#dragon mal

After Mal accepts her parentage, her dragon form changes. instead of the purple and green dragon with a bulky body, her scales change to a shifting blue-purple, spikes appearing under her jaw and extending down her back, her talons armored and sleek along with her body. she also upsizes a good bit, easily over taking her old dragons form and her mothers. you know that one post where i compared Harry n Uma to Mal’s dragon head? and Uma was legit the height of all of Mals head? yeah now it takes three Uma's for one Mal head....yeah this bitch got fukin BIG. 

[If you hate me for writing this, just remember I hate myself more and that this began because of a joke.]

Warnings: Ask to Tag

Word Count: 3627

Fandom: Disney Descendants

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Dirt clung to the fringes of Maleficent’s robes as she descended deeper into the cavernous warren. Once upon a time her presence would have struck such fear that not even the dust mites would have dared come near her, but such a time was over now, and now the endings of her black cloak grew more and more soiled with every step she took.

She held a twisted candelabra in one hand and her faithful staff in the other. The small flame burned a deep rouge color, more red than yellow, with how thick and low the air had become. Maleficent was surprised it still burned at all. She was thankful for the candle’s valiant effort. Gone were the days where she could summon a ball of hellfire to illuminate the room, and with all the dust and filth in the air she wasn't sure her darkvision would be of any use.

A drop of hot wax struck her fingers.

Maleficent continued onwards.

As she ventured closer and closer to her destination, the sound of barking began to ring in her ears. Viscous growls, the sound of teeth hitting teeth, shrieks and yelps and oh so much barking. Were she a lesser soul it might have frightened her, or at the very least given her a pause, but she knew that no dog (three headed or otherwise) lived down here, just a lonely master trying to cope with the sound of silence.

(Out of everything her new prison tormented her with, Maleficent never thought she would grow to loathe the quiet. The silence. Even on the Forbidden Mountain she would hear the rustling of wind, the roaring cacophony of her minion’s delight, the sound of Diablo’s deep cawing. But here, even with the tumult of the budding city of thieves and villains, her thoughts screamed louder than any noise. Here she felt more alone than she ever did atop her ruined castle.)

No door was mounted to the cave’s wall, it would be far too impractical to do so, so Maleficent raised a curved fist and knocked thrice on a wooden post instead. “Who is it?” a voice called out from lower in the room, it sounded irritated and gruff, good. Maleficent smiled “Just a passing visitor Lord Hades”.

Quicker than she thought possible, the exiled Monarch of the Underworld stood leaning against the doorframe, one arm draped over the rotten wood and his head tilted with a school boy smile (if a school boy had eyes of glowing brimstone and thorny rows of sharp teeth protruding from his gums). “Why Miss Maleficent, what brings you to my little.. home away from home?”

She took a moment to drink in his sight, he looked more or less the same as he did when they first met, a little more tired, maybe, a little less put together, thick silver-colored cuffs bound round his wrists to drain his godly might. Still something about him seemed different, she couldn't quite place her finger on it, then she met his gaze. “Kohl around the eyes, Lord Hades? I do hope you aren't going Egyptain on me”

He snorted and rolled his- yes, black lined- eyes “Nah those guys are great, but they sure as Me don’t need another Death God. Besides- Blue Hair? Blue Skin? It’s already confusing enough for mortals to get us mixed up at parties, and don't even get me started on the Ptolemaic Pantheon menagerie, cultural syncretism is fun and all but all that rewriting and re-rewriting and who’s who even got my head more turned around than the gordian knot!”

Here Hades stood taller than Maleficent, even with his slumped posture and hunched back. The slope of the floor was curved in his favor. Her horns were a brandished crown growing, twisting, above her head and barely scraping the stone above her.

She let the humor linger in the air for a breath before speaking. “I have a proposition for you, my lord” she said while dismissing the candle and setting it down on a rock ledge. The light from Hades’ hair and lair would suffice to brighten her vision. Maleficent raised a free arm “Shall we continue our conversation inside? I feel it would be awfully rude to lurk in doorways.” Hades’ smile grew wider, almost splitting his face in two.

“My dearest disgrace to all things dignified, it would be my pleasure” He said, taking her arm and leading her inside. Despite herself she snorted. “My lord I am always dignified, it is deferential which I am not”

Hades’s new domain lay deep underground in the heart of the Isle. Despite his many years of hatred of being saddled with the burden of the Underworld, the room appeared very similar to his old home. ‘Perhaps that is the point’, Maleficent thought, wondering if his new dwelling was really of Hades’ choosing, or did he simply wake up on the Isle in a room modeled after his old kingdom, swapping an old prison for a new one. She wasn’t sure if Zeus had it in him...but Zeus wasn't the only one hurt by Hades’ failed machinations, and she knew that Hera certainitly did, fondness for her older brother or not- the Queen of Gods would not have hesitated to rub salt in any wounds of her child’s stealer. Especially when such irony would have been involved.

