Mal and Evie were currently having their usual girl's time out as they did every day that them and the boys split up to look for some trouble around the Isle.

Evie was right behind her- Mal could hear her- as they ran through the alley with agility that could rival even that of the boys.

The purple-haired girl dodged past a barrel and, just for the fun of it, climbed up a nearby makeshift shack and landed quickly back on the ground. She turned her head to look at the people that had reacted. Mal threw her head back and laughed gleefully at the faces of disdain, irritation, and hatred.

She turned toward Evie, running backwards, and high-fived her. Mal then continued running in her previous forward direction. She knew she was approaching the end of the alley, so she sped up as fast as she could, fast approaching the wood barrier blocking the alley off from the main square.

Mal easily scaled the wood railing, hoisting herself over with her hand as she entered the marketplace. A wicked grin crawled onto her features, a perfect plan to disrupt the entire peace coming into place within her mind almost immediately.

However, her scheming was brought to a halt almost as quickly as it had begun when a noise of strangled pain came from the person behind her. Mal turned toward her quickly, staring at her with a mildly concerned expression.

Evie's eyes turned huge as she started scrambling to get up. However, she quickly stopped, her visage contorted into a barely controlled expression of pain as she subtly grasped at her ankle.

Mal felt her heart twist with something odd that she hadn't ever felt before. It was a strange feeling, but Mal supposed it had to have been sympathy.

Naturally this was a very foreign emotion to her. Don't help others, don't feel for others. Help yourself, feel for yourself, her mother's mantra repeated over and over in her head, pushing her to fight whatever softness she had for the other girl's plight.

Mal glanced about, noticing that everyone in the marketplace was staring or even hatefully glaring at Evie. She glanced back at the bluenette sitting on the ground in pain, desperately trying to get up as she continued to embarrass herself in front of everyone.

Mal started to walk toward her, but she quickly stopped, her mother's incessantly-drilled training making itself known once again. Mal looked down into Evie's face and noted the fear, the humiliation, and the self-hatred that was there.

Those were emotions that she actually was well-familiar with. Every one of them were common within herself.

Evie's eyes met Mal's and she seemed to recognize the internal struggle that the purple-haired girl was suffering. She tried to muster an elegant smile and reposition herself, but the smile quickly dissipated into a grimace.

Mal then knew what she would do. Who cared what her mother thought? And everyone else? She'd get her punishment from her mother, but she needed to help Evie.

Striding over to stand in front her friend, she turned and gave everyone that was looking a horrid glare. They all seemed a little bewildered, but only a select few looked away.

"What are you all looking at? Mind your own business," Mal snarled, yelling loudly at the crowd that was gathered. Everyone jumped in shock and returned back to what they had been doing, purchasing canned, mostly-soiled food from salesmen.

Mal wordlessly bent down on one knee, grabbing Evie's elbow, and began helping the taller girl onto her feet.

Evie clung onto her shoulder tightly, carefully attempting to stand up as Mal tried to stand with her.

Once Mal straightened, she braced herself firmly, supporting the bluenette.

She glanced at the area, trying to find someplace Evie could recover out of the direct line of sight. They couldn't go back the way they came because Evie wouldn't be able to climb over the barrier.

Mal then spotted another alleyway across the marketplace. She glanced at Evie, who was supporting herself on one leg and looking at her expectantly. Mal resisted the urge to scoff. As if she was the one who knew best about what to do.

She then resolved to cross the marketplace to the other alley. Tentatively wrapping an arm around Evie's waist, she began moving toward her goal.

In her peripheral vision, she noticed that Evie looked very bewildered. She was repeatedly shifting her gaze between Mal and the crowd, and Mal knew Evie had to be horribly embarrassed.

So as they made their way across the square, her eyes glinted with that infamous green each time she noticed somebody staring at the two of them for a bit too long.

Nobody messed with her friends and got away with it. She'd never admit it, but she was fiercely protective of her close group. It was them against the world, and she'd never let any random peasant hurt Evie, Jay, or Carlos. Physically or emotionally.

They finally made it into the alley and Mal started easing down onto her knees, letting Evie sit down at her own pace.

Sliding down carefully, Evie finally plopped down on the cold, somewhat damp concrete. Mal stood back up, checking to ensure that no one was coming to cause any trouble.

She then moved down the wall to take a seat nearby her friend.

"Thank you," Evie whispered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Mal was reminded of a scared little child, and she had to suppress the immediate response that told her to further the pain. She didn't want to treat Evie that way. Mal cared about her. Evie was more family to Mal than even her own mother.

"Yeah, next time just don't go spazzing out in the middle of the square. You could've got hurt," Mal let a little concern slip into her voice, but largely concealed it as she propped her head up with her hand.

Evie nodded with a small smile and tried to carefully rotate her foot at the ankle. However, with a sharp intake of breath, it became evident that she obviously couldn't do that without extreme pain.

Mal looked down at Evie's shoe, raising an eyebrow.

Evie exchanged a glance with Mal and Evie leaned up carefully, gently pulling off her shoe and examining the now exposed skin.

Mal didn't even react to the rapidly blackening flesh, choosing to keep her eyes trained on the other girl's face.

"It looks broken," Mal mentioned rather unhelpfully. She almost regretted it when she saw Evie stiffening and breathing quick, short breaths in panic.

"Mal, what am I going to do? Mother's going to be so mad!" Evie hysterically told her, and Mal chewed the inside of her cheek, knowing the feeling of suffering from a mother's wrath.

"She's going to lock me up again, Mal, she's going to!" Evie was working herself into a frenzy, her eyes darting around the alley in an attempt to focus on something. Mal was the only one who knew it, but Evie suffered badly from sudden bouts of fear that crept upon her. They weren't exactly panic attacks, and Mal called them temporary freak-outs.

