The spell they chose to cast was one Mal had designed- there was simply no way for another spell to accomplish quite what they wanted- but it hadn't been enough. The spell had been too strong, and too many of their circle had been entirely human, and at the height of the spell, she'd been able to feel the life forces of all thirteen members of the circle fading.

And she'd made a plan.

In that moment, she had been forced to make a decision, and she had chosen family over blood. She had chosen Ben over Maleficent. Her husband over her mother. She'd grasped Maleficent's magic and pulled, hard, dragging her mother's magic and life force from her body, and pushed it into the souls of the other members of the circle- Ben, who had slumped over, only weakly holding Carlos's hand, and Gil and Lonnie, leaning heavily on the people around them.

She did this and the magic in the room swelled and grew frantic, and she felt her mother's hand go limp in hers {she knew, then, what she'd done, but she hadn't thought about it until later}. And still, she held her mother's hand {corpse} tighter, because the spell wasn't done and she couldn't let all of this be for nothing.

And when the spell ended, she and Evie dropped her mother's body to the floor, running over to the King of Auradon, only barely hearing the hollow thud of Maleficent hitting the floor as she cradled Ben's head in her lap.

Carlos dropped beside her, holding her even as magic hummed over her skin, letting off tiny sparks. Jay stood behind them, watching as Uma dropped to care for Harry and Gil, and Chad, Jane, Doug and Lonnie huddled on the floor.

Evie was the one who threw open the doors, looking out towards the Isle of the Lost. Her gasp was so soft, Carlos next to her likely couldn't even hear it. But Mal could. And besides that, she already knew what it meant, because she had let the focus of the spell shift.

The spell that had taken Maleficent's life hadn't been strong enough to keep Hades on the Isle. She has set the people of the Isle free- all of them. She has beaten the heroes. She has been condemned to protecting Hell.

She has never been more alone.


Mal stares up at the ceiling of the Palace of Hell.

She's been in the same position for so long that her limbs are stiff. She's more like the bodies of the souls she's meant to guard than she would like, but she can't bring herself to move.

She's been lying in the same position for nearly a decade now, she thinks. Maybe more. Time went wobbly, at some point after the sixth century of being the Regent of Hell. It was inconsistent, and, to tell the truth, unimportant.

Her hair is midnight blue and if she stood up would trail behind her on the floor {she doesn't stand up}. The nightgown she's wearing is thin, now, and discoloured (once, it was the colours of Auradon. Now, it's white) {she doesn't change}. She's grown thin, thinner than Evie was at her worst times on the Isle (she knows because she's so cold- there's nothing left to her) {she doesn't eat}.

Of course, none of this keeps her from fulfilling her promise- but, as it turns out, the Underworld can mostly take care of itself. She's not needed nearly as desperately as her step-mother had made it seem, all those years ago {then again, time passes differently for the gods like it does for her now. Maybe after a millennia, ten years will feel like mere seconds to her as well}.

"Your grace," someone says at the door, and she hums in response, not bothering to move. They cough and try again. "Your grace?"

She'd been trying to see how long she could lie still before she simply got so bored that she could actually sleep, but it seemed that that wouldn't be allowed. She sat up, sighing and cracking her neck.

"Yes-" she broke off, staring at the servant, trying to remember their name. Was it important?

"Kharon." The servant told her, dead-faced. She wondered how long they'd been at their job. She wondered if they hated it as much as she hated hers.

"Kharon," she echoed, trying to sound as though the name meant something to her {maybe it had, once upon a time, but it had been a while since she'd had to use words, and she was still regaining the feeling for them}, "what is it?"

"Someone who requests to see you, your Grace." She silently raised an eyebrow, but the point was conveyed very clearly- who the fuck thinks they have the right?

She swung her feet over the bed and took a second to brace herself before standing up. She tipped but didn't fall over. Kharon caught her elbow and placed her arm over theirs.

"Thank you."

The words were foreign- she likely hadn't said them since- no. She didn't think about Auradon. She didn't.

As she made for the door, Kharon coughed again.

"What is it?" She asked, spinning to face them.

"Your- uh- your attire may not be considered entirely appropriate, your grace."

She laughed {the last time she had laughed had been- several hundred years ago, at least}.

"I'm the Queen," she told them, "who's going to say anything?"

"Regent-" the ghoul tried to interject, but Mal just rolled her eyes.

"My father and his bitch of a wife haven't been seen in six centuries, Kharon. I've been the Queen of the Underworld since I fucking arrived."

