Getting Swamped

[BeakerSqueedom]

*Nod nod* YES! Continuee <3

 

[Ruahnna]

Chapter 12: A Fool-Proof Plan

Chapter 12: A Fool-Proof Plan

There is nothing quite so debilitating as a false sense of security. Piggy had had almost a whole day go by without anything that she felt she couldn’t have handled on her own, and the bonus had been that she had had the benefit of Kermit’s company all day. Even in their own world, the pleasure of Kermit’s company for long periods was hard to come by.
In short, it had been a good morning, a good early afternoon and Piggy felt that things were looking up. Kermit had provided a satisfying if unexciting lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and dried fruit. The water was cool and slightly mossy tasting, and while Piggy found it interesting to her taste buds, she would have given almost anything for a diet soda. Oh well, she thought philosophically as she dressed for the afternoon. I probably drink too much caffeine anyway. She felt relaxed and happy, and when it came time to make an executive decision about wardrobe, Piggy picked a sassy little number that started with a full petticoat with spaghetti straps. The crisp chintz floral buttoned over it with little pearl buttons all the way up the bodice, which set off her own strand of gleaming pearls handily.
She looked into her trunk, thinking of shoes and debating her choices. It was not a matter of practical verses fashionable—technically speaking, Piggy did not own any practical shoes, or any unfashionable ones. She considered the cute little wedges with the cork heels, but eventually style won out over all other considerations, and she chose a pair of dreamy, ivory-colored high heels that re-sculpted the way she walked in ways too marvelous and mysterious to elaborate on. Like most men, Kermit was sometimes blind to the raw appreciation of footwear, but he had learned to appreciate the effect it could have on her mood and movement.
He admired her—and the effects of the shoes—when she stepped out of their little hideaway and struck a pose.
“Hey there, good-looking,” said Kermit, after carefully ascertaining that there were no aural organs, little or otherwise, listening in.
“Back at you,” said Piggy with a sultry growl. The smoky effect was somewhat lost when she leaned toward him and almost fell forward on him—overbalancing on the shoes in the soft earth--and they kissed and giggled like teenagers as they attempted to keep Piggy on solid ground.
This was nice, Kermit thought, standing in the relative privacy of the path and bussing his wife. After the swarm of tadpoles this morning, he longed for a little adult time, and this seemed an excellent way to start.
Relative was definitely the word for it, because Kermit’s second cousin Lynette rounded the corner with her boyfriend Vincent in tow. She clucked at them teasingly.
“Tsk tsk,” she said. “Leave you two unchaperoned for long and see what happens.”
Kermit’s cheeks flamed with heat, but he ended the kiss almost defiantly before turning to his tormentor.
“I was trying to have a private moment,” Kermit said irritably, but some of his ire was cooled by his cousin’s benevolent look.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” said Vincent feelingly. “I know just what you mean.”
“Vincent!”
It was Lynette’s turn to blush, then laugh, and after a minute, they all joined in. Piggy leaned against Kermit and felt him relax, enjoying the good-natured teasing. Piggy’s family had been very different, and much, much smaller. She wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a family this size, caught herself wondering what it might be like for children to grow up in a family where-- Once again, Piggy caught her thoughts going down a path she hadn’t dared tread yet, and she felt her face almost glow with the effort. She was glad for the diffused sunlight filtering through the trees, and glad for Kermit’s strong arms around her.
“Best head for the grub,” said Vincent, ever the pragmatist. “If they teenagers get there before the rest of us….”
Grub turned to grubs in Piggy’s mind, and she shuddered delicately. She vowed the next time she was in Four Seasons to read the entire menu from cover to cover and savor each delectable idea lovingly. The thought cheered her. Although she was no longer hungry, thanks to the combined efforts of Kermit and Sherwood, she was not enjoying mealtimes here the way she normally would. It wasn’t just the selection of food. It was the effort involved in appearing interested in the food so as not to hurt Jane’s feelings.
They had almost argued about that again last night, with Kermit increasingly adamant that Piggy should let him tell his mother, bear the brunt of any disappointment, and adjust the menu accordingly. Piggy had been equally adamant that Kermit stay out of it, that she was fine and not starving and that she would not hurt Jane (or call attention to her own different-ness) for anything in the world. Their heated discussion had eventually produced heat of another sort, and the argument was set aside for a later time while they tended to other matters. Remembering their furious whispering in the dark, and the other furies that had followed, Piggy smiled.
It had been a good day, and tonight she would sit around the fire with Kermit and his family and they would sing and play and make merry under the stars. It seemed a fool-proof plan.
But as Piggy would soon learn, you should never underestimate the ingenuity of fools.

