Fate's Gift

Chapter 1: Rotten to the Core

A tablet appeared on the screen, followed by a voice.

"Once upon a time, long, long ago..."

"Mal!" Evie grabbed Mal's arm and looked at her in panic. "That's your voice!"

"Way to state the obvious, E!" Mal hissed back, hiding her own panic. What was Persephone playing at? If this was going to be from her perspective and about their lives, then they were going to be back on the Isle before you could say bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!

well, more like 20 years ago...

Muffled laughter came from the younger generation while the older generation varied from amused to slightly offended. King Eugene even shouted, "We're not that old!" to which his eldest son responded, "Yeah, I mean what young person has a kid who's turning twenty?"

"Quiet you."

Belle married her Beast in front of 6,000 of their closest, personal friends.

"6,000 people!" Carlos exclaimed, mouth open in shock.

Belle nodded, and Mal noticed that her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "We were in the process of forming a new kingdom." She told them. "Our wedding served as a way to bring people together, and to form new bonds."

Big cake. Yeah, so instead of a honeymoon,

"You guys didn't have a honeymoon?" Ben asked, looking at his parents. Belle shook her head while Beast explained.

"The Kingdom was so new, and with the villains running around we just didn't have the time."

Mal's voice explained how Beast was the one to become elected, and that he rounded up all the villains and sidekicks, "basically all the really interesting people,"

Audrey crossed her arms, glaring over at Mal. "We're interesting," She said.

"Some Ak's are," Evie told the princess. "You're not."

"And the VK's are?" Audrey asked with a scoff. This time it was Carlos who responded.

"Over half of the VK's know how to fight by the time they're four." He said, "By the time you're ten, if you want to survive, you need to be able to defend yourself against someone twice your size. Because of this, we all have gangs, almost no one is ever alone." He tore his gaze away from Audrey, surveying the scene around them. Many kids were looking sick, but their faces didn't hold up to the horrified expressions on their parents' faces.

Jay continued where Carlos stopped. "When you're not in school, you're learning survival techniques, including anything from street fighting to brewing potions. And if you have the resources, you learn as much as you can. Everyone on the island knows bits and pieces of different languages, but only a few are truly fluent in them. Mal is one of the few true polyglot'."

While many of the royals were still looking sick to their stomach's, or ready to kill depending on who you were talking about, Prince Aksel latched onto a seemingly unimportant detail. "Mal's a polyglot?"

Jay looked to Mal, raising a brow. She shrugged and flicked her wrist, causing him to grin. "She's fluent in French, English, Latin, Greek, Danish, and Arabic." He boasted. "And knows bits and pieces of other languages."

With all eyes on the VK's, no one noticed the frown appearing on Megara and Hercules faces. There were very few villains on the Isle who were fluent in Greek, and only two possible ways that Mal would achieve fluency. Not to mention that being a polyglot, even with the exposure to different languages, was still rare. Anyone could know bits and pieces of languages, but to be fluent in them?