Sorry, FFnet is almost caught up to Ao3. Just one more chapter and then you'll both be on the same regular update(Thank Goodness).
True to Adam's word, Mal's door handle was fixed bright and early the next morning. After dinner and before bed, Sophia had helped Mal personalize her phone more, going as far as to add a few game apps and a drawing system. She also showed Mal how to access the music that the castle had purchased, which Mal didn't like much. It made for good background music, but she could only listen to 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'A Whole New World' so many times. She missed her old Isle music, a few tracks of which she and her friends had recorded. Ben would probably have a heart attack if he heard her singing about how 'Rotten to the Core' she was though.
She asked Sophia for a map of the Castle. Sophia texted her a picture and explained that they further she got from the main halls, the more finicky the magic of the castle became. Walls were sometimes not where they were supposed to be and doors only unlocked half of themselves, the like. However, Mal was confident she could navigate the palace by herself. To prove it to herself, she figured out how to find the time the sun would rise with her phone and set an alarm for thirty minutes before.
When she got up, the world was still dark. The hallways were musty. Kind Sophia had asked one of the palace servants to leave the castle and get some clothes for her. She now wore an elbow-length purple tee with several thin, decorative belts crossing her middle and black high-waisted jeans that were easy to move around in. There were about four other casual outfits in her closet now. Sophia was trying to find some dressier gowns for Mal to wear to accompany Ben places though Mal doubted she'd wear them.
Mal used the phone to skillfully navigate the passages of the castle. She found her way past the library, and then to the main hall. An older man with a mop looked startled to see her. She gave him a sarcastic salute when he said good morning, and they ignored each other as she walked outside.
The sky was beginning to grey with streaks of pink edging their way onto the horizon. Dew stuck to the grass. She couldn't see very far, but she did notice the edge of the castle exterior wall was very jagged and the paint was peeling off the edges of the bricks. Perfect for climbing. She made her way through a flower bed and put a foot on the brick. She'd be climbing on her toes all the way up, but hopefully, it would be worth it. Also, hopefully, Belle and Adam wouldn't kick her out for parkouring their home.
She began to climb. About halfway up, she realized that the world had gotten exponentially brighter, and quickened her pace. Near the top, her foot slipped off for a nanosecond, but she used her arms to haul her body to the rest of the top.
Once on the roof, it was easy to walk around and find a nice place to watch the sun rise over the hills. She ended up picking a place where the front circle drive was still visible, and where she was centered above the porch as the sun came up.
The sky turned from dull blue-grey to a stunning purple, and then to fuschia. Mal sat with her knees tucked up under her arms. She shivered some, but she'd been exposed to far harsher circumstances on the Isle.
The sky slipped out of a short yellow phase and began to turn its normal brilliant blue. Mal began to consider climbing down, but then she saw movement at the end of the driveway. As it got closer, she squinted to make out its shape. It was a carriage. One that was obviously for royalty. All thoughts of leaving left her mind as she watched the carriage come closer to the Castle.
Who would be calling on the Royals this early in the morning? Was it the Fairy Godmother?
The carriage stopped in the middle of the circular drive and a footman hopped out to let a figure out of the car. The palace roof was so high up that Mal couldn't make out the figure at all.
The person walked up the steps and Mal observed they were wearing heels from their shadow. A girl, probably. Maybe a guy. She'd known guys on the Isle to enjoy wearing heels.
The person disappeared from her view as they walked up to the palace doors. Mal bit her cheek without knowing why.
The world got drastically warmer as soon as the sun was up. Mal looked at all the pale skin that was exposed on her and knew she'd burn to a crisp if she didn't leave soon. Her phone made a movement in her pocket – a buzzing – and she pulled it out to examine it with a critical eye. As per usual, the screen lit up at the movement. A message underneath Sophia's name was asking where she was. She noticed the time was almost 7:30. Oops.
She swiped in her password to message Sophia, but then a message from Ben came through. "Are you on the roof?" He asked.
"How'd you know?" She asked him.
"Holy crap, how did you get up there?"
"I climbed."
"Oh my gosh."
She rolled her eyes and put her phone back in her pocket, completely forgetting to text Sophia. Her phone buzzed during her descent, but she couldn't exactly see what anyone was saying to her while she was trying to not fall to her death, could she?
Her phone responded to her inactivity by vibrating so much it fell out of her pocket when she was about ten feet above the ground. Mal cursed, having come to like the screen with the map inside of it, and jumped the last few feet to make it to the ground quicker. Her phone was fine if a little dirty. Several texts were there, but they looked different. There was more than one person texting her at a time. The message notification said they were sending things to a group.
Ben: "Found Mal. She didn't leave; she's just on the roof"
Belle: "The roof?"
Adam: "Are you yanking my chain?"
Ben: "She said she climbed."
Mal bit her lip and let her thumbs hover over the screen before she typed out: "I'm down now." Hopefully, the Royals weren't angry. She probably should have left a note.
