The first day [(Backdated to the first day, as it says on the header.)] Mal had been to enough worlds by now to not trust the sudden random appearance of new flowers she didn't recognize. Maybe soon after she arrived, once she had started to settle in, she might have taken it a just an Auradon things. Weirder things happen here all the time.
But by now she knew better. And so she was investigating. Seriously, in a land of fairytale princesses and princes, here was the queen - in her usual leather jacket closed up over her shirt, leather pants, and boots combo, complete with leather fingerless gloves - walking around poking flowers with a stick. While scowling at them.
So when the scent hit her she had thought sh had ben prepared for... something. What sh hadn't expcted was a familiar voice.
"You... all.... will... REGRET... THIS!"
She spun towards the voice to see...
A purple dragon rising out of green smoke. The dragon opened its mouth to breathe fire.
Mal rushed towards it, pulling her spell book out of the front of her jacket as she did. "Burn me and your spell book burns with me, mother!"
The dragon breathed out, at someone behind where current Mal was making her stand, as though she wasn't there.
Mal spun to see who was hurt and figure out how to help. When she saw the leather clad teenaged boy roll out of the way, for a moment her heart stopped. "JAY!" She called out. But as she watched in horror, details caught up to her. Like the fact that she had been out on the lawn and was now, seemingly, indoors. Where the coronation had just recently been held. Hers and...
Ben's.
For her mom or Jay to have shown up? Sure. But both at the same time? And her mother as a dragon at the same time Jay was wearing what he wore when Ben was crowned king?
Now she looked more as Jay rolled and dodged, took in the rest of the scene. The group of people all around in their finest clothes - still as statues. Fairy Godmother, the former king, the former Queen, and Ben up at the front, frozen.
Ben, with his crown askew, poised to attack. His father on the dais. His mother grabbing his arm to pull him back, to protect him. Fairy godmother in her best dress arms raised to cast a spell she no longer had. In fact...
Mal spun in place, holding the spell book to her chest as she watched the person with the wand - her younger self, and her three best friends dodging and weaving among the frozen people and tall pillars.
Now that she knew this was some sort of vision, she was somewhat less tense, and was regarding everything critically. "Gotta hand it to E, we really could move in those clothes," she muttered, stalking through the vision towards the fleeing teenagers.
"C'mon, run, Jay! Run!" Carlos screamed. Jay, racing forward as often as back, looking for a way to fight.
"Com on Jay! HURRY HURRY HURRY!"
"JAY!"
the dragon circling amongst the stained glass windows to get some height, as though Jay had a sword. Which he didn't. Or magic. Which he didn't.
"Still, mom knew Jay," she reasoned. "Never bet against him in a fight. Well... unless he's fighting me, that is," she said, lips quirking a bit.
The dragon diving, jaws open like she was going to snap Jay up in a single bite.
Evie stepping in to save them all. "MAGIC MIRROR - SHINE A BRIGHT LIGHT!" as she held up the palm sized fragment that was all that remained of her mother's magic mirror. And it did as she bade, blinding the dragon for a key moment; allowing the four teenaged friends to cluster together. Bringing the dragon down.
"Behind me, E!" Memory Mal said, clad in her sparkly pale purple dress. The wand that was missing from Fairy Godmother's hands was in hers, and around the spiral of it was a ring some few might have noticed. Mal always wore it, after all. Thick gold with a beast's face on it. Too thick to easily hide under her fingerless gloves. She moved to stand in front of her friends, facing the dragon, clutching the wand. "Leave my friends alone!" she demanded of the dragon. Her shoulders firmed. "This is between you and me, Mother."
"And now for the whole two people in Auradon that didn't already think I was a freak," current Mal muttered, shaking her head.
The dragon lowered itself to advance slowly on her, but she gave no ground for once.
"The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one!" past Mal said, clutching the wand down by her side. Her eyes began to glow green. livid angry toxic green. The same green as the eyes of the Dragon, in fact. Which began to glow brighter, as if to meet hers. Or to try to surpass hers. "The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one," she repeated, growing in confidence even as the glow in both eyes brightened. "The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one!"
And then the two - girl and dragon - locked eyes. As though they were school children rather than a dragon and a damsel they proceeded to have a very intense high stakes staring contest. After several intense moments, the dragon lost, shaking her head before being swallowed up by a cloud of livid green smoke.
Mal stumbled back and looked at her friends who looked as bewildered as she did.
