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Chapter Text

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Auradon...

...Life had never been grander.

An enchanted world of opulence and elegance, whirling day in and day out as if the kingdom spun within a magical snow globe.  Happiness, wealth, goodwill, Auradon was a dazzling land of endless possibilities, ruled over by the King, his Queen Belle, and their three children.

The royal castle was a fortress of grandeur, hosting grand parties, feasts, celebrations as far as the eye could see.  Nobility and gentry alike gathered within the glittering halls at the King's whim, and today, they gathered for a birthday.

It was the glittering halls where every twist and turn was being excitedly raced by the young Princess Evie, who had just turned six.  Excited skips and little hops touched her steps; she was a little girl who knew presents and music and festivities were all for her, and she burst into the grand gallery of the castle, the enormous main hall where the center of the party was being held.  On a blind quest to glimpse the tower of gifts she knew was waiting somewhere in the almost cavernous room, Evie ran straight into Princess Audrey.  Audrey, sixteen, was barely even jostled by her little sister's tiny form, but Evie herself went tumbling backwards, falling onto her butt on the marble tile.

"...Really, Evie, is that any way for a princess to behave?" Audrey turned her head just enough to scowl at her.

Evie pouted, her ecstatic mood deterred for just a second until her brother's laugh was behind her and his arms were lifting her up and setting her on her feet.

"It's her birthday.  Give her a break," Crown Prince Ben said.

"Where are the presents?" Evie quickly demanded, bouncing in place.

Ben shook his head.

"The party's hardly begun.  Just give it a little bit," he said.

A second royal pout fit for a queen, almost too big for the girl's little face.

"Run along," Audrey shooed her away.  "Just—don't actually run."

Evie all but stomped away, disappearing into the crowd of guests.

Glamour and grandeur aside, in spite of the sounds and the lights—young Evie was bored.  A whole day of festivities dedicated to her, and no one for her to talk to.  Her mother and father, entertaining dignitaries and fellow royalty.  Her sister social climbing and her brother mingling, partygoers all adult and woefully uninteresting; in short, no one her own age. Evie was very, very bored, hence her itch to get into some sort of mischief.

So from the main gallery she slipped unseen through the back hallway and crept to the kitchen, planning to sneak a glimpse at her birthday cake. The little princess was practically invisible, as small as she was, moving soundlessly among the kitchen staff whizzing around earnestly to churn out endless food for the party.  Past long counters and kitchen islands she treaded, keeping low but popping up on her tiptoes every few seconds in vain attempts to peek over the too-tall counters for her cake.  She made it all the way to the back of the kitchen without a single sighting of frosting, frowning to herself.

"You're not supposed to be here."

Too short to properly see and too single-minded to even make an attempt, Evie had passed right by the girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the counters. Evie's eyes lit up.  Someone her own age.

"Hi!" she beamed up at the girl.

Her newfound acquaintance wasn't quite as beamy.

She fearlessly made the big leap from the counter down to the floor, narrowing her eyes at Evie.

"Kitchen's no place for a princess," she sneered the word.

Evie didn't like her tone, scrunching up her face instantly.

"Says who?" she questioned.

"Says me!  Now get outta here!" the tough little girl puffed up.

Evie was ready to stand her ground, but the sounds from the party drifted easily past the kitchen, and the blare of a trumpet chorus sounded just then, heralding someone's arrival.

"The Grand Duchess Potts!" the court announcer's voice boomed.

"Grandma!" Evie gasped.

Without another word to the kitchen girl, Evie raced off, this time not too small but too fast to be seen by the chefs and speeding out of the kitchen on those energetic legs of hers.  She didn't even stop when she made it back to the gallery, just ran right into the waiting arms of the plump, cherubic woman standing with the King and Queen in the middle of the room.

"Grandma!!"

"Evie, my dear!" the Grand Duchess lifted her easily, clutching her in a tight hug.

"You made it!" Evie giggled.

"Why, of course I did!"

"But you're leaving..." Evie's face fell almost heartbreakingly.  "You're moving away to Villeneuve."

"But I couldn't miss your birthday party now, could I?"

Her grandmother set her down and took her hand, leading her out among the floor.  She stooped over and sniffed at Evie's hair, making her laugh.

"You smell sweeter than usual, my dear.  Been sneaking into the kitchens?  Looking for a birthday cake, perhaps?"

