Title: Deeper Descent

Author: DhampyrX2

Genre: Adventure/Drama/X-over

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm poor.

Summary: Just a deeper look in what might have been in Mal's head after the encounter with Jane where she turned her hair back. And if Disney was a concerned with maintaining modern movie continuities the way their Marvel cousins were...

Mal was still snarling to herself two days after the encounter at Parent's Day as she cleaned up after herself in Remedial Goodness. It was a testament to her souring mood with most of the school that even Evie, Jay, and Carlos were quick to get away from her lest they attract her ire. Everything about Auradon was grating on Mal's nerves like it never had before. The pressure her mother had put on her to get the Fairy Godmother's magick wand mounted by the day and the snippy attitudes of the supposedly heroic royals at the school were actually making her start to miss the Isle. At least there people were honest about their nastiness.

It had been bad enough dealing with that annoying twit Audrey (she refused to refer the Aurora's daughter as "Princess" in the sanctity of her own mind when half her family's holdings belonged to Maleficent and the other Faerie people by right) but to encounter and be humiliated by that withered old crone that Stephan had sired Aurora with? That was too far. She had had enough. Enough of the taunting. Enough of the teasing. Enough of the hatred literally because of where she was born. Enough of watching her own mother become so obsessed with revenge against these fools that she was becoming more of a caricature of herself every day.

Did Aurora have any idea what she had done sending Maleficent to a place that bound her mother's magick? An urbanized slum almost totally cut off from nature as a whole? What kind of torture that would be for an all but immortal faerie sorceress? Things only got worse when Mal's father, Diaval, had passed away stuck as he was in his human form. The rightful Queen of the Moors did not take things like loss and betrayal very well.

Her mental musings were cut short as she hear someone clear her throat and a voice stated, "I saw Jane. She's rather... upset," the Fairy Godmother commented neutrally.

Mal turned with a cynical scowl to face Jane's mother and the Remedial Goodness instructor, which was really more of a faculty adviser than anything, for the villain children at Auradon Prep. "If she had any concept of her own ability as a Fae she should be able to do her hair all on her own," Mal snorted disdainfully. In her first days at the school she had used her magick to improve the other fae girl's mousy pageboy haircut and make her look glamorous as part of her attempts to get information and ingratiate herself to the other students at the school. It hadn't hurt that it had horrified Mal to see another child of powerful Faerie kept ignorant of her own heritage at the insistence of Jane's mother, either. But it had taken no time at all for Audrey to get Jane acting just like the rest of the so called "heroic" children there despite Mal's efforts. Only Ben (and Doug if Evie was involved) treated the kids from the Isle of the Lost like actual people.

The Fairy Godmother nodded evenly as she responded, "I know."

"Do you?" Mal snarled, her control frazzled almost beyond the breaking point. "Do you?! Do you know what it's like to see a fae girl my age walk around like a scolded puppy afraid of everything around her because she thinks she's too plain? That I needed to bother to do such a simple glamour to make her feel like she belonged here? But then she doesn't really belong here, does she?" Mal spat.

"And what does that mean, young lady?" The Fairy Godmother asked, although the sadness in her eyes betrayed that she exactly what Mal meant.

"You have the nerve to ask me that as you stand here like some powerless human in a human kingdom, while your own wand, the focus of your powers, is locked in some museum instead of being in your hand where it belongs?" Mal demanded.

"I didn't need it with the peace the uniting the the kingdoms into Auradon created," the Fairy Godmother replied with a sideways glace.

"It's not about needing it. It's about the fact that it's yours," Mal hissed. "But I guess they won't even trust the Fae on their side to have enough power to defend themselves. Nice to see Aurora following so closely in her father and grandfather's footsteps."

"She is the crowned Queen still," the Fairy Godmother replied neutrally. "Your own mother declared her Queen of the Moors in her stead long before you were born."

"And in return she banished my mother based on lies and assumptions, then gave away a kingdom and people she had no right to sign away, betraying us ALL twice over!" Mal raged. "She broke my mother's heart, like her father before her, just to join and appease these sycophants that look at me and my friends like we're diseased because of where we were born after THEY put us there in the first place."

"Her Majes... that is, Maleficent did not look that bad during your video call with her on parent's day. Well, besides her making comments over my weight," the Fairy Godmother noted wryly.

"You haven't seen her decline. Especially after Daddy..." Mal noted with a look of pained sorrow.

"I must admit that has been a matter of speculation around the faculty, and the Faire Folk, residing here. Who was he?" the Fair Godmother inquired softly, knowing this was a painful subject for her charge.

"Diaval. My father was Diaval," Mal replied hoarsely.

"Her familiar?" the Fairy Godmother asked in shock.

"He was in human form when he was banished and could never return to his natural form as a raven because of the anti-magick barrier around the island. And well, familiars are not so resilient as fae. Especially in a form not truly their own. He's been gone for a while now..." Mal admitted.

"I'm sorry," the Fairy Godmother replied as she moved to place a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder only to be shaken off violently.

