They announce the Evacuation on Mal's {and Carlos and Evie and Jay's} birthday. It's especially ironic, then, that their first victims are the four of them.
"How d'you think they chose?" Mal asks, blowing a smoke ring. Evie shrugs, stealing the cigarette from her and pulling a drag from it herself.
"Does it matter? We're leaving anyway."
"I bet they asked Marissa who's the most fucked up. I hope so. That'll be fun, if they think you're a cannibal and I'm fucking my brother." Mal continued, lazily swirling circles on Evie's collarbone.
"Why would they ask J, then?" Carlos counters, kissing behind her ear. "Nah, I reckon it's like the draft. Our number just got picked. They probably weren't expecting for kids to be born on the same day."
{Neither of them are wrong, and neither of them is completely right. Plans for the Evacuation start when Marissa comes back from that disastrous town hall, shrieking and gibbering about Maleficent's children and the Evil Queen—although, to be fair to her, this had also happened to the first three spies they tried to send in, and none of them had ever snapped out of it. At least she managed to pull herself together after three very strong brandies.
King Adam had immediately begun arrangements to rescue the poor brainwashed darlings (he'd also begun arrangements to cede his crown to his son, so that he wouldn't have to deal with them).
Belle had been the one to point out that only bringing Evie, Mal, and Carlos over would absolutely alert the Isle that they had a spy in their midst.
Ben had been the one to mention that all their three targets were born on the same day and that that would be as good a cover as anything. He'd been the one to add Jahid-J-Jay to the program}.
"Does it matter?" Evie reiterated, standing up and untangling her legs from Mal's. "At least I won't have to eat deer heart ever again."
"They probably won't let you," Mal snipes, grinning wide, "It's like a gateway drug, y'know. Keep her away from all kinds of hearts in case she starts craving human ones again."
"Maybe I'll tell them I'm a vegan," Evie proposes, smiling back wickedly. "Oh, I could never eat something that came from a living being. It would be immoral." She held Mal's cigarette out of her reach, taking another drag, as Mal and Carlos cackled at her impression.
Their hysterics were interrupted by a small tic sound against the window, and then another. Evie crossed over the room to glare out the window but ended up only rolling her eyes when she saw J tossing pebbles at the window.
"Don't you know that the balcony wooing scene is dead?" She called down, not even bothering to step out onto said balcony.
"Well, if anything, I'd say it's undead," J shouted up. When he realized the three of them weren't going to come out, he meandered over to the wall, testing out the weight-bearing of the rusting drain pipes {he seemed happy with what he found, as he pulled himself up, starting to scale the wall}.
"It's definitely overdone," Evie shot back as he pulled himself up and over the balustrade.
"God, you're no fun, Waldeck," J complained.
"And I live to be fun for men."
"Your momma says you do."
"Yeah well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her."
"What are you doing here, J?" Mal interrupted their banter, tilting her head to give Carlos better access to her neck.
"Hm. See, I figured maybe you could answer that for me."
"I don't control your movements, man. So unless you're here to smoke or fuck…" She trailed off, moaning lightly.
"Sorry, babe, but I don't swing your way." Jay pulled a cigarette from a pocket somewhere and lit one off of the end of the cigarette Evie had stolen from Mal. "But I figured you'd wanna brief me on your mighty plan before we hit the shores of the promised land."
"The plan is to eat food that's way too expensive, steal some shit, and hopefully not get sent back," Mal told him. "Figured you could come up with something similar by yourself."
"What, you're telling me this entire Evacuation business wasn't orchestrated by your mother?"
"How the fuck would she do that? She's trapped here, same as the rest of us."
"Hey, I'm not questioning her," Jay defended, hands up. "She could probably do anything. That bitch is probably secretly running Auradon and this whole isle of the Lost thing is just an elaborate scheme to keep all of her potential competitors for world domination miserable."
"You're calling my mother a bitch?" Mal asked, eyes narrowed. Jay shrugged tendrils of smoke drifting from the corners of his mouth. They contemplated each other in silence for several seconds.
"I like you. You can stay." Mal decreed, holding out a hand imperiously.
"What do you want me to do? Kiss it?" Jay snapped.
"Friends share smokes," Mal informed him, cool as could be. "And I figured you might be wanting some friends in Auradon." Jay stared at her curiously, before tossing her the pack. There was a single cigarette left, and Mal grinned as she brought it to her lips, using sparks conjured from her other hand to light it.
"We are so, so happy that you decided to come and join us here at Auradon Prep,' the Fairy Godmother tells them, beaming brightly. Mal raises a single eyebrow and says nothing. The headmistress seems disconcerted by it, and the longer the silence goes on, the more plastic her smile becomes.
Evie eventually takes pity on the poor woman, although perhaps not in the way she would like.
"Yes, well, we didn't have much of a choice." Her lips are red and glossy (and she'd made Mal check for lipstick on her teeth three times before they climbed out of the car).
The Fairy Godmother is still smiling, although her eyes are threatening murder. "Yes, well, regardless." She takes a few seconds to compose herself.
"Regardless, we think this will be a wonderful learning experience for you, and we're so happy to have you here." Mal tries (and probably fails) to hide a smile at how inane the woman sounds.
