14:10 pm - The tourney fields
Evie and Doug had split off from the rest of the group, taking the eastern edge of the forest as it had been decided by Gil that the woods were the most likely place for Harry to have run off into.
Carlos, Jay and Gil were each taking a few hundred yards around the sides and finally, Jane had been joined by Lonnie and the two girls were checking the first few meters of the west side of the pitch.
When Carlos shouted that he thought he had found something, it took several attempts for everyone to make it through the undergrowth to where he was standing.
"Carlos?" Evie called, still hidden in the trees to his left.
"Over here, just follow the sound of my voice," he replied, cupping his hands around his mouth like a makeshift megaphone. Eventually, Evie and Doug appeared at the same time as Lonnie and Jane did, all four slightly disheveled from the off route path they had taken to reach him. Jay and Gil were already following the green trail Carlos had stumbled across so they followed the pair, keeping an eye out for broken branches and cut vines.
"The coast is this way," Jane realised and Evie smacked her forehead.
"Oh duh, of course, he's gone to the sea," she said to herself as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He's a pirate," she smiled widely knowing where he must have gone to.
The five who had been following the two older boys quickly caught up to them in an enormous clearing, the canopy opening to allow a large patch of sunlight to shine upon them.
"I doubt they've gone too f-" Jay paused, turning his head so fast his hair whipped him in the cheek. "Shush," he hissed, dropping to a crouch. Being an ex-thief and the best in the business, Jay had extremely sensitive hearing and his sudden hostility quickly put Evie and Carlos on edge.
The duo dropped to their knees, dragging down those around them. The undergrowth was thick and dense in the clearing, tall and vibrant due to the amount of sunlight it was bathed in so the group were easily concealed.
"What did you hear?" Lonnie whispered so quietly that Jay had to read her lips to understand her.
"It could have been an animal, there are some mountain lions around here," Doug told them, watching Jay intently as he began to stand from his crouch. The boy looked around slowly before his eyes widened comically.
From out of the dense woodland, Harry Hook appeared at the opposite side of the large clearing, sucking in a breath as he recovered from what looked like a run. A few seconds behind him Mal came sailing through the trees but she didn't stop. Instead, Jay watched the frustrated expression on her face morph into a wicked scowl as she continued running, leaping at the final moment onto Harry's back.
The pirate fell to the ground, Mal going with him and it was then that Jay ran to them, the rest of the search party quickly following him.
Mal's small fists were pounding into Harry's back as she swore and cursed him from her position, straddled over the back of his thighs. Harry was wriggling and attempting to turn over but somehow Mal had better leverage.
"Mal?" Evie huffed once she had caught up to Jay and the pair on the floor. She struggled to keep the laughter contained but it was Gil who broke first. His booming laughter causing some birds to scatter from the surrounding trees.
"Nice one H, being beaten up by a girl," he doubled over when Harry's head lifted from the ground, a bored expression on his face.
In one fluid movement, Harry had swung his legs up, kicking Mal between the shoulder blades and spinning them over, using his body to pin her back to the forest floor, her arms crushed under the weight of him as he lay back leisurely as if the girl underneath him was a deckchair.
With his hands behind his head, the point of his hook centimetres from Mal's right eye, he
"Get off her Hook," Carlos ordered feeling more confident with Jay and Gil by his side. Harry raised an eyebrow with a smirk.
"You're probably squashing her you oaf," Evie cried, kicking his sides lightly so that he rolled off of Mal. The girl below was fuming, her green eyes blazing but she simply stood up and grabbed Evie, pulling her back out of the clearing and toward the school.
"I am going to end up strangling him or he's going to hook me, just you wait," Mal promised, too far in her own thoughts that she missed Evie's feline grin. This was the Mal she knew and loved, fierce and feisty and it seemed all she needed was a certain pirate to light her fuse.
"I can't wait," was all Evie said, slotting her fingers through Mal's without breaking their strides.
16:28 pm - Harry and Gil's room
Once Gil had talked Carlos and Jay out of beating Harry to a pulp, the group had set back off for the school, ten or so minutes behind Evie and Mal.
Jane and Doug avoided Harry walking quickly to the lead the group, but Lonnie walked right next to him not making conversation but listening to the dirty banter the pirate tried to goad her with. By the time they had arrived back at the tourney field, everybody was making excuses so that they could finish their last minute homework before the new term began on Monday. The students had been back for just under a week but it had been filled with team building activities instead of classes.
Doug, Jane and Carlos all left to secure places in the library, leaving Lonnie and Jay to show the two new transfers their room.
"This one is mine and Carlos'," Jay pointed to his dorm room door. "And this one is yours," he told Gil, opening the door directly opposite that.
Inside the walls were painted a royal blue, the lower half covered in the same oak panelling as every other dorm room. There were the standard four poster beds, each with their own desk and walk in closet on either side. Gil dived onto his bed, sighing happily as the mattress squashed underneath him.
