"White noise in my head
Burning ashes in the floor
Trouble in the air
I didn't sign up for this war
Let the fire in
All my demons from before
'Cause I am not afraid
Ready to explode
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Gotta die to come alive
Cause I'm falling just to rise
Falling just to fly
Gotta die to stay alive!
Burning just to ignite
Gotta die to stay alive
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Gotta die to stay alive
Hit me one more time
One, two, three just give me more
Cause with every strike
I'll be stronger than before
I used to fear the night
I used to close my eyes
Now I need the dark so I can see the star shine
Falling just to rise
Cause I am falling just to rise
Falling just to fly
Gotta die to stay alive!
Burning just to fight
Gotta die to stay alive
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Gotta die to come alive
So watch me burn
Go geed my flame
Cause it's my time to rise gain
So watch me burn
Go feed my flame
Cause it's my time to fly again!
White noise in my head
Burning ashes on the floor
Cause I am falling to rise
Cause I am falling just to rise
Falling just to fly
Gotta die to stay alive!
Burning just to fight
Gotta die to stay alive x2
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix
Like a phoenix, like a phoenix"
~Phoenix by Molly Sanden
"Happiness is the one thing we Queens can never have." ~Catherine de Medici, Reign
~o~
Kermit felt like a big douche. He had hurt Piggy. He hadn't meant to. But Piggy hurt him all the time with her constant flirting.
He sighed. If there was any other way, he would've taken it but Piggy pushed him to the edge of his reason and she was beyond reasoning. What was worse was that the media was crucifying and it wasn't fair to him or Denise.
If people weren't to pig headed like his ex. Literally! They would get to see Denise for the pretty woman –well pig- that she is.
He pushed these treacherous thoughts away. Piggy always said that he was one big giant insensitive toad. Well, she didn't but she did now and she said it so much that he can't remember anything else other than her jabs.
Kermit put down his photo of them. When the two had married, they thought that things would be better between them. He was only a tadpole and he had seen her roaming near the lake. Her sisters were thinner than most pigs and Piggy wasn't that big, she was just about right. What struck him was that she was a Muppet unlike them, and that she possessed intelligence. She was not afraid to speak her mind and every time her parents tried to keep her in line, she would smile at them and they would forget their anger.
"What's your name froggie?" The piglet asked the tadpole. He barely had any legs but he was strong enough to lift his head from the water.
"K-Kermit I think …"
"You think? What do you mean you think? You must have a name. Everyone does! Duh."
Her laughter took him by surprise. Kermit was always jealous of his older brothers and sisters. His parents hardly paid any attention to him. He was the youngest of his siblings, except for his half-sisters but he didn't pay any attention to them since he and their dad didn't get along. So Piggy was the only light at the end of the tunnel.
"Kermit what is wrong honey-bun?" Denise asked him leaning against him, rubbing her head against his shoulder. "You seem tense, let Denise give you some good old fashioned massage. Mmm."
Kermit chuckled softly and let Denise do her thing. When morning came he told her that he loved her and she responded with one big kiss to his lips.
He felt so bad that he could not as intimate with her as he'd been with Miss Piggy. But he couldn't help it when she was part of his life, and she was always there being cold and acting like she owned the whole studio.
If she only realized how bad he felt, what she was doing to herself, to them. "Who am I kidding? She never listened to me in the past, what says he will listen to me now?" He sat down and buried his head in his long green hands.
He rose and turned opened the drapes enough so he could see his ex, walk out the building with a new guy.
Piggy had no idea what she was doing. She was fooling around and she knew it.
He closed them and sat back down. He was not going to let her dictate his life anymore. Two can play the same game. He was her executive-producer and he was going to act as such. He was going to show that unlike his immature pig-ex, he could act professionally.
As he was shuffling through his papers, he didn't notice the light in his office beginning to flicker and time standing still.
"You are just like him, you know."
Kermit gasped. "Who are you? Who invited you here? Security!"
The six women took a seat and waved their hands closing the open door behind them.
"Nobody will come." The first of them said. Her blue-green eyes shining brightly as she assessed Kermit from head to toe.
"Who are you? Excuse me! Don't laugh, what are you doing here? This is private property. You can't be here."
"We have every right to be here. You don't realize what you are doing Kermit." The third one said, pushing her golden hair trapped behind her.
