Ben flicked on the light in the room next to the master bedroom and took a moment to lean against the door. It hadn't been used since he was about four his parents had decided he needed to be a bit further from them and closer to the front doors so he didn't have to run so far to catch the bus to elementary school. It made him smile a little to see the polished wooden crib covered with dust against one wall and the ceiling covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. The side of the crib had been pulled down to the ground so that toddler him could get in and out of bed without consequence, and all the furniture was tiny except for the large armchair in the far corner.
He went over and gently pressed on the mattress and felt about six springs give out underneath the pressure. The frame looked mostly intact, but the mattress and springs would all need to be replaced. Good thing there wasn't exactly a lot for him to do anymore.
The armchair was in similar condition with the fabric having grown old and thin and tearing easily and the internal components having rusted away. Ben pushed it out into the hall, trying to ignore how his magic pushed at his hands along with him, offering help he didn't want. Other things followed the chair - a tiny toy chest whose lid had fallen in on itself, the dresser which had mold stretching inside most of the drawers, and the shelves, which he removed so he could get a good look of the room.
It had been painted a light, slightly dull blue, but Ben wasn't sure it'd stay that color. The baby was going to be a girl; his first instinct was to paint the room pink, but Mal would have his head if she did. He knew he would have many regrets if he went with either yellow or purple(No offense to his wife; it just would look awful with the lighting and carpets) but thought it might be nice to have green accents in the room. If only he had Mal's talent with art; it would be nice to try and replicate the moorlands on one wall.
A large part of him was struggling with how to fill the room. The younger part of his soul felt like it should be fairly self-explanatory. If he was having a girl, then she could have a box of crowns and plastic heels and princess dresses to play with as she got older. And a prince would have the opposite. But this was Mal's daughter, and Ben felt like that justified a completely different direction. What if she liked dinosaurs or cars or books? He already knew she'd end up abdicating his throne, so would it really make sense to lay that pressure of expectation on her when she was yet so small?
"Knock knock?" Someone asked from the doorway. Ben turned and nodded at Sophia before he continued to examine everything. "What's all this in the hall?" She asked.
"It needs to be thrown out," Ben sighed. "You-you're the real Sophia, right? Not someone pretending to be her?"
Sophia's smile grew tight and panicky. "Has... someone been pretending to be me?" She asked slowly.
"Agathe Morhan," Ben nodded. "Tell me, Sophia, how would you decorate this room for a girl with Mal's DNA in her?"
Sophia snorted. "How do you know it'll be a girl?" She asked. "Mal seems like the person to have sons, not daughters."
"And me?" Ben countered. "And I just... have a gut feeling."
"I think you should do a non-gendered approach," Sophia recommended. "I know a place where we can get furniture that matches the crib, if you're planning on keeping it."
"I think we are," Ben agreed. He sighed. "Should I put a bookcase in here for a newborn who won't have any interest in it for the first year or so? Mom and Dad have all the infant toys for Madison that we'll probably just move up here, and we'll need things like lamps and a chair and..." He broke off. Mal was just better at all this creative stuff. It was irony that she was the one who could care less about it all.
"Let's not worry too much about it right now, Ben," Sophia recommended. "You've still got a while, and Mal will be back in March. Let's paint the walls a different color - maybe white so if she's feeling inspired when she returns, she can do her thing to the walls. And I'll put in an order for new furniture."
"I'd rather do it," Ben admitted. "But thank you."
Sophia nodded and knelt down to poke at the frame on the crib, trying to work the mattress off of it. Been closed his eyes and tried to imagine a little kid in here - would they like swords or tea parties? Gowns or suits? Art supplies or chapter books?
He had so many ideas and things he couldn't wait to try with them. If only he could peer into the future like his family Enchantress could. Or if he could meet them right now so he'd know everything they needed him to do to be a good parent.
Would they be calm, or explosive? Would they like leather and metal or soft cloth and elegant designs? Purple hair or blonde? Would she be a daddy's girl or a mommy's girl?