"I've never had a proper mattress before," he said, bouncing up and down on it like a child making Lonnie chuckle.
Harry on the other hand went to the walk in closet, running a finger over his clothes that had already been hung up for him. He set his hat and sword down on a peg and then reentered the room, pulling the bottle from his coat and setting it on the bedside table next to his bed with care. Jay and Lonnie simply watched the two boys get aquatinted with the room.
"Those bags on your desks will be school supplies, you know, books and pens and things. They should also be a school issued electronic tablet, toiletries and some spare uniforms," Lonnie told them, pointing to their desks which stood back to back in the centre of the room.
"Uniforms?" Gil echoed.
"Yeah, like the socks, track pants, sweaters to just chill around in," Lonnie supplied, pointing to her own Auradon socks.
"Where's the bathroom?" Gil questioned next as he leafed through a textbook.
"Boys bathrooms are down the hall to the left. The girls rooms are on the floor above so you shouldn't get too confused," Jay told him. "I'll come get you for dinner around six so I'll leave you to it," he smiled at Gil who grinned back.
"Thanks mate," Gil said, absorbed in the reading material in front of him. Harry just nodded, turning back to his bedside to look at the bottle.
Jay and Lonnie closed the door and decided to head to the gymnasium to practise their fencing skills, leaving the two new students to explore the comforts of Auradon Prep.
16:45 pm - The Girls Bathroom
Mal's favourite part of Auradon Prep had to be the girl's bathroom. It seemed to span the entire length of the long wing the dorms were housed in and oozed luxury and decadence, a wild contrast to anything back on the Isle.
There were massive gold framed mirrors hanging from the intricately plastered ceiling, each held up by thick chains of golden loops on the right wall. Mal loved to look into the old glass, enjoying the way it distorted and darken her reflection due to its the centre of the room were a dozen sinks, split into two and facing each other in a line. Mal and Evie like to take the final pair and pull funny faces at each other whilst they brushed their teeth.
The final thing in the first part of the bathroom was a counter that ran the entire span of the left wall, with stools underneath which most of the students used like vanities, the newer mirrors installed above more favoured than the ancient ones across the room.
Mal was glad the bathroom seemed to be empty as she walked through the first third and through the double doorway into the shower room. There were twenty or so cubicles which each housed a shower and a small wooden bench but Mal ignored them and continued through another set of elegant double doors.
Behind was a little anteroom with multiple doorways. She crossed the stone floor to the third on the right like she always did, thankful that it was unoccupied. Inside the small room was a single long window, distorted and frosted so nobody could see in and a sunken bathtub that was built into the centre of the stone floor.
Mal hung up her fluffy towel and set down her toiletries on the bathtub's edge, flicking the taps on as she passed them. As the steam began to rise and fill the air, a fragrant perfume settled around her as the water mixed with the soap she had poured into the tub, bubbles soon multiplying and growing on the surface of the water.
Mal lit the dripping candelabra in the corner and untie her dressing gown, hanging that up alongside her towel. She carefully climbed into the bath, groaning as the warm water enveloped her sore muscles from all of the running she had done earlier in the day. This was her favourite past time whilst at school.
On the Island of the Lost, most had access to only cold water and only on the rare days when Mal had the time, patience and energy did she used her magic to fill a metal tub with lukewarm water. Baths were a rare treat when she had been growing up, a luxury few experienced.
Here at the school, there were hot showers and bathtubs large enough to swim in, as well as soft towels and liquids that made bubbles. The jasmine scented products were Mal's favourite and often she couldn't help but pour in too much of the silky soaps.
She spent an hour in the bath simply relaxing, slowly kneading out her worn muscles and washing her hair until it felt like silk in her hands. When she realised her fingers and toes had shrivelled to resemble prunes, Mal held her nose and dunked under the water, felling along the bottom of the tub for the plug to drain the cooling water and bubbles.
As the bathwater drained incredibly slowly, Mal lathered a flannel with her favourite jasmine soap and began scrubbing her body down. She washed away the heartache Ben caused, the pain the thoughts of her Mother brought. She wiped away the tear tracks from yesterday and the insecurities she had felt. She rubbed away the anger Harry Hook brought and tried to fight the burning sensation in her chest with the fragrant flowered bubbles.
She ran the cotton over her arms and her neck, taking her time as she reached around her torso for her back. Then the flannel travelled down her breasts and stomach, leaving a trail of lather behind as she propped a leg up on the edge of the bathtub, one at a time soaping them up and washing them down.
Mal remained in the empty tub, sat on the small ledge until every last drop of water had gone, taking her troubles down the plughole with the bubbles. Once she began to shiver, Mal climbed out of the bath, wrapping herself in the towel and her dressing gown, her teeth chattering as the water evaporated off her skin.
