Chapter Text
Evie has two things on her mind when she arrives at Carlos’ party. One, is finding Carlos and thanking him for inviting her, because her mother raised her with manners. Two, is having a good time and getting compliments from all the other party-goers who look worse than her.
Evie has two things on her mind when she leaves Carlos’ party. One, is that Mal is a carbon copy of her mother, and Evie has never hated anyone before, but she just might hate her. Two, is imminent death. Her imminent death. She hopes it’ll be quick and painless. Maybe she can get deadly food poisoning from Frollo’s crepe special.
Her vision is blurry from tears, her mascara is unsalvageable, her feet ache because she thought wearing six-inch heels was sensible. It is not a good night.
She thought getting out of her castle, away from the choking atmosphere and the suffocating presence of her mother, would make life better. Evie has never felt more hurt or alone.
She’s still trapped. Her mother or Mal. There’s always someone waiting to smother her. She can’t escape, she can’t get away.
She’s in a prison with no bars, she’s in a place with no air. She can’t breathe.
Her breaths are coming out loud and ragged, her throat is constricting, her chest is a war-zone. Everything aches. She’s never wanted more to be anyone but herself.
Evie wipes furiously at her eyes, tripping over a fallen crate and catching herself at the last minute. The smell of day-old fish fills her nose, she tripped over a fishing crate. She must have taken the wrong path. She’s not at the market, she’s at the docks.
“Zeus, are you kidding me with this?” Evie huffs, her throat burning. “Can this night get any worse?”
She hears the click of heeled boots across the wooden dock, the scrape of a sword trailing along the ground.
“Oh, come on,” She sniffs, drying her cheeks with her scarf. “Really? Zeus, turn on your location, I just want to talk.”
“He’s been sending my calls straight to voicemail, if you manage to get in touch with him, tell him I’m really pissed off.” A smooth, silky voice cuts through the buzzing in her ears. Evie tenses, readying herself for a fight. She is fully prepared to step on this person with her high heels. She’ll just pretend it’s Mal and the guilt will go away.
In the half-darkness, all Evie can see is sea-colored braids and dark chocolate eyes.
Evie’s been locked up in a castle since she was six, her first source of human contact in ten years besides her mother was Carlos, and Carlos stares at Jay’s ass more than he stares at hers.
Evie spent her whole childhood learning what beauty looks like, Evie sees herself in the mirror and can pick out every flaw, every defect. She knows what beauty looks like.
This girl takes beautiful to higher and better places, Evie might have to revise her definition.
“Holy poison apples,” Evie says, the words slipping out. All that crying must have affected her brain. “You are gorgeous.”
The girl makes a face like Evie kicked her, “What?”
“Sorry, please ignore me.” Evie laughs wetly, “I just had a mental breakdown. Feel free to go on your way. Have a rotten evening.”
“Oh, thank Poseidon, I thought you were trying to hit on me.”
“Me having a breakdown is better than me hitting on you?”
“I’ve already got one slightly unstable person hitting on me, I don’t need another.”
“That’s slightly concerning.”
“Nah, it’s cool. He’s my best friend.”
“That’s even more concerning.”
The girl shrugs, “He’s cute, and possessive, and he likes stabbing things. But that’s what I love about him.”
“Um,” Evie feels wildly unequipped to be having this conversation. “Congratulations? He sounds…amazing?”
“He is,” The girl crosses her arms, a half-smile playing on her lips. “His name’s Harry.”
“Harry Hook?” It figures Evie would run into Captain Hook’s future daughter-in-law. She feels her pulse quicken, she may be an average fighter, but she’s no match for the son of Captain Hook, especially if he’s mad at her for hitting on his girlfriend. “I’m sorry for having a breakdown on your dock, please don’t tell your future father-in-law to kill me.”
“My future…” The girl’s eyes widen, “Oh, no. Harry and I aren’t together, and we’re definitely not engaged.” She adds, as though it’s an afterthought, “Even though he wishes we were.”
“Thank Hades,” Evie says, “There’s no way I could run in these heels.”
“What’s with that, anyway?”
“I was at a party earlier,” Evie almost starts crying again just thinking about it. There’s no way she can go back to Dragon Hall on Monday. She’s going to have to be castle-schooled for the rest of her life, she might as well become a shut-in like Ginny Gothel. “It wasn’t very fun. The exact opposite, actually.”
“You decided to wear six-inch heels for a party?”
Evie gasps, rushing to defend her fashion choices. “They go perfectly with this dress and compliment my legs nicely.”
The girl arches an eyebrow, “Couldn’t you have just worn flats in the same color?”
Evie has never been more offended in her life, “I wear three inches or I wear nothing.”
