Chapter Text
It’s the most open secret on the Isle: Evil Queen’s brat is in love with Maleficent’s spawn.
It is whispered behind her back when Grimhilde leaves the salon, it is laughed about roaringly in pubs, and it is scribbled on the desks in the back of Dragon Hall classrooms. Grimhilde loves to pretend that the whole Isle doesn’t know because Genevieve’s … thing is more humiliating than any of her other failures. More humiliating than being caught, more humiliating than failing to kill Snow White, more humiliating even than not being as beautiful anymore. But everyone knows it, everyone knows Genevieve is in this gooey, soft, crippling kind of love.
Including Mal.
Mal swears that knowing doesn’t affect her. She is still the leader of the most powerful gang on the whole Isle. She takes what she wants and breaks what she can’t take. She knows how to keep distance between herself and her underlings. Mal is civil and talks to Evie with enough courtesy that makes it clear that they are not friends and that Mal’s words are orders to be followed, not friendly suggestions.
Sometimes, when Mal barks a command with too much force, too much venom, she notices that Jay and Carlos share a glance. It’s probably worry, it may even be sadness, Mal can never truly tell. The glances weigh on her, make her feel something a villain never should because guilt has never gotten anyone far. She shakes these emotions out of her head, what kind of poisoner wouldn’t be able to take some venom?
(She lies. It affects her. Some days she can not bear to look at Evie. She tells herself it’s disgust. In more vulnerable moments, she tells herself it’s not knowing what to do with these misplaced feelings Evie has.
In the past, whenever some poor unfortunate soul would try to make things romantic between them, it was either a weak attempt at manipulation or inappropriate worship. First never worked because Mal doesn’t need love, never has and never will, so the promise of it was unappealing. The second was more pitiful. These people had an image of Maleficent the Second, the new Mistress of Darkness in their heads that would shatter if they got too close. She knows that once they discover who she really is, once they look into her heart, they would find nothing to love there. By her mother’s design, Mal is impossible to love.)
Feelings aren’t a thing they talk about on the Isle. Any feelings, but especially those. There are few moments for tender-heartedness, deep under the velvet cover of night, where no one can overhear, but Mal is above that. She is the destruction of the free world, there are more important things she can focus on.
So, Mal knows, but she never does anything about it. She doesn’t say anything and neither does Evie and it allows things to feel almost normal. Up until Evie gets too flustered or too greedy or tries to be too close to her and Mal gets images of blood-red smiles and yearning eyes burned into her eyelids.
***
Now that her gang is indisputably on top, Mal has a lot of free time. It’s confusing. She has spent her entire life fighting, nineteen long years a constant battle. It would be a disgusting lie to say that her life is peaceful now (Mal will never know peace, it’s preordained, she is revenge personified) but she finds herself with nothing to do for a few hours every two weeks or so.
‘Fight or die’ is the law of the Isle but what is she to do when there is no fight?
All the borders are checked, pirates are staying within their own territory for once, even the Huns are pacified under a new agreement, her own are fed and fine. Mal gets too wired to sleep and too burnt out to draw, so she turns her eyes up.
She likes getting as close to the barrier as she can, without being stuck wrestling the crowd near the bridge. Or trying the sharp teeth of the sea. She scales the side of the only church on the Isle (it’s always empty, save for the old priest and his quiet daughter) and climbs to the very top of the central spire. Perched there, she can reach up and touch the shimmering air of the barrier. Being this close to active magic is calming in a way she can’t describe.
Sometimes, Mal notices the priest’s daughter peeking up through an open window. She’s tempted, then, to wave at her, to invite someone else to bathe in the warmth of magic. But every time she’s about to open her mouth, a gravelly voice yells to do some chore or the other and the girl disappears inside with a squeak.
***
Evie fell in love hard and fast.
Her very first day out of banishment, the day after her sixteenth birthday, she caught Mal’s attention. She didn’t know yet that it was a bad thing, fascinated still with life in relative freedom.
Mal had been cruel then, she knows. She’d never hide it, there was nothing to be ashamed of. Fight or die is the only law of the Isle. Genevieve was highly possible competition, bright and dazzling, so Mal did the pragmatic thing and enacted a scheme.
