The next week flew by in a flurry of meetings and dinners and workshops for Ben and hours and hours of etiquette and French lessons for Mal. They barely had a chance to see each other for more than a few minutes between his meetings and her lessons with his mother. Even dinner and dessert with his parents was often missed in favor of appeasing the masses, and meeting with the several councils of Auradon and the surrounding kingdoms.
Still, they tried to text like crazy, and get together whenever they could, though they always seemed to be missing each other. After six and a half days, Ben had had enough.
He knew it was late, but he snuck down the hall and up the opposite steps to the west wing, where Mal's chamber had been placed. He had just come in from a long ride back from Cinderellasburg to talk to the mice about their needs to sew the dresses for the masses of princesses that flocked there, and their desire for increased wages. It had been a long meeting, and an even longer ride back. He had spent all day with the squeaking of mice in his ears, but he wanted to see Mal before too much longer.
He knocked quietly, hoping that she would somehow still be awake. The door gave way to hit him with a sliver of the yellow light of her bedside lamp. "Mal?" He asked quietly, wondering if she was still awake, or if she had fallen asleep in the middle of an art project. He half hoped she wasn't naked. He half hoped she was.
When she didn't answer, he pushed the door open just a tad bit more, to see her bare arm dangling over the edge of the bed, her sketchbook flopped open to a half finished sketch, the pencil not too far away. From the looks of it, she had fallen asleep sketching again. From there, he had a decision to make.
He could wake her up, risk her fists, or her ire, or he could let her sleep and leave her a short message to meet him when she woke.
He knew his mother was probably working her hard if she was out, her snores just barely audible, still leaning against the headboard. She had slumped down quite a lot it seemed, and he wanted to adjust her to be more comfortable, but he didn't want to wake her if she was sleeping so well. He didn't want to risk waking her mother in the cage on the windowsill either.
Instead, he propped a pillow under her head gently and then borrowed her sketchbook momentarily. He wasn't as great of an artist as she was, but it was the thought that counts.
Mal awoke with a start. The nightmare always started and ended the same way. The coronation as it had been, her mother appearing and freezing everyone but her and her fellow VKs. From there, it only got worse.
Jay was the first to go, burned to a crisp by her mother's dragon fire.
Then Evie, swallowed whole, with a shriek.
Then finally Carlos, his little body slammed against one of the pillars of the cathedral by her mother's spiked tail without much of a fight.
Then it was just her and her mother. Her magic not nearly as strong as the dragon before her, and she eventually gave in to her mother's evil ways.
That wasn't so bad. Until Ben was unfrozen and tried to fight for her.
The idiot.
Her mother zapped him with the dragon's eye, turning him into a golden retriever, and then handed him over to Cruella to make leg warmers.
His last yaps as he was thrown into the shearing machine always woke her in a panic.
The room was dark, the gossamer curtains blowing in the warm summer breeze, barely any moonlight coming through. She didn't remember how she had fallen asleep, or even how she had climbed into bed, but she knew she hadn't fallen asleep with so many pillows under her. Her first thought was she was too comfortable.
She sat up quickly, her back and neck popping satisfactorily as she moved the heavy blankets from her and stood up, the floor cold against her bare feet. She knew after the nightmare, for the third night in a row, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
She stretched as she went to look for her sketchbook. Since they had arrived at the summer castle, it had mostly ended up on the floor, her pencil usually under the bed, only that night, it was leaned against the bedside lamp, a finished sketch on the open page.
Ben.
It was a pretty simple sketch, nowhere near as much detail as she usually put into her own sketches, but it was sweet. His cartoon like style evident in the soft curved lines and the light touch on the paper.
He had drawn her a dragon, though not a terrifying one at all, with its toothy smile and eyes squeezed shut in excitement as it cuddled a big strawberry.
Typical Ben, being cute and stuff. It even included a small caption.
Je t'aime plus que les fraises.
If it had been anyone else, she would have murdered them for even touching her sketchbook. But Ben was almost impossible to get mad at, or even stay mad at for too long. It was sweet and she wanted to keep it forever.
Although, the thought that he had come in and found her asleep, made her cringe.
She grabbed the sketchbook and wrapped a blanket around herself. She made her way toward the library in the complete silence of the night. If she wasn't going to sleep, she might as well make herself useful and research more about breaking a faerie promise.
