"Do you really think it's a good idea to wear these today?" Mal questioned as she pulled on a loose plaid button-up short-sleeved shirt, tucking it in swiftly.
Mal was currently knee-deep in a conversation surrounding the value of Evie's outfits when working on a farm. Evie was adamant that they were the best option, but Mal was mostly sure that it was not a good idea to dress up so fancily when they were going to be dealing with animals. There were too many opportunities to mess them up completely.
"Well, yeah. That's what I made them for- authentic cowgirl living," Evie informed Mal proudly, and Mal just raised an eyebrow at her as she shook her head.
"E, am I tucked in all around?" Mal questioned, and Evie paused as Mal turned slowly.
"Yeah. But come on, M!" Evie pleaded, going right back to her begging about the outfits. Mal groaned, looking at the clothes that Evie had very neatly laid upon Mal's suitcase. Mal spotted the hat on top of the pile, and she sighed, reaching down and grabbing it as she put it on her head.
"I will wear this. That is all I will do," Mal told her carefully. Evie just sighed, pouting as she gazed at her best friend.
"Yo, throw me my hat. I think it ended up over there with yours somehow," Uma called, and Mal rolled her eyes, picking up the green hat and slinging it to Uma. The pirate captain caught it quickly and placed it on top of her head.
"Yeah, you threw it at me last night in your sleep, and the brim hit my face like a train. I think you were dreaming about something or another," Mal replied simply as she eyed the girls on the other side of the room that were getting dressed.
"Huh, I was wondering why that groan of surprise and slight pain was so realistic," Uma marveled, and Mal just scoffed.
"Mal, why won't you wear it with me?!" Evie demanded, already clad fully in her outfit, and Mal groaned.
"Nobody else is wearing them except Audrey!" Mal proclaimed, gesturing at the pink princess. Evie turned to face Audrey, and her face lit up in a giant grin as she looked at the girl. Evie strode over and threw her arm around Audrey's neck as she took her over to face Mal.
"And you see, Mal, that's called loyalty!" Evie declared self-righteously, and Mal rolled her eyes with a huff. Audrey looked exceedingly uncomfortable to be in the middle of this discussion.
"Okay… I really don't know why you're making this such a big deal," Mal expressed, turning and starting for the ladder. Evie followed her quickly, letting her arm slip from Audrey.
"I just want my best friend in the whole entire world to wear my masterpieces with me!" Evie sweetly told her sister as they started to descend the ladder to the lower level of the barn. Audrey, Uma, and Jane followed them quickly.
"I'm wearing your boots and your hat," Mal informed her, trying to be helpful. Evie just sighed.
"I know, Mal. I know," Evie told her, and they started out of the barn, Evie's arm thrown around Mal as they headed for the house. Uma trailed behind them, looking around as she tried to spot a certain fluffy creature.
Mal tentatively knocked on the door, and Anne called for them to come in. They went inside the house, Evie releasing Mal as she followed Mal in. When they all gathered in her small kitchen, Anne turned and smile at all of them.
"There you dears are. Just in time, too," Anne claimed, and Mal had the feeling that she was about to ask one of them to do something. She was really hoping that Anne wouldn't ask them to cook. It never went well when they tried to cook. Uma was the only one with a remote chance, and even then, she only knew seafood.
"Audrey, honey, do you think you could go out and get some eggs from the chickens? I'm working on the pancakes right now," the elderly woman informed her, and Audrey gulped hard, inevitably thinking of her intense fear of poultry.
"Yes, ma'am," Audrey respectfully replied, not forgetting her manners as she instinctually nodded to the old lady and almost curtsied. However, she caught herself with the curtsy.
"Just go straight out the door and around that building over there. On the other side is the chicken pen," Anne told her, and Audrey nodded before starting out the door and heading for the fence.
As Audrey grew closer, she suddenly heard a rooster crowing, and she jumped, before closing her eyes tightly in an attempt to pull herself together.
"Okay, Audrey, you are fine. They're a bunch of tiny chickens," Audrey reassured herself, starting to head around the building once again.
"They're way smaller than you, and there's no way that a chicken could ever hurt you. Chickens don't hurt people," Audrey told herself as she attempted to build her own confidence, but suddenly realized that she had no idea if chickens hurt people or not.
Audrey swallowed, but steeled herself, knowing that she was a self-sufficient young woman and perfectly capable of handling herself. She then headed down the side of the building as she gazed at the fence attached to it.
Her eyes went ridiculously wide as she rested her gaze on the biggest chicken she ever saw in her life.
It was like a nightmare-sized chicken. It was huge, black and white, and a huge fluffball of feathers everywhere. It had feathers on its legs where there should have been yellow, and it had huge, draping tail-feathers. Its head tilted to look her in the eye, and she quickly realized it had red eyes. Audrey thought she might completely freak out, and that she should definitely go back in and get one of the other girls to come out and take care of it.
