A/N: Back story of Cruella De Vil, it's been on my computer for a while. Trigger warning for abuse. I own nothing.
"Cruella De Vil
Cruella De Vil
If she doesn't scare you
No evil thing will
To see her is to
Take a sudden chill
Cruella, Cruella
She's like a spider waiting
For the kill
Look out for Cruella De Vil
At first you think
Cruella is the devil
But after time has worn
Away the shock
You come to realize
You've seen her kind of eyes
Watching you from underneath
A rock!
This vampire bat
This inhuman beast
She ought to be locked up
And never released
The world was such
A wholesome place until
Cruella, Cruella De Vi"
-Disney 101 Dalmations
Now
Cruella had been captured. Left in the wooden cabin slumped over she had run out to warn the Dark One, once she had, he had gone off on some rant and left her. It didn't take long for Emma, Hook, and August to find her, though she got the impression it wasn't her they were looking for. She was tied down to a chair, a small circle of "Hero's" surrounding her.
"Have you seen the Author?" August was the first to speak.
"I didn't know he was out," Cruella replied, "though if you do find him I'd love to question him."
"Why are you here? What ending do you want?" Emma asked, hoping for the same success they'd had with Ursula. Cruella tilted her head, "You want my story? Everything? From the beginning? I warn you it's not a happy story." Her jaw jumped as she clenched her mouth shut. If these hero's granted Ursula with what she wanted, and if the Dark One was going to abandon her at every turn, why not? Why not tell them everything? It wasn't anything they could fix, but it would buy her time so Rumpelstiltskin could come rescue her.
"We want you to stop searching for the author. He's not what you think," Emma frowned.
"Perhaps not, but I don't have a lot options…."
"Maybe, if you tell us what happened to you…" Emma kneeled down to eye level.
Cruella didn't want to remember… but she did.
It started with her parents, a couple of average workers: Bronn and Hazel.
Then
Camella got the love story as a child, from both of them at once; with happy smiles as they told her about how, Bronn, being a fisherman, owned a boat on the river, and the day Hazel fell in over the old stone bridge, he just had to rescue her. He played the role of a gentleman, and walked her home, even though she lived in a farm a good two hours walk away. They'd laughed, they'd talked, and when they reached the door Bronn knew, he couldn't ever let Hazel go. So he start to call on her, took her dancing, brought her flowers. Her dad never approved but when he saw the way Hazel looked at Bronn, he relented and allowed them to marry. Happily Ever After.
The story of course doesn't quite end there, though Camella didn't get the second half of the story for a very long time. They tried for years to conceive a child but were unsuccessful. They both wanted a baby, some product of their love, to hold and cherish. They tried doctors and hedge witches but no one could help. They heard of a man, one who made deals, and one who could procure anything, for a price: the Dark One. So they packed up a wagon and went in search of answers. When he found them, wandering on an old back road, they begged. Willing to pay any price. So, in exchange for the gift of a child, he promised one day the child would be offered a golden feather, free of charge. And if she takes it, her touch will be their undoing. Bronn scoffed, wondering why anyone would offer a child gold, for no cost at all, but his wife held him back and made him promise they would live out of the way of town, as to avoid time with strangers, and to keep their baby safe. He agreed, but in time the warning would fade and they would both forget their precautions.
At eight years old, Camella swung between her mother and father, enjoying the feeling of wind in her hair, as the both held on to one of her hands, allowing her to kick her feet up and swing, giggles in her throat and feet off the ground, the one way she truly would always enjoy life.
The fair had come to town that weekend, and her parents insisted that they walk and enjoy the beauty of the summer's day. The town they lived in was at the mouth of a great river, but otherwise, entirely landlocked. Festivals, fairs and the like came very rarely, only one every few years. So when they did come, everyone around would make the trek from their homes, to the cobbled streets and the western riverbank of town. The ordinarily grey and brown buildings would be alight with color and all kinds of people would perform acrobats and jugglers, fools and fortune tellers, strange men with exotic tales and exotic foods.
Camella held bother parents hands tightly in her own small fingers, smiling at the colors and music that filled the central square. Her dad knelt next to her,
"Cammie, your mom and I are gonna dance, so you just wait right here okay?" Cammie nodded trying her best to look good, obedient.
She always found her parents funny, whenever they went into town, her mum and dad would still talk in whispers, hold hands, they were so in love, she smiled as she watched her father dip her mother in the dance, and her mother still had the courtesy of a soft pink blush across her cheekbones. Her parents were a bookend match, tall, blonde, with soft brown eyes; Cammie believed they were part of a fairy tale. Not the crazy kind with princes and dragons, but the beautiful kind, the kind where two ordinary people who were meant to be together more than anything else in the whole world found each other, fell in love, and remained ridiculously happy.
