Choosing Family

Chapter Sixteen

Mal had to give Evie credit. When she made a threat, she stuck with it.

With all the excitement of bringing Jay into the fold and teaching him how to sword fight, something Harry was all too eager to do though that may have been due to the fact that Jay was a beginner and not because Harry just wanted to teach, Mal had forgotten about her little head to head with Blueberry. The days passed by and all too soon, the princess's birthday had arrived.

It seemed like everyone on the Isle had been invited to the six year old's party. Everyone but Mal, that is.

That's okay. I didn't want to go to Blueberry's dumb party anyway, Mal thought as she stared out from the balcony of Maleficent's castle, one of the few mornings she opted to stay around the dragon. Using a discarded telescope that had made its way from Boreadon, Mal could see that the guests were getting animals as party favors. Cats and eels and all sorts of creatures would find their way to new homes.

Mal rolled her eyes and put the telescope down. Jay, Uma and Harry had all gotten invitations too. Harry had to go because his dad was attending but Jay and Uma had offered to skip it once they realized that Mal hadn't gotten an invite.

She had told them not to, that there was no reason for them to be miserable just because she hadn't gotten an invite.

That being said, that same day Mal and Uma had unleashed hell on Blueberry with their stash of smoke bombs. Her skin matched her hair, that's how many blue smoke bombs they ended up pelting her with. Then again, her hair had several spots of purple hue based solely on the fact that they had to dip into their stash of purple smoke bombs. The princess had run off before they were able to use any of the red ones but the Isle was only so big.

There was definitely a chance they'd run into her again. Oh, Mal almost counted on it.

You're not going to get away with insulting me like that. It was bad enough when I thought I was the only one out of my crew not to get an invite but to be the only one out of the Isle? Oh Blueberry, you should watch your back, Mal thought with a small nod of her head. Still, she wasn't going to lie. It stung watching everyone else have fun at the party. Even if she was just there with Uma, Harry and Jay, it'd be better than being at Maleficent's by herself.

Hearing movement in the other room, Mal quickly left the balcony. She knew what Maleficent would say if she saw her moping over not getting an invitation to Evie's party. Parties are for the rabble.

Yeah you say that now, Maleficent but who was it who cursed a baby because they didn't get invited to a party? Mal scoffed as she made her way to the front door of Maleficent's castle. Thankfully, the dragon had been tormenting the goblins all morning so she hadn't paid any attention to Mal. The last thing Mal wanted was to try to come up with a passable lie as to why she wasn't at Evie's party.

She wasn't feeling well? Maleficent would call her weak and order her to go.

Tell the truth and say Evie didn't invite her? If Evie was lucky, Maleficent would just accuse Mal of lying and tell her to go anyway. If Blueberry wasn't lucky....well it was hard to say what the dragon would do.

Say she got an invite but didn't feel like going? Mal would definitely end up getting one of Maleficent's 'lessons' on not making a fool out of her in front of the others of the Isle.

There wasn't anything good that would come out of Maleficent finding out. Thankfully, Mal knew she had another place she could go where she wouldn't have to stare at Blueberry's party.

In another life, one where she was raised in Boreadon, Mal probably would have run down the street toward her dad's place. But this was still the Isle. Running was only acceptable if you were being chased or if someone had just been stabbed. An occurrence that was more common than one might think.