A Crack in the Mask

Enchanted Strawberries

It was nice.

"Do you like it?" Ben asks as he pulls sealed containers out of the picnic basket.

"It's kinda hard not too..." She leans back on her arms as she looks around, "It's so... surreal here. I mean, look at the water," She gestures to the lake with steam rising off it. "I've never seen water so clear and clean. Everything here is just so... Different. Vibrant. Honestly, it would suck going back to the isle after this. Everything is just so much more... just, more- On every level here." She pouts her lip, "I wish I'd known how pretty this place was gonna be I would've brought my sketchbook..."

"Well, we'll just have to come out here more often." Ben smiles as he looks around, "You know, I take all the wonderful things in my life for granted, so I feel really lucky to see the world through your eyes." He sets the food out between them, "I mean, I've always loved the enchanted lake, but I feel like this is the first time I'm really seeing it in all its true beauty." He smiles as he looks at her, "Or maybe it's because it complements the company I'm holding."

Mal blushes, "Well," her eyes narrow, "I guess it would be hard to take it any other way if you were raised here. I'm just now realizing I took a lot of stuff for granted on the isle. I think it's just perspective..."

"Like what?" Ben questions as he plucks a couple of grapes out of a bowl.

"Like the fact that as much as my mom was a bitch, there were worse OVs to have been born to. Or that T's not as short as I thought he was. Or the fact that Deez wrote so often on all our behalves, and I never realized how much time that must have taken. And the fact that the sea three may have actually been right to do things so wrong..." She sighs, "It's all just little things, but things I never really appreciated or understood..."

Ben tilts his head to the side slightly as he watches her, "My mom has always said the best parts of life are made up of the littlest of things."

"Well, your mom's a genius so that's solid advice." Earlier she'd been completely thrown off by the woman but, somewhere around Carlos' third slice of cream cake, she realized the Queen was actually really funny. Like her son. Certainly not what she'd been expecting. She wasn't used to such dry humor.

"Well, I think she is." Ben laughs before he sits up and scoots closer a few inches, "I know how lucky I am to have her. She's always understood me, even when I was too shy and quiet. When books were my only friends."

Mal's silent as she turns her face up to study the clouds for a moment. "Nope." She pops the 'p'. "Sorry. Can't picture you being either of those things. Nerd. Sure. I get that but... You? Quiet and shy? Goblin shit."

Ben laughs as a faint blush spreads over his cheeks, "Oh, I am. I mean I can be. I just..." He trails off before he looks back up at her and slowly reaches out to tuck a loose curl behind her ear.

Mal blushes, as she leans into the touch. "Can't be shy and quiet when you're going to be the ruler of pretty much the entirety of a continent?"

"I suppose not." Ben frowns as he lets his fingers trail along her jaw, "But that's not what I was going to say." He admits with a sheepish smile.

"Well then, what was it?"

"I, I guess I don't feel like I have to pretend with you." Ben slowly explains, as if he were giving voice to it for the first time, "You or Jay, Carlos, and Evie."

"Well, that's good." Mal laughs, "We'd fucking smell it anyways. More than half the school reeks of utter Gorgan shit."

"Right! Thank you." He sighs in relief, "It's so nice to just get away from it. To not feel like I'm a performing monkey."