The group from the Isle begins walking down the street with Emma, Killian, Crystal, Rumpel, Snow and David also in tow. The rest of the kids stayed behind to help with the research. Whitney and Simon agreed to watch their alternate brother Neal; it was pretty amazing that Snow and David were willing to entrust their son with children they barely knew, but that was the Charmings for you, trying to see the best in everyone and being so trusting immediately.
Rumple leads the group with most of the Storybrooke crowd behind him and the kids from the Isle bringing up the rear.
Harry and Crystal walk next to one another but avoid eye contact. It felt awkward between the two of them; while the daughter of the Dark One knew of Harry's attraction to her, she couldn't be sure if he was serious about it or not. Perhaps he just did all this to get attention and was just flirting with her as pirates often do. She knows she can't get her hopes up, especially if they were going to be leaving soon. Meanwhile, the son of Captain Hook had no idea how to approach even talking to a girl, let alone make a serious connection with them. He didn't know how to go about doing this and, surprisingly, it was difficult for someone who on the surface appeared to be confident. He turns back to lock eyes with Jay a few times, wanting some kind of advice to fill the awkward silence between them.
Evie brings up the rear of the group, being deliberately slow so she would not be seen.
She concentrates extremely hard and then flips her hand upwards. There's a sort of spark inside of herself and instantly, a small ball of blue flames floats in the palm of her hand. It wasn't much bigger than the wick of a candle and glowed a royal blue colour. The daughter of the Evil Queen stops and takes a step back in surprise, but the shock quickly vanishes when she becomes transfixed by this little ball of magic. It flickers just like a campfire and the colour seems to reflect the sunlight, making such a beautiful shade of blue. She smiles in awe at this power and feels excitement building inside her.
She wiggles her fingers slightly and the ball of fire flickers in reaction to the movement of her hand. It seemed to get a bit bigger, almost to the size of her palm now.
She lets out a small laugh.
"Hey, Evie..."
Mal turns to talk to her best friend, but the surprise of suddenly being confronted breaks the girl's concentration and startles her.
The orb of fire flashes outwards as the blue-haired teen jumps. The fire leaves her hand and goes towards her friends.
All Evie can do is let out a noise of shock and fear as the fire heads towards them, but all of sudden, Mal holds up her hand in a defensive position and creates a purple shield that protects both her and Jay. Once the two sources of power meet, it creates a sound and wave that echoes outwards, catching everyone else's attention.
"Mal...!" Evie gasps in horror, trying to fight back tears. She runs to embrace her friends. "Jay! I'm so sorry!" She instantly feels awful for playing with magic and nearly hurting her friends. Her arms wrap tightly around them.
"What happened?" Emma asks, confused by the wave of energy.
Evie's cheeks flush a shade of red and she looks down at her feet.
Jay speaks first, while still wrapped in Evie's arms. "Mal wanted to ask Evie something and the next thing we know, there's blue flame coming towards us."
"But I blocked it with my magic," Mal adds, trying to shift out of the prolonged hug of her best friend. Evie was squeezing much too tight for her liking.
Emma looks at Evie, who seems beyond embarrassed and fearful of what just happened.
"Were you playing with magic?" the blonde asks.
The teen with blue hair looks mortified and can feel the tears in her eyes. She tries to hug Mal and Jay tighter to hide her shame.
Rumple comes over to the young teens, with concern on his face, but also a glimmer of intrigue in his eyes. He attempts to meet the girl's gaze.
"Were you playing with magic dear?" he inquires.
"I'm so sorry!" she whimpers. "I...I just wanted to see what I could do but then Mal surprised me and I...I"
"There's nothing to be sorry about Evie," Crystal says, coming over to join the group. "It was an accident and you didn't mean for it to happen."
"Indeed, it's okay to be curious about one's abilities," Rumple nods. "Especially since this is a new development."
"But magic is a serious thing," Emma adds. "And despite how easy everyone makes it look, it takes a lot of practice to be in control."
"I make it look easy," Crystal smirks jokingly, creating an orb of purple light in her palm. Emma elbows her in the ribs to cut it out, which she does. "But magic is strongly connected to your emotions..."
"And if Mallory has surprised you as you said, your magic acted as a sort of defence in connection to how you were feeling," Rumple says.
Mal sighs heavily. She hates the nickname that the Dark One has given her, but at least it was unique. She is technically named Maleficent, after her own mother, but they called her Mal for short. And it was not a name given out of love or tradition, the mistress of all Evil had done it out of vanity, desiring to let her daughter be named after the greatest person of all... herself. She didn't even try to be original or let her daughter have her individual identity, Mal was always meant to live in her mother's shadow, that is until she stood up to the dragon lady at the coronation.
"And it appears that Mallory's magic did the same thing, defending against an attack, unintentional as it was," he finishes. Crystal can tell that her father is excited by this display of magic, perhaps allowing him to relive his glory days of training powerful individuals like Regina.
Evie still looks utterly frightened by this and when she lets go of her best friends, she notices that her hands a glowing blue. The light flickers under Evie's gloves.
Immediately, Crystal and Emma are at the girl's side. They knew what the girl was going through and they had to help her.
"It's okay Evie," Emma says gently. "I know it can be scary and you didn't mean to hurt anyone, but panicking is not going to help."
"She's right," Crystal nods. "Being afraid of who you are and what you have doesn't help. Magic is a beautiful thing and it does take a lot to control it, but the more you hate it, the worse it gets."
