(Evie)
A sudden blinding pain shot through Evie's body, a sharp metal pole blazed with fire sinking through her chest and abruptly cutting the warmth she had grown to crave in a short period of time from her body, leaving only an overwhelming pain behind. A gasp slipped passed her newly parted lips as she gripped the edge of the table with her hands tightly, using it as leverage to keep herself standing. What is happening to me? Her gaze slid down to the necklace that brightened every second with a red glow – a stark contrast against the dark blue of her shawl – figuring that it must be the causation. What do you want from me? She felt ridiculous and pathetic for accusing a necklace of a list of irritants, let alone talking to it as if it would respond to her and give her the answer she desperately needed to hear; you're insane, a necklace can't do anything but look great. However, no matter how many times she tried telling herself the answer she needed to hear she couldn't seem to get herself to believe it.
Taking a deep, controlled breath she tried to focus on anything besides the pain currently scorching the inside of her body, but she only found tears forming in her eyes as she grew desperate for the unknown warmth to return. She had been basking in the relaxed feeling the second it had returned, fearing the moment when it would leave her again, however, this time it had lasted longer than it normally did, starting just before Ben and Mal had appeared. And ending when… her head perked up to the door the purple-haired girl had slammed behind her as she left; when Mal left. She shook her head, realizing she was reaching for scraps while searching for the reason behind the feeling she craved every second. It couldn't be my roommate; she wasn't near me the two other times I felt it.
As if reminding her that it was abnormal, the crowned heart began throbbing against her chest again, forcing her heartbeat to match its erratic rhythm. What is it now? She asked tiredly, her heart leaping into her throat to threaten her air supply when its rhythm changed abruptly, a thought that felt almost forced accompanying the new beat. The lunch conversation with Lonnie earlier this week. She fought against herself to breathe, her heart racing in panic due to the fact that the thought had occurred in her mind in a voice that didn't belong to her, or anyone she knew. It was like an unknown identity desperate for her to remember that conversation, and now that the thought had sparked in her mind she couldn't focus on anything else. She searched her brain and easily recalled every small aspect about the conversation that day; she recalled that Lonnie had sat down beside her, completely ecstatic to tell her something; she remembered Lonnie telling her about meeting a girl with the coolest hair she had ever seen; and she remembered Lonnie telling her that the girl had said her name was Mal. Mal. It has to be her. Shaking her head, she attempted to find another possibility, only to find her mind completely empty. No. I haven't been to many places, for all I know Mal could be an extremely popular name here in Auradon. But she was forced to stop when she remembered that Ben had stated that her roommate wasn't from Auradon, in fact, she was from somewhere she wouldn't tell anybody. Still, it could be a popular name in general. But the logical part of her brain set in and she found that she didn't believe that possibility even in the slightest. Okay, so maybe Mal isn't a common name, she panicked, trying her best to find a reason that would keep her from having to avoid her new roommate; but what's the likelihood that two girls named Mal would be in Auradon at the same time? High, right? That only failed, as well, when her mind gave her the correct answer; utterly unlikely, Evie.
Evie huffed in defeat, unable to give the girl an alibi. My roommate is the girl that was reportedly searching for me. Just like it should, a flicker of fear and panic flashed through her chest, but that was all it was; a flicker. As soon as the fear had taken hold of her body, crushing it with its murderous grip, a contrasting feeling crashed into her to battle the fear for the main slot; and it won. She still found herself incredibly intrigued by the girl, and though she didn't understand why she was as fascinated as she was she couldn't seem to stop the interest from growing. Evie could tell that Mal was the kind of girl that many people put their all into cracking, and all she could think of was that she wanted to be the only one who managed to get inside the girl. Mal was mysterious – and for an unknown reason that the logical part of her mind begged her not to listen to – Evie liked that.
Knowing that she wasn't going to be capable of getting any sleep she slowly lowered herself into the chair resting beside her, the random pain still clutching at her heart but with a lesser intensity. Her hands moved habitually, grabbing the abandoned fabric from the last outfit she had made and beginning to sew it into a completely new one. Her mind still spun quickly as she almost mindlessly sewed, frantically searching for a reason that tore her away from the mysterious lure her roommate emanated, away from the girl her mind knew was dangerous.
