"Yo! Tedros!" Chaddick was banging on the door, again. Tedros groaned, shoving his head under one of his pillows in a feeble attempt to drown his friend out. To say he was surprised when it didn't work would be like saying Agatha didn't live next door. But unfortunately, she did, and that was made known by Kiko in the oddest hours of the night. Last night, she'd been wailing that her favourite stocking was laddered, and, by the sound of it, Agatha had thrown down a book or something and darned it for her, much to Kiko's well-known appreciation. Ben had fallen asleep easier, but when Tedros (loudly, just to spite his neighbours) returned from his 4:00am morning workout, his roommate was nowhere to be seen. This wasn't odd, but it was so earl-
"TEDROS!" Chaddick boomed from outside after a few minutes of Tedros gazing at his sweat-lined jaw in the mirror. "Hurry up! I'll tell Agatha to knock your door down, she'd probably be able to do it. If she's awake..."
That got Tedros' attention, but before he could make any sound of protest, Chaddick had knocked. Tedros ripped open his door to make an excuse, only to find Agatha standing in front of him, arms folded.
"See, he doesn't sleep naked," Chaddick grinned. Agatha turned around and stared at him. "Was just a joke..." He mumbled.
"I would've done it if just to see your face when your door gets broken down, but I believe I'd get somewhat punished for vandalism." Agatha spun back to Tedros.
"You steal candy from Hansel's Haven all the time."
"And?"
"I'm pretty sure that counts as vandalism. Also, temptation is the path to Evil."
"I'm Maleficent's daughter. Don't think you can get any more 'Evil' than that if you tried."
"...right."
She went back to bed.
"What was that all about?" Chaddick smirked at Tedros, who pushed him.
"What are you talking about?"
"You. Flustered. Agatha. Thinking you're a weirdo." He grinned.
They jumped as something hit Agatha's door. "SHUT UP!" The sound of her voice yelled through her door. A bed creaked. Someone picked whatever had been thrown at the door up, and after a few footsteps, the bed creaked again. "I'll throw my shoe again."
The two boys, not wanting one of Agatha's clumps flying anywhere in their direction, even if there was a door in the way, scurried off, bickering and laughing.
———
At lunch, the Clearing was a mess of students, all crammed on their own sides, and, despite the cluster of people, there was a clear invisible like which no one crossed, separating Evers and Nevers. Agatha crossed that line, slammed her tray down in front of the Coven, who stared at her blankly, and sat down. Hester stole her sandwich. Agatha let her, shoving the tray of food away, knowing it would make her sick. On the Isle, she had gone days without food as a punishment, so despite being hungry all the time, she couldn't eat too much, especially Auradon food, which, compared to the Isle, was so good that her stomach hadn't adjusted to the mold-free meals. Besides, she was used to the hunger, what with it being something she'd lived with all her life, therefore there was no abnormality in the feeling. But if you placed a plate of food in front of her, she could inhale it, her hunger being something that never seemed to leave, which caused her to either be able to eat alarming amounts or feel too sick to eat more than three bites, depending on her stomach's 'mood', as she'd call it as a child. Agatha had seen no problem with being withheld from food as her siblings ate merrily, but as she'd grown, her mother's deceitful and spiteful ways were clear.
Sophie soon came bounding over, her eyes red and bloodshot. Clearly, she'd been crying.
"What the hell happened?" Agatha asked as her best friend slammed her tray down and sat in front of her.
"U-uglification." Sophie let out a sob, and Agatha frowned.
"Uglification? Really? I see no difference, Sophie." She sighed.
"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO TASTE!" Sophie cried, storming away as quickly as she'd come. Agatha stared after her, blinking.
"Ohh, now I see it. The damaged ego was the uglifying." She grinned, changing her mind about the food and grabbing Sophie's tray, before realising it too, was a soggy gloop. She stole an apple from her previous tray, which Dot had claimed, and got up herself, walking back to the Ever side to sit with Mal and Evie.
"What happened with Sophie?" Evie asked as soon as her butt hit the seat.
"Ego-uglification."
"That's a lesson?"
"No. Just Uglification, but for Sophie, the only thing it made uglier was her ego. Can't quite tell if it made it grow or not, God knows what she said to get out of it."
"Didn't work, if she's acting like that." Mal scoffed, giving Agatha a look.
"I gave my food to Sophie's roommates, I knew you'd share some with me. Also, it would make me sick."
"You don't care about sickness, Agatha. You always say you hope it'll kill you once and for all."
"Sorry if my trail of thought offends you."
"It does, actually."
"Great! I'll be sure to mention it more often."
Mal sneered at her while Evie snickered, passing Agatha her soufflé. Agatha grinned, giving it a suspicious sniff before digging in. She raised her eyebrows when she swallowed. "No poison, Evie? No proving you're as Evil as your mother?"
