10 weeks till Christmas.
11 Weeks till New Years.
11 Weeks until we're done.
North, Sandy, Bunny, Hiccup, and Astrid all sat around a round, wooden table with dozens of maps littered across it. Unwashed, all sporting various small wounds, and staring blankly at either the mess of papers or the empty place where the King of Auradon should be. Above their heads swung a small candle chandelier with half of the Candleholders missing, making for a dim, sad light. The room was lined with dark, wooden panels. Astrid's hand slipped from underneath her chin as she shook her head.
Floorboards creaked outside. Then, the doors blew open with a gust of freezing air. Everyone looked up and stared as Jack landed inside the doorframe. "We have a visitor," Jack announced to the room as he walked inside. Hiccup and Bunny stood up while everyone straightened up. A figure in vivid purple stepped up to examine everyone. Mal crossed her arms and took in the room.
"Wow." She said after a long pause. "I feel like I'm back on the Isle of the Lost."
Hiccup and Astrid exchanged looks as they looked from Mal's still-sparking green eyes and dirty hands to her long, messy, purple hair.
North picked his sword up from where it lay propped against the table, with the blade digging into the floor. "Who is this?" He asked as he pulled a dirty rag out of his pocket and began to clean the blade.
"Her royal highness, Queen Mal of Auradon, the Isle, and the Moors," Jack announced as he floated lazily above everyone's heads. The Sandman, a round man with childish cheeks who wore a robe of golden sand, perked up and flashed a crown above his head, along with a question mark.
Mal waved her fingers at her companions as she stepped up to the maps and glanced briefly at them. "You can call me Mal." She drawled.
"I'm sorry," Astrid sputtered. "This is the Queen of the Isle, the Ancient Moorlands, and Auradon?"
"Yes," Jack nodded slowly as he landed. "And she's extremely powerful." He cast a sideways smirk to the purple-haired fairy. "Don't let the hair fool you."
Without glancing at him, Mal flicked her fingers from left to right and up and down in front of her head, and her hair braided itself down her back into a neat French braid that ended past her shoulder blades. No one spoke for several seconds as Mal examined the maps.
Bunny straightened up and unsheathed his boomerang. "So, what're ye doing here?" He asked with a low growl.
Mal looked up at him, clearly annoyed, and ignored the question. Instead, Jack cleared his throat. "She's come to rescue her husband."
North sighed. "I apologize, but we don't know where he is. He vas captured off the dock in Syracuse, but has since been-"
"I know where he is." Mal held up a hand to stop him. "He's about seven hundred miles from me, northwest. So, if we want to plot that here," She began to trace areas on the map with her fingers as she spoke, "he's about in the city you call Duloc." The miles were a rough estimate, but Mal was comparing the distance with places she knew of on her home continent. She assumed, based on examining the spell tying them together, that they would be the same distance apart if she were in the Moorlands and he was in Auradon City.
"Kingdom," Jack corrected with a curious look at Mal.
"Kingdom." Mal nodded as she examined the map.
"How do you know this?" North gestured at the map with a raised eyebrow.
Mal smiled. "National secret. Sorry. Anyway, he's here. Don't know if he's okay or dead or anything, but he's there. And now that I know where he is, I'll go fetch him." She turned and began to walk away from the room.
"Woah, Woah, Woah." Hiccup jumped up. "Just one second. I still have questions. How are you going to get him? That area is surrounded by Eris's troops and tons of monsters and baddies… We have no back up there at the moment. If you give us some time, we might be able to arrange something, but you'll be caught and killed for sure if you just head up. Also, we sent that letter like, early yesterday. No one has been down to help transport new soldiers from your land to our land, so how did you get here?"
"I flew," Mal declared shortly. She forced her hands to relax at her sides. Part of her was trying to reason with her that they hadn't interacted with her and were confused, but the greater part of her was fighting to get away quick.
"Flew?" Bunny asked.
"My question is why did Auradon send the queen when the king was just captured?" Astrid pinched her lips together as she examined Mal. There were brown blood spots in her blonde hair and a slash across her cheek. She looked distrustful of the teenager that was, apparently, the woman Ben had declared was even more powerful than he was.
"Auradon doesn't know," Mal admitted, struggling to keep the defensive growl out of her throat.
Jack's eyes widened. "Wait, wait, wait!" He exclaimed. "I assumed that you were sent by like, consensus. Are you seriously telling me Auradon has no idea where their king is and the pregnant queen just up and vanished from the palace? Who's taking care of the kingdom?"
"My father and mother-in-law," Mal replied. The headache was banging into her skull again. Why couldn't they just trust her? Why was everyone always getting angry and acting like she had no clue?
"You're pregnant?" Hiccup asked. "Goodness gracious, what on the overland made you come here?"
"I'm sorry, is no one going to question that she can fly?" Bunny roared.
Jack was floating above the floorboards in anxiety. "Mal, being up here is way too dangerous! You should have stayed at the palace, not flown up here!"