The carriage was waiting out front. She couldn't see any people from here, so she just assumed that they'd seen her and went on with her life. She let herself back into the palace through the front doors and walked right into a war zone.
Ben was in the room having a very… heated debate with an older girl in pink, who wore sequined sunglasses and a pink pantsuit. Her brown hair was up in a ponytail, and her face was currently twisted into a frown. She looked almost twenty, the same age as Ben.
"I don't understand!" She wailed. "Don't you love me anymore?" She leaned forward and grabbed the folds of Ben's suit. Mal raised her eyebrows and started to try and slip away through a side door. She almost felt bad for Ben having to deal with her.
"It's not about that, Audrey. I'm engaged now. I have to think about my future, and right now, that's her-" Ben droned on for a few seconds about things that weren't really important while Mal made no effort to stop eavesdropping. She began to creep towards an adjoining door on the right side of the entryway. When she reached the door, she turned around. Mal made eye contact with Ben, gave him a weak smile, and made a slashing motion at her throat. He narrowed his eyes as she opened the door quietly and started to leave.
"In fact, there's my fiancé right now! Mal!" He called. Mal froze with the door half open and one foot hidden behind it. She turned around. Audrey, the prince's former girlfriend, if she was to interpret the situation correctly, had frozen in place with her hands firmly on Ben's lapel and her head focused on Mal. There was no way she could escape now. Mal sighed and let the door swing closed.
"Good morning Mal," Ben greeted with a winning smile. And not 'winning' as in 'he could win a prize with that smile'. Winning in that he was completely aware he'd just foiled her plan for escape. "Mal, this is Audrey. Audrey, this is Mal. Did you have a nice climb Mal?" The way he spoke made it sound as if her sunrise excursion had been completely done with the knowledge and approval of the palace.
"I did," Mal admitted. She glared at the king sassily. "The sunrise was lovely."
"Mal," Audrey drawled distastefully. "You have dirt on your shirt." Mal looked down and discovered a smudge of black over her left shoulder. She shrugged.
"It must be from the gutter. I shouldered it on my way up." Mal said, not bothering to brush at it at all. Ben winced at her words and drew a hand over his face. He was embarrassed by that? Oh boy, was Mal going to make him regret not letting her leave... She turned and focused on Audrey with a fake smile.
"Do you think it's fitting for the future queen of Auradon to be scaling the castle walls?" Audrey asked. She flipped her sunglasses up to reveal narrowed eyes and Mal felt a challenge she was not going to back down from.
"Better than being stuck inside all day." She met Ben's eyes after that comment. He squirmed in his shoes. "Stuff like that helps me stay fit."
"I don't believe I've seen you before." Audrey glared. "Who are your parents? Where do you come from?"
Ben tensed. Mal opened her mouth to answer Audrey, but Ben jumped in.
"Audrey is, uh, the daughter of Aurora. You know, Sleeping Beauty." Ben coughed and wrung his hands.
As if the situation couldn't get any worse. Mal turned to Ben and gave him her best you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look. "Aurora?" She repeated.
"Yeah!" Audrey jumped in enthusiastically. "My mom is one of the most famous royals in the land. She's my hero." The brunette clasped a hand to her heart as if she were a proud parent watching a toddler wobble on their feet for the first time.
Mal stared. "But she didn't do anything. Your dad is the one who broke the curse."
Audrey looked miffed. "Yes, but she is one of the kindest, most beautiful souls around. I aspire to be just like her."
Ben leaned his head back just a tad, like he wanted to groan but was resisting. Mal pasted on a fake smile and stuck out her hand. "Well, Audrey, I'm Mal." Audrey shook Mal's hand at a weird angle and with a suspicious glance towards Ben. "My mother's also quite famous." Mal continued. She released Audrey's hand and Audrey withdrew it to rest it on her hip. "Actually, you might have heard of her. She's known by many names, but she was named Maleficent at birth."
Audrey turned a peculiar shade of yellow.
"You know," Mal continued. "The Mistress of all Evil?"
Audrey took a step back. "What are you doing here?"
Ben took Mal's arm and wrapped it around his elbow. Mal gave him a look and almost withdrew, but then she saw how it made Audrey retreat further. She tried to relax as Ben used his other hand to start rubbing little circles into the area underneath her bicep. "The crown thought it would be an excellent match to help to repair relationships with the second generation over there," Ben said with confidence. "She's already taken and passed all of the required tests, including the goodness test." Those last words he put particular emphasis on, though Mal felt another surge of anger towards him.
"You-you're serious?" Audrey stammered. "How long has this been a plan?"
Mal opened her mouth to say: "a few days", but Ben jumped in and quickly said: "Almost two months. I was informed just after you left last time and have been waiting to tell you." Mal glanced sideways at him. Liar. Huh, she hadn't thought he'd had the guts. The tension in the arm Ben had wrapped around his started to ebb away.