 

[The Count]

Thank Ru for the update. It's sort of helped calm the other stuff I've got going on at the mo'.
A short chapter, but it helps expand upon some of the points from earlier, like Piggy's steadfast wish not to offend Jane about the croakers' cuisine. Nice to meet some of Kermit's other relatives, nice that it's sort of on their own level instead of those who are against them. Very much hopful that the next chapterwill bring renewed action for the focal confrontation, at least that's what I intimated from the last lines.

Post more when you can. Oh, and please LMK your thoughts about the illustration sent for your inspection.

 

[BeakerSqueedom]

Wonderful update!

I loved the way you got into detail with how she judged her shoes and the playfulness Piggy and her beloved frog share. The last line was so interesting and dare I say it--dramatic! It shot me like a gun and sent me back on my feet. :3 I was flying through this whole chapter as the romance is very dream-like. I adore your updates each time.

 

[Ruahnna]

Chapter 13: What You Don’t Know…

Chapter 13: What You Don’t Know…

Supper was actually fun, and there was to be a repeat of the singing and merry-making. Piggy wondered if it was always like this, or if this degree of merriment was on account of her, well, on account of her and Kermit. She smiled, watching Kermit talking to his father. How alike they were in some ways, and yet…yet, Piggy saw the clear imprint of his mother’s features on his face, saw something of her in the elegance of his hands. She caught herself smiling.
A tadpole wandered up near Piggy and pointed mutely at one of the battered tins which had been passed around the clearing earlier. Piggy recognized it as the one which had held fat, white grubs the other evening, but she was in a buoyant mood, and thought she could stand the thought of handing one to this little cutie. She hefted the tin, a little surprised by the weight. Dead weight, her mind prompted, and Piggy quickly clamped her mind shut and looked away, distracting herself even as she worked to pry the lid free.
The little tadpole jumped up and down in excitement, and Piggy hastened her mission. She could certainly put aside her queasiness to help put a smile on this youngster’s face.
Unsuspecting, Piggy started to open the tin. Kermit heard the rasp of the metal lid, turning slightly toward the sound. There are some moments, usually too horrible to recall, when your life flashes before you, or at least patches of it rush by you while you try to make your lungs still pump air and your heart keep beating. Kermit was having one of those moments now.
He was too far away to reach her. He started to shout, but the thought of startling her, now, made him clamp down on the sound. Only a gurgle escaped, but it was a very Kermity-sounding gurgle, and Piggy looked up and toward him, momentarily taking her eyes from the tin.
Egypt, they say, was once inundated with locusts, and certain mid-Western states had suffered hoards of the insects over the years. Neither place had anything on Piggy, who suddenly found herself in the midst of a small hailstorm of flying, jumping bodies.
Dead grubs are one think. Live grasshoppers are quite another.
Piggy let out a shriek that sent nesting birds up into the air for a least a mile, and she shot up off of her log flailing wildly at the hundreds of raspy bodies. Several of them tangled in her hair, between the layers of her petticoats and dress, walked and jumped and drug across her bare skin. Her yelps of distress had awoken all of the sleeping children (and every sleeping adult within a half-mile of the clearing) and some of them began to cry. Kermit scrambled toward her, but tripped in his haste. He found himself flat on his back, staring up at the sky stupidly, but Piggy’s hysterical cries urged him on. He jumped to his feet and ran across the clearing, careful of the embers from the fire. Several brothers and sisters and cousins had leapt to Piggy’s defense, but she was mindless with fear and revulsion. Their attempts to stop her from swatting and swinging were hampered by their very real need to stay out of her way, lest they be flattened.
Determinedly, Kermit dodged a swing that would have felled him had it connected, coming up under Piggy’s arm and throwing her arms around his wife. Terrified, Piggy screamed at this apparent attempt to restrain her before she registered who her captor was, then she latched onto Kermit, all but immobilizing him by the strength of her grip. Kermit felt the air leave his lungs with a whoosh and struggled for breath.
“Piggy,” he wheezed, “not so tight or you’ll, gah, *pant pant* yeah, um, choke me….”
“Oh—make them go away! Make them go away please please please please!” Piggy panted. Several of them were, indeed, going away, but not of their own volition.
