Chapter Two
Mal landed on the Isle of the Lost in the middle of the night, covered by rain and bad weather. The rain helped clear her mind. The rocky coast was bordered on one side by the magical barrier that kept things in, and on the other by a dark, indescribable blackish rocky coast. Mal decided that if she were to paint it, the color would be a mixture of Payne's Gray, Ultramarine, and Burnt Umber. The rocky coast was nearly vertical in some places, and at others, almost a flat hill. She recognized where she was quite well.
"Let's go find him," Mal muttered to herself.
As Mal walked down the beach, she recalled the circumstances leading up to her arrival on the Isle in full detail; she wigged out in the middle of a ceremony, and ended up accidentally putting everyone under a massive sleeping spell, transforming into a dragon, and flying back to the Island. She needed to return to Auradon to reverse the curse, and if she was going to do that, she needed to seek out one of her few friends on the island before she left: Terry, the son of Ursula, and one of the only real magic-users on the Isle.
After a falling out with Ursula, he moved into a lair of his own on the coast: a cave where Mal would be able to get some help with getting out of this place.
She climbed over the jaded crags, seeing the mouth of the cave open, black as pitch, before her. Even as the rain had begun lightening up, she supposed she'd get even wetter when entering the cave. She climbed inside the cave, the water reaching her ankles.
"Crap," she muttered.
She walked inside the cave along a passageway dimly lit by bioluminescent algae and other plants, taking extra caution to not slip and fall into the deeper, and most definitely dangerous waters along the side.
The familiar passageway opened up into a larger atrium, glowing blue and purple as a boy on a pedestal at least a story high tossed, seemingly nonsensically, various things into a cauldron. A large bivalve shell was open, presumably the cauldron's lid. He seemed completely ignorant of Mal, working almost exclusively on his brew.
"I'm baack," Mal said loudly enough for the boy to hear. She walked up to the pedestal as the boy continued putting things into the cauldron, before slamming the shell shut and jumping down to the ground below, with unexpected balance. He stood up straight, grinning a toothy smirk that would make anyone in Auradon want to toss him in mall jail. He wore ripped blue jeans, a black and blue leather shirt with three quarter length sleeves, and a beaten up black pirate hat. Around his waist was a yellow sash which supported a long cutlass.
He stepped into better light, directly in front of Mal, revealing very short cropped black hair, skin like yellow ochre in the sun, and dark brown eyes. His lips were uncharacteristically full for a male's, with a long nose that widened towards the end. He wore a necklace of many black pearls. His large black eyebrows raised excitedly as he cackled with unsettling eagerness.
"Mal! You are back. What a.. joy." He crossed his arms. "I'm surprised that the most beautiful princess of Auradon would return here, to the island of us leftovers," he said derisively.
"You got a reason for being here?" He asked her. His voice was moderately deep, but very gravelly, as if every vowel he said were accented by a schwa.
"Actually, I may or may not have cursed the entire country and need to get back in order to fix it."
"Cursed?" Terry asked.
"Yeah," Mal sighed. "Sleeping curse. I'm trying to-"
"Wow! You really are like your mother! Well, lucky for you, I might have a way to get off this place."
Mal frowned, mildly insulted. "Look, Terry. I don't know what your problem is, but-"
Terry drew his cutlass. "Watch it, bud. I'm helping you, here. Don't finish that sentence. You don't even have magic here, but that potion right there that I'm brewing? Make ya wanna off yourself quicker than anything before."
Mal's eyes narrowed, deeply angered, but knew Terry's personality was often abrasive. "Alright," she said. "Let's do this.
Terry laughed. "Well, before we get you off the island, we have to restore magic to these pearls. They're artifacts of my mother's; they can transport anyone across any body of water when you swallow one and say your destination."
Mal scoffed. "Magic? Here? On the Isle of the Lost! You're crazy."