Mal slammed her balled-up fist into the table. Too many people, too many questions, too much stress. "Quiet, now!" She demanded. "Believe it or not, I am very well aware of what happens if I die and I am very, very aware that there's a small person inside of me. What's next? Are you going to remind me that the sky is blue?" She pounded her finger into the table, ignoring the bruises on her hands as she did. "I drove all night long to make it to the coast, I've left all three kingdoms behind, I flew over that entire ocean and was shot down and still, you don't seem to realize how serious I am! I am here for my husband and I'll get him back no matter who tells me I should have just stayed home. I don't care if both Eris and Pitch are there themselves, no one takes my husband out except me!"
Everyone blinked several times. Magic sparked behind her eyes like some sort of broken lightning. Suddenly, the dirt on her hands looked less like the results of childish excursions and now seemed like the marks of a woman who'd dug into a task with both hands. This girl, despite her youth and abrupt nature, was a leader. And, almost as one, the room agreed to allow her to remain as such. Hiccup raised a small, hesitant hand. "Are you talking about the date way or the death way?"
Mal scoffed. She shook her head and closed her eyes, then pushed herself off the table and put her hands on her hips. "I'm leaving now," She announced. "It'll take me about a half-hour to get there if I can get back outside in two minutes."
"How are you planning to jump seven-hundred miles in thirty minutes?" Bunny snorted.
"By flying." Mal rolled her eyes. She walked back to the door as everyone shuffled around the table and began to subconsciously follow her.
"Not even the dragons or the sleigh can fly that fast," Hiccup reasoned. "You might be able to take the warren tunnels. They're faster.
"Eris has the grounds mined," Bunny reminded Hiccup with a growl. "If I open a tunnel, it'll blow her sky-high."
"I'd rather fly." Mal smiled. "Makes a better impression anyways. Aha!" She took an abrupt turn and opened a set of doors to a balcony. "Shortcut." She nodded, approvingly. Everyone gathered behind her as she examined the ground, about fifty feet below her feet. Mal climbed up on the balcony as everyone took a sharp inhale. Jack floated out of the doorway and took to hovering off the balcony. Meanwhile, the Sandman floated behind North's hand, where he bobbed anxiously as he watched Mal stand on top of the railing and teeter back and forth.
Mal pitched herself off the balcony.
Astrid and Hiccup let out shouts as they rushed to the edge of the balcony. They barely had time to jump back in surprise as a gigantic purple dragon shot back into the air past them. North dropped his sword as the Sandman hit the floor, his little sand cloud having disappeared underneath him in his shock.
"Oh, crikey," Bunny repeated over and over as they watched the dragon spread her wings and take off higher into the sky. A massive gust of wind whipped towards their faces and blew them back into the hallway. Bunny crashed into the wall as Jack blew straight into him and Sandy, leaving icicles hanging from both. Hiccup and Astrid, who had been knocked down when the dragon first took to the sky, were blown backward into North's knees, where they sat looking very surprised. North had barely managed to keep his footing. His dropped sword had blown into the hall and impaled its hilt into the wall a few feet from Jack, Sandy, and Bunny. Bunny grumbled as he got to his feet. He shook a paw in the general direction Queen Mal had vanished in. "Oh, rack off, ya bloody show-pony!" He yelled.
Hiccup turned and stared at everyone. "Are we not going to go after her?" He questioned in a high-pitched voice.
"Pssh," Jack laughed. "Do you want to, man?"
"She's going to get herself killed," Astrid said with wide eyes.
Bunny put two hands in front of him and gestured to the sky. "Is it – is it even possible to kill her?" He yelled in a crazed tone.
Jack took a sharp intake. "Let's… not test that idea." He suggested as he got to his feet and began to balance on the end of his staff. He laughed uneasily. "To think I was afraid of talking to the king without the queen… he's just a giant teddy bear and she's a full-on death machine."
The group helped each other up and went to look outside. The snow that seemed to follow Jack everywhere had been blasted clear off the mountainside when Mal had flown up. She'd cut through the overcast sky and moved the clouds to make a long, single cut through the sky. Hiccup sucked in a breath.
"Easy to track," He whispered.
"Hard to keep up with," Astrid muttered. They met gazes and smiled. "I'll get the dragons ready, you grab some weapons." She told Hiccup.
"Where are you two going?" North bellowed as the two young adults slipped past him and began to sprint after him.
"Sightseeing!" Hiccup yelled over his shoulder before they vanished from sight.
North, Jack, Sandy, and Bunny stared at each other. "I guess that's it," North muttered.
"Should we try to catch up?" Jack asked.
North considered. "You should go, Jack. We'll fight the sea of monsters for today. Go and see what help you can offer."
Jack nodded and shot into the sky without another word. A gust of cold wind came to carry him away and soon he, too, was gone.