They always came when she started stressing about her mother, what was expected of her, or just when she was focusing on something worrisome too long.

Mal reached over and placed a hand of Evie's knee, drawing the taller girl's attention immediately.

"Breathe. Get a hold of it, E. It's going to be fine. I'm going to tell my mother that I'm going to be out pestering the town for a few days and you are going to be with me. She'll probably do as she always does and gloat to all of our parents about how wickedly evil I am for torturing everyone," Mal informed her calmly and Evie seemed to be clinging onto her every word as if it was her last link to the sane world.

"Your mother will be too scared to dispute her about it, and when you get home you'll bein considerably less trouble. Because I'm going to make up this killer story about how you epically injured your foot kicking the ever-living daylights out of people. That way, when you go home, you'll only be a little bit in trouble for not telling her about hanging with me and about breaking your ankle.

"And to get you out of that little bit of trouble, I'll bring you there myself and as soon as she shows her face, I'll start talking about how great you were and how I plan to tell my mother all about it," Mal reassured, smiling softly as she saw that Evie had calmed significantly and that the taller girl's hand had made its way to barely touch Mal's fingertips.

"Now let's get out of here. You have to be resting a foot and I've got to be deliciously deceiving our parents," Mal told her, standing up with a grunt and offering her hand to the girl on the ground.

"Sounds easy enough. Tricking the evilest villains on the Isle," Evie hesitantly joked as she grabbed Mal's hand tightly, pulling herself upright. Mal chuckled.

"I think I can arrange it."

…

Later that night, Evie was sitting in Mal's Secret Lair. At least that was what Mal called it, Evie called it the clubhouse. Obviously never to Mal's face, though. She always seemed to get excited when anyone called it something besides the Secret Lair.

Carlos had called it home base once and Mal went off on a tangent about how it was nothing like baseball and it was for people that were rotten to the core, not sporty to the core. All he did was laugh at her and ultimately ignore her rant, but Evie felt a little bad for her and her delusional visions of wicked grandeur. After all, how could the upper floor of an old warehouse be a grand Secret Lair?

Nevertheless, Evie was lounged in the Secret Lair/Clubhouse in a ragged armchair as she intently watched Mal spray-paint the wall with beautiful hues of blue, purple, red and gold, as well as black and white.

When Mal paused for a moment to look at her work, Evie chose to express her gratitude, something she'd been dying to do since Mal so graciously saved her rear end from a world of trouble with her mother.

"Uhm… I wanted to thank you… Again. For what you did for me today," Evie spoke quietly, her voice echoing softly throughout the concrete room. Mal put her hands on her hips and turned to face Evie. She glanced down at Evie's foot and then back at her face.

"Don't mention it. Anything else you need for your foot?" Evie understood that Mal was trying to hide a variety of emotions. Her face was too readable. At least when she was alone with any of her three closest friends.

"No, I think I'm good. It hurts a bit when I move it, but other than that, I'm fine."

"Cool. You should probably hang around here for a lot of tomorrow. I'll try to threaten the townspeople into not saying anything about the fact that you were not there. Otherwise, my mother might catch on to the bluff," Mal told her, looking down at her feet awkwardly as she rocked on the balls of her feet.

Evie smiled a bit, her lips separating to reveal a beautiful row of sparkly, perfect teeth. She then moved her gaze to the elegant graffiti decorating the wall behind the purple-haired girl.

"Is that us?" Evie questioned, shifting her gaze from Jay to Carlos to Mal and finally herself. Mal snapped out of her thoughts and nodded her head.

"Yep. It's not one-hundred percent done, and it's far from perfect. I didn't get how warm Carlos' eyes are or how great your hair manages to stay throughout all the crap we get into. Seriously, how does your hair stay that wonderful? You've got to give me some tips for all of this," Mal pointed up at the area of the wall representing Evie's visage and then pointed at her own hair with faux disgust.

Evie laughed and shook her head, inevitably beaming at Mal's uncharacteristic lapse of girliness. It was very occasional, and mostly Mal did it just to get a laugh out of the taller girl. Mal was perfectly comfortable with her looks. Even if she did have a lot of split-ends that gave Evie the shudders to even think about.

"A magician never reveals her secrets," Evie mysteriously replied with an enigmatic expression.

Mal rolled her eyes, huffing and putting on a smirk as she turned back to her punk-rocker masterpiece.

"Oh, well. It was worth a try. Personally, I think you use magic," Mal teased.

"Actually, it's all one hundred percent talent," Evie couldn't help but brag a little, flipping her hair smugly.

"Huh. Wish I was talented like that sometimes," Mal expressed, her voice laced with an edge of some softer emotion and the hand that was currently grasping the spray-can falling to her side.

"I wish I was talented like that sometimes," Evie gestured at the painting on the wall that had come to life before her very eyes in only thirty minutes.

"I could teach you if you want," the green-eyed girl offered. Evie's eyes softened as she looked at the other girl with a foreign feeling of strong fondness.

"I'd like that." Mal smiled in response, a rare occurrence due to the fact that she was hardly that genuine. The purple-haired girl then brought over a blue spray-can and began to show Evie the basics of controlling the paint in a certain area on the cement flooring.

Despite the fact that Evie didn't know it that day or even a year from then, that girl was her sister. Blood or not.

A/N: So when I originally wrote this fanfic, I hadn't watched the Descendants movies, so I was under the impression that they did have access to some base magic on the Isle. However, since I've watched the movie, I realized that I would need to edit this story to accommodate the actual happenstances in the movies. So I fixed it up a little for you all so it'd make a little more sense in context with the films.