A/N: In this chapter, our kids finally catch a break and get to relax for a while. We check back in with Auradon, and finally get a Mevie Proposal!

P.S: It's weird to figure out terms of endearment for Isle kids who are still under the pretense of being evil.

Contains: A frank discussion of abortion and teen pregnancy. Also, I have literally no idea about the Tangled/Frozen timelines as they relate to each other, so take the years Rapunzel and Elsa say with a grain of salt...

It was the beginning of a new age. While it wasn't strictly against the law, Uma's crew did a good job of harassing merchants into keeping their prices down. The system was now in place for those who needed help to get it, and those who still hurt the weakest among them, despite Mal's example, were able to be dealt with. Finally, they could relax, and hunker down for the winter. Life went on as usual in Dragon Hall, including medical appointments.

"So, what brings you here today?" Evie asked, glancing over at Ginny Gothel, who sat on a chair in Evie's impromptu apothecary shop. It was an abandoned classroom, with shelves made from old crates and boxes, and used plastic bottles filled with potions and poisons.

"I think I caught a stomach bug." Ginny explained, running a hand over her stomach. "I throw up a lot now, especially in the mornings. I can't eat certain foods without feeling sick, too."

"Any other symptoms I should know about?" Evie asked, as she used her homemade stethoscope (designed by Carlos, of course).

"Um, yeah. Like, I have headaches a lot, and pains in my feet and ankles, which I've never had to deal with before." The girl explained, and for her to be admitting weakness like this, must have meant she was afraid. Even the gentlest of Isle kids still had trouble admitting they were sick, or hurt. Often their parents had punished them for it.

"Ginny, has it occurred to you that you might be pregnant?" Evie ventured. She couldn't be sure about that diagnosis, but it was something to consider.

"Oh no. No no no." Ginny muttered, eyes wide. "I cannot be pregnant!"

"Why not?" Evie asked, earnestly. She had the necessary potions to administer abortions, of course, and had already done so for one very young girl who was the victim of rape, and likely wouldn't survive the pregnancy. She didn't like doing it though, and it wasn't a painless process. But if Ginny Gothel truly wasn't ready to have a child, Evie certainly wouldn't force her to.

"I- I can't support a kid, Evie." Ginny confided, rubbing her stomach anxiously.

"Didn't you hear Mal's proclamation? Pregnant mothers can get all the benefits of our system without being on work detail. You and the child will be cared for."

"But I don't know how to raise a kid! My mom literally just popped me out of her vagina and then gave me a chore list as soon as I was old enough to hold a mop!" The dark-haired Gothel girl shouted, eyes wide and afraid.

"You'll be a great mother, Ginny. Besides, you aren't alone. You have Antoine and Daria to help support you. They have experience with younger siblings already, and it isn't that different." Evie calmly explained, with her gentlest smile. "We have plenty of books in the library, and I'm sure some of them talk about raising children."

"I... I guess I never thought about it that way..." The teenager admitted. "The Tremaines have always protected me before, and now I have ample food and I'm sure I can get prenatal care..."

"But we need to make sure you're fully aware of your situation and your options, okay?" Evie added gently. "A child is a huge time sink. They're high-maintenance for the first few years, and they get into everything. You won't have as much time for yourself anymore, and that responsibility sticks around for years to come."

"So... are you certain there isn't anything else it could be?" The girl asked hopefully.

"Sorry, Ginny. I'd actually treat it the same way, even if you were pregnant." Evie smiled sympathetically, and reached into her tea-box for some packages.

"What are these?" Ginny asked, staring at the odd little pouches.

"Teas for your symptoms. Take the ginger tea for your morning sickness (that's the teabag marked with a 'Gi'), and take the chamomile tea ('Ch') for your aches and pains. It should also stimulate your appetite so you can eat without getting nauseous."

"Thanks Evie." Ginny smiled, and gave the apothecary witch a hug. "I know it's not strictly villainous to say, but this... means a lot to me."

"I can't tell you for sure whether or not you're really pregnant, or if you should keep the baby. But I can say for certain that I want you to be informed of all your options. I don't want you to take any path you'll regret." Evie smiled, and then added with a wink: "I won't tell, if you won't!"

This was the way things went on the Isle. Uma told Harry she loved him by leaning on him in times of need, because no child of the Isle had ever said "I love you". Evie threatened the pirates who'd jeopardized their supply run, then turned around and hugged a girl who might be pregnant. Mal defended the downtrodden with her life, and all her fury, and she was the girl who had killed her own mother, who had slit Maleficent's throat, and knelt in her blood. The girl who slaughtered forty-seven child abusers in one day, and held high the severed head of Claude Frollo.