The plan was simple, she’d even thought it elegant at the time: play nice with Evie, invite her to the full moon howler at de Vil’s place and when Blueberry makes herself the centre of attention, as she certainly will, drop a bucket of animal blood on her. She toyed with the idea of locking her in that bear trap of a closet Cruella has, but it would be too quiet, too easy to miss over the chaos of the howler. She needed a signal, something that let not only Evie but the rest of them remember who the top dog around here was.
Something to knock her down before she could attempt to stand up.
At least that’s what it was supposed to go like. In no world did Mal imagine that instead of running out covered in tears and blood, Evie would activate her magic. The shield was weak and peppered with holes, but still, the majority of the blood ended up on the floor around Blueberry.
Mal grabbed her arm then and dragged her outside past the crowd. People made way for the pair, sure that she was going to beat Evie up. Hell, even Mal was sure of it.
Yet, when they got to the rickety porch and Mal finally turned face to face with Evie, for some reason, she couldn’t find it in herself to scream and call her names. Looking at her bright eyes, the colour of them indescribably red in the fiery light of Hell Hall, at the drops of blood dotting her face and hair, slowly running down, at the hopeful smile stretching her violet lips, Mal could not bring herself to say what she intended to.
Magic, or the sad grains of it that could be accessed under the barrier, was for the strong. Like Mal herself with her fire.
So instead, she found herself asking how reliable Evie’s hold on magic was. She told Mal about how this was the first time her magic got a physical form, about how she brews potions and poisons, about how even the most potent ones never made her sick.
Mal ordered her to join her gang. Evie’s eyes snapped up then, trembling and wet, so full of unfiltered hope and affection and stared at her. Her whole body leaned in and slackened when she accepted. Something about the brightness of her eyes or the happiness of her voice in that moment terrified Mal into almost taking a step back.
***
It is baffling, sometimes, how much love Genevieve has in her heart.
The fountain of it seems endless, she doesn’t need to ration it into little portions to be consumed. Evie loves sewing and designing, she loves the kids under their protection, and especially that giggly Tremaine girl, she loves how giddy with fear everyone gets when she brings her apple pie (that she made because she loves their crew). She loves and loves and loves.
She even loves this stupid little rabbit.
Mal and she were in the Dark Forest, foraging for ingredients and Evie kneeled by a big oak tree to cut off some mushrooms when she found it. It’s a pitiful thing, small and weak, two more from its litter lying on either side of it with their throats ripped out.
“It’s going to die.” Mal’s voice is cold and too loud in the darkness of the forest. Evie’s eyes are still on the carcasses and all she does is give a tiny nod.
In retrospect, it was probably a twitch at Mal’s tone.
When Mal unsheathes her dagger light must catch on it because, in a second, Evie turns around to face her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill it.” Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Because it is the most obvious thing in the world. The weak can not fight. They do not survive.
Immediately, Evie scoops up the tiny thing and brings it close to her chest. She’s shielding it.
“What? No!”
“It’s going to die anyways!” Mal angles her dagger toward where the rabbit must be. “Give it to me!”
It makes Evie turn her body away from her, shielding the animal even more.
“No!” Her eyes are scorching when they meet Mal’s.
This defiance makes her recoil physically. How dare she? Over some stupid animal? Mal’s free hand shoots out to grab Evie’s shoulder and shake her. “Let me kill it!”
“No! You can’t!” Her eyes stay as steely as before, even as they begin to water. “You can't!” Even as her voice begins to shake.
Mal brings her dagger even closer. So close, that she can see her own reflection in the cold metal of the blade.
“Why the hell not, Blueberry?”
“I love it, you can’t kill it! You can’t! It’s alive! I love it!”
***
Usually, Mal bites her tongue when Maleficent pushes lessons on her, letting her mother rant, and it’s no different today, even though she is so frustrated, so tired. She doesn’t even know what set her mother off this time, but she doesn’t bother to speak up. Mal can feel her inner temperature go underworld low and dragon fire high, back and forth, all day, she can feel her skull splitting where her horns should be, she can feel her back muscles moving to accommodate for wings that can’t be sprouted, magic produced in her body without an exit, stuck inside her. She feels like half a corpse and half a god.