"She can stick to the poison, I'll go some other way." Evie let out a small laugh.
"Well, we're in Good, so good luck with that." Mal said, smirking slightly.
Agatha's head suddenly hurt, and her vision went dark, her legs jellying. Mal jerked to her feet to catch her when she fell in a dead faint. People stared, confused, as the crazed Isle kid who'd tried to break the barrier between Good and Evil was carried out by her twin sister.
———
Mal hated everything about Auradon, from the colour scheme, to the people. All of it. But she especially hated the impact it was having on her sister. Sure, the Isle was absolute shit, but at least it wasn't trauma Agatha was left to think about for the rest of her life knowing it would never happen again but she still couldn't get it out of her head. Somehow, that hurt more than the things being done. The suicide attempts, the blood all over her room and daggers in a stash under the floorboards, the times she begged for food, the days she went without anything, the birthdays and punishments, the stalkers, the tortured screams coming from Maleficent's makeshift 'lair' as she bled out, needles and knives stuck in every crevice of her body except her neck, where a rope lay. Maleficent would work day in and day out to find something that would kill Agatha, something that would end the unwanted daughter's life. Something she'd been focusing on for so long, she'd forgotten to raise the older twin to be the second Dark Fairy, and instead, raised the latter to despise her. The entire clan of siblings loathed their mother. Yes, they were terrified of her, but it didn't mean they hated her down to her bones, and would stop at nothing to avenge Agatha. To avenge all of them, in fact. Their childhoods. Death was too kind for that level of Evil, they said. It would take centuries to properly get the appropriate revenge.
Now, standing in Surviving Fairytales, Mal reflected that, clutching her sister's hand as they waited for a teacher. Sophie was next to them, staring at Tedros. Evie, Jay, Carlos and Ben were in different forest groups, but, much to the disappointment of the twins, and Sophie, Audrey and Beatrix were in their group. So was Chaddick, but that didn't bother anyone. He was the only Ever both sides liked mutually. The VKs that were in Good were hated by the Evers, and Sophie, the Nevers. Agatha let out a cry of something not really anger or fear, more 'what the fuck', and Mal looked down to see a four-foot gnome beside them, flaring up at Agatha, who was towering above him considerably.
"Bad group." He muttered, before letting them into the forest. Mal looked at Agatha, who blinked, lost for words.
"I thought-"
"Agatha, there are more gnomes than the ones in Snow White, it's been twenty-odd" Mal dragged her along, "Who'd you think gave birth to 'em?"
"That's not what I was thinking, but sure, whatever," she paused, "Can gnomes even have sex?"
"Agatha!" Mal laughed, appalled, as they arrived in the Pumpkin Patch, where the rest of their group was standing. Yuba gave them an odd look as they scrambled to the group, Mal tripping over a root and Agatha snorting as her sister fell.
Chaddick grinned, amused by the two girls, until he realized the entire group was watching his reaction. "C'mon guys, it's funny!"
No one laughed, or agreed.
"Girls! Hurry up!" Yuba bellowed, causing Agatha to go rigid and give Mal a hand up silently, seeming spooked. Mal gave her a worried look, knowing their mother had used those words far too often for them not to be imprinted in Agatha's mind. After the words were uttered, Agatha was usually the one punished, whether it was her fault or not. When Yuba spoke again, Agatha noticeably winced, earning her another look, this time from Tedros, who was next to her in the huddle.
"-you'll need to get into groups of two. But remember, it must be a boy and a girl! Get into your- Chaddick, stop it! Beatrix, you can't go with Reena- Right, never mind, I'll choose the groups." Yuba groaned, exasperated by the teenage antics before him.
He looked around at all of them.
"Flavia, with Nicholas. Kiko, Tristan. Ava, Tarquin. Mal, with Chaddick, please."
Mal tuned out the rest, ignoring Beatrix's glared that could set fire to her jacket, until she heard the last pairing.
"Agatha and Tedros."
Agatha looked ready to throw up. Tedros couldn't care less, just seemed to be trying to avoid Beatrix's wrath by hiding behind Agatha, which wasn't making the situation any better. Mal rolled her lips into her mouth and bit down, hard, to stop herself laughing.
"Any questio- what, Beatrix?" Yuba failed to ignore Beatrix waving her hand in the air, since it's the only movement in the forest.
"I don't believe a villain's child should be paired with Good's greatest king's son. He's the only heir to the throne, what if something happens?"
Mal scoffed. Beatrix glared. Agatha said nothing. Tedros offered no defence, nor any agreement.
"It'll be fine." Yuba dismissed her, "Pairs, you need to collect ingredients for an Uglification potion Evil will be using later on. Professor Manley doesn't care for his students, so wants you lot to do his dirty work. Okay, here's the recipe, I'll be watching if anyone misbehaves or skives, goodbye." He left without another word, leaving sheets of parchment with the ingredients on a tree stump nearby, and a group of confused students, who stared at each other. Chaddick shrugged, walking over to the papers, only for them to repel him.
