Chapter 11: Polyamory and Portals

Summary:

Camilla gets a visit from a man in a suit.

Sasha is pulled away by Anne and Marcy.

Camila walked over to the door, wincing as three more knocks surprised her. She motioned for Eda, King, and the Collector to hide. Lilith ran to go with them, holding Hooty's beak closed and squeezing into a tight space that, at first glance, would be missed. Vee took a look at herself and hid all her visible basilisk features.

Camila then opened the door before any more thumps could be heard.

A tall man with fashionable purple lipstick wearing a suit leaned against the doorframe.

"Ah, there you are! I was worried we'd have to break down the door." He sighed, flicking something from his fingers.

"We've been trying to contact you for a week now, but every time you've either hung up, blocked our numbers, reported us as spam, or had someone else answer the phone… which is curious to me," He continued, a sly smile on his face, "Wouldn't you be living alone if your daughter is missing?"

Camila felt her heart skip a beat.

The man laughed lightheartedly. "I'm just kidding. You're safe with us, and we want to help you. We've got a pair of parents in a similar situation to yours, and having information from you would aid in our search." He held out a hand for Camila to shake, "I'm Mr. X"

They shook hands and Mr. X began to speak again.

"We've detected some… otherworldly radiation coming from around this area," He said, "Would you care to explain?"

Camila hesitated, "As long as you swear not to kidnap or run tests on the people living there, yes."

Mr. X nodded, "This isn't the first time I've dealt with a situation like this one, you know."

There must be other portals to different worlds, then. But on Earth?! She didn't say anything, but Camila held open the door and let him inside, where he sat at the table.

Vee appeared from the other room and jumped when she saw Mr. X. She glanced at Camila with a worried expression.

"It's okay. He's… He says he's on our side."

"I am. I'm just here to help look for the kids."

Camila raised an eyebrow, sitting across from him.

"The other parents I mentioned, the Boonchuys. Their daughter and her two friends went missing in another world. We think that since your child went missing only a week prior from them, and that there's strange portal signals from around here, they could be in the same place."

Camila blinked. The reasons were laid out in front of her, plain to see. All the dots connected.

"So you just need a way to get to those other worlds?" She asked, resting her head on her hand.

"It would be extremely helpful, yes." Mr. X smiled, "and preferably a clean, easy way that doesn't use up thousands of materials."

Camila thought of the Collector. He could make portals, couldn't he?

He did get us back from the Boiling Isles...

She sighed. "Fine. This is only to help those kids." She narrowed her eyes.

"Collector?" She called. They peeked from the stairs and floated down, landing on their feet beside the table.

Mr. X was bewildered.

"Can you tell this man about the portals?" Camila requested gently, her voice loving and kind.

The Collector nodded and began.

Sasha stood in a circle with Hunter, Willow, and Gus, chatting happily about the strange abnormalities of this new world.

The topic of the strange dogs- the group decided to call them horror hounds- was heavily avoided throughout the conversation.

"So there's bug-bears?" Willow asked Hunter, wide-eyed.

"Yes! And… it, uh, hurt me.." He nodded down to his newly healed arm, showing off a massive scar.

Sasha blinked, surprised. She'd known how injured he had been, but like…

That must've hurt a lot .

"What did it look like?" Gus butted in, bumping Willow in the arm accidentally.

"Well…" Hunter paused for a moment, "It's like a… big thing with… uh, orange and brown fur?"

Gus lifted a hand and drew a small illusion, a big circle with shaggy fur, that he then placed on a nearby rock. It was about half Sasha's height, and a little bigger than a horror hound.

"Yeah, like that, but bigger." The illusion grew almost three feet.

"That's good. So it was like that, right? And it had four stubby legs with another set of legs nearly growing out of its ribcage."

Gus struggled a bit with the designs, not quite able to nail the look of a bear with six legs.