"Don't tell!" Evie squeezed her hand, looking up at her.

The Grand Duchess laughed happily.

"It'll be our little secret."

Evie had found a dance partner in her brother, riding atop his shoulders as they spun around and around.  Not even Audrey could find time to disapprove, what with the gleeful smile on her little sister's face.

The Grand Duchess watched over all the happenings from one of the royal thrones at the head of the room, relaxing and softly clapping along to the beat of the song.  When Ben put her down, Evie skipped the length of the ballroom to pay her grandmother another visit; her entire past hour had just been her bounding back and forth from the dancefloor to her grandmother.

"Evie, my darling, come here," Grandma Potts patted her lap, and Evie hopped into it.

The Grand Duchess tilted Evie's chin up, had a good long look at her youngest granddaughter's beautiful face.

"...Oh, I will miss you so, Evie," she said.

That beautiful face was overcome with a sad frown.

"Then don't go," Evie told her with all the innocence of a child.

"...I'm afraid it's not that simple, dear.  But here, your first present, from grandma to you."

The Grand Duchess reached down into the bag at her side and pulled forth what looked like a jewelry box, red, carved from sleek wood, with an ornament of a sword piercing a heart as its lock and latch.  Evie gasped, taking the box and running her fingers over the smooth finish.

"It's so pretty..." she breathed.

Her grandmother procured a necklace from her purse, a small ruby heart charm with a golden crown, then fit it into the back of the box and twisted.

The music in the room seemed to drown out in Evie's ears as a beautiful, crystalline melody tinkled out from the box.  Some tiny mechanism within cranked the lid open along with the tune, and there, dancing, as if magically animated, were little detailed figurines of her mother and father.  Evie's earthen eyes sparkled, and her grandmother sang.

"...On the wind, 'cross the sea, hear this song and remember.  Soon you'll be home with me, once upon a December."

She freed the necklace to fasten it around Evie, the heart charm settling in the center of her chest right above her own heart.  Evie rested the jewelry box on her grandmother's lap and threw her arms around her neck, squeezing her tight and breathing in the scent of tea that she always seemed to carry with her.

"I love you, Grandma..." Evie murmured.

"And I love—"

A monstrous clap of thunder struck from out of nowhere, rattling the castle itself right down to its very bones.  The orchestra's music screeched to a disorganized halt, clearing the air and making room for a second thundering boom that sounded alongside a bolt of lightning.  Startled gasps and shouts rippled like waves through the ballroom, and all partygoers froze.  A frightened Evie clung to her grandmother, looking with wide eyes out among the dancefloor.  It was the middle of the afternoon, yet the sky had darkened dreadfully.

When a flash of green fire erupted in the middle of the room, the screams started.

It was a haunting sight that emerged from the quickly dying flames, a gaunt, horned figure reminding the little princess so much of a demon that her entire body started trembling right then and there.  More screams followed, bouncing and echoing off the walls for a moment before deadening into stunned, disbelieving silence.

"...Well.  Quite a glittering assemblage, your majesty," the frightening newcomer crooned, clutching a scepter in one hand as a menacing raven swooped in and came to rest on her shoulder.  "Royalty, nobility, the gentry..."

Her laugh would've been a pleasant sound, if everything about her presence didn't scream "sinister".

Everyone came pouring into the ballroom from other parts of the castle at the commotion, desperate to know what was going on.  Close by, Evie just so happened to spot two of the chefs, a waiter, and behind them, the little girl from the kitchen.  She was staring more intently at the horned woman than quite possibly anyone else in the room.

"Maleficent!!" 

The raging voice of the King boomed through the hall like the thunder as he strode forward to meet her head on, the crowd parting on his approach to let him by.

"How dare you return to this castle!" he snapped.

"...How did you escape from the island?" Queen Belle fearfully asked, gathering Ben and Audrey behind her.

Maleficent's laugh was not so pleasant the second time around.

"Did you think you could banish me to that wasteland?  Imprison me with the common rabble?  Why, I am the Royal Sorceress, your majesty."

"You are not who you made us believe you were. You are a fraud, and a villain!  And you are to stay imprisoned on the island with the rest of them!"

The raven hopped from Maleficent's shoulder to the top of her scepter, and she lifted a hand to idly stroke his feathers.