So while she hummed along to the song and watched her parents dance, it wasn't her fault she didn't notice the old lady until she was right behind her, breathing down Cammie's neck.
"Hello little lady," A woman appeared in front of her clad in a ridiculously poufy purple gown.
"Hi," said Cammie shyly, "I'm not s`possa talk to strangers."
"I'm Gem," cackled the woman, "and now I'm not a stranger anymore."
"I guess so…" Cammie scrunched up her nose and tilted her head to the side.
"So little lady," Gem continued grinning, "Would you mind taking something off of my hands for me?" She held up a pretty trinket, a light gold feather on a golden chain.
"I don't got any money," Cammie said turning away to watch her father spin her mother who's melodic laugh she could hear, barely.
"I don't want any money; I just want you to have it."
"Really?" Cammie furrowed her eyebrows, "You'd just give it away?"
Gem sighed, "Some beautiful things are far more trouble than they are worth." She held out the necklace. Cammie reached out and took it, small hand encircling the gold feather. It grew hot to the touch and her eyes widened, "Gem?" She looked up but the old woman was gone. She tried to drop the plume but it held fast to her skin. She was about to cry out when the feather seemed to dissolve in her palm completely. She looked around in stunned silence, but no one else seemed to notice anything. Fear pulsated through her, she didn't know what had just happened but it couldn't have been good.
Her parents came back to her, "Mum!" she called hugging her knees, "I saw this strange lady and she was talking and I told wasn't s`possa to talk to strangers but she said she wasn't and she want to give me something and she did and she disappeared and I don't know what…" Her mom knelt down next to her hushing her softly,
"But you're okay?" Cammie nodded, "Well, that's the only thing that matters baby doll." Her mom hugged her around the middle and Cammie reached up to hug her neck, reverberations of fear and emotion clung to her skin, as if she could feel them dancing on it, instead of somewhere within her, where they normally resigned. A sudden gasp of pain made Cammie tighten her grip. She felt her mom stiffen and go limp in her arms. "Momma?" she said in surprise letting go to look at her. She slumped to the ground and Cammie reached out to her, shaking her shoulder. "Momma?" Her eyes were shut and she lay still in the afternoon sun, "MOMMA WAKE UP!" Cammie pleaded but Momma never did. Her father rushed down nearly bowling Cammie over. He shook his dead wife, "Hazel…" his eyes watered, what could have happened? He turned to Camella. His daughter. He had to be strong. For her. But he saw her trembling. He reached out to hug her, calm her, but she backed away. "I…I…" Cammie looked down at her mum, and he understood.
"Camella," He looked in her eyes, "this is very important." Camella nodded blankly. "What did the strange lady give you, and what did she look like?"
Cammie let out a chocked sound, and then started slowly to speak, "She was old, with grey hair and green eyes. She wore a purple dress. She gave me a feather. A gold feather."
"A golden feather?"
"Yes."
He backed away, not wishing to touch his little girl. Not now. Not ever again.
Now
"It started when I killed my mother," she looked up to the small crowd, "no truly I did, but it was an accident. I never meant it. But from their things just got worse."
They stared blankly, August and Hook sitting at opposite ends of a couch, Emma still kneeling by her feet.
"My name wasn't always Cruella, you know. No parent names their child "Cruella", it was a name I earned myself. Back then I was Camella, Cammie, Cam, a lot of things. My parents made a deal with the Dark One. Idiots. I was cursed with a deadly touch."
She closed her eyes remembering back to what happened after her mother's death.
Then
It was the last good day for Cammie. Everyone in their lives reaches a point when all the good days have ended, and only the sick, dying days of pain remain. The problem is most people don't know the last good day when they see it. At the time, it's just another day.
The last good day happened to be her mother's funeral. Her father took her aside, telling her that her mom had had a heart attack, and her heart simply stopped. Camella knew he was lying. Trying to make her feel better was his job, as her dad. But from the moment she touched her mum, she knew it was death. Her dad said that it was the death she probably would have wanted, in the arms of her baby girl. But Camella seriously doubted her mum had wished herself to die in the arms of her daughter—of eight years.
The townsmen and women came to mourn over the grave, and Cammie stood silently, waiting while the priest said words and her father cried. But his arm never left her shoulder. She was wearing a coat, and gloves in precaution, but it was the last time he willingly touched her in a nice way, the last time he offered comfort or parent-like bonding. It was their last good day.
Now
"At first my father was kind. Tried to make me feel better, innocent even. I knew what had happened, but…"
Then
It didn't take Camella long to realize it was her touch, coupled with fear and anger that had devastating effects on life. She was so angry that her mother was gone and her father was distant, that when she had pet the family cat, it purred, but when she left her hand resting in its fur, it died too. And when she went to milk the old sow, it fell at her feet. She quickly grasped her touch was lethal. Like poison. Her father certainly avoided it. He avoided even her gaze and began to drown himself in the moonshine whiskey he purchased with any money they had. So she held back, stopped touching people, animals, everything. She reigned in the emotions, if she stopped thinking, if she stopped feeling, maybe they wouldn't jump out of her skin like a twisted defense mechanism.