Thinking about it and wondering made him feel a lot lighter than he had in a long, long time.
"Stop," Jack commanded her as they flew across a forest. Mal halted in midair, clutching the mist in her hand tightly. It took her a moment to come down off of her emotional high before she could focus on him.
"What is it?" She asked.
"We're on the bridge between the swampland and Burgess," Jack explained. His shoulders dropped down as if they were heavy laid with a thousand sorrows. "I think I know where the mist is leading us. One of the old entrances to Pitch's lair is over here, but the area has been pillaged."
"Pillaged how?" Mal asked with a frown.
"By a woman known as the Fairy Godmother," Jack said, gripping his way and looking around cautiously.
Mal snorted. "Common title, I guess."
"She also goes by Dama Fortuna." Jack shrugged. "If that makes things easier for you."
"You called?" A light voice called. Jack's eyes went wide. A bright white stream of light appeared out of nowhere and struck Jack down from the sky. He tumbled, head over heels, to the ground below.
"Jack!" Mal exclaimed. She made to go after him, which moved her frame just enough that when the second stream of light appeared to try and knock her out of the sky, it only took her foot out from under her. She fell into the trees below with an angry black and red mark on her heel. Mal screamed and covered her face as the branches scraped her arms and the needles from evergreen trees stuck to her skin. She tumbled to the ground and laid on the stone-like earth, heaving and shaking. The trees had broken her fall enough that she was only banged up.
She quickly got to her knees and looked around. A woman with grey hair piled atop her head and half-moon spectacles was floating above Mal's head. "Why, you're quite agile." She said, blinking down at Mal.
"Excuse you!" Mal spat out a mouthful of pine sap. Irrational anger boiled in her veins. "Is that any way to treat guests?"
"Guests?" The woman asked. "I think not. Invaders are more accurate."
Mal jumped to her feet as the woman floated towards the ground and marched right up to her with her fists balled and smoke beginning to curl out of her ears. She felt entirely, irrationally, angry. "You want an invasion, Ms. Fortuna? I will give you an invasion!"
"You and what army, dear?" Dama Fortuna, the second Fairy Godmother, quipped. She waved something past Mal's face. Mal focused on it. It was a wand. Interesting.
"You know what, lady?" Mal yelled, advancing further on the Fairy Godmother. "I'm sick, I'm exhausted, and I want this bloody war over with so I can go back to problems that actually keep me entertained for more than two days. Do you want to end up like Eris's daughter? Well, bring it on!"
Mal stamped her foot and crossed her arms. The Fairy Godmother flicked her eyes up and down Mal's frame. "This is the queen of Auradon?" She asked distastefully. "You're the woman that drained Helena of Troy of her magic?" She flicked her wand to the left, and Mal felt her entire body leave the ground. She blew sideways, like a leaf, into a tree. As she collided with the truck, she bit her tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood. Her side was burning.
She felt magic flicker to her rescue at the pain. A cold wave washed over her as the green flames she knew resided under her skin made a barrier around her body so that she could not be harmed. Dama Fortuna flicked her wand to the ground in front of Mal, and Mal shielded her face as the earth blew into the air in front of her. Mal's ears rang as the sonic boom of the explosion followed. She felt the wind and dust course around her body, and when it was all over, dusted herself off. She'd slid back about thirty feet and would have hit trees had they not been blown away as well. She let the green light come into her eyes and looked ahead, towards where she'd last seen the Fairy Godmother. Dama Fortuna appeared in front of Mal from the clouds of dust still rising. She frowned as she examined the long tracks which led up to Mal's feet.
Mal held out her hand. "And now I command, wand to my hand." She recited firmly. The wand immediately lurched to try and follow Mal's command. Dama Fortuna gasped and fastened her hold on her wand. She held it back for three whole seconds before she and the wand jumped to obey the Queen of the Moors. The Fairy Godmother was dragged forward on her face in the ground until the handle of the wand landed in Mal's hand.
