Present Day: 44 Days After Coronation
"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare / And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."
- Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The funeral was held exactly a week after the former king's death. Ben made a short and heartfelt speech, and Mal was the perfect queen-to-be, allowing Belle to cry on her shoulder. Her dress was black, with lace that clung to her body like skin, and a veil that hid her eyes - it was the most natural Mal had felt since her arrival on the shores of Auradon. She felt like a creature of the shade, surrounded by dark chiffon and tulle that made her seem like an untouchable thing, like a specter seen in the long shadows just before the dawn.
They all filed past the casket, lowered into the moist dirt under the steady drizzle of rain. All four of the original Isle kids were there, because they were more or less Ben's family, ever since he took a risk and invited them into his home. He'd tried so hard to make them all feel welcome.
Evie stood next to Mal with a somber air of mourning, and inside, she rejoiced. Mal met Audrey's eye from across the crowd of mourners, and there was a hardness there, a coldness that was new.
All of Auradon mourned with Ben today, and all of the royal families on the council were represented at the funeral. Chad stood beside Jane, and he seemed more focused on her than on the proceedings. Because of this, Audrey was seen pointedly glaring at Jane when she thought the girl wasn't looking. Jane herself seemed to radiate magic, and happiness, and even though she cried as the casket was lowered, she felt distinctly light inside, like a single balloon in the dim morning, bright and shining and lighter than air.
This was their happily ever after, the ending they deserved. They had suffered so much, sacrificed so much to get here, and no one deserved this more than they did.
For all the somber overtones of the funeral, the feast afterwards was joyous, and Ben presided over it all with Mal and Evie by his side, and no one dared to mention it. It felt more like a party than a funeral reception, and it was hosted in the marvelous grand ballroom of Castle Beast. The original servants of the family and their descendants still worked for Belle and the late King, and Chip (the former teacup) was now the director of the tea service, taking orders and sending out tea that was perfectly tailored to everyone's tastes. It was said that he never forgot an order.
This was the first feast that the new arrivals had gotten to experience in Auradon, and it didn't disappoint. All laid out before them was the bounty of Auradon, with a soup-course of any kind of soup imaginable, from all the kingdoms of the union.
From Maldonia was Tiana's special gumbo, and Freddie ate it with relish. She asked Tiana's daughter Naomi why it wasn't as spicy as back home on the bayou, and the girl blushed under her dark skin, and replied that the whiter parts of Auradon had a hard time with spicy foods. So Freddie passed her a little bottle of hot sauce under the table, and they shared a secret smile.
There was lentil soup from Agrabah, a hearty dish that was almost a meal of it's own, and Jay could remember his dad making it with the dry beans that sometimes got sent over on the Isle.
From China came egg-drop soup with thin-whipped eggs in broth of savory chicken stock and soy-sauce. Dizzy had never tried it before, and she slurped it down, much to the chagrin of her tablemates, who had been taught to sip lightly and never slurp.
From Auradon itself, there was onion soup, dark and rich, with a fine crust of bread and cheese on top. Evie found it delightful, and Mal watched her out of the corner of her eye, piercing the bread layer to let the soup seep up to the surface with a happy little smile.
"Everything is new to her." Mal murmured, smiling.
"It's part of what makes her so beautiful." Ben nodded, and Mal blushed with happiness, smiling at his notice of them both.
From Denmark (Ariel and Eric's domain) came a kind of preserved mackerel soup that Mal wrinkled up her nose at, but she noticed that it was very popular among other royals, like the Arendelle party. From the frozen nothern country that Elsa ruled, there was a chilled Borsht that the queen ate with a gentle pattern of frost on her bowl.
There were many more, of course, but to describe them all would detract from the story, so suffice it to say that the new arrivals tried a bit of everything.
The main course involved entrees and dishes from every kingdom in the union. Dizzy looked at it all with hungry eyes, almost ready to cry with happiness. It was more food than she'd ever seen in her life, and she could hardly decide where to start.
After dinner came a brief reception, where Mal and Ben and Evie traveled among the funeral guests with grace and some of the best acting Auradon had ever seen.
"King Adam was like a surrogate father to me," Mal sniffled when she spoke to Aladdin. "I never had one growing up, you know, and he was always so kind to us."
It galled her to lie about his behavior, to lie about the way he'd wanted to send them back to the Isle the very fucking second they arrived. No one from Auradon really knew how much he'd done to make the Isle a hell on Earth, and until Mal was solidified in her power, they never would.
Elsa smiled slyly when they came to speak with her, and murmured under her breath.
"There's something going on with you three, isn't there? I can feel it."
Nothing in her voice hinted at malice, so instead of being afraid or frustrated, Ben merely smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.
"We've been together for a month and a half now, and we're trying to ease into the transition." He sighed. "My father would never have allowed it, were he alive, so I'm not sure how my people are going to take it."
"Love doesn't always follow the rules." Elsa smiled again, and her eyes flitted over the crowds to her sister, who was making silly faces at Rapunzel from across the room. "But if anything, Auradon is built on the concept of true love. If you really love each other, your people will love you too."
"You speak from experience." Evie murmured, and Elsa grinned widely, showing teeth as white as the new fallen snow.
Evie felt, underneath all her makeup and glamours and pretty clothes, that she was a wolf in sheep's clothing. A witch was a dangerous creature, kin to the fae, and prone to deals and hidden secrets. Witches were blood and bone and sharp teeth in the darkness. They all went by nicknames, because if someone had your real name, they would use it against you, and not just through magic.
