Cruella De Vil nor any other Once Upon A Time' nor Disney' character belongs to my humble person. If they did, they'd be cooler.
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The realisation suddenly hit her while she was wringing the blood-soaked cloth. The whole fur-making affair had proved messier than she had expected. Not that she minded getting a bit dirty in seeking her pleasure, it was just that the whole ordeal resulted much more time-consuming than she had anticipated. Worst: time-consuming and rather undemanding. Simply put, tedious, and it was a dangerous thing for Cruella De Vil to get bored because, when she did, she began to remember. She began to remember, and then began to overthink. And that was when the Other took control. She threw the -now pink-ish, rag on the floor and resumed the scrubbing. She was trying to be as thorough as possible, expecting that the task presented more of a challenge if she was trying to achieve her mother's standards of quality, for example. The same meticulousness her mother had shown that day, so many years ago, when she committed her first murder. Oh, but was it murder or slaughter when you did it to an animal? Or was it simply killing? Cruella could not understand the difference. Humans were animals as well, after all, but they seemed to enjoy pretending otherwise, endorsed by silly fantasies of god-given rights and superiority. However, at her eighteen years of life she already knew better: dogs were animals, birds were animals, humans were animals, and all animals bled the same when you tore their skins.
It happened when she was five years old. It was a sunny spring day at Hill Hall; outside the sky was clear and the warm grass, inviting. Cruella had finally managed a swift escape from her horrible sour crone of a nana, and was running through the gardens towards the forest, her favorite place to play. Well, it was not as much a forest as it was a large-sized plot of trees her family used to keep the fireplaces alight during cold winter nights, but at the time it looked as huge and dark and scary as her storybooks described. And she loved everything about it, she loved it with all her senses. She loved the contrast of the shadows with the occasional ray of sunshine, she loved the musky smell of the trees, she loved the taste of humidity when she breathed through her mouth, she loved the tickle of the tallgrass on her fingertips when she grazed it while running; but above all, Cruella loved the sound of the birds chirping, high up on the trees. It had always being about the music, Cruella knew now. Even at that time, it really had begun because of it.
It was her favorite thing to do in the whole world, to simply sit there and listen for hours. And she was positive the birds in her forest knew her and loved her back. She knew they waited all day for her, their favorite audience, to arrive so they could delight her with their newest compositions, for Cruella knew they sang a different tune everyday, entirely created in her honour. That day she found herself particularly enthralled by a pretty little bird resting in the low branches. It was the tiniest little bird she had ever seen, olive green with beautiful bright yellow plumage on its head; several years later, upon reading a clothes' catalog inspired by birds, she would learn that her newest friend's name was Goldcrest and that it was considered to be a queen amongst birds because it was golden crowned in lovely contrast with its darker little body. The young girl was so engrossed on studying her petit friend that she did not realised how the sun was starting to set. She played with it, danced to its songs, then she fed it some grains she always carried when she went to the forest. She caressed the soft tiny feathers and discovered a new sense by which love it. She invented a story in which her new friend had flown millions of miles just to meet her, as if it had come to existence only to love her and to be loved by her. As if it knew it had been born to be hers and hers alone. That is why it hurt so much when the beast killed it.
