A/N: The maladies suffered by Mal and Evie are inspired by fibromyalgia and migraines, which I myself suffer with.

"Ye who are poor suffer with hunger keen, And toil in wretchedness ...But ill the fate of all who do ye wrong!"

- Charles G. Leland; Aradia, Gospel of the Witches.

The Isle was bad enough for the human villains. Gaston, who'd been selfish and boorish before, became a terrible drunk, and though he never raised a hand against his wife, he berated her constantly. Captain Hook had been driven mad by the constant taunting of Pan, and the loss of his hand. He was a very depressed man, but his wife was even worse off, and the repressed magic in his son's bloodline was said to have been what drove Harry to his peculiar ways and his relationship with the daughter of a sea witch.

The Isle was a terrible place for humans, but it was hell on Earth for magic users, who felt it itch under their skin constantly, turning their hair and eyes odd colors as the only possible way to get out of them without tearing through their skin.

And Harry was the only one of them with a natural color, save Ginny, whose eyes were an unnatural violet instead of her hair, and whose freckles shone like gold sometimes, due to her mother's long use of regenerative magic. Mal could sense that the son of Hook was magical, and ritual seemed to help ease the pressure a little. But Evie speculated that all his magic was still trapped inside him. Uma was the only one capable of helping when he had one of his episodes, seeing and talking to things that weren't there. Later Gil helped too, even though he wasn't magic like they were, couldn't understand it and know the pain like they did.

The Isle was the ultimate punishment for those who were meant to have magic, (and those who had never committed a crime, and those who didn't deserve to be stuck there like caged animals with their psychotic parents and a whole host of murderers and criminals and the dregs of society) and sometimes Mal woke up in the middle of the night, with the full moon above her, screaming, because the ache of her magic felt like all her bones were breaking, and her faerie blood wanted to tear her apart in order to escape through her skin as she screamed. Her joints were stiff and painful, and she couldn't make a fist to fight with. Maleficent, who didn't hurt nearly as badly (missing her wings, and having come into her magic years ago) kept watch over her daughter, and spread rumors that the screams heard echoing from the bargain castle were torture victims, and not the screams of her only child.

The blue-haired witch had completely different symptoms on the full moon, Evie got terrible, debilitating headaches. Colors seemed too bright, and details in her eyesight blurred. She became feverish, and her mind raced, and the pain was so bad that she couldn't keep down food or think properly, like all her thoughts and senses wouldn't fit together properly. All she could do was moan and cry while her mother's servants put cold compresses on her face (because they didn't have iceboxes or freezers or ice, except in winter), and brewed feverfew potion to ease the pain.

Jay was the only one of them who didn't have magic problems at certain times of year, and before they all came together, he stayed with Carlos during the solstices and equinox. On the peak of magical power, the day of each season when ambient magic was strongest, Carlos became paranoid, seeing shadows and ghosts behind every corner. Jay kept him calm, and kept his mother far far away while he recovered, trembling in a corner of his bedroom, or pacing with frantic and violent energy.

(There were rumors that Jafar was still a genie somehow, behind the facade of a lean old man who used his son for all the dirty work. Jay was glad his father was no genie, and only a sorcerer. It meant he was human for the most part, with no magic in his blood. Only in his charms and incantations, gems and magic artifacts. He couldn't have known about the way djinn magic worked - just because he didn't have symptoms like the others, it didn't mean he wasn't also a genie.)

The pain was easier for the adults, who'd already come into their magic, long before being sent away. The people of Auradon couldn't have known what would happen. There was no precedent for it. No one had ever gathered so many magical beings into one place and just... Sealed them there. Adam and Belle got one chance to realize their mistake. They could have taken the children away from their parents, and raised them in Auradon - would any of the old blood families have wanted them? But in the end, after push back and panic, Adam decided to just leave it alone. No one wanted to risk taking villain children from their vengeful families, and no one wanted to take them in. It didn't help that the magical problems held off until puberty, after the kids had been under their parents' teachings for their formative years.

So they remained. And every new moon, when the tide was at it's lowest, Uma would hurt so badly she'd faint, and have to fight depression for days afterwards. Harry and Gil stayed close to her for comfort, and to protect her as she slept off the effects of her magic fainting spells and weakness.

Seeing all the sorrow around them, Maleficent was afraid. She did the only thing she could think to do, and filled Mal's mind with hatred and anger. She wouldn't let her darling little dragon give up on life, and that meant giving her something to live for.

"When you get out of here, my child, you will slaughter all the ones who did you wrong. You will relish their screams as you laugh, and dance in their blood. They will pay for what they did to you." The wingless fae whispered as she sang to her baby girl when she writhed. Maleficent would have loved to touch her cheek, or give her a hug, but any pressure made the pain even worse. So she sang, and told stories of the Fae, of her people, and of their ancient ancestral homeland. (The moors that had been razed by war and stained with the blood of magic. The moors that had been seized by the one human Maleficent had dared to trust since Stefan.)

The Isle was the ultimate torture, and Queen Belle felt so sorrowful for what had happened to the children, especially once her own son was born (not that she did anything about it). Others, like Chad Charming, and King Adam even, thought that it had been the right thing to do. They couldn't kill villains, after all, (thou shalt not kill, the Bible said.) So they did the next best thing, and locked them away, where they would hurt no one (but each other) ever again. They did the right thing.

But that didn't make them heroes. It made them monsters.