"No!" Dama Fortuna wailed. She wrapped her legs around Mal's outstretched hand and began to childishly kick to pull her wand from Mal's grasp. Mal felt for the green fire underneath her skin and, without even looking into the second realm, began to pump magic into it. Dama Fortuna continued to scream, unaware that Mal was destroying her wand underneath her very fingertips.
"Mal!" Someone called from the woods. A teenager in a blue hoodie came limping out of the woods with his staff slung over his shoulder. "Mal!" He yelled.
Mal turned her emerald gaze on Jack and snapped: "Freeze her before I blow her to pieces."
Jack was wounded, but he flew the last twenty paces to Mal and readied his staff. Dama Fortuna's eyes widened. "Nooo!" She screeched. Jack swung, and thick ice appeared over Fortuna's skin. Mal yanked the wand out of her fingers, and Jack froze her over a second time for good measure. He then collapsed on the ground next to her.
Mal examined the wand. It looked pretty pathetic. It was simple, silver, with a wider base than tip if you didn't count the star on the top. It almost looked like an extremely thin Christmas Tree with a very large star atop. Mal snorted and snapped the star clean off the top of the wand, dropping it as sparks flew out. She held the wand aloft and pushed as much magic as she could to her fingertips. She watched as green light appeared in her hand. The wand began to morph and change. It expanded in her grip to a wider ivory grip with a holster attached to the end. Beautiful purples and blues imprinted in the sides of the wand, and tiny engravings of gold appeared around the clutch of the wand. Mal smiled upon her work. "Nice." She commented.
She picked up the tip, the star, which had fallen to the earth, and dusted it off on her shirt. She brushed it off on her shirt and examined it. It still radiated with power. Mal suddenly had a wonderful idea, so she slipped the star into a pocket of her armor and placed the wand in her boot. She kicked the ice block containing the old woman. "Exactly how much can you freeze her?" She asked. "I want to send her to the Isle, but I don't have time to find Bunny when we're so close to Pitch."
"Give me a minute." Jack groaned. Mal bent down and rested her hands on the angry black and red marks on his neck. "Be whole of soul; as bright as gold." She muttered. Jack let out a breath of relief as the red withdrew. He moved his shoulder and legs carefully to test them out.
"Where'd she get you?" Mal asked.
"Across the back." Jack sighed. "I'll freeze her over and we'll go."
Mal stepped back as Jack took to the air and watched as he lit the tip of his staff up and began to coat the second Fairy Godmother with layer after layer of ice. Mal sat down and checked her ankle, where Dama Fortuna had managed to nick her, but it had already healed at some point since her fall.
When Jack had finished encasing the older woman, he sat beside her on the earth and conjured a handful of snow. He handed it to her carefully.
"What is this?" Mal asked as she took it with both hands.
"You threw up, got blasted from the sky, and then built a new magical device." Jack sighed. "Ben will be mad at me if I don't at least make sure you're getting enough water."
Mal snorted. "Yeah. I got blown into a tree before she tried to blow me up." She rolled her eyes. "Ben will probably be thrilled to hear that."
Jack looked unsettled. "Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yeah." Mal nodded. "I'm not bruised or anything." She showed him her arms as proof.
Jack sighed and conjured her a second handful of snow. Mal felt her remaining anger fade as she let the snow melt down her throat. "Okay." She said and stood back up. "I'm ready to go when you are."
Jack still looked worried. "Don't overdo yourself." He warned.
Mal waved off his worries. "I'm fine." She sighed. "Just don't expect me to act kindly to her again." She gave the Fairy Godmother's dome of ice one last annoyed kick before she stretched her wings and took to the sky. Jack followed, riding the winds with his staff. "Lead the way." She told him.
She followed Jack through the maze of endless trees. Mal watched as the air grew visibly thick with soot and rainbow smog. "It's from them brewing potions here," Jack told her sadly. They flew lower to the ground to avoid the worst of it. One day, she'd have to bring the moorlanders to help her correct the pollution.