She never saw it coming. She thought she had heard her father's voice calling for her but she had ignored him, as she always did. She did not imagine his monumental mastiff was searching for her as well. And it was so fast. The beast had appeared out of nowhere, and just taken her friend away as it was feeding from her hand; it was a miracle it had not taken her fingers away from her as well. Cruella stood there, petrified; her father's voice was closer but she could not respond. She just stared at the mastiff, who was now walking in his master's direction; its prey held proudly between its teeth. She hated it. She usually disliked the loud animal but the feeling had intensified tenfold by its most recent crime. Cruella saw her friend's wrecked body impaled by the immense canines, blood dripping from the wounds, and she was aghast; was it really that easy to end a life? Her mind exploded with questions. Her anger articulated in the way she pressed the remaining grains in her palm until she turned them into little more than dust. More importantly, she though, was it really that easy to take something she wanted away from her, that even a complete brute could do it? Make her this unhappy? She decided not. That was when her father appeared. After a hug and a slap of equal duration and gracelessness, they started the way home; he babbling nonsense about the dangers of disappearing like that and how she was going to be his death, she not listening to him at all. She was staring at the beast running ahead of them. She stared as it raced to the house and gave its prize to Mrs. De Vil, who was pacing at the entrance door. She stared as her mother took it and unceremoniously threw it in the hands of the footman. And then she stared as the footman took it by the very last feather of its right wing, as if it were soiled, and walked out of sight, clearly with the intention of throwing it with the kitchen waste. Her would soon be feeding vermin because of her father's beast. She kept walking, staring and planning.
Once they reached the house, she avoided any sort of contact with her mother by suddenly bursting into tears; she knew her mother could not handle her crying and would instantaneously run at the sight of her daughter's tears, as would also her father. Even at such a young age Cruella was well aware of her parent's resistance to… well, to her. She had memories of being a very small baby in a very large cradle, in a very large room, and utterly, desperately lonely. Not that she could remember complete scenarios, no; it was the sentiment she remembered, the halo of coldness permanently surrounding her. Even to this day: she was always cold. Her mother had shown no interest in her existence ever since -and possibly even before, she came into this world; not beyond occasionally making certain that she was still breathing. And her father had not made any effort as to inquire further into the causes for her wife's situation; he barely seemed to notice the situation at all, being constantly away, back in the continent with his precious vineyards. Coldness and detachment had been all she had been presented with as a child, and by this time and age it was all she could remember ever feeling. However, the nature of her relationship -or lack thereof, with her parents had made it easier for her to understand them and make them do as she willed. Much like her mother's talent for taming beasts, she had developed a talent of her own, only applied to the most aggravating animal of all: people. She always knew how to handle people, how to get what she wanted from them and how to avoid conflict; crying or laughing, she always knew just which tool would help her, and thus she used them often. As planned, her mother ran back inside as soon as her daughter started sobbing, most likely to retrieve her salt from the medicine cabinet. Her father hastily followed, after giving quick vague instructions to her nana, not looking once at his recently retrieved child. The girl calmed herself before the hag had a chance to disturb her with any of her prussian notions of education and entered the house as well. She saw her mother leaving the study with the familiar vial of white powder in her hand. Little Cruella smiled and ran to her with open arms. The woman stopped to accept the hug, stiff as a board. It was funny; sometimes Cruella felt as if she frightened her own mother, and that made Cruella feel very comfortable but very bored as well. Everything was just too bloody easy. The girl released her mother and made her way to her room, escorted by the crone, who sent her to bed without dinner.
The next morning, as Cruella's mother would tell it in the years to come, Mrs. De Vil announced herself as she entered her daughter's room but the girl was not there. She called for Mrs. Preewet, the nana, but she found that the old woman was already preoccupied looking for her. She had already covered two out of three floors with the maids' help and had sent the kitchen lad to look for her in the tree plantation, but the girl was nowhere to be found. The new commotion threw Mrs. De Vil's -already weakened by the previous day's incident, nerves overboard, so she made her way to the medicine cabinet in the study to get her headache medicine. It surprised her to find the key placed in the keyhole and the doors half opened. The thought of having left the cabinet in such a state baffled and mortified her in equal parts; God knows what could have happened if her daughter had had access to such a dangerous-«AAAHHHHHH...» The