The second one whose eyes were like hooks for the soul, and bore a mischievous smile that reminded him of Elizabeth Banks when she joked with him about their work; finished for the third one. "The same thing that he did to us, you are doing to your soulmate,"
"My what?! Oh no let me guess. Did Piggy put you up to this? Gonzo! Gonzo I told you not to let any visits-" The frog said running to the door but a strange wind sent him flying across the room and he somehow landed back in his chair, perfectly seated.
"Ok, now this is getting scary. Let me be clearer then since you are proof I am literally becoming crazy! Get the heck out of my mind!"
The three women laughed.
"You are just like him." The second one said hugging her shawl.
"Who is him? What are you talking about? Who are you ladies?"
"Oh and the same etiquette even when it comes to humor." Katherine said, giving Kermit a veiled smile and the minute she did, Kermit felt a pang of guilt. He didn't know why but he just did. That smile, the way she moved her lips and her eyes twinkled was the same way Piggy did.
Just what is going on here?
"Ok, I want to wake up now."
"There is no waking from this nightmare unless you recognize what you are doing and avoid doing what your ancestor did."
"My ancestor? How do you know about them? Are you … ghosts?" He could think of nothing else since they looked very pale though the second one's skin was slightly darker than the other two, but still very pale. And when the first one reached to touch his green hand across the table it felt cold as ice. And their clothes he finally noticed were outdated, straightly taken from …
The women gave an open smile. "So now you know?" Jane asked.
Kermit nodded. "But how? Why?"
"You are one of us Kermit. You don't remember about your ancestress, Lady Legatine. She takes her name after Her Majesty here." Jane explained, still calling Katherine Her Majesty since in her mind, she was still the Queen.
Anne was about to roll her eyes when Kermit banged his head against the desk and started saying "This is not happening" many times.
"It is happening and we come here to warn you about following the same path of your ancestor."
"But Lady Legatine didn't exist. She is just a story they told toads and frogs so they wouldn't go running into the crocodile's mouth."
The three women looked at him dumbfounded.
"It's a joke. You know like don't go looking for trouble and stay up late or the bogeyman will come for you?" They still looked confused. "Ok, just forget it. Assuming for the sake of the sake of believing you that I am the long lost descendant of Henry VIII. What does this have to do with me? You died five hundred years ago!"
"It has everything to do with you Kermit. Fate gave us a second chance putting you and Piggy together. Before we died, there was a curse that was placed on our time that said we would not know peace until one of our husband's descendants found true love."
"So you are stuck here then to haunt me?"
"Pretty much." Anne said.
"Oh no my life is not a literal hell. Great. Ok –uh-listen, assuming that I haven't gone crazy and you're not a figment of my imagination. What am I supposed to do? How can you lay this at my door. I am just one frog."
He wished that the earth could swallow him now. He hadn't felt this miserable since he saw Piggy less than an hour ago leaving the building with her new love interested.
Love. Yeah right. Piggy in love. She moves from guy to guy like she is some Queen. If he wasn't haunted by these three queens he would've laughed at the joke. He was particularly unnerved by the first one. The way Her Majesty looked at him with those green-blue eyes, smiled and tilted her head reminded him awfully lot of Piggy and he didn't like it one bit.
This is the last thing I needed in my life.
"Stop whining, you have a mission and you must do it or else it won't be just us who are stuck here but you too"
"Can't you go to this witch and ask her to lift the curse?"
The three queens laughed.
"She is not from here. She comes from another dimension which she cursed and recently since she crossed into our world, that curse has been lifted but this can't be unless you find true love."
"Piggy and I are through! I am sorry what happened to you ladies but there is no way that Piggy and I will ever get back together. We just can't … it is over." He said, there was a tinge of sadness in his voice a the words were repeated in his head.
It's over.
Katherine could see what was going through the frog's mind and told him. "Do you still love her?"
"What?"
"Do you love her?"
"Yeah but that doesn't matter. I am with Denise and she is a good person and I really want to make this work. I am sorry Your Majesties."
The queens said nothing, they rose and things went back to normal, their clothes transforming into casual modern ones. "It is your choice if you want to be miserable. But remember, not too long ago there was another man who put his pride above his heart and he ended up hurting himself and everyone else he loved." Jane said. "If you continue like this, you will end up alone too Kermit." And she turned joining her death friends as they exited his office.
"I am a big toad." But what good did it do him now to admit it. He was sorry for those poor spirits but he had to think of himself. He was not going to be marked by destiny like his ancestor or they.
Piggy wiped tears from her face. How long ago was it her that Kermit moaned, and kissed when he thought that nobody was looking?