She accidentally leaned up against the old farm horse one afternoon, almost a year since the great tragedy. The horse stood still as if nothing had happened. Cammie looked up in surprise, and reached out tentatively stroking its nose. The first contact in so long, its skin was warm. Cradling her hand back against her chest she turned around to tell her father the good news.
"Dad?" She called creeping in hoping he wasn't too drunk to hear her.
"Camella." He was sitting at the table staring into space. His work boots at his feet, shirt and belt lay out on the table. She walked closer to him ready to feel human contact again, daring to hope. He stood briskly, "I will not have you touching me she-witch." He hadn't spoken much since the funeral, the last time he comforted her at all. And she bit back the bitter, hid her disappointment, but said ever so softly, "I think I can do it, learn to control it…?"
"No. You are our undoing, you cannot control it, it has been promised. You will never be able to completely block your emotions."
"But…" she blinked back tears and reached out for him, she just wanted to be held, loved, by her only remaining family. He grabbed the belt on the table, lashing out and hitting her for the first time across the arms. He commanded her to turn lean over the table, and she did. He whipped her back once, twice, three times, and told her never to try and touch him again. He told her it was for her own good. Someday she'd see he was protecting them both. Watching as she sobbed he pulled on his shoes. He strode out, heavy boots thundering on the dirt floor. Camella lay on the ground pulling herself up slowly, hoping, instead of having love she could just not be beaten to death. Long angry red slashes and welts ran up and down her back from that day forwards.
Her hopes were in vain. The money dried up quickly after that first year. And while she continued to practice control of her lethal touch, her father grew more angry, more impatient. She began stealing. Learning how and when to creep in and out of buildings, slipping things into the folds of her dress with nary a brief flash of hand, she became fairly skilled, and when her father demanded money for his whiskey, she pickpocketed strangers, hoping they had enough money back home. She was caught various times, but gradually learned her new skill with finesse. She was lashed more than once for trying to talk to her father, about mum or about their situation, or his drinking.
Her touch at first ran hot and cold, she practiced with the old rabbits in the hutch at their closest neighbors, who went to town every day from dawn to mid-day to sell whatever foods and goods they had. Camella learned that by focusing, very hard she could block her feelings, the pain, misery, but if, for a single moment she gazed off lost in thought, the rabbit would stop twitching in her arms. At least in this manner she could make stew at home. Her father always treated her marginally better if meat was involved in the cooking.
Then the neighbors got wise to someone stealing their rabbits, she noticed the old man as she meandered down the path, he stood by the window, watching as she stopped and turned around, never returning to the hutch. She tried hunting in the woods but any skill with a bow and arrow eluded her. She couldn't get close enough to touch wild game, and farmers tended to notice more than one kill. Soon the only food she could get was what she stole in market.
But she would survive. It was quite simple really, all she had to do was bring home food, keep her head down and never, under any circumstances, physically touch another human being.
Now
"Father became cruel, he began to blame me, I had to steal to survive…I did this for six years."
Emma looked at Cruella who was lost in memory, but she felt a sort of kinship to this woman, who had lived without necessary parental warmth, though in a different manner than she had.
"However, one day there was an apple that tipped the barrel."
Then
She ran through the market square, much like she used to when she was younger, except now, she was actually running from something. Or rather, someone. Her hurried steps took her to the gates that marked the end of town and she quickly scrambled over them to the other side, the man chasing her halted at the Iron Gate,
"If you ever set foot in this market again I will kill you!" She sped down the road faster clutching the bread to her chest in a steely grip. She darted around trees and disappeared into the woods. She knew she was making a mistake by stealing from the bakery when the man wouldn't take his eyes off her. But it smelled so good. Unable to resist, she had nearly been caught, but managed to wiggle out of the man's grip and take off. It wasn't until she was half way home that she slowed down, chest heaving, ragged breathing, collapsing to the ground for a moments rest by a small brook. She quenched her thirst before standing brushing off her stained blue dress and walking the rest of the way home.
For her, home was a secluded cottage at the edge of town, one where she stole and where she searched in vain for anyone who would employ a girl. She, more often than not just ended up stealing to survive. Her home was small, a squat wood structure with two rooms and a stove in one of them. She lived with her father, a burly old man, thick light hair and perpetually bloodshot eyes. When she walked in the door that day, she knew it wasn't one of his better days.
"Cammie…"he drawled sprawled across the floor, "where ever have you been?"