After the first ten miles, the clouds became so thick that Mal's wings could no longer beat them aside to reveal the sun. The air grew dark and misty. It smelled like Agrabah, which Mal had passed on her way to the beach last night. Sand was everywhere – even in the sky. The entire continent was a massive, pillaged wasteland.
Duloc looked like it had once been an amusement park before being repurposed into a city and then being taken over with evil. One single building rose above rows and rows of little formerly white houses with blue roofs.
Mal circled the city once, twice, let out a roar or two, and watched as slowly, one by one, all of the lights came on in the little houses and the large palace doors opened. Mal circled around and landed in the middle of everything – right beside a tiny stand reading 'information' which had large cracks running through it.
A crowd gathered as people emerged from their houses, murmuring and then shouting in alarm as they saw the dragon. From the open palace doors, Mal saw a long shadow stretch out across the courtyard. She shifted back – it was a little harder without the immediate death threat – and people shouted as the purple dragon went up in green smoke and left a young woman standing in the center of the courtyard with a wide area around her.
"It's a sorceress!" Someone shouted.
"No, a shapeshifter!" Another called.
"She's an invader!" A cool, cold voice corrected them. The crowd parted – there were about five hundred people in all and they all stepped aside as the shadow from the foot of the castle grew into a volumizing sandstorm. There was a sound like an avalanche going uphill, and black sand whizzed through Mal's legs. She wasn't to be intimidated. She watched as a woman reformed in front of her. It was Helena. Thick, dark, nightmare sand curled at her feet as she frowned at Mal. "How dare you come here!"
Mal put her hands on her hips slowly. "I'm here for my husband," She declared. "Are you holding him?"
Helena laughed. "Hundreds of prisoners have passed through here and been disposed of. What makes you think he's still here?"
Disposed of. Dead. The ends of Mal's hair caught fire. "If you've hurt him," She hissed, "then there won't be enough mercy in the world to save you." Some of the citizens oohed while others shifted uncomfortably. Smaller children were shielded inside of doorways and some people began to retreat into their homes.
"Mercy?" Helena repeated, sounding as if she had never even heard the term. "What makes you think we have any of that anywhere? You have no idea about me."
Mal bent down and scooped up a pinch of sand. This was the same structure of magic that Jack had. Blockish. Specific. "Earth Mage," She sighed. "Your parents have two different powers. What's your name?"
Helena straightened up. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," She trilled in a mocking tone. Mal tilted her head as she began to chuckle. "My name is Helena Apate Troy."
Mal let the sand trickle through her fingers. Troy. There was something about that name… something dangerous. And this magic… it was earth-based, like how Jack's was ice-based, but Jack's magic was meant for something else. And this person, their power was weakness, fear, and chaos.
Mal met the eyes of her opponent. "That means nothing to me," She whispered. "And, it seems, my appearance means nothing to you. Maybe word of my marks haven't graced this land yet, but my name should. I am Mal, Queen of the Isle of the Lost and the Ancient Magical Moorlands. I fight for Auradon, and I'm about to pick a fight with you."
"The Queen?" Helena repeated. "You're the Queen? You're the person he said I couldn't compare to? Auradon sent their queen? So soon after losing their king? Hopefully, you last longer than he did. He practically gave himself up and then made the mistake of refusing me."
Something clicked in Mal's head. Sand magic. Fear magic. Jack Frost had described a man with the power of nightmares. A boogeyman. Someone who had the power to turn dreamsand, which she assumed worked like the name implied, against its use.
"Funny." She mumbled. "Jack Frost didn't mention you."
Helena's eyes flashed and the sand carried her straight up to Mal's face. "Jack Frost is a coward!" She spat.
"Maybe you're not important enough." Mal offered.
"I am the daughter of the most important villainess in the land!" Helena bristled. Her storm of sand grew windier. More people sought refuge away from the witch.
Mal pinched her lips together. The most important villainess in the land? "Eris, then." She realized aloud. "And Pitch Black, since you're so against Jack Frost."
Helena sank back. "What?" She asked, dumbfounded.
"Those are your parents," Mal responded. All of the pieces had clicked into place. "Eris and Pitch. Fascinating. A child like you would surely be known and spoken of by the leaders of the light side, so let me guess: they don't know you exist?"
Helena stomped up to Mal. She was taller than Mal by more than a few inches, forcing Mal to look up to keep eye contact. "Let's get something sweet here, little miss princess," She hissed. "I am important and the fact the world doesn't know about me means nothing. The light side fears me, and they don't know what I am capable of. You don't know what I am capable of. I am the daughter of the most important villains in the land."
"Me too." Mal cut off her rant. Helena looked shocked as Mal's words sunk in. Mal smirked and let her eyes go vibrant green as she backed Helena up down her own stupid street. "My mother is a very important villainess as well. If only she were still alive, maybe they could have gone head to head. My mother could have spelled yours to sleep for a thousand years before yours tried to flick some sand at her. As for my father, he's the God of the Dead. I think the name speaks for itself, don't you?" Mal brushed off Helena's shoulder, taking more sand away with her, and leaned in close. "You don't know what I'm capable of," She whispered and stepped back. "Go, gather whoever you want to fight me. I'm taking this place by storm in the next two minutes, so you'd better hurry.