In another life, perhaps it would have been Hera who Maleficent would be conversing with, she did always have a healthy respect for the Golden Throned Goddess,like draws to like afterall, and there is nothing more similar yet individual than women with power.

Then again, in another life she wouldn't need to bargain, in another life she would have crushed Prince Phillip’s sword between her teeth and swallowed him whole, in another life she would have blessed the infant Princess with a gift of her own, something clever and far more powerful than any of the Three Sisters trivial delights. In another life---

Hades leads her to a sitting area, long tatham benches set interlocking with one another, made of dark ebony wood. Maleficent gathers the excess of her robe in her grip and takes a seat, then slowly lets the fabric flow down and unfurl on the clean gray floor. The Lord of the Dead seats himself next to her, and after a moment’s pause, she allows him to wrap one of his hands around her waist.

“I have come to reclaim my debt, Your Majesty” she begins, he laughs and jokes “I’m not a accountant dollface, you’ll have to be more specific. I think I still got some styx-water sloshing around in my skull” but she can see the tightness around his eyes, the stiffness in his fingers as he cleans his ear and flicks a droplet of water over his shoulder, he knows exactly what she is referring to. He also knows that his newfound lack of power might have put him in a very precarious situation. Maleficent smiles sharply.

The grip on her waist tightens.

“Then let me help to restart your memory, years ago you needed an elixir that would turn anything, even a God, mortal. I concocted such a potion on the clause that you would… how did you say it? ‘Owe me one bigtime mama '’” she said drolling her words and making air quotations with her slender fingers. The God of The Dead had the decency to look sheepish, a bright blue blush blooming under his siltstone skin. “Okay yeah might’ve been a bit drunk on success when I said that…”

“Mmhmm” Maleficent hummed, raising a single eyebrow.

“....sorry”

“In any case, a deal is a deal, and now I see to collect my end of our bargain”

“It would be my pleasure my lovely lady of labilzation--” “that one was better” “Thank you I do try, --- however I’m sure it has not escaped your notice that, unlike before, I no longer have the Underworld and all its resources at my disposal to grant your dark heart’s deepest desire-- “Lord Hades are you implying I ever had a heart to begin with?” “ Ha ha no. But you do have desires that our current predicament might limit me from fulfilling”

“And you do hate to leave your women unfulfilled, don’t you Hades?”

“Yes I- HEY” Hades began with his usual smooth inflection, not even really looking at her, before cutting himself on and standing up in outrage. Face pinched and flushed. He started pacing back and forth in front of her while Maleficent looked on in cruel delight. He was yammering about something, going on about respect and proper dues and getting wonderfully worked up about himself. It almost made her nostalgic.

“I mean I know I’m no roving casanova like dear little Zeus-y, Persphone would gut me for even trying that and--”

Then his body stilled and he turned to face her, running his hands through his hair to gather his thoughts. Pity, she was enjoying she show. “Alright I get it, playtimes over. What do you want Maleficent? What under this damned barrier could be so important that you need to cash in on?”

“You and I both know Lord Hades that there are forces far older and far more powerful than this Godmother’s little trick. Deals, oaths, dept, magic sworn by magic will be repaid in turn. ” Maleficent raised herself slowly, taking small measured steps to where Hades stood shadowed by the cavern’s light. “As for what I want? That's simple, I want your name”

Name, she hissed out the word, the word that had churned and boiled somewhere deeper than her stomach and rose up her throat, that fell down her tongue and turned sharp and low against her teeth. The word that made her eyes flash with a power that no well intentioned Godmother or once cursed King could contain.

The word that made the Lord of the Dead, Hades himself, fall stumbling backwards to his knees. The shadow wrenched away from him in haste, revealing his wide eyes and- oh how she missed this- positively wreaked expression. If she was someone else she would say he was nervous, his face too numb to be fearful, but Maleficent knew better. He was terrified.