Kharon said nothing, but their silent disapproval permeated the room.

"Fine," she sighed, rolling her eyes. She stretched her arms out above her, closing her eyes as her hair grew backwards into the short cut she'd kept it in as a teenager on the Isle. Her frayed nightgown replaced itself with an evening dress made only of lace. A crown of dying roses and ivory found its place atop her head.

She took Kharon's arm again, letting them lead her through the twists and turns of the palace she'd once known and since forgotten.

As they approached the doors to the throne room together, a cold voice announced, "Her Majesty Queen Mal, High Queen over Auradon and the Isle and Regent of the Underworld presiding."

Mal entered, letting her bare feet peek out from underneath the dress. Next to her, Kharon rolled their eyes, and she smiled at them.

"Well?" she asked as she settled on the stairs below the throne {it wasn't hers, after all}.

"W- Well?" the woman below her echoed. "Mal, it's me."

Mal didn't remember the woman in question at all. She had ice blonde hair and deep brown eyes, and something in them made Mal halt.

"Should I?"

"It's me," the woman bit out, heartbreak in her throat. "It's Evie."


"So… what do we do now?" Evie asks her from the balcony.

Mal looks up from where her forehead is pressed against Ben's.

"Do?"

"Yeah," Evie says, "What's' our backup plan? What's the next step?" Mal's body freezes.

"There isn't one."

She can't break Evie's stare even as the other girl's eyes bore into her.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Carlos asks, his voice loud in her ear. That's what manages to pull her from her ex-girlfriend.

"It means it's over, okay? We won, and now I keep my promise."

"You've broken a Promise before-"

"I haven't!" She shrieks, moving away from Ben. She can feel his and Uma's eyes on her, but she can't stop herself.

"I duped the system. I didn't break a Promise, I nullified it! It didn't matter that Ben had Promised me his kingdom because it was already mine. I cheated my father, okay, and now it's come back to bite me."

"To be fair, it was a clever plan," a gravelly voice says behind her.

"Daddy," she says, without turning around. She's only heard it a couple of times, but she recognizes her father's voice.

"Korë." He's examining the room carefully, and when she turns to look at him, he's staring at Maleficent's body, still lying where she and Evie had dropped it.

"It got me for long enough, didn't it?" He says, "you got the ember."

Mal heaves a sigh and brushes the pads of her fingers across her cheekbones, eliminating any moisture that gathered there.

"It doesn't matter now," she tells him, "I have a kingdom to run." His eyes soften as he looks at her.

"You can take your time, Korë," he tells her softly, but his voice isn't made to be gentle and it sounds calculating instead, "I don't mind briefly returning home while you sort things out on this end." By the way his eyes drift over to where Ben, Carlos and Jay are standing (Ben now resting heavily on Jay and Carlos) she assumes he means her marriage and not the escapees from the Isle when he says 'things'.

"In exchange for?" She prompts and rolls her eyes when he tries to act shocked. "I've spent enough time around my step-mother to understand that the lot of you never do anything for free."

"In exchange for- a favour, to be determined at a future date," he says. And Mal's eyes wander over to her mother's body where it's lying (they should really move it, or at least close her eyes) and remembers one of the pieces of advice her mother gave her as a child when she was still making Mal fey- don't give handouts. We're not Seelie. We don't do favours for friends. We're fey, and we have pride.

"No," she says shaking her head. She locks eyes with her father, and he must know her decision is made, because he nods once and says, "I'll give you a minute to say goodbye."

It's all he can afford her, and she's grateful anyway. What a sad state her life is in, at this point.

And maybe she'll regret it later, but as he steps out onto the balcony, she doesn't go to her husband.

She goes to Evie, Carlos, and Jay.

She pulls them tight into her, soaking in their scents and trying to commit them to her memory.

She holds Carlos's face in her hands and kisses him, hard. She lets her right hand wander over to rest on Evie's where it's set on her shoulder and leans back into the other girl, letting her kiss the exposed expanse of skin. The tears run down her cheeks as she presses her forehead to Jay's.

"We'll go with you." Carlos offers. She shakes her head, and the tears go flying.

"I can't let you-"

"It's not about letting us." Carlos argues, "I heard what Persephone told you- that she- that Aphrodite thought that we- the four of us- belonged together."

"It's us, Mal," Jay told her, "It's like I told you, nothing will stop us from loving you for the rest of our lives."

Mal let her breath fall out of her in one long sigh.

"We've been through a lot, together. We're not stopping that now."

