The Frog of Diplomacy

The late afternoon sun shone through the trees of the glade, casting a dappled pattern across the babbling brook by which two badgers wrestled playfully.  It was the kind of place that could easily make you believe fairies lived in the world, a belief helped along significantly by the small winged woman sitting on a rock with her feet in the water.

However looking slightly to her left made it seem like the idea that there was anything good in the world must be a terrible terrible trick as that was where the fey creature’s companion sat.  While the woman’s blue eyes were completely at odds with the rest of her dark toned features that wasn’t the disturbing part, they seemed somehow a reasonable part of her compared to the rest.  The disturbing part started slightly lower down, with the column of runes snaking up her neck that surely said something terrible if you could make them out and finished with the hideously out of proportion and discoloured right arm and section of midriff that were exposed to the world in the heat the way something so wrong never should be.

If for some reason an onlooker still wanted to pay attention to this scene after noticing who was there they would have observed what seemed like a long, meaningless conversation start to move into the realms of seriousness.

“I only started workin wiv them lot to make some gold after I got here from mah island.” the abomination was saying “But a’ve gotten a whole heap a gold now and ah think there’s more important work ta do now.  Seems like Orcus is gonna try to do summin skanky to this world, an I think us folk are the best people to stop it all given how we know the dungeon and wa his minions a up to an shit.  That’s why they wanna set up a little empire with an army an shit, so we can take over Rappan Athuk and stop Orcus doing whatever he wans ta do.”

“Empires are awesome.  I’m a princess, I should know.” Said Erika, helpfully.

“Prollum is, I ain’t got nothing to contribute to their empire.”  Kruin continued.  “I mean, there’s heaps o stuff I can do, but they don wan me ta do it.  I’m really good at magic and at fighting, but they said Lanniss is da boss of magic and Mortima is da boss of the fighting people.  Even though they are both really stupid about being bosses.  Mortma makes his people walk up and down in straight lines all day and thinks they gonna learn to fight by doin that, what does he know?

“Anyway, only role left that I could do that they don wan dun in a stupid way is diplomat.  I thought diplomacy were a type of weapon til that discussion happened, but they mean someone who’s good at talkin to people and making them come onto our team.  I’m heaps good at that, I know all bout tricks and promises, but Shades don think I’d be a good diplomat.”

“Maybe there’s more to it than just tricks and promises by themselves.” Put in Erika, this time actually helpfully.  “You look at them like they’re two different things, but I think the art of diplomacy comes from combining the two.”

“But if summins a trick its not a promise – how can it be both?” Kruin asked.

“Few things in life are just one thing or another.” The fey creature continued in a voice so tinkly you could easily miss the wise content if you weren’t used to it.  “Think about it like this.  The land and the water seem like two very different places – lizards live on one and fish live in another and if you put either in the wrong place it dies quickly.

“But then you have frogs, which are basically half lizard and half fish and can live in both places.  Diplomacy isn’t about fish and lizards, it’s about frogs.”

“How dat work?”

“Like this.” Said Erika, lifting from amongst her things laid out on the bank a bulging sack that clinked as she lifted it.  “What if I said to you that I’d give you everything in this bag if you went on a quest for me?”  With those words she opened the bag to reveal it overflowing with gold.

“Where you get all dat from?”

“That’s the interesting part isn’t it?  Say you agree to it and finish the quest and come to me expecting the gold.  Then I say – as per our agreement, here’s the contents of the bag.”  And with that she upturned the bag, releasing not the expected shower of gold coins but instead nothing more than a few dried liver badger treats.  “I promised to give you what was in the bag, and I kept that promise, but I also tricked you about what was in the bag in the first place, and that is the frog of diplomacy in action.”

“Huh, I like your trick, stupid rhakshassa did same kinda stuff.  Those tricks could really help when we have ta fight stuff.”

“And they’d also helped when you had to talk to people and make them join your team.”

“Tha defly would be helpful.  You wanna come live over at Dejune and help us?  What we’re doin is real important, and I think you’d be good help.  Also make ta place more fun, place is kinda boring right now.”

“Certainly.  My people can all do tricks like that, but we also have an old book of spells that do similar things which I used to read over when I was little, littler, and I was really good at them.  Let me study up a bit and I’ll head over there when I can.”

“A like it.  You an me gonna be diplomat together and whole world will be on our team an fight Orcus.”

And so the scene ended, with Dejune blissfully unaware that despite having rejected the negotiating services of the fish of lies and the lizard of promise it was soon to be home to frog of diplomacy.