Log - 9 - 12

The corners of the page have dried but visible water stains still rummage through the report. One of the letters is pressed flat to the page with ink bleed cleanly through to the reverse. Beside, a crude map has been copied out again in the margin with the eastern gate, marked properly this time with the original left in place for comparison.

'I know weddings aren't so commonplace past the borders of the city, I may as well have taken a look.'

A sketch of a lithe frog thing clothed in plate, hands wringing, drawn twice over as though the first pass refused to sit still. A tag of 'Harold' with a placeholder for a serial number.

'He met us not too far from the city's gates and walked us south. He seemed of an honest sort, but he is nervous. I hadn't thought much of it until we reached the encampment. A wedding is a special occurrence after all.'

Marginal studies of bullywugs run down the side, broad and mottled, weapons slung cross their backs. One stands taller in a chief's attire, with a few question marks pointing to various garments. In three of the smaller sketches, a bullywug is shoving another within a large tent, and in two more they are slapping Harold. Nearby, attendees sit along chairs befitting a swampy soiree.

'The king greeted us with the only common word he had: Guests. He was very pleased with it an used it often.'

A drawing of something aspiring to be a gong, hammered flat from what looks to be salvaged plate, with struck notes trailing off in a wobbling line. Slightly above the drawing is text, 'here comes the-', this last word lost beneath a folded sheet pinned to the page. It opens downwards into a square of parchment roughly a third of the page. Unfolded, a maw takes up most of the space, inked first and heaviest, rising out of the water with tentacles and squiggles all throughout with agitated lines, and a snippet of chain hangs low on one of its limbs. To its side is a serial number.

Below marginal studies return, this time of guards with their heels in the mud, back further away whilst facing the waters.

'I'd expect a warmer welcome for the coming consort from this amphibians, but a part of me shares the same sentiment of "Yeah this thing might eat me."'

A drawing of the king at the front of the gathering, arms spread wide before the giant swamp-thing.

'Surprisingly his vocabulary was twice the size I had credited him with, unveiling his second favourite word: Snacks. It is title I'm sure many would be glad to carry, though preferably elsewhere, and preferably not while our host was gesturing at the lot of us before his bride.'

Thumbnails crowd the lower half of the page, drawn small and hurried. Bullywugs scattering in every direction available to them all in various states of disarray, another in the corner seems to be taking a nap, and off to one side, tiny yet drawn with more care than the rest, a frog in ill-fitting plate holding a torn piece of tent canvas in front of himself.

'The ceremony concluded and the reception began immediately, at which point confirmed the invitation had been sincere and we were the catering. In the corner of my eye I'd see that frog tear a piece of the tent, holding it between himself and the wedding, and I can find no fault in it. Of everything attempted in the clearing, it was the only plan of these frogs with any visible amount of thought behind it.'

A drawing of the king from behind, rotund and low, arms still spread as they were in the portrait before. A limb is wrapped twice around his middle and he has been hoisted clear of the soil, feet hanging. Beneath him the water is stippled densely, and a second smaller frame beside it shows the same stretch of water with nothing above it.

'Our host was collected halfway through the festivities and hoisted into the shallows. The water closed then and went a colour I will write down as misty red, out of courtesy to the squeamish.'

A wider sketch of the clearing afterward. Chairs on their sides, the gong face down in the mud. Bullywugs drawn strewn where they fell, and the tent still stands with a square missing from it. Harold is drawn among them, standing still this time, mouth open. A list runs down beside him in his own words, long, ticked, continuing onto the reverse of the page and then some.

'He had a great deal to say about bullywugs once there were none left to hear it. From what I heard, and seen, his first hand experience hasn't been amiable. We then spoke of the city, he wasn't against the idea, and the return home was pleasantly quiet.

A sketch of the walk back, the company strung out along the mushroom caverns, Harold nearer the middle and the eastern gate towering from a distance.

'I should visit Harold soon, see if he's accustomed well to the city. Given his disposition, he might find the bathhouse calming.'

Signed at the bottom are the initials 'A.A'