"You won't hurt others if you simply accept yourself and think about love," Emma adds. Her mind shudders with the memories of when Ingrid the Snow Queen got to her personal insecurities and she ended up nearly hurting her dad and blasting Henry back when her magic became unstable. She regrets doing these things, but she always remembers what Elsa had told her that love and self-acceptance were the keys to control. Accepting her magic allowed her to gain control again and she'd be forever grateful to the real Snow Queen for this advice.
Crystal could also relate deeply to the experience, though hers came more from two opposing forces of energy that fought for dominance. It took her a long time to find the balance and even now her magic could still be unstable, but it wasn't out of self-doubt or lack of love, it was just the darkness being darkness. She did resent what was inside herself, but she learned to tolerate it as it was better for everyone.
"Just take a deep breath," Crystal says in a soothing voice. "And think about those you love."
Evie closes her eyes and inhales slowly, imagining her friends, and Doug in her mind. The dwarf son's smiling face comes into her mind and she smiles. She tries to ignore the thoughts about what her boyfriend would think of these powers and just on him; the taste of his lips, the jokes he told, the warmth of his embrace. She lets out a contented sigh.
When she opens her eyes, the blue light is gone.
"There you go," Emma smiles. "You've just had your first lesson in control."
"I think we should try to avoid magic for the time being, until proper training can begin," Rumple suggests.
"Agreed," David says. He did not want a repeat of what happened with Emma. Both he and Snow loved her and did not fear her powers, they were part of who she was and thankfully Elsa had taught them this lesson too.
"Aye," Killian nods.
"Let's continue then, while there is still daylight," Rumple says, taking the lead once more.
The Isle kids take up the rear again, but with Evie walking with Jay and Mal now.
"I'm so sorry to both of you," Evie says.
Mal rolls her eyes. The apologies were getting a little annoying, but she knew that it was only because Evie felt so bad.
"It's okay Evie, you didn't mean to do it."
"I just feel awful."
"Don't be," Jay says. "It was an accident and honestly it was pretty cool. The blue fire is awesome. That could be the name of a band too."
Evie manages a small smile at her friend's joke. She knows he was trying to make her feel better.
"It's a lot to process," Jay sighs, heavily. He knew that Mal had magic, but now that Evie had it, it was something to think about. His grin vanishes for a second as he thinks long and hard about magic. He knew what happened to his father more than 20 years ago... he had wished to be a sorcerer and even turned into a snake at one point. Even if his dad in this world was dead, could he...? He shakes the thought from his head as they approach the harbour.
A log cabin comes into view through the trees and it's positioned near the beach that leads out towards the open waters.
Even though the cabin was placed here for the two sea witches, it was a nice place for it to end up, looking out into the scenic shore of the small town.
Rumple goes to the door, having no fear or hesitation of confronting Ursula again. Everyone else hangs back, still hesitant, especially Hook after Ursula had attempted to drown him when she attacked The Jolly Roger looking for her voice. Even the teens are unsure of this world's sea witch. While she did seem to be saner than the one on the Isle, they didn't want to take any chances.
Rumple knocks several times and waits.
There's no answer.
He knocks again, a little louder.
"Lady Ursula?" he calls inside. He assumes that she was avoiding seeing him again. "I assure you that our visit won't be very long."
Again, there's no answer.
Suddenly, there's laughter coming from behind the cabin and it makes everyone jump slightly. David peers in the windows to check to see if anyone is home.
"The place is empty," he announces.
Then there's more laughter, and it appears to come from a distance.
Harry and the other VKs recognize it as Uma's laugh, they'd all heard it many times before. But something felt off to Harry, it wasn't the usual laugh he heard from the pirate captain... It wasn't maniacal or evil... it was almost... joyful.
"I think they're out back," Crystal says, leading the group around the cabin and towards the beach.
The daughter of the Dark One enjoyed the beach a lot, something she couldn't do back in New York. She loved sunbathing during the warm weather and going for a swim whenever she could. She wouldn't blame Uma and Ursula for taking advantage of the beautiful sunshine to go to the beach. She squints in the sunlight reflecting off the water and can see two figures.
The group trudges across the sand towards the two figures in the water. The laughter gets louder as they get closer.
Mal, Evie, Jay, and Harry look on in shock at what they see.
Both Ursula and Uma are in the water, in their cephalopod form. Uma's necklace is glowing in the light and one of her turquoise tentacles thrashes forward, not to attack her mother, but it allows a large amount of water to spray at the other sea witch. The smile on the pirate captain's face indicates that she's having fun and enjoying herself; it's such a playful scene. This is something that none of the Isle kids have seen before and it's very bizarre. Normally, Uma only took pleasure in anything if it was hurting someone, but here, she's playing a game with her alternate mother. The splashing also makes them cringe when they remember what she did at the Cotillion. Ursula does her best to dodge the splash but still gets wet a little.
"Good shot!" she calls to her daughter.
The sea witch then splashes her daughter back in an equally playful way.
It's then that the two notice that they have visitors; the game stops and the smiles fade from both of their faces.
"It appears we have company," Ursula announces, heading towards the shore, wondering what the group wants.
Everyone stands near the shoreline, apprehensive of what was going to happen next.
A/N: Evie exploring her magic a bit and Uma having fun with her mom. It makes me happy. For those of you who would question this and think that Uma wouldn't do anything childish, I like to think that she's trying to experience the childhood she likely never had and Ursula is trying to get used to being around the teenager. I might explore their relationship further in future chapters. Let me know if you like this idea.