Chapter 1 - Mal
It was agreed by all that lived upon it that the Isle of the Lost was a hellish slum. They were overpopulated, underfed and completely trapped. But before we get into that, a small amount of history.
Extracts taken from 'The Founding of Auradon'
Twenty years ago the many kingdoms of the land were united by King Adam upon his transformation back from the Beast and his new bride Queen Belle. They united the various kingdoms into the new U.S.A 'United States of Auradon' which soon became known simply as Auradon. Of course, no unification is seamless; they needed to give many concessions to the various rulers, mostly along the lines of 'help us with our villain problem and we'll swear fealty to you'. Now obviously, the first thing to consider what to do before enacting such a campaign was what to do with the villains once they began.
Some dignitaries wanted to kill them (Most notably King Adam), others wanted to rehabilitate them (Such as Queen Belle). In the end, it was decided by a new council led by both the King and Queen and representatives from all the prospective new lands that the best thing to do was put them somewhere. (Anywhere away from so-called 'decent people'). The problem now was, where to put them, where could they possibly go. Most of them were to powerful to be held by any prison and no one wanted to risk holding hundreds of villains within their borders. Finally a solution was put forth by Peter Pan, ever since he and the other lost boys had returned from Neverland nearly a decade ago, the Island had lost its source of magic, the wonder and belief of children. Without this important component, the Island, and the Pirates trapped upon it had returned to their original place, no longer outside of time and reality. With it's existence in our world restored, it was decided that it should also revert to it's original name from whence Pan and his friends took there name: The Isle of the Lost. (And this was in no way due to the fact that Neverland sounded a great deal more cheerful and more likely to make its inhabitants feel happy.)
And so they had decided upon the fate of the Villains, and decided where such a fate was to be enacted. Now all that remained was to capture said Villains. King Adam quickly sent the land's foremost magic experts into building wards over the Island to ensure it could hold the Villains. As an afterthought (Read: After it was pointed out to him by Queen Belle), he also sent stonemasons to ensure that some (shabby) buildings were constructed upon the Island so that it's new Inhabitants wouldn't die from exposure to the elements. Then the true planning began. Which Villain to go for first, obviously every land wanted its own problem taken care at once. In the end, it was decided (after a lot of grumbling) that the most social and least dangerous of the Villains should be neutralised first, they couldn't risk someone uniting their enemies and they doubted that they could hold the most powerful of them for long enough to finish the prison.
The first three taken care of were Cruella De Vil, The Evil Queen and Gaston. They were a danger to the coalition due to the power and influence they held 'From Wealth, social standing and Charisma respectively'. Given that none of them had any overt magical talents, it was deemed safe to keep them in cells until the Island was ready for them. Their next challenge was those ingrained within various groups, whilst the clergy may have officially excommunicated Judge Frollo, there were still many within it and the French Guard who were loyal to him; similarly Shan Yu had the entire Hun army at his beck and call. They took careful planning to capture but eventually both were within custody. By this point the Isle of the Lost was nearly ready, the majority of the wards were ready, only the large Barrier to surround the Island was required. The time had come to secure the waters between Auradon and the Isle so that the prisoners may be moved in peace. To this end, they bargained with Triton lord of the seas, in exchange for his aid in putting up the barrier and capturing the notorious pirate Hook, they would imprison the sea with Ursula upon the Island with the other Villains. By the time this was done, they had rounded up most of those that had so far eluded them. Sultan Aladdin greatly enjoyed handing over a small black lamp which held the genie Jafar.
Now, Eighteen months after the unification of Auradon, only one villain remained free, the most powerful and deadly of them all, one whose power was superseded only by her malice (and her arrogance), the Mistress of Magic, the Draconic Fae Queen Maleficent herself. Maleficent had watched as the villains were rounded up and had not cared 'Less Competition' she thought though none of them were truly anywhere near a match for her, she had watched as an army rose up against her and had not cared. 'These mortal fools shall fall as all who had come against her before had.' When there army reached her castle, they found the doors wide open and Maleficent sitting on a large Iron throne within the main hall. What happened within that castle was not spoken of even in whispers by those that survived (What, this was the part I was most excited for) but survive they did and they emerged significantly fewer with Maleficent pushed before them in chains.
And so it came to pass, that our great (Ha) nation of Auradon was founded, it's enemies and all that served them were banished and it was decreed that they and their kin were to never again leave the Island from that day until the last day (As if we'd want to go to your country anyway).
Extracts taken and summarised by Fairy God Mother (Annotations made and laughed at by Mal. B. Faechild aged 10).
