Death's Daughter: A Disney's Descendants Story

A Beautiful Princess

     Hesper turned off the main road, toward the uneven, broken down graveyard that was the front lawn of Dragon Hall. The venerable school for the advancement of evil education was located in a former mausoleum, a hulking gray structure with a domed ceiling and a broken down colonnade, its pediment inscribed with the schools motto: IN EVIL WE TRUST. Scattered around it haunted grounds, instead of the usual tombstones, were doom stones with horrible sayings carved into them. As far as the leaders on this island were concerned, there was never a wrong time to remind its citizens that evil ruled.
     Hesper just happened to end up walking behind Mal and Jay, the thieving son of Jafar. Using her superior eavesdropping skills, she was able to tune into their conversation.
     "No way, I heard news. Real news," he insisted, his heavy combat boots stomping through the root ripped graveyard terrain. "Check it out, there's a new girl in class." Hesper suddenly became intrigued with their conversation. This was definitely news.
     "Yeah right," said Mal.
     "I'm totally serious," he said, narrowly avoiding stumbling over a doom stone inscribed with the phrase IT IS BETTER TO HAVE NEVER LOVED AT ALL THAN TO BE LOVED.
     "New girl? From where exactly?" Mal asked, pointing to the magical dome that covered the island and shrouded the sky, obscuring the clouds.
    Mal has a point, Hesper thought to herself. No one comes in or out of the Isle, so there's never a whole lot of new here.
     "New to us. She's been castle-schooled until now, so it's her first time in the dungeon," said Jay as they approached the wrought-iron gates, and the crowd gathered around the entrance parted to let them through, many of their fellow students clutching their backpacks a little more tightly at the sight of the thieving duo.
     Hesper had made sure to drop behind a little more to make sure it didn't look like she had been following Mal and Jay. When she felt the coast was clear, she turned the same corner, receiving a similar reaction from the students at the sight of the daughter of Lord of the Dead.
     Once she entered the hallways of the school, Hesper was able to catch up to the duo without being noticed. Hiding in the shadows was a given talent for Hesper. No one ever noticed she was there, unless she wanted them to know.
     "What do you mean castle-schooled?" Mal asked Jay her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
     "A real princess too, is what I've heard. Like your basic true-loves-kiss-prick-your-finger-spin-your-gold-skip-the-haircut-marry-the-prince-level princess." He felt dizzy just thinking about it. "Think I could lift a crown off her somewhere? Even a half crown...?" Jay's father was always thinking about finding The Big Score. He was probably thinking that the princess would lead them to it.
     "A princess?" Mal said sternly. "I don't believe you."
     Jay wasn't listening anymore. "I mean think of the loot she'd have on her! She's got to have a ton of loot, right? Hope she's easy on the eyes! Better yet, on the pockets. I could use an easy mark." Hesper couldn't help but roll her eyes at Jay. For as long as she had known him, it didn't take Hesper long to find that thieving was all he ever thought of.
     Mal's voice was suddenly acid. "You're wrong. There aren't any princess on the island and certainly not any who would dare to show their faces around here..."
     Deciding she'd heard enough information, Hesper took the next turn that came her way. Frightened students moved to the sides of the hallway as Hesper strutted down it towards her first class of the day. She was walking at a consistent pace until she felt something uneven down on her front foot. She looked down and found an olive green colored python. Kaamil. The son of Kaa.
      "I'm s-s-so s-s-sorry Hes-s-sper," Kaamil said, hissing his (s)'s. His entire body's length was trembling, awaiting his fate.
     "Watch where you're slithering you constricting creep," Hesper threatened in her Death Tone, as many called it. The Death Tone was the closest thing Hesper had to having her hair burst into flames. Though no student had ever said so, some found Hesper even more frightening then Mal, and that was because of the Death Tone. Anyone who had ever experienced the it first hand seemed to go into some kind of trance for a few days.
     Hesper laughed manically at the looks of fear on the other students who were standing by. She took one last moment to soak it up before entering her class.

***

      Hesper was seated in Selfishness 101 or Selfies for short, taught by Mother Gothel, who took way too many self-portraits with an old Polaroid camera. Hesper drummed her fingers on her desk out of boredom. As Hesper sat there, a girl with dark blue hair walked into the class. This must be the new girl Jay was talking about.

      She watched as students crowded around the girl, smiling at them. Hesper stayed in her normal seat, in the back of the classroom. But she didn't take her eyes of the girl, trying to see if she could gather any information from a distance. She walked towards the first open desk with a remarkably large cauldron. The action received gasps from the crowd.
      Hesper shook her head. Boy was this girl going to be in trouble.
     Hesper continued to watch as Mal walked into the classroom and made her way to her cauldron, stopping in front of it and clearing her throat to get the girl's attention. She seemed to hesitate for awhile before finally speaking.
     "I'm Evie, what's your name?" Evie asked innocently even though she knew exactly who was standing in front of her. "And by the way, that jacket is amazing. It looks great on you-I love all the patchwork leather on it."
     "Girl, that's her cauldron, you should bounce," Ylza, whispered loudly.
     "Oh this is yours...?" Evie asked the purple haired girl, who nodded. "I had no idea this was your desk, I'm so sorry! But it has such a great view of the lectern," Evie said with her trademark smile, so blinding it probably should have come with sunglasses.
     "Yes, it does," Mal replied, her voice soft and menacing. "And if you don't move your blue haired caboose out of it, you'll get some kind of view, all right?" She snarled pushing past Evie and noisily plonking her backpack down into the middle of the cauldron.
     Evie got the message, grabbed her things, and found an empty cauldron in the back of the classroom, behind a column where she couldn't see the blackboard. On one side of her was a small boy with white hair at the tips, and black at the roots. Seated on her other side, a few seats over, was Hesper.

    "Is that who I think it is?" Evie asked looking over at the boy.

    "If you mean Mal, you're right, and I would stay out of her way if I were you," he said.

     "Mal..." Evie breathed. Hesper couldn't help but notice that her voice was trembling nervously as she spoke of Maleficents daughter. Her father had trained her to read fear, and this girl was practically radiating it.
     "Yeah. Her mom's the Big Bad around here. You know-"He made horn sighs with his hands on either side of his head. You didn't need to have lived on the Isle for long to know exactly whom he was talking about. Nobody dared speak her name, not unless absolutely necessary.
     Evie gulped. Her first day and she'd already made the worst enemy in the school. It was Maleficent who had banished Evie and her mother ten years ago and caused Evie to grow up alone in a far away castle. Her own mother might be called Evil Queen, but everyone on the Isle of the Lost knew that Maleficent wire the crown on these parts. From the looks of it, her daughter did the same in the dungeons of Dragon Hall.