She could see the alcohol on him, the stench of whiskey and vomit assaulted her nose, he smiled a drunken smile, and she believed this to be one of his better hours, before the rage kicked in and blinded him to reason. Perhaps, if she were to tread lightly…
"I got dinner." She held up the bread with a hesitant smile, soft hoping he would accept the bread as sufficient. He didn't.
"Camella," He stated tilting his chin up, "That is not dinner. Dinner is meat. How can you expect me to work all day and come home to your failed attempts at providing me with food? It was never like this when your mother was around."
Cammie sighed silently. If he was bringing up her mother no good could come of this. It was always easier if she ducked her head, nodded along. Sometimes he even fell asleep if she was compliant enough. But not tonight. Her father hauled himself to his feet, walking closer he snatched the hard earned bread from her hands and tossed it to the floor, stepping on it with the heel of his boot, grinding the crumbs into the dirt that was their flooring.
"My poor little girl…" an eerie smile crept up on his face, "You know why you don't have a mother don't you?"
Camella backed away, into the wall. He'd tried to have this conversation before. Right after her mom died, her father told her it was a heart attack, simple, and natural. He'd tried to spare her feelings. But Camella knew. She tried not to think about, to lose herself in their poverty and bury the feelings down, down, down.
"She didn't die naturally Camella."
Her eyes watered and her jaw trembled.
"She's gone. And now the house is dirty, and you can't hunt and you can't cook. You are the most useless girl in all of the Realm. And Camella," a few tears slid down Cammie's face and she brushed them away sniffling.
"You killed your own mother."
Her heart beat stuttered, and the tears slid down freely hollow sobs raked her chest. She knew of course. She had always known. But to hear it confirmed, to hear his lips tell her the last words on this earth that she wanted to hear, was slow and painful torture. He smiled then, in his drunken stated and backed up. Picking up the bottled of moonshine from the floor. He took another swig. He paused watching his daughter crumple to the floor.
"Get up" He snarled, low and dangerous, "You have no right to mourn her. None. You're a demonic little witch and I want you out of my sight."
Camella didn't move from her position on the ground, ugly tears and agonizing sobs held her paralyzed to the ground. Her father took another swig.
"CAMELLA!" he bellowed and hurled the bottled at her. It hit the wall above her head and the glass pieces rained down on her from above. One bisecting her left eyebrow, causing a gush of red blood to flow down her face, into her eye. She stood up. Furious. Furious with him, with her life of endless shame, her inability to get a job, get proper food, or even take care of herself. She took a step forwards.
"Camella," he warned anger fading in the face of fear, "if you kill me now, no one will ever protect you. No one will ever love you." He swallowed nervously.
Camella halted a pace away from him, "If you think that will hurt me, it's too late. No one protects me now, no me loves me now, and no one ever will." The truth tore her apart inside, she want so badly for him to tell her she was wrong. That no matter what she did, she was his little girl, the same one he used to toss in the air, and spare a copper for a licorice stick at the general store. She wanted to be forgiven for something out of her control, something she hadn't known she had been doing. But the look on his face didn't say any of those things. He looked angry, he looked drunk, he looked afraid, but he didn't love her. He hadn't loved her as his daughter for a long time.
She reached forwards, anger bubbling under her skin, she could control it now with great focus, not that he knew. So when she first touched his arm he stilled,
"Cammie," he whispered, "it's not doing anything, are you free?"
"No. I just did what you said I could never learn to do. I am in control." She stood ready to leave, turning and pausing at the door when she heard laughter from the floor. "You aren't going to kill me? Very well," she watched him stand, unsure what his next move might be. He lifted his hand and back handed her across her cheek. Camella gasped inaudibly, pain now competing with that above her eye. He looked straight at her,
"You don't deserve to live." He removed his belt and grinned in a satisfactory way when she flinched, remembering all the times he had lashed her for her insubordination, or not bringing home the correct amount or type of food. But this time, he didn't ask her to turn and get on her knees. He slipped the belt around her neck, while she stood, fear in her eyes, fear, and sorrow.
"I don't want to hurt you daddy." In spite of what he was doing, he was her only link to her mother, he was her family. He pulled tighter,
"My daughter died that day at the fair, and you replaced her. A poor copy if you ask me."
Camella couldn't stop the tears, they burned down her face and she struggled for breath. She reached behind her hoping to stop him, hoping to get air, but in her desperation she couldn't control it, it didn't just burn beneath her skin, it was on top. And the moment her trembling fingers made contact with his hands she felt it. She felt him crumple to the ground, heart stopped, eyes wide open. She fell too, struggling for each ragged breath. When she could breathe again, she crept closer and closed his eyes,
"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."
Now
"I killed my father too. Again, not on purpose, but I had no other choice. I lashed out to defend myself, not taking into account what I could do… and he crumpled to the ground," She cleared her throat, looking away still lost.