However, it was then that she thought of how Uma would treat her, and Audrey let out a calming breath, reaching for the handle of the gate.
"It's okay. It's okay," Audrey muttered under her breath as she opened the gate, stepping in quickly as she tried to avoid chickening out- no pun intended.
The rooster before her immediately crowed, and she jerked slightly, realizing that the big giant one in front of her was the male of the group. As soon as she was in the gate, there were an enormous group of hens starting to surround her, and she swallowed hard, stepping over toward the henhouse, and trying to avoid getting too close with the birds.
"Move over… Move over… Good chickies," Audrey praised, and she entered the house. She then started to pick the eggs out of the nest boxes.
She winced as one felt exceedingly warm. Another one felt sticky. And another one… Well, it was covered in chicken poop.
"EWW!" Audrey cried, completely grossed out by the fact that now it was on her hands. After a moment, Audrey was ready to leave, and she realized that all of the chickens had come in with her. They were blocking her only exit. And there was that blasted, scary rooster standing there next to her and staring her in the eye.
She suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, and she nearly screamed as she stepped around and through the group, almost leaping toward the gate with a bunch of eggs in her hands. Audrey slung it open before shutting it swiftly, the chickens pouring out of the henhouse.
Audrey sighed in relief, turning and heading back for the house as she mentally patted herself on the back for her resilience.
"I'm back, and I've got breakfast!" Audrey proclaimed, and everyone offered various expressions of praise and kudos.
"Very good, dear. Now, can you rinse them off?" Anne questioned, and Audrey resisted the urge to whine as she had already managed to get her sleeves pulled back to wash her hands from poop.
"Yes, ma'am."
After a while, the group had eaten their breakfast, and Evie was the first one to head outside on the porch. Mal and everyone else were in deep conversation with George and Anne about something or another. Evie normally would have stayed with her best friend, but she decided that she wanted to have a look around the farm. Or at least see it from the porch at her own unhurried pace.
Evie looked around quietly, enjoying the fresh smell of country air surrounding her. She closed her eyes, reveling in the serenity of it all. Something about the city was really lacking when it came to this sort of relaxing calmness.
But all of that soothing quiet came to an abrupt halt as soon as she heard a honk. Evie's eyes shot open and she looked at the creature that made the sudden noise. There next to her off the porch was Elmer the goose.
Evie stared at him for a moment, but she mustered up a smile as she sat down on the porch to better face the goose.
"Hi, Elmer. I'm Evie," she introduced herself, and he just looked at her.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot, and I just wanted to say that I think we could get along really great," Evie informed him, launching into her one-sided conversation.
"It's just… and don't take this the wrong way… but you have a real biting problem," Evie regretfully told the creature. He honked, and Evie winced.
"I'm sorry. It's just that I've never been bitten on the behind before. Not even on the Isle, and over there, people bit people. Heck, even in Auradon I've been bit. Mal and I were joking around, and I was sitting next to her when she decided to take a bite out of crime on my upper arm," Evie explained somewhat awkwardly, remembering Mal's biting problem well.
"But you see, the difference between Mal and you is that Mal only does it to people that she cares about most. She has so far bitten Jay and Carlos- our brothers," Evie made sure to clarify, "and me."
The goose just looked at her curiously and Evie sighed, feeling that she needed to go into more detail for his benefit.
"Well, I had gotten curious about it and looked it up, trying to check if it was normal when Mal had no explanation for her reasons for doing it. According to my research, it is tied loosely to something known as cute aggression and it is perfectly normal for someone to want to bite someone they love. It's an overwhelming flow of positive emotion," Evie informed him, and she realized that she needed to amend her statements quickly in case the goose was getting the wrong idea. And from the odd look in his eye, he was definitely getting the wrong idea.
"See, the thing is that you don't even know me. So, I think yours is just pent-up aggression stemming from negative emotion," Evie told him, dedicatedly keeping up her one-sided conversation.
"Now, so what you need to try to focus on is not biting people, okay?" Evie expressed, and the goose just looked at her, tilting its head as it honked.
"Good, good. It was nice having this talk with you," Evie sweetly informed him as she stood up from her place on the porch, stepping off into the grass as she turned her back to the goose.
After only a second, there was a hard pinch on her behind in the exact same place but on the other side.
"OW! You little… Biscuit-eater!" Evie cried, and she stopped, looking around in an attempt to ensure that no one had heard her.
"A biscuit-eater?" Mal chuckled as she came out of the front door. "Seriously?"
"You weren't supposed to hear that. I am not setting good examples for you," Evie sighed, and Mal snorted at her. Evie pursed her lips, not impressed with Mal's lack of regard for rude language.
"Don't worry, I could say much worse than you could ever dream of actually saying. You want me to show you?" Mal questioned teasingly, and Evie shook her head.
"We're good," Evie assured her, fully certain of her words as Audrey, Jane, and Uma came outside followed by George. The three girls stepped off the porch to stand with Evie and Mal.
