Authors Note: I have no idea where this came from. Maybe I was more feverish than I thought when I had the stomach flu?

Prologue – Wicked Is

Once upon a time, there was a wicked half-sister named Kendall.

Now, Kendall wasn't exactly wicked so much as misunderstood. But it's a sad fact that Once Upon A Time doesn't cope well with the misunderstood; it's all about big concepts like Good. Evil. Virtue. Sin.

So, since Kendall wasn't Good (everybody knew the good one in the family was her half-sister, sweet Bianca), she automatically fell into the "Wicked" category. That's just how it was. Kendall never really questioned it. Why would she? Her mother Queen Erica had told everyone that her daughter Bianca was a Miracle for as long as Kendall could remember. And Kendall loved Bianca just as much as Erica did, so it made sense to Kendall. There were certain conventions in the Valley of Pine: if there were two half sisters, one had to be good and one had to be bad. Obviously since Bianca was the Good Sister, Kendall was the Wicked Sister. (Queen Erica, of course, was the only girl child of her mother, neatly sidestepping that whole dichotomy. Well, until her fraternal half-sister Silver showed up and was all sweetness and light. But that was a Long Time Ago, and anyway Silver dropped her mousy exterior and killed one of Erica's many consorts, conveniently falling into the "Wicked' category and solving Erica's problem nicely.)

Kendall read and heard enough stories as a child to know the score, so she did the standard Wicked Sister things. She told the occasional lie. She picked on other children and laughed about it. She tried not to do anything too horrible, because she really did love Bianca (and even Erica) just as much as everyone else did, evn if nobody believed it. But sometimes she would break down and steal a toy of Bianca's because it got her some attention (she was usually careful and took ones that Bianca wasn't all that keen on, but no one noticed that except the Queen's Advisor Lady Myrtle, who kept her own counsel, being an Advisor and all).

As they got older, Kendall gradually stopped stealing Bianca's toys and started stealing her suitors for her own instead. After all, she reasoned, Bianca didn't seem all that interested in them, and Kendall couldn't think of anything better to do with her time. (Kendall used to make lovely skin creams and fabulous smelling perfumes, but no one wanted to buy potions from a Wicked Sister, so she only used them on herself. She once tried to give her mother a lotion she called Youth Dew for her birthday, but Erica took it the wrong way. So Kendall gave up potion-making and went back to stealing beaux.)

So Kendall went on her merry Wicked way, breaking hearts and telling fibs. It wasn't an unpleasant existence, or even all that pleasant; it just was.

Except every now and then, Kendall would get a glimpse of something really marvelous with one of those suitors. She'd try really hard to reach for it and hold on to it with everything she had, but it would just dance out of her hands, leaving her with nothing.

Or more accurately, they'd find out that she'd lied about something and drop her out of their hands.

First, there was Sir Anton. Even Kendall couldn't remember exactly why that one didn't work out; it had something to do with rewards and letters and long lost families that was all very complicated and made Kendall's head hurt more than her heart.

Then there was Aidan, the Superintendent of the Guards. Wow, he was cute. But she forgot all about him when she met Lord Ryan.

Kendall loved Lord Ryan from the first minute she met him. The strong chin, the bright blue eyes, the way he filled out a doublet… he just made her weak in the knees. And he seemed equally gone on Kendall, which was something of a shock to her. (I forgot to mention that while Kendall was Wicked, she also very easy on the eyes. She had huge, slightly tilted green eyes in a heart shaped face, creamy skin, beautiful curly hair, and a slight but obviously feminine figure. Quite frankly, she was a stunner. Of course, Kendall never really believed she was even pretty, because she thought her sister Bianca was the most beautiful girl on earth. Bianca had straight dark hair, dark eyes, a lovely golden complexion, a curvy figure, and the sweetest manner in the kingdom. In fact, she looked a lot like Queen Erica. Everyone always commented on how lovely the Queen and her daughter were, marvelling at the likeness. Needless to say, when Kendall looked in the mirror, all she saw was a skinny, gangly thing with scraggly hair who looked nothing like the two women she thought were so lovely. Eventually Kendall came to the erroneous conclusion that since she looked so different she couldn't be beautiful at all. )

For a while things were going swimmingly for Kendall with Lord Ryan, and Kendall thought she might actually be happy. Then, one day, he found out about some stupid lie she'd told and they had a huge argument about trust and the proper respect owing to a lord. Kendall figured it would all blow over, the way her mother's spats with her current consort Sir Jackson did, so she went back to flirting with the cute Superintendent of the Guard.

The next thing she knew, Lord Ryan was married – not to Bianca, which Kendall would have understood – but to some cleaning person he met who turned out to be a princess. (Or maybe it was the other way around, she couldn't keep it all straight.) She had a stupid name, too. Greenpea? Sweetlee? Well, whatever it was, he swooped off with whatshername to her nearby kingdom, and Kendall never saw him again. Ryan's defection hurt more than anything ever had, so Kendall decided to give up on the idea of love and happiness for good. She decided that love and happiness obviously weren't for the Wicked, and she'd be better off concentrating on flirting and cute slippers and playing tricks on Bianca and her maidens.

So, things went on in the Valley of Pine more or less as they always had. Kendall played petty games, Bianca played with her maidens and ignored all the throngs of hopeful suitors Erica threw at her in increasing desperation, and Erica made a killing in the potions market with something called Youthful Essence that smelled suspiciously like Youth Dew.

And then, one day, something happened.

It started out simply enough. King Alexander of Cambias and his son Prince Michael arrived on a State Visit. Over the years local nobility like the Earl of Chandler and Duke Palmer of Courtland brought various male relations of various ages in the hopes of forging an alliance between one of these likely young men and Queen Erica's obviously disinterested heiress, Bianca. But monarchs and princes and dukes were coming from further and further with every passing month. Kendall and the rest of the court payed very little attention to it: the fact was that State Visits were becoming commonplace as Erica continued her matchmaking efforts on Bianca's behalf and as a result no one even noticed the preparations anymore. They barely paid attention to the visits anymore.

Then the Cambii arrived, and Kendall got a good look at Michael from her chamber window. He and his father were both remarkably charismatic looking men, even from a distance. Prince Michael especially struck her fancy. He was surveying the courtyard with a bored look on his aristocratic face, and Kendall was instantly charmed by him.

"Wow," she thought. "Hottie! Too bad he's probably here to woo Bianca." But then she thought about that for a minute as she stared down at the so obviously bored gentleman. She was Wicked, wasn't she? Why couldn't she try and steal him for herself? Bianca never even seemed to notice or care anyway, and it would drive Erica crazy. There was always the slim possibility that Kendall might fall in love with him, but she thought her Wickedness had probably solidified enough that she could stay heart-whole.

Kendall weighed the pros and cons as she dreamily stared down into the courtyard. Prince Michael looked up at her window and idly flicked his whip back and forth near his horse's flanks, and her decision was made. "I'll try it! After all," she said to herself, "I'm Wicked! And besides, what's the worst thing that can happen?"

When Kendall thought about it much later, she decided that was probably her first big mistake. Because lots of horrible things could happen, and in Pine Valley, they usually did.