She didn't really want to become fairy dust and the temptation to kiss Ben was only getting worse. Especially when he did cute things like that.
She pulled a few books she hadn't read, that could be useful and sat against the stacks, that section had proved to be the most useful, so why wander too far?
Not too long into her research, only about a chapter or two in, she jumped as a snore shook the shelf behind her. She caught her breath, refused to admit that she had been scared, then stood up as quietly as she could and crossed over to the other side of the shelf.
She stifled a laugh as she found Ben, on his stomach, his hair, even after hours and hours of crown hair, sticking up as if it had been shocked by lightning, splayed out as if he had been walking and just collapsed into sleep. The only giveaway that he hadn't, was the book, open under him as a pillow, which he was currently drooling a decent puddle on.
"Oh Ben," Mal whispered, shaking her head as she leaned down next to him. "You're working yourself too hard," She brushed her fingers through his hair gently, trying to flatten it down at least a little bit. No such luck.
It was then that she saw the book he was using as a pillow, more specifically the page and the picture saturated by his drool. It was an old picture of her mother.
So he had been researching the same thing she had. Only he had started in the history section rather than the magical creatures section. Why had he done that? Most of the historical faeries were either dead, or their magic so dried up they couldn't even magic themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Most of them were withering away on the Isle of the Lost anyway. Besides the three goody goodies that her mother loved to rant about on bad days, and Fairy Godmother and a handful of others.
What was he doing in the history section? And what did the book have to say about her mother? She had to know before Mrs. Potts, or Belle came in the next morning and tidied up. And she would prefer to do it without waking Ben.
She knew she could magic it out from under his head, but she had been forbidden to use magic by his parents. Not that their rule stopped her, but it had been ages since she had stolen something the old fashioned way. Her fingers practically itched for it.
It kind of felt like cheating, since Ben was such a heavy sleeper, but stealing was stealing. His head barely moved as she swiped the book from under his head and replaced it with another. He did however let out a loud snort and snuggle into her palm as she had lifted his head in one fluid motion. She nearly thought she had woken him, but he was out like only boring kingly duties could knock him out.
She turned her focus back to the book, the pages crinkling with the moisture of his drool and teeth marks? She had heard of dogs chewing up books and papers, she had experienced that with Dude, but teenage kings?
She held back a laugh when she realized she could probably sell it on eCrown for a lot of money. Fan girls would do anything for pretty much anything King Ben touched. Weirdos.
The book ended up being an account of the first few years of the formation of the Isle of the Lost and rounding up the inhabitants. There had been a counsel of magicians, who had revived those villains that had died in their quests for greatness, the judiciary committee that had tried them for their crimes and the brutes that had strong armed their mass exodus to the isle itself.
They had tried just distancing the villains from Auradonian citizens, but too much magic and infighting made it unrealistic. The villains could escape too easily and wreak havoc in Auradon just as easily as before.
It was Merlin that had recommended the barrier to keep the magic out and the villains contained. So Merlin, Fairy Godmother, the three good faeries and the Genie pulled their magic together into the barrier, effectively trapping them all in the proverbial fishbowl.
Merlin had been the ambassador to the isle for the first four years and they had tried to run the isle as an extension of Auradon itself, but typical villains didn't take things seriously and they were given up on. The isle of the lost, became just that, lost and left behind.
But Merlin remained the ambassador for the villains that couldn't look out for their own interests. There were even rumors that he and Maleficent had a secret affair. He even called her-
"Mal," Ben mumbled and Mal jumped, her attention pulled away from the book that accounted the events of the past. She watched Ben intently. Had he woken up? "No," he mumbled after several seconds, his voice heavy with sleep. "Ne me quitte pas." Even in sleep, his French was better than hers, completely perfect.
Don't leave me.
He was having a nightmare. Or so it sounded like. She was no stranger to nightmares, both on and off the island, but to see Ben nightmaring when he had kingly duties and barely slept or took care of himself as it was, was just cruel.
Without even thinking about it, she moved closer to him and watched him for a few more seconds. She knew she said she wouldn't, but if she did it would be for a good cause.
"No!" He mumbled louder, his arms and legs struggling against the library carpet. "Mal, run," He mumbled, "run," He mumbled louder, his face curled up in anguish, "I'm going to hurt you!" He grumbled, the anguish wrinkling his perfect face.