In Auradon, magic was tame. They used it in their technology, and caged it in the Isle. They pretended people like Genevieve Grimhilde didn't exist, people who had magic running through their veins and under their skin like lifeblood. And even though she pretended she didn't, even Fairy Godmother went by an alias.
Fairy Godmother. FG. Headmistress.
Mal had known her real name, because it was whispered to her by her mother back on the Isle. As they shook hands with the old woman, and she looked from Mal to Evie with a kind of knowing, Evie resolved to make her their next target.
Brigid Fairweather was named after the Celtic goddess of light and the hearth. The Christians called her Saint Brigid, and in the deep corners of the Bayou, they called her Mama Brigitte. Not the Fairy Godmother, of course, but the figure she'd been named for. Headmistress Fairweather was Auradon's only magic consultant, because she was the most powerful of "the good ones", and the only one Adam trusted to work magic in his realm.
If she were to suddenly lose her magic, it wouldn't seem strange for Ben to appoint a new consultant. While Mal was disliked by many of the nobles, she was adored by the commoners. Auradon's darling, the girl who slew a dragon for the sake of her new people. She was more than Ben's girlfriend now - most of the kingdom saw her as their future queen. It wouldn't be strange at all to appoint her the new guardian of magic. And then the changes could come.
Mal and Evie told each other this, through glances and whispers, and through the gentle pressure of their hands, held. Ben hadn't learned this secret language of theirs, but he would, in time.
All together, the funeral was a bore, but the food was good, and Mal knew where to go from here. She even had a faint idea of where to start.
When the coven assembled afterwards, they found Mal in the midst of making a new seal on the floor of the hidden room in purple shimmering paint. There was the symbol for Morrigan, her patron, and the triple goddess who symbolized magic on the Moors (Evie called her Freja, and Ginny called her Diana, and Hadie called her Hecate, but it was all the same goddess).
"So what's this new ritual for?" Carlos asked almost cautiously from the sidelines as Mal furiously measured out lines and symbols, and marked the rough draft with chalk before she painted it.
"I'm invoking the judgement of the goddess. If ever a person betrayed their gift and sinned against magic itself, it would be that stupid old woman."
No one had to ask Mal who she meant. She'd been complaining about Fairy Godmother ever since they first arrived, and everyone had felt the rate bubbling inside them when she misgendered Hadie, or implied that Evie was a whore, or made Mal feel like a bug under a microscope. How she was perpetually trying to set Carlos up with Jane, despite the fact that neither of them wanted it. How Carlos was terrified to tell her he couldn't ever like Jane, because he wasn't attracted to girls. She'd made her own daughter feel like a speck of dust, for fuck's sake, and Mal was done with it. Done.
That said, no one had ever tried something like this before, and there was no guarantee it would work.
"And if the goddess doesn't revoke her magic?" Evie asked quietly. She was still the only one who could get away with questioning Mal, and only because she was Mal's guiding star.
(The only conscience she'd ever listen to.)
"Then I'll kill her. Nothing is going to stand in our way, E." Mal retorted softly. "You aren't going soft, are you?"
"No." The witch smiled slowly. "Just making sure we're on the same page."
"Is the circle going to be ready for a ritual tonight?" Ginny asked, examining her nails nonchalantly, as if she couldn't care either way.
"Not tonight," Mal answered, and she brushed purple hair out of her eyes with a hand covered in chalk dust. Everyone could tell she was very occupied, but no one mentioned it. No one had ever seen Mal look so feverish,
"If you're busy, and it won't be ready by tonight, I'm gonna go summon an elder god to help with my French homework." Carlos said casually, and that got Mal's attention for a moment. Only a moment though. She got back to work and replied without really looking at Carlos.
"You mean the Marquis Forneus, right?" She asked, still sketching. "Along with knowing all the world's languages, doesn't he have the power to give someone a good reputation?"
"Yes...?" Carlos answered breathlessly. He'd been sort of kidding about summoning a writhing mass of Eldritch tentacles to help with French, but it wasn't hard, not for someone with his bloodline.
"Mm." Mal nodded. "See if you can put in a good word for me."
"It isn't like going to the grocery store, Mal." DeVil rolled his eyes fondly. "I can't just say, 'Oh, by the way, could you pick up some fame for my home girl Mal while you're out?'"
"Why not?" Evie giggled.
"Multiple reasons," Carlos muttered. "But mostly because he can't confer wishes to anyone but the one who summoned him, and the reason I can summon him is because my biological father is like, his demon boss or something."
"It was worth a try." Mal shrugged, and Carlos shook his head with quiet amusement.
"I might be able to summon Forneus by a coven-centric ritual and use my power like a solomonic shield generator..." The boy mused, but no one was listening anymore, as tended to happen when he started talking magical theory. Jay, however, looked at him with loving eyes.
"Did you even understand a word of what I said?" Carlos scoffed, but there was no heat in the words, and Jay smiled and shook his head.
"Not a fucking word."
It was, however, no secret at all that hearing Carlos talk brilliant nonsense was a huge turn-on for Jay. Freddie teased them mercilessly when Jay realized they were in his room, and feverishly shoved everyone out.
Everyone of course, except for Mal and Evie, but they were in the soundproofed room, and wouldn't be out for hours.
Which was more than enough time, Jay thought with a happy grin.