Current Mal scowled, thinking she looked too weak then. She needed to hav shown strength. Maybe thing would have gone differently then if she had. Then again, this was Auradon. Maybe not.
The moment the smoke resolved into what seemed to be a purple bearded dragon, Fairy Godmother unfroze. The teens rushed towards the small lizard and FG approached in a more stately way that was still swift.
"What just happened?" "I have no idea!" "Did you do it?" "I don't know!"
The four friends spoke practically over each other, but it was FG who had the answer. "No no no no, your mother did. She shrank to the size of the love in her heart. That's why it's so itty bitty."
Mal looked down, then knelt closer to the lizard. "Is sh going to be like that forever?" she asked.
Fairy Godmother knelt with her. "Forever is a long time..." Whatever more she was going to say was lost as the memory faded.
"What? No! Come back! The best part was still.... Ugh." She shook her head. "If we have to suffer these things, shouldn't we at least get to chose where they end?" she asked the sky. "Is this Auradon or isn't it?"
Mal gave a heavy sigh then turned to face whoever was with her at this point. "So, guessing you have questions..." she crossed her arms over the spell book for the time being.
Evil Lives
Now that Mal had an idea what this was on about, she was patrolling the grounds to tell anyone shocked by one what was happening, so that they wouldn't panic. Panics were only fun when you meant to incite one, and she supposed as queen she shouldn't be doing that anymore.
As the week wore on, Mal's outfits got more and more dark purple and green, and more and more dragon-like. Oh it was still always a closed up leather jacket, leather pants, and boots, but the jackets might look like scales up and down the sleeves, or have no sleeves and just little wing pauldrons. Increasingly she wore pants in dark purple with black and green flames curling around her legs. Her hair was now a dark dark purple braided into a crown around her head and twined with a black ribbon.
When a new memory vision triggered, she sighed. "It's alright," she told whoever was around. "I guess I'll play tour guide.... This," she waved that the setting that had appeared around them. It was a dark and towering edifice that would have been terrifying if it wasn't so clearly falling apart. The balconies had crenelations that looked well worn and the door was just barely on its hinges. "This is Bargain Castle. On the Isle. Home sour home, once upon a time."
In the vision of the ramshackle castle a younger Mal in well worn leather, dirty but well mended, slid in past the huge creaking doors, past what looked like a poorly stocked fourth hand shop of ragged clothes and into a ramshackle living room. There was a busted up old fridge, broken down tables. A patched sofa facing a small table that barely was staying upright, holding a tiny TV. Crumbs were everywhere. There was a mostly empty can of shoe polish and a stained ripped up rag atop the fridge.
The only furniture in the room that wasn't half broken was a huge high backed green chair like a throne, set before a stained glass window that was somehow intact.
Sitting on the throne like chair was a woman in a long black dress that was either tattered and layered stylistically to look intimidating or from a lack of care. Hard to tell which. She had black leather wrapped horns atop her head and a scowl on her face, aimed at the purple haired girl who had just sauntered in. Not quite hidden in the shadows nearby was a dark bird.
Younger Mal gave a start as she slipped into the living room and saw "Mother!"
"Hello, dear," Maleficent's cold voice said making an insult of the endearment. "Do you know what time it is, young lady?"
Mal looked confused and unsure, studying the woman before finally saying "two in the morning?" as if she was guessing.
"I thought so," Maleficent said, pushing up a purple sleeve to correct the wrist watch under it. She pulled the sleeve back down and looked at the teenager critically. "Where was I? Oh yes, EVIL LIVES!" she hissed.
"Evil lives," Mal repeated. "Exactly, Mother. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? The tags around town? Pretty good, right?"
"No, you misunderstand me, dear," Maleficent said, sounding disappointed.
The black bird croaked before flying to Mal's shoulder. It nipped her ear.
"Ouch! Stop that!"
"That's just Diablo. Don't be jealous my little friend, that's just Mal," Maleficent said, her voice dismissive.
Younger Mal had a moment where she looked like she was fighting pain, but she pushed it down quickly. "Diablo? That's Diablo?"
"The one and only Diablo," Maleficent purred, looking pleased.
"But how?!" Mal asked. "He was frozen! They turned him into stone!"
"Yes, they did, those horrid little beasts. But he's back! He's back! And EVIL LIVES!" Maleficent declared, with an evil cackle for good measure.
Mal rolled her eyes.
Maleficent stood from her chair dramatically, her green eyes blazing into Mal's. "My Dragon's eye - my scepter of darkness - Diablo says it has been awakened! EVIL LIVES! And best of all, it is on this island!"
