Demigod: a being with partial or lesser divine status, such as a minor deity, the offspring of a god and a mortal, or a mortal raised to divine rank.

Mal.

Eight. The Isle.

"Mom said something weird last night." Mal didn't bother with pleasantries when she stalked into the mineshaft like she owned the place.

She supposed she did. Technically.

The mineshaft was an extension of the Underworld. And she was the daughter of Hades. This was all going to be hers someday. Supposedly.

If her mother didn't break out and take over the world first.

Mal wasn't entirely sure what future scared her more, if she was being completely honest.

Her father was sitting on his beat up sofa, feet on the coffee table, reading a cookbook. It was disgustingly domestic. He was entirely committed to this sticking around the Isle and owning a food joint and being a parent thing.

Mal didn't understand why.

He was a god. He had powers. He wasn't bound by the barrier. He could up and leave whenever he wanted.

He had left.

He hadn't been in her life until she was four. And even then it was inconsistent.

Always depended on where he was needed. What was going on in the rest of the world. What other, better, things he had to be getting on with.

He didn't want her mom, and he didn't want her. He didn't stick around.

Souls won't keep themselves, Mallie.

So what if the rules of the Isle were that you had to be loyal to one parent.

So what if her mom had gotten custody in the divorce.

He hadn't wanted her.

And now he wanted to sell souvlaki.

"Your mother says many, many strange things." Hades didn't bother looking up from his book, instead making a note in the margins. Mal fought the urge to set the paper on fire. She was still learning her powers, and she didn't want to take on her father until she knew she had a chance at winning. She already lost to her mother far too often for her liking. "You're going to need to expand on that one."

"She said gods eat children." Hades froze and Mal knew she'd hit a nerve. Something she didn't recognise settled in her stomach.

It wasn't fear - she knew bone-deep fear, knew it as well as her own reflection. This was different. Almost like...she'd wanted to be wrong?

Like she'd wanted this to be another one of her mother's delusions. Just yet another thing she pulled out of thin air to try and poison her against a man she thought Mal had never met.

So just like she always did when she encountered a problem of the 'feelings' variety, instead of thinking about it, Mal pushed the feeling down and glared, "That's a very specific threat, Dad."

Hades sighed heavily and swung his feet to the floor, leaning forward on his elbows. He gestured to the seat next to him, and Mal waited a moment before she gave in and took it. "Your mom met my side of the family after we got married. The gods in power now, contrary to popular belief, didn't just spring into existence. Our father wasn't exactly winning any dad of the year awards."

"You have a father?" Mal scoffed, her skepticism clear from her eye roll. Everyone knew that gods were immortal. That they would outlast everyone and everything. They didn't have things like parents. "What does that have to do with-"

"He swallowed us whole to protect his power." Hades cut her off before she could finish the question. His tone said they were done talking about it, but Mal ignored the warning.

"I..." She knew she should be controlling her reactions better - Mom always said her facial expressions gave too much away - but she couldn't help the way her eyes bugged out of her head. Opening and closing her mouth a few times, she finally settled on, "I...don't think that worked out for him."

Mal only knew the basics of her godly heritage. Hades always said there was plenty of time to teach her that stuff. Her father always spent the time they managed to spend together asking about her friends or school or teaching her some tiny new way of using her powers.

Some days she wished he'd just start training her properly already, like her mom did.

What use were powers if she couldn't use them.

"It didn't." Her father sighed heavily. Mal thought that was all he was going to say, but then he conjured an orb in his hand. Mal looked at it curiously, watching as the orange surface swirled and rippled to give way to blackness.

Mal frowned, leaning in, then jumped when a weathered face suddenly filled the orb, glaring out at her.

Gasping, Mal jumped back and covered her mouth with her hands. She knew instinctively that this was her grandfather. There was no resemblance between her father - tall, broad, ice blue hair - and the sallow-skinned, hooked nose...thing.

"He's locked up in Tartarus along with everyone who stood with him during the War. He is why your uncles and I split the world. So no one would be that powerful again."

Kronos looked around angrily, as if he knew he was being watched. When his eyes met hers, a chill flooded her entire body.

He paused for a moment, but she obviously wasn't what he was looking for because he kept moving until his eyes met her father's. Mal didn't know how Kronos knew he was looking at Hades, but he did, baring his teeth in a feral snarl. Hades simply rolled his eyes, which seemed to anger the old god. With a flick of his wrist, her father made the orb disappear.

Mal looked to her father, questions she didn't even know how to begin asking jostling for attention.

The icky feeling that had settled between her shoulder blades didn't leave with the orb. Kronos' fury lingered in the room like an unwelcome guest. Mal looked at the space it had taken up before she asked slowly, "So...gods don't eat their children?"

"Titans eat their children. Not Olympians." Hades was somber. Then he cracked a smile and nudged her with his shoulder. The icky feeling disappeared, almost as if he'd flicked it off, "I think you'd be a little chewy anyway."

...

Sixteen. The Isle.

