Chapter Text
Uma felt a rush of relief as she entered the reassuring containment space that was her bedroom. Besides her ship, it was easily her favorite place to be. Mostly because it was the only place in the house where Ursula couldn’t reach her, because way above sea level. The room was small, there was a lot of heavy furniture that always had her wondering how the floor hadn’t collapsed underneath it already, but it was her space.
She let herself fall backwards on the bed, arms extended either sides of her body and her long aqua blue braids sprawling all over the thin, somehow damp mattress. It was past 2am, she had just finished her late night shift at the chip shoppe and she was exhausted. As usual, her octopus of a mother had made sure to wear her out. Her muscles were sore, her skin felt dry and she craved a a deep scrubbing. Working in a fish shop had its cons, the smell being one of them. Sitting up, she eagerly kicked her leather boots off, lifted her tricorn hat from the top of her head, and stripped herself out of her clothes until she was left in only her underwear.
Heading to her bathroom, the young sea witch looked at her reflection in the broken mirror and smirked. Rotten never looked so good, she thought, as she admired her silhouette. To say that she used to be skin and bones. Ah, old times. Wherever these curves she had put up had come from, they were always greatly appreciated. Seriously, has there ever been a villain with an ass like that?
Nah, she was the first. Just like she was the first evil soul to claim Mal’s side of the Isle after she left, six months ago.
The thought of the purple haired girl wiped the smirk off Uma’s face, her fists automatically clenching. That perfidious little traitor. She deserved to be— … Okay, calm down Uma. She took a deep breath. Great, now she was not only in need of a shower, but a long bath.
Once the bathtub was full, she dropped a handful of lemongrass-scented bath salts (she was grateful for whatever Auradonian fool who threw those away, so that Harry could steal them for her), then settled inside neck deep. Now, it was perfect. As the minutes passed, she felt her tense muscles beginning to relax, her heart rate decreasing. She grabbed the remote of the small TV perched on a shelf at the corner of the room and turned it on. But before she could bring herself to turn it back off, she had to see the unpleasantly familiar face again.
On the news (and only) channel, for the umpteenth time today, they appeared on the screen, smiling for the cameras. Future Lady of the Auradon Court on the arm of her King of a boyfriend.
This time, she couldn’t stop the anger and resentment from swelling her heart.
“Just when I thought you couldn’t sink any lower. Fucking hypocrite,” Uma mumbled to herself.
A one-way ticket out of this goddamn island, that was all Uma ever wanted. Grab her crew, sail her ship, become the greatest pirate of all times. Achieving what many before her never managed to accomplish. She wanted her name to be known by all, to be on all the lips and drip down throats and cause damage just like hot poison.
She, Uma, daughter of Ursula the baddest sea sorceress to ever exist, would conquer the world and there was nothing or no one that could talk her out of it. All she needed was to break the barrier surrounding the Isle of the Lost, which was by far the hardest part of the plan.
But little Mal over there, and her three little muppets, did find their way out. Handpicked by the King himself, and transferred straight to Auradon. Getting the perfect opportunity to put them all out of their misery. But she failed. She turned her back on her peers last minute and became one of the good people, befriended them. Worse, she fell in love with one of them.
The feeling of hurt and betrayal that filled Uma this day was as devastating as it had ever been before. Had it been her, none of this would’ve happened. She would’ve stuck to her plan and all the villain kids would be free. But instead, it had to be Mal who got the privilege and she blew it away. It had always been Mal anyway, ever since they were kids.
But at this time, Uma didn’t mind, because they were friends.
Before Jay and Carlos came in the picture, Mal and Evie were already best friends. But the daughters of Maleficent and Ursula formed another invincible duo. Together they dreamed of ruling the world, from the deepest bottom of the ocean to the highest cloud in the sky, and back in the day they actually believed it was possible. That no one would get in their way.
After all, who has ever managed to tame a sea dragon?
Even then, Mal always drew more attention than Uma. In their school, many referred to the teal haired girl as just ‘Mal’s other friend’. And because she was a few months younger, and markedly smaller and thinner than her, you could literally say that she was in Mal’s shadow twenty-four-seven. Although Mal never treated her differently because of that, it didn't stop people from talking: Mal would do the greatest evil deeds, Mal was born to be the leader of all villains. Mal had to walk in her mother’s shoes.
But that was, Uma knew, her biggest flaw. Mal had to live to her mother’s expectations and reputation. On the contrary, Uma had to learn to think for herself at a very young age. She knew her mother’s story and there was no way she’d make the same mistakes the older witch made. Plus, from the looks of it, it wasn’t like Ursula really cared anyway.
So most of the time, it was the same story repeating itself. Uma would come up with the plan and they would use Mal’s uprising reputation to cause the trouble together, sometimes trying to include Evie though the Evil Queen’s daughter seemed more interested in makeup than mischief. And they were good at that, they were fine.