However, the second she thought she might be succeeding every frantic and panicked thought was ripped away from her, the progress slipping through her fingers as her entire universe began shifting slowly. The feeling was coming back to her. Slowly – almost as if it were coming back with timid footsteps – the warmth seeped through her skin, crawling through her veins until every area of her body, every crevice, was coated in a beautiful relaxation that calmed her forced fear and her craving.
And that was when the door opened.
(Mal)
Stunning red-brown eyes landed on her the second she stepped into the room, pinning Mal to the floorboards with invisible nails, the visible emotions pouring from the girl's eyes making her wish she could get lost in them. Mal shook herself from the trance, remembering that she had decided her strange attraction to the girl was rooted in the connection she had formed between them, and that she would see her as she saw everyone else once she severed the rope that bound them to each other. She chose to ignore the fact that she knew extremely well that a connection was nothing like a love-spell; she chose to ignore that the connection wouldn't force her to find beauty in someone; she chose to ignore that the connection wouldn't force her stomach to tangle around itself whenever the girl's uniquely colored eyes flickered to her green ones. She chose to ignore that the connection she had formed had been specifically designed for protection, and that it only allowed her to locate the girl and know what she was feeling despite any distance between them, so she could know if she were in trouble. She chose to ignore it all in order to believe the lie she had created. She had no idea why every form of connection had the ability of tearing the connected two into pieces if there was any tension left unresolved between them, all she knew was that she wished it hadn't been made to be that way because she didn't want to be forced into cooperating with anyone; and that's exactly what that part of the spell was doing, forcing her into being cooperative with Evie in order to avoid feeling any unbearable pain.
Mal completely ignored the fact that part of her wanted to cooperate with Evie, to get to know her and to let her through the iron walls she had fit around herself, knowing that this time the connection actually did have influence over the way she was feeling and that it wasn't her own mind speaking. It was an effective attempt to get her to avoid leaving the girl on a bad note. She thought back to when she had stormed out earlier, remembering the vivid feeling of the connection breaking even though it hadn't; it had been a warning that the pain would be much worse if it had actually been severed by behavior.
She didn't plan to break the connection through behavior, though.
There were three ways of breaking a connection; the pleasant and utterly unlikely way, the simple way, and the excruciatingly painful way. The first way was extremely unlikely because it required an actual, non-magical connection. The connection created with magic would let go if feelings strong enough to form a family, or romantic, bond were to develop, and Mal saw that as highly unlikely considering she never even formed weak feelings for people. The second way to break the connection was by magic, which was what Mal was planning on doing. The spell could be counteracted by another if performed correctly, and Mal had no worries that she wouldn't be strong enough to break the connection. The third way was the one she had just received a warning from, the excruciatingly painful way. This was done by hatred burning deep through at least one of the two connected, and it just so happened to be the most difficult, thankfully. It would take a great deal for one of them to begin despising the other due to the fact that the connection ultimately tricked them into believing they wanted to be with each other by flooding them with a perfect feeling of safety and relaxation every time they were close. Meaning that, even if they despised each other, they would still feel secure and comfortable with one another.
However, no matter how much she told herself that the other foreign feelings coursing through her body whenever she was in the same room as Evie were due to the connection as well, the knowledgeable portion of her brain that stored away every bit of information she ever soaked in reminded her that it wasn't the case. The connection only made her believe she wanted to be next to Evie at every possible moment, every feeling developed during the time they were together was solely her own. And though she generally never feared or worried about how she would feel when with someone – usually knowing that she wouldn't feel a single thing directly toward them despite irritation – she was terrified.
"Is that all of your things?"
Evie's voice tore Mal from her own mind, and as she quickly returned to reality she realized that she still stood in the doorway, the door wide open behind her. She cleared her throat and stepped further into the room, throwing the sole of her combat boot into the side of the door to close it before making her way over to the bed she already knew to be hers.
"Mmhm," Mal hummed, tossing her bag onto the bed and watching with amusement how the action shot a cloud of dirt into the air.
She could tell that Evie had the complete opposite reaction to the dirt than she had, not only through being able to feel the girl's disgust but also by witnessing the girl cringe through her peripheral vision. She glanced around the entire room again, eyebrow arched as she remembered how the girl had apologized for the state of the room despite it being the cleanest place Mal had ever been inside. You're a clean-freak, aren't you? She preferred to have one-sided conversations with the girl in her mind, feeling more comfortable with the fact that she couldn't respond, and therefore couldn't learn anything about her through what she said.