Mal was sitting at the kitchen island in her father's mineshaft, waiting for him to come home and working her way through a loaf of bread and a bowl of his latest taramasalata experiment.

Things had changed since he'd first come into her life.

Drastically.

She didn't fight his attempts at a relationship anymore. But she didn't encourage it either. She only turned up in the mineshaft uninvited when she wanted information. Or when she was hiding from her mother's fury. Or when he was cooking.

She had an open invitation to raid the souvlaki stand whenever she felt like it - which meant she was guaranteed a hot dinner for her friends every few days. Carlos was in awe that she managed to steal from a god so regularly without getting caught. Jay was convinced Hades knew but just didn't care. And Evie, entirely aware of her parentage, requested that she ask him to add chicken into the rotation more often.

Mal spent a few hours with him every few weeks - anything more, and her mother would notice, anything less, and she felt like she was losing control of her godly side.

She still didn't quite believe that Hades wouldn't disappear on her if the notion took hold. But…

Things...they didn't entirely make sense.

Her father never challenged the story her mother had told her growing up. That he'd left them. But his behaviour didn't match that of someone who would just up and leave his family without a second thought.

Hades helped her with her homework. He fed her friends. He still had at least one of his demons tailing her at all times, despite the fact she was more than capable of holding her own.

And then there was his little (not so cold) war with her mom.

Maleficent ruled the Isle with an iron fist. Mal was her second in command, even if she only ever felt like mommy's perfect little soldier. The other OVs only had as much territory as they did because of her mother's grace.

But she never fought Hades. Had never even attempted to charge him a protection fee. For most of Mal's childhood, they'd stayed firmly out of each other's way. Hades was always the one to glare and storm off if they happened to be in the same place at the same time. And her mother was always disturbed after those encounters for weeks. To everyone else, Hades and Maleficent were sworn enemies, and the bloodshed risked if they were to cross paths was the stuff of legend. Even if no one knew why they hated each other.

But then at some point when she was around thirteen, they started...bickering. In public.

It started small. Instead of avoiding each other in the market one day, her father had refused to leave, and her mother had muttered something Mal thought sounded like 'oh look what Helios dragged in'.

Before long, they were openly insulting each other in the square. She was a soul stealing succubus. His goat meat was too dry. He was a washed up has-been. Did she enjoy hanging from the rafters every night, or could she just do them all a favour and land on her neck one day.

It mildly terrified the residents of the Isle, and made Mal yearn for the days when they hated each other from afar.

She didn't want to know what caused it or what it meant for the big picture. She just wanted them to quit whatever mind games they were using to torture each other, because it was interfering with her racketeering. People didn't pay when they were scared of some kind of massacre in the middle of the day. And Mom got pissed at her when people didn't pay on time.

Yesterday had been an escalation.

Her mother had been particularly restless, picking fights with Jafar, Cruella and EQ almost for the sake of it. Jafar had blustered, but didn't fight back. Cruella had ignored, brushing off the barbs with a sarcastic comment and refusing to engage. EQ had finally snapped and dragged her off to another room.

Mal had tried to eavesdrop, but could only hear the odd whispered word like 'arrangement' and 'murder him'.

Typical Tuesday ramblings of a mad woman.

Deciding to err on the side of self preservation, Mal decided to head down to the market and begin her collections early. Just in case Mother Dearest got impatient.

She'd been threatening one of the Gaston boys near the souvlaki stand with Carlos, Evie and Jay when she felt a familiar rush at the base of her neck. The feeling of impending chaos.

Something was going to happen. She didn't know what, but it was something and she needed to be nearby when it happened.

She'd turned away from where Jay was dangling Gaston Jr II a few feet off the ground and looked towards the feeling. Mal vaguely registered her father noticing her reaction and frowning, because of course she was weaker than he was and reacting to something he thought was minor. But she didn't have time to chastise herself for the failure, because Maleficent stormed into the market a heartbeat later.

Cloak billowing behind her, sceptre in hand, her mother stormed right up to Hades and knocked something off the cart. The smash silenced the market.

'Your existence irks me.'

Excitement took Mal's breath, the anticipation had almost made her giddy.

She'd watched as her father froze, caught off guard for a moment. Then he grinned. Pushing off from the counter, Hades pulled himself up to full height, towering over her mother, and dived straight into the argument.

People scattered, fearful of the vengeful god and wary of what exactly had caused Maleficent to storm right up and pick a fight with a man she normally hated from a distance.

Evie had grabbed Mal's arm and dragged her from the square. Mal let her, letting the emotions and the chaos flow around her. It wasn't until afterwards, when she and Evie were lying in bed, listening to Maleficent rant to EQ about 'that entitled, self-righteous pig' that Mal realised her father should have picked up on the impending chaos, no matter how small.

He shouldn't have looked surprised.

But he had.

...

"Why do you and mom hate each other?" Mal turned to her father as soon as he stepped into the mineshaft, almost an hour after she'd arrived. She was on her second bowl of taramasalata. She couldn't decide if she liked it or not.

