[ nico puts off such a frightful aura even mal is taken aback. she knows what anger and hate taste like; she would fill her stomach with them until she was no longer hungry. but she hasn’t seen this kind of rage outside of the isle. ( she has never seen it on her behalf. ) a soft frown touches her brow. ]

There’s no one person, Nico. [ it would be so much easier if there were. one person to blame for all the years she wasted underneath a dome, never feeling the sun’s warmth on her face, never experiencing the thrill that is her magic.

she used to chalk up responsibility, her hates shifting, following her mother’s rages as they flitted from individual to individual. but it was never so simple.

who should be blamed? beast for giving the order to have the villains sent to the island? all of auradon’s citizens who pushed for it, cheered for it? fairy godmother for casting the enchantment that sealed them in? or their own parents for seeding so much misery and destruction in their lifetimes that a decision like that was thought necessary?

when it came to the isle, no one had been in the right.

mal thinks of her mother back at the cabin, sitting on her diminutive throne. the mistress of evil reduced to the the size of the love in her heart. ]

It’s just how it is, [ she says quietly. ] Someone else made the choices, and we live with the consequences.