"Prince Benjamin was supposed to be here to show you to your dormitories, but he was called away at the last minute on official royal business-" {This is both a very bald-faced lie, and not in fact a lie at all. Ben hasn't been picking up his phone for the last forty-five minutes, and so they'd made a contingency plan. But maintaining a good relationship with Auroria is very much part of the Official Royal Business™ of Auradon}.
"-so I'll be doing it instead." The Fairy Godmother ushers them into the building in front of them with great care, prattling on about when it was founded and how old the castle was. Mal rolls her eyes and grabs Evie's hand, pressing a smacking kiss to Carlos's mouth when the woman turns away for a second.
Once they are no longer under the microscope of the various journalists reporting on this momentous occasion, she falls silent, leading them through various winding corridors that all look exactly the same. Eventually, she comes to a halt in front of a nondescript door.
"This is our medical bay," she informs them, tone once again annoyingly bright.
"Good for you," Mal snaps, unimpressed.
"I very much do not care for your tone, young lady," The Fairy Godmother tells her. "The King and Queen have decided that in order for you to be integrated into the larger Auradon society, you'll first have to undergo a complete medical examination."
"We're all fine," Jay tells her, shrugging. "No broken bones, no one's got a fever. You gonna show us to our rooms yet?"
"I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. This is a compulsory medical examination, performed by some of the best doctors in Auradon." She pushes open the door behind her as she's speaking, and leads the four of them in, stationing them each at one of the beds on the right side of the room as she goes. Another woman comes in from a door at the other end of the room.
"This is Dr Chione, she'll be looking after you today. I'll send someone to show you to your dorms after you're done here." And with that, the headmistress swept out, probably as fast as she could.
"You can just call me Delia," Dr Chione told them, grin as bright and fake as The Fairy Godmother's was before her.
{Dr Chione really did not sign up for this shit. She is not 'one of the best doctors in Auradon'. She's alright, but she's here because kings and queens pay her well to stitch up their darling princes and princesses if they scrape their knees at school.
She'd once been stationed on the Isle of the Lost—med students were expected to do a year of their community service there—and she'd faked a family emergency within the month. It was dirty and terrible, and everything smelled bad and everyone was mean}.
The four of them were silent.
"Okay, uh, let's see. Jay, you're up first-"
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
"Well, I'm not sure about this, but I think he means no."
"Do the four of you understand that you are required to do this to be allowed to stay in Auradon?"
"Okay. So send us back."
"J! He doesn't mean that. we're really glad to be here."
"Oh, thank you. You must be Evie, then?"
"Guilty as charged."
"So you can go first then?"
"Oh, goddess, no."
"Why not?"
"Mother says that doctors are frauds who can't do things half as well as witches. I'm not about to go under your primitive knife."
""
"C'mon, Dells. Just put your signature on that line and we can go. None of us will tell, and you definitely won't." {Carlos would absolutely have told; if it was necessary. Or even just kind of interesting and shit-stirring. He was kind of an asshole like that}.
"Would if I could. But really, this is ridiculous. Just sit down, I'll give you some shots, take a couple of samples, and then you can go beat some prince up or something."
"Samples? The fuck do you want samples for, Dells?"
"Uh, the king especially requested-"
"Guess they gotta make sure you're not a brother-fucker, Mal. Hey, maybe you'll get sent straight back!"
"Drop it, J."
"And so appears the fairy princess's big bag guard dog."
"God, you're such a pain in the ass."
"Thought that was why you loved me."
"Fuck, no! You just showed up at E's balcony and never left."
"And that's why you love me, right."
"Fuck you."
"Sure. Just don't bring your sister-lover."
"I swear-"
"Boys! You're gonna make Mal mad."
"They gonna make me mad, and I'm the one with the surgical implements."
"Aww, c'mon, Dells. You gotta admit you're already half taken in by our charm."
"Reckon the dazzlingly good looks help too."
"Mal. You seem like a nice, quiet girl. Please just let me do my job."
""
""
"Okay, why are you laughing?"
"I really didn't say anything that funny."
"Okay, fine! I don't care either way. God. Here's the condoms I was supposed to give you. If you get tetanus, just don't tell anyone."
"God, what kind of baby complains about tetanus."
"Just because you were an idiot who got caught on the barbed wire on the first day of school doesn't mean we all were."
"Doctor, I really don't think I'm going to need these?"
"Policy mandates that you have them, Evie. The nurses at Auradon prep won't judge if you need to ask for more."
"No, really. If I was gonna have sex, I would have done it by now."
"Just keep them, please. Let me say I did one thing."
"No stress, E. I'll take 'em off your hands."
"J."
"You want these condoms?"
"Sure, hand 'em over."
"You want these female condoms."
"Oh. No."
"So why did you ask for them?"
"Well, I thought they were normal condoms, didn't I?"
"Oh, so it's not normal for women to have sex?"
"That is definitely not what I said."
"Right. But men's condoms are the normal condoms."
"Why are you even picking a fight about this? You're not gonna use 'em either way."
"It's the principle of the thing."
"All of you out!"
""
""
"God, what a total bitch?"
"I know, right. That was totally uncalled for."