"Your scepter? Are you sure?" Mal sounded skeptical. "Hard to believe King Beast of Auradon would leave such an impressive weapon on the Isle."
"Diablo swears he saw it, didn't you, my sweet?" she asked lifting a hand. The raven alighted on her finger and cawed.
"So where is it?" Mal asked.
"Well I don't speak raven, do I? It's on this blaster piece of rock somewhere," she fumed, her free hand tossing back her cape.
"Okay then. But so what?"
"So what?! The Dragon's Eye is back! Evil lives! It means I can have my powers back!"
"Not with the dome still up," Mal pointed out.
"It doesn't matter. I thought those three despicably good fairies had destroyed it, but they had only frozen it, like they had Diablo. It is alive, it is out there somewhere, and best of all - you- my dear - will get it for me," Maleficent announced with a little flourish.
"Me?"
"Yes. Don't you want to prove yourself to me? Prove that you are worthy of being my daughter?" Maleficent asked quietly. When Mal didn't answer, she sighed. "You know how much you are a disappointment to me, how when I was your age, I had armies of goblins under my control, but you... what do you do - put your little drawings all over town? You need to do MORE!" Maleficent seethed. Diablo flapped his wings and cawed in agreement.
Mal was clearly hurt and trying not to show it. "Fine!" she snapped, hiding behind anger. "Fine! I'll go get your scepter!"
"Wonderful." Maleficent touched herself on the chest, where once she had been stabbed through. "When that sword pierced my dragon hide, and I fell off that cliff twenty years ago, I was sure I had died. But they brought me back to suffer a fate worse than death. Much worse. But one day, I will have my revenge.
Mal nodded. Maleficent took her hand and together they swore "Revenge upon those fools who imprisoned us on this cursed island!" then Maleficent pulled Mal closer and whispered something into her ear.
"Yes, Mother," Mal said.
Maleficent grinned. "Now get out of here and bring it back, so we can be free of this floating prison once and for all!" she let go of Mal who trudged her way upstairs.
"Well, I could have done without that particular memory...."
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timeasmymeasure
Finally, an NPC post! (Sorry about the delay.) CW for, well, Maleficent.
Date: 2023-05-21 12:44 pm (UTC)[(Backdated to the first day, as it says on the header.)]
Mal had been to enough worlds by now to not trust the sudden random appearance of new flowers she didn't recognize. Maybe soon after she arrived, once she had started to settle in, she might have taken it a just an Auradon things. Weirder things happen here all the time.
But by now she knew better. And so she was investigating. Seriously, in a land of fairytale princesses and princes, here was the queen - in her usual leather jacket closed up over her shirt, leather pants, and boots combo, complete with leather fingerless gloves - walking around poking flowers with a stick. While scowling at them.
So when the scent hit her she had thought sh had ben prepared for... something. What sh hadn't expcted was a familiar voice.
"You... all.... will... REGRET... THIS!"
She spun towards the voice to see...
A purple dragon rising out of green smoke. The dragon opened its mouth to breathe fire.
Mal rushed towards it, pulling her spell book out of the front of her jacket as she did. "Burn me and your spell book burns with me, mother!"
The dragon breathed out, at someone behind where current Mal was making her stand, as though she wasn't there.
Mal spun to see who was hurt and figure out how to help. When she saw the leather clad teenaged boy roll out of the way, for a moment her heart stopped. "JAY!" She called out. But as she watched in horror, details caught up to her. Like the fact that she had been out on the lawn and was now, seemingly, indoors. Where the coronation had just recently been held. Hers and...
Ben's.
For her mom or Jay to have shown up? Sure. But both at the same time? And her mother as a dragon at the same time Jay was wearing what he wore when Ben was crowned king?
Now she looked more as Jay rolled and dodged, took in the rest of the scene. The group of people all around in their finest clothes - still as statues. Fairy Godmother, the former king, the former Queen, and Ben up at the front, frozen.
Ben, with his crown askew, poised to attack. His father on the dais. His mother grabbing his arm to pull him back, to protect him. Fairy godmother in her best dress arms raised to cast a spell she no longer had. In fact...
Mal spun in place, holding the spell book to her chest as she watched the person with the wand - her younger self, and her three best friends dodging and weaving among the frozen people and tall pillars.
Now that she knew this was some sort of vision, she was somewhat less tense, and was regarding everything critically. "Gotta hand it to E, we really could move in those clothes," she muttered, stalking through the vision towards the fleeing teenagers.
