"Im afraid that this... curse you're asking for will cost quite a few pennies." He'd found the witch! Haha, he'd found her!

Well, it was more like she'd jump scared him after appearing out of nowhere in the fields with a sharp look in her eyes and a very severe look in her face.

"What!? But you'd done it without any sacrifices whatsoever last time!"

"Last time was an emotionally fueled attempt at getting back at your family. Now, me cursing you with living your days a frog would be more like a gift, and it's nowhere close to your birthday."

"Come now, missus, there mist be some other options here! Don't you understand how awful it would look for me to suddenly kidnap a few of my own people just for such a selfish wish!?"

"Oh, I know plenty, but we all have our roles to play, dear prince, and yours is one that even the fates cannot decipher." She said roles with a particular hiss that Michael couldn't recognise, but he found a rope to try and tug on so he took his chances.

"Now, now, there must be something that can be done with this arrangement! Surely there is something I have that you'd be more than willing to turn me into a frog for."

"...well, if you're so desperate, why not just give me your titles? You're leaving the title of king away so easily anyways, surely it would affect you little for you to give that title to me instead." There was a glean in the witch's eye as she said that, almost as if she had veen planning this all along.

"Oh, dear witch, if you grant me this one bout of pesce I'd give you everything including my father's will." Michael was being as earnest as he could when he said that.

"...then so it shall be-" and there the witch began muttering in gibberish that the prince, even now, could still not understand.

The next morning, the prince woke up with a croak and hopped away into a a river with waters and lily pads slowly trickling in. Inside the castle he was leaving behind, "Michale" waved goodbye before he, too, turned his back away from the window and marched towards the meeting room with more than quite a few new things to reform in mind

The witch in question did not live in a swamp, like most of his ilk would say, but instead a sweet little prairie. The river beside it had been drained of it's water years ago when his father had taken the throne, and the grass had become significantly less green than when he'd first visited all those years ago as a naive little boy hoping for some peace away from home.

Originally, it was right beside that river he had been cursed. Even then, the only signs of water he had seen were the small puddles that formed from the downpour the day before, and a woman- The Witch -was staring at her reflection in one of them. Of course, as young as he was, Michael didn't know any better when he'd began talking to her. In fact, the two of them had a rather enjoyable conversation before he'd actually introduced himself.

The witch, who was neither as cruel nor as ugly as his family claimed she was, seemed to know everything. She spoke to him as if he were her equal, and was more than happy to tell him that in a village, just a few days on horseback away, there was an old friends of hers who'd made their own potions shop. He enjoyed her stories of big birds that flew and snatched up prey just as big as a cow, and was very quick to enthrall him with beautiful depictions of the other nations traditions with her magic forming their shapes.

Really, the entire thing was going well, and the witch seemed happy to have a company before the night had set and they both found that neither knew each other's names. Of course, Michael introduced himself, making sure to put some emphasis on his title as the prince just like dad had taught him. He was expecting the witch to rejoice or blush, like the other girls in the village, but instead she seemed to grow into a wild rage that made the clouds above grow and start thundering a sad sound. Even to this day, Michael couldn't remember what she'd said, just that she seemed to shout something towards the very heavens and Michael awoke the next day as a tiny ambphibian with odd coloring capable of doing the front crawl in the water.

It was... an experience, certainly. At first, being a frog wasn't much of a problem; it would only appear twice a day, always when the clocks began a loud chime, and only for as long as those gongs sounded. Michael, whose schedule was almost entirely in his control, was able to spare plenty of time for the transformation to be done away from prying eyes. He'd mostly just lay around on his bum in that form, but sometimes he would wander the castle knowing only the help would be around. Going through crevices between the stone walls, climbing himself up the towers to marvel at his lands beauty, and sometimes even found himself staring at the direction the prairie was in wonder. These were all common pastimes of his as a frog.

Slowly, however, the length of time he'd stay as an animal changed, became longer, until he'd had to constantly excuse him from lunch and be lost to everyone until the very next morning. Weeks of that passed, and soon Michael woke up as a frog who would stay that way for years until an interesting woman carried him to her home. She seemed rather odd to him at first; despite the obvious lack of funds, her face was constantly caked with makeup, and the clothes she wore seemed plenty out of leagues with her station. Amelia, for that was her name, often left at midnight frustrated and clutching a paper that smelled faintly of rosemary.

Often, she would curse some names out into the sky, most names spoken were not recognizable to Michael except his da, who had apparently died just days ago. It was... well, it made Michael wonder if the man had managed to find himself another heir to inherit his throne, but the papers Amelia left on the floor after a few tantrums told him he hadn't. Again, just like before, this pattern continued on for days. Michael would be fed with random insects sneaking in. Amelia would come and go to work, then return with angrily flushed cheeks and furrowed brows.