"We're not," Mal agrees, "We're together in everything, always. It's the four of us. And when you die, you can join me. But until then- I will never forgive myself if you're all condemned to this too, because of my mistakes- you have to promise me," she continues forcefully when it looks like Evie wants to break in, "all four of you have to promise me that you'll live out a full life because I can't let you ruin your lives for me."

There's a long silence, and then Jay nods.

"Yeah, okay," he says, voice thick with tears, "I Promise."

He's not fey, and not obligated to keep his promise beyond anything more than his word, but she knows he will. Because she's asked him to.

"Jay!" Evie hisses, sounding offended.

"It's what she wants, E," he tells her, and for a second, there's a silent battle of wills going on above Mal's head before Evie relents too.

"I Promise," she swears.

"Carlos?" The eyes of the other three are on him, and the entire room as well.

"I don't want to do it," he says. "You've been there for me since I was six, Mal, let me do this for you."

It's the first time any of the four of them have mentioned the odd jobs Mal used to do for them when they were children, and something in Mal shatters, because there's something so very final about it.

"That would mean that I would have to stop protecting you," she tells him, "and you know I can't do that."

When Carlos nods, it's resigned. It's tired and small.

"I Promise."

She pulls away from them and walks over to her mother, closing her eyes and nudging her limbs until it looks like she's just sleeping.

"Êower brêostloca wuduwe mid wægn gyden," she whispers. Your soul remains with the goddess.

She stands up and finds herself caught in Uma's arms.

"Look after yourself, your majesty," the sea-witch says, and Mal thinks that finally, all their past has been forgiven. Home, her magic sings, home.

"You know I will." She has to swallow again because the tears threaten to choke her. Uma stares at her for another second, long and hard, before nodding and pulling away.

Eventually, Mal is standing at Ben's side. He's crying too, but she doesn't think it's just because she's leaving.

"Did you ever love me?" He asks her, and his voice cracks before he's halfway through the sentence.

"I did." Mal has to pause and bite her tongue, "I still do."

"But not as much as them."

"Different to them," she corrects, but she thinks the damage is done.

"Live a good life?" She asks him. "And promise me you'll protect those kids."

He nods fervently, pauses a second, and presses a last, sweet kiss to her lips.

She doesn't need to ask him for a verbal promise. Ben is the best man she's ever known.

She stops one last time, to kiss the great loves of her life. She kisses each of them- first Jay, and then Evie, and then Carlos {she thinks about how it's the reverse order of how she'd kissed them that first New Years' Day and thinks of it like opening and closing brackets to their relationship}.

The Claddagh on her left hand aches softly, and she wishes there was a way to end this that didn't end in heartbreak.

"I'm ready," she tells Hades, and they step forward, off the balcony, and disappear.


"Evie?"

She doesn't look anything like Mal remembers her- white hair, plain cotton clothing, tanned skin. She isn't seventeen years old anymore, and it shows.

"Mal."

Evie's voice is so terribly sad, but Mal remembers it now, and an instinct deep inside her moves her to stand up and run down the stairs, to take Evie in her arms. And hold her so tight she can't possibly get away.

"Evie, what are you doing here?" She eventually manages to ask, when she can do more than sob into her lover's chest. Evie smiles softly, warmly.

"I grew old, Mal." Mal frowns- there's something wrong with that, something that doesn't add up.

"You're a witch." She tells Evie, and Evie laughs and Mal hasn't heard something so beautiful in centuries.

"Yes, I am." Evie agrees. Mal moves them so that they're sitting on the stairs, at the base of the throne. She strokes Evie's hair, just taking comfort in the other woman being there and real.

"Witches live a long time." It's taking her long- too long- to get the point she's trying to make across, but every couple of seconds she's just overwhelmed by Evie and has to take a moment to marvel at her.

"They do." Evie seems content to let her riddle this out at her own pace, and so Mal accepts her gift and continues staring softly at her as she does, drinking her in.

"You didn't."

"No, I didn't," Evie agrees with her.

"You Promised," Mal accuses. Evie sighs softly and takes Mal's hands in her own.

"I lived a full life, Mal. I promise I did. I saw the world, I helped the kids of the Isle- I had kids," she tells her, "two girls. But I didn't want to live seven-, eight-hundred years, especially not when I'd be living them alone."

"Jay's a djinn," Mal says because she knows it to be true, even if the fact is only partially there, hidden in some deep corner of her mind.

