Hey guys, sorry for such a late update, I definitely wanted this out way earlier than this. Thank you everyone for all your wonderful reviews and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
I just have two quick notes before this chapter:
1. I recognise that I'm playing a little fast and loose with the timeline here and I'm hoping to get back on track with the film's timeline with future chapters (this chapter is set roughly either right before the Family Day fiasco or after the film when things are starting to settle, I haven't quite decided so you guys can take your pick) but I did originally intend this fic as a series of vaguely related oneshots in the same universe so please forgive my shoddy timeline.
That being said, this fic will continue being updated with new in-universe oneshots while any plots that are going to be substantially longer are going to be posted as separate multi-chapter fics. I think that will be the best way to cut down on confusion and time hopping.
2. Shipping. So I've gotten a couple reviews requesting ships and my answer to them is both yes and no. The way I want to write this story is focused on multiple relationships and the relationships between our five main characters and the pairings are going to be changing a lot. Which means, yes you may see the ships you're looking for sometimes but don't expect them every time. I will tag each chapter with which ships are in each chapter.
So for this chapter, it can either be read as a friendship fic or as a Mal/Evie romance.
And again, thank you for reading, thank you so much for all the lovely reviews, and I hope you enjoy.
The Apple Doesn't Fall Far
"Benjamin thinks that my father was an apple."
"That's not exactly what he said." Mal's eyes flicked up from her sketch book as the picnic table rocked slightly when Evie and Doug took seats opposite her. Evie wasn't looking at her; glaring instead at the bright red apple in her hand, pink painted lips pulled down in a pout. Doug on the other hand was looking at her, alternating glances between her and Evie that looked more imploring than she had ever seen him.
And of course they had come to her.
"Fine, I'll bite. What did Ben say about your father?"
"Well, from what Ben has… noticed," Doug began, slowly and Evie cut him off with a roll of her eyes.
"What he means is from what Ben and Carlos have smelt with their freaky werewolf senses," she said, pursing her lips at Doug when he looked like he was going to protest. Then she turned back to Mal. "Also, when did it become normal for us to use words like werewolf?"
Mal glanced down at her sketchbook and couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face.
"Just add it to the growing list of things the magic of Auradon has brought out in us." She flipped up the sketchbook to show them the picture she'd been working on. She'd caught the boys snoozing in the late afternoon sun; Jay stretched out in the grass, his hat covering his face, Carlos curled up against his side, and Ben draped over both their legs.
It had the right effect on Evie. Carlos happy always did. The frown softened and nearly turned into a smile.
"So what is it that Ben and Carlos have smelled? If it's you smelling like flowers all the time, I could have told you that."
"Ben's more specific than that, actually," Doug said, setting a large, leather bound book between them. He flipped through to a page marked with a worn bookmark and pointed to one entry.
"What's a dryad?"
"It's an old myth, they're tree spirits. Well, technically the word refers to the spirits of oak trees in particular but it's come to mean any kind of tree spirit. It's what Ben thinks Evie might be. And from what I've been able to read about them… Tied to nature, eyes for detail, incredible beauty. It all fits." Mal resisted the urge to roll her eyes, his crush was cute but flattery could be laid on a little too thick, even when it came to Evie. But she was still smiling and for now that was good enough for Mal.
"Okay, I already know I'm beautiful, thank you, but that all seems pretty general. You could say the same thing about the faeries," Evie said, throwing a quick look at Mal that made her stomach flop a little and she ducked back down to look at her drawing. "So if Ben thinks he's onto something with his nose, what flower did he say I smell like?"
"That's the thing, it's not a flower." Doug paused a moment, looking at the both of them as if he expected them to jump in and guess the answer. When they didn't he sighed dramatically and gave them a smile that made Evie smack his shoulder. "Ben says it's apple blossoms."
"So Ben thinks Evie's father was the spirit of an apple tree?" Mal asked, tapping the end of her pencil on a blank spot on her page. "The problem with your theory is that, to the best of my knowledge, there's no one on the Isle like that. Nature spirits don't exactly scream 'I'm an evil mastermind, please exile me to the Isle of the Lost'. And it's not like any of us were born before the banishment."
"Exactly, so then I did a bit more research. Well… I asked my aunt."
"Your aunt?" Evie said, nose scrunching. "You mean Snow White? Why would she know anything about me?"
"Well, she is kind of your step-sister." More nose scrunching and Mal was sure Evie was going to hit him again. "More importantly, she knows as much as any of the royals, probably more, about your mother and her exile. And what she was allowed to take with her to the Isle."
"Like her mirror," Evie said, pulling it from her bag and running her fingers along the outside of the frame. "All her beauty supplies and a couple of dresses. There wasn't anything else."
"It was a lot more than beauty supplies the way Aunt Snow tells it. Knowing that magic wouldn't work on the Isle, she didn't see anything wrong with allowing the Evil Queen to take her alchemy trunk with her. And… And she also took her apple tree. Aunt Snow arranged to have it transplanted into her garden. To have something of home."