It must have been a while since the prince had last talked to his girlfriend. She bought the lie entirely. Ben unlooped his arm from Mal's and went to go put a hand on Audrey's shoulder gingerly. He held her at arms' length even though she was trying to lean into him. "Now Audrey," Ben began. "I know this must be hard for you, but I must have your word that you won't take this joyous news any farther than your parents. It's for Mal's privacy protection while we train her to be the new queen. This is still under intense secrecy, but I thought you deserved to know since, of course, this means our relationship has to end. We can still be friends though."
Mal watched how Audrey's eyes flickered between them, and swallowed as she stepped forward and put a hand on Ben's shoulder. Audrey visibly took a step back and Mal realized that the battle was won. The pink princess looked absolutely stunned. She nodded though. "Yes, friends." She tried to pull out from under Ben's hand and reached for the doorknob, but Ben held onto her shoulder.
"Your word, Audrey?" He prompted.
Audrey's eyes hit the floor, and she grimaced like she was in pain. "You have my word, Ben."
Ben released her with a smile. Mal came up behind him and wrapped her arm back through his elbow. Audrey immediately opened the door and stepped outside. They barely had time to exchange goodbyes before Audrey was gone. Mal released herself from Ben and stood outside the window as she watched Audrey's carriage pull away.
"Interesting girl," Mal commented.
Ben breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah. I'm glad we're over."
Mal looked over her shoulder at him as he came to watch the dust settle. "I'm still angry at you." She told him. "You ruined a perfectly good escape plan."
"Why should you get to escape, and I have to face her? Besides, she backed down the moment she saw you. I think your appearance scared her." Ben raised his eyebrow comedically.
Mal sighed. "Is that supposed to be a nice way of saying I look like crap?"
Ben laughed. "You've got something right…" He reached for her face. Mal snapped out of his reach by reflex, then leaned forward and allowed him to rub at something under her left eye. His eyes didn't linger any longer than needed to rub at something thick, dark brown, and sticky on her cheek.
"Great." She murmured. "I met the daughter of my mother's enemy with black on my face."
"It wasn't too bad, and you did great." He pulled his hand away, and they waited in that close space, thinking that the other was going to say something. Mal leaned against the wall, but the distance didn't change. Ben leaned with her.
"You still owe me one." Mal murmured.
"Can we call it even? You kind of scared me out of my mind when I woke up and learned you were gone. I thought you'd left and I wouldn't be able to be king and in a few years I'd begin to suffer intense pains and yeah, I was panicking." Ben moved his hands as he talked. He made figures in the air and gestured wildly.
"I'm glad to see I was missed," Mal commented dryly. "Yeah, we can call it even." She hesitated. "Is your dad going to kill me for being on the roof?"
Ben shook his head. "No. They'll be worried of course. We don't want you to get hurt. I'd be more worried about Sophia if I were you. She was the one who discovered your room empty and she flipped out."
"Poor Sophia." Mal frowned. "She's super nice. I like her."
"I have a feeling she's going to start working just for you. Sort of like how Lumiere always talks to and listens to my mom. He's her servant." Ben chuckled.
"Do you have a favorite?" Mal asked. Ben shook his head.
"I loved talking to Chip, but he left a few years ago. He races horses in Cinderellasburg now. He never liked the castle much."
"I see he and I have much in common," Mal commented.
"Well, he was one of the prisoners here. He was eight and frozen in time along with the rest of the palace." Ben paused. "Do you not like the palace?"
Mal furrowed her brow and stepped away from Ben. She gestured around the magnificent room. "I can't explain it. It has a feeling that makes me feel unwelcome. I think it's the fact it was cursed so many years ago. I can just feel that magic and it makes me feel like I should leave." She turned back to Ben. "I think that feeling will fade and it's just initial contact sickness, but the entire castle seems to be pushing me away from itself."
Ben was studying her. He seemed to be lost in thought. "Do you have any magical potential?" He asked cautiously.
Mal wondered for a second if she should tell him, but the Fairy Godmother hadn't appeared upset or even surprised. She swallowed. "Yes, I do." She informed Ben. "Is that a problem?"
Ben held his hands up in immediate defense. "No, not at all! However, fun fact, that means you're technically the first top royal with magical potential in this new era of Auradon. How cool is that?"
Mal relaxed. "Um, cool I guess." She eyed the curve of Ben's neck. "I assumed you'd be worried."
He shrugged. "I know you're a good person." He explained as he leaned against the wall.
Mal furrowed her brow and crossed her arms. "How do you know?" She asked.
He smiled at her. "I see it in you. You focus on fairness and you are aware of the people around you." His smile suddenly broadened, and Mal shrunk from it. "You're going to make an excellent queen. Really." He closed the space in between them so that he could squeeze her arm comfortingly. Then, he paused. "I mean... if you choose to stay and rule."
