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“Disney? What on earth is a Disney?” Catherine of Aragon said incredulously.
Anne wrinkled her nose. “It sounds like a disease.” She said.
It was a Monday morning, and the queens were looking through their very long list of leisure activities that didn’t exist when they lived the first time. They had just finished building a massive blanket fort for them all to sit under; somehow despite Parr’s lecturing on structural integrity and Anne’s general disregard for structural integrity, all the queens had fun and the fort had turned out fairly well. They were now looking for something to watch on their television.
“It’s Walt Disney.” Said Cleves, who had googled the name on her phone. “He made animated movies, and his company still makes them even today. And, this is crazy, there are literally dozens to choose from.” Her eyes grew wider as she scrolled down the list on her phone.
“So how do we decide what movie to watch?” Kat said, slightly desperately. She was looking at Cleves’s phone screen over Cleves’s shoulder.
Aragon wanted to watch them all in order starting with the oldest. Anne wanted to skip around and watch whatever sounded most interesting. Cleves could sense a shouting match coming on, so she decided to intervene.
“Yo, what if we all just pick one every time we want to movie marathon? That way we all get a say and everyone has something that interests them.” Cleves cut off whatever Anne had begun to say.
All the queens nodded at this suggestion. “We can alternate who gets first pick each time we start, so no one get skipped out on if we run out of time.” Jane added thoughtfully. Cathy smiled at her appreciatively.
“Shall we go in order today? Aragon, what’s your pick?” Cathy asked brightly.
“I still want to keep some semblance of the original order, so Snow White.” Aragon said, peering at the list still pulled up on Cleves’s phone.
So the queens settled in underneath their blanket fort to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Jane and Kat particularly liked it; Jane thought the story was sweet and Kat liked the songs.
“I would have been bored without the dwarfs.” Anne said after they’d finished. Cleves rolled her eyes at her playfully.
“Girl, if you were a dwarf you’d be whiny.” She teased. Anne stuck her tongue out at her.
“So Annie, what’s your pick?” Kat asked, eager to watch another.
Anne picked up the list, which Jane had printed out for them before they’d settled under their fort. “What say we watch some pirates?” She said curiously.
Pirates of the Caribbean surprised them. It was very different from their first watch; it wasn’t animated, there was a ton of action, and no real prince. They all found something to like in it, and Jane put a little star next to the title to remind her they all enjoyed it.
In this way over the next few ‘Movie Mondays’ the queens made their way through the numerous Disney titles. Aragon’s favorites were The Lion King and Aladdin, but she liked anything with snappy songs and a little bit of action. Anne tended to root for the villains (Parr and Cleves privately agreed that she was trying to rile the rest of them up by doing so), so Anne loved Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland; though the latter had lots of beheading references, they’d made Anne laugh.
“That’s MY line!” She screamed the first time she heard the Queen of Hearts shout it. Even Kat had laughed at it.
Anne also loved The Incredibles. She spent weeks after watching it annoying Jane and Aragon by pretending to be invisible like Violet (“Can you wash these dishes Anne?” “You can’t see me, I’m invisible!”).
Jane loved anything with small animals, like 101 Dalmatians and the Aristocats; she also enjoyed the pun in that movie’s name. Her favorite, though, was Pinocchio. It always made her cry.
Cleves noticed she found something enjoyable in every one they all watched, but the one’s she’d choose to put on again would be Mulan and Moana.
Cathy, it seemed to Cleves, didn’t have a favorite, and she often gave her turn to Anne or Kat to pick for her. Cathy could occasionally be heard humming songs from The Princess and the Frog and Frozen, so Cleves had a sneaking suspicion that Cathy had re-watched those on her own.
Brave was one of the last movies they watched, and one of the few that had received a star from Jane. Every queen loved it.
But none more than Kat.
Kat had been transfixed; glued to the screen since the opening song. She hummed the songs, she wrote the words “Change Your Fate” in big bold pink letters on the chalkboard section of her wall. Cleves noticed more and more often Kat would curl the bottom of her hair for their shows, and she suspected it was due to Merida’s curly style. Every time the queens sat down to a movie and it was Kat’s choice, the queens watched Brave.
Cleves also began to notice a slow change in Kat’s general demeanor. Kat had always been perky and bubbly, but since she discovered Brave she was having more ups and downs than usual. Kat would either be confident to the point of rivaling Anne, or she would shrink within herself and be more prone to being uncharacteristically moody or snappy.
Cleves desperately wanted to get to the bottom of it. The change in Kat was so subtle that Cleves doubted any of the other queens noticed or minded, but because Cleves was quieter she noticed things before about her new family member’s moods before most of the others did.
