Chapter Text
They all freeze in place, eyes narrowing on the door. “What time is it?” Carlos mouths. Mal shrugs, looking back at the door as someone knocks once again. “Is it not over curfew already?” Evie inhales, shifting off the chair and moving slowly towards the door.
“Mal? Evie?” A voice calls from behind the wooden door. Evie pauses in her steps, looking back at the three. Jay has a hand over Zara’s mouth. “.. Yes?”
“It’s Prince Ben. I wanted to check on you guys.” The prince calls out. “I went to check the boys dorm but they weren’t there and I am unsure if that is something to worry about.”
“Oh.” Evie glances back at the 4. Mal nods because saying the boys aren’t here will cause more trouble, she’s not sure how the people here handle situations yet, especially with them involved. “Yeah, We’re all here.” She replies through the door and then there’s silence.
Zahrah grumbles under Jay’s hand, small hands coming up to pull his hand off and Mal goes back
“Could you open the door then?”
With a roll of her eyes, Mal sighs loudly, crawling off the bed. Jay hums, smacking the side of Mal’s thigh and giving her a smile. She whips around to smack him by the side of the head before she snaps her fingers, a soft click coming from the door. Zara peels Jay’s hand off her face,“Bahhbah?”.
“Yes, here. All here.” Mal says, a sharp bite to the words, pulling the door open. Evie peeks over the side, smiling and giving him a small wave.
Prince Ben looks over everyone in the room, smiling a little awkwardly. “I just, I wanted to remind you guys that we can’t have the guys in the girls dorm level.” He gestured down the hallway.
With a click of a tongue, Mal turns around looking at the 3 on the bed. “Well, They wanna separate a family?” She questions, looking back at Ben quizzingly.
“Daada mmah” Zara babbles.
“Exactly, Z.” Carlos responds, pointing at her. “What are they afraid of? Teenagers having sex? Hello?” He laughs, gesturing at the byproduct on the bed.
Ben presses his lips in a straight line, clasping his hands together. “That's understandable. How about I inform the dorm assistant that you guys will stay here for the night and maybe we’ll figure something out for tomorrow?”
What a pushover.
Evie gasps, reaching out to pat his shoulder, “That would be amazing! Yeah,” She nods, prompting Ben to nod as well. The whole interaction has Mal feeling the need to vomit. “Okay, Evil dreams.” Mal adds, shutting the door in his face.
“You think he’s embarrassed everyone knows his mommy’s into beastiality?”
“Blah Blah blah, after remedial goodness, blah blah, scope.” Carlos repeats, typing some things on his laptop. Mal doesn’t know why he’s already so busy, they’ve just gotten up. She looks over his shoulder, blinking at the random green letters.
“Yes, so just keep as low profile as possible today, we don’t need to give them any reason to worry about us…. Yet. We could get more information from people, or some teachers.”
“So who is Zara going to be with?” Evie asks, placing her accessories in her bag and stacking her papers. Again, not sure why she has so many. “I saw that we are kind of in pairs for most of our classes, Mal and Carlos has the same first class, Jay and I, then It’s Mal and I in the second, which means Jay and carlos and then-”
Jay groans loudly, cutting her off and rubbing his eyes. “I already don’t enjoy dragon hall classes, don’t want to see what a snoozefest Auradon classes are.”
A green sparkle shoots past him randomly, circling the window frames before disappearing. Evie shrugs,“Mother didn’t let me go to school, so I don’t really know how snoozefest-y classes can be.”
“Right. Well, you didn’t miss anything.” Jay gets off the bed, raking his fingers into his hair to untangle it. Zara has on a leather shirt and pants Evie tailored, all colourful from four colours. Her hair is tied in her signature points now as she plays with her fingers and the blanket surrounding her. She has a few crumbs on the corner of her lip from a wafer Evie gave her to snack on.
“Here.” Jay hands Zara a comb, sitting in front of her on the floor so she can reach his head. “Help baba comb this part.” He points, turning around to see her chewing on the handle. “Zahrah! My head!” Mal flips to another page in her mothers spellbook, a furrow between her brows.