Mal snorted. "I think that choice has been made for me." She stuck a thumb behind her back at the door and began to chew on a lock of her hair. "Audrey knows I'm going to be queen."
Ben shook his head. "You can still choose. And I promise I won't judge you for that choice."
Mal bit her cheek. Ben's hand was still on her arm, so she reached over with her other hand and began to fiddle with his wrist cuff. A thought occurred to her.
"Ben?" She whispered. She heard him make a quiet sound in response. "What do you think I should choose?"
Ben stilled. "Are you asking advice? Or what do I want you to do?"
"Both," Mal answered.
There was a moments' pause as Ben pushed her hair out of her face, moved his hand out of her reach, and put it on her shoulder. Both he and his dad had a thing with shoulders, she was noticing.
"I want you to be happy." He admitted as he touched her collarbone with his thumb a little. Mal shrank from his touch. She observed the careful way Ben examined her and "I want happiness, and I want you to have it too. You deserve it. As far as if you should stay or go, it might be a little easier for you to help me make changes if you stay. You could be an astounding force for good if you wanted. But if you choose to go, then you could see what the people of Auradon are like. You could get to know them, understand them like you understand the Isle's people."
Mal scoffed. "Like I need to know about Auradon. Audrey was more than enough for me."
Ben laughed. His laugh made her feel better.
"I like what you said, about being a force for good. Because I know there are so many things that need to be changed for the Isle. There are so many innocent people over there who are maimed every day, and we need to fix it." Her eyes grew distant as she thought of Evie, Jay, and Carlos. Several ideas popped into her A smile grew on Ben's face.
"Will you stay?" He asked her.
"I think so." She confirmed. "Am I allowed to change my mind afterword?"
"Of course," Ben responded promptly. "Just be aware it'll be a lot harder to change your mind after we tell everyone you're going to be queen."
"I get it, I get it." Mal chuckled. Ben laughed and moved his arm to loop Mal's through it. Mal grimaced, but let him keep his hold.
"May I escort this fine lady to breakfast?" He asked.
"Fine Lady? Where?" Mal laughed. "Go ahead. I still don't know where I'm going."
Ben laughed and took her through a side door. "You know, it's funny. The Fairy Godmother used to say the same thing about the castle that you said. She said it was almost like the castle didn't want her here. It did get better as the years went on."
"The castle must still have a lot of magic residue on it." Mal reasoned. "I bet I'd feel more comfortable in my room if I charmed one or two things because then there'd be two enchantresses' work there."
"When did you learn you had magical potential?" Ben asked.
"Well, I was able to make my eyes glow on the Isle, but I didn't really understand I had spell potential until like, yesterday," Mal said, trailing her fingers on the wall behind her as she walked.
"So it's been one day, and you're already calling yourself an enchantress?" Ben joked. "Have you even cast any spells yet?"
Mal was silent. Ben began to laugh so hard he had to stop walking so he wouldn't trip.
"I fixed my hair!" Mal defended herself. When Ben continued to laugh, she scowled. "The first real spell I'm going to cast is going to be a silencing curse on you!" She threatened.
Ben finally composed himself enough to show her the rest of the way to breakfast. Belle and Adam were already there, eating oatmeal as they typed away on their cell phones. Ben pulled Mal's chair out for her and went to go sit beside his mother. The first thing Adam said to her was: "The roof?"
Mal felt her pale cheeks go a little red. "Sorry." She said.
Ben stole a few sausages from a plate in the middle of the table, and then a few strips of bacon. "She was watching the sunrise." He explained.
Belle nodded as she took a sip of orange juice. "That's a good place to do it." She reasoned. "How'd you get up?"
"I climbed the brick overlay on the side of the castle." She paused. "How did you know I was on the roof, Ben?"
Ben raised his eyebrows and sighed irritably. "The first thing out of Audrey's mouth was: 'Someone's on the roof.' Since that isn't exactly a daily occurrence, I figured I'd better make sure it wasn't you."
Belle chuckled. "Well, just make sure you're being careful as you climb. Please don't slip and hurt yourself." She looked around a basket of bread to Ben. "Pass the butter please." She asked him.
Adam gave his wife a look as if to say: 'we're really going to allow this?', but he didn't say anything else.
A few days later, Mal was able to stop using her phone to help her find places like her room, the library, the dining room, and the front entryway. There was no set pattern to the castle beside the four main wings. After that, each corridor seemed to stretch out randomly into whatever space was available. Some rooms were cut into perfect squares, others into almost stars, and one very strange room had a small triangle notch in the wall that was open enough for someone to squeeze their shoulders into. As Sophia promised, the further Mal ventured from the main entryway, the more finicky the castle became. Eventually, for fear of getting lost, she kept close to the main part of the castle.