Hades simply looked at her blankly. If he was surprised by her sudden visit, he didn't show it. Instead, he fixed her with an exasperated look that told her he'd made a conscious decision to ignore her, and headed towards the stove.

Unperturbed, Mal pointed at him with a piece of bread. "I'm serious. How you two managed to stop fighting long enough to have a kid, I do not know."

With a click of his fingers, the stove sparked to life and a pot of stew appeared from nowhere. Seemingly, she was expected to stay for dinner.

"I mean," Mal added, when he continued to ignore her, pointedly adding some kind of seasoning to the pot, "no one would believe I'm your kid, because you guys just don't quit."

Hades groaned, and Mal could tell she'd won.

As someone who had grown up quite literally surrounded by psychopaths, she always instinctively read the room. Between being tapped into people's feelings and reading their micro behaviours, she knew exactly how much she could get away with before things went from screaming to stabbing.

Right now, she knew her father was in a good mood, even if he wasn't showing it. The way he'd strut in and the set of his shoulders told her she was safe, and the air was still which meant nothing exciting was on the agenda.

Which meant she was entirely free to needle him until she got the answers she wanted.

He turned to her, catching her eye. Mal let hers flash green with a smirk, a playful challenge, and Hades rolled his eyes before letting them flash ice blue. There was no real heat to their exchange - Mal pushed against his presence in her head, but he just stood there, taking it. After a long moment, long enough to let her feel like she'd put some effort in, he broke eye contact first - that never happened with her mom - and muttered, "We don't hate each other."

"Could have fooled me." she cackled, leaning back in her chair, gloating. She refused to think of it as an empty victory. Gesturing back towards the surface, she pointed out, "That little show in the market yesterday? Killed my collections."

"That was entirely for your benefit." The look Hades threw her was knowing, secretive, and downright infuriating. "She still thinks we don't know each other."

Before Mal could argue, she felt a tug at the base of her neck, pulling her attention towards the living area. She spun in her chair, ignoring her father's confused look, and tilted her head curiously, trying to understand what her instincts were telling her. She heard two voices, they were distant, but she'd recognise them as her parents' anywhere.

Maleficent's anger was palpable. Hades' irritation was poorly hidden. Mal saw a flash of sweeping cloaks and leather trench coats.

You told me fifteen years and nothing's happened yet.

It's not like it's a fucking stopwatch, M. Stop being so goddam impatient.

A shrill cry.

She's not ready!

You mean she's never going to be you!

A pause. Then

I don't need you for this.

If that was true you wouldn't be here.

Mal continued to stare at the empty living area after the voices had retreated.

This had never happened before.

Sometimes, when she looked at people, she would get a flash of their death. Or some important event in their lives.

It didn't happen for those she was close to. But strangers. People in the market. Acquaintances.

She knew their secrets. Knew their desires. Knew what made them tick.

It was why she was such a good little solider.

She just knew things, without any real reason for that knowledge.

But this...she knew that her parents had come back here after they'd cleared the square with their argument. She knew they'd fought about her.

But she couldn't think why they would do that. Certainly not from her mother's perspective.

"What did you see?" Her father's tone was guarded, and Mal knew she shouldn't admit the truth.

Desperately trying to buy herself some time, she kept staring, pretending that she was still listening. Her eyes narrowed in on a scrap of black fabric half hidden under the sofa.

Fabric that looked suspiciously like it should be part of her mother's cloak.

"Urgh!" Mal didn't have to fake the revulsion as she spun back to face Hades, "Can I bleach my brain? I'm half god. It shouldn't kill me. You guys are disgusting! God!"

…

Mal had planned on working out exactly what her parents had been arguing about her for.

She'd stayed for dinner, obviously, but Hades made sure their conversation stayed in perfectly neutral territory. And Mal was perfectly happy to let him pretend her parents had been entirely celibate since her conception.

When she got back to Dragon Hall, she filled Evie in in hushed whispers so their mothers wouldn't hear. Evie was just as confused.

The next morning, Mal went off to the market to carry out her mother's bidding as normal. And maybe work on her godly powers a little more.

Her parents had argued about Mal's Story - all she knew about Stories was that they were fixed points in time. And you couldn't see your own.

Stories sounded like something Heroes had.

And Mal was no hero.

She was a Lost Girl.

The Daughter of Maleficent.

People like her...they didn't get happy endings.

Demigod or not, in this world, you fought over scraps, and told yourself it was a feast.

...

"Hi Mom."

Mal should have known something was wrong when she didn't feel the tug at the nape of her neck as her mother approached.

No warning meant she only realised Maleficent was behind her when other people began to react.

Mal turned, expecting disdain for being unprepared. Of a lecture about how she could have been attacked from behind.

Instead, Mal was greeted with her mother, now back to her usual, overly cheerful, slightly manic self. It was unnerving.

She was up to something.

"You four will be going to a new school - in Auradon!"