Overview
The Marsh-Toad is the small, patient beast the deep marsh keeps for the drip. It stands 30 cm across, it moves through the black mud with a slow, deliberate way, and it considers the long stand a promise rather than a wait. Where the toad stands, the drip knows it is answered, and the answering is the whole of the toad's own, because the toad that keeps the stand keeps the drip, and the drip is the toad's own.
Habitat
The Marsh-Toad keeps the drip of The Mire Barracks — the constant drip and the black mud and the broken stone. It is the marsh's own, and the marsh is the toad's, and the toad keeps the marsh the way the marsh keeps its drip. It needs three things: drip that does not fail, a mud deep enough to stand the long stand, and a ground of small cold prey that will not run. It is settled at the drip with the Ogres who keep the barracks — the toad is the barracks' own patience, and the ogre that has not heard the drone in a season is called the one who forgot the drip. The toad moves with the season the way the marsh does, deeper in the cold months, to the upper drip in the green, because the toad that has not moved with the drip has moved without the drip, and the moving without the drip is the whole of the hunger.
Appearance
The marsh-toad is the broad, low shape — broad through the jaw, heavy through the flank, with the head set forward and the whole of it reading as one flat line from eye to toe. The male stands 30 cm across and carries 1.8 kg, broad through the jaw and heavy with the stand; the female stands 26 cm, 1.4 kg, leaner through the neck, with the longer tongue and the worse patience, because the patience is the whole of the toad's own. The skin is warty and deep, olive-brown over the back where the drip has kept it wet, darkening to a mud-brown along the flank where the ground rubs it flat; the throat carries a clean bone-white that reads as a flash in the drip, and the belly skin is a faded, honest straw. The eye is copper, deep-set, set wide in the flat face to see the drip without the drip knowing it sees, and it does not glow. The throat-sac is the whole of the voice — a low, wet drone that the drip carries without knowing it carries it, and the drone that is heard is the whole of the answer. Males carry the line in the jaw and the stand; females in the neck and the patience. Elders are marked by a skin gone pale silver-brown and a drone that the drip answers a day before the toad calls — an old marsh-toad stands no new drip, and the drip that loses the old toad is called the quiet drip.
Behaviour
The marsh-toad does not hunt the way the warm prey hunts — it stands. It takes a position at the drip and it stays, because the toad that moves the stand has moved the answer. The drone is not a call and not a song; it is a low, wet sound that the drip carries without knowing it carries it, and it answers the drip, not the prey to the toad. When the drip takes, the toad does not eat first — it lets the ogres hear the drone, because the drone is the answer and the meat is only the meat, and the toad that eats the answer eats the marsh's own. It is patient with the ogres, worse than the ogres, and it will hold a drip through the whole of a frost because the drip that leaves the frost has left the marsh. The young are raised at the drip with the ogres' own loud ones, and the young that drone a true drip before the first frost are called the drip-kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The weapon is the tongue — the long, wet reach that takes the small cold prey in the drip's own time, after the stand has done its patient work. The defense is the mud: the toad is never where the ogre is, it is where the drip stands, and the mud that holds the stand holds the toad. It has no other defense and does not need one, because the beast that owns the patience owns the drip, and the drip is the whole of the marsh's own.
Magic Alignment
The marsh-toad carries the drip's own quiet magic — the drip-sense that reads the water a step before it falls, the long-stand that holds the drip through the frost, and the wet-drone that the drip carries without knowing it carries it. It is not spell-work and it is not the gods' work; it is the drip's own, and it is kept the way the drip keeps its fall.
Society
The marsh-toad keeps pairs at the drip — the patient one stands and the hungry one answers, and the pairing is the whole of the toad's own. The pair that has not kept the same drip for a season is called the loose line, and the barracks does not count it. The young are raised at the drip with the ogres, and the toad that has raised a drip-kept is honoured the way the barracks honours its best ogre: the drip is left open for a day, and the open drip is the honour. The drip that has lost its drone is called the quiet drip, and the quiet drip is kept in the barracks' own scrap-mud until it finds a new stand.
Culture & Lore
The Ogres of The Mire Barracks keep the marsh-toad the way they keep the drip — as the barracks' own patience, not as a beast. The old ogres say the first marsh-toad stood the drip and the barracks heard the drone before it saw the toad, and the hearing was the whole of the first keeping. The toad is never killed for the meat, because the meat is the meat and the drone is the drone, and the ogre that kills the drone kills the barracks' own. The drip that a pair has kept for three seasons is left open for a day when the last toad of the pair dies, and the open drip is the whole of the honour the barracks gives.
Home
The marsh-toad is the own of The Mire Barracks — the black mud, the deep marsh, the constant drip. It is settled at the drip with the ogres who keep the barracks, and the barracks that loses its marsh-toads loses the patience before it loses the word, because the word will come back when the mud warms and the patience will not.
Relations
The Ogres keep the toad as the patience and hear by its drone. The Goblins of Goblin Warrens know the marsh and do not enter it, because the mud that is honest will take the goblin as well as the toad, and the goblin that has been taken does not come back to the warren. The Orcs of The Fanghold respect the drip the way they respect the hold — they do not cross it, and the holding of the drip is the whole of the respect. The small cold prey of the drip does not know the beast at all, and the not-knowing is the whole of the answer's own.
In the Story
The marsh-toad has not yet come to the six, but the drip it stands at will — the barracks is the first strong ground the Legacy of Steel ever met, and the meeting was the whole of the first word. The drone that answers the drip under the barracks' own mud is the drone the six will hear when they hear it, and the hearing is the whole of the story's own, because the story that hears the drone hears the drip, and the drip is the marsh-toad's own.