Climbing to see the sunrise became a thing for her. On the third day, she slipped out of the castle soundlessly and kicked dew off the grass as she walked. She went to the place she'd been climbing up the last few days and hooked her fingers around the brick overlay. She ignored the aching in her arms as she climbed and glanced to the east every so often to make sure she wasn't going too slowly. As she put a hand over the gutter and onto the roofing, a hand appeared in her face.
Mal's grip slipped. "Waah!" She screamed as she dropped a scary foot back until someone seized her hand. Ben peered over the edge of the roof, looking white.
"Sorry!" He exclaimed. "Here, let me help you up."
"You almost just killed me!" Mal sputtered, squeezing the life and breath out of his hand. He hauled her up and over the gutter and set her carefully on the roof. Then, he wiped his brow off and took a deep breath.
"You okay?" Ben whispered.
"What are you doing up here?" Mal gasped as she tried to take several deep breaths.
"Sightseeing." Ben chuckled. He wiped his hands off on his pants and sat down on the edge of the roof.
Mal stared at him incredulously. Was that sarcasm she'd just heard? "What?" She whispered. "How did you get up here?"
Ben glanced sideways at her and smirked. "I climbed." He huffed.
And just like that, a smile was spreading over her mouth and she couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she tried. Mal snorted. "Har, har." She whispered and pulled her legs up from the edge. Ben ran his hands through his hair, messing it up even more than it was, and the irregular look made her heart skip a thud or two.
Ben gestured out to the skyline. "I, uh, thought it'd be cool to join you, and I brought food." Ben pointed up the roof a bit, to where a backpack was stuffed to the brim with items. Mal exhaled and got to her feet. Her cheeks felt awfully warm.
"Food?' She asked. "Why would you climb the roof at five a.m with food?"
"Because if I climbed the roof without food at five a.m, you might've made me go back down." Ben quipped. Mal chuckled. He stood up and the two walked toward the backpack. ben bent down and began to pull items out. Blankets and food, mostly. His phone was tucked into the side of the backpack. Ben spread out a blanket on the tiling and offered her his hand. Mal ignored it and sat down underneath his arm. Ben rolled his eyes and handed her a large, fuzzy orange fruit.
"What are these?" Mal asked as she rubbed the itchy fuzz off on the sleeve of her purple shirt.
"Peaches," Ben answered, sitting down opposite her. He peeled a layer of skin off of his peach with the fuzz still attached.
Mal tossed the fruit from one hand to the other in thought. "They're warm." She murmured.
"Try it." Ben rolled his eyes.
Mal took a bite and felt her mouth flood with sweet juice from the fruit. Sticky golden nectar ran down her chin and onto her clothes. Ben laughed at her. "How do you eat these?'" She exclaimed in frustration.
"With your mouth." Ben quipped. Mal groaned. She watched as Ben split his fruit down the center. In the middle was an ugly pit, which he yanked out to reveal red surroundings. She followed his example and soon they were both sitting together, watching the sky turn pink and eating warm peaches.
"You've gotten a lot more sarcastic since I got here," Mal noted, watching a red streak grow across the sky.
"I'm usually one to make a lot of dad jokes, but you arriving threw off my game." Ben nodded.
"You'd probably like Isle humor a lot." Mal theorized. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Ben perked up a bit.
"I'll take your word for it." He said with a sideways smile, trying to sound casual. Mal turned her feet towards him and toasted her half of her peach sarcastically.
"You seem to be pretty interested in the Isle." She murmured. "Most people shy away from me when I talk about it."
"Yeah." Ben agreed sheepishly. "It's fascinating. I've always been really interested in people and, yeah, the Isle. It's interesting to me, the different cultures and rules and such." He launched the core to his peach out over the gutter and to the grounds below.
"It's a different world." Mal murmured.
"Yeah," Ben repeated. "It's almost like its own country."
Mal furrowed her brow. It was almost like the Isle was its own country. A country run by gangs who existed in a polluted state of deterioration. And with this acknowledgment came an idea. "Ben," She whispered. "Does the spell outline that I have to be the queen of Auradon? Or is it just the Isle?"
Ben thought for a moment and then shook his head. "No, you have to have to say over Auradon. Like, you have to have ruling and judging power. The ability to sign laws and acts into order is just one of the things I know Maleficent specified in her spell trauncts." He gestured to his backpack on her left side. "Can you pass me another peach?" He asked.
Mal dug in the backpack for another warm fruit, trying to hide the disappointment welling up in her. She palmed the fruit to Ben with a sigh. "I was just wondering if we could just take the Isle off of Auradon instead of..." She trailed off. They both knew where she was headed with this anyways.
"Yeah." Ben sighed. "I mean, no, we can't do that. But yeah, I get what you mean."
"Yeah," Mal echoed glumly.
"But," Ben started, then paused. "Maybe..." He trailed off.
"What?" Mal asked, making a face.
"If we break off the Isle of the Lost off of the Mainland, thereby making you a separate queen, then we could get married with you as a Consort Queen," Ben explained.