Helena stumbled with wide eyes and sneered. "Bring your worst." She told Mal and vaporized into sand.
Mal rolled her eyes, even though Helena wasn't there to see it. "It'll just be me, sweetheart." She whispered.
Alarms began to blare in the city. People yelped and screamed and hurried into their houses. The largest building, whose doors were still open, shook. Mal squinted at it. It was several stories high and the entrance was wide enough for her to crawl into in her dragon form. And from inside, an army was emerging.
Mal watched an entire battalion of what appeared to be knights mounted on horses made of nightmare sand walk into the court area. They'd sent the mighty army of Duloc. Behind the army, the palace door shut and locked tight.
Mal cracked her knuckles as the leader of the horsemen screamed: "Charge!"
She spread her hands. All at once, the battlefield was lit in electric green flames. Her horns appeared in an instant – they usually did when she performed lots of magic. She let her eyes light up as the sky above began to swirl into a funnel, and then a bolt of lightning blasted the front lines apart.
Someone screamed, and the army scattered, leaving their weapons in their wake. Mal outstretched her hands and everyone's weapons melted out of their hands and straight into the ground. It would have been a wonderful show if she hadn't almost blacked out immediately afterward. The horses, it became apparent, were flammable. When they'd walked, they'd left sand behind, which now lit as easily as gasoline and fueled her flames without her command. The fire followed the horses to where they'd hid with their soldiers and people started to scream as houses, streets, and horses caught fire. Mal outstretched her hand to spare the homes with the people inside of them, but otherwise let the street burn.
She marched through the fire – with the flames licking her arms before remembering she was their mistress - to the palace doors and put her hand on the handle. She pulled, but it didn't budge. "Make it easy, make it quick; open up without a kick," She commanded. The doors were meant to open to the outside, but as Mal pointed, they blew off their hinges and landed on the opposite side of the wall before toppling to the floor inside of the entrance hall with a boom. Two people remained inside. One was Helena, the other a very short, ridiculous-looking man with long, black hair who was looking in horror at the scene outside.
He turned to Helena as he began to pull his hair out. "What have you done?" He cried.
"It's not me!" Helena protested as she jumped into action. A sandstorm began to form as she leaped into Mal's path. Helena put her hands one over the other. Brown light formed in her palm and sand materialized into a deadly blast weapon as Helena attacked Mal.
A blast caught her in the jaw and Mal could feel her back teeth being knocked out of place. She locked her jaw and braced her hands up for a fight. Just in time too, because another blast hit her hands. Her pained hands with the bruises and the strains from all the Auradon had been putting her through. Mal grit her teeth and fired back on impulse – a green beam of fire that crashed into Helena and set her afire before the girl drowned it out with sand. Interesting, because the fear sands caught fire so easily. Either Helena must not have inherited the fear sand specifically, or she must have inherited both to a certain degree. Were they mixed magics, like Ericka's and Jessie's? Or were they separate, and she could conjure both?
Mal flew up into the air and soared right over the next blast to crash into Helena. The other girl went down with a shriek but managed to pull Mal with her by her ankles. Mal crashed into a candle stand, which broke off into a pole as the short man screamed and hurried upstairs. Mal snatched the pole up and whirled to pin the other girl underneath it, but she once again called the sands to her will and the black sands slowed Mal's thrust. Mal watched as Helena called the sands to her and pulled something from the midst of the black. A long sword with a sharper tip than a blade, with a golden loop guard around the blue leather handle and the Auradon crest in the center of the pommel.
A fire lit in Mal's throat as she launched herself towards Helena. "That's Ben's sword!" She yelled as she reared the pole and swung as hard as she could. Helena shrieked as the sword went flying out of her grasp. Mal held a hand out for the sword and called: "And now I command, sword to my hand!"
The sword had no sooner clanged against the wall than it was rocketing back to Mal's grip. Mal snatched it and examined the beautiful two-part guard with 'Benjamin Florian Benson' inscribed in permanent marker on the leather handle in Belle's handwriting.
Mal shoved the point of the sword up to Helena's throat. "Where did you get this?" She snarled.
Helena sneered. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Mal kicked Helena away from her and raised the blade over her shoulder. A strange sound from outside distracted them both. They looked outside as a shadow drifted over the houses. Tell-tale ice formed in his wake, putting out the green fires. Meanwhile, dark purple plasma blasts fell from the skies as regular, orange fire rained down from above.
Helena panicked and tried to attack with long, lethal spikes of sand. Mal sliced them off at the base, just like in Ben's favorite movie where the Big Hero Six team had sliced the microbots off at the ground level to send them into the portal. It didn't have nearly the same effect, but it was close enough. As Helena tried to flee from the room, Mal stomped down on her dress and pinned her to the floor. She grabbed the girl's collar and pulled her to a standing level. "Where is he?" She snarled.