"You should be," Mal snapped. "Conforming to the whims of these humans to make you act like them. Letting your daughter feel like she's something lesser among them. I was raised with my magick bound around me by the island and its barrier but I at least knew what it is to be proud of my bloodline. Jane has no idea of the power in her veins. She thinks of herself as a commoner even among humans, while you are one of the most powerful of the Faire Folk in this wretched place."

"And if I tried to act like it where would I be?" Jane's mother asked sadly.

Mal thought for a moment before deflating as she replied, "Your powers stripped and shipped off to Isle just like Mother."

"We must do what we can to protect our own, Mal. King Adam and Queen Belle did not exactly have positive encounters with magick or Fairy sorceresses. Or did you forget it was one of us that cursed him into the form of a Beast for his lack of hospitality? Do you think Jane could survive here without me? Or survive on the Isle of the Lost if she was banished along side me for my insolence?" the Fairy Godmother replied evenly.

"It might have done her some good. She would have developed some spine there. And we DO take care of our own," Mal sneered.

"Yes, because Evie looked so much like she could take care of herself letting Chad Charming manipulate her into doing his homework before trying to humiliate her when she stopped helping him cheat," the Fairy Godmother noted the recent plight of the Evil Queen's daughter with sarcasm as she raised her left eyebrow in challenge. She honestly didn't know where her little Cinderella's boy got his manipulative streak from, but there were days she wanted to turn him into a toad or a rat for an afternoon to try to break him of his habits.

Mal grunted and looked away as she conceded, "In her own ways Evie has always been starved for attention. It doesn't help that the four of us grew up almost as siblings all being the same ages as the kids of the more prominent residents of the Isle. She couldn't exactly look to Jay or Carlos to reinforce her mother's puerile need to be 'pretty' once she started growing into a woman because they could never see her that way. Nor could she expect them to fulfill Grimhilda's ridiculous ideal of her daughter finding a rich and handsome prince to care for them both as if any such thing existed there. All she was allowed to learn was to ensnare men and keep house."

The Fairy Godmother's expression softened as she noted, "At least Ben takes more after his parents than Chad ever did. He really does like you, you know."

Mal looked away in what she hoped would pass for embarrassment. The last thing she needed was for the meddling excuse for a Faerie to realize Mal had given Ben a potion to make him take an interest in her as part of her mother's plot to obtain the wand of the woman before her. What they were building together wasn't real. No matter how much she wanted it to be. But thoughts of taking after parents made her think of that cow Audrey and raised her ire all over again.

"Some people here take too much after their parents, if you ask me," Mal muttered darkly.

"Despite your little introduction your first day, and the friction between you both over the Prince now, Princess Audrey never knew the whole story between her mother and yours," the Fairy Godmother pointed out, knowing full well the source of the purple-haired girl's sour mood.

"Yes because a pretty lie is easier to deal with than the truth. My mother and father BOTH would be soaring the skies above our heads right now if it wasn't," Mal challenged back.

"Perhaps," the Fairy Godmother conceded. "But is there anything you can do about it now without putting yourself and your friends at risk?"

"Does tearing out every hair on my would be niece's head count as doing something?" Mal asked.

"I think that might still get you in trouble," the Fairy Godmother noted as she tried to hold in a smile.

Mal deflated at bit as she responded, "Then no. There isn't anything I can do. That doesn't make what Aurora did right, though."

"No, it doesn't. But unless your mother somehow gets free and challenges her for the right to the throne of the Moors there is not much more you could do," the Fairy Godmother replied resignedly.

Mal winced a bit as she noted, "That would be... ugly. Like I said before, Mother has not weathered captivity well."

"At least she had you there with her," the Fairy Godmother replied with a wince of her own. Just the thought of the true Faerie Queen's likely wrath should she ever get free was terrifying to imagine.

Mal saw no reason to discuss how distant and wrathful her mother had become over the years, especially since Diaval's passing, as she weakly replied, "Yeah, right."

"Mal, I know it's been hard adjusting here for all of you. But Ben wants this to work. And not just because you have the poor boy smitten. He wants all four of your to truly feel you belong here. To have a home in Auradon. Is that so bad?" the Fairy Godmother asked.

"No," Mal conceded. "Ben is the best thing about being here by far. And he will make a great king someday."

"Then trust in him. Don't let your anger and jealousy get the better of you. No matter how justified it may be," the Fairy Godmother advised with a shrewd look.

Mal's expression was pure innocence as she asked, "Why whatever do you mean Fairy Godmother?"

"You do realize that I was born in the age when crossing the Faire Folk was still considered a death wish, don't you, child?" Jane's mother asked with a knowing look. "Just because I tried to be better than that doesn't mean I've lost all sense of what it is to be Fae."

Mal remained silent, unwilling to voice her opinion on how little the woman before her seemed to still BE Fae to her again.

"I know you must choose you own path. All I ask is that you consider the consequences. Not just for you or your mother, but for your friends. And that includes Ben. Please think it over," the Fairy Godmother advised before turning and taking her leave.

For her part, Mal could only watch on silently, her head a whirl of new thoughts to ponder. Did she really want to follow her mother's path? Was there redemption at the end of the tunnel for her and her friends? Would Ben think twice about her without the potion in the cookie she gave him?

So many questions. So little time before the coronation, and the wand being free for the taking, to answer them.