"Which means?" Mal prompted.
Ben set his peach between his feet and began to use his hands to illustrate his point. "It's a thing royal couples do when they don't want kingdom borders to change upon a union. Basically, you could technically pass laws and rule Auradon, the whole shebang, but I would have to be gone first. Until then, you're just a normal person according to Auradon. You just live in the palace and are married to the king. I think it's referred to as a junior partnership."
Mal furrowed her brow. "Wouldn't Auradon be angry?" She asked. "You lose the Isle and then all I would have to do is kill you to take over the kingdom?"
Ben shrugged. "I don't know how they'd react." He said. Then, he hesitated. "You aren't planning on killing me, are you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That'd be the evil thing to do." Mal shrugged.
Ben snorted and rolled his eyes. "No then. Consort queen also means that if I happened to die for any reason, you'd be in charge of Auradon." He explained.
"Ugh." Mal made a face. "All that work." Even though, technically, if he died, she'd die too. She paused and began to twiddle her sticky thumbs. "How long do you think this will last?" She asked, letting her voice drop back to a whisper.
"A year?" Ben theorized. "Maybe two." He studied the roof tiles and began to peel the skin off his peach.
"And after that?" Mal asked, finally looking up to meet his gaze. He felt her eyes on him and looked up. "I become the queen who didn't rule for two years and Auradon never learns what happened? They go on thinking we parted ways because our marriage failed?"
"You don't have to make it sound like such a poisonous thing." Ben sighed. He offered her the second half of his peach, but she shook her head.
"You're right." She acknowledged. "It's just... hard."
"Yeah." Ben agreed with a sigh.
The sun's rays peeked out over the horizon and the frost began to melt off of the gutters. Ben reached around Mal for another blanket and spread it out over his legs. Then, he took a second, black blanket, and set it carefully on her shoulders, even going so far as to pull her hair out from under it.
Mal fiddled with the hem of the blanket and cleared her throat. For the first time, she voiced a fear she had. "What if they never break the curse?" She asked. "We can't masquerade forever. Are you really going to make me stay here, never doing anything, pretending to be a queen? And Auradon will have expectations. You're supposed to sire an heir for the future rise and fall of the kingdom and that idea appeals about a solid negative to me." Mal tapped Ben's leg with her toes and raised her eyebrow at him.
Ben looked back out at the sunrise. "I don't know." He confessed. His tone of voice announced that he, too, had been worried about it.
Mal continued on. "And if you do make me stay, what next for the Isle?"
"The Isle?" Ben asked, glancing at Mal.
"My homeland? The Isle?" Mal rolled her eyes.
"If we break it off, that means it's its own country." Ben reasoned. "The only way you could get rid of it is to abdicate to Auradon."
"So, I'm the puppet government." Mal rolled her eyes.
"No, you're the actual government with close ties to Auradon." Ben rolled his eyes. Mal hummed suspiciously. "I think you could fix the Isle." Ben shrugged, ignoring her skepticism.
"Doubtful." Mal disagreed. The sun was almost halfway over the horizon now.
"Oh no." Ben shook his head. "Come one, two years from now, and the Isle will be completely different. Trust me."
Mal didn't say anything more. She pulled the hems of the blankets taut across her chest and watched the sky turn its bidaily daily light show as Ben ate his peach behind her. This was nice. It was nice to not yell at him. It was nice to be listened to. She'd never had someone take her ideas and make them into a plan. She'd never climbed a palace to discover a prince. Even the small things were new. She'd never even had someone lift a blanket around her shoulders.
Mal curled up her feet and laid her head on her knees. The sun rose on a new day and an upcoming queen.
Remember Doug? Mal didn't. She'd completely forgotten about the man who'd sent her an entire paragraph in response to just her name. However, after her first week was over, the King and Queen decided it was time to invite Doug over.
Doug arrived during lunch, which Mal felt was a normal time to receive guests. Lunch was the most inconspicuous meal of the day when you had already figured out if the day was going to be a good or a bad one, and before you had any concrete plans so you could be a little more flexible. Mal appreciated lunchtimes a lot.
Doug wore a plaid shirt that was rolled up to his elbows since August in Auradon was hot enough to bake cookies outside. (This wasn't an exaggeration. Mal saw some of the servant's children baking cookies by leaving them outside in aluminum-foil-lined boxes.) He had a bow tie and glasses, and hair the color of sand. He was also a very nervous man. When he shook hands with Mal, he quivered. He stuttered and went back and forth, steamrolling his own sentences. Sometimes, Mal couldn't understand what he was saying. She just smiled and nodded. That seemed to make Doug less nervous.
Doug worked for the crown. A very small part of his job was to go to all the new royals in all the small kingdoms and teach them how to file paperwork through to Beast's Castle, how to cc emails and be the all-around IT guy. So it only made sense that he and Adam had teamed up to show Ben how to run things, and now Ben and Doug (mostly Doug) were going to team up and show her how to do things.