Sasha pulled her phone out from Anne's backpack, which sat on the ground beside her feet, and showed Gus a picture of a grizzly bear for reference.

After that he had it nearly perfect, all but the strange middle legs.

"But the legs in the middle weren't orange- they were white and green, with huge claws. It also had antenna with razors on the ends that were white, two translucent beetle wings on its back, and four bright green eyes."

After a couple more minutes, a beast of a bear stood where the rock once was, frozen in a snarl with dripping jaws and its claws digging into the ground. Hunter shuddered and nodded, looking away from the thing .

Gus made the creature vanish, letting his hands drop to his sides. "That didn't look like the picture you showed me, Sasha." He sounded genuinely confused. 

"Yeah, that looked… weird ." Sasha agreed, an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

"I haven't seen anything like it on the Boiling Isles," Willow said, a thoughtful expression placing itself on her face.

"I haven't seen any bug parts like that in Amphibia," Sasha pointed out, "And there were lots of bugs. Most of them were huge monsters."

Marcy walked into the clearing. Sasha continued to tell stories of Amphibia, ignoring her until she was grabbed by the wrist and pulled away.

Hunter, Willow and Gus looked at her for a second before starting stories of their own.

Sasha was too confused to do much except follow Marcy through the woods. They emerged onto the cliff clearing, where Anne, Luz and Amity were talking. Luz and Amity saw Sasha and got up to leave, Luz with a knowing smile on her face.

Anne seemed nervous, her face a bit red and her hands fidgeting with her skirt.

Sasha felt her gut fill with butterflies. No, she told herself harshly, don't .

"What do you want?" She asked instead, yanking her wrist away from Marcy's grasp.

"We need to talk." Marcy took a deep breath. "Starting with us saying sorry."

Sasha's eyes widened a bit. They're… actually apologizing.

"For what? You didn't do anything wrong." The words flew out of her mouth before Sasha could stop them.

"We- But… you're not… mad at us?" Anne looked shocked.

Sasha shrugged. "No?" She decided to just let herself talk, ignoring the part of her brain screeching at her to stop. "It's natural for people to fall in love and uh-... What I'm trying to say is that I don't blame you for anything, and that I'm not angry. We've changed a lot since Amphibia, I'm just concerned that you should warn people next time."

"But then, why did you avoid us?" There was a glimpse of hurt in Marcy's eyes, and Sasha felt so guilty it was like spiders were crawling up her back.

"I don't know." But she did know. Her heart was hurting, longing for the two in front of her.

"... Why am I here?" Sasha spoke up after a few seconds.

"OH!" Marcy was cute when she realized or remembered something. She would bring her hands up to her chin in little fists and- No. Stop that. Sasha, stop falling in love with them! They're dating each other already!  

"Have you heard of polyamory?"

Sasha felt her heart speed up and her face flush. Yes, she knew about polyamory, but hearing Marcy say this made her hopeful again.

"Nope, what's that?" She tried to play it cool, mentally slamming her head into a tree repeatedly hearing her voice raise an octave.

"Polyamory describes a relationship between three or more people. Like, multiple people date each other, and it's all consensual and stuff."

"...Okay." Sasha felt her face heating up even more.

Marcy giggled a bit, she too was blushing. Anne moved so she was standing beside both of them.

Marcy elbowed Anne and nudged her forward. " You do it! You're more confident! " She whisper-shouted.

Anne cleared her throat and, in the most mock-formal way, declared, "Sasha Waybright of Toad Tower, we oh-so-humbly request that you join our relationship."

Sasha felt like she would burst with happiness. She bowed and in the same mock-formal voice, said "I accept your proposal."

Marcy pulled her girlfriends into a hug, accidentally toppling over and pulling them with her.

The three laughed joyfully, hands locked together.

"Does this mean we're girlfriends? The three of us?" Anne asked. 

"Yeah, I think so." Sasha replied. Marcy, in between the two, grinned happily.

"It does."