Esklado dab Mol
Esklado dab Mol, The Red Knight and The Prince of Frogs, was the first husband of Laudine de Landuc. They met at the Fountain of Ink in Fairwallow, the place where Laudine had written longingly in her diary about finding “a man who could make me feel half as fulfilled as I do when I’m alone with the frogs.”
When Laudine caught sight of Esklado sitting by the fountain one morning, surrounded by the horny toads who kept her company while she was on guard duty, she was smitten and she stumbled. The golden ball she carried tumbled into the fountain and she cursed aloud and in anger.
Esklado, one of the shape-shifting kíndalla, offered to dive down to retrieve it for her. And before she could say, “But you’re too big,” he’d already transformed himself into a faithful facsimile of one of the frogs he’d just been sitting with.
After he emerged from the pool and shifted back to his original form, he handed the ball to Laudine and he smiled. She smiled back, and for a good little while there, they lived happily ever after.
Sadly, their romance and subsequent marriage was not meant to last—not once the Promiselander Yvain le Fay went adventuring. During a duel beside the Fountain, Yvain killed poor Esklado. And then, to add insult to injury, he went on to marry the dead man’s wife.
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