Half and Half

Chapter Eight

"That's right," Persephone nodded and Mal couldn't help but beam at the thought of getting the answer right.

I've been hanging around Benny too much if I'm feeling pride at a correct answer, she thought.

"We've always cared about the Isle," Belle said.

Mal rolled her eyes. "Cared enough to put posters up reminding us to be 'good for goodness sake' right? All those things are good for is target practice."

Belle sighed but tried to keep her composure. After all, she'd had the feeling that the meeting wouldn't go exactly the way she'd planned.

Hence why she scheduled it during Adam's council meeting. It was one thing for a five year old to get off topic or distracted—they were five after all—but Adam might see any attack on the Isle as an attack on him.

"Why don't you tell me about the Isle? About your friends?" Belle said as she sat down. "You've made friends with Ben so I know you probably have loads of friends back on the Isle."

Mal glanced over at Persephone, who nodded slightly. They had agreed to not go into what was wrong with the Isle but if Belle was asking, that was a horse of a different color.

"I don't have friends. I have allies," Mal said.

"Oh...yes Ariel had mentioned Elle had asked about you using that phrase," Belle said. "Why?"

"Because friendship is for the weak," Mal said and the matter of fact tone coming out of the five year old's mouth broke Belle's heart. "If you have friends, you have someone that other people can hurt to get to you. Maleficent told me that alliances are the only thing that matter because if you have those then you're safe. Even if someone double crosses you, they end up getting hurt themselves because then they lose any alliance that they were part of."

"But surely that's something only the adults need to worry about," Belle said. "What about the kids? What do they do for fun?"

"...I thought you were supposed to be the smart one?" Mal asked as her ankle throbbed. All sense of holding her tongue went out the window with that. "We barely have enough food to survive, we're not exactly in the market for friends or fun times."

Belle stared in shock. "What...what do you mean?"

"I believe I told you, Queen Belle, the day Mal met Prince Ben, that you would see the same results from Mal's x-rays on any child of the Isle," Persephone spoke up. "If you want to talk about the death rate, it's—."

"It just hit one hundred," Mal said, her voice soft as both Persephone and Belle looked over at her. "Today...today was a barge day wasn't it?"

"It was," Persephone nodded. Hades had been griping about the extra work over the mental link. "But...Mal, how do you know the death count? Has Maleficent been talking to you about that sort of thing?"

Persephone had a feeling that wasn't the case though. After all, Mal was Hades' daughter and Hades was the God of the Dead. It would make sense that Mal would be closer connected to the death of the Isle than anyone else.

Mal shook her head. "I don't know why but I've always been able to...I guess 'sense' would be the right word to use, but yeah I've been able to sense when someone's on the brink. I don't know who they are but if they're close to death, I can tell. I can't do anything about it but I can tell."

"One hundred...one hundred people dead?" Belle whispered and Mal and Persephone looked over at her, both having forgotten she was there. "One hundred Auradon citizens—."

"They're Auradon citizens now? I thought they were just villains?" Mal asked. "After all, that's why we were put there. Except for the kids who were born on the Isle though, what was their crime? Being an annoying baby?"