Jack lead her past a small pond with enchanting frost patterns covering the surface of the thick ice. They darted around a tree with a giant knot that seemed the perfect size for someone small to rest inside, but radiated sadness like Mal hadn't felt in a long time. Finally, they came across an area where the trees didn't grow and the ground was hard as a rock. Jack and Mal landed beside a large hole. When Mal peered in to find the bottom of it, she found that there was no bottom visible.
"Pitch Black is down there?" She asked.
"Yeah." Jack nodded.
Mal frowned. "Well, we can't go in. That's a death trap."
"How else do you expect to get him?" Jack asked with a frown.
Mal picked up a handful of the earth and dropped it into the hole. She couldn't hear anything. It was complete darkness down there. "Could we smoke him out?" She asked.
"Pitch? The shadow king who has both sand and shadow travel powers? Sure, we can try." Jack rolled his eyes.
Mal pinched her lips together and her chest twanged in hurt. "Don't you do that!" She snapped, crossing her arms as stubborn tears appeared in her eyes. "You know what? Fine, let's do it your way!" She put one hand on either side of the hole and dived in.
"No, wait!" Jack yelled, but she was already gone, falling down the not-so-wonderland hole. She knew immediately it was a bad idea, and cursed her stupid mood swings for everything they had made her do in the last twenty minutes alone.
Mal skidded out of the dirt and fell forward onto her hands and her knees on the cement
blocks of the floor. She swore and stood up, brushing off her hands and armor.
The room appeared to have once been part of a grand castle that had sunken into the ground at a bad angle. A name came to Mal's head for the cursed place: Onihah. Large chandeliers that looked more like cages hung from the ceiling and several dangerous-looking arches that were meant to be walked on stretched around the room like a cross between bridges and tightropes. Mal was standing on an area of the structure that dropped immediately into a large cliff off the side. Mal stepped up to the edge and peered over into the depths of the room. Once again, she saw no end, only spiraling darkness.
"Care to introduce yourself?" A hard voice echoed off the walls. Mal heard a sound almost like a breath and turned to see a very tall man with broad shoulders, dark grey skin, and a square face sneering at her.
"Nah." Mal rolled her eyes. "You'd probably hate me more if I did." She crossed her arms, completely unimpressed with the nightmare king. He looked equally unimpressed with her.
"Purple hair, green eyes, and horns," He chuckled as he took a seat on a rather large stone block that looked like it had fallen from the ceiling. "Don't you look like a fashion statement?"
"Thank you." Mal bowed sarcastically. "The tabloids love me. And I'd love to chat more, but I've really got to get around to shutting up the ol' sandbox if you don't mind." She snorted and began to laugh. "Oh sandbox. Geesh, I should reuse that one when I go to cage Eris."
"Cage Eris?" Pitch asked. He disappeared into sand and reappeared in front of Mal. "You think yourself so great as to cage a goddess of chaos?"
Mal shrugged and pushed past him. She began to walk across one of the walkways. They looked like flying buttresses. She looked down into the dark as she walked and was unpleasantly surprised to see that white eyes were staring up at her.
"Like them?" Pitch asked. His voice was disembodied and coming from every corner of the room. "They were my companions in the dark ages."
Mal gave a lazy double-thumbs up. "You got a bathroom anywhere?" She asked as she wandered into what looked like a gigantic dining room, complete with an abnormally-sized table. It was engraved with scenes of panic, plague, and war. This she leaned on as she turned to talk to Pitch.
Pitch looked genuinely surprised by that request. "Why would I, an immortal lord of darkness, have a bathroom in his palace?"
"I'm guessing that's a no." Mal sighed. "You should get one. In case, you know, you have any other purple-haired, pregnant queens that come and need to use the services."
Pitch chuckled. "Somehow, I doubt after you, that that will ever happen again." Sands began to coil at his feet. From them, he pulled a sword made of shadows.
Mal rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I think I left my sword upstairs. Mind if I go get it?" She pointed in the general direction of the surface.
Pitch looked at her curiously. "You are not afraid of heights, of demons, or of people pulling swords on you. What then, pray I ask, do you fear?"