“Furthermore, Mal, you must not dismiss my advice. I am not saying this out of ill will, I only do this due to your promising nature. I see you have the capability to own this world, to lead the conquering, and to take over after I rule. You are Maleficent Morgana the Second, do you understand?”
It’s funny. She doesn't even have her own name, her mother never gave her one. She made her fight for each letter tooth and nail but the prize is becoming her mother. All she sees when she looks at her daughter is a twisted reflection of herself, a second chance at achieving promised greatness.
Maleficent takes a sip of her coffee, and though Mal knows it is horribly bitter, she does it calmly. A mirthless smile stretches her thin lips.
“I was like you when I was your age. Ignored my mother’s wisdom, thinking I was oh so mature. But the world is cruel and we must be too. We fight or we die. It forced me to cast my heart aside, practically ripped it out of me, and when I started using my head, I finally started yielding results. I only wish to protect you, like I now realise my mother was trying to protect me way back then. You are my daughter, be better than me, cast emotions aside now, and don’t let them cloud your judgement. I truly believe you will be the deliverance of our preordained fate.”
She takes another sip of her coffee and lowers it on the table in a harsh movement. Ceramic hits wood with a boom.
It’s only the training that stops Mal from flinching at the resonance. Her hearing fluctuates between true faery abilities and the constricting human level, and all the sounds are grating her ears. Not that she hasn’t heard this speech many times before. Mal has been a promising child since she was born. She didn’t do anything to deserve it, she didn’t make any vows, her lips did not form words binding her to divine wickedness. No, her mother, and her mother, and hers, they gave the old prophecy of owning the world to her like an inheritance.
“Yes, yes, you will be our deliverance.”
With a content sigh, Maleficent nods once more and leans back into her armchair.
It is as clear a dismissal as she will get, so Mal pulls herself up, feels her bones ready to snap under the weight, and with a small bow turns away from the coffee table. It takes all her willpower to keep her composure. Near the doors, she chances a pause to gather herself once again, and glances at her mother.
She looks frightening. Not like when she would stand over Mal’s barely conscious body after leaving a pattern of black and blue all over, no. Not like when she would suggest plans that would put Jay in grave danger just to watch Mal’s reaction either. No, this is an ultimately frightening sight.
She looks pathetic. Imprisonment has not been kind to any of them but the inaccessibility of magic has hit the inherently magical beings the harshest. To Mal, her mother looks like she might collapse, fade out on here, never get out of that armchair.
That is the fundamental reason she lets her mother lecture her. She fears her, of course, but she patronises her more now. Mal is already a shining example of never letting her emotions cloud her judgement in battle. She stopped herself before she could grow attached. Built walls even between herself and her General, retreated away from his warmth when he got too close.
So she shrinks, hides more and more of herself in order to not appear threatening to Maleficent. It only makes Mal despise her more and in turn, despise herself.
One day, she promises herself as the flash of pain fades and she closes the doors behind herself. One day she will take a butcher’s knife and cut this umbilical cord.
***
Next Thursday, Mal finds Evie crying in one of the smaller rooms of their lair.
It’s obvious she’s crying, even if she’s turned away from the door, cooped up in a dark corner. Her whole body is shaking silently, tiny little movements arrhythmic, like she’s fighting the tears.
Mal turns away. She will ignore this moment of foolish vulnerability, maybe send Carlos or Dizzy this way instead. They can be gentle. Mal appreciates kindness only because it shows that their evil has intent, that they inflict hurt on purpose. Gentleness is inside their bones. Hers are hollow.
It is at that moment, when Mal has made up her mind, that Evie notices her.
She always seems to notice Mal.
Their eyes lock. Mal feels glued to the spot. Evie’s eyes sparkle softly in the dim light, her mascara is running down her face in black and blue streaks, and her lipstick is smudged and half bitten off in the middle. She looks magnetic. Evie is beautiful, not despite her harried state, not because of it, just beautiful. Always so beautiful.
