Chapter 44: Charybdis' Mouth and Glossaryck's Grove
When Kory Lokisdottir meant 'getting Hades involved', it mostly meant 'go rob his cave'.
Traveling to Auradon had been an annoying breeze. Sure, she could travel anywhere she wanted. The mist had no effect on her, but right now she felt like going undetected and turned into a cardinal that flew through the mist, causing her to cross from the United States of Anarchy to the United States of Auradon. She had been confused at first. She remembered Auradon as some cheap excuse of a cotton candy theme park, but when she crossed over, the whole kingdom seemed to have come out of an apocalypse: inanimate objects floating around to attack civilians, overgrown thorns, and the high smell of dead bodies. Flying over Sleeping Beauty's kingdom and the castle reeked of bloodshed. Evidently, Alastor had made his connection with Audrey known.
Kory dismissed that thought as she got closer to the Isle. The sooner she got her revenge on Audrey, the better she could move on with her immortal life.
The Isle of the Lost looked a whole lot different, minus the removed barrier and newfound bridge connecting it to Auradon. Nowadays, it had been undergoing serious renovations to fix up the buildings, secure the gas and water pipes, and provide better resources to the civilians. Said civilians were no longer walking in rags or ragdoll clothing but in nicer street clothes. The demigoddess even spotted a great amount of soup kitchens open in unused shops.
Kory didn't give a shit about the progress. In her mind, it was still the garbage dump of wannabe villains created by a fake utopia.
She flew into Hades' cave, past his GEST LOST sign, above the mining rail, and into… whatever his mancave could be named. She transformed back into her humanoid self and began ransacking the place. It was pathetic. She'd been to his palace in the Underworld before, a complete maze of bones and dead souls perfectly organized, and this cave was not only big enough to fit only one room but also messier than the bedroom of a hormonal teenager. Kory clenched her fists in frustration, causing ice pillars to further destroy the room.
If the item she was looking for wasn't in Hades' lair, then it had to be on Hades himself. And if he wasn't in his cave, he was probably with the only person he'd go see.
Kory prepared to transform but found herself interrupted when the cave started shaking violently. Forget the cave shaking. With the loudness and violence coming from the shakes, not to mention the distant screams she heard, it was probably the whole Isle of The Lost enduring a large-scale earthquake. Kory cast spells to shield herself from the falling rocks. As the cave shook, its rocky walls grew cracks glowing in rainbow lights.
"That's… not possible…" Kory gasped in horror. "The prophecy… No…"
Much earlier
They were running low on options, and as much as Mal hated it, this was the only one they could resort to.
Evie's mirror? Destroyed. Beast's magic mirror? Too risky, knowing that Beatrice Deetz could teleport and probably smash it? Summoning spirits? They were going to get nowhere now that Dr. Facilier was dealing with the loss of Celia by drinking at Gaston's tavern. Ultimately, Mal gave out the only remaining option. Said remaining option was now on the other side of the door, waiting to be let in by the guards. Which they did.
The middle-aged, pointy-eared woman didn't hesitate to walk in the moment she was let into the conference room. The VKs and Hades grimaced as she finally stopped before the meeting table.
"Odalia Blight," Mal greeted.
"Mal," the witch said sourly. Her old fingers reached for the magenta amulet she had around her neck.
"Can it, Odalia, your gem stopped functioning for decades." Hades rolled his eyes. "It's emptier than a Fate's eye pocket."
"Rude." Odalia took a deep breath and sat down, her sour expression being replaced by a smug smile. "But I'll let it pass. From what I heard, you humans were desperate for my Oracle magic."
"Here's the deal," Mal crossed her fingers. Ben rested his hand on her shoulder. "You use your magic to locate either Audrey or Celia. ONLY to see if they're OK. If you do, we'll guarantee you a reward that's worth a quarter of what you had before the Isle."
"I was a wealthy business woman. I can easily climb up to the top. I agree," Odalia sneered. "After all. A Blight always upholds their end of the deal."
Hades snorted. "You weren't really the best at that, were you? Your children deserted you. You lost your fortune and title. Alador looks a whole lot healthier since he divorced you. Last time I checked, he befriended Auradon Prep's nurse after the barrier went down. You know, the mother of the human you tried to kill because your daughter had feelings for her?"
Hades' taunts put Odalia's sour expression back on her face. The hands she had on the table left scratches on the wood with her nails. The god of the Underworld smirked and searched through his cloak. From the fabrics, his hand tossed an old, still gooey eye onto the table. "The Fates' eye. Still works. It can be used as a crystal ball by a witch with Oracle magic."