Despite this, Mal decided it would be best if she spoke again before Evie did. "It's practically all clothes, though there's one small book." She didn't clarify that it was a spell-book.
"How many outfits do you have?" Evie questioned, eyebrows knit together in what Mal knew was concern.
"Uh… about three, why?" Mal answered honestly, tagging the question onto the end. However, as her gaze flickered over the overly-used closet and bursting dresser drawers she received her answer. A small smirk formed on her face. "Never mind."
She was keeping her replies short while trying not to make the girl feel as though she didn't like her, her responses also conditioned to give away the smallest amount of information about herself as possible. The more the girl knew about her, the less she would like her, and Mal didn't want Evie to find her as repulsive as everyone else seemed to. That was another feeling she blamed on the connection, her desire for Evie to think something greater of her than everyone else.
"Anyway, what are you doing?" Mal questioned, hoping to move the conversation topic off of her.
"I'm… I'm making a new outfit," Evie muttered so quietly that Mal knew the girl had hoped she wouldn't hear her response; she had.
She allowed another smirk to play on her lips. "Don't have enough, I'd assume."
Evie lowered her gaze back to what her hands were doing, never looking at Mal directly again; and Mal decided to pretend that she didn't see the girl continuing to glance at her through her peripheral vision. Mal used the break in conversation to head over to the closet on her side of the room and pull open the doors, finding that she didn't need as much strength as she used when one of the doors broke away from its hold at the top. Oops. Shrugging it off, she ran her fingers over the objects hanging from the wooden pole, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Evie's closet to make sure they were for what she figured before grabbing her two other leather jackets and hanging them carelessly.
"You like leather jackets, I'd assume," Evie's voice carried through the room as she slid the last jacket onto the hanger and zipped it up, a slight bite laced through the words Mal had used minutes before.
Mal quirked her eyebrow and allowed the corners of her mouth to curl into an impressed smile. This girl has some bite to her. Interesting. Good to know. She turned to meet the girl's gaze again, swallowing the thick lump that immediately formed in her throat subtly and brushing passed the effect Evie's eyes seemed to have on her. She shrugged nonchalantly and moved back to her new bed, leaving the closet doors wide open, the right hanging lower than the other due to the disconnected screws. Without even needing to ask she knew that Evie disliked how she had left the closet, and she felt a slight rush from irking the girl as she did when messing with others. She smirked, now, there's a feeling that is mine.
Carelessly, she tossed the few clothing articles she had in the dresser on her side and retrieved her spell-book before shoving the now empty bag to the floor, and plopping down, her body sinking into the soft mattress as if it had been created to fit her body. Mm, cozy. She reveled in the feeling of the mattress, having never had a bed to sleep in her entire life. Not even when she had still been with her mother had she had a bed, the woman having forced her to sleep on the ground.
For what felt like half an hour Mal merely listened to the buzz of the machine Evie was using, the sound surprisingly soothing her; though she suspected everything would sooth her considering she was in the same room as Evie. I might be able to get used to this. Just then the buzzing stopped, and she could make out the sound of the girl moving from the table and across the room seconds before the lights went out, the sudden darkness almost startling her. However, her eyes adjusted quickly, faster than she knew Evie's would. She propped her head up with her arms, watching the girl as she blindly made her way back to her bed, the closed curtains shutting out any moonlight that would have otherwise guided her safely. She watched the girl slide under the covers on her neatly made and beautifully decorated bed, watched as she situated herself on her right side and let out a deep breath, her lips parting to speak.
"Goodnight," Evie's voice was barely above a whisper, but Mal heard it like she had spoken in her usual volume.
"Night, Princess," Mal replied, noting the way the girl's mouth curved upward at the chosen nickname.
Mal tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered as she witnessed the soft smile, the fact that she had been the one to coax it out of the girl not helping in the slightest. Why is she so effortlessly beautiful to me? Not liking the idea that the girl's beauty affected her in the way it did she decided to focus on something else, attempting to push the image of her soft, adorable smile from her mind.
Reaching to where she had dropped it beside her she gripped the binding of her spell-book and scooted up her bed to lean against the headboard, flipping through the pages until she found the spell she had used to attach the girl to her. Scanning the words printed onto the page with ease due to her night-vision she flipped two more pages before finding what she had been looking for.
The spell to reverse the connection.