It was the way of the Isle, where they showed their love through blood and oaths, and swearing on old, forgotten gods.

• • •

"So, now that all the major crises have been settled, and we're all prepared for winter... What should we do now?" Mal asked in a low purr, as she and Evie cuddled together under a quilt, in front of one of Carlos' awesome heaters.

"Mmm... besides spending time with you, I've been reading." Evie replied, and a little black cat came up to them, hopping into her lap.

As it turns out, the 'great news' Carlos was ready to tell them on the day they found out about Uma, was really great indeed. First, he'd perfected the wind-powered generator he'd invented so long ago, back when he still lived in the mausoleum. Now it was integrated into Dragon Hall's power grid, and assured that they wouldn't lose power this winter.

Secondly, Beelzebub had finally had her kittens. Evie had taken one of them as a familiar (because her mother's spell book insisted that a witch should have one, and she'd be damned before she used her mother's vultures), and named the little kitten Circe, after the witch named in the Odyssey. The little darling loved cuddling up with Evie, and occasionally Mal, and she seemed to be easily trainable, which was a good quality in a familiar.

All in all, it was shaping up to be a very comfortable winter.

"I've been reading my mother's notes in her journal about the faeries," Mal explained, eager to use her downtime with Evie to discuss her new findings. "Apparently faeries, Moorfolk at least (my mother's tribe), have a god and goddess. Oberon and Titania are King and Queen of the fae. Puck is Oberon's cupbearer, and a trickster figure, while Mab is the bringer of dreams and madness."

"Do you think they're real?" Evie asked, idly petting Circe as she mused. Recently, her conversation with Dizzy about belief and religion had gotten her thinking.

"I don't know. I'm learning more every day though." Mal answered, with a wistful look on her face. "Apparently same-sex relationships are not uncommon among faeries. Puck and Oberon were known to flirt with each other, and many faerie women fell in love with other women, and kidnapped human babies to raise as their own, because certain tribes thought their males had defective genes."

"Oh, I remember that!" Evie exclaimed. "Mother used to tell me stories about changelings, the glamoured faerie elderly who would be disguised as babies and traded out for human children!"

"It sounds ludicrous now, but I wonder if my people ever did all that? You know, baby-snatching and stuff..." Mal asked, looking, feeling, and sounding unsure.

"I don't know..." Evie replied honestly. "But I know you've never kidnapped babies, Mal."

"I think the buckets of orphans running around here would beg to differ."

"Shush!" Evie replied with a giggle. "There's a difference between snatching babies and rescuing abused children. Besides, I think the 'orphan' qualifier means you're justified in baby snatching them."

Circe purred contentedly, as if in agreement, and Evie scratched behind her ears.

"So what about you?" Mal offered. "Now that you've finished The Prince, what's next on the reading list?"

"I've been reading a book about modern application of chemistry in state-of-the-art pharmaceuticals."

"Um, you lost me at, like, all of it." Mal shrugged sympathetically.

"That's okay." Evie giggled, wrapping her girlfriend in a hug. "Advanced chemistry isn't your thing, my poison apple. I don't think any less of you for it.".

• • •

So, uh... Whatcha workin' on?" Jay asked, peering over Carlos' shoulder, to see nothing but a seemingly random assortment of parts.

"I'm working on a device that will let us tap into Auradon's television stations." Carlos explained.

"Oh, sweet. It sucks to watch the Dungeon Shopping Network all day." The young man from Agrabah answered.

"Yeah. I got the idea from the TV Guide I found in the library. Apparently there are a lot of shows on the mainland I've never even heard of before!" Carlos explained with excitement.

"I'm kind of eager to see Tourney in action, after reading about it in the old magazines you showed me." Jay added wistfully. The one kitten Carlos kept from the last litter began to rub around Jay's legs. Keeping with the classical demon themes, Carlos named this one Astaroth.

"So uh, you planning on staying down here all night?" Jay asked, indicating the garage around him.

"I'm too busy to sleep right now," Carlos replied, absently flipping through his book of schematics. "I have to finish the water heater before I get to the satellite box."

The white-haired teen didn't even notice Jay leave, until he came back moments later, with a plate of sandwiches and water.

"Well, if you insist on working late, you can at least stay fed and hydrated." Jay explained as he set the plate in front of Carlos with a grin.

"Wow! All this for me? You shouldn't have, dude..." Carlos crowed, quickly digging in. The lettuce was a bit wilted, and the meat had to be seared to get rid of bacteria, but Carlos DeVil was totally in love at that moment.