Odalia groaned in disgust at the sight of the disembodied eyeball.
"We'll turn the quarter of what you were given into half," Queen Leah offered. "If you can find my granddaughter."
"Fine." Odalia took the eyeball in her hands. She closed her eyes, reopening them with a purple glow surrounding her blue irises. "I summon the All-Seeing Eye to tear a hole into the sky. Reveal to me that which is hidden. Unveil to me what is forbidden." The eyeball in her hands blinked, transforming into a golden eye surrounded by a purple halo. One more blink and the eye cast a purple light, an orb appearing midair. Its content changed, revealing a town in a snowy area. The inhabitants looked somewhat humans.
"Whoville? Haven't snatched a soul there in ages," Hades said, somewhat nostalgic. The image then shifted to an outdoor dining area. Sure enough, among seven minors sitting outside, three of them were very distinguishable.
"Audrey!" Queen Leah got off her seat.
"Charles and Gothy! They're OK!" Evie said.
"And Beatrice is with them," Mal said sourly. She still had bad memories of the girl destroying Evie's mirror, tormenting her friends, and worse, engaging with Alastor's threats before kidnapping Celia.
"A whole other world…" Ben said quietly. "Who are the others?"
"I can detect the auras of their legacies…" Odalia waved her hands over the eyeball. "I see… two royal heirs… In between Gothy Gothel and Charles Frollo are the heirs of Jareth the Goblin King and Barbara the Queen of the Rock Trolls. Judging by the auras, these two have been VERY attached to Gothel and Frollo's brats… Ugh, I will never…"
"Make another homophobic comment and I will personally turn your intestines into a Gorgon's nest." Hades threatened.
Odalia shuddered at that threat.
"What about that little kid?" Evie gushed and pointed at what looked like an eight-year-old, the youngest in the group. "He's TOO CUTE! I mean, I hope he's taken cared off."
"He's… He's…" Odalia Blight clenched her teeth and her grip on the eyeball tightened. The purple auras surrounding the image almost got dark. "HOW DARE SHE! AMITY BLIGHT, MY OWN DAUGHTER, DARED TO REPRODUCE WITH THAT HUMAN! AND I'M LOOKING AT THEIR ABOMINATION OF AN OFFSPRING!"
Hades failed to retain himself and burst into laughter. "Oh, my gods, this is priceless!"
"Wait? Mrs. Blight, that's your grandson?" Mal asked.
"I NEVER ASKED FOR HIM!"
"Your grandson is halfway around the world…" For some reason, Queen Leah was genuinely unhappy. She got a returned glare from Odalia. "I missed sixteen years of my daughter's childhood, my granddaughter ran away from the life we forced on her. I feel horrible about everything I've done, but you're not even happy that your own daughter found happiness and raised a child after twenty years? You're not even upset that you missed out on your grandson's life?"
Odalia hesitated to give Queen Leah a proper answer. Her villainous pride refused to admit anything. She was saved, however, when the orb revealed that Odalia's grandson purposely spilled a bag of marbles onto the ground. Odalia looked more interested when she saw the orb revealing the marbles' purple aura… and the one emanating from her grandson as he used some sort of charismatic hypnosis on a waitress who eagerly complied to him.
'Did you just use Oracle magic hexed marbles to get that waitress to give you free stuff?' Beatrice's shocked voice echoed from the orb.
"He uses Oracle magic to psychologically manipulate others… just like I did with my children!" Odalia sighed in fondness. "Thank god, I was worried!"
Queen Leah looked at her in shock. "Well, there goes favoritism," Hades said sarcastically.
'And Odalia Blight used Oracle magic for lousy black-market trades and for further abusing Amity Blight. Do you realize that you did something just as bad as your grandmother? You used magic to get that waitress to do what you want!' In the projection, Gothy Gothel looked beyond disapproving at Odalia's grandson.
'Because my natural cuteness was worn out!' The child protested.
Hades frowned a bit. "Ugh, he is like a mini-version of you, Odalia. Only cuter and childish!"
"Well at least proper talent moved on to the next generation after it skipped one," Odalia said smugly.
"Can you keep it down a bit?" Jay asked.
"Why should I? I gave you what you wanted."
"Maybe! But now we need to figure out something!" Mal said. "The deadline is in nearly two months, Celia got dragged in Hell, and we need Audrey if things go south!"
"Go south from where?" Odalia Blight frowned sourly. "The last time I heard, you're trying to save someone who doesn't want to be saved."