Mal yawned. "Nothing you have to offer." She told the nightmare king. "I must say, your daughter was a lot like you before I scared her half-to-death." Pitch's eyes flashed in anger. "She thought she could beat me too." Mal smiled lazily.
"Listen, little girl," Pitch narrowed his eyes and glared down at her. "You're talking to a god. I don't need to hear any drama."
Mal pursed her lips a little in defense. She didn't think there was anything that gave her age away in particular - it must just be her height.
"Perhaps losing your child?" Pitch asked. Images flooded Mal's mind. She imagined lowering a small coffin into the ground, saw herself dressed in black. She felt cold wind nipping at her heels and saw the shadow king cross the ground nearby. The images faded, and she saw Pitch smiling wickedly at her from across the room.
"Not really," Mal admitted as she shook her head. "That'd suck, maybe, but I'm not afraid of it."
Pitch's smile faded considerably. He disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room. Mal sighed. She didn't understand what was with sand magicals and their appearing every which way. Hopefully Ben never picked up the habit. "What about… losing the war?" He smirked. More images flew behind Mal's eyes. Jack and Hiccup and everyone dead, death spreading to Auradon, black sands moving across the ocean…
Mal laughed. Pitch looked shocked. "What's so funny?" He demanded.
"Eris's sands can't touch water, or they become useless. And yours are flammable. They'd be easy to stop. And if we lose the war, we'll just let everyone take refuge in Auradon. I fixed things, so you can't go over anymore." Mal smiled widely at Pitch.
"We'll find a way." Pitch smiled.
Mal rolled her eyes. "Okay, hotshot." She lowered her eyes into the second realm and began searching for the slippery traces of Pitch's magic that she'd followed here as Pitch continued to make guesswork of her.
"Auradon falling into ruin." He chanted. She forced the images away after glimpsing the ruined Beast's Castle.
"In your dreams." She returned.
"Becoming a failure." He challenged. She glimpsed the image of North and Sandy looked disappointedly at her and scoffed.
"I was raised being told I was a disappointment to my mother. You'll have to do better than that." Mal insisted. Pitch didn't seem to even notice she was toying with his magic. Oh well, make it easy on her.
"Let's see here, let's see here." Pitch snapped his fingers. "Living without your husband because he died?"
Those words immediately brought back fresh, painful memories. Mal flinched and lost her focus as visions of Ben with black sand pouring in a grotesque manner out of his mouth and eyes sprinted past her eyelids. Fear froze its way into her spine.
Pitch laughed. "There we go!" He crooned. Mal did her best to ignore him as she returned to work, but her focus was dramatically impaired. The room around her seemed to disappear as Pitch melted into the shadows and visions were thrown at her in a powerful, dizzying pace. She tried her best to find his presence, but with the full-color visions being thrown in front of her, morphing the room as she worked, it was impossible to grasp anything. She wasn't powerful enough to interfere with Pitch's natural magic.
"Can you imagine putting him into the ground?" Pitch laughed as he pulled from her memories a frantic Ben, waking her with a new type of skin on his chin, and shaking as sand poured from his fingers. His voice was demented, and Pitch echoed whenever he spoke. "Look what you did to me!" He howled. "How could you do this? I'd rather be dead!"
A gunshot echoed inside Mal's head as she watched him drop to the ground, banging his head on the bathroom counter with a self-inflicted gun wound. She clapped her hands over her ears and screamed. Belle and Adam appeared in the doorway to her imagined room and stared in horror.
"Did you do this?" Belle asked, with Pitch's voice repeating every word. "Was this your plan all along?" Adam growled, rising up to his full height and lunging forward, seizing her throat. "Wait until you had a grasp of the palace and… murder him!"
He lifted her up off the ground and shook her as if he were presenting her for all the world to see. "Assemble a firing squad!" He howled. "I want her executed within the next hour!"
Mal looked down at the fuzzy appearance of Belle, but she said naught a word. Beautiful pearlescent tears fell from her eyes as she stroked her dead son's hair, carefully avoiding the place where blood poured out of his head in a sickening manner.
