This isn't a request (sorry, guys), but rather something that popped into my head which I had to write down. The next chapter will probably be a request, unless Carella decides to go off on another tangent like this one. I hope the fact that it's a bit longer than most of these have been, and probably a good bit more museful than some of them, will help atone for that. (Also the fact that I'm updating within 24 hours of my last update, which I try not to do so I don't set the bar too high for myself to keep up with XD)

Really quick random side note, last night I retreated to my room and watched all five episodes of Descendants: Wicked World that are out, and it ended out a bit like the main movie - at first, I thought it was kind of silly/stupid, but as I kept watching I got absorbed somehow and now I really want the next episode. Can I just say that I adore the character of Freddy Facilier, even after just four lines (I think) of knowing her. I desperately want an excuse to reference her IRL - "Okay, Freddy, retract your claws." "Aw, but I just had them sharpened." {Dragon. Focus, please.} Right. Sorry. The point is, I'm up to date on the Wicked World-verse (which unfortunately is not really compatible with my chapter fic, but we'll ignore that) and I'll be using some of the language they do and referencing (and who knows? Maybe Freddy will make it into some one-shots).

Anyway, I was talking about the song Evil Like Me with a friend of mine IRL (who also happens to be my designated personal cheerleader and the one who encouraged me to post my Descendants fics on here in the first place) and it occurred to me that one line in particular caught my attention and interest: "This was not for us to ponder, this was preordained." (Well, that and "You should thank your lucky stars/That you were born the girl you are,/The daughter of an evilicious queen like me!" mainly because "evilicious" struck me as very much being a Glinda-word, and you can't convince me that that wasn't a subtle reference back to Chenowith's arguably most famous role as Galinda/Glinda in Broadway's Wicked.) That line made me think of how convinced Mal was at the beginning of Descendants that she WOULD be a villain because her mother was, and how those fears almost kept her from choosing good. That ended up somehow combining with the utterly random question someone in my head posed - "Hey, whatever happened to Maleficent's staff?" - to produce this. Ta-da!

Without further ado... Word count: 1,714

"This was not for us to ponder –

This was preordained."

~Maleficent

Mal stared at the black scepter sitting in the corner, green stone glittering, taunting her. She could hear it calling her, a faint hum that was all too obvious in the silence of the otherwise empty room. She could ignore it during the day, but it was impossible to deny at times like these, when all was quiet and she was alone with the cursed thing.

The Fairy Godmother had found it after the chaos at the coronation, lying discarded at the foot of the stairs. She had given it to Mal for safekeeping, as a gesture of trust and forgiveness for almost destroying Auradon. The staff, being a part of Maleficent's magic, was absorbed into the dark fairy's dragon form, but the Fairy Godmother told Mal that her spell, in forcing her mother into a different form, had likely caused the scepter to expel itself from Maleficent's magicked form as it rebelled against the foreign magic. There was only one problem with that theory, and only Mal and the other villain kids were aware of it: her magic wasn't foreign to the scepter.

Magic ran in a dark fairy's blood, and those who shared blood – families – could use each others' items of power, unless they were specifically charmed otherwise. Maleficent's staff had no such charm on it. The staff had always held appeal to Mal. She had wanted little more than to hold it and be allowed to use it for most of her life on the Isle, but her mother had never allowed her to so much as lay a finger on it. Except that one night in the museum... Mal still wasn't sure if she had imagined that or if her mother had actually sent her a vision. Either way, she had always wanted to use the scepter, but it had never called to her as it was doing now.

And it was that night in the museum that was haunting her. Some of the things her vision of Maleficent had said... she had told Mal in no uncertain terms that it was her fate to follow in her mother's footsteps. Mal had finally begun to shake that belief off... and now the staff.

As if it sensed her thoughts, the scepter's hum grew stronger, more insistent. She could feel it pulling her toward it, feel her own magic responding to the call. Without realizing it, she started to rise to her feet.

A knock on the door brought her back to her senses. "Mal?" Ben's muffled voice came through the door. She shook her head. "Are you in there?"

"Yeah," she said. "Come in; the door's unlocked." He did so, and found her sitting with her chin propped up on her knees. "You all right?"

"Fine." She caught his reproving look and sighed. "All right, no, I'm not."

"Your mom's staff again?" he guessed, glancing at the object in question uneasily.

She nodded glumly. "Yeah. I don't understand it. I can't seem to shake it off, this feeling that... that it's whispering in my ear, trying to pull me back to..." She trailed off.

"Back to evil," he finished quietly. She nodded again, and he sat down next to her. "You're not your mother, Mal. You chose good. No staff can change that."

"You don't understand," she said, getting up and pacing. "It's calling me, constantly, and there's a part of me that wants it so, so badly. I try to ignore it, but I can't – it's always there, in the back of my head. It gets easier with distance, but... I don't know why the Fairy Godmother gave it to me. It was a mistake. But she won't take it back; I tried."

Ben stood as well, watching her pace anxiously. "What makes you so sure it's not just the scepter's presence itself?"