Carlos snorts, closing the laptop and placing it into his bag. “She can barely draw a circle and you want her to comb your hair?”
“It doesn’t hurt to try, does it?” and Zara smacks him with the comb. “Owh! Zahrah what-”
“Why does your bag look so light?” Evie pipes in, slinging her bag across her chest.
Carlos looks up, realising that Evie was talking to him. “I got pencils.” He shakes.
“That's it?”
Confused, he looks down at her bag. “Yea? What else do you bring to class?”
“I don’t know, papers?”
Zara giggles as Jay picks her up, swinging her across the room as he grabs numerous items off the floor and shoves them into his pockets. “I’m bringing little Zahrah and my pants.” He announces, patting his pockets and her back.
“Panhs!”
“So, Jay with baby the whole day.” Mal confirms, pointing at the two of them. “So wherever you go she goes, got it?” Jay clicks his teeth, nodding.
“Okay.” The bell rings loudly and they hear doors opening down the hall. “Ugh, let’s fucking go.”
They are given lockers that aren’t clear like those back at Dragon Hall, blue opaque metal that clunks and have good locks on them. Mal sprays “Long Live Evil!” across the front with the paint she brought, her mothers shadow in the back to remind herself of the plan. The location is extremely visible, lockers facing the field where people can sit and eat lunch below a flight of stairs.
Jay played with the lock provided as Evie brings Zara to the bathroom, telling Mal he’s figured out how to unlock them. She smirks at him when he nudges his head to the row behind her, a sparkle in his eye before he walks past her, shoulders knocking.
Closing her locker, Mal turns to look when she notes a blue figure walking towards her. “Hey Mal, here's our baby. Hold her for a moment.” She says simply, pushing Zara into her while Mal splutters. “She rubbed my blush off and I am so pale.”
There’s not much she can do. “What? No I don’t wan- ”
“Hi Prince Ben,” Evie cuts her off, quickly pulling her mirror out and looking at it. Mal cuts her glare to turn to look at the boy. It causes her spine to tingle, like an uncertainty as to how this guy managed to sneak up on her.
“Good morning Mal, Evie and….” He trails off, looking down at Zara briefly. Evie tilts her head slightly and glances at Mal, in which she just looks at the small girl.
“The Baby.” She says simply, just to see what would happen. The morning has been a bunch of small tests, to see how the people of Auradon would react to the minute mind games she would play. It’s either the people here are stupid or they’re too afraid to say anything back to her which, either way, she loves it.
Evie places her items back into her bag, patting Zara’s head. “Jay has the same class as me.” She reminds when Mal tries to hand Zara back. “I need to head to class. See you later, M. Bye, Prince Ben.”
“Bye Evie.” Ben says, looking down at Zara after. “Hello The baby.” The prince says, waving at Zara and smiling at her. The girl stares wide eyed at the boy and Mal clenches her jaw at the reaction. She can’t wear her emotions on her face like that.
The prince looks at her locker, smiling. “You should really think about taking this talent off the locker and into art class. I could, uh, sign you up. What do you think?”
Ew. “Way to take all the fun out of it.” A hand taps her lower back.
“Hello Prince boy.” The Agarbah boy appears beside her and Mal feels the same relief she always does when he appears, ready to defend, hurt, protect. All the same really. Ben doesn’t seem to be affected by the lack of respect. “Hello Jay, I was actually wanting to talk to you all about the baby.”
Mal doesn’t move her gaze as she passes Zara to Jay, taking the unwrapped scarf Evie passed her and throwing it over his shoulder. “Why?”
The prince keeps his face neutral, which is surprising since he allows such emotion through his tone of voice. “It’s just that we weren't expecting a baby and since she's so young, we would need to do medical checkups on her and such to make sure she's healthy.”
“She's healthy.” Mal answers simply, turning to look at Jay. The boy is already looking at her and she nudges her head back, cutting the conversation and turning away. Jay turns without a word, following her.