“Piggy! Piggy, Honey! Just hold still, okay? We’re getting them, okay? We’re going to make them all go away.” Kermit made several of them go away between murmured comforts, and it was just as well that Piggy was standing with her eyes squeezed tightly shut, as though by failing to acknowledge what was happening would make it stop.
Kermit saw Lynette and Vincent, his father and mother, and a handful of helpful others all snagging struggling grasshoppers with their agile tongues, but they seemed to make no dent in the number of wriggling bodies. There must be hundreds, thought Kermit with something like amazement. Whoever had packed that tin had certainly intended for this to happen. Kermit had a short list of people who might have done it, and the name started and ended with one name: Maggie. Guided more by instinct than design, Kermit threw his arms around Piggy and held her tight. This had as much to do with self-preservation (and family preservation) as it did with comforting Piggy, but it seemed to calm Piggy down a bit. She put her face into his neck, ignoring the furious attempts of the grasshoppers caught in her hair to free themselves, and tried counting all the department at Neiman Marcus in her head. She did not know, nor would it have helped, had she known that she was roundly cursing (in a ladylike fashions) insects, swamps, frogs and sisters. Kermit swore, suddenly and definitively, that he would never hold it against her—and he would never bring it up. He secretly hoped she would never remember.
More family members crashed through the clearing and began to munch grimly on grasshoppers. The awakened children waded into help, which was not helpful, and soon, the tangle of froggy arms and legs and tongue all waving around Piggy made her feel wildly claustrophobic. If Kermit hadn’t been holding on to her….
But he was. He held on tight, making sure no grasshoppers lurked in the folds of her petticoat, and gently disentangling the four that had gotten caught in her hair and were now buzzing furiously in their desperate attempts to get away. He did not eat them, but tossed them down where they were immediately snatched up my youngsters. Piggy gave a shudder, then another. Kermit was fearful that she might actually be in shock, and he looked at her in some concern. Jane must have had the same idea, for she came up and put her soft hand on Piggy’s face until Piggy opened her eyes. Piggy’s teeth were chattering but she was beginning to calm down naturally. Jane smiled at her, and Piggy gave a split-second attempt before burying her face in Kermit’s neck, humiliated and miserable.
That might have been the end of it, and Kermit would always wonder what might have been different had what happened next not happened next. In the sudden silence in the clearing, caused by the eventual lack of all grasshoppers, there came a strange but oddly familiar sound. Laughter. Peals and peals of hysterical laughter were coming from the far side of the firelight. Kermit’s chest swelled indignantly, but he could not leave Piggy, both because he couldn’t and because he wouldn’t, but Croaker ran across and gave a cry of indignation and anger.
“You!” he gritted. “And you!” Kermit saw him haul Orville and Norville up from the ground. "Why, I oughta--" Far from contrite, they were beside themselves with mirth, laughing so hard they’d fallen out of their perch in a nearby tree. Croaker wasn’t a large frog, but he manhandled, er, frog-handed the two miscreant with ease.
James the Frog stood as straight as he was able and glared at the two young hooligans.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“Oh, man! You should have seen her!” said Norville.
“It was better than any of her movies,” said Orville. “When she started swinging at—“
“Did you put those grasshoppers in the tin?” James asked. His voice was quiet, but carried clearly.
“No, man!” said Orville. “That wasn’t us—that was, um, that was someone, um, else.”
“But it was awesome!” snickered Norville. “How great was that!”
“Enough!” roared the older frog. “That is quite enough out of you two.”
Some of their mirth was cooling, and they looked at each other nervously. Neither of them looked sorry, but both looked sorry they’d been caught.
“What a disgrace!” said James. “Piggy isn’t just our guest—she’s a member of the family. I’m ashamed of you, and if your mother was alive, she’d be ashamed of you, too.”
Orville cut his eyes at his twin. This was not quite the reaction that had expected from everyone. Certainly everyone had been amused by Kermit’s wife’s lack of swamp sophistication, but they hardly thought it warranted being called down in public for laughing at it.
“Yeah, but did you see her?” he mumbled defensively. “She was—“
Norville elbowed his twin sharply in the ribs, but it was too late. The damage had been done. With a sob, Piggy broke free from Kermit’s embrace and ran.