"Last time I checked, your kids saw you as a monster," Hades commented. "I bet they monstrified you to your grandson."
'That woman is odious…' Gothy and Charles had a conversation in the projection.
'Who, sis?'
'Really? Pointy ears, green hair, worst hair tips, horribly proportioned hips?'
'Odalia Blight? Why do I still remember her?'
Hades laughed at Odalia. She growled in frustration but looked hesitantly at her own hips. Her expression changed when her grandson suddenly got excited in the projection and began showing off some crocheted doll.
'You know one of my abuelitas? Siempre quise conocer a mis abuelas y a mi abuelo! My Abuela Eda made me this Azura toy; it's my favorite out of all of them. She's not exactly my abuela because she was my mamá's mentor but I treat her like my abuela. I still wish I could meet my abuelas and abuelo in Auradon.'
Hades looked at Odalia. Her face had an expression of surprise she had never expressed before. An expression of touched surprise.
"My grandson wants to know me… despite what I did?" Odalia was surprised. "I don't understand… I thought Amity would have made me sound like a monster."
"Then she failed," Ben said.
"You're right. Your daughter could have easily told your grandson that he should hate his grandparents, but he doesn't." Queen Leah dared to hold Odalia's hand, surprising some that the formerly wealthy witch didn't push her away. "I missed out on my daughter's childhood. We suffocated my granddaughter's life to fit our ambitions and she's halfway around the world hating us. Your children are on the other side of the world. You missed their weddings, their lives establishing, the first years of their descendants' lives… Yet out there, despite everything, despite knowing that his family is a mix of villains and heroes, witches and human, you have a grandson who wants to meet the family he never knew. Even if there's a chance he might never."
Odalia's hand shook in her grasp. The haughty witch's pride had a hard time hiding the breakdown. Luck seemed to be on her side, however, when the projection got darker. The group's business at the café was done, they were leaving, and suddenly a local teenager was harassing Odalia's grandson by snatching his doll.
'Jesus, kid, you play with girly franchise dolls?'
'Ugh. Adam May Who. This is your new thing? Stealing kids' toys?'
'Nope. Just making sure that this old thing goes back to the girl's toy department. You know, where it belongs.'
"Man, I have no idea who the hell he is, but I want to punch his face," Jay grimaced. "I can see why Beatrice Deetz doesn't like him."
"And I thought Chad was annoying." No one disagreed with Ben there.
The projection then showed Charles tackling 'Adam' in an attempt to intimidate him to give the toy back to the little boy. All he got was getting shoved into a puddle; he visibly shivered, not out of coldness but out of fright. Then, just like that, everything in the eyeball got darker except for the pale projected characters. The only colorful aspects were the large glows emanating out of two of them: a pink inferno of anger coming from Audrey and a rainbow bomb of emotional turmoil coming from Odalia's grandson. The witch's grasp on the eyeball tightened, sweat flowed down her skin, and a scream of agony came out of her mouth.
"Mrs. Blight!" Queen Leah rushed to help her sit up. "What's wrong?"
"The Queen of Mean! She's getting angry! Her powers are stronger than Maleficent and Hades' combined!" Odalia shouted in pain. "My grandson is empowered by wild magic! Wild magic that will destroy everything if his emotions reach their peak!"
The projection got scarier. Audrey's hair turned into that of the Queen of Mean. Horror came to those who knew Audrey best when her hands reached for Adam's neck. Statics mixed with her pink inferno glow, causing Odalia Blight to have a panic attack.
"THE RADIO DEMON! THEIR CONNECTION IS CAUSING HIS POWERS TO MIX WITH HERS! SHE'S THE MOST POWERFUL SORCERESS IN THE WORLD!"
"Make her stop, please!" Queen Leah begged. "My granddaughter is not a murderer!"
"I CAN'T DO THAT HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD! BESIDES, SHE IS ABOVE THE INFLUENCE! THE ONLY THING SHE UNDERSTANDS NOW IS THE WRATH FROM WITNESSING PERSECUSSIONS!"
'I want my doll!'
'Amar, get back!'
"Amar?" Odalia gasped when the projection showed Beatrice Deetz pulling her grandson away from Adam and Audrey after he grabbed hold of his doll. "His name is Amar?"
And in the conflict of things, the projection revealed the doll breaking, Audrey turning back into herself, and Amar sobbing. An explosive aura of rainbow colors came out of him, shocking Odalia Blight into releasing her hold on the eyeball. The castle suddenly shook violently. Jay ran towards the window. People were running from the unexpected earthquakes. In the distance, storms were rising in the ocean. The sky darkened and rainbow bolts struck trees, creating wildfires.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?" Evie tried to stand up despite the shaking ground.