Pleas spilt from his lips like ambrosia in a clumsy hand. He was almost begging her now, with more fervor than he ever begged before--

( In times of old when the earth was freshly taken and the sky still red with titan’s blood, three brothers gathered to divide the cosmos between themselves. The youngest made his claim to the sky and took it’s child, the mighty thunderbolt, as his symbol. He gifted the sea to the middle brother who accepted it glady, but to the oldest he gave no pearl-rich land or magnificent heaven, but the burden of the damned and dead. The darkest corners of the world, where no light reached and the wild souls wandered aimlessly in the eternal darkness. His older brother objected, of course, and perhaps he even set aside his pride to grovel, but the youngest was unyielding. )

“Please Mali, don’t, not that I’ll do anything--”

( Once Ra fell sick from a clay snake bite, and called a council of every man and women and God to come and aid him, but they could do nothing. Then he called for Isis, for surely she would have the answers to his prayers. “What ever you need, I will provide” And so Isis said to the sun god Ra, ‘Great king of The Heavens and all we hold dear, the venom in your blood is much too strong, the only way I can heal you is with the knowledge of your Name’. So Ra listed off all of his titles and epithets, of which he had many, but Isis was not deterred. ‘My Lord and King, though those names are as grand and great as you are, they are not the one of which I refer to. If you wish to continue as yourself, ruler of the Gods, I will need your Rem to cure you’ said Isis and Ra knew she spoke the truth. Banishing the other medicine men and healers from the room he took Isis into his wings and bared to her the fifth of his soul, the name in which all his power sprang from. Isis took the name and healed Ra, feeling the universe realign with her at its helm, Goddess above Gods, of life and moon and medicine and magic. The fruits of her cunning rewarded hundredfold. And she smiled.)

“-- you don't want that old thing, I mean, what would you even do with my name anyway? It’s not like it would be of any use to you here”

“That, Your Majesty, is where you are wrong.” Maleficent slammed the end of her staff on top of the end of Hades’ robe, catching him in place as he tried to flinch backwards. She knelt before him, his back arched so completely he resembled more of a semicircle than a fallen God, his body so small here compared to hers. The long tendrils of her cloak sprawled themselves across the floor, their edges slithering like snakes, writhing and engulfing them, Hades was a cold star trapped amidst a sea of dark fabric.

“You asked me what could be so important to me that I would risk claiming my due of our agreement here, under this hell forsaken barrier. Why would I step into the limelight after years of isolation to rule an island of filth and trash” she pressed a single nail to his face tilting it up, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Because here is where my child will be born, and no blood of mine will be powerless while I still live to conquer and provide”

Her child, who was barely an weight in her arms, hungry for magic where there was none, hungry for food unrotten and drink unspoiled. If Maleficent was kinder she would crush it’s skull beneath her feet and spare it from a life full of pain and longing. Years of torment and clawing at it’s own skin spared in a moment’s decision.

(Her child, who could one day release their Mother from her prison, if they had will to do so.)

Maleficent had never been a kind person.

She did, however, on the seldom occlusion, know mercy and how to manipulate the unwilling. She could just rip his name from his chest, leave him broken and shivering on the cold stone floor. The thought was tempting, it really had been too long since she last had the chance to destroy someone so thoroughly, but she knew it would be better in the long run if she could get Hades to cooperate. Never let it be said she wasn’t a patient Mistress.

Leaning her weight forward she gingerly took one of Hades’ wrists in her hand, turning it over and carefully inspecting the thick band that now encircled it . This close she could feel the way it softly vibrated under her touch, the binding sigils carved so delicately and deep into the metal.

Her skin burned on contact, but you would never tell by her expression, eyes trained on the way Hades’ life force flowed. Faint traces of his magic traveling down his veins and funneling into the band, which would pulse slightly and constrict, the sigils would glow and hold, before loosening its too tight grip on its host. Then the cycle would continue anew.

It was one of the most brilliantly constructed and horrid devices Maleficent had ever laid her eyes on.

It was a work of art.

And as she read the runes she began to recognize what artist could have made such a beautiful thing.

“Do you know just how luck you are Lord Hades? While the rest of us villains must serve a penance that will span the rest of our days, you sit here with shackles holding only until you meet their requirements. I always wondered why Auradon would risk the order of the world just to fulfill their pallid sense of morality, and here my questions are answered. It seems the true nature of your punishment is far more poetic than a measly imprisonment, no, the true keys to your freedom lay in siring a child,”

A cold sense of realization dawned on Hades, “Hera” he whispered.

“How does the saying go again? An eye for an eye.” Maleficent pushed her nail deeper into the skin of his arm “A lost babe for a lost babe.”

Something inside Hades’ eyes broke at her words, and he begun laughing, freely, manic not maniacal, the laugh of a man who knew the entire cosmos was a joke and now he finally got the punchline. “Oh Hera!” He cried out, gathering the shattered pieces of himself and pulling them together.

He stood up from underneath her, fluid as smoke escaping from her grasp, as if his body was still atmos and ichor- not confined to rigid flesh and blood. ( A distant part of Maleficent imagines Hades, stumbling and impaling his head against a stalagmite as he has to relearn how to walk again, learn how to live in a body so forign yet familiar.) He did not offer to help her, and she made no move to rise, instead she remained sitting, her back ramrod straight and hands folded across her staff which rested on her lap.