"The first test," Tuba's voice boomed from somewhere around them, "find out who's truly Good."
Everyone looked at Chaddick, who looked just as confused as his classmates.
Yuba's voice cleared its throat reassuringly adding, "Chaddick's Good, don't worry. I meant 100% Good. A soul so pure it cannot be matched."
A puff of smoke turned twenty heads, and a set of rules appeared.
Evil attack. Good defend.
Evil punish. Good forgive.
Evil hurt. Good help.
Evil take. Good give.
Evil hate. Good love.
"Those who have difficulty following these rules cannot claim themselves as 100% Good." Yuba's voice boomed. "You have four more guesses to see who's truly Good, or you each get two weeks cleaning dishes."
Students protested, but they went ignored.
"Good luck." Yuba's voice stopped as if it had been a figment of everyone's imagination. No one moved.
Tedros stepped forward confidently, going over to the tree stump and putting his hand out.
It rejected him.
People stared at their number one prince was thrown into a bush by an invisible force. No one wanted to try, anymore.
Sophie suddenly emerged, and, judging by the look on her face, she thought this would prove she was Good.
It didn't, because in what world do things work out for the villain, right?
Sophie went flying backward, knocking into Beatrix and pushing her into Chaddick, who grabbed Mal in an attempt to stay upright. Agatha scoffed.
Whatever was going through her head, Mal didn't know, but she found herself (after she'd managed to stand again) shoving Agatha towards the stump, to which she received a fierce stare that could have frightened an animal.
Whispers sounded throughout the group.
'Why is she there?', 'She's not good!'
Agatha huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, and started forward, wincing as she came to the spot where the forcefield seemed to be. Slowly. she reached her hands out, willing herself to touch it. Her fingers came in contact with an electric force. She could feel her blood rushing as she planted her feet in the ground so to not be thrown back.
Students around her tensed, some gasping and others gasped as she touched the one thing that would cause her mother to wreak ultimate havoc upon the earth...
Nothing happened.
Her eyes shot open, and she leaned closer to the stump.
Still, nothing happened.
Gasping, she picked up the papers and walked away, her mind a blur.
———
"Where the hell are we meant to find... I can't even read that." Tedros was saying, peering at the paper as if it were in another language, "Yuba should've given us a bloody map." He muttered.
"Hm?" Agatha rummaged through the contents of the small amount that they'd collected, which had invoked a series of awkward 'Tedros, they're right in front of you', and 'Agatha can you read this?'.
"It says... why are they handwritten? Uh, it looks like it says placenta, but it can't, 'cause that's a thing only pregnant people get." He huffed, passing her the paper. "I may as well sit and do nothing. You know what it says and what they look like!"
"That's what happens when you grow up on an island with a barrier around it which is covered in all sorts of fungi and shit like that." She said, "Also, it says pansies."
He stared at her.
"This way." She said.
"No, no, I know- well I don't know where to go- let me speak. I'm sorry about... the Isle." He said, stopping her from speaking when she opened her mouth.
"'S fine. Character building, am I right?" She forced a laugh, only to see him remain serious, "Seriously, it's not that bad. I mean, compared to here, maybe, but when you've lived there your whole life... you get used to it."
"Agatha, you've had panic attacks and breakdowns over things that happened there. It's not 'fine'." He sat down on a large stump. "It never was, you'd just adjusted. Then you were thrown over here, sorted into Good, and it's so different to everything you grew up with. It will never be 'fine', you spent sixteen years of your life living in an absolute hellhole, if anything the driver that brought you here said was true. There's nothing that could change whatever happened."
She stared at him, any insults she was prepared to throw back dying on her tongue. She sat down next to him. "Maybe you're right. It was a fucking hellhole there. But I grew up learning how to say 'fuck it' and keep going, whether or not I was bleeding out in a ditch."
"What?"
"Doesn't matter. Point is, there's no point in acknowledging anything bad about it. It's not the place, it's the people. We could easily clean the damn thing up, make it a bit nicer, but no, we decided to rot and waste away until our parents were nothing but memories in fairytale stories that your grandparents make up at bedtime. None of us are anything more than a few scumbags that were treated like shit for sixteen years. We're never gonna be anything more than dog crap you accidentally stepped in walking home from your perfect day out as a kid. That's all we ever were, Tedros." She stared at him, and for the first time since they'd arrived, Tedros saw something in her eyes. They were normally void of any sort of feeling, but he could see fear in her eyes so clearly that it was almost like it was permanently embedded.
She rolled her eyes and got up. "Time to find some pansies." She said, holding her hand out to pull him up, ignoring him when he asked why she changed the subject.