"But that's not…" Evie frowned again. "That's not right. There wasn't an apple tree in our garden. There weren't any trees at all on the Isle. Our gardens had shrubs and whatever flowers we could grow in the soil. No trees."
"Actually, from what I've read," Doug said, cowing slightly under the stares he was getting from both Evie and Mal at the admission. "There may have been enough magic in her supplies to cast one, small, spell. Not enough to do any damage to the barrier or anything but enough to-"
"Turn a tree into a person? Right," Mal scoffed, shaking her head before she went back to her drawing. "Having attempted transfiguration from my book; it takes a lot of magic to even turn an inanimate object into a different inanimate object let alone turn a living tree into a living person capable of fathering a child." She looked back at Doug and fixed him with her sternest look. "And where's he been for the last sixteen years then? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?"
"You're right, turning a tree into a person permanently would take an extraordinary amount of magic, I don't think anyone in Auradon has that kind of power. But doing it for…" He trailed off, not looking at either of them.
Mal sighed and made a circling gesture to try and get him to continue. "Come on Doug, spit it out. We don't have all day."
"It wouldn't have taken a lot of magic to do it for a couple of hours," he said, quickly and all in a rush.
"So what you're saying," Mal started, pointing her pencil in Doug's face and enjoying the recoil she got in response. She felt her cheeks start of heat up, they'd had some magic on the island? And no one said anything? "Is that, instead of saving the magic she had in order to figure out a way of getting them all off the Isle of the Lost, the Evil Queen used it-"
"To have me," Evie said quietly and the rest of her rant died in Mal's throat. Evie wasn't looking at either of them, just staring at the apple in her hand. There was an expression on her face that Mal had never seen before, one that wasn't quite sad but wasn't happy either, and it was like she'd dumped Mal with ice water.
If the Queen had waited, seen if she could have used it to help the others off the island, Evie wouldn't be here. Without that one decision, that one selfish choice, she wouldn't have-
She bolted off the bench without really thinking about it, coming to sit next to Evie and throw her arms around the other girl. Evie jumped slightly, not expecting the contact, but leaned into the embrace either way. When she finally looked up at Mal she seemed to have composed herself and held up the apple between them.
"This could be my dad," her tone was too sarcastic to really take seriously and that was so like her, make a joke to distract from something difficult or startling or scary. It was something she learned from Carlos.
What would they have been, without Evie?
"I don't think that's how it works, E."
Her heart was pounding. She'd spent so much of her time on the island hating her, wanting her gone and punished and… And now the thought of her not being there set an ache in her chest like she'd never known. She swallowed and Evie set her head on her shoulder.
"Uhh… Do you guys want me to leave you alone or something?" Both girls looked up at him, Evie still holding onto the apple.
"No, Doug, you don't have-"
"That'd be great, thanks. Bye Doug," Mal said, waving her fingers at him. He raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn't protest, sliding off of the bench and closing the book. Mal slammed a hand down on the cover the moment he went to pick it up. "But leave the book."
"We'll get it back to you, promise," Evie said and Mal was sure she was the only one who could tell how forced Evie's smile looked as Doug bid them farewell and began the trek back up to the school. "Mal, that was rude."
"He'll get over it." She pulled the book towards herself and flipped back open to the marked page. Her hands were shaking and she pressed her fingertips to the page to stop them, right over the fading illustration of a tree turning into a beautiful young woman. "So, a nymph. You think he's right?"
"Ben hasn't been wrong about us yet. Why would he be now?"
"Because it's fairly easy to be right about Carlos when he literally turns into a wolf when the moon is full or Jay with his lamp." She sighed and looked up into Evie's deep brown eyes. "What if he's not this time?"
"What's the harm if he's wrong?" Evie said, setting her hand on top of Mal's and straightening her back in a way that looked like she was steeling herself. "I don't know who my father was, Mom won't talk about him even to tell me not to talk about him like yours does. Maybe he was just some human with no magic at all, someone still on the island. Or maybe," she slid her hand off Mal's and set it one the wooden table. Mal was close enough, their shoulders were almost touching, and she felt the magic course down Evie's arm, like static on an old TV screen.
She lifted her hand and a perfect blue flower the same colour as her hair bloomed up from underneath it.
"Maybe he was special." She laughed and plucked up the flower, twirling it between her fingers. "I just figured out how to do this yesterday. It's not spell books and wands and enchanting people but-"
"Not yet," Mal said, taking the flower from Evie's hand and tucking it into the back of her v-braid. "When we first got here I could barely change someone's hair. And here you are already growing flowers out of table tops. We just need some more practice."
"And maybe someday we'll find out for sure who my father was."
Maybe someday, Mal thought as she pulled Evie closer and set her chin on top of her soft blue hair. She bit her lip instead of giving voice to her thoughts, how much she wanted to meet this mystery man, not just for Evie but to tell him how grateful she was, for him, for Evie, for things she couldn't ever say out loud. Maybe someday.
Instead, she snatched the apple out of Evie's hand and took a bite.
"Apples have always been my favourite."
She let herself grin as the sound of Evie's laughter filled her ears.