"No one but you ever brought me food when I forgot dinner... This is the second time you've done it, now."

"Clearly, no one knows what it's like to feed a tiny genius." Jay retorted, and was totally swept away when Carlos pulled him into a kiss.

"Thank you, Jay." The DeVil boy whispered when he broke away, while Jay simply stared, blushing deeply.

"I should bring you stuff more often..."

• • •

"

So, you wanted to talk about the Isle?" Rapunzel asked, sitting across the table from her cousin, Elsa, as they met in Arendelle. By her side was Cassandra, newly appointed Captain of the Guard after her father's death. She loved Eugene, she really did, but he was a real dunce when it came to war and politics.

"Yes. Thank you for coming, Rapunzel. You haven't been attending the Isle council, have you?" Elsa asked gently, getting straight to the point.

"No. It was my parents' decision to send Gothel to the Isle." Rapunzel explained. "While I usually handle diplomatic meetings between Corona and Auradon, my mother and father believe I'm not ready to deal with real villains..."

"Despite the fact that she has an advanced perspective, having married one." The guard captain added playfully.

"Probably because I married one." Rapunzel giggled, before becoming serious again. "Why do you ask, Elsa?"

"Well firstly, since I decided not to send Hans to The Isle of The Lost, I had to fight for a place on the council, and I have little say in what happens. I can speak, and get others to change their minds, but my vote doesn't count for much." Elsa explained.

A servant came by and poured tea for the two princesses, while Cassandra held up a hand and requested coffee instead.

"Why is the council seat so important to you?" Rapunzel asked, carefully sipping her beverage. After the last burned-tongue diplomatic-incident, she'd been a lot more careful around hot drinks.

"Well, I want to see the character of Auradon, for one thing," Elsa explained. "How they act around me is quite different from how they treat the worst among them."

"Can you tell me, Cassandra, the purpose of the Corona prison system?" Elsa directed her next question to the esteemed guard.

"Rehabilitation, of course." Cass explained. "Some of the worst criminals are kept in the dungeons for life, but petty thieves and misdemeanor criminals are shown a better way of life, so that when they leave the prison, they won't go right back to criminal activity."

"That's how my husband got out of his prison sentence, actually." Rapunzel explained. "He proved he was done being a thief when he brought me and my crown back home, and didn't ask for anything in return."

"There was no reason to put him in jail, because he was already rehabilitated, and ready to reenter society." Cassandra finished the thought her princess had started

"Woo-hoo! No stealing for six years now!" Rapunzel added, a bit loudly. Anyone in the room could tell how proud she was.

"No dangerous ice-related accidents for five years now!" Elsa added more quietly, clearly still ashamed of the events at her coronation, half a decade ago.

"Pardon me, Princess, but what was the point of your question?" Cass interrupted as politely as possible. Keeping her girlfriend from going off on tangents was practically in her job description, and once you got her talking about Eugene's no-theft track record, it was hard to reel her back in.

"Ah, yes." Elsa cleared her throat, and got her mind back on track. "I asked about Corona's prison system, because we in Arendelle have a similar program. But apparently in Auradon, they do things differently."

"Differently?" Rapunzel asked, tilting her head in question.

"Right. Apparently, the old families who founded Auradon: the Beasts, the Roses, the Whites, the Charmings, all still use the archaic dungeon methods." Elsa explained.

"You mean 'out-of-sight out-of-mind, throw them in the dungeon' methods?" Cassandra asked, clearly confused, and Rapunzel shared her confusion.

"But actual dungeons have been out of fashion for years!" Rapunzel added. "I think they're actually illegal in the capital?"

"Dungeons are illegal alright." Elsa nodded bitterly. "That's why no one calls them dungeons anymore. The dungeon of United Auradon goes by a much nicer name."

"Isle of The Lost." Cassandra answered quietly, glancing over to her princess, who looked a little confused. "What allows them to bypass the Dungeon Act of 1860?"

She referred of course, to a treaty signed at the founding of Auradon by all founding houses, including newer royal houses like Aladdin's and Mulan's. It was an act that officially outlawed torture, cruel and unusual punishments, and the act of tossing someone in a dungeon to die.

"They specifically zoned the Isle as an independent nation, and categorized the movement of criminals in nicer language." Elsa explained, to growing expressions of horror from her guests. "Instead of saying 'We threw Maleficent in a dungeon, with garbage to eat', they say 'We removed Maleficent to a newly independent nation, funded by donations of the Isle Council.'"

