The Day We First Met

Her breath comes out hard and uneven as she rushed down the hillside clutching the bundle of blankets close to her chest. she could still hear the shouts behind her and the flickering lights of the torches the villagers carried with them. Torches which contained red hot fire. Fire which could burn her alive. The thought was enough to weaken the young women's knees. The purple haired women stumbled as she took her next step, almost talking flat onto the pavement. But she couldn't fall, no, not if now not ever.

She jumped over a fallen log and risked a look behind her. The mob was followed ng her closely. They had already chased her out of her home, what more did they want from her? Mal knew the answer to that just as easily as she knew her own name. They wanted to see blood spilt over the woodland dust. Her blood to be more specific. Her as well as her infant son's blood. Her baby.

He was halfway asleep in her arms. The warmth of his mother's chest being his only comfort left. Mal had to get away, she couldn't let them do what they did back home. She wouldn't be able to bear it. But where to go? What to do?

She couldn't help but think this was all the monarchy fault. If he hadn't set up that blasted prison, if he hadn't outlawed magic, if he hadn't treated her people like diet for years and years, she would never be in the situation where she was now. It wasn't just the high king, it was every regular human king that have ever breathed the air of Auradon. Tears bagn to skip down her cheeks and she couldn't wipe them away. The clouded her vision making it harder to see as well as bringing a weird comfort.

They were getting closer. The heat from the flames stung the back of her neck which she layered with all the clothes she could possibly carry. They would kill her. Her and her child. Mal made a sharp left in the hopes of buying her just a few precious seconds. Just a little bit more time.

Mal stick her knees in the dirt and quickly swaddled the child as best she could so the cold air couldn't reach him one bit. She couldn't run forever. They would catch her, and she didn't want her child to be in her when that happened. She didn't want to witness his death. He needed his best chance at survival, which wasn't really much of a chance at all. But it was all she had. She just couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't watch it happen. She laid him down gently in the dirt by the a of the road Carriges usually travel on. The child began to wait for his mother.

Mal placed a tender kiss on his forhead. It was the last she would gov him. She wrapped he pendant, the one with the beautiful curled dragon on it, around the child's blanket. She sobbed over the boy. Sobbed like a mother who had their child stripped away from them.

"I'm sorry little one," she whispered softly. A bittersweet smile played at the corners of her mouth. "This wasn't the happy ending I had promised you." She placed her hand on the boy briefly. One last tender touch. And then she ran off into the night leaving the child all alone. With his entire world ripped from him in seconds.

He blinked,.confused. What was he to do now? The child must have laid there for a good half hour before anybody had ever took notice of him.

A young man had been causally riding his Carriges back to his not so humble palace. Yes indeed this young man in praticular was a prince. Prince Benjamin to be more specific for you. He called his men to halt the horses when he heard the shrill cry of the infant. He gradually lowered himself down and walked towards the source of the noise.

When he saw the helpless little baby he held it in his arms and stared down at it. Right into its perxing green eyes.

"Goodness me!" His footman said, doffing his cap in disbelief. "A child, hut who, where, how? Where on earth has his mother and father gone?"

"Doesn't really matter how," Prince Benjamin said, looking at his servant. "We ought not to leave him. He shall come with us back to the palace." Ben started towards the carriage before the servant could even start to protest. He held the baby close to his own chest. He was a kind young king, and he couldn't hear the thought of the little one all by his lonesome. It wasn't up for debate. The king was a man of high morals as well as principals. Just do what ought to he right, that was his motto.

"But sir!" The servant called. "We can't take him back with us it's an abomination! Your father shall not stand for it I say!"

"So are you to suggest I leave the child here to die?" Ben questioned. He quirked his eyebrow, fully invested in the answer. The servant fumbled over his words.

"Perhaps we can lend the baby off to a midwife!" Henwran his hands together nervously. "They are th experts after all. They should take care of it."

Ben looked down at the infant which had stopped it's cry of anguish. He smiled down at it. He couldn't leave him off with somebody else. He just felt an ache in the bottom of his stomach. His instincts he liked to say, they were telling him what to do. And right now he knew exactly what that was. He'd be a fool to doregard it.

"Come now." Ben hefted himself in the carriage. "Back home, and make haste!"

Meanwhile the child's mother had been sezied by the angry villagers. The bound her arms and ankles with an iron chain, knowing well in mind the harm it could to to people like her. It seemed her skin and dig deep into her flesh until she fancied that she could feel the bone. Her screams were pushed to the side as they dragged her through the forest by her armpits.

Her son's and please were soar upon, her life ushered away by the wave of a hand, by a man smoking his cigar. A look of loathing in his eyes.

"Why are you doing this to me!" she screamed. She had never anticipated them to actually answer. But to their surprise the did indeed. At least one of them did. A young peasant man, who held the cigar in between his lips. His curly hair only added to the aura of arrogance Mal had placed upon him.

"You think we're idiots don't ya?" he asked. He leaned in real close so she could get a whiff of the second-hand smoke. "But we know what folks like you did to us before, and we aren't going to stand back and let it happen again. The king gave us orders and we are going to carry them out!"

The mob cheered I agreement, pumping their first and crying our for her blood.

"Bring her over here!" somebody shouted. She was dragged to the edge of a embankment, leading down into the ocean of Auradon from the wretched Isle of the lost. She stared at her reflection in the water. Purple hair, green eyes, scaly horns that poked out from her head, and wings, beautiful wings that had been strapped down by the cruel people behind her. She looked away. She couldn't stand the sight if her helplessness.

"Throw her in!" Somebody ordered.

And just like that she was roughly tossed into the ocean. She couldn't swim in case your trubled kind was interested.

She sank deeper into the body of water, thrashing about wildly like an rabid animal. Air, surface, life. That was all she could think about. Then she sucked in a breath. Her lungs filled with water. She was dyingx she was dying. She wished she could cry underwater, because the tears would comfort her. She screamed,nbut it was muffles by the waves, taking her to her watery grave. She closed her eyes, this was it. This waa the end of the road.

Until something rough gripped her biceps. She felt her body being hefted up. Maybe she'd be alright after all. Through the blue if the ocean and her tears she could see a face. A man, with caramel skin. His king hair flowed around him. It was almost mesmerizing to her. It was the last thing she saw before she sank into the darkness. The water had prevented her from drawing another precious breath. This was what dying must feel like.