But then there was that one Saturday, when they were eleven, right before going back to school.
- Flashback
It was 11:30pm. Uma was supposed to meet Mal at the docks half an hour ago, though when she got there, her purple haired friend was nowhere to be seen. However, the other witch thought it was okay. Being late was a big part of a villain's lifestyle.
But suddenly there was a loud splash, and a scream tore up the night.
“Heeeeeeeeeeelp!”
Startled, Uma frantically looked around for the source of the noise, unsuccessfully. It was a particularly dark night, and the docks were barely lit.
“Help… me!”
The two words were separated by a faint gurgling sound that the sea witch knew way too well: somebody was drowning. She squinted her eyes towards the water and finally noticed that particular spot where the surface was agitated, and an arm flew in the air.
Uma ran on the dock to get closer, trying to get a better look and identify the person in danger. She didn't have to wait long.
“Uma—”
Mal, she gasped. It was her voice, now she was a hundred percent sure of it. And one thing was even surer, the girl was never a swimmer. She would die if she didn’t get help now. So Uma didn’t hesitate one second, she dove, fully clothed, head first into the cold sea and swam as fast as she could to her endangered friend, who could barely keep her head out of the water.
“Here, I got you!” Uma said as she urgently wrapped an arm around the purple haired girl’s torso.
Mal kept panting and coughing as Uma swam and carried her back to the docks, and with difficulty she climbed back on the ground.
“Are you okay?” Uma rushed out of the water as well. “How the hell did you end up in there?”
Maleficent’s daughter was still on her knees, too busy coughing the last of the water out and catching her breath to answer. But at least, Uma thought, she was safe.
She was in the middle of squeezing the water out of her teal tresses (not so long and not braided at the time) when several small, squashy objects – actually a whole lot of them – fell on top of her head, along with icy cold water. Next thing she knew, laughter was heard above her as she stood here in shock, pulling the objects out of her hair.
Shrimp. Raw, slimy, stinky shrimp surrounded her. And soon the smell was unbearable, such as the laughter seeming to get louder.
“Ha ha ha! Serves you right!”
Horrified, Uma turned looked up to see some guy standing on a deck about a foot above her, surrounded by a group of other kids including Evie and Jay. She looked back at Mal hoping for some sort of back up, only to find the girl laughing as well, fully recovered from her ‘drowning’ and looking extremely proud with a bucket hooked on her arm. On her face was the expression the young sea witch was used to see whenever their evil plans worked.
“Mal…”
“Damn, that turned out better than I expected,” the fae smirked.
“Y-you’re behind this?” Uma stuttered, feeling humiliated and deeply hurt. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to,” Mal just shrugged, earning more laughter from her audience. “I did you a favor by letting you stick around with me for so long. We had a little fun I guess, when I was bored. But I don’t need you anymore. See I only hang out with the baddest and well, you're far from that. I mean look at you, you’re weak, and pathetic. You’ll never be big, or bad enough to be in my gang. So you can go back to that stinky place your mama calls a restaurant, you match the smell now. Shrimpy!”
The crowd irrupted into another fit of laughter at the nickname. ‘Haha good one Mal!’, ‘Shrimpy, so funny!’, ‘Ew for real she stinks’ … Feeling angry tears sting her eyes, Uma yanked one last shrimp out of her hair and ran away, not wanting these people to see her cry on top of everything.
- End of flashback
The next day, Uma found a small sandbox outside her front door, with a single shrimp inside and the word ‘Shrimpy’ written in large red letters on the lid. No need to say, she was livid.
By the time school restarted, Mal had everybody making fun of Uma and calling her that infuriating nickname. Even her so-called 'friends' joined the party. And it didn't help that the smell just would not leave. It must’ve been some pretty bad rotten shrimp because it took weeks, and disproportionate amounts of (bad) shampoo to finally get the smell out of her hair (and sometimes she swore she could still smell it).
But it was nothing compared to what Uma felt inside. Loneliness. Humiliation beyond everything she knew. Constant anger. But mostly deep misunderstanding. Why would Mal pull a nasty prank like that on her, someone she considered a friend. Or at least she thought she did.
From then on, the young sea witch knew she'd have a hard time earning people's respect back. They respected her before because she was with Mal, but now she had to get there on her own. Thankfully she found Harry, who also held a serious grudge against Maleficent’s daughter. It took a little while for her to let him in (trust issues, y’know?) but she eventually did. Together they won a pirate race held by his father, Captain Hook, and won her beloved ship, the Lost Revenge. He didn't object when she proclaimed herself captain so she happily made him her first mate. They began recruiting crew members, Gil being the first, and soon enough people began to fear her again.