“I’m sorry, I-” Evie’s breath stutters as she gulps more air in, “I thought no one would be here.” She looks somewhere behind Mal, not like she’s trying to gauge if there are people behind her, but like she can’t bear to look at her any longer. “You ca- should go. I’m- I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t say sorry.” Mal comes in and closes the door behind her. It plunges the tiny room into more solid darkness. “It’s weak.” She steps a little closer to Evie.
Evie hastily wipes her face and shakes her head a little. “Yes, of course.” She sniffles. It is such a pitiful sound, brittle and barely controlled, Mal wants it to stop. “Really, Mal, you, you don’t need to stay, can, you can go.”
It is the most erratic Evie’s speech has ever been. Usually, her words are so measured, it’s weird to hear her stutter. Mal kneels beside her on the dusty floor. There is not much space in the room, it feels stifling, being so close to Evie. She wants to move back, to come closer, to storm out, to crush her in a hug. She settles for leaning back on the balls of her feet and digging her nails into the palms of her hands.
“Well, I’m here.” What would Carlos do? Shit, what would one of those soft as shit Auradon kids say? Because even though Genevieve is one of the most feared people on the Isle, even though she can dig her nails in wounds just to listen to the screams, she requires this tenderness.
“So tell me what bullshit made you… uh-”
“Cry like a baby?” Evie says with a bitter smile.
Mal just hums. That is exactly what she was thinking but it seemed too harsh to say right then. Mal wouldn’t kick one of her own while they are lying down.
Another stuttering breath. Genevieve keeps shaking, all those emotions too much for her tiny body. She is taller than Mal, but like this, she looks so small and bursting at the seams with everything.
“Remember last week? We found that baby rabbit?” Her voice is still so soft. “I had to kill it.” More tears gather in the corners of her eyes. They twinkle in the darkness like stars in the sky. “I- My mother, she, ah- I guess she wanted a new fur collar.” With a put upon shrug, she continues: “It’s not even the worst part.” Mal watches her swallow heavily, like it pains her to do so, like she is swallowing glass. “We, ah, we can’t afford to be wasteful here. And, you know, that’s fine... Well, it’s not fine, Auradon makes us do this and we haven’t even done anything but be born! And they can definitely afford to get normal food and clothing and water for us. I mean, have you seen the new castle the Beast’s family is building? ‘Secondary summer palace’, what bullshit!”
“Princess, I appreciate anger for those Auradon fuckers as much as the next person but get to the fucking point.” Her tone is always too cold, fuck. Now Evie will think she’s angry at her. Maybe she is, a little. For making her feel so responsible for her sadness.
“Sorry,” she catches herself too late, “Mother made me cook him.”
Mal is silent at that, and Evie tries to fill the silence.
“And, I knew he was going to die. You were right. He was too weak to survive, he couldn’t fight, but, gods above, I never- I didn’t think she’d make me butcher him.” Her voice dissolves into nothingness at the end.
“You really were in love with that thing, huh?”
Evie freezes up at that, so still, she might be made of marble. She shakes her head after a moment. “I loved it, I was not- I was not in love with it.” Her gaze is trained on the toes of her boots, on the tiny stubborn dot of blood that hasn't washed out. “That’s different.”
And that, that is the final nail in her coffin. Fuck! Mal already doesn’t know what to say, what do you say to a person who is crying? There are no memories in her head to use as an example. The last time she cried, her mother had dangled her light body out of a balcony, telling her not to shame the legacy with something as weak and as human as tears. That did make her stop crying but that is not what Mal is going for with Evie. And she was so stupid to bring up love.
“You should’ve let me kill it that day.”
“Maybe.” She doesn’t mean it. Evie would not have let her do it.
“You shouldn’t cry so much over it.”
“I’ll be fine. You- you don’t need to worry about me so much.” She smiles a little, the waterworks finally coming to a stop. It makes Mal feel disgustingly soft, like a rotten apple.
“I wasn’t worried. But you’re on my team so it’s my responsibility or whatever.”