After lunch, Ben showed her and Doug upstairs and into the King's office. There were papers, envelopes, and little calendar magnets everywhere. Mal made a gentle humming sound as Doug groaned and pulled a fancy black hole-punch out of his bag. Except it wasn't a hole punch. As Ben showed Mal around the office and pointed to where things were supposed to go, Doug picked up whatever papers he could find and scanned them through what now appeared to be a portable, backwards printer. The pictures appeared on Adam's desktop computer as Doug scanned them. Finally, the two men ushered Mal into King Adam's incredibly tall swivel seat. Mal tried to not feel awkward as the two men hovered beside her and showed her how to get the desktop to automatically search for duplicate documents and sort them into folders based on what they were while her feet dangled at least four inches above the flooring. The computer also had this handy thing that made it so everything could be sorted by dates so that everything Doug had just barely scanned in would appear at the top of the relevant folder after it had been sorted.
"Why do we still use paper?" Mal asked.
"Because when a king signs something it's considered a magical lock. We haven't figured out how to replicate that effect on computers yet." Doug sighed. That was the other, bigger part of his job. Working with computers to make them do better stuff.
"When you become King, or Queen, for you, you receive the throne magic, which basically helps you know if there's major trouble in the kingdom, or if a border is breached, stuff like that. When you're making or changing laws, you need to have a connection to that magic, otherwise, it won't work." Ben added. It made sense he'd care more about that information than Doug. Wasn't that the main reason she was there? There wasn't any way the magic of the crown would stick without her.
"Also, paper copies have to be sent out to minor royals so that they know the law is now in effect and so they can portray it to their people." Doug murmured as he picked up the last piece of paper on the desk and scanned it in. He turned to Mal. "Let's start with something simple. Let's say I'm a citizen and I've come to you asking about Law 37 subsection B because my local royal doesn't have a copy in his possession. What do you need to do?"
"Uh, get him a copy?" Mal guessed.
"And?" Doug prompted.
"I don't know."
"That's fine. That's why Ben and I are here. Anyway, you should send an extra copy to that royal, just so it won't happen again. Try and find 37.B." Doug gestured to the computer. "Ben, why don't you go see if you can find your notes from when your dad and I ran you through this course?" Ben snapped to attention, and then dashed out the door.
"Be right back!" He called over his shoulder.
Mal examined the screen. There was a laws folder, so she clicked on that. Doug made a sound of approval. Now there were a lot of numbers. She scrolled down to thirty-seven, and quickly found subsection B.
"Good job." Doug complimented her. "Now, of course, this isn't all you'll do as Queen. There're many jobs. Most of the time you'll be probably be delegating where resources are going and trying to create a strong infrastructure. The minor rulers are the ones who rule over the people as Official States of Auradon. If they're doing their jobs right, you shouldn't be bothered too much with that sort of work. We just wanted to start with something simple today. Some of your responsibilities are making sure good people have power, examining possible new laws for the United States of Auradon, and maybe a few odd jobs here and there. If you ever have any questions about specifics, Adam would be a great guy to ask. I'm sure you know he built the USA up almost from scratch. I'm mainly an IT guy, so I won't be able to do as much, but I'm still open to helping you out. Now, I've been told you're only going to concern yourself with the Isle of the Lost, is that correct?"
"Yes, that's right," Mal told Doug.
"Splendid. We have a file specifically for the Isle. It's in alphabetical order, so see if you can find it. Feel free to take a look around that file as we wait for Ben."
Mal quickly found the file. It was very, very full. There were several narrowing devices. Naturally, she was curious about herself and her friends. She searched her name, and several accounts of her mother came up. Then, part-way down, she found her own birth certificate and an enrollment form for Dragon Academy.
When she searched for her friends, she found Evie had the most documentation. Her mom had yearly health checkups, school enrollments, school work, and normal certification in there. Carlos's contained only his birth certificate and his schooling forms, and Jay's was completely empty.
"You're missing people," Mal told Doug after several minutes of examining the computer. "I don't see Jafar's son, Ursula's daughter, Hades's daughter, and I know Gaston has more kids than this."
"That's all the documentation the Isle sends us. We don't do much here with it. Maybe you can change that." Doug drummed his fingernails on the desk. "Hey, can I ask you something now?"
"You just did," May commented. "But go ahead." She clicked back to the screen where she searched for herself and found a document accounting for Maleficent on the Isle of the Lost, back when she'd been banished. The document read: Target effectively powerless.
"How do you feel about being queen?" Doug asked.
Mal let out a breath as she clicked back and found an incident report where a disturbance had appeared in the barrier. "Honestly? No idea. Don't want to get married. Don't want to die. Don't want to be trapped. It's all joyous feelings."
"You aren't excited for anything?" Doug asked.