She and Mal attended different schools after that, on two opposite sides of the Isle, so they hardly crossed paths. But she always made sure to let Mal know that Captain Uma was back on track and badder than ever. That anyone who dared to call her Shrimpy now had to deal with herself and her crew in a very unpleasant manner (only Gil seemed to get away with it, because sometimes the guy's brain just seemed to somehow stop working).
Now, Little Miss Perfect and her gang were living a lavish life while the rest of the villain kids floundered in the dirt.
As the TV now showed the ‘royal couple’ having dinner with Aladdin and Jasmine, Uma scoffed. Was she seriously the only one to see right through this bullshit? Despite that fake ass bitch blonde hair and the golden tiara placed on top of her head, was she the only one to still see Mal for no less than what she really was, a villain kid? C’mon, she knew better than that.
But what irritated her the most at the moment was King Ben and his lovey-dovey self, stealing lovely glances here and there, holding and kissing her hand, showing the world how much he was fond of her. If only he knew. You don’t know her like I do. And if you don’t you can certainly not love her like I—
Uma mentally slapped herself as soon as the thought crossed her mind, squeezing her eyes shut. No. She couldn’t walk that path again.
Back when they were still on good terms, Uma had confused feelings towards Mal. She first thought that what she felt was deep, genuine caring and that it was normal to feel that way towards a friend. But then she paid attention to a few little things. Like the way her heart would flutter whenever Mal smiled at her. Or the weird feeling of joy that filled her when Mal said something nice to and/or about her. Or the goosebumps on her skin when they touched. Or the way she instantly became jealous of whoever Mal flirted with (she sure knew jealousy very well).
In all logic, she got scared. Never in her life had her other friends made her feel like that. And who could she tell. Mal? Not in a million years. Her schoolmates? They wouldn’t be helpful, plus they’d mock her so badly. Her mother? Ugh, she’d rather eat living worms. Feelings were a very tricky subject on the Isle. There was never a problem with flirting with someone, desiring or feeling lust. A parent’s love for their children was also acceptable, apparently (although she wasn’t quite sure that her own mother’s behavior towards her could be seen as love). But surely, for most islanders, romantic love was considered a weakness, an obstacle to power. A thing to avoid at all costs. Not a soul here believed – publicly at least – in everlasting love. In true love. So of course she wouldn’t know what falling in love would feel like.
Therefore, she did the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time: she broke into her school at night, went to the library and wandered around the ‘Fairytales and other stories’ section. As she expected it, all the books in there were dusty, tatty and moth-eaten, because their contents were so repulsive (too much goodness and happily-ever-afters), obviously nobody wanted to read them. They were only there because of some stupid Auradon law.
Uma remembered the shame that gnawed at her guts, and how she looked behind her shoulder every two seconds to make sure that she was alone. If someone found her here, she’d never see the end of it. And for two hours and a half, she flipped through yellowish pages while fighting a growing nausea. Book after book, one corny story after another, her worst thoughts slowly confirmed.
She did throw up afterwards, completely rejecting the idea. She wasn’t in love, she couldn’t be. Love was for the weak. And weak was something Uma knew she wasn’t. It had to be something else.
Time proved her wrong. She tried to control herself and make the sensations go away but it was all vain. The sea witch felt herself falling for her friend harder and harder every day.
‘The heart wants what the heart wants’.
She remembered reading this in one of the books and despite all the efforts, her heart didn’t only want Mal, it craved her. Being around her became tough, almost painful at some point.
She was in love with her best friend and there was nothing she could do about it.
After Mal tricked her, Uma felt incredibly stupid. She should’ve known there was a reason why people said ‘falling’ in love. Love was doomed because falling could never end well. The higher the climb, the greater the pain. Unfortunately, she had to experience to have her own heart broken to realize that. She was so crushed that she swore she’d never fall in love ever again.
People saw her now as the psycho, ruthless, cold-hearted captain of the Lost Revenge, leader of the villain kids, queen of sass and sarcasm who’ll do whatever it takes to get her way, even when it included getting her hands dirty. Hardly showing emotions that weren’t anger or desire for revenge. Just how it was supposed to be.
But behind closed doors, and beneath all the walls she had to build up to protect herself, the sea witch’s vulnerable side sometimes resurfaced unexpectedly, especially when it came to Mal. It killed her to admit it, but as much as she hated the girl for betraying her and her fellow villains, that part of her still had feelings for Mal and wished they never drifted apart. Seeing her like that with Ben always made her heart ache with jealousy.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
Well, even after all these years, Uma’s heart still seemed to want the same thing.
Sighing, Uma turned the TV off and shook those thoughts out of her head. Her bath water was already getting cooler and there was no way she’d spend the entire time thinking about Mal.