"Okay, girls. Are you ready for your first day?" George questioned with a smile, and they all expressed varying forms of agreement.
"Alright! Well, Evie and Audrey will be mucking the horse stalls today," George announced, and Audrey's eyes went wide in horror. Evie didn't know what George was talking about, but Evie did know that she thought horses were cool.
"Uma and Que- Mal. Y'all will be helping me fix the fence for the sheep," George informed them, and they nodded easily.
"Jane, your job ties in with Uma and Mal's because you're going to be shearing the sheep while they're penned up tight. As we fix the fence, you'll set free the shaved ones into the bigger fence," George told her, and Jane's eyes went widely.
"Well, if you have any questions, just let me know, and I'll be happy to help you out."
"I'm good. Just… One little question, though."
"What is it?" George asked kindly, and Evie smiled slightly, sheepishly looking at him from under the brim of her hat.
"What's mucking the stalls?" George just chuckled in response to her inquiry.
"I reckon you should ask your helper that. She seems to be well-acquainted with the subject if that look is anything to go by," George pointed out, and Evie noticed that Audrey was staring at her as if she was out of her mind. Evie offered him a huge grin before looking at Audrey somewhat curiously.
"Well, the stuff that you two need are over at the barn just outside the door, and I'm going to get the things that we need," George gestured at himself, Jane, Mal, and Uma before heading off. Uma and Mal shared a glance with a shrug. Jane looked terribly pale, and Evie was still completely clueless about mucking stalls.
"So, what is mucking a stall?" Evie questioned innocently, and Audrey rolled her eyes.
"It's shoveling horse crap and taking it away," Audrey informed her in a loud whisper, totally outraged at the fact that she would be having to do a job that the stable boys always took care of at home. Evie's eyes went hugely wide as she gasped in horror.
Evie couldn't go and shovel horse poop. How was she possibly going to make it through that?
It then occurred to her that it could be a possibility to either trade jobs or trade partners, and the worried look melted away from her face as she thought about this for a moment. Before long, Evie turned to Mal with the sweetest of smiles, her eyes lit up in that gorgeous manner that managed to get her anything she wanted from almost anybody.
"Mal… My best friend forever, my sister, one of the precious holders of my heart, apple of my eye, sweet little nugget of goodness-"
"I'm not trading jobs with you, and I'm not going to switch with Thorn," Mal informed Evie, glancing at Audrey.
"No, no, I thought that you'd follow me anywhere! I'd follow you anywhere!" Evie pleaded, trying to guilt Mal into helping her out here. And by the looks of it, Mal wasn't falling for her tricks.
"Wow, you change tunes fast. The last beat I heard went something like," Mal pretended to stop and think before continuing with a completely neutral expression.
"Audrey was the perfect picture of loyalty and it implied that I wasn't," Mal pointed out with a raise of her eyebrow as her expression shifted into something more wicked.
Evie's jaw went slack as it occurred to her what she had said that morning. Evie then put on one of her one-thousand-watt grins that conveyed all of her sweetness and guiltiness at once.
"Well, you see, it's really funny you mention that. That was just a joke," Evie laughed helplessly, knowing she had already dug this ditch for herself. She knew Mal wasn't really mad at her. She could see in Mal's features that she wasn't irritated at all, and was instead enjoying herself greatly.
Evie felt an impending sense of dread creeping upon her as she realized that Mal was having her moment of wicked mischief that she seemed to like to victimize Evie with every once in a while. It was always harmless, but it was always something that Evie hated or at the very least immensely disliked.
"I'm sorry, Evie, but I'm leaving you to it. It's really not as bad as putting up a barbed wire fence. Besides, I think that you'd do… so much better than me at picking up poop," Mal snickered, and Evie almost whined in frustration. Evie hated it when Mal got these mischievous streaks.
"You'll be alright, Blue," Uma informed Evie, reaching over and grabbing her shoulder firmly before smirking evilly. "You just gotta put on your big girl panties and buck up."
Mal and Uma both looked like they might laugh, and they turned, heading toward the sheep fence with Jane following them.
"Well… Well… We'll do great!" Evie declared defiantly, frustrated as she tried to play Mal's game in turn. She would not let Mal's mischievousness overtake her.
"I'm sure you will!" Mal replied, snickering as she grew further away.
"I am a strong and independent woman, and I can do this!" Evie announced.
"Are you telling us or yourself?" Uma questioned, cackling wholeheartedly, and Evie set her jaw, huffing as she decided they would do this.
"Okay, Audrey, let's show them," Evie informed the princess as she started off toward the horse barn. Audrey half-groaned and half-whined as she followed the other girl.
And off they were to go shovel.
A/N: Sorry it took me several days to update. I've been busy with some stuff, and I'm also working on the next chapter that I thought was going to be part of this one. I rearranged it, because there would be way too much going on in this one chapter and it might get kind of hectic.
But anyways, I hope you all enjoyed! I'm feeling pretty sorry for Evie and Audrey right now…