Mal and Uma hid behind some of the barrels that were stacked around the docks, lying in wait for Cruella and her son. It was rare but they did like to diversify their targets from time to time.
Blueberry's shrieks were always pleasing but sometimes their ears needed a break.
"So let me get this straight. Aunt Steph adopted you?" Uma whispered as she scratched Estelle behind the ears, the loyal Cerberus having followed them from the Underworld.
"For the thousandth time, yes," Mal said, rolling her eyes. "Why is that so hard for you to understand?"
"Sorry, it's just...weird. I've spent how many years knowing you as Maleficent's daughter?"
"I'm not Maleficent's anything, even if she is my birth giver," Mal muttered. "Mom's more of my mom than Maleficent ever was."
"But you still have to go back to her lair once a week?"
"Just until the registry's updated," Mal said, keeping her voice low as a couple of the warf rats passed by. "But mom said that won't be done until she goes back to Boreadon."
Uma nodded and then peered over the barrels. "Looks like we'll have to table this topic for now. Here they come."
"You got the smoke bombs ready?" Mal muttered, grinning wickedly. "Also, do you think we use smoke bombs too often?"
"Maybe," Uma muttered, pulling out the smoke bombs. "But they're easy to get ahold of. We don't have to rely on anything from Boreadon to make 'em."
"True and Ms. Fur Ball hates it when her precious furs are stained."
"Kinda makes me wonder where she's getting all those furs. This is the Isle after all."
"Excellent point!" Mal nodded.
Uma grinned wickedly. "Target on lock! Fire in 3...2...1..."
"Fire!" Mal shouted and both of them began throwing the smoke bombs at Cruella and Carlos. The girls laughed as Cruella shrieked amid blue and purple smoke.
"Come on! Run! Before she catches us!" Uma shouted through her laughter. Mal laughed and began to run. Unfortunately, she still had a bit of a head rush from the potion so running in a straight line wasn't the easiest task. Add the added difficulty of the smoke obscuring her vision and Mal would be forgiven for bumping into someone.
"Watch where you're going, witch," the person growled and reached out and grabbed her wrist. Mal winced as they gripped it hard—not as hard as Maleficent had done in years past but still hard enough that it would probably bruise.
"Get your hands off me," she growled, trying not to show how much their grip hurt.
"You strut around here like you own the Isle," the person growled and Mal froze as she thought she recognized their voice. "You think you're so great just because you're Maleficent's spawn. You're nothing without your mother's name behind you."
He leaned forward and whispered into Mal's ear. "And he shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery depths. We may not have fire but water would work just as well, don't you think?"
"What—?"
Before Mal could react, the person shoved her off the edge of the dock into the water below. She gasped as her body broke through the water of the cove and Mal flailed about, trying to keep her head above water.
Her assailant turned and left but Mal wasn't worried about who they were. All she cared about was getting out of the water. She tried desperately to cling to one of the barrels that had fallen into the water but the wet wood made it impossible to keep her grip.
YOU ARE READING
Choosing Family
Fanfiction(AU) "You abandoned me when I was a baby." What if Hades hadn't abandoned Mal when he left Maleficent? What if he had chose her? How different would Mal's life had been, even as she remained trapped within the confines of the Isle?