"Because of this," she said, moving to the staff in one stride and snatching it up, partly to make her point... partly because she couldn't stand the constant calling anymore.

Power exploded through her, cold energy sliding through her veins, waking her own innate magic and interweaving it with that of the staff. The gem glowed bright, brilliant, and she knew her own eyes were glowing as well for a moment before fading again as the initial surge of magic subsided. She tried to let go of it, but her fingers didn't want to release it, her magic and her body fighting her. One finger at a time, she pulled away, throwing the staff down, back into its place. There was still a current of renewed energy flowing through her, but she knew that would wear itself out within a day. "That's why," she breathed, gasping for air with the effort it had taken to force herself to release all that power. It was easy to see why Maleficent had only gotten wrapped up more and more in evil, with the amount of magic her scepter had come to contain. It was infectious, and it was corrosive. Mal covered her face with her hands, trying to beat back the want, the need to take it up again, stumbling as she made herself move away from the source of the call. She felt Ben's arms wrap around her, coming between her and the scepter despite the fact that she knew it made him uncomfortable to be near it, holding her close. Mal buried her face in his chest. "I can't," she whispered. "That staff is pure evil, and it's so strong, and I want it even though I know I shouldn't, and my mother..."

He took her over to her bed and sat down, pulling her down next to him so that she was almost in his lap. She explained to him about the night at the museum, when she had almost managed to steal the wand, and how her mother had appeared to her. She told him what the apparition of Maleficent had said, and confessed her continuing fears that she couldn't help but turn evil. At some point, the tears started flowing, and they didn't stop.

Ben let her cry herself out, rocking her against his chest. "Mal?" he asked eventually, when she had finally quieted. She looked up, and he brushed a residual tear from her cheek gently with his thumb. "The fact that you're afraid of becoming evil at all tells me just how good you are," he told her. She sniffled, and he continued. "You may share blood with Maleficent, but your hearts are different. Your magic is the same, but your thoughts are nothing alike. Now let me tell you a story.

"Once upon a time, not so far away and not so long ago, there was a boy. His parents were very wise, and they tried to teach him right and wrong, good and evil. But the little boy didn't completely understand, and sometimes he did bad things he didn't realize were bad.

"One day, the boy's father came to him and gave him a bag. In the bag, his father said, was a powerful evil thing. His father told him that he must never open the bag, must never touch what was inside, for it was very powerful and it might make him do bad things.

"Now, the boy didn't think about why his father was giving him this, but he promised never to open the bag. He kept it in his room, on a shelf, where he could see it every day and congratulate himself on how clever he was, how brave, for keeping it so close and yet not opening it. But after a few weeks, he grew bored of this, and began to wonder what was inside, and what it could do.

"So one night, he couldn't bear his curiosity anymore. He snuck out of bed and over to the bag, and he opened it."

He stopped, and Mal asked, curious despite herself, "Well? What was in it?"

Ben leaned close and whispered in her ear, "Absolutely nothing."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"You heard me. Naturally, the boy was rather indignant. In the morning, he ran down to his father and confronted him about it. 'There was nothing in that bag,' he asked. 'Why did you tell me there was something evil in it?' And do you know what his father said?" Mal shook her head, unsure what to make of this. "He told the boy, 'I gave you that bag so that you would know what temptation was, so you might understand the people who give in to the temptation of the power of evil. Evil is very hard to resist. It's not ugly and obvious, like most people think. It's often very beautiful, and always very tempting, and it sneaks in the back door when you're not looking.'"

He looked at Mal again. "That little boy, as you probably guessed, was me. My father wanted to make sure I understood what evil is, what temptation is, and how hard it is to resist. Sometimes, it's impossible. But he also told me how to fight it."

"And what's that?"

"Think of why you chose good," he said. "Think of the things you love, the reasons you chose to stand up to your parents, to live in Auradon and keep going to school here. Think of the things that make it worth it to fight the temptation. If you focus on those," he said, pointing, "that staff won't be able to hurt you, or tempt you. Neither will anything else."

She let out a breath, snuggling against his chest. "I think you're right," she agreed after a few seconds. "I think... I think I understand. And I think sometimes, we need a little temptation, to remind us what life is like for other people."

He nodded, smiling faintly, and when Evie and Doug came back from their date, they found Mal and Ben curled up asleep on the bed together, and Mal's face was more relaxed than Evie had seen her since the coronation. She smiled and tossed a light blanket over the two of them, then led Doug out of the room, shushing him, knowing Mal needed all the sleep she could get.

Quick question, before I leave you for now: My other Descendants fic, which is a chapter fic called The Good, the Bad, and the Lost, doesn't have nearly as many favs, follows, or reviews as this collection. Is there something I can change or something I'm doing wrong on the other one, or is it simply lack of awareness because it hasn't been out as long and I haven't updated it as much? If you guys could let me know, that'd be great :) I just want to give my readers what they want to see and make you guys happy to the best of my ability.

That said, let us voice the traditional request: reviews, please! Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!