Helena was so frazzled, she completely forgot she could dematerialize into shadows and sand. Instead, she just whimpered. "The King?" She cried as black tears started to pile in her eyes. "I don't know! He's gone! They move people when I'm done with them!"
Mal shook her. "Done with them!" She exclaimed. "You'd better hope I can cure whatever you've done, otherwise I will make you regret your entire existence." Mal snarled. Smoke billowed out of her nostrils. Helena shrank back and began to cry inky black tears. "Tell me where I can find him," Mal whispered harshly. "And so help me, if he's gone, it will be the end of you."
A cold wind whipped into the room. Jack Frost hurried inside and stopped in his tracks when he saw Helena.
Helena's feet melted into the shadows. Mal suddenly lost her hold as the slippery girl began to fall directly into the shadows. The sand was siphoned away with her. Soon, she was gone. All that was left were three small stones that had been formed when Helena's tears hit the sand. Mal kicked them aside and they were lost in the cracks of the floor.
"Who in the overland was that?" Jack began to panic as he clutched his staff tightly. "She disappeared into the shadows just like… just like Pitch!"
Mal rolled her eyes. "So observant," She commented. "She can travel through shadows and by sand. I scared her out of her wits, but I need to find Ben before she thinks to come back."
"The city is on fire," Jack told her, even though it was pretty obvious with the flames going on outside. "I need to go help Hiccup and Astrid. Can you find him by yourself?"
"Of course I can." Mal waved her hand.
Jack took a few extra seconds to stare at her. "You know," he sighed dramatically. "You were a lot calmer when I first met you."
Mal picked up Ben's sword and carefully looked it over for damage. "I wasn't being threatened then," She replied.
Jack nodded his head from side to side like that made sense and took to the air again. He saluted her with an impish smile and returned outside. Meanwhile, Mal did her best to calm down and search for the line she'd been following for the last few hours. She took Ben's sword with her as she opened a door and found a staircase that went both up and down. After a moment's deliberation, she went up and began to stalk through hallways.
The building resembled a castle, with thick carpets on the ground and heavy portraits hanging on the walls. Each of the portraits depicted the same odd-looking, short man who had fled from the room. Under one of the plaques was the name 'Lord Farquaad.'
Mal stalked through every hall and opened every door. She worked on pure instinct as she went. The castle was empty. Mal had no way of knowing who had been in the castle before she had shown up, but she hoped it had been equally empty. All she could tell was that Ben was here.
Gradually, as she climbed higher, the rooms became old and shabby until suddenly the once lavish rooms turned into rows of bedraggled cells. Manacles that hung from the walls and slabs of wood that could be hung against the wall for beds and sitting were the only decorations strewn up here.
Mal stopped following the spell's faint residual path and relied only on her senses. She leaned against the stone wall with her fingers on the cold bricks. Like Beast's Castle, the walls spoke to her, giving her a short history. She listened carefully. Minutes passed before she heard anything. She was just about to give up and listening and continue her wandering when she heard the faintest of groans carried through the wall. She pushed herself to her feet.
One left, then another. A staircase, and then she paused again. Without putting her ear to the wall, she could now hear Ben as he muttered and groaned in pain. Mal set her jaw and marched down the hall. The cells came in shades of light and they came in shades of dark. After a while, they blended together in Mal's mind, so much in fact that she almost walked past the one occupied cell. She almost walked past the reason she'd come.
Ben's chin knocked against his collarbone with every ragged, painful breath. What had started as the heat of fire had only escalated into excruciating pain. Every nerve ending was begging his brain to take action. Whatever had been on Helena's nails was now sinking into him. He could feel the poison overtaking him.
Outside, a battle was raging on. He had no idea who it was, but he was pretty sure he'd heard a dragon, lightning, and screaming. Maybe it was Hiccup and Astrid and their crew. Maybe they'd arrive soon enough for Ben to give them something to tell Mal.
Ben could feel death creeping into his veins. It hurt. He didn't want to die. He had a kid on the way; a little prince or princess. He had parents and a wife waiting for him, and a kingdom that Mal didn't want to have to run for him. But it didn't look like he had much of a choice. Ben had watched in horror as, over the last day, piles of sand had built on the wounds over his chest, neck, and chin. His skin felt like it was beginning to wither away. The tips of his finger had no blood and were going grey, though he couldn't tell if that was a result of his chains or his steadily-failing circulation.
The door to the cell clanged open and he groaned as he slumped forward, defeated, into his bindings. It must be Helena, come to mock him before he died. "Helena," He sighed. "Please, let me send a message to someone for my wife. I have things I need to tell her." It was the most reasonable last request he could think of.
He heard soft footsteps heading towards him, which struck him as odd since Helena had traveled with the sound of sandpaper. Small, soft hands took his face. He felt sparks at the end of the newcomer's fingers that sank into his skin and left a feeling like ice kisses on his face. "Why don't you tell her yourself?" Someone whispered as they pressed a soft kiss to the side of his nose.