 

[The Count]

Simply wonderful. Such a shame that such a horrid thing had to happen to her... But at least this now sets the stage for the eventual confrontation that needs take place.
Absolutely loved the description of Kermit, sharing features from his parents.
Was moved when even Jane placed her hand on Piggy's face and James started barking, um croaking at the twins for laughing at Piggy's humiliation.

Two little things though...
Kermit put "her" arms around his wife?
Kermit had a short list of names, and the "name" started and ended with one name?

In spite of those little nitpicks, all I can say is... Oh please Catherine... Post more!

 

[BeakerSqueedom]

Oh gosh.

I felt her humiliation and nearly cried.

(How emotional of me )

You give Piggy such a sweet side of her that we do not really know about. Miss Piggy risking to put her hands in what looked like a grub pan just to make a frogling happy? That was something I could see when she's not busy being a Diva. I felt my heart swell at the effort to calm Piggy down even though Kermit failed miserably to. Oh continue! <3

 

[Ruahnna]

Okay, guys--it gets better from here on out!

 

[The Count]

Looking forward to it. And you already know what else I'm awaiting... But one story at a time. So post away!

 

[Ruahnna]

Chapter 14: A Part of It All

Chapter 14: A Part of It All

Piggy had worked with the muppets for a long time, so it was safe to say that she was proof against most mortification and embarrassment, but failing phenomenally onstage—whether through your own efforts or because of the efforts of, say, a couple of dozen penguins—is quite different from the sort of personal embarrassment that Piggy had just suffered. It was made worse by the fact that she had begun to feel welcome and relaxed—if only just a little, and now she felt foreign and strange and out of place again. She stumbled once and her run slowed to a walk. She’s had quite enough pratfalls for one visit, thank you. She made her uncomfortable way across the clearing toward their little sanctuary, wiping at tears.
Adrenaline is a funny thing. It spurs the fight or flight instinct, readying you to take on the world, or run from it. Piggy had done a lot of the former, but not much of the latter, and her chagrin was changing rapidly to indignation. She thought of a million different ways that she could have reacted that would have been better than what had actually happened, and she dwelled with increasing despondency on the things she had said in her terror.
Oh, please let Kermit’s family not hold it against me! She thought desperately. I didn’t mean it—I was just…just pathetic, her mind prompted. She wilted suddenly, her anger deserting her. What must they think of her! What must be going through their minds? Piggy actually seemed to shrink, imagining the conversations in her wake, Kermit’s embarrassment at having brought such a silly wife home, everyone’s pity, Maggie’s triumph. Hot tears began to spill again, but they were tinged with anger, too.
It wasn’t fair! She had done the best she could! There were times when Piggy had insisted she’d given her all to the show during a lackluster rehearsal when even she did not believe it, but in her heart, she knew that had not been the case tonight. She had…she had done everything she could…and it wasn’t enough. Poor Kermit, stuck with her citified ways and silly clothes and—a sob escaped, and Piggy clamped her hand over her mouth.
Actually, it was the sob that helped Kermit hone in on her. He had been trying to find her, but she had managed to get off the beaten path a little, and he had not wanted a repeat of the all-swamp search they’d had earlier in the week. Kermit scrambled after the sound and overtook her with relative ease.
“Piggy,” he said gently. “Honey—you didn’t have to run…I mean, I was…I was looking for you,”