She felt refreshed and renewed, powerful and herself as she made her way back through the bathrooms to her dorm room, calm enough to sit down and talk through her feelings with Evie.
It made Mal smile, just the knowledge that unlike the villains on the Isle, she could waste an afternoon in a warm bathtub and return to her room, safe and secure. This was where she belonged. Where she deserved to be and Harry Hook was not going to ruin her schooling experience she decided once and for all, and neither was Ben.
The smile on her face made some of the younger students hanging around the corridor shake with fear, running and hiding in their rooms when she neared them but it didn't bother her, as nothing seemed to bring her down at that moment, especially not stuck up snobs and princesses.
17:59 pm - Mal and Evie's room
Evie had been brushing her hair out, taking care with the ivory comb as she untangled her blue plaits, pulling them free of their grips, when Mal had entered their room, grinning.
"What's got you so happy?" Evie pressed, watching Mal through her reflection in the mirror on her desk. "A certain pirate perhaps?"
"I don't want to talk about Harry Hook because there is nothing to say. That chapter of my life was closed a long time ago," Mal replied simply, walking into her closet to pick out some fresh clothes
"If you say so," Evie whistled, turning her attention back to her hair.
Mal's head popped out from around the corner of her closet, an eyebrow raised and the corners of her lips tugged down. "What do you mean? Why did you say it in that way?"
"What way?" Evie feigned innocence, keeping her face poker straight as Mal emerged half dressed with her hands on her hips.
"Like you knew something I didn't, that kind of way," Mal clarified.
p style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"Evie's eyebrows rose ever so slightly as her friend's response. "Maybe because I can see something you can't."
"Like what?" Mal demanded, crossing her arms in front of her chest but the intimidating effect was lost since she had only managed to put on a skirt and a satin bra.
"Just that you've been more yourself today. Happier even," Evie replied, setting her comb down gently. She twisted in her seat to look at her roommate. "You can't deny you are happy in his presence." She didn't even have to clarify before a pillow came sailing from Mal's bed and into her face.
"I'm not talking to you about this," was all Mal said, bending down to pick up the pillow she had sent flying with some silent magic. "It's ridiculous. Harry and I are bad for each other, were bad for each other, that's why we were never together. Anyway, I hate him."
Evie laughed. "Alright, you keep telling yourself that. Mal... can I ask you something," Evie's tone changed from playful to serious as she got up from her desk to sit on her bed opposite Mal.
The purple haired girl nodded and copied Evie's movements, sitting cross-legged on top of her covers.
"How did you know you wanted to be with Harry?"
Mal rolled her eyes and went to stand up. "Gods above, stop trying to play matchmaker Evie, he hates me."
Evie shook her head quickly, her blue hair flying around. "No, no, I mean-" she hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I mean how did you decide that you wanted to sleep with Harry?"
Mal felt her eyebrows furrow and she sat down again. "How did you know Harry and I have slept together?"
"Rumours that went flying around but I just guessed really, there's a connection between you two that even you cannot deny," Evie explained, a blush rising up her cheeks.
"Um, well, I guess it just felt right. Like the natural next step from fooling around, why?" Mal answered slowly, watching the minuscule reactions on her best friend's face. "Is this about you and Doug?"
"He knows I haven't waited until marriage," Evie began before Mal cut her off with a hand held up.
"It just sex Evie, you can call it that without being sent back to the Isle."
Evie breathed deeply. "Fine, Doug knows I've had sex before and he told me earlier whilst we were looking for you and Harry that it really didn't change his feelings for me. He said he just was jealous that someone else had been with me before, you know." Mal nodded despite not knowing. "And I think I do truly love him and I... I want to."
Mal's eyes widened. "Oh, uh, okay then. You should, I mean, if you both want to. Don't they all wait until marriage here? Ben never seemed to be concerned about anything like that."
Evie nodded slowly. "That's the problem, I want to be with Doug but I don't want to have to wait until there's a ring on my finger."
"A few rapt knocks made the pair jump and then giggle, calling whoever it was to come in. On the other side of the door stood Dizzy and her dorm mate Annabel, the daughter of a local baker. The two girls were hovering hesitantly in the doorway at the sight of the two older VKs on their beds, obviously realising they had disrupted something. The fact Mal had yet to push on a shirt made them realise its importance.
"Sorry," Dizzy squeaked, leaning forward to close the door again but Evie stopped her.
"Are you alright?" Evie asked, going over to the two girls as Mal went back to her closet to finish changing.
"We, well I," Dizzy clarified after Annabel squeaked. "Was wondering if you could take me, I mean us, to dinner. This is Annabel's first year too so we don't know where to go."
Evie clapped her hands and nodded. "Of course we will. Mal?" she called for her roommate and the four girls made their way across the main building to the dining hall, chatting about mindless things happily.