Ben screwed up his eyes and found the strength to force them open. A vision of purple swam before his retinas. He blinked several times until he was able to make out who it was. "Mal…" He whispered as her fingers continued to caress his face and trail through his hairline.
She was frowning. She looked angry. "What did they do to you?" She hissed as her fingers slipped on top of the sandy wound on his chin. Ben hissed, and she stilled.
"Scratches," He mumbled. "How… are you real?" She looked like an angel. Could it be Eris, fooling him again? How would she know what Mal looked like? It must be her.
Mal's eyes softened. She moved her mouth up to his and began to kiss him. Her lower lip caught the cut on his chin as she did so, and he winced but leaned desperately into her. She didn't kiss him for long though. She pulled away with a disgusted look.
"Your mouth… reeks of magic." She explained, which settled the fact of who she was. She carefully laid her hands on his face and examined his chin. "Is this… sand?" She whispered.
"Helena." Ben coughed suddenly. Black sand appeared on the corners of his mouth, which Mal wiped away with a hard look. "Helena scratched me and did something," He whispered. He coughed again, trying his best to turn away from Mal as his lungs forced sticky, black sand out of his lungs. He did his best to spit it all out onto the floor, but he could feel sand lining his gums and scratching the back of his throat. "How did you get here?" He whispered. "I've only been here a few days."
"I flew," Mal explained in a tense tone. "We need to take you straight to Fairy Godmother." She stepped back. "Toad's breath and vampire's tickle, open up these locks a little!" She hissed. The locks all opened as one, and suddenly Ben was free-falling into Mal's arms. She caught him, struggled a moment under his weight, then whispered: "Take a break; you're feather-weight."
Ben's body grew lighter, though the combination of Mal's magic with whatever was already in his body was making his head feel like it was full of cotton. Mal carefully lowered him onto the floor. Ben cried out as he moved his neck. "Ouch! Ow, ow." He bit his tongue.
Mal quickly examined the area. Her face grew a little pale. "Oh no," She whispered. "It's on your neck too? How far did she get you?"
Ben's hands were numb and his fingers had turned grey and were immobile, but he did his best to gesture to his ribcage. The marks ended with the last of his ribs. Mal began to peel off his armor, inch by inch. Ben cried out. The bloody sand had glued his armor and undershirt to his body. Mal bit her lower lip as she worked at a painstakingly slow pace. Every jostle, every pull, caused Ben intense pain. The sounds of battle outside slowly faded as she worked. It felt like many painful years had passed before Mal finally worked the right half of the armor off of Ben's skin. When she saw what was underneath, she turned so he couldn't see the tears collect in her eyes.
Black steam wafted off of his wounds and dissolved into the air, resulting in a smell akin to rotten milk. The skin around the scrapes had festered and turned green. Entire layers of skin peeled off and stuck to his undershirt like they were part of the fabric. Streaks of dark, fiery red ran across the skin and stretched toward his back like burns. Mal swallowed bile and then turned back to inspect the wound. "Blood poisoning," She diagnosed. "I saw it on the Isle. Harry Hook's younger brother... died of it."
"But with Magic?" Ben prodded.
"Don't say anything of the sort," Mal snapped angrily. "I lost my mother to magical poisoning and I won't lose you as well, so you might as well keep your mouth shut because I refuse."
As Mal tried to maneuver the rest of his shirt off, the skin split like a child pulling silly putty apart. Mal let out a string of Elvish words that sounded a lot like curses to Ben as he screwed his eyes shut. Sandy tears filled his eyes as sandy blood spilled out of the new wound that ran in between all of his ribs and down to his groin. Mal hastily pressed her hands as to the skin, trying to hold them together even as the skin withered before her eyes and took on an ashlike appearance. "To see you whole is my only goal; Come back and heal in body and soul," She commanded through tears.
What happened next can only be felt in the moment, and never described hereafter.
A horrible pain arched through Ben's body. He yelled and spasmed. His arms and legs took on a life of their own as they flailed, and Ben's head split along the crown so that blood, thick with sand, began to pour down into his eyes. Mal whipped her hands away as Ben writhed in absolute agony. "Stop, stop, stop!" She screamed, staring at her hands in horror. The spell had failed, the spell had failed. Ben, who was still conscious despite the pain, couldn't turn away from her. The fear in her eyes was palpable. She was horrified with herself. As much as knowing he was days - maybe hours - away from death, it hurt more knowing that this moment would haunt her for years as the first time her magic had lashed out and hurt someone without her intent.
"S- issa okay." He slurred. His fingers didn't work, but he tried to put his hand on top of Mal's. "Les jus no do tha til we see Fai Go'mo'er." He tried to speak. Bitter tears started to fall from Mal's eyes.
"I'm sorry…" She whispered, shaking her head. "I should have been here sooner, I should have been here."
