I have no idea where this came from or why, but there's a Muse for you. I blame Carella for this. It turned from a one-shot into a two-shot and I had to veto it back to a one-shot again, which only works about 40% of the time, to be perfectly honest with you. In any case. There are probably more one-shots and/or drabbles coming, so I'll just leave this open as a collection of them.

Please keep in mind that I have NOT read any of the Descendants books yet, so any inconsistencies with the books are not my fault. Feel free to point them out with a PM, and I'll make a note of it for future reference.

Most of these will be feelsy, a lot will be cheesy, a few may be museless me trying to force Carella to get her head back in the game so I apologize for those, and most if not all of them will have some level of humor (dark or otherwise) in them, because I like to be able to read my old work and laugh. I like making people laugh.

Word Count: 2,235

It must have been something like eight in the morning when she found out.

Honestly, Mal would have woken up later, but she didn't have much of a choice. Once Evie was up, Mal was up, whether she liked it or not. Despite her complaints that she was never allowed to sleep in on the weekends, she garnered little sympathy from her roommate, who continued to be up bright and early, despite everything. Of course, Mal supposed that one had to be up bright and early when one did as much preening as Evie did in the morning. To be fair, that wasn't entirely her fault - old habits died hard, and years of them from living with the Evil Queen were no exception.

Actually, Mal was complaining about that very thing - getting up too early, not living with the Evil Queen, of course - when her brush caught on something in her hair. Expecting a tangle, she tried to tug it loose and smooth it out, but it refused to budge. She rolled her eyes in exasperation and tossed the brush onto the table, reaching up with both hands to find the knot and why it was being so stubborn, never missing a beat in her friendly argument with Evie.

She did not find a knot. What her fingers found was something hard and rather firmly rooted into her scalp, which refused to budge and ached a little when she pushed at it. Confused, she leaned forward to look in the mirror, unsure what to think of this.

When she moved her violet hair aside, she found a small, dark nub of bony material poking out of her skull. Sudden, irrational panic swept through her, and she turned her head, searching. Sure enough, there was a second such nub, exactly symmetrical to the first, on the other side of her scalp.

Horns.

"Mal?" Evie asked, and Mal realized that the other girl had said her name several times after the fairy had abruptly stopped in the middle of her sentence. She looked up to find her roommate looking at her with concern. "You okay?"

Mal started to shake her head, and Evie was next to her almost before she could blink. "What's wrong?" She took Mal's face in her hands, searching for the answer to that question.

"E-evie," she stuttered, taking her roommate's hands and moving them up to the small knots of horn at the top of her head.

Evie's face transformed to confusion as she touched them. "Mal, what..." She trailed off as it dawned on her. "Horns?"

Mal nodded, pale. "Like..." Like my mother.

A knock on the door interrupted her. Ben's voice came through, muffled, "Mal? Evie? You awake?"

Mal slapped a hand across Evie's mouth to silence her. "What do I tell him?" she hissed, panic flashing in her green eyes.

Evie blinked, taken aback. "The truth," she whispered after a moment. "It's the only thing you can tell him." Pulling away gently, she went to the door and opened it for Ben.

"Thanks, Ev-" He stopped, took one look at Mal and went to her, knowing immediately that something was wrong. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head, ducking away. "Nothing, it's nothing."

Ben caught her arm. "It's not nothing. Even I can tell that. Now what's wrong?"

Mal exchanged a glance with Evie helplessly. The look in her eyes was almost one of fear. After a few seconds, it was Evie who spoke, slowly, so that Mal could stop her if she wanted to. "Mal's horns are coming in."

Ben blinked, taken by surprise. "Your... horns?"

She nodded reluctantly, reaching up and pulling her hair aside so he could see the dark spot. "It's a common thing with dark fairies," Evie added after a moment, since Mal didn't seem inclined to explain. "It's usually a sign of coming of age, when they show up. It's usually celebrated on their next birthday, or something."

"But that sounds like a good thing," he said, confused. "Why are you so upset about it?"

"Because I'm going to look like - like her," she blurted out finally. "I'm going to look like my mother. The horns are, like, her signature thing, since there really aren't that many dark fairies left anymore, and now I'm going to have them and no one is going to be able to look at me without thinking of her! Because that wasn't true enough already!" She pulled away, pacing across the room to stare blindly out the window. "I was hoping I wouldn't have them," she admitted, her voice hoarse. "I was hoping I might be able to pretend to be totally human. To forget... forget who my mother is."

Ben felt a small push from between his shoulder blades, and turned to see Evie waving him forward. Scared, she mouthed, and suddenly he understood. Mal wasn't this worried about what other people were going to think. She was worried about what he was going to think. She was scared he would reject her.

He came up softly behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It doesn't matter, Mal," he promised. "You're not your mother. I don't care if you grow horns. Heck, I don't even care if you turn into a dragon completely. I love you. That's not going to change."

She managed a quick, tight smile. "Thank you," she murmured, finally letting him pull her into a hug. "I'm just... ugh. I don't know. It's hard enough being the daughter of the Mistress of All Evil without a reminder literally over my head all the time. And I really don't know what I'm going to say when people start noticing on their own."

"You'll think of something," Evie promised, coming up on her other side to hug her.

Unfortunately, she still hadn't thought of something two weeks later, when the first person noticed. She managed to brush Lonnie off relatively easily - frankly, the other girl didn't want to question it - but it went downhill from there. By the time a month had passed, her new horns were almost two inches long, still dull, but very visible, and whispers were flying around Auradon Prep. Mal, of course, could do little about it. She just had to try to ignore it for as long as she could.