"Well, since you got ridda your mom," Terry said, "A new witch sorta took over. You know the enchantress who cursed the Beast in the first place?"
"Uh, no?" Mal said.
"Yeah. Nobody did. Then, she just showed up one day after you did in your mom. You haven't seen much of the Isle since you've been back, I'm guessing, because she revamped the whole place. Now, her trick technically doesn't break the rules: she can't cast magic herself. But somehow, she can bring magic back into items, and because of it she's the most powerful person on the island. She even took over the Evil Queen's castle, restoring it and kicking her out. Evie'd be pissed."
"Why is she even here in the first place?"
"That's the thing!" Terry said. "Nobody knows. She didn't really do anything wrong. She taught the Beast a lesson, if you ask me. Probably most people feel that way. Don't matter, though: she still wound up locked up like the rest of us."
"Okay. So you think she'll restore magic to the pearls?" Mal crossed her arms, frowning.
"I dunno," Terry said. "But I mean, you're the daughter of Maleficent, right? I'm the son of Ursula. We have to have some kind of standing around here." His fingers fluttered excitedly.
"Time to get outta here." He clapped for a third time, and a large crab, easily the size of an ottoman, crawled out from the shadows. He climbed on top of it, and crossed his legs.
"Mal, hop on. This is gonna take us to the Enchantress."
Mal climbed up onto the crab, crossing her right leg over her left and crossing her arms.
Terry laughed harshly, standing up as the crab began crawling out of the cave and along the rocky cliff. "You might want to hold on. This ride is not going to be easy on you, buck-o."
Mal looked down, seeing a leather strap. She grabbed it with both straps as the crab began scaling a directly vertical portion of the cliff. Terry grinned toothily as he hanged off of the crab, holding onto it with one arm. The crab scuttled over the top of the rocky black cliff, stopping at the edge. Terry climbed off of the crab, as did Mal.
"Do we pay a fare, or something?" Mal said sarcastically.
"Yeah," Terry said dully. "Give me your voice and I give you a tail for three days."
Mal scoffed, looking around, her eyes widening. "What's up with this place?" The cliff itself was normally black, but Mal was not used to black growths emerging from the brownish earth, as if they were demonic obsidian tree stumps and hands, willing to pull her back down into the ground. She looked forward along the path to the town, and saw that even in the city, the black masses were overpopulating the square. Some even grew out of houses. Mal was used to being the most dangerous person on the Isle, but the black masses threw her off. The rain had since ended completely.
What is this? She thought. The masses- they must be trees, she decided- were not here a year ago. They had to be the result of this Enchantress.
"She did this," Terry said, seemingly reading Mal's thoughts. "She revealed herself back after you settled down in Auradon. Ever since, she's somehow been amassing power.. restoring magic. I'm fairly certain she casted a spell to create this stuff," Terry told her.
Mal crossed her arms, watching the crab scuttle back down the cliff. She shivered.
"I'm guessing we're not going to want to be seen, then, are we?"
Terry shook his head. "Definitely not. She'll kill us for sure. Maybe you especially, considering your boyfriend is kind of the child of her worst enemy and jailor."
"How exciting," Mal said. "I just love it when people try to kill me. Favorite pastime, y'know?" She walked down the pathway in the direction of the city. Terry followed.
"Nobody knows this way; I'm the only one who walks in this direction because I hide out on the cliff."
"Nobody else knows about this pathway?" Mal stopped and turned to face him.
"Nope. One time, someone found it, and almost discovered my hideout. I had to." He said, shrugging.
"You had to what?" Mal said.
"Rake 'em cross the coals, of course," Terry said, grinning, a malicious glint appearing in his eyes. He drew his sword as he walked ahead of her, turning around at one point to fire back a smile, his canine teeth looking particularly long.
Are those sticking out past his bottom lip? Mal thought.
Mal took a deep breath, not wanting to point out that she was aware of his lair. She followed behind him, frowning.
"What did I get myself into?"