woman was thrown out of her thoughts by a series of horrified screams. They appeared to come from the backyard so the woman raced to the place as fast as her legs allowed. She took the library's door to the side of the house, which was the fastest route, and was almost there when she stumbled upon the source of the screams: it was Mrs. Preewet, who was white as a ghost, leaning against the house's wall and making a monumental effort to breath, as if someone had just extracted all the air out of her lungs. «She's the devil! SHE HAS THE DEVIL INSIDE OF HER», screamed the old woman as she held the younger by the shoulders. «What is happening, nana Preewet!? Is it Cruella? You must tell me, where is she!?» But there was no answer, as the nana Preewet held her chest and used all of her strength to catch air. Cruella's mother freed herself from the gasping woman's grip, letting her fall on the gravel. She ran the rest of the way to backyard, her heart on her throat, and called for the girl to no avail. Finally, she caught sight of her inside the kennels. All her dogs had been released. She found her daughter still on the previous day's clothes, sitting in front of the kennel of her husband's favorite mastiff... surrounded by an ocean of blood... and vomit... and what appeared to be entrails... Soon enough, the faint smile on Cruella's face and the many vials and bottles of medicine spread around into the gore initiated a gruesome retelling of the little girl's night in Madeline head. She saw her little fingers hovering delicately over the redness, barely grazing the surface with her fingertips, and then diving into it with urge; she evidently enjoyed the sensation. The woman called for her daughter with a strangely steady voice, for steady was definitely not how she felt at the moment, but somehow the situation did not shocked her as it probably should have. No, it was not the situation at all; it was the girl who did not surprised her, and it was that realisation which made her cry with fright. Little Cruella stood up and slowly walked to her mother; little bare feet emerging crimson every step she took. She glared at her for years but Madeline could not bring herself to speak at this point, tears streaming silently down her trembling anatomy. She stood there trying to comprehend, trying to make sense of the little tainted beast in front of her. Finally, Cruella smiled at her mother, she even giggled, «Duke didn't eat my birdie last night so I made sure he wouldn't be hungry...»
«Ever again», growled Cruella as she tore the cloth in her hands apart. Oh, she had done it again. She had allowed her mind away with the fairies again and now she was covered in the blood she was so dutifully trying to get rid of. Even her creation was displaying new spots, although, more on the red side of the spectrum. The young woman reflected on her latest disjointment with reality. It was common for her to drift away but it was usually triggered by a strong burst of anger; to date, in fact, it had always been about the music or something related to it, as she had just realised. The weirdest part was that she had not completely gone this time. She had been there with the Other as she decided scrubbing it was not as close to the fluid as she wanted to be, only She –that is her conscious-self, had been distracted, as if seeing her actions through a mist; but no blackout. Cruella, even though she could not control her motions, felt the slickness of the cold blood in her hands, saw the lively red in its colour, smelled the penetrating rustiness it expelled, heard its wetness spread through her skin and tasted the metal in its scent, and she immediately loved it. She had not sense so vividly since that first escapade with her father's beast, when she had come to her five-year-old self –after giving the mutt what it deserved, and experienced the warmth of fresh out blood. She had bathed in it and the halo of coldness was forgotten for a blissful while. Tonight she had missed the warmth as she was not there when the Other engaged in the messy part, but she had gorged her senses with everything else murder had to offer and she found that she was rather satisfied at the moment.
Cruella set aside her coat, not wanting to soil it further, and sighed: the job was finished and her floor was now impeccable.
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Hello and welcome to my little experiment~
Cruella De Vil, as performed by Victoria Smurfit, is simply the best that has happened to me and –for what I read, to OUAT in a long time. I deeply love her portrayal, and so I wanted to take what she added to the character and mix it up a bit with previous renditions to see what would happen. So this is basically me going all out mad scientist and changing a lot of stuff, but rest assured that 98% of even the most eyebrow-raising-worthy changes have been thoroughly investigated for your reading pleasure.
This is going to be a character study so expect a lot of insight and not much dialogue –at least not at first. Originally, this was going to be a one-shot, but I had this idea that I thought worth exploring and as my research grew so did the story; I hope it won't extend beyond 8 chapters but one never knows, right? I have almost everything I need -data-wise, at the moment so chapters shouldn't take long. Also, this is my first attempt at actually writting down my imagination; I hope it doesn't show as much as I think it does.
Leave comments, questions, cussing: I promise to answer them all, specially the cussing ;)