The girl chuckles, low and melodic, and Evie is sure she is going to have a heart attack. She wishes she didn’t get so flustered over pretty girls. And pretty boys. And anyone, really.
“There are two kinds of people, I guess,” The girl’s eyes sparkle. Slowly, a smile spreads across her face. “Maybe I should’ve asked this before having a whole-ass conversation with you, but what’re you doing wandering around the nasty part of town?”
“I was having a well-deserved emotional breakdown,” Evie says, suddenly realizing she’s been talking to this girl for the past who-knows-how-long and she doesn’t even know her name. She could be an axe-murderer. She’s carrying a sword, for Hades’ sake, she could be a sword-murderer. “Didn’t I mention I was having a breakdown?”
“You did, actually,” The girl says, and Evie can’t tell if she’s impressed or disgusted. “Not really something you wanna be going around telling people, by the way.”
“I’ll take that into future consideration.”
The girl snorts, “Wow. Either you’ve got guts or you’re crazy.”
“Might be a bit of both.” Evie replies honestly, she must be crazy to have thought there was ever a chance of Mal not being totally horrible.
“One thing’s for sure, you’re dressed way too nice to be the daughter of anyone I know,” The girl scans her from head-to-toe. Evie is reminded that her mascara is destroyed and she probably looks like a raccoon. “Wait, are you the daughter of the Evil Queen?”
Evie freezes. The girl’s eyes flash wickedly, “You are. I should’ve known. The blue hair is a dead giveaway.”
Evie doesn’t say anything. This is exactly the last thing she needed, another person finding out she’s the castle-schooled hermit princess and mocking her for it.
“We don’t usually get royalty around here, forgive me if I don’t curtsy.” The girl’s expression is calculating, like she’s trying to pick Evie apart. “Why’s the Blueberry Princess having an emotional breakdown on a grimy dock?”
Evie flinches, she is quickly starting to hate that word, “Don’t call me that.” She says, raising her chin defiantly. “My name’s Evie.”
Surprise flickers across the girl’s face, “Well, what do you know,” A pleased look quickly replaces it. “Looks like the princess has some bite in her. I can respect that.”
The girl takes a step forward and extends her hand to shake, “You can call me Uma.”
Evie meets her halfway, she’s wearing black leather fingerless gloves. Evie might make herself a pair later. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Pleasure’s all mine. Now, how about you tell me why you’re having a breakdown on my dock.”
And Evie tells her.
“You hate her too?”
“With every ounce of rage in my body. And trust me, I have a lot of rage,” Uma lounges back against the wooden crate, legs dangling out over the edge of the water. “She’s a hell-spawn disguised as an over-grown purple gecko.”
Evie blinks, she thinks that’s a lot of anger for someone as tiny as Uma. “What’s the story there? Is there one?”
“I laid eyes on her once and said this ain’t it.”
“Sounds believable,” Evie rolls her eyes, nudging Uma with her elbow. “You don’t have to tell me, but it’s only fair considering I told you my tragic backstory.”
Uma groans and fiddles with one of her braids, “Fine. She and I were best friends when we were eight or nine, and one day we were playing on the docks and she slipped like a bumbling moron and fell into the water. My mom taught me how to swim, half sea-goddess, you know? Anyway, me, being an eight-year-old idiot, I laughed at her. It was the kind of stuff we’d tease each other about, and I thought because my mom taught me how to swim that her mother taught her. She didn’t come up for long time, so I started getting worried because I thought she drowned or something. While I’m all worried about her and shit she comes up behind me and dumps a bucket of shrimp on my head.”
Uma pauses, jaw clenching. All of her earlier amusement has vanished. Evie feels bad for asking, wishes she could take it back. This is so much worse than what Mal did to her. At least Evie and Mal were never friends, Evie can’t imagine ever humiliating someone she considered a friend because of something so trivial. She really regrets not telling Mal she has horrible split-ends and appalling fashion sense when she had the chance.
Uma continues, a faraway look in her eyes, “It took me years and a lot of hair damage to get the smell to go away. The worst part was, everyone saw it. She started calling me Shrimpy and it just…followed me. Everywhere. I transferred out of Dragon Hall to Serpent Prep because I couldn’t stand the name anymore. I’ve hated her ever since.”
Evie worries her bottom lip, fingers twitching in her lap. She wants to reach out and hold Uma’s hand, she wants to get rid of that expression on Uma’s face, but she doesn’t know how Uma will react. Evie’s never had a friend; Evie doesn’t know what to do.
She inhales sharply. She chances it.
Uma’s hand is warm and soft in hers, and she doesn’t pull away. Uma lets Evie hold her hand.
And that’s how it starts.