"C'mon, run, Jay! Run!" Carlos screamed. Jay, racing forward as often as back, looking for a way to fight.
"Com on Jay! HURRY HURRY HURRY!"
"JAY!"
the dragon circling amongst the stained glass windows to get some height, as though Jay had a sword. Which he didn't. Or magic. Which he didn't.
"Still, mom knew Jay," she reasoned. "Never bet against him in a fight. Well... unless he's fighting me, that is," she said, lips quirking a bit.
The dragon diving, jaws open like she was going to snap Jay up in a single bite.
Evie stepping in to save them all. "MAGIC MIRROR - SHINE A BRIGHT LIGHT!" as she held up the palm sized fragment that was all that remained of her mother's magic mirror. And it did as she bade, blinding the dragon for a key moment; allowing the four teenaged friends to cluster together. Bringing the dragon down.
"Behind me, E!" Memory Mal said, clad in her sparkly pale purple dress. The wand that was missing from Fairy Godmother's hands was in hers, and around the spiral of it was a ring some few might have noticed. Mal always wore it, after all. Thick gold with a beast's face on it. Too thick to easily hide under her fingerless gloves. She moved to stand in front of her friends, facing the dragon, clutching the wand. "Leave my friends alone!" she demanded of the dragon. Her shoulders firmed. "This is between you and me, Mother."
"And now for the whole two people in Auradon that didn't already think I was a freak," current Mal muttered, shaking her head.
The dragon lowered itself to advance slowly on her, but she gave no ground for once.
"The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one!" past Mal said, clutching the wand down by her side. Her eyes began to glow green. livid angry toxic green. The same green as the eyes of the Dragon, in fact. Which began to glow brighter, as if to meet hers. Or to try to surpass hers. "The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one," she repeated, growing in confidence even as the glow in both eyes brightened. "The strength of evil is good as none, when stands before four hearts as one!"
And then the two - girl and dragon - locked eyes. As though they were school children rather than a dragon and a damsel they proceeded to have a very intense high stakes staring contest. After several intense moments, the dragon lost, shaking her head before being swallowed up by a cloud of livid green smoke.
Mal stumbled back and looked at her friends who looked as bewildered as she did.
Current Mal scowled, thinking she looked too weak then. She needed to hav shown strength. Maybe thing would have gone differently then if she had. Then again, this was Auradon. Maybe not.
The moment the smoke resolved into what seemed to be a purple bearded dragon, Fairy Godmother unfroze. The teens rushed towards the small lizard and FG approached in a more stately way that was still swift.
"What just happened?"
"I have no idea!"
"Did you do it?"
"I don't know!"
The four friends spoke practically over each other, but it was FG who had the answer. "No no no no, your mother did. She shrank to the size of the love in her heart. That's why it's so itty bitty."
Mal looked down, then knelt closer to the lizard. "Is sh going to be like that forever?" she asked.
Fairy Godmother knelt with her. "Forever is a long time..." Whatever more she was going to say was lost as the memory faded.
"What? No! Come back! The best part was still.... Ugh." She shook her head. "If we have to suffer these things, shouldn't we at least get to chose where they end?" she asked the sky. "Is this Auradon or isn't it?"
Mal gave a heavy sigh then turned to face whoever was with her at this point. "So, guessing you have questions..." she crossed her arms over the spell book for the time being.
Evil Lives
Now that Mal had an idea what this was on about, she was patrolling the grounds to tell anyone shocked by one what was happening, so that they wouldn't panic. Panics were only fun when you meant to incite one, and she supposed as queen she shouldn't be doing that anymore.
As the week wore on, Mal's outfits got more and more dark purple and green, and more and more dragon-like. Oh it was still always a closed up leather jacket, leather pants, and boots, but the jackets might look like scales up and down the sleeves, or have no sleeves and just little wing pauldrons. Increasingly she wore pants in dark purple with black and green flames curling around her legs. Her hair was now a dark dark purple braided into a crown around her head and twined with a black ribbon.
When a new memory vision triggered, she sighed. "It's alright," she told whoever was around. "I guess I'll play tour guide.... This," she waved that the setting that had appeared around them. It was a dark and towering edifice that would have been terrifying if it wasn't so clearly falling apart. The balconies had crenelations that looked well worn and the door was just barely on its hinges. "This is Bargain Castle. On the Isle. Home sour home, once upon a time."