Yup, that's how it happened. Honestly sometimes I think it would have been kinder just to kill our parents. I'm Mal by the way, 13 years old, daughter of Maleficent and current de facto ruler of the Isle of the Lost, due to the fact that my mother can't be bothered to do any of this herself. She delegated it to me about a year ago and, much to everyone's surprise I proved to be naturally gifted at ruling and administrating. But more about that another time. As I was saying, it might have been kinder to have just killed our parents. Whether intentional or not, each of them has lost what they cared about most since being placed here.
Using just the parents of me and my friends as an example. My mother Maleficent lost most of her magic, she used to use magic for everything, keeping things clean, amusing herself whenever she wasn't plotting, and she even created most of her food using magic. It was a hard blow having all of that put out of her reach. Jafar was thrown in whilst in genie from. I don't know how much you actually know about genies but they're pretty much omniscient. They see everything, they know pretty much everything that has ever happened, billions of years of history are crammed into their heads. Upon being trapped upon the Island, the wish turning him into a genie broke and he returned to mortal from, but all that knowledge was still in his head. No mortal mind can comprehend all that knowledge, the strain of trying broke his mind. It's a testament to how cunning, how frighteningly intelligent he must have once been that he's still pretty much functioning. He can't keep focused, and his prized possession, his intellect has been taken from him. His son Jay, a friend of mine, spends a lot of his free time searching for a genie to cure him. He hasn't succeeded yet. Cruella, mother of Carlos who is another of my friends, had her wardrobe taken from her. I know it sounds ridiculous, but Cruella had spent most of her life and several fortunes of cash amassing those clothes and given she wasn't all there to begin with…. The Evil Queen Grimhilde, whose daughter Evie is pretty much my best friend lost her collection of mirrors, all of which were priceless magical artefacts but what she mourns the most is her family's standing. Her bloodline, which had been royalty for generations and nobility for centuries before that had been stripped of all lands and standing.
So there you have it, we live on a cramped island, we have no way of growing our own food and our leaders are all on the wrong side on unbalanced. Or at least, they were. About a year ago, mother was busy with one of her escape attempts, attempt number five hundred and sixty two I think it was and she didn't want to be disturbed. At this point we were informed by one of the guards that there was a long line of people who needed her input in various matters of state. The last time mother had been interrupted whilst plotting, she had used all those responsible in a blood sacrifice to try and weaken the wards. It failed, they died and the rioting and looting by the general populace was really annoying. Hoping to forestall several weeks of chaos at best, I told my mother that she really couldn't kill them all again. She responded by telling me 'If you care about them that much, you go deal with them'. I gave it my best shot, and somehow ended up doing quite well. Well enough that the next day, more people had shown up, actually asking for MY input. Within a few weeks, mother decided that I would keep doing this. She was getting a lot more plotting in now that she wasn't indiscriminately culling the locals, the rest of her council were happy that she was no longer so irritable and the people were happy that their problems were being solved and that they were still breathing. I seemed to be the only one worried that the previous administration was so unsatisfactory that being bossed around by a twelve year old was the preferable option.
Of course I wasn't all on my own, Evie was spreading stories about how fair and generous I was being to my new subjects so I eventually just made her my PR manager. About six months later, someone apparently tried to kill me. They didn't get anywhere near me, they apparently stumbled upon Mother whilst she was looking for someone to test her new potion on that would allow her to pass through the barrier. Either way, I asked Carlos, the most well liked of my friends to ask around amongst the orphans and the kids to find out any information about what happened and any further attempts. I put some money aside for him to pay them with and once word had spread that ratting out those that wanted to hurt the people seeing them clothed, fed and sheltered resulted in money once said plotting was confirmed, everyone was eager to join in. Carlos had an entire spy network of urchins throughout the Island within two months. Inevitably this led to another problem, once word got out that kids had somehow got a hold of money, people started trying to take it from them. After a lot of complaints, I finally asked Jay to gather some of the tougher people he trusted to see to it that they stopped robbing the kids. Things snowballed and eventually, Jay had found himself in charge of the Islands peace keepers.
I won't pretend things were perfect because they weren't but I was ensuring the food was being rationed appropriately, Evie was doing wonders ensuring there wouldn't be any huge riots or rebellions, Carlos had eyes and ears everywhere on the Island keeping track of everything important and a lot of not so important things and Jay was ensuring our people didn't kill each other.
Then came an event I really wish I had been told about before the day arrived. The Queen's annual Inspection of the Island. Sometimes I wish I'd just let mom kill those people.