Carlos was waiting behind the door and falls in step with them. They are a good few steps away from the prince when she brings up the matter.
“She wears her emotions on her face.” Mal says, looking at the numerous numbers on the doors down the hallway. “We need to teach her to stop doing that.”
Jay pulls the brown scarf off and wraps it around himself and Zara. “She's one, M.” though there's no denial in his voice. Carlos keeps quiet, only pointing at their classroom when he sees it coming.
“Yeah. And when I was one I was better than that.”
Jay manages to catch up to Evie and they push the door to head in at the same time, slightly late but better than never.
The Teacher makes eye contact with Jay and pauses, placing her cup down. “Ah, so class, we have two new students to welcome. As per Soon-to-be king, Prince Ben’s First Proclamation, We are welcoming Jay and Evie from the isle!”
There's a soft murmur from the students as the two walk into the room. “Woah okay, introductions.” Jay says out loud, laughing softly under his breath. The students glance at each other and Jay glances at Evie.
“Good Morning, I am Princess Evie Grimhilde. It's nice to meet all of you.” Jay nudges her shoulder at that. “Damn princess, way to overshadow me.”
“As all exchange programs, I hope that we will be able to learn something from you two, as well as the others and in exchange, you will learn something from us as well!” She looks across the class. There is no reaction.
“I heard that we will also be welcoming a little someone? Is this the..”
Jay blinks. “Oh yeah, This is the baby. Call her baby.” There’s more of the awkward silence and then the teacher hums, pointing at two empty seats next to the windows. “Those are your seats. Please.” She gestures, clasping her hands together.
Evie notes that the tables around them are slightly further than the others and feels somewhat comforted.
“Okay.”
Jay unwraps Zara after a while, letting her sit in his lap to face the front since she was getting restless.
“Bahbah?” She mumbles, smacking the table loudly. A few students glance back at her , prompting Jay to glare at them. Evie thinks she probably wants a snack and pulls out something she stashed away.
“Flower you gotta keep your hands here. Remember, loud noises attract unwanted attention.” She turns to face her baba, blinking her big eyes at him. “Did I not tell you that? Gotta keep on your toes.” He adds, poking her toes.
Looking over, Evie smiles and gives Zara a soft biscuit to chew on. “Hey, you keep laughing like that and you’ll have smile lines by the time you’re 12, pretty.” She brushes a finger against her cheeks, only for Jay to push it away.
“Evie, Smile lines?”
The two look at each other and Evie breaks eye contact first, looking back down at Zara. “What?”
Jay nudges his head towards Zara, raising an eyebrow. She presses her lips together, pulling her finger away from Zara to pull out a mirror. “..I know. I just, well, you know.” She says, pressing a finger on her eyebrow and randomly checking her eyelashes. Zara leans forward, a hand gripping onto Evie's arm and the mirror shakes.
“She doesn’t care about that, Princess. And we all don’t-” But he’s cut off when Zara smacks the back of her head against the table.
“Oh! Hey, hey-” Jay starts and Evie is quick to place the mirror down, turning Zara around to face them both. The girl has a small scowl on her face, eyes glossing with a wobble of a lip.
“Hey, No. Don’t cry. Yeah, no.” He says, shaking his head and bringing a hand up to wipe her face. “No, Z. Not now.” Evie soothes her head, rubbing her lightly.
The act of crying always brought some type of danger, meant being weak, meant attracting attention and being in Auradon, a new place they barely knew at all, Jay felt more on edge than he ever felt in a while.
Thankfully, Zara doesn’t burst into tears. She sniffs, bringing a hand up to her mouth to suck on. There's a moment's silence and then, both of them realize at the same time. The two glance up and see most of the class watching, but they all whip their heads back front as quickly as they can.
“Amatures. You always underestimate how much time you have.” Jay whispers, looking at Evie. She laughs, placing her mirror into her bag and shaking her head as she wraps an arm around Zara to pull her closer.
“Princess.”
“What, Jay?”
A gold charm bracelet drops onto her paper.