“Still.” There’s a tiny smile on Evie’s ruined face.
And in that darkness, surrounded by specks of dust and looking at black and blue tear tracks and smudged lipstick, Mal thinks that maybe it’s not such a horrible thing to be loved by Evie. She loves so much so easily, it can’t be a terribly huge deal to be a part of the long list.
***
No matter how much her mother snarls in distaste, Mal prefers that her gang is less rigid and the atmosphere is more companionable when they are together. Sometimes, though, when they are being particularly annoying, Mal wonders if her mother is right.
Diego de Vil and his band of musical misfits really don’t work hard enough to afford all the distraction and halfway-manic laughter they cause. Fucking freeloaders. Honestly, and she has told them this more than once, they are only here as Carlos’s kin and because their music sets really bring the howlers to the next level.
They’re always jamming or giggling in “their” nook of the lair. That, or harassing the other occupiers of the loft.
They make fun of Dizzy for following Evie around everywhere, like a loyal duckling. When Evie furrows her brows and tells them to cut it out, they snicker behind their hands and Ivy starts singing the silly song they wrote just for Dizzy. They “are just kidding, really, Dizzy, you are our dark magician girl”, after all.
They make fun of Freddie, whenever she decides to come around. Yell something about how matted her hair is, and the twins pop out their perfect clouds of signature de Vil ashen hair to mock her. She just flips them off because they all know that right after she finishes her dealings with Mal, she’s going to be slithering in the nook and plopping herself on a pillow between Maria de Vil’s feet, letting her work her own kind of magic.
Even Mal is not immune. They make fun of her “brooding face”. They make fun of her short stature. They find a lot to laugh about, but they never push too much, and Mal can’t help but think that it’s nice. To be in on a joke.
(She remembers running with Maddy. It’s silly now but then it felt like a sign that they both had purple hair. It seemed so concrete when she was ten-eleven. And Maddy would run around to make fun of her behind her back, would sabotage Mal on purpose, feed her wrong information just to watch her trip up. She’d punch her in the shoulder and say: “Come on, it was just a joke!” and cackle mean-spiritedly.
Maddy never knew the limit. Maddy bleaches her hair obsessively.)
The band joke about a lot of things, and notice every embarrassing reaction, which is why Mal half-expects howling laughter when Evie turns beet red after Mal off-handedly says “Attagirl” during a sparring session. They don’t laugh when Evie rushes to bring Mal some kind of special electro-something water after training. They don’t laugh when Evie asks if she can “move up from her regular loft room? Somewhere closer to you? Not- not in that way, just that rooms get bigger closer to the top and I need space for my brewing!”
They don’t laugh when Evie blanches at the sight of Mal’s mangled fingers after a nasty fight. They don’t laugh when she pulls out some salve and bandages from her thigh holster when she tapes them together ever so carefully and something close to tears shines in her eyes.
They never laugh at her. Mal wishes she didn't know why.
***
Mal’s gang may be far less rigid than Maleficent’s armies used to be but if anyone dared to think that Mal was not a demanding leader or, gods forbid, that Mal was soft, they would be proven wrong fairly quickly.
Perfection is expected, achieving more than asked for is expected, and falling short is punished. The closer you are to Mal, the harsher you get burned by her hellfire rage.
She’s yelling about the botched chloroform, asking Evie how she can be so stupid and incompetent, how dare she not perform her role in the gang, and give her one valid reason she shouldn’t send Evie back into banishment right this moment! And maybe Mal is being harsher than usual but then Evie’s lip stops trembling and her poisonous blood is boiling with anger and she is screaming right back at Mal. Saying that she is “cold-blooded, cruel, a fucking tyrant!”
Mal doesn’t stop herself when she swings a punch.
It doesn’t land properly. Evie moves away and Mal ends up hitting her shoulder, Evie’s hands on her wrist and elbow, and a moment later Mal is on the cement floor, her breath knocked out, with Evie hovering over her. She’s crying. Her mascara is running and her eyes shine brightly and Mal’s heart stops.