"My grandson's wild magic must be powered by his emotions!" Odalia Blight handed the eyeball back to Hades in a panic. "His anguish is self-reflecting on the elements, creating a shockwave of events that will destroy things, fitting how he feels within! And with the power level he has, that kind of destruction can spread around the world!"
"The prophecy…" Hades looked at his skull brooch, the blue ember eyes in it glowing.
"We need to evacuate everyone! This could be more devastating than Alastor!" Mal lead everyone out of the room.
"We need to drain the wild magic affecting Auradon until it shows signs of calming down!" Odalia Blight ran after her.
"Could we use your ember, Dad?" They ran as fast as they could when they started hearing the ceiling crack.
"I don't think my ember can, Mal!" Hades shouted. "Wild magic isn't the same as your mother's magic or mine! It's nearly as ancient as chaos magic, the very first magic to exist in the universe! It's connected to wild nature, literally and metaphorically, and my ember could be destroyed if I tried to drain it! I might know a way to drain it so it stops destroying everything, but I'd have to transfer it into a natural wild magic vessel at the same time!"
"I think I know where to go!" Queen Belle exclaimed.
Nearly fifteen minutes later
Only the three VKs, Ben, Hades, Queen Leah, and Fairy Godmother followed Belle into the limo. The rest of them took care of evacuating the civilians. The drive from the castle to the woods past the Enchanted Lake was a nightmare. The unleashed wild magic affected the trees to grow wooden arms from their branches, giving birth to multi-armed tree hydras that attacked anything that moved. Rock pillars rose and sank repetitively like haywire clocks. Animals went feral and started attacking one another. Golems made of mud and plants emerged from the earth and randomly moved around, moaning in anguish.
"Man, Audrey really knows how to make chaotic friends!" Jay freaked out when a tree arm nearly hit them.
The car finally stopped. When the group got out, they saw that they had arrived in front of some sort of rocky cliff. Belle nodded to the Fairy Godmother. The latter waved her wand and the air distorted. The cliff disappeared, revealing that it had been a camouflage to hide some sort of garden with glowing flora protected by a golden gate. Said gate opened before them and the group entered what looked like a paradise of fantastical flowers and trees.
"Nearly every single one of these plants are supposed to be endangered…" Hades said. When the group stopped in front of an acre of large trees, he gasped. "Palistrom wood?"
"What's that?" Mal frowned. "They don't look different from the rest of the trees in Auradon."
"They don't… on the outside," Belle explained. "If I did my research well, Odalia Blight's community of witches uses the wood of these trees to create their magical staffs and their familiars that they call palismans."
"Some fairies even use the wood to make their wands. Without familiars." Fairy Godmother showed her wand. "Or your mother's scepter, Mal."
"This is what Mom's staff was made of?" Mal was tempted to put her hand on one of them until Hades held her back protectively.
"They were overharvested before Auradon came to be. Fairy Godmother and I created this grove in case we could bring back endangered flora to Auradon. Maybe even to make wands for the next generation of fairies, but when my husband began discouraging magic, Fairy Godmother and I had to seal off the grove from the public."
As they walked further into the grove, they noticed how the barks of the Palistrom trees glowed rainbow veins in ominous, heartbeat patterns. Every time the lights went down, they could briefly see small shadows in fetal curls within the trunks before the lights came back.
"Are those palismans?" Hades asked when he saw some fetal fish within the trunk of a Palistrom pine tree.
"A Palistrom tree can hold the future palismans of twenty witches," Fairy Godmother explained. "The trees can predict which witch will cut off one of its branches to carve the palisman to life. Palismans are a great source of wild magic that help witches harness their magic, even fuel it if the magic is unrestrained. But since it's essential in their magical growth and fairies' wands, a lot of harvesting nearly threatened the trees to extinction. And witches can easily discard their palismans if damaged the way one abandons a pet."
"Before we created Auradon, there was a witch who devoured palismans to stay alive," Belle added. "He was already as dangerous as Maleficent, so Beast made sure he was never brought to life and placed in the Isle of the Lost."
"Best decision ever, Belle," Hades nodded respectfully. "With this grove, you could easily give birth to a thousand palismans. If he were still around, you might as well drug him with ambrosia."