Ben couldn't shake his head. He couldn't even move his neck. But he focused on moving his lips, and silently mouthed the word: "No."
Mal sniffled and looked back at the remnants of his shirt and armor. She carefully pulled them back into their original place, hoping that the sandy bleeding would stop, and moved to cradle her husband's head in her lap as she tried to figure out what to do. She kissed his forehead as her tears fell onto the floor around them. Ben slowly, carefully moved his hands up above his head, though the wounded skin stretched and ached in protest, and rested his hands right up next to her stomach. Mal laughed at him as bitter tears fell even faster. "You're silly," She told him as guilt and bitterness joined the enthrall of misery inside of her.
Ben did his best to smile for her. He knew he probably had sand everywhere in his mouth and black sand now covered his head, but he tried nonetheless. "I thought you'd at least wait to get home before you undressed me," He teased. To his pride, his speech was already improving from his almost-seizure.
Mal chuckled a little as she ran her fingers through his hair, carefully avoiding the laceration on his scalp. It was clear she wasn't sure what to do or how to move him. He responded by rubbing his numb knuckles up and down in a little vertical line about two inches from her belly button. "If only you were a little nicer to look at." She smiled.
"My wife doesn't think I'm pretty anymore," Ben mourned.
Mal giggled and leaned down to kiss his head. "You'll always be handsome to me," She assured him. She carefully laid his head back on the ground. Ben brought his hands back down. Mal bit her lip as she looked him over. "This will hurt, but I have to move you," She told him.
He nodded slowly. Mal took one arm and helped him put it around her neck. Then slowly, carefully, she slipped her arms underneath him and lifted him. Ben cried out. His entire ribcage felt like it was being eaten by a vicious beast with fiery claws and icy teeth as she carefully took him into her arms. As soon as he was secure, she began to walk out of the building. Down the numerous flights of stairs that she'd just climbed until she finally found the door into the entry hallway. Jack Frost, Hiccup, and Astrid were loitering inside, waiting for her. When Hiccup saw Ben, he turned around to be sick. Jack and Astrid too, looked very green.
"Jack, help me with him," Mal commanded. Jack jumped into action and hurried to Ben and Mal as they began to walk outside.
The city was desolate. The army had been destroyed. Mal could see no trace of either civilians or prisoners, though the houses looked mostly unharmed. Everyone was gone.
"Farquaad got away," Astrid informed them, following slowly. "Jack said another villain was here? A sand one?"
"A daughter of Pitch Black and Eris," Mal declared. "She's the one who did this to Ben."
"Troy," Ben coughed. He was barely coherent, but he had to make sure they knew. "She is Troy. She does this."
Jack coughed. "Troy?" He repeated. He and Astrid exchanged looks.
Mal turned to Jack with Ben. "I'm going to transform, and I need you to put him on my back. If you can, it'd be great for you to ride to Auradon with me. I'm taking him straight to our Fairy Godmother before anything else happens."
Jack held his breath as Mal passed Ben over. The smell of rotten milk wasn't letting up despite the open air. "I can do that," He agreed. Mal nodded and backed away several paces from them. She imagined Helena and Eris and Pitch and how she was going to make them pay for everything and felt the scales form on top of her skin. Her body stretched and morphed until she was about three stories taller than Ben, Jack, Astrid, and Hiccup. Hiccup, who had regained some color, was starting to catch up with the group. Ben didn't react much – he was falling incoherent.
Jack flew up to Mal's head and carefully laid Ben down on one side of the spikes running down her spine. Mal felt ice appear on her back as Jack used his powers to secure Ben to her. "He's good," Jack called after a while, which was a lie. "Let's go."
Without a sound, Mal leaped into the air. As she flew directly up, she parted the clouds, and sunlight broke through onto the overcast land for the first time in almost fifty years. Jack held on for dear life as Mal the dragon beat her mighty wings for a direct path to Auradon.
"Good morning." Carlos yawned as he strolled into Evie's room and waved hello at her roommates. He set an apple, a yogurt parfait, and an eclair onto her desk where she was sitting, reading the morning news with a furrowed brow. "You're up early," He commented.
"Had to finish a project," Evie muttered under her breath as she scrolled.
"Mhm," Carlos nodded. "I was up until, like, midnight with the guys in our room. We were playing Hero's Duty for like, five hours." He laughed, pulled up a chair, and collapsed into it. Mavis, who was also a design major like Evie, turned over in her bed and pulled her pillow over her head.
"Did you finish your Electrical Engineering project?" Evie asked in a condescending tone. She still didn't look up from her phone.
Carlos wilted. "Well… it's mostly done," He mumbled. "I can finish it before it's due."
"Today?" Evie asked. "You have it first period."
"You're right," Carlos sighed. "I'll go finish it." He stood up and hesitated. "But first… what are you looking at?" He tried to crane his neck to look over her shoulder. Evie ripped her gaze from the phone screen and shoved a full-screen color photo into Carlos's face.