Audrey, of course, was the worst. She didn't dare confront Mal directly - not after the first time she tried that brilliant plan, which resulted in several bruises, a broken nail, an unfortunate toad spell, and a trip to the Fairy Godmother for both girls - but she could still spread rumors. It was almost too easy for her to start the story that Maleficent's (heavy hint: Mal's) horns were, quote, "an outward manifestation of her inner evil," close quote. (Evie, upon hearing this, made a snide remark about how long it must have taken Audrey to look up the definitions of "all those big words," which almost got a book thrown at her head.)

Naturally, Mal wasn't quite alone. She had the other three "villain kids," who stuck together like always. Ben, as he had promised, stayed loyal to her. A lot of the tourney jocks liked Jay, so even if they didn't exactly stick up for Mal, they at least for the most part tried to stay clear of the bashing going on. A few of the girls that traded beauty/fashion tips (not to mention homework help) with Evie actually managed to protest Audrey's spreading lies once or twice. Still, Mal could feel the stares, the uncertainty. Even the adults looked at her differently, no matter how open-minded they thought they were. After a month and a half, she almost gave Ben's parents a heart attack when they came to visit - apparently they hadn't expected her horns to have grown to easily three and a half inches already.

To be fair, neither had she. Her horns were growing incredibly fast, for horns - and they itched like mad. It was Evie who was finally brave enough to point out she was tearing her own scalp up with all her scratching. Mal could stop while she was awake, but more than one morning she woke up with dried blood under her fingernails from scratching in her sleep. Evie confessed to Ben one day that she was concerned it had to do with how much Mal hated the horns themselves, despite Mal's insistence that that wasn't the problem.

"She's got magic in her blood," she explained. "It may not crop up much like some people, but when it has to do with an internally focused hatred, it tears her apart from the inside out. She won't admit it. If this doesn't stop soon, it may never stop, no matter what Mal says."

"Not good," he guessed.

"Not good," she agreed with a sigh. "I've been worried about this a long time, to be honest, but I didn't think it would be this bad."

He looked at her askance. "You knew this would happen?"

Evie blinked. "Well - yeah. We all knew it would probably happen eventually. It was really a question of when."

"Why didn't anyone ever mention it?"

She frowned. "I don't know. I think we all kind of forgot about it - I mean, with the exchange program, and the wand fiasco, and confronting Maleficent, we were a little preoccupied. It didn't seem important at the time. It wouldn't have been a big deal on the Isle. Actually, she probably would have been proud of her horns if we'd stayed on the Isle. They were a mark of evil, a mark of her coming of age, and honestly, they wouldn't have been that strange. We might have thrown a party, if Jay could have lifted the stuff we needed for it."

He smiled sidelong at her, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," he said, "that we remind her what her horns are supposed to mean."

"I don't follow you."

"They're a sign of her coming of age, right?"

"Well... generally, yes," she agreed slowly.

"Then let's remind her of that."

Evie's eyes lit up as it dawned on her what he was thinking of. Ben suddenly was reminded of her mother, the Evil Queen, as schemes and plots and plans danced behind those blue eyes. "You know," she said slyly, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're not so good yourself."

"Is that meant to be a compliment?"

"Just take it as one."

"Come on," Evie giggled, tugging her best friend along.

"Evie, wait," Mal complained, blinded by the hand her roommate held over her eyes. "You're going to run me into a wall, I know it."

"No, I won't," she promised. "Hurry up!"

"Evie, I'm going to turn you into a tortoise," she threatened. "Then we'll see who's telling who to hurry up."

Evie just laughed and pulled her along faster.

When Mal was finally allowed to open her eyes, she found herself in a dark room. Evie had vanished. "Poison apples, Evie, what are you -"

"Surprise!" a dozen voices yelled, making her jump out of her skin. The lights flicked on, and Mal found herself surrounded by smiling faces - Evie, Jay, Carlos (and, of course, the omnipresent Dude), Doug, Jane, and several others she recognized.

Arms encircled her from behind, and Ben set his chin on her shoulder. "Surprise," he murmured in her ear.

She laughed, leaning back to look at him better. "What's the occasion?"

He flicked his fingers above her head, and she could feel the click of his fingers against one small horn. "Horns are a dark fairy's coming of age, remember?"

She blinked in surprise, as if unable to process that. "You wanted to... celebrate this?"

"Of course," Evie said with a smile. "It's not something to be ashamed of, Mal. If other people can't understand that, it's their problem."

"Back on the Isle, we wouldn't have had such a big party," Jay admitted.

"Back on the Isle, you would have been stealing all the supplies," Mal reminded him with a laugh. He shrugged helplessly, as if to ask, What can I say? "Ben - Evie - it's very sweet of you all to want to help, but -"

"No buts," Ben stopped her, putting a finger to her lips. "Tonight is your night, and we'll do whatever you want to, because we're celebrating who you are - not your father, not your mother, you - and it's time you accepted that and learned to enjoy it."

"All right, all right," she said with a smile. "I'll have a good time, if it'll make you all happy." And she did, and they were, and that was that, and it was one of the best nights in all of their lives.

(But the itching did stop, which made Evie very happy, although she managed to keep the I-told-you-sos to herself.)

Reviews, please! Let me know your favorite line(s), or where I made you laugh, or any funny stories of reactions IRL, along with the usual actual usable review. ;3 Also, do you guys like the slightly longer, more conversational ANs I have an inclination to put at the beginnings (if not the ends) of chapters/stories, or would you prefer I kept it as brief as possible? Thanks for reading!