They stopped at the center of the grove. The other trees formed a large circle on a massive, circular patch of grass with a large Palistrom Tree at the center. Compared to the other trees, it was hard to determine its nature, with its thick trunk, slithering twisted branches forming a leaf cloud over the whole grove, and thick roots connecting it to the other trees while creating a clock-pattern on the grass. The rainbow hues glowed all over its wood. There were no silhouettes of palisman fetuses within its trunk. At the heart of the tree was a carved statue of some small humanoid creature dressed in yellow robes and sitting in a Lotus position. Despite its eight toes, it possessed twelve fingers. The pink diamond standing out on its blue forehead matched those it had for eyes. Buck teeth stuck out of its pink lips.
Evie cringed at the poor fashion taste.
"Holy Olympus, is that Glossaryck?" Hades freaked out. Mal helped him calm down so that his hair didn't accidentally set the grove on fire.
"Glossary?" Queen Leah frowned.
"Glossaryck," Belle corrected.
"The entity who first created magic before the universe came to be. He used to be the mentor of a dynasty of magical queens from another dimension," Fairy Godmother said, bowing her head to the statue. "Decades before Auradon, the last princess of the dynasty saw how magic corrupted her family and others into wars and prejudice, leading her to destroy it. Glossaryck was destroyed as well. Somehow, when we created Auradon and started the grove, we found him emerging as a part of this tree. The very first Palistrom tree we planted. We thought it was a sign that he would return, but when magic wasn't needed in Auradon, he remained a statue connected to this same tree. He's been dormant ever since." She turned to Hades. "You can transfer the wild magic into this tree. What is your approach?"
"This." Hades unclasped his brooch. As his cape dropped down, he flipped the brooch, revealing its back to be a silver carving of a leech-like mouth. He held it up in the air and started chanting something in ancient Greek. Thunder boomed in the clouds as geysers of wild magic erupted everywhere in Auradon. The magic slithered in the air, forming a whirlpool that twirled its way into the brooch's leech mouth. Said leech mouth made loud, voracious regurgitating noises as a vortex appeared out of nowhere and catapulted the magic onto the tree. The eyes of the wooden statue of Glossaryck glowed as Hades transferred the wild magic damaging Auradon through the brooch and into the tree.
"Fascinating!" Belle said. "Mal, your father somehow hid Charybdis' Mouth in his brooch!"
"Charybdis?" Mal was shocked. "Uma told me about that whirlpool sea monster! I thought it was extinct!"
The sky cleared as the rest of the wild magic transferred into Charybdis' Mouth, out of the vortex, and into the tree. Once it was all into the tree, Hades clasped his brooch back onto his cape. The Palistrom tree glowed continuously until it faded.
Ben checked his phone. "Things calmed down in Auradon."
"And better yet, I managed to transfer so much energy in Charybdis' Mouth, I can use it as a portal," Hades grinned.
"We can use it to bring Audrey back home?" Queen Leah asked hopefully. "We can still fix things!"
A laughter echoed all over the grove, growing from a small laugh to a roaring laughter of mockery. The laughter was strongest around the central Palistrom tree. They looked towards the tree. The wood covering the head of Glossaryck had saturated and the head itself was moving as its lips let out a series of laughs. Hades looked at his brooch in shock.
"Glossaryck… is awoken…" He gasped.
"You people are PRICELESS!" The wooden statue laughed. "PRICELESS!"
"Great Glossaryck!" Fairy Godmother bowed. "We were worried you would never awaken! The wild magic must have freed you from your dormancy!"
"Obviously! The prophecy is coming!"
"What prophecy?" Ben asked.
"When the queen destroys the princess, and from wild magic the emperor has raised, the end of Auradon shall be priceless!" The words of Glossaryck caused everyone to pale up. "You're too late! Even if you brought back Princess Audrey, you'd just speed it up!"
"Auradon… will be destroyed?" Ben walked up to the statue. "But how did we fail? Does that mean that Penna De Mort's father will be unleashed…"
"Voldemort… HA! You're hilarious! You actually thought that Voldemort was going to destroy Auradon!" Glossaryck laughed. "You're dumber than you look!"
"Easy for you to say!" Jay defended Ben. "You've been frozen in a tree for decades!"
"At who's fault?" The statue of Glossaryck questioned, losing his laughter. "I was annihilated fairly when Princess Star destroyed magic to save her dimension! But then your father and his allies thought they could play gods and create a world to their liking, reviving those they desired and expelling those they abhorred! I was revived for a purpose that never came to be! In the end, existence itself created a prophecy to punish Auradon! Only when it's accomplished when the three worlds will be reunited as one."