"The queen turned into a dragon off the Kuzkonian coast around four in the morning and promptly flew away, disappearing in under a minute and knocking down two trees with the wind from her wings," Evie informed him.
At her words, all of Evie's roommates sat up. Mavis looked like Anna in the Frozen movie, waking up with her black hair coiled in her mouth. Another girl rolled off her bed with a yelp and stumbled blindly to Evie's side. "Whaaa?" She yawned.
"I'm sorry," Carlos said, looking like he'd swallowed a plum. "Queen? As in Belle? Or one of the minor royals? Or, like, the queen, our friend the queen, Mal?"
"Do you know of any other royals who have the ability to morph into gigantic dragons with mile-wide wingspans?" Evie asked, annoyed.
"Mile-wide?" Carlos gasped. He examined the picture in shock. It was as Evie had said. An enormous dragon with gigantic wings almost as wide as the dragon was long. The photos were dark due to the early morning, but clear. "Since when can Mal turn into a dragon?" He asked.
"I don't know, who knows what she does at the moors?" Evie exclaimed, throwing her hands – and her phone – into the air. Carlos panicked and snatched it out of the air from underneath Evie's roommate's nose.
"Wait, I'm sorry, why is the queen leaving Auradon?" Her roommate blinked and rubbed her eyes.
"What?" Evie and Carlos snapped at the same time. Evie's roommate jumped back in surprise.
"Well, north? As in, where that new continent everyone is talking about is? Where the king is?" She trailed off.
"That doesn't make any sense." Evie pursed her lips. "Mal is due to leave for the moors like, thirty-two minutes ago. She didn't mention any of this when I called her last night. She's the only currently-coronated royal, and she's pregnant? Why would she up and leave for the Overland if-"
"Maybe Ben needed her?" Evie's roommate yawned.
Carlos and Evie stared at her.
"What?" She asked.
Carlos turned to Evie with a pointed finger. "That would do it!" He exclaimed. "Just like when Gaston captured Ben on the Isle!"
"Excuse me?" Mavis sat up in bed. "Beast's son… Gaston?!"
"I'm calling Belle." Evie took her phone from Carlos and began to walk out of the room.
"You have Queen Belle's number?" Another girl sat up and stared at Evie incredulously as she opened the door and stepped out. The last thing they heard was her saying: "Hi Belle," as the door closed.
"We lived with the queen for over a month." Carlos rolled his eyes. "Now if you'll excuse me… I've got a project to finish." He hurried to the door as the three girls exploded into protests and came face to face with a red-eyed Jay, who was holding his phone up in a panic.
"Mal… Queen… Dragon!" He exclaimed with wide eyes.
Carlos threw his hands into the air. "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?" He yelled.
His voice echoed off the halls. Doors opened one by one, all the way down the hall. Tired college students peeked out. "What's going on?" Someone asked.
At the very end of the hall, a door banged open and into the wall. "The queen turned into a dragon and left the country!" Pocahontas's son Paco waved his cell phone in the air as his braids swung back and forth around his shoulders. There were about four seconds of silence, and then the corridor exploded into sound. Carlos pressed one hand to Evie's back and one hand to Jay's and marched them both out of the corridor quickly.
As Mal soared back within range of Auradon, news feeds all over Auradon and the moors began to blow up. She took a direct course over Kuzko's empire, the clan of Dun Broch, and circled the north mountain to make it back into classical Auradon. All in all, she probably passed over Auradon in forty-five minutes. Still, over two-hundred total minutes of footage on the gigantic dragon would appear on Auradon and the Isle's inter-web before the sun even went down.
Mal landed on the road in front of the palace as Belle, Adam, Lumiere, Sophia, Stewart, and about fifty of the royal guards rushed out of the palace to see what was going on. Jack Frost carefully removed Ben and flew him to the ground. Stewart and about thirty other men cocked their guns as Mal snorted at them all. One of the other guards had his phone out and was filming the entire encounter. She shifted back, much to the shock of many of the Auradonians, and rushed to Ben, who Jack had laid carefully on the ground. He was beginning to spasm and twitch occasionally in pain. Sandy black foam collected at the corners of his mouth. "Take a break, you're featherweight." She commanded loudly. Ben called out in pain. It seemed to Mal he was becoming more sensitive to any magic. When they'd passed through the barrier, he'd had a minor seizure that had only made Mal more desperate to get him back.
Mal lifted him up. Black blood dripped from underneath his armor and onto the ground, forming smooth, black stones similar to when Helena had cried onto the sand. "Out of my way!" She snapped at everyone gathered outside. "Belle, Adam, call the Fairy Godmother and summon a doctor. Sophia, help me get him up to our room!" The crowd parted as Mal walked through them. She paused only to roll her eyes at Stewart. "I thought Auradon didn't do executions." She commented before she continued onwards, referring to how every guard was holding a gun at ready. Sophia opened the door for her, and the royal party hurried upstairs with an entourage of every available guard in the castle.
Black blood dripped on the floor all the way up the stairs.