"To be a ruler of my old hometown? Believe me, all I'm gaining is a title. The Isle of the Lost pays less attention to the Palace than they do to the dirt. I had more power when I actually lived there."
"What sort of power?"
"Oh, you should have seen me and my group. We were top dogs." Mal rolled away from the computer. "On a different note, I have a question."
Doug clapped his hands together. "Shoot." He replied.
"What if I need to make a document?" She asked.
"Oh, okay. At the bottom of the screen, there should be an icon with a 'W' on it. It's a document writing system. The palace has a whole bunch of unique formats for law writing and declarations and stuff like that. Just because you write a law down doesn't make it a law, by the way. You have to get it committee approved…" Doug trailed off. "Actually, I have no idea how the Isle of the Lost will work now that it's being handed to you. Go crazy, I guess."
"But not too crazy?" Mal asked with a smirk. She examined the Castle Documents with a critical eye. "So, if I'm to understand this correctly, the Isle of the Lost and Auradon are now separate."
"Not now," Doug said. "But after Ben and you are coronated, yeah. At least as far as I know."
Mal hummed in response and selected a blank document. She looked down and quickly discovered a roll-out shelf with a keyboard on it hidden in the desk.
"Are you writing a law right now?" Doug asked as he tried to crane his neck.
"No. I'm just messing around," Mal replied as she fiddled with the font type and size.
"Oh, here," Doug said. He whisked open a desk and started rummaging. "There's a really handy list of shortcut keys here somewhere…" He cursed. "I hope Ben isn't as messy as Adam is."
Mal snorted and began to tune him out as she started typing.
Doug couldn't find the hotkey list, so he gave up. Eventually, his phone began to ring so he left the room to answer it. By that time, Mal had started writing a letter.
Ben came back, but Doug was still on the phone and Mal was typing, so he put his old lined-paper notes on the desk and pulled out his phone to do stuff.
No one said anything until Mal looked up and said: "Ben, I would like to print this. How do I do that?"
"Control key and P," Ben said automatically. "At the same time." He added as an afterthought. He looked up from a multi-colored game system. "What are you doing?"
"Printing something," Mal said with pursed lips. "Control… ctrl?" Across the room, a machine began to hum loudly. Seconds later, a single piece of paper slid into the catcher, which was already full of many documents. Ben reached over and picked it up, and quickly skimmed it.
"Hey!" Mal snapped. "That's mine!" She pushed back from the desk and reached to snatch it from his grasp.
Ben frowned. "Mal, who are you writing to?"
Mal glared and snatched her paper from his grasp, nearly ripping it in the process. "An essay of nun-ya."
"I know it's not my business!" Ben exclaimed in exasperation as Mal stormed back to the desk. He stood up. "But I got to know, are you writing to someone on the Isle? Is it your mom?"
"What? Of course, it's not my mom!" Mal whirled around. "Do you honestly think I'd write to my selfish, horrible mother after she landed me in a hopeless situation where I'm stuck with you?!"
"Woah." A third voice said from the hallway. Ben and Mal's heads whipped towards the doorway. Doug stood with wide eyes and his hands up in a surrender position. His phone was in one hand, turned off. "Am I interrupting anything?"
"Yes." Mal said at the same time Ben said: "No." Mal glared at Ben out of the corners of her eyes.
"We're fine," Ben said. "All is well." He sat back down in his chair. Mal huffed out the last of her frustration and began to cool. She took a seat at the desk again. Doug walked cautiously into the room.
Mal folded her letter in fourths and sealed it with a piece of tape. Ben watched her.
"You know you can't send that, right?" He asked. Mal stilled and looked at him for an explanation – a quick one. He sighed and raked his nails over his skull. "If you send it to the Isle your mom will probably find out you've betrayed her. And if you contact your friends, I highly doubt she'd act kindly to them. It'd probably be safer for them if you sever ties." He thought for a moment. "If you were, by chance, going to send it to someone in Auradon, you should know all the mail gets screened anyway. Someone could have leaked you to the public. Not a problem, per se, but the press would become really annoying to you and me."
"They screen the mail?" Mal asked as she bit her cheek.
"Everything going in and out of the palace, yeah. And other mail places do it too with permission and knowledge of the public."
Mal creased her paper with a line in her forehead. She put it inside a pocket in her shirt and made a mental note to tape it to the underside of her desk. Then she ignored Ben and tried her best to pay attention to Doug.
Ben wasn't bothered by Mal's anger. He'd already had her anger directed at him and knew that, despite whatever she claimed, she was of the forgiving nature. She'd probably be back to normal tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the little he'd read in her letter was burned into the back of his mind. A scorching heat began in his head. Doug asked him a question, and so he pushed his thoughts away for another place and time. For duty's sake.
I do not own Descendants, Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalminations, Aladdin, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Beauty and the Beast, or any of the other works mentioned in here.