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How dare they.
How dare they.
They think they can take her children away from her? Just for stealing a bunch of dogs?
And it wasn't even Cecil who stole the dogs. It was just Ella, Ella and those good-for-nothing lowlifes Jasper and Horace.
Ella steals fifteen dogs, and drives a bit too fast, and has a couple of tantrums-
-and for that they lock her up forever?
They hadn't even focused on the other eighty-four dogs that Ella had bought with her own money. These so-called "heroes" focused only on the bad, not on the good. And they called Ella a villain! At least Ella knew how to find the good in other people!
They had come, soldiers in their blue-and-yellow armor that looked horrible on them, the colors clashing with each other, the heavy armor clanking when they walked, and Malevola had wondered if they felt as ridiculous as they looked, and that was why they'd been so harsh. They hadn't even let her, an old woman, embrace her only daughter one last time.
In fairness, she'd been going to smuggle a lockpick to Ella as she hugged her, but they didn't know that, did they?
Ella had put up a good fight, like a true de Vil, but they'd taken her away and didn't let Malevola or Cecil see her for months despite their numerous requests, phone calls, petitions, letters, and all the times they'd just shown up at the jail.
They wouldn't let them see Ella ever again.
So her son Cecil, good brother that he was, had risked going to the Beast himself and had volunteered to live on the Isle with all the "villains," (Malevola wondered how villainous they really were) just so he could be with Ella.
And they had both been sent to the Isle, them and all the other villains.
Malevola had gone to the "Great Deportment," as the press called it. Her children had been far from the only people being banished. There were a great many people there. Some looked happy that the terrible villains were being exiled forever. Others, like Malevola, looked outraged.
Even the Radcliffes had agreed that Ella didn't deserve life imprisonment for stealing their dogs.
It had been crowded, and no allowance had been made for the family of the banished. Malevola had only caught a glimpse of her children once, when they were already on the ship. Cecil had waved, his face stoic and determined, his other arm around Ella's shoulders. Ella had called something to her Malevola couldn't make out.
And then the ship sailed away, and they were gone.
That had been two years ago, and she'd received no word of them since.
No letters, no phone calls, nothing.
No mail came from the Isle, apparently. Or to-Malevola's letters were all returned.
What kind of system was this?
No one was able to visit the Isle, even for a short time.
She'd asked if Cecil, at least, could come over for a bit, since he wasn't a "villain," but the answer she received was that, since he'd aligned himself with the villains, he was as good as one.
Her Cecil, the kindest, noblest, self-sacrificing young man ever, who had given up his future for his sister, a villain?
Malevola had ripped that letter into shreds and set it on fire.
This was....this was insane.
Something had to be done.
She would arrange a meeting with the Beast and his Beauty.
She was a de Vil, a member of an ancient, aristocratic society. She could claim right of nobility to meet with them.
She could say she had found new evidence of Ella's "crimes."
She could say she wanted to negotiate for the House of de Vil's ban on selling to anyone affiliated with the monarchy.
Any of these reason would suffice.
She would meet with them, and once she was in a room with them...
Malevola had a sword hidden in her cane, and poison in her rings, and knives hidden in secret pockets in her clothes.
One way or another, she would succeed.
They would pay for what they had done to her, to her family, to her children.
The world would remember the name of de Vil