She just didn’t always know how to get involved.
One week, however, Kat had a string of less confident days. She’d been yelled at by Anne on Monday for wanting to watch Brave yet again (“Brave again? Anything else, please! What is it with you and this movie?”), and through their shows she seemed to sing through her song more and more desperately each time. On Friday she was exceedingly quiet and downtrodden after they finished their show.
By this point the other queens had noticed something was up with the pink-haired girl. Cleves knew Anne was racking her brain to recall if she said anything stupid; Parr was less talkative in fear of saying something that might upset Kat unintentionally. Aragon and Jane kept stealing concerned glances at her.
When the queens arrived home Kat immediately went upstairs to her room and shut her door. With Kat absent the other queens began talking immediately.
“What’s up with her? I didn’t do it, I know it.” Anne said frustratedly.
Aragon shrugged. “She’s been off all week, wouldn’t you say?”
Longer than a week, Cleves thought, but she didn’t say anything.
Cathy was tapping the counter thoughtfully. Jane was actually pacing the corridor. She looked extremely worried.
“It’s not like her to not say something,” Jane said. “She hasn’t been afraid to talk to us since the beginning of this.” She gestured to the rest of the queens slightly wildly, meaning their new life and family.
Cleves suddenly pushed herself away from the wall she’d been leaning against. “You know what? I got this.” She said calmly.
Jane looked startled. “Yeah?” She said breathlessly.
“Yup.” Cleves said, and began to walk up the stairs. “Aragon? Help Jane breath.” She said with a smirk.
Cleves reached the top of the stairs and turned right immediately to face Kat’s door. She did her special song knock (“Get down, you dirty rascal”) to let Kat know it was her, and let herself in without waiting for Kat to invite her.
Kat was curled up on her bed crying quietly. Cleves crossed the room and sat next to her. She thought about resting a hand on Kat’s shoulder, but didn’t want to touch her without making sure Kat could see it was coming. So instead she just sat with her and hoped her just being there would help.
Eventually Kat sniffed and sat up. “It’s silly, I know.” She said shakily. She was looking at her chalkboard across the room, which still had the main slogan from Brave written boldly on it. “It’s just a movie, it’s not real.” She continued. “But Merida, she’s everything I want to be. She’s so boldly brave and fearless, she’s not afraid to say what say wants.” Kat looked down at her comforter and paused. Cleves knew she wasn’t finished, so she waited.
Suddenly, Kat whipped her head up to meet Cleves’s eyes. She was crying again.
“What if I’m not brave enough Anna? I wasn’t strong or brave last time I lived, I didn’t tell Henry or Thomas I didn’t want to be with them. What if I can’t be strong enough to change things this time? What if there’s something wrong with me?”
Cleves was caught off guard by Kat’s sudden seriousness, but she didn’t let it show. Instead she offered her hand for Kat to take. Kat reached for it slowly and gripped it lightly.
“First,” Cleves said quietly but firmly, “there’s all kinds of ways to be brave, Kat. Sometimes continuing on in the worst of situations is the bravest thing a person can do.”
Kat furrowed her brow thoughtfully at this, but Cleves wasn’t finished.
“Second, the Kat I know today, the you that you are now? That’s not the Katherine Howard I knew back then. You’ve changed and grown lots since then. If you were brave then, you’re even braver now to be able to stand up and tell your story night after night.”
Kat was quiet for a few moments. Cleves let her sit and think. Then she heard Kat say “You really think so?”
Cleves smiled softly and squeezed Kat’s hand. “I do.” She said. “I think a lot about that movie too you know, even if it’s not my favorite like it is yours. Want to know what I think about?”
Kat nodded yes, so Cleves continued. “The movie says ‘If you had the chance to change your fate, would you?’ yeah? Well I think this right here, this new life we’ve been given, this show we do, this is our chance. We were given no chances to do it in our past lives, so here we are. And we get to tell our side of our stories every night, and make new memories and new lives here. So why not make the most of them.”
Kat’s eyes were wide as she took in what Cleves was saying. “So,” She said slowly, “the past, doesn’t matter? Doesn’t count?”
Cleves shook her head. “Not to me. Things are so different now. Take Aragon and Anne; they were bitter enemies back then. Now they’re friends.”
Kat squeezed Cleves’s hand. “Thanks Anna.” She said, finally smiling a bit. She sniffed and spoke again.
“I’ll try to believe I’m brave. If this is my change of fate, I want to believe I deserve it.”
Cleves offered Kat a hug, and Kat curled into Cleves’s arms.
“You deserve it, girl. We all do.”