She had heard enough. She rested her hand against his cheek gently and his face almost instantly relaxed. Somehow she knew it wasn't the first time he had had the nightmare. If they were anything like hers, they were recurring.
"Give the king a night of peaceful rest," she whispered, "with sweetest dreams of things liked best." She could feel the magic surge through her hand into him and in an instant he relaxed.
She knew she should probably wake him, so he could be the most comfortable in his plushy bed, but she had just spelled him and the anguish on his face had given way to a lazy smile. She removed her hand from his cheek and pulled the blanket from her shoulders and draped it over him.
She took the book with her. If nothing else, it would be a good history lesson, and maybe even a map to answers, if the participants were still alive.
Merlin had called Maleficent "Mal", in an effort to convince her she wasn't as evil as her name connotated.
Could Merlin have been her father?
Ben rolled over, expecting to roll into her, his purple goddess after an epic night of promises he would never want to break, dancing, and the sweetest of kisses, and the not so sweetest of kisses after everyone else had left.
Instead, he rolled into the sharp corner of a book right between the eyes, effectively scaring him awake. He had fallen asleep in the library yet again, after hours of meetings and counsels and negotiations, where he had come to research the promises he had made, and a little not so ancient history.
He sat up, then realized someone had been there. Instead of the history book about the isle and the regulations put in place by the several individuals involved, he had been placed onto a book chronicling the many ways to enjoy abstract art, a thin indigo blanket half wrapped around him.
Mal.
Strangely, it was the best sleep he had had in a long while. No instance of the same nightmare he had had for the last few weeks, and an amazing dream of the future with Mal.
She had definitely been there, a scrap of paper pinned to the blanket, her swirly scrawl distinctively recognizable.
You need to take better care of yourself, Little Benny Foo Foo.
A small quick sketch of a dragon with jagged lines as the signature. As if he didn't know.
Still, she had come in, and he had been asleep. He cursed his ability to sleep like he was practically dead. He had wanted to see her.
It had been nearly a week since they had had some real alone time together, his kingly duties pulling him every which way, but to her.
He had tried to include her in several of his kingly duties, meeting the monetary counsel to go over funds for his plans for the isle and the poorer rundown areas of Auradon and the seven kingdoms, joining him at the union of sidekicks to review the 101 Dalmatians' majors and their financial aid needs, even meeting with the Pink Princess Society to accept the plans for the reunion ball, but he either couldn't find her, or the groups themselves had barred her for one reason or another.
He had half expected that, she was the Mistress of Evil's daughter after all. Though from what he had seen in their private moments, she wasn't all evil and she did have some decent, if not great ideas for the kingdom.
Maybe he could take her to the annual meeting to discuss the status of the peoples on the isle. Though that would probably just depress her. It always depressed him. They had never set anyone free from the isle. It was hours and hours of naming villains and then denying them their right to parole. That was one he wished he could skip himself.
That was one that he was really late for, he realized as he jumped up and ran for the double doors of the library. He froze as soon as he opened them, to see his father standing at his full height, the heavy crown on his head.
"I went to the meeting for you," He told him, no greeting, no trace of any smile. "They seemed to think there was a conflict of interest and asked me to step in. Did you really sign a proclamation to let Wifi and electricity onto the island?" He asked.
"Yes," Ben answered, standing up taller. He was king, they were his decisions. "I think it's time to take them out of the dark ages," He continued. "Give them more opportunities to do good," He added.
He moved past his father, a small smile playing on his lips. If his father had gone to the meeting for him, that meant the rest of his morning was free. He could find Mal and spend some time with her before the meetings in the afternoon.
His father stopped him before he got too much further. "I went to the meeting for you," he clarified, "but you have to sign the decisions into effect." He passed the large stack over to Ben and he bit back a groan, wondering if Mal's morning was going better than his had started.
It was going to be a long rest of the morning, he almost wished for the tea with the elderly society of Auradon, even though they rarely ever shut up about the good old days.
"But those can wait," His father continued, "The Dormants are here."
He knew things were going to go from bad to worse, even before he heard it.
"Bennybear!" Audrey's voice sliced through the air. They weren't together anymore, but she still insisted on the nicknames.
He had forgotten to tell Mal they were coming a few weeks before the council of the seven kingdoms. She was going to be livid.