"A free djinn," Evie corrects softly, "Who ages at the same rate as any other human."

Mal stares at Evie for so long, she wonders if she's slipped back into the dream-like state she'd been in the last ten years.

And then the dam breaks.

She kisses Evie, hard and happy, and she's not alone anymore.

"The others are coming?" she asks when they finally come up for air.

"Soon, probably," Evie confirms, and Mal's smile cracks her lips.

"God, E, I'm so glad you're here. It's been a long six hundred years."

"Six hundred?" Evie shrieks and Mal frowns, confused. "Is this wrong for you?"

"Yeah, Mal," Evie tells her. "Humans don't live six hundred years- it's closer to sixty. I was eighty-four when I died."

Evie stares at her, horrified, and suddenly Mal wonders how she couldn't remember this woman- this look on Evie is so intimately familiar.

"Mal," she asks in a hushed tone, "how long have you been here?"

"Six hundred and forty-two years, eight months, and eleven days," Kharon tells Evie from where they're standing at attendance, and Mal shoots them a grateful smile. They grin back, (although it's really more like a grimace when most of their skin is gone).

Evie promptly bursts into tears and then flings herself into Mal's arms.

"I'm so sorry," she cries, "I'm so so sorry Mal, it wasn't supposed to be so long." To be honest, Mal isn't quite sure why Evie is apologizing- it's not her fault she took so long to die- if anyone's at fault, it's Thanatos, or maybe Cer.

But Mal spent seventeen years comforting Evie, and it's one thing that she knows how to do, and can do it well.

As it turns out, Evie being around is really good for Mal. She eats more, and tries to fall asleep less, and doesn't spend decades staring at the ceiling anymore.

Evie fixes Persephone's garden, bringing all the plants inside it back from the dead. Mal doesn't know how she does it, as they've been dead for several centuries, but then again, they'd recently established that time in the Underworld was more wobbly than even she knew, so maybe it wasn't that difficult.

She also tells Mal what became of all of them after she left- of how Audrey never woke up {Mal knows this much- she'd watched the princess walk in several centuries ago. She hadn't stopped to say hello}. Of Ben naming Mal high queen over Auradon so that she'd always have a place to return to when she was released from her promise. Of his marriage to Uma, of all people. Of everything she, Jay and Carlos had done together. Of their two daughters- Cali and Maleficent. For her, for Mal.

They while the time away like that- and it takes several decades before Mal is summoned to the throne room for another guest.

It's not Jay or Carlos.

Ben is kneeling before the throne, and Mal hides out of his frame of vision for a second and just watches him. Evie told her about all the amazing things he did, and Mal still loves him, but not the way she was supposed to. The festering skin around the Claddagh is enough to tell her that, even if she didn't know it in her heart of hearts. Still.

"Stand up, Ben," she tells him. "You don't kneel before me. You don't kneel before anyone."

He does stand up, and she hugs him.

"It's good to see you," they tell each other, and then laugh at the synchronicity.

"So, tell me about your wife," Mal requests, and his face lights up.

Ben eventually moves on to Elysium, where Uma is waiting {Uma was picked up by Cer long before Thanatos came for Ben}.

Jay and Carlos come within hours of each other.

It's Jay first, surprisingly, and Mal thinks it's funny that out of the four of them, Carlos was supposed to have the shortest lifespan, and ended up living the longest.

Jay looks closest to how she remembers him as a teenager- long hair, no sleeves, devil-may-care attitude. He holds her tight and presses a kiss to her brow and Evie cradles the both of them to her and Mal thinks that she could stay like that for another hundred years if she needed to.

She doesn't, though, because another pair of arms wrap themselves around her from behind, and she doesn't need to look at him to know who it is, because he still smells the same {like leather and old paper and electric smoke}.

And she's home.


Oh my god, that's a wrap on the Korë-verse. At least for now. And let me tell you all, I've been so flattered by the amazing response to it. Every fic that someone posts that is inspired by the Korë-verse is the most beautiful thing I've ever read. Every comment is so kind.

I was really annoyed with Descendants 3, and Korë was only ever supposed to be a handy tool to vent my frustration. It was supposed to be 3 chapters long, and written within the week of D3's release.

Ya'll are the ones who inspired me to go further, to make more out of Korë. Thank you for that.

This chapter is dedicated to you. To PBWritesStuff and Robby the Cyber Warrior who've been reading my fics for years. To everyone else who reviewed or favourited or followed or just read the story and enjoyed it. And, of course, to Jules.

Love,
Harley