Within the land of flat-lined obelisks and lily-pads abound, Lemontoad shuffled from one pond to the next.
Lemon wasn’t sure why he started hopping. Maybe because everyone else is hopping too. Maybe because the lily he left was surrounded by naysayers and jabs which soured all rapport. His family drifted to the other-side of that same pond long ago, the sanguine side it was rightly labelled, and most freestanding lilies for visit were occupied by others whenever he thought to hop on over. Clowns for neighbors, crowded and noises, he sought a way out of his troubled heart.
As he began his journey, taking the Ancient Unified Aqueduct — that which linked all ponds — he was surprised to find that no one called out to him. The Waves was a separate channel along the AUA, and ripplists learnt to read and decipher waves in that clear thin channel, each wave colorized through binding magic upon its foam. Customers could request to send a message, marked with the family color code. Five ponds over he waited to hear of any news, but instead he stood witness to sighs of relief, bursts of joy, and sobbing too, amongst those at Shoreline Station 38. So the station emptied. He decided to depart too after an operator shook his head with a grimace and turned him away.
Dejected, he kept forward. That’s all he could do. For now he was without kin, without friends, and without much reason either, but as he traveled he imagined a golden lily waiting for him. Such a lily stood upon the original obelisk, the mythical one recorded by our wise toad sages. It was told that long ago not all the obelisks flat-lined. The cyclic-chain of ponds maintained considerable altitude in the days of ancients. The air was fresh, the people merry, the lilies golden. Legend has it that the toads kept a glimmer after resting upon such gold. Legend has it that the ancients never had such troubles as Lemon.
So he dreamed and dazed once more to be among the thrones and sky-piercing lot of old. He saw his golden lily elevate and fasten itself to the Treetrunk Court, where disputes of those days were handled. Each toad would proudly take the CenterRung and make his plea on policy, carving out a polis for the toads to come. Their founding doctrine was said to be upon the inner bark walls. It was lost though. The tree trunk fell down into the smokey abyss below each obelisk. The sages were cautious for such ruin, and so maintained billboards with some core truths. But no one seems to read them anyways.
Have the hearts of toads deadened through the years, he wondered. Was all that policymaking for nought? Each pond he hopped seemed to be a country of its own.