- This is the first of several one shots I decided to write after watching the second half of Descendants on tv last night. The movie was cheesy, but I liked the concept – I just wish some of the relationships and parent to child dynamics had been thought out a little more.

- These one shots will be from the gang's childhood up to right before they leave the island.

Evie

8 Years old.

Evie's Mother was the most powerful and knowledgeable enchantress alive. She didn't have the raw magic power to be a powerful sorceress like Lady Maleficent, but she had enough to add an increased power to her already fearsome potions and elixirs.

Today, Grimhilde had deigned to reveal the process behind one of the darkest concoctions the queen had ever created; her beloved immortality potion. Evie had known for a while now that the creation of the potion required horrific sacrifices, but she had never been privy to seeing it made in person.

Resisting the urge to throw up as she was forced to witness her Mother slitting the throat of the baby girl dangling over the old cauldron in their cellar, Evie found herself desperately wishing that the woman had guarded the secrets of the evil brew for a while longer.

"….Mother, who did that baby belong to?" Glancing up with a derisive purse of her lips, Grimhilde shook her head.

"No one really. In exchange for a love potion I had a young woman on the other side of the island give me her child. Seems the silly girl let herself become knocked up with the spawn of a man that wanted nothing more from her than her body."

"I see." And she did. After all, Mother had made sure Evie was well aware of her place.

"Preserve yourself, Evelynn. Your beauty makes you a prize men would die to claim and I will not have that body tainted when the time comes for me to take it."

"Yes Mother."

When people heard she was the Evil Queen's daughter, they paused and took a moment to scrutinize her appearance, wondering if she was simply a clone the woman had created in her image. Grimhilde's vanity and her past with the renowned Snow White was legendary; the idea that the woman would risk repeating history by having another child was preposterous.

Only Evie and her two closest friends knew the truth. On her sixteen birthday her Mother would hand her a potion that kills instantly; stopping the heart and freezing the body as if it'd been injected with ice. Her body would remain frozen until the next full moon, when Mother would wash the body in elixirs imbued with powerful Dark Magicke. Her new body ready for the evil soul it would host, Grimhilde would then slit her wrist and drain her blood into the corpse's mouth, allowing her soul to travel with it into her new, youthful form.

Seven years and ten months ago, Grimhilde summoned a demon known for his beauty and used him to conceive a child. Over the long months of her pregnancy she downed hundreds of potions to increase her child's beauty and power to such levels that would surpass even hers.

She learned from the mistake she'd made with her first child, she once said. Rather than leave Evie ignorant as she had done with Snow White, her second child would know implicitly why she had been born.

"Mother….." The young brunette began nervously.

"Yes?"

"I know we have to be the most beautiful –"

"We don't have to be anything. We are the most beautiful, Evelynn." The queen snapped with a dangerous glint in her eyes. Feeling a thrill of alarm shoot down her spine, Evie nodded and quickly backtracked.

"I – yes, of course Mother; I mischose my wording. My apologies."

For a moment the ex-queen continued to watch her daughter in the way a viper might stare at a rat that it's just bitten. Evie stiffened, her blood turning cold as she fought to keep from flinching. Moving her muscles into such an unsightly position would give her wrinkles, thus making her ugly. Being ugly meant being punished.

The last time she'd let herself be ugly like that, Mother had paralyzed her with poison and left her in the cellar for a week. Not the worst punishment she'd ever had by a long shot, and being cut off from sunlight and movement like that had done wonders for her complexion….but still. She'd still been terrified of the dark back then, and the tears accompanying her silent screams had dried out the skin around her eyes quite terribly.

Luckily her Mother was in a merciful mood that day. Letting her daughter off with a reprimanding nod, she waited for the young woman to continue.

"The cost of making this potion – that is to say, the fact that it requires this," she pointed to the unmoving body now carelessly cast aside on the ground with a trembling finger. "Makes me feel…..ugly inside. Bad."

"My dear, simple Evelynn. It doesn't matter what you feel inside, even if it is ugly," she scoffed with a regal if patronizing wave of her hand. "As long as you're beautiful on the outside, that's what matters. I've told you over and over again and you never listen," she sighed with an almost motherly exasperation.

"No one cares what you're like on the inside. Being pretty is the only reason people notice you and since you won't be the one suffering if that beauty fades, you need to be responsible and guard that gorgeous appearance of ours preciously. Let no one near enough to mar it, understood?"

Evie wasn't hearing these words for the first time. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing that poor child killed so callously, but for some reason she felt a small crack of hurt and rebellion appear in her heart.

She accepted that Mother was right about most things. The woman was, for all intents and purposes, her god. But this time…..this time Mother was wrong. Mal told her all the time that she was smart, and Jay was always the first to quietly chuckle when she made the rare attempt at a joke.

"I understand, Mother."

She hadn't been given permission yet, but she desperately wanted to see her friends. She felt hopeful that she would be allowed outside for a few minutes today; the sun was covered by dark clouds and with some potions her skin would be completely protected. Although….

Asking to go outside would be greedy, and despite our ungrateful she was being by feeling so uncomfortable with the ingredients being used she had been given a truly precious gift by being allowed to watch. The young girl paused for a moment as she watched her Mother drop a strange looking fruit into the cauldron, causing the liquid inside to turn an unsettling grey color. A foul stench filled the room, and Evie covered her mouth and nose in disgust.

Okay, so maybe she wasn't being too demanding by wanting to go outside. Besides, if there was ever a day to ask it was today.

It was her birthday, after all.

- Wow, this ended up a little darker than I would have liked. When I started writing, I didn't plan for some of the content to be quite so disturbing. Sorry about that.

- I've decided that while she knows Carlos and could even be considered friends with him, she may not consider him a best friend quite yet. She's only eight right now though, so give her time.