“I’m terribly sorry, pup!” Sir Ranae’s tone was almost pleading.

Mousey stared up at the frog knight, confusion in his eyes.

“She’s caught Mogur’s plague, m’friend,” croaked Sir Ranae. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice sooner! Please, forgive me…”

“How can it be cured?” Mousey asked, staring up at the frog.

Sir Ranae hung his head. “I... There isn’t a cure, pup…”

“Yes,” came a voice from Mousey’s pocket. “There is.”

Mousey reached his paw into his soaked coat’s pocket and produced Sopher. The book was still dry as could be, as if none of the water had even touched either her binding or her pages.

Sopher’s spirit appeared before Sir Ranae and Mousey again, now appearing as if she had long hair, made of so many scrolls. “I know of a cure!”

“Has there been one all this time?” Sir Ranae croaked. “Oh my! This is dreadful! So many have already died from not knowing!”

“But we’ll know now, and we’ll save my Mom!” said Mousey, practically jumping with excitement. “Yes! Please, Sopher, tell us of this cure.”

“First,” Sopher began, “We will need Blister Rue, Icri Bud…”

Sir Ranae grunted, “Icri bud? Now there’s a rare herb. The only pace we could find Icri Bud would be in… the Toad King’s own garden…” As the realization hit him, Sir Ranae looked up with a twinkle in his eye. Then in his other, after he licked it.

Sopher continued, “…and the silk of a golden orb spider.”

“The spiders as big as me?” Mousey squeaked in shock.

“No, my friend,” croaked Sir Ranae. “You just found your mother. You need to do everything you can to protect her. Be here for her, and I will fetch what we need.”

“You’re going into the Toad King’s palace on your own?” Mousey squeaked.

“That’s the way it has to be,” said Sir Ranae with a shrug, but the smirk on his face told Mousey that Sir Ranae longed for the adventure of being the hero again.

Mousey knew the smart thing to do would be to reprimand him,

tell him he was foolish for risking his life. But when Mousey thought back to everything that had happened to the two of them since they’d escaped the tower he understood the call to adventure.

And that call made one long to be great.

That longing had its own kind of power.

“Before you leave, there is something I wish to try,” said Mousey. He turned to the spirit, “Sopher, I have read stories of noble knights wielding magical weapons, wearing magical armor.” Mousey looked over to Sir Ranae, grinned, then back up to Sopher. “How can I bestow such enchantments on Sir Ranae’s sword?”

Sopher nodded. “Ah… I must teach you how to enchant items. First of all, the item in question must represent something between you. Something that strengthened your bond as friends.”

Sir Ranae held up the sword he’d been using throughout the trip. “Mousey, this is the very same sword placed in your paws when that bat ordered you to execute me. You refused, and now I carry this blade to remind myself that I owe you my life twice over. That sort of thing is how friends become comrades at arms.”

“Then I will enchant the sword,” said Mousey. He pointed his paw at the ground. “Please set it down a moment.”

Sir Ranae nodded and placed the sword on the ground in front of Mousey.

Mousey turned to Sopher, “Now what, do I just…”

“Focus on the sword, and speak to it,” Sopher said. “Tell it of what you’ve heard about legendary swords, give it a name, and what you want from this one.”

Mousey nodded, then turned his attention back to his own reflection in the gleaming blade. “I know of swords that warriors used in battles where they were outnumbered one-hundred to one, but those swords got them through that battle. How? They never broke, for one thing. In fact, they usually break their enemies’ weapons. So… I ask you…”

Mousey struggled to think of a name. What could he come up with that would fit so important a blade? After much thought, he eventually decided on, “Worthy.” Yes, because Sir Ranae had recognized that Mousey was worthy.

He nodded his head, loving the name, now that he thought about it. Sir Ranae would wield a blade called “Worthy.”

Mousey continued, “May you protect my friend from his enemies in such a way. Never break, but always break his enemies’ weapons. Umm… please.”

Mousey paused for a moment, just staring at the blade. He had hoped that it would start to glow or show some sign that his magic had worked. At first, Mousey feared that he had failed.

But he gasped as his reflection within the blade moved on its own accord and said, in a voice so different from his own, “I swear it.”

Sir Ranae’s jaw dropped, and he picked up the sword in his hands. “My dear friend, you have given me a truly wonderful gift! With this I shall retrieve what we need to save your mother! I will not be long!”

Without another word, Sir Ranae bounded off into the distance, with Worthy tight in his hand.

Mousey let out a sigh of relief, certain that everything was going to be fine.

He took leaves from the ground nearby and did his best to clean himself off. He then grabbed a few more and turned to wipe his mother off.

Only then did he stop to really take a good look at her face.

She was not just sleeping, there was no mistake about it. She was sick.

Mousey recalled the way Button, his sister, had looked when she came down with pneumonia, and they were certain she was going to die. It was then that Mrs. Souris had become a healer. She studied medicine day and night, all the while caring for Button. After that, it seemed there was no ailment she couldn’t cure, no wound she couldn’t patch up.

At the time it had seemed like magic.

With the memories now back at the forefront of his mind, and his mother looking so weak in his arms, great tears poured forth from Mousey’s eyes.

He felt as if something in the back of his throat were choking him.

His lower lip pulled itself downward

Some invisible force push him down to his knees.

And he wept.