Over the sounds of running water and the everpresent barking, Maleficent could hear the sounds of his brain work. Spinning gears within gears furiously trying to take in the new information and generate a more beneficial outcome for himself. “Alright, you want my name, you want power, you want little Maleficent Junior to grow up with magic, which I can’t blame you for. I want to get out of here and I want my wife not to kill me on my arrival, so I propose a solution that just might work for us both”

“Go on”

“ gift part of my name to the little tyke, giving them- and by extension you- power that not even this blasted barrier can suppress. That means that in the eyes of magic, I’m basically your baby’s daddy”

“And are you willing to uphold that responsibility? I have no need for a husband nor a housekeeper, but both dragons and fae are known for their possessiveness and of them I am both”

Hades didn't miss a blink, shark toothed smiled fixed back in place on his face “My magnificent Mistress of Misery from now until my chains are unfettered and I am called away to return to my Iron throne, I do swear to treat your little demonspawn as if they were born from the rotten fruit of my loins. Now, do we have an agreement?” Now he looked down at her, hand extended for her to shake. “Going once… going twice..”

Maleficent leapt forward, her hand digging deep into the weak flesh of his arm, she used to movementum to pull herself close to him, nose to nose, sharpened teeth to sharpened teeth, her horns haloing her head- two blackened crests protruding from her skull that reflected the dull blue light of the room. “Its a deal” she declared. Smiling viscously as she felt her eyes flare, not gold, but green, green as burning hellflame, fire in its purest form.

If this were anywhere else but The Isle of The Lost, thunder would crack at their declaration, a ring of light would maifest around their grip sealing their oath in color and magic. The air would ignite at their words. However, this was The Isle, and so the only illumination of fate’s rearrangement came from the flicker of light on Hades’ wrists as the runes surged, the taste of copper under Maleficent’s tongue, and the deep bone-seated feeling that something big will come. This was the stone whose ripple will cause the wave years down the line.

Maleficent hoped it would rise and drown the whole world.

She almost smiled at the thought.

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“Huh”

“What?”

“You know when you said you had a baby, I kinda pictured- you know- a baby”

“I do hope you aren't talking bad about our child, it hasn't even hatched yet”

“Maleficent thats not a child, thats an egg”

“You think I would birth a infant mammal? Don’t be so crude, egg laying is a much more civilized method of reproduction”

“Wait does that make you a reptile? Oh sweet Zeus don’t tell me you are? What can you unhinge your jaw? Do you have a hemi--”

“Silence your tongue Lord Hades before I cut it out myself”

“Sorry sweetcheeks I couldn't resist”

“....”

“...sorry”

“Now traditionally Mother and Daughter would pass on a portion of their name until the time came where the Daughter earned to full title of Maleficent, usually by slaying their Mother and taking her name for herself. Until that day a middle name would serve as a placeholder to help differentiate them, a Mal Bertha or Mal Lamia or something of the sort. If you are giving up one of your titles, perhaps Mal Aidoneus would suffice?”

“Yeah, no”

“No?”

“Listen, Fairy G’s little parasite pocket is going to hone in on quote the name of the “The Mistress of All Evil” like a cyclopes at a half-off everything sunglass sale. You want this kid to have even a smidgen of a chance we gotta change it up a bit.”

“Well then Your Majesty I don’t suppose you have any better Ideas”

“........Malenthea”

“Hm?”

“Her name, it will be Malenthea”

“Then so mote it be”

“....”

“....”

If they spent more of the budget on the effects and less on the makeup for the limpet pirate or the horrible wigs they slapped on poor Sarah. Then two things would’ve happened

Realistic looking swords

Better rendering of dragon Mal

Because Mal is overpowered. The dissenters are right. She is extraordinarily overpowered. But here’s where they’re wrong. The third film all but ignored the dark fairy half and focused on the demigoddess half. All we get from the dark fairy half is a couple of spells and two badly cgied dragons scenes.

The little bitch was more overpowered then Mal. She should have literally no magic. And yet she’s able to use Maleficent’s sceptre. And I’m like. How is that not character shilling. Mal has to rely on a deactivated ember and her cousin who hates her at the eleventh hour. When she should be able to snap Audrey’s neck with zero effort.

And the swords. The fucking swords. They still looked fake as fuck. Just like Audrey’s personality in d1. They expect us to think that the heroes and Harry are in danger when they’re holding what looks like moulded tinfoil.

They spent so much on the makeup budget they didn’t stop to think that the dark fantasy angle they were shooting fore needed more realistic special effects. We could’ve gotten Mal as a dragon with electric blue fire spines on her back. But what we got was frankly insulting.