The vision released her, and Mal fell to the floor of the dining room, crying. Pitch Black appeared, half-materialized from the shadows, and laughed cruelly. "What else are you afraid of, Queen of Auradon?" He asked with mirth in his eyes. "Could it be… losing your magic?" Several painful images appeared with his words. Mal trying and failing to cast off shackles on her wrists in a dark cell, watching Ben writhe and turn the night he'd almost died with no chance of saving him, and watching Maleficent the Senior roll her eyes and hiss: "Weak, overemotional."
Pitch continued pulling at her strings until finally he found something else that made her double over. Ben, staring at her in shock, while her hands curled around her frame - a frame that was much more pronounced than her real one. It was a figure she'd only conjured up in tortured thoughts. "You don't want it?" Ben gasped. "Now?"
"I. Can't. Do. This." Mal heard herself grit her teeth together. "I want it gone." He closed his eyes in pain and turned away from her.
"I am not afraid of you." She whispered to Pitch. Her stomach was churning again from being thrown to the floor.
Pitch laughed and came further out of the shadows. He floated in front of her, about five feet away. "Jack Frost said that to me once." He remembered. "And I told him that he was afraid of something." Pitch paused to spread his arms. "And he was. He was afraid that no one would ever believe in him, that he'd be doomed to be invisible and friendless for the rest of eternity. And that he'd never know why. Without his memories for three hundred years, wanting desperately to know who he was, not knowing all that time that Toothiana, the guardian of memories, had the teeth that every child had lost over the last few millennia and that she had the power to tell him who he was."
Mal knew the situation the moment it started. The monologue, where the villain uncannily explained his evil plan and evil motives while giving the hero enough time to formulate an unlikely plan that works. Unfortunately, Mal was a mite too sick to think of anything right now. She curled up on her knees with her forehead pressed into the ground as Pitch continued to croon.
"I lured him here, with those memories of his that I had stolen. Tossed him around in his own fears, and then tossed him out in the cold. I find it fascinating that the very girl I was conspiring to kill happened to wander into my palace just when I was… trying to figure out where to find you." Pitch trailed off and snapped his attention back to Mal. "How did you find this place?"
Mal held up a finger and shook it at Pitch as she squeezed her arms to her stomach. Several seconds passed. "How did you find-" He started again, but Mal thrust her finger at him more urgently and shook her hand at him. He cocked his head sideways at her. "Are you… okay?" He asked.
Mal felt her stomach rush up her esophagus and shuddered. She gagged once and emptied the contents of her stomach, most of which was water and bile, all over the floor of the dining room. Pitch jumped back in shock. Mal groaned pitifully as she held her hands against her stomach, and felt bile rise up inside her a second time. She groaned and rolled away from the foul-smelling liquids. She squeezed both of her thumbs, which was a trick she'd learned on the Isle that lessened your gag reflex, and took several small, deep breaths. The churning in her stomach gradually lessened, and she carefully got to her feet.
"You-you just threw up all over my dining room." Pitch said, sounding shocked.
Mal wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. "Maybe you should consider installing a bathroom." She told him.
Pitch shook his head a few times to get his bearings. "How… how did you get here again?"
Mal smirked. She kept one hand to her stomach as her insides churned and steadied herself on the table with her other hand. "I'm a lot more powerful than you think." She smiled.
Pitch frowned. "As am I." He told her. "You can't destroy me, you know. I am fear. Fear will always exist. You can't kill fear, your highness."
Mal pinched her lips together in a tight smile. "Who?" She asked.
"Fear." Pitch gestured broadly to the room around them with a proud smile.
"No, who were you talking to?" Mal asked.
"You." Pitch frowned.
"Me?" Mal asked innocently.
"The Queen." Pitch spat in the most impressive sarcastic tone she'd heard from anyone in a very long time.
Mal pulled the star that had come off Dama Fortuna's wand out of her pocket and tossed it in her hand. "Ah, the Queen. That's me. I never understood this use of the word 'highness'. I mean, look at how tall I am." She chuckled and slipped the star back into her pocket. She had no use of it. "I'm not just a queen, Pitch. I'm an enchantress."