He had the gall. That toad! To bring that hussy into her workplace and what was worse, she now schooled Piggy on how she should act and present herself to the public! Who does she think she is to treat moa like this?
She was Miss Piggy, the ultimate diva. People loved her, women held her as their role model. She inspired millions.
Kermit could not do this to her.
But ... he has. And still continues -a voice in her head told her. Kermit danced with Denise. She did not want to come to this gala but her agent insisted because she was Miss Piggy after all and her presence would attract millions of viewers.
She pretended to be sick, giving the old excuse she had something in her eye when the benefactor, a certain Mr. Gold asked her to dance and she outright said no.
"I can help you with what you are looking." He said as he followed her outside the building.
"No thank you. Leave me alone and go back to your hell hole."
The old dark one found that amusing since he had been to hell many times. "I deal with special cases."
"What are you some sort of high profile lawyer? Never heard of you." Piggy said turning to him. His cane was all weird with a weird silver figure. He must be one of those rich eccentrics, or plain crazy.
Almost sensing what she was thinking, the man chuckled. "No dearie, I am something more. I can give you Kermit if we strike a deal."
"Not interested." She said through gritted teeth and gave him a big "Hmph!" and returned back to the ball, unaware that the man was still smiling. He knew he had sown the seeds of discords, just as he had many centuries ago through Kermit's ancestor, Henry VIII's eldest daughter.
1536
Mary was saddened that she had signed. Looking at her with a smug smile was that frog faced woman. Lady Legatine as she had the gall to call herself. 'That bitch!' She thought. My mother should have boiled her alive and ate her as soup.
God knows she wanted to but she remembered her first lessons. Always be kind.
As she sat on a bench, moving farther and farther away from her sister and her governess who was once again talking about how Bess was better and more beautiful than her and would end up being happier than her old maid of a sister; she bumped into someone.
"I am sorry sir." She said but when she looked up she gasped horrified. The man had no pupils. His eyes were completely black and his skin was gray and scaly, almost like a crocodile.
"Demon!"
"Not my name dearie but you are close. He, he."
"What do you want?"
"I am here to make you the deal of your life. What would you say if I could promise you anything?"
"Anything?" She asked amused. The notion brought her apprehension and her sense of reason to a halt. Anything. A voice in her head said. A dark voice that had always threatened to take over her since she was a child.
Anything it repeated until it took complete hold, and took root in her heart, turning it nearly black.
"Anything." Rumplestelstkin said giggling, a dark giggle that didn't scare Mary but the thought of his power did.
But do I care? Everything has been taken away from me and Chapuys did say that hypocrisy didn't matter for the Pope will grant me a dispensation in the future to absolve me of all sins. And that includes this.
"What do I have to do? I will not sell my soul to you, if you have something worth of value speak now or so help me I will find a way, I don't care how, to hunt all your kind down." She said and as she spoke he could not help but be reminded of Regina, the Evil Queen.
'For now this will do' He jumped and mockingly bowed his head to her and made a movement with his hands. "Just say my name three times and when you need me I will come." He said and gave her a vial. "Take three drops then drop three drops to Lady Legatine's cup and her whole line will be cursed."
He said and he disappeared.
A smile spread across Mary's lips as the following day her father and his new wife, Jane Seymour and her brother and sister-in-law, the Viscount and Viscountess of Beauchamp and Hache came to Hudson. The King was so excited to see her, but he was even more excited to see that frog.
She had given him what her mother and even that whore never could. A son. A froggish thing but a son nonetheless. Despite his green skin, he looked human enough and people whispered that he could succeed her father if he didn't have any legitimate heirs.
As he and his mother joined them for dinner (something she considered a huge insult to her stepmother and even Ned Seymour agreed) she dropped the three drops of the potion in her cup and then when somebody heard a commotion outside she put three drops in Lady Legatine's cup before they all returned to their seats. As the two women drank at once, Mary could feel something surge through her. A new confidence that made her feel invincible and determined.
There will be hell to pay -her conscience said. She didn't care. Damn the consequences. Lady Legatine had it coming to her and she would die happy, if that was her fate, knowing that the woman's line was cursed.
The Dark One smiled in his hidden spot. Unknown to Mary, she had unleashed which would become stronger when Regina unleashed hers, on her mother, her late stepmother and this one. (Just all the women who gave Henry children) And their salvation would depend on true love's kiss from the descendants of the King's illegitimate line.