In the vision of the ramshackle castle a younger Mal in well worn leather, dirty but well mended, slid in past the huge creaking doors, past what looked like a poorly stocked fourth hand shop of ragged clothes and into a ramshackle living room. There was a busted up old fridge, broken down tables. A patched sofa facing a small table that barely was staying upright, holding a tiny TV. Crumbs were everywhere. There was a mostly empty can of shoe polish and a stained ripped up rag atop the fridge.
The only furniture in the room that wasn't half broken was a huge high backed green chair like a throne, set before a stained glass window that was somehow intact.
Sitting on the throne like chair was a woman in a long black dress that was either tattered and layered stylistically to look intimidating or from a lack of care. Hard to tell which. She had black leather wrapped horns atop her head and a scowl on her face, aimed at the purple haired girl who had just sauntered in. Not quite hidden in the shadows nearby was a dark bird.
Younger Mal gave a start as she slipped into the living room and saw "Mother!"
"Hello, dear," Maleficent's cold voice said making an insult of the endearment. "Do you know what time it is, young lady?"
Mal looked confused and unsure, studying the woman before finally saying "two in the morning?" as if she was guessing.
"I thought so," Maleficent said, pushing up a purple sleeve to correct the wrist watch under it. She pulled the sleeve back down and looked at the teenager critically. "Where was I? Oh yes, EVIL LIVES!" she hissed.
"Evil lives," Mal repeated. "Exactly, Mother. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? The tags around town? Pretty good, right?"
"No, you misunderstand me, dear," Maleficent said, sounding disappointed.
The black bird croaked before flying to Mal's shoulder. It nipped her ear.
"Ouch! Stop that!"
"That's just Diablo. Don't be jealous my little friend, that's just Mal," Maleficent said, her voice dismissive.
Younger Mal had a moment where she looked like she was fighting pain, but she pushed it down quickly. "Diablo? That's Diablo?"
"The one and only Diablo," Maleficent purred, looking pleased.
"But how?!" Mal asked. "He was frozen! They turned him into stone!"
"Yes, they did, those horrid little beasts. But he's back! He's back! And EVIL LIVES!" Maleficent declared, with an evil cackle for good measure.
Mal rolled her eyes.
Maleficent stood from her chair dramatically, her green eyes blazing into Mal's. "My Dragon's eye - my scepter of darkness - Diablo says it has been awakened! EVIL LIVES! And best of all, it is on this island!"
"Your scepter? Are you sure?" Mal sounded skeptical. "Hard to believe King Beast of Auradon would leave such an impressive weapon on the Isle."
"Diablo swears he saw it, didn't you, my sweet?" she asked lifting a hand. The raven alighted on her finger and cawed.
"So where is it?" Mal asked.
"Well I don't speak raven, do I? It's on this blaster piece of rock somewhere," she fumed, her free hand tossing back her cape.
"Okay then. But so what?"
"So what?! The Dragon's Eye is back! Evil lives! It means I can have my powers back!"
"Not with the dome still up," Mal pointed out.
"It doesn't matter. I thought those three despicably good fairies had destroyed it, but they had only frozen it, like they had Diablo. It is alive, it is out there somewhere, and best of all - you- my dear - will get it for me," Maleficent announced with a little flourish.
"Me?"
"Yes. Don't you want to prove yourself to me? Prove that you are worthy of being my daughter?" Maleficent asked quietly. When Mal didn't answer, she sighed. "You know how much you are a disappointment to me, how when I was your age, I had armies of goblins under my control, but you... what do you do - put your little drawings all over town? You need to do MORE!" Maleficent seethed. Diablo flapped his wings and cawed in agreement.
Mal was clearly hurt and trying not to show it. "Fine!" she snapped, hiding behind anger. "Fine! I'll go get your scepter!"
"Wonderful." Maleficent touched herself on the chest, where once she had been stabbed through. "When that sword pierced my dragon hide, and I fell off that cliff twenty years ago, I was sure I had died. But they brought me back to suffer a fate worse than death. Much worse. But one day, I will have my revenge.
Mal nodded. Maleficent took her hand and together they swore "Revenge upon those fools who imprisoned us on this cursed island!" then Maleficent pulled Mal closer and whispered something into her ear.
"Yes, Mother," Mal said.
Maleficent grinned. "Now get out of here and bring it back, so we can be free of this floating prison once and for all!" she let go of Mal who trudged her way upstairs.
"Well, I could have done without that particular memory...."