"...You think you can curse the villains to lead that squalid life?" she questioned, her voice suddenly as hard as the edge of a knife.  "You think you can curse us to live packed together like animals, feeding on your leftovers, your garbage?!  I think not, your majesty, for I curse you.  Mark my words, you and your entire family will die on this day!  Villains!!"

Maleficent struck her scepter to the floor, where it sparked and startled the raven from its perch.

And all at once, the entire room was alight with fires of green.

The running and screams started right away, overwhelming poor Evie's senses of sight and sound.  Chaos erupted as even more new figures burst forth from the fires, and names that meant nothing to Evie began to be shouted from the crowds.

"Jafar!"

"Ursula!"

"Scar!!"

"Facilier and the Horned King!"

Sheer chaos.

Evie didn't even realize that her grandmother had her up and running, her attention was grimly fixed out on the others.  Roars of animals, flashes of lightning, whipping tentacles, the many dazzling and telltale colors and sounds of magic spells being thrown forth; the ballroom was under attack.  Evie saw Ben lock onto Maleficent in the middle of the pandemonium and bravely charge forward, only to be thrown impossibly far across the room with just a wave of the witch's hand, landing hard on the floor and laying there unmoving.

"Ben!!" Evie cried, being pulled this way and that by her grandmother.

Evie couldn't take all the noise, it filled her head and drowned her like thick tar. She somehow picked out the screams of her mother and sister among all the rest, but couldn't find them lost among the panic.  A bolt of purple lightning shot past them, so close that Evie felt the singeing heat of it.  The Grand Duchess sought to find them an escape, a way through the crowds to get out of the ballroom.  Evie caught a glimpse of her father being crushed within the inky black tentacle of a creature half-woman, half-octopus.  She didn't even feel the tears streaming down her cheeks.

She and her grandmother were stopped by an explosion of red smoke just ahead of them, clearing when a tall and gangly man gave a wave of his cobra scepter.

"Going somewhere?" he grinned evilly.

The eyes of the gilded cobra began to glow with magic, and as the villain reared a hand and prepared to unleash some dark spell, a tiny form rushed him around the knees and tackled him into the ground.  The kitchen girl.

"Go!" she shouted, pointing at the wall straight ahead of them all.  "Move it or lose it!" 

She yanked the man's massive hat down over his eyes, buying some time as she moved to reach the wall before Evie and the Grand Duchess. Quickly and easily, before anyone could see, she slid open a hidden door in a small section of wall, beckoning the two inside.

"This way!"

The Grand Duchess was already moving, but Evie suddenly yanked her hand free.

"My music box!" she exclaimed, already spun around on her heels to dive back into the madness and retrieve it.

But the kitchen girl had her around the waist, wrestling her through the door.

"Move it or lose it, princess!"

She successfully got Evie inside, Grandma Potts followed, and the young girl slammed the door shut on them, concealing the entrance just in time to get struck by one of those blasts of purple lightning.  It threw her into the wall, where her head cracked painfully against the wood, and with a groan she slumped unconscious onto the floor.

The noise, the deafening noise didn't stop even after they'd ran what felt like non-stop from the far reaches of the castle.  Here, in the city it was the screeching of a train whistle and the heavy stomps of footsteps back and forth along the platform.  News that the villains had invaded was not something so easily sequestered, and the mad dashes for escape and safety were just as prominent here at the train station as they were back in the royal castle.  The train was already on the move, and the Grand Duchess just barely caught the end of it, climbing aboard.  

But someone chose that moment to rush right past her and Evie, jarring the princess' hand loose from her own.

"Evie!!" she called out, reaching out desperately to her granddaughter racing to keep up alongside the train tracks.

"Grandma!" Evie's eyes blurred all over again for the countless time that night.  She reached back, stretching out her fingers.

But it was absolutely no use.

The little girl was lost among the crowd, swallowed up by the throng, shoved over onto the hard pavement, her head smacking into cold stone when someone knocked her down as they raced by.

Her vision swam, bright white, then fading to gray.  The last things she felt were the tears on her cheeks, the last thing she heard was her grandmother's voice, calling out again and again.

"No, Evie!!  Evie!"

Again and again.

"...Evie...Evie..."

Fading to black.  Everything dulling.

"E...vie...E...vie...”

Absolute blackness.  Utterly inescapable.

"...E...”