It’s like a dam has been broken. Evie tries to calm herself but all her inhales are shaky and all her exhales are ragged, she can’t stop the hot tears from rolling down her cheeks and landing on Mal’s face and neck. She’s still uselessly pounding her fists on Mal’s chest, so she catches the witch’s wrists and brings them down.
Mal doesn’t want to dislodge her even if her instincts tell her that this is how you get your throat slit. Evie is still shaking on top of her. Mal doesn’t know what to say and she can’t bear to look at her. She turns her head to the side. Evie’s wrists are burning against her underworld cold hands.
They stay like that for however long it takes for Evie to calm herself. Far too fast for how hard she was sobbing earlier, probably.
“Why do you do that?” Evie’s voice is hoarse and small but still full of fury.
She feels like she’s about to fall through the floor.
But Mal is still on the floor and she looks at the place where the wall meets the floor and she realises it wasn’t painted very well. “I-” her throat is swollen, “I have to. I need perfection.”
“Don’t be so cruel to me,” Evie exhales unsteadily, “you know, you know that I, you know I-”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I wish it counted for something.”
Mal finally turns to look at her. The blue mascara stains on her face look like bruises.
***
Mal climbs the church tower that night.
Her bones creak, weary and tired on the ascent. For a few seconds, she hears the way storm clouds gather under the barrier. The stone is warm under her infernally cold hands.
There are kids on the streets nearby but none of them are hers so she doesn’t care. If they are staying the night at the church square, neither do their parents.
The dim lights of the Isle don’t reach her here, she is illuminated only by the shimmering of the barrier. If she tries, she can probably even find a star or two through the gaps between the stormy clouds that are anchored on top of the barrier.
She wonders, can he see the barrier down there? Is her father reaching out to touch it too? Is he digging through the dirt, like she is? Does he think of her?
Mal does not think of her father often. Sometimes, she forgets she has a father at all. She is her mother’s daughter so thoroughly, she wouldn’t be surprised to find out if even her very bones had “Property of Maleficent” carved into them.
But tonight, she wonders about Hades. She knows so little of the man, of the god. She knows that he sits in his catacombs, that he makes that little Facilier runt run his errands, that he’s merciful with her. Mal has only one memory, though it is spotty like the radio transmissions they get on the Isle, inviting imagination to fill in the blanks.
And, like everything about her, Mal’s imagination is cruel.
She remembers the day her father left. The cold grey light, the dust particles that floated in the air, the back and forth screaming, and the smell of sulphur that filled their house. She was hiding under the staircase, ready to dart into the closet if her mother decided to take out her frustrations on her.
Then, a vase… or a sugar bowl? Something porcelain, anyway, was thrown down and broke into a million tiny sharp pieces at the bottom of the stairs. She remembers having to clean it up later and getting cuts on her chubby fingers.
Her mother screamed something along the lines of “You are not a god anymore! Go back to hell!” and slammed their bedroom door shut. Mal peeked out from under the staircase, just as the thunderous steps made more dust fall out and float in the air.
This is where it gets fuzzy.
Sometimes, she can only remember him opening the front door, daylight outside too bright for Mal’s eyes that were used to the semi-darkness of their house. Hades turned to look at her for a moment, face unreadable, and walked out with a resounding slam of the door.
Sometimes, she remembers more. She remembers that her father noticed her peeking out from under the stairs. He walked up to her, and he doesn’t have a face in these memories but she knows he was looking her in the eyes. He asked her if she wanted to come with him, but before she could answer, he sighed and said: “No, that won’t work. I’d be tired of you. I’d be able to bear that if I loved you but you are too much like your mother already. It’s too late, she taught you well.” And then he turned around and left her life forever.
Sometimes, she entertains the idea of finding him. Marching into the catacombs where he has made a home, holding a knife to his throat, seeing if he bleeds red or golden. The problem is, she will never be able to make him feel her own pain.
And what would that accomplish? He was right.
Mal was an unlovable child and she is an unlovable adult. At least she is rational enough to know it.
Here, in this dark place where no one can hear her, she tips her face to the sky. There is no hope to find the stars but the rain finds her somehow. The droplets are sweet on her lips.
No one sees her cry.