Video - Attempting This Princess Leader Thing

[mal_contented]

[Mal closed her connection to Merlin and considered what he had said when she arrived, about what a princess is here, about leadership. Then she opened her connection to everyone through her mirror.]

"Alright. Listen up. Someone is missing and we've been asked to go help. Those who chose not to. stay in the assigned apartments. Yours or together with others, I don't care. If things go sideways it will be easier to keep you lot safe if we know which one building you are all in."

[A deep breath.]

"For the rest of us. We need to work together. Most of you probably don't know or like me. That's fine. Most of you if I know you... I don't like you. But we don't have to like each other for this. We just need to work towards the same goal. After, if you want to tear into me, fine, you're welcome to try. But until we all come back successful and safe, we are horns out, not in. We are one."

Comments

[strangeandunusual]

"He's gross," Lydia said immediately. "I needed his help to save my friends, and he tried to use that to make me marry him."

[mal_contented]

"Uh huh," she said, unimpressed with this guy already. "How did he think that was going to work exactly?"

[strangeandunusual]

"It's part of a bigger story," she admitted. "But they were going to ... Someone was going to destroy them. And it was my only choice. And he knew it."

[mal_contented]

"So extortion, huh? Sounds like one of Doctor F's friends all right."

CW: suicidal ideation

[strangeandunusual]

"That's an idea," Lydia realized. "We can just call him B."

She huffed out a sigh. "I mean ... He did save them. And he talked me out of ... Um, well." She fidgeted a little. She'd never talked about the note she'd written to anyone with a pulse, and it was suddenly awkward. But Mal had trusted her with the hard, ugly parts of her life, and she felt a need to follow suit. She started fixing the red dye to have something to do with her hands, a focus besides Mal's reaction to what she was about to say.

"... Joining them."

Re: CW: suicidal ideation

[mal_contented]

"Joining them?" she asked, not sure what she meant, but aware that it seemed to be something big.

[strangeandunusual]

"You know." She poured the powder into the water, watching it bloom, and breathed out. She could do this. She could say it to another living person, just as easily as she'd said it to Beetlejuice, to Barbara and Adam. "They were ghosts. I wanted to ... I ..."

She gripped the edge of the counter, and the memory of how utterly wretched she'd felt that night came flooding back to her. She set her jaw against the tears, tried to remind herself that it was just a memory, that she wasn't utterly alone anymore. "I wanted to die. I was going to jump off the covered bridge at the bottom of our driveway."

[mal_contented]

Mal considered a moment as she worked at her own part of the dying, then she looked over shaking her head. "Far too painful way to go," she said finally. "If you really wanted to there are easier ways." Getting to the reasons not to would come after, later in the conversation. Probably.

[strangeandunusual]

"I wasn't really thinking about what was easy," she said. It hadn't quite been the reaction she expected ... but somehow, that helped. "I was thinking about what I knew I could do. And Adam and Barbara died falling off the same bridge, so ... it was ... I thought it'd be kind of symbolic. I was the only one who could actually see them. So they kept trying to get me to talk my parents into leaving, but my dad and my step-mom wanted to use them to make money off living in a haunted house." She took her frustration at the memory out on the cloth, plunging it into the water and wringing it tight. "So I felt like I was a tightrope, and they each had hold of an end of me, and ... and ... no one was listening to me. I felt so alone, even though no one would leave me alone. It was awful. I couldn't take it."

[mal_contented]

She nodded, considering as she worked. "And killing yourself seemed the better choice to killing your family?" she asked, curiously.

[strangeandunusual]

Mal sounded suspiciously reminiscent of Beetlejuice himself, in that moment. She knew he'd wanted to get rid of her father and Delia and Otho far more permanently than Barbara and Adam had had in mind.

"I wouldn't kill my Dad," she objected. "I love him. ... Delia's awful but ... I wouldn't have even thought of killing her. Murder just ... wasn't something that crossed my mind. I just ... being a ghost seemed like it would be so much easier, and more fun. Then Adam and Barbara could have been my real family. But ... "B" ... he said he could help me go over to be with them without my having to die. So that's why I agreed to let him help."

[mal_contented]

She nodded. "If it helps any, I didn't want to let anyone kill my mother either, when it came down to it. she happily would have let the kingdoms burn, just for the joy and heat of the flames. But... she's still my mother. So I get it. So, you made a bad deal, what happened then?"