A storm arose in Pitch's eyes. "An enchantress? Hardly. My daughter was an enchantress. A goddess by right of her mother. Do you know what you've done? You destroyed the goddess of deceit."
"Deceit? Accurate." Mal smiled.
Black sands arose behind Pitch's frame as he grew angrier and angrier. "I will destroy you." He hissed. "I will imprison you just as you imprisoned Apate!" The yell echoed off the walls. Mal cocked her head. She found it fascinating how Pitch referred to his daughter as Apate, while most people tended to say: "Helena of Troy", as Dama Fortuna had. Only Helena had referred to herself with both names. Pitch tried to lunge forward, but a sudden layer of ice held him in place. Mal looked around Pitch and found a tall, white-haired man in a battle position with his shepherd's crook outstretched.
Jack Frost.
Pitch's expression hardened. "Frost." He spat. "So we meet again."
Jack smiled sadly. "Well, it's as you said, isn't it?" He whispered. "What goes better together – or head to head – than cold and dark?"
Mal lowered her gaze into the second realm and reached out for Pitch's magic as he and Jack stared each other down. His feet were still immersed in shadows. She worked quickly, stealing partially from Jack's ice magic in his staff, and sealed the shadows at Pitch's ankles. She continued, working fast, and encased Pitch in a spell the likes of which she'd never cast before. It was like a shield around the entirety of his body, with inter-weavings of ice and her fire magic around it. She made careful not to prod Pitch's magic in any way, and he did not appear to notice what was going on. Within thirty seconds, she was done with the frame-working of the spell.
"So, this is how you found my palace," Pitch growled. "Fear not, I shall have him with you."
Mal connected her spells and fail-safes to Pitch and returned her vision to normality. This, Pitch felt. He clutched at his chest and coughed lightly. Mal knew that the spells were powering off of his own strength, and thus they would stay unless they were broken.
Pitch turned towards her as he bent over, his chest tightening. "Did you do this?" He asked in wonder.
"Now, Jack." Mal nodded at her white-haired counterpart.
Pitch's eyes widened in fear. He turned and commanded the black sands around him, but they did not respond. Rather, Pitch yelled in pain at the sharp tug at his chest. He tried to fade into the shadows but looked like he was bouncing lightly as he waited to fade into his metaphysical form. He stared at Mal in shock. In all this time, Jack had remained tense but had not moved. Pitch could not run. He could not move. His feet were in a different plane, and he was trapped. Mal crossed her arms. "What's wrong? You seem... sad without your powers."
"You can't get rid of me!" He sputtered as Jack and Mal advanced on him. "It is as I said, there will always be fear!"
Mal smiled as she examined her handiwork. "Lovely words, Pitch. Jack?" She elbowed her partner. "What do you say we take him to the Isle, and chain him to the top of the forbidden mountain?"
Jack raised an eyebrow. "I don't know where that is." He reminded her.
"Oh, famous place." Mal smiled. "My mother once resided there. He'll have a lovely view of the Isle and Auradon. And above all, it'll be a wonderful place for him to watch things change forever, without end."
Pitch's eyes grew wide with fear. Jack tapped him with his staff, and a thick layer of ice formed around his frame. Mal smiled as she took how of one of Pitch's arms, and Jack took hold of the other.
"Think the war council can handle one goddess of discord for a week or so?" Mal asked Jack as they pulled Pitch out of the room and began to head back to the way they'd come in.
"Are you heading out?" Jack asked.
"And you're coming with me." Mal raised an eyebrow. "We've got one guardian of fear to chain to a horrendous mountain for time and all eternity, one Ice Queen and two Ice Princesses to see, and I am going to drop by and see my husband and my people on the Isle before we return."
Jack laughed. His eyes took on a faraway look. "That sounds nice." He admitted.
As they ascended into the sky and began to head back, a thought occurred to Mal. "We should stop by the moors before we go to see Elsa." She said. "I just remembered I need to pick something up."