"Auradon, the Isle of the Lost, and… the other realm," Mal said.
"They have to be reunited!" Ben grabbed her hands. "We can fix everything!"
Glossaryck, in his petrified state, kept laughing hysterically. "You must really be the most naïve king I've ever met!"
"But you just said that things would be fixed if the three realms reunited!" Mal scowled at him.
"Do you honestly think it's that easy, Mal?" The entity stopped laughing to give her a serious tone. "Do you honestly think that waltzes with fancy speeches will just fix twenty years of damage? Believe me, I've seen what it's like. I see your potential as queen, and compared to most, you do have justifiable morals, but even you can't repair the damage."
"I know!" Mal said, nearly crying. "I can't just snap my fingers and make the worlds as they were! I can't give back old homes or… destroy the new ones! I can't do it in the name of redeeming those who did it but I can do it because I want to believe in second chances!" She gestured to Ben. "Ben helped me believe in second chances and I want others to believe in it!"
"I know you do, Mal, but you can't do it." Glossaryck shook his head through the wood imprisoning him. Mal looked crest-fallen until the next words came out of the entity's mouth.
"You can't do it because it's up to somebody else to do it." Glossaryck blinked and his pink diamond eyes projected some visuals. However, unlike with Odalia Blight, it seemed to show past events only. That was the first clue they had when the first visual they saw was that of Audrey and Gothy on a ferry.
And Audrey looked like she had broken down.
'They were OK with shoving civilians in the Isle just for not going along with it! IS THIS REALLY THE BLISS I'VE BEEN LIVING IN? MY FAMILY REALLY EXPECTED ME TO BE QUEEN OF STOLEN LANDS?'
The second visual showed Gothy and the descendant of the Goblin King motivating Audrey in some wild environment.
'You chose to leave for all of this. You are no longer bound by the rules of magic-oppressors. You will now be able to be your own Audrey. Do things the way you'd have never done before, cast spells you never imagined… and finally have the life you never could have.'
The third showed Audrey beating up a teenage gang leader after he punched Beatrice Deetz in the face. They fought until a teenage boy, the one who had been on the train the first time Beatrice Deetz intercepted Queen Leah's first phone call, broke off the fight and started berating Beatrice.
'Hey, give her some slack! She kept her word and didn't pull any pranks! I pulled the pranks, I should have gotten the trash, and so I should have taken the responsibility! It's not Beatrice's fault if the idiots thought that she was responsible behind all this!' Audrey stood up for the ghost-human hybrid.
The scenes then quickly shifted: Audrey turning into a deadlier Queen of Mean to confront a humanoid dinosaur on train tracks and some green and wolf loving villainess in an arena. Audrey turning into a fiery bird while carrying a panicked Charles Frollo on her back. Audrey scaring off an army of wolves by setting fires in her armored demonic form. Finally, Glossaryck stopped the projections. The wood on him was beginning to stiffen.
"It took a descendant from the Isle of the Lost to help two worlds understand that you cannot simply separate good and evil based on individuals' homes and ancestries," Glossaryck said. "Now a descendant from Auradon must help cleaved dimensions understand that utopia never justifies annihilation and that to earn forgiveness, they must accept all differences and grow. That in the end, there isn't happily ever after but life. That in the end, the past and present will constantly lead the future into never-ending diverging redemptions." Glossaryck started coughing splinters. "When the queen destroys the princess, and from wild magic the emperor has raised, the end of Auradon shall be priceless! Until that happens, I need to remain in the Palistrom tree."
"Glossaryck…" Queen Leah walked up to the statue just as the block began to cover his forehead. She curtsied. "Thank you for clearing my perspective. I… failed as a grandmother. I feel like my failure caused Audrey to leave Auradon forever and to hate us… I desperately want her back home… But after hearing what you said, I understand it was for the best." She took a deep breath and smiled confidently. "Audrey's growing… Maybe she'll come back and maybe she won't… But she's in a better spot. I have more faith in her."
Mal took her hand, earning a smile from the Queen.
"She's becoming stronger." Evie nodded and joined hands as well. Soon enough, they were all holding hands in a semi-circle facing Glossaryck. He looked like he was genuinely happy… until he shrugged despite his petrification worsening.
"Well, have fun dealing with Kory Lokisdottir. She's holding Jane hostage at the school since you guys started doing sappy speeches!"
And before any of the horrified people could ask anything, Glossaryck went back to being a wooden statue on the Palistrom tree for good.