“Yeah, well I’m easy to spot. I’m the big pink one with the stupid clothes and the stupid shoes and the grasshoppers and grubs on her clothes.”
Taken aback by the vehemence in her voice, and unaccountably amused by her description, Kermit dared not show his mirth. In truth, her anger cheered him a little, for it meant she was not giving up without a fight. His heart lifted microscopically. He tried to stop her forward progress but she pushed around him angrily. This, too, struck him as a good sign. Whether she realized it or not, her anger at him meant that she still trusted him to love her and want her—not matter what. Kermit intended to make sure she realized that he did.
“Piggy,” he began. “You’re not—“
“I know I’m not!” she cried miserably. “I’m not—I’m not what you thought! I—I can’t do this anymore! I can’t keep pretending that I fit in here with you and you’re--” She would have said “wonderful family,” but her breath caught on a sob.
“You don’t need to pretend,” Kermit started. “You’re—“ He would have said “already part of us,” but Piggy didn’t give him time to finish.
“Out of place and useless and stupid,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here—I don’t know how to act.” She sounded angry, but there was just enough of a plea in her voice for Kermit to latch onto it. She would not listen to his soothing now, but he had often gotten under her skin in other ways.
“That will be the day,” Kermit said dryly. Piggy’s tear-stained face shot up. Was he teasing her? After everything she’d been through? His bemused eyes said yes. Piggy stared in disbelief as Kermit crossed his arms over his chest.
“Piggy, you don’t have to be a frog to be Piggy the Frog.”
“But—but I--” Piggy faltered. In spite of herself, his words salved her wounded pride—but not for long.
“And I thought we’d already been over this,” Kermis said sternly, half-teasing. “I just want you to follow your instincts, Piggy.”
“But—but that was on the set!” she protested. “I’m not an actress here.”
“Exactly!” said Kermit triumphantly. “So stop acting.”
“What?”
Kermit put his hands on his hips. “Don’t ‘What’ me, Piggy.”
“What are you talking about?” Piggy demanded. She would have stamped her foot but had found out the hard way that it only made her high heels stick in the mud.
“I’m talking about you trying to be what you think everyone else thinks you ought to be, or a cross between June Cleaver and Shirley Jones.” Piggy had often sniffed with disdain at the stylized housewives of the early days of television, and their purely ornamental function.
“June Cleaver!” Piggy snapped. “How dare you—“
Kermit stepped back and regarded her with his chin in his hand. “I think it’s the pearls,” he said thoughtfully.
Piggy’s eyes narrowed. “Oh—oh, you are the most aggravating, most irritating frog on the entire planet!”
Yes! Kermit thought. He was getting through! Now, if only he could turn the tide of the conversation…
“Are you sure?” Kermit teased. “Cause I think my sister is still in the running for—“
“She is!” Piggy howled. She was almost panting, her ribcage heaving. “And two of your cousins are vying for second place! But you—YOU!” She glared at him. “You are by far the most—“
“Wonderful?” Kermit suggested helpfully.
“Wonderful-hah!” Piggy cried. “Try annoying! Try insufferable! Try—“
“Debonair? Charming?”
Piggy glared at him, a glare that had downed grown men at 30 paces.
“Out of my way,” she grunted, “or so help me I will—“
“Kiss me?”
“You are sooo sleeping in your own tussock tonight,” Piggy muttered.
“I’d rather be in a hotel room with you!” Kermit said. He was a quick study, Piggy noted. Since they’d gotten married, he’d honed his radar and his survival instincts, and now he hovered just out of karate-chop range.
At the thought of a dry, clean, air-conditioned hotel room, Piggy felt slightly crazed, her eyes pricking with tears. Ducking her head hastily, Piggy tried to push past him, but—stomp or no stomp—her left heel refused to budge. She gritted her teeth, abandoned it, and kept going, forging through the swamp grass all catywampus. With a sigh, Kermit retrieved the shoe and ran after her.