Finally, after a few more days, Amelia had huffed and looked at him. Really looked at him, enough so with a gaze that burnt through Michael's very soul. Before he could get a chance to jump away, however, Amelia had grabbed onto his slick body and gave him a hard kiss on the mouth before dropping him down to the floor and running to the restroom, no doubt to start scrubbing at her gums.

She came back moments afterwards to Michael slowly growing into his age, and the sudden push in height made it difficult for him to stand nor properly judge the distances between most things. After that and plenty of complicated politics that was mostly manipulated by Amelia, she and Michael had a tiny wedding. The end, happily ever after, freedom in his grasp and finally away from having to hunt for his own food in the vast wilderness.

. . . is what one would say, if Michael actually found himself liking this happily ever after of his. The entire thing was a sham, and clearly Amelia's attempt at getting a fortune and the lands that came with being the new kings wife. Now, he had to give it to her, she was very much good at the games she was playing, it's just that Michael wasn't very interested in those prizes. Hell, even before that prairie all those years ago, Michael found himself disliking the responsibilities of being the king very much.

That lead him to now, dragging his feet through dry ground to try searching for the witch who'd cursed him all those years ago. There were trinkets of hers scattered, a trail that Michael hoped would lead him somewhere, and one he followed with a bit of desperation - Auntie Milly had visited with a very detailed plan on the next trend for the city's architects to follow. After just two days of his quiet presence in the court room and he already found himself wishing for death.

In fact, if all went horribly wrong, that might actually happen! It would be a bit tragic, yes, but Michael also found it tragic how he couldn't extend his tongue to capture the delicious fruit flies he'd found in the bowels of the castle kitchens.

.

It was an accident, just to be clear. When you'd made the path to your base a literal hell path with more traps than it should have had for a basement with an empty fridge and an abysmal empty plan board, you didn't actually expect anyone to try and get in. So when you found Infista crashing through the walls of your alleged home searching for you, you weren't ready for her to be slammed into a titanium wall at the speed of 310km/h.

She wasn't invincible, not really, and its one of the reasons you were so, so careful when you were fighting her. Jane- that was her real name; it wasn't so difficult to find- wasn't the most durable of heroes, but she was smart, and her combo ability of brief physical enhancement along with invisibility lent to sneak attacks that tended to stop any further fights. The impact hadn't killed her, and you thank the gods for it every day, but just the sight alone of her on your medical bay barely breathing and covered in a cast you had one of your servants wrap her in.

You had thought of taking her to the hospital, say she got caught up in a super powered fight- it was reasonable, really, but that would catch the attention of the higher ups of the heroes organization, and there hadn't been any fights that day that would cause this severe an injury. She was alive, and as conscious as one could be. It was easy to tell, with the way her eyes tracked your movements and the several attempts of getting away from you that always failed.

For a while, it was actually pretty cute how she kept trying her best to at least roll off the surgery table when you'd pick up your tools. It never worked, of course not, and you took the time to be smug about it every chance you could. When you were analyzing her mind, replacing bones with alloy you'd had in store, fixing the several places where her skin was ripped apart from the force- the way her eyes looked through it all left you breathless.

A kind of alertness that surprised you, and as time went on the straps on the bed weren't enough to keep her down. She once managed to rip the leather off in a moment of peace, having healed enough that enhancing herself no longer left her nearly comatose with exhaustion, and ran for it with her invisibility. She never made it out because the poor girl practically had a panic attack when she ended up right where she had gotten hurt. You took her back in, of course; it would have been a horrible thing to do, to just leave her, and she seemed to approve of your choice when she had clutched onto your arms so tightly.

Despite how sad it all was, the whole thing made changing her perception of you quite a lot more easier. She never even noticed when she had stopped seeing you as Ephemera, and instead just Mary. Sweet, sweet Mary who was always there for her. Who always held her close when old memories came back, and took them away for her. Who went to their room every morning to hand a beautiful spread for breakfast, who made Jane feel so much better about it all, and who was just so kind to let her stay without any expectation of payment in return.

And she was right to believe so, after all, nobody else would have done what you'd done, right? No, they would have just handed her off to the local hospital to be taken advantage of by the first nurse that saw, not like you, nothing like you, who had seen poor Jane as the mess that she was and doing all you could to help her. Even when you were the one who hurt her so badly, it didn't really matter now, did it? Jane was happy to be by your side for all of eternity, you'd made sure of that.