady there said she’d teach me to read these stories. But do not fret, I’ll only go once a week so I’m always here with you, just as you want. I know I will have to build that new fence and fix the hut.”

“No, no take more time for your reading. You deserve all the stories in the world.”

Mishyde continued to hug Menthe. Menthe purred, loving how her daughter grew to be so affectionate. For a few years, the girl’s violent tendencies worried her. Then, there was the time Mishyde ran away with the dryads passing through. Menthe strained her wings flying after the roaming group to retrieve her. “You said you had another story for me?” Mishyde finally asked.

“I had one child before you,” Menthe said. “She had such gem-like blue-green scales. Her sire gifted her to me before his gift drove him away.”

Mishyde flinched back. “You had a hatchling before me?”

“I did. You share a name with her. My precious first Mishyde. Her sire would have loved you had he stayed but his gift of prophesy began to blind him. He eventually could not tell the future from what was happening around him. I think he began to grow crazy, telling me I would die by a fork in the night, and other odd things. He left before he hurt first-Mishyde or I in one of his states. I do not know what happened to him, but his leaving caused the humans to the south of us to grow bold. They came when I was out hunting and slaughtered my hatchling. They took her back to their village. I had to follow her scent, where I found her meat roasting above a fire. Her nubby teeth were sharpened to crude weapons. The humans took her scales to make jewelry. They took her scales to make jewelry for their flabby pathetic ears. As though they did not take my whole world.”

Everything was quiet except for the occasional croak of the bogfrog. “What did you do next?” Mishyde whispered. Menthe rarely told stories about her own experiences.

“I remembered what I was taught. I remembered my place in the world and remembered that you do not take what is not yours. I only did what Prynth did. I demanded fair payment.”

“And what happened?”

“The humans fought back and broke my wings like they broke the remainder of my family,” Menthe raised her head away from the girl. She stared long at the new bogfrog eggs resting in the water. “But in the end they saw what had to be done to sate me. I gave them a week to repay me. I was on the way to force my payment when I found you.”

Menthe could not see Mishyde clenching her hands at her side as she asked, “What was the payment, mother?”

Menthe finally turned to look at her daughter. She gave her a small lick on her head before beginning the walk back to the hut.

“Mother, I think I need something more though, for the story building." Mishyde ran to catch up with the dragon. "I have seen the tooth you speak of, and it is rather old and small, and the bog is beginning to leave a mark on it. Could I maybe have a fresh scale or plate? Didn’t you say you have an old one on your belly about to fall off? Can I have that one?”

Mishyde did not usually ramble, but Menthe supposed her excitement over the thought of more stories would cause her to do that. “I can spare it for you.” Menthe raised onto her back legs and located the plate. Much like a loose tooth, she wiggled it out with her snout and hands. Mishyde grabbed hold and helped pull. It popped out, sending Mishyde flying onto her back.

It was the same year that there were new bogfrog eggs, but it did not matter.

Nothing mattered except the pitchfork lodged in the gap in Menthe’s belly plates, prongs ripping through flesh as the pressure dug the tool deeper into her stomach.

Air surged from Menthe’s mouth. There was a rattle and the faintest fire. Mishyde had never seen her mother breathe fire. She thought it was a myth, like the dragon who hung the stars or the dragon who could grow gold for scales.

Menthe turned her large eye on her foe, only to see in the faint moonlight that it was her daughter Mishyde holding the pitchfork. Mishyde put more weight into the tool. Menthe wheezed.

“I was not abandoned, was I?” Mishyde’s eyes glared at Menthe. Wide and white and angry like the moon hanging above them. “I was a payment. Child for child. You lied to me for my whole life.”

“The cycle needed completed,” Menthe tried to push away but her arms were failing her. There was no strength in the limbs that raised her child. She could not force them to bat away Mishyde or pierce her stomach as well. That was her child. Her hatchling. Not born from an egg but found with the eggs. Her Mishyde. Her new Mishyde.

Mishyde released the pitchfork. “The cycle is completed now. The villagers told me their own stories, mother, and everyday I was there I was closer to finding out about this. Why did you demand for me, only to hate me and make me hate me until I was nothing but the daughter you lost? A human parading in a poor costume of a dead dragon? And even now I am not a dragon! You told me I could call you mother when I was fully a dragon, and I am only the ghastly projections of the hatchling you lost! I am not a dragon! You should have never let me call you mother!”

Menthe tried her best to raise the corners of her mouth into a ghastly attempt at a human’s grin. “Did your talons not rip apart my belly?”

Mishyde roared and stomped the tongs' base over and over and over until the blood rushed out in a river. Tears ran down her red face. Sobs racked her body until her foot trembled too much to push the pitchfork in further. “I was never good enough and you made me do everything and I am not a dragon. I’m not your daughter, I’m a replacement and a slave. You’re not even a dragon either.” Heat sparked in Mishyde’s belly and face once more. “You don’t even have a gift. That was a lie to make every dragon in the stories special, wasn’t it? Dragons have gifts and humans lost theirs after Prynth took the candlemaker’s.”

Menthe’s vision flickered in and out. “I think you came into your gift, daughter. I think you-”

Mishyde turned and walked away from her mother, not bothering to hear another honeyed story or lie. As Menthe laid there with the last of her life bleeding out into the bog she called home, she thought of the new bogfrog eggs, and knew the cycle was finally complete.