The bell rings and Jay smacks his hands against the table, popping out of his seat. “Finally, let's go chomp, babes.” The students around start packing their papers, shifting out of their seats and pushing chairs. Evie tucks her hands under Zara and lifts her up, prompting Jay to grab the girl. She yawns loudly, pushing away from his chest to look up at him before she leans back down to rest on his shoulder. The princess looks at his empty table.
“Where did your paper go?”
“Pocket.”
“Ugh, the meat tastes way better than what they had at the slop shop.” Carlos groans, pushing another piece into his mouth. The four found each other before heading into the canteen, deciding to sit next to the windows and face the doors. The room tensed when they walked in and Mal felt a familiar hum under her skin. “If you could even call it that.”
"They sell meat at the slop shop?” Evie asks, using her fork to push the meat around. She doesn’t look entertained. “I thought they only sold coffee and.. nuts.”
Jay picks a piece up, sniffing it slightly and biting a tiny piece off. “Yeah, but they had some things for a price.” He placed the piece down, cutting it smaller and picking it up with his fingers to feed to Zara.
He nudges Mal with his knee, “Speaking of which, check my pocket.”
“I fix their circuit breaker, and they’d give it to me. I don’t know where it comes from but I don’t care. In fact, it might be for the better.”
Mal frowns at him, placing her fork down after placing more mashed potatoes on Evie’s plate.
She looks down and patting his pockets until he hums in agreement. She pulls a small piece of folded paper out, knocking his knee and showing it to him to confirm the item. “Yeah, open it.”
Zara smacks her lips together, hands coming up to reach at Jay’s lunch tray, picking the small pieces of pea and mashed potato to shovel them into her mouth as Evie tries to teach her the names. “Damn, she’s chomping like she’s never eaten before.” Carlo laughs, tapping Evie’s shoulder for a tissue. Mal unfolds the paper, turning it right side up to read the one word written.
“I heard during class that there was something called a core-reh-nah-tion?” Jay sounds out from the note, “And that the fairy godmother was going to be doing something with the wand there. She said specifically, ‘I can't wait to see the wand in action!’,” Jay mimics, voice high pitched. Zara pauses and turns to look at Jay quizzingly.
“You only wrote that?” Evie asks at the same time, Mal hums, nodding. “And you wrote this down because?”
“I heard the word corerehnation once and needed to remember it.”
“Fair. We get more information about this corerehnation thing, we could ask-”
“Hey guys!”
Here comes Princey. Mal blinks, folding the paper slowly and tucking it into her shirt. Constantly being surrounded by happy, preppy princes and princesses was giving her a headache. They didn’t dare say anything to her but just hearing the conversations were too much. This one was the only one who seemed to dare to talk to them.
Evie, as princess-like as ever, answers him first. The rest of them give him lackluster responses.
“I was hoping to check in on you guys since it’s the first day. Anything I could help or assist with?” He says, looking over all of them.
“You could assist by leaving.” Mal mutters, only for Evie to kick her from under the table.
“Mmhmommy,” Zara mumbles, hands coming up to the table to pull herself up.
Carlos looks up, smacking his lips together. “Nothing much, just classes. Math, words.” He nods, looking at Mal across the table. She rolls her eyes, looking up at him with her head in hand. “Yea, History and such.” She adds. “I feel like I’m learning so much more here than back at home.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” and with no one else adding to the conversation, he turns to the small girl. “hello!”, leaning lower to look at Zara, giving her a small wave. The girl blinks at him, hands still dirty as she mimics him for a short while. She then turns to look back at the lunch tray.
“She’s shy.” Evie says, smiling and tilting her head at the prince as he straightens up, rubbing his neck.
“Yeah, I understand. So… If there is anything you guys need help with, I will always be available.” He reminds. Mal wonders if he knows when people are uninterested in a conversation or if being a prince, everyone has always acted like they cared. She hums and looks back down at her food, waving him away.
And when he finally does, Zara turns to look at Mal, hands coming to grab her elbow.
“Ugh gross, clean your sticky fingers and stay on his lap.”