"But that's... that's not telling the full truth! Is that why all my parents' subjects think we were so gracious to send Gothel to the Isle?" Rapunzel asked, still a little shocked, and clearly trying to recover her thoughts.

"It's possible..." Cassandra answered, before wrapping Rapunzel in a hug, not caring that Elsa could see. The Ice Queen actually seemed like the sanest ally in Auradon, right now.

"It.. it gets worse, but I won't go into detail." Elsa mercifully smiled. "Instead of talking about the ethics of an independent nation of criminals, I'm just going to ask for a big favor."

"What do you need, cousin?" Rapunzel asked.

"You need to replace your parents on the Isle Council." Elsa explained, with a fire in her eyes that was equally strong as the ice in her blood. "I need an ally among the high table."

• • •

"Hey! Watch your step, peasant!" Antoine Tremaine shouted at the girl he'd bumped into, only to backpedal when he realized she was Mal. "I... I'm sorry. Terribly sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Got a lot on your mind, Tremaine?" Mal replied teasingly, seeing that they were headed for the same shelf: Self-Help & Psychology.

"Yes, actually. While you're here, do you mind letting me sign out a book, Commander?" The young man asked, pulling out a copy of What to Expect When You're Having a Baby.

The older kids who'd survived her soldier's boot camp (a figure of speech, no one actually died), had taken to calling Mal Commander, which she thought had suited her better than 'your Highness,' or 'Madame', or any other weird titles she didn't feel like she'd earned or wanted.

"Sure. Although I didn't think guys could get knocked up." Mal teased, pulling open the sign-out book, where she wrote the title, date, and borrower's name, leaving space for Antoine to sign.

"Haha, quite original..." Antoine rolled his eyes while he gave his signature. "It isn't for me, Mal. It's for Ginny."

"In that case, congratulations dude!" Mal announced, clapping him on the back. "Do you have any names yet?"

"Actually, we aren't quite sure if Ginny's... ahem, in the family way yet, but it's probable. Best to be prepared and all that." Antoine explained, quickly changing the subject to something less awkward. "And you? What did I distract you from?"

"Oh, I was just picking up a psychology book for Evie. I'm actually headed over to a different section now. See you later, Tremaine." Mal explained politely, before showing him out. It wasn't like she had anything to hide, but she didn't really want him to see her copy of Weddings for Dummies, because she'd never live it down.

She wasn't lying about going to a different section though. There weren't many law books on the Isle, but she managed to find a notebook pasted full of newspaper clippings concerning the Isle, and that would have to be enough for now. She'd been hoping to find a book about Laws of Succession, so she could confirm or deny what Maleficent had said about Phillip and the Bastard Law. At least this book of clippings would keep Evie distracted from her own book of wedding plans. She just had to hide it a few more days...

• • •

The setting was perfect. A warm night, cuddled up together by the fire. It was after dinner, and the firelight played beautifully on Evie's face, hiding all the imperfections that Mal was certain didn't really exist.

"E?" She asked quietly, barely audible above the beating of her heart in her ears.

"Mm?" Evie quietly acknowledged she'd heard her nickname.

"I need to slip out of the quilt for a second." Mal explained, worming her way out of the warm blanket.

"This was the best day of my life, Mal." Evie explained. It was barge day, the first since their run-in with the pirates, and for the first time since they'd taken Dragon Hall, Evie and Mal did absolutely nothing. They left their students and friends to keep track of things, and had one big date together, the first real date that either of them ever had.

Dating on the Isle was usually sort of just... Gang activity.

"I wish we could spend forever like this, together and relying on each other like soulmates." Evie mused, watching Mal get down on her knees. "What are you doing, silly?"

"Will... Will you marry me, Evie?" She asked, swallowing hard, and pulling a little metal tiara from her pocket. It wasn't real gold, just gold-painted, but it complemented her eyes, with glass jewels like sapphires.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," Mal continued, shaking and terrified of rejection. "I know I'm not a prince, and my only kingdom is the border of this stupid prison, but I want to share it with you, Evie."

"Yes! Yes, of course!" The blueberry princess announced, and Mal tucked the tiara into her hair, where it glittered in the firelight.

"I'm getting married!" Evie squealed excitedly, so loud that half of Dragon Hall probably heard her, before thankfully, Mal quieted her with a deep, passionate kiss.

Up Next: Interlude #2 where we peek into the lives of several kids on the Isle, and in Auradon (Enter Jane, and Lonnie!). After that comes the big wedding! Will Elsa and Rapunzel sway the council? Will Mal find out the truth about her mother?

Read on to find out, and as always, give me lots of feedback, whether it's a comment, or a vote!