She had not gotten far. He found her trying to pry her other shoe out of the muck, angry tears running down her face. Gently, he gathered her into his arms and held her close, murmuring little nothings of comfort into one velvety ear.
Tenderness worked where teasing had not, and Piggy turned into his arms, clinging to him.
“Piggy,” he said gently. “Here—I’m here. Don’t cry.”
“I’m making such a mess of things!” Piggy wailed. “Everything I do is wrong!”
“That’s not true, Piggy,” Kermit said soothingly. “You’re doing fine.”
“I’m not!” she almost wailed. “I—my clothes are all wrong. I’m afraid of snakes, I can’t eat your mother’s cooking, and I hate mosquitoes and grubs and grasshoppers and all those icky—“ Her breath caught on a sob. “And my shoes keep sticking in the mud!”
“I know, Honey,” Kermit insisted. “I know. But don’t worry it—those things aren’t important.”
“They are!” Her voice was pleading with him to understand. “They’re important to you, so they’re important to me.”
Her face was turned up to his, her lashes wet with tears. Kermit tightened his arms around her, noticing in the process that she had tree sap on her sash. Wisely, he did not mention it.
“You’re important to me,” he said. “Not the clothes or the food or the…the shoes.” He tried not to smile, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “How, um, many pairs did you bring, anyway?”
“None of your beeswax,” Piggy murmured, her voice muffled against his neck.
“You’re right,” Kermit agreed. “That’s between you and your hernia.”
“Oh, Kermit, I—“ Piggy looked up at him again, her blue eyes tragic. “I’m trying so hard! I—I don’t know what else to do.”
Kermit brushed her hair back from her face, getting lost in those sad eyes.
“Why don’t you kiss me,” he said softly. “That’s always a good place to start.”
Having just lectured her on the importance being her own pig, of not blindly following the whims and directions of other people, Kermit was more than pleased when she took his suggestion to heart. Piggy tightened her arms around his waist, closed her eyes, and kissed him as though trying to blot out the entire swamp.
It worked exceptionally well. Kermit forgot where he was, who he was and, indeed, everything else except the fact that he belonged to Piggy, and she to him in the beautiful moonlit dusk. Gently, Kermit pulled her back with him into the shelter of some overhanging vines, letting nature’s arbor provide privacy.
For her part, Piggy forgot everything that, moments before, had seemed so all-encompassing. Her embarrassment, the heat, the damp, the mosquitoes—which had thankfully kept their distance once Kermit arrived on the scene—all faded in the background. In Kermit’s arms, it was impossible to feel out of place.
All around them, they could here the happy trilling of contented frogs as Kermit’s family and friends made their own peculiar night music. Crickets were chirping, too—somewhat incautiously, Piggy thought—and the soft lap-lap of the water against the embankment was as comforting as a heartbeat. Without warning, lips still locked with Piggy’s, Kermit began to trill, too, the sound arising from some deep, instinctive place. Surprised, Piggy stood stock-still for a moment. She felt the reverberations in Kermit’s frame and in her own, entangled as they were in the twilit night.
Kermit is a part of this, thought Piggy. She felt her heart catch with emotion. I want to be a part of this too! She lacked the necessary physiology to trill, but she could hum. She held tight to her frog—her husband—and added her own musical noise to the natural symphony around them.
Kermit looked at her in surprise. It was too dark, now, to see Piggy’s face, but he could feel her gaze on him in the dimness.
“Oh, Sweetheart,” he said softly, and that was all he needed to say.