[strangeandunusual]

"They tried to hold a seance for Adam and Barbara to make them show up and entertain their friends like... like trained animals. That was awful enough, but it went wrong, and I think it was turning into an exorcism, because they started crumbling and falling apart. That's when I agreed to marry B. ... He scared off the others and saved Adam and Barbara, just like he said he would."

She mashed her hands down into the dye, watching it seep into the fabric, changing it from the disgusting pastels she'd bought into something darker, better.

"And the next thing I knew he had me in this awful red wedding dress, and starting a ceremony. Right there. In our living room."

Lookit, icons!

[mal_contented]

"Ugh. Malicious or a an idiot using magic he didn't understand?" She tried to pull her brain away from, thoughts of Auradon. Sometimes even smart good people could be idiots who open the door to evil.

Ooooo shiny!

[strangeandunusual]

"Definitely malicious." Lydia made a face. "He said he needed to get married so he could 'meet some people on the other side', which ... I really have concerns about now that I've seen what he did to my step-mother's friends. He had a ring in his pocket, and everything. On a severed finger. It was disgusting."

In retrospect, the gothic literature buff in her could appreciate the ambiance, and she still smiled just a tiny bit. It had been funny what he'd done to Otho, after all. But, no. No. Over all, the scales didn't balance on the B-guy.

Totally trying to enable a Doctor F, as well as Mal's best friend, Evie.

[mal_contented]

"I meant the idiot doing the seance. But yeah, B sounds like he would have been one of my teachers back on the island. Probably besties with Doctor F."

Oooo. I knew someone who played a good Dr F ages ago ...

[strangeandunusual]

"Oh, you meant Otho. He ... he's one of those guys who's always doing morally questionable stuff, but he always figures it's okay because it's trendy." She gave the garments a good hard squish, then left them there to soak, pulling her hands out to dry them on paper towels.

"I can never decide whether that's worse than doing bad things on purpose."

OOOOOOOOOOO

[mal_contented]

"Hmmm, I think evil for evil's sake is worse. People like that can be conned out of evil. People like me? In my blood. I'll always be a villian," that last was said a bit bitterly as she viciously wrung out the leg of a pair of pants.

[strangeandunusual]

"Okay, the con part makes sense," she allowed. "But I call crap on that last one. Just because your mom's a crazy evil witch doesn't mean you have to be. The magic and the dragon thing? Sure, cool. But you don't have to use them the same way if you don't want to. Maybe people on Auradon thought that way, but... That's just dumb."

[mal_contented]

"I tried being good," she said simply, though it was anything but, "I failed." She kept the pain and self loathing out of her voice, kept her tone light. "I'll never be an Auradon girl. I'll always be Mal from the Isle. And the Isle is where villains go." Her voice was a little too cheery, a little too bright to be genuine.

[strangeandunusual]

Lydia pursed her lips in thought. She knew a facade when she saw one, and what they always hid. She liked Mal, and didn't want to see her hurting as badly as she clearly was... but she wasn't sure how to help beyond the things she was already doing. If Mal was convinced she was evil, she'd just have to keep her eyes peeled for evidence if the contrary and point it out as it came. In the meantime, she resolved to just treat her like anyone else, the way she deserved to be treated, and not push. Because she knew how much she, herself, hated to be pushed to be happy and cheerful. Sometimes you just needed to be in a mood.

But still, Mal had said something she could use. "Then maybe you aren't a villain after all. Because you aren't on the Isle, you're here. And... I dunno. That seems like it kinda makes it up to you, since everything here's about what we imagine, not what everyone else imagines about us."

Dang it, Spark, you're not in this game!

[mal_contented]

"I was on my way back there when I wound up here. I still say the magic mirror made a massive mistake. But since I'm here, I'll do what I can."

[strangeandunusual]

"Maybe someday you'll change your mind." Lydia shrugged, knowing that Mal had to be the one to make that decision. Either way, the fact that she was still committing herself to it all was a good sign, and she smirked.

"But I still say I got the coolest roommate. Come on, let's check on the leggings, they should be done. Do you think we can spraypaint the backpacks?"

[mal_contented]

"Oh you very much did. And I got the second coolest," she said with a grin, accepting the change of tone. Welcoming it. "And we can TOTALLY paint the back packs." She headed over to look at the leggings with her.

[strangeandunusual]

"... Oh, these are totally done." Lydia beamed, pulling them out of the tub and holding them up to let them drip, mottled pitch black and purple. "I can't wait to see how they look on you."

She paused.

"I just realized that with everything hanging up to dry in here, we're not gonna be able to use the shower. I bet I can ask Ace if we can use his before we go, he doesn't have a roommate anymore."