Mal quickly made her way down the hall to her meeting with Natalie. She wasn't exactly looking forward to it but she had been the one to cut their meeting short the other day. It was only fair that she rescheduled.
Gods, it was hard to believe that it'd only been a few days since Uma, Hadie, Harry and Gil arrived in Auradon. It was honestly like a dream.
Okay so maybe Uma needed to lay off Evie a bit especially since Daniel was still in the medical coma...and Harry seemed a bit too determined to get Jay to skip R.O.A.R practice to spar with him....and honestly Gil seemed more clingy than Carlos had been when they'd first arrived in Auradon. The only one who seemed to be adjusting without issue had, surprisingly, been Hadie.
He'd been fine adjusting to classes and had already made friends with Melody and Alexandria Charming, Chad Charming's youngest sister. It wasn't that odd though, back on the Isle his best friends were Dizzy Tremaine and Celia Facilier. Her baby brother was certainly popular with the ladies...and she and Uma had whacked Harry over the head when he had pointed that out.
Maybe it's the fact that he's half Auradon, Mal thought as she made her way to the room she was going to meet Natalie in. After all, mom told him stories about Auradon since the day he was born. Plus, with how Uma and I worked to keep his innocence intact, he's more Auradon than Isle. But he's no prissy prince.
"Hello Mal," Natalie said and Mal blinked, having not realized that the blonde was in the room already. The other woman was thin, and wore a muted pink sundress that seemed to almost blend into the walls. Mal felt Natalie's eyes go up and down her body, as if taking stock in her outfit.
"Hey Natalie," Mal nodded, feeling no shame in what she was wearing. It was her usual outfit of leather pants, purple boots and a purple shirt under her leather jacket. "I'm sorry for being late, there was a bit of an issue with my bathroom door."
"Clearly," Natalie said and Mal could feel her eyes on the one blue smudge she couldn't remove, that normally would have been hidden by her hair since it was right by her ear but of course was on full display. Of course the day she woke up late and had a meeting would have been the day Uma decided to rig a smoke bomb to launch the moment Evie went into the bathroom.
"...I'm going to kill you."
"Oh come on Mali, don't be like that," Uma said as Mal glared at Uma, her face covered in teal smoke as she stood in the open doorway to the shared bathroom.
"You've been here three days! How in dad's name have you been able to make a smoke bomb in that short amount of time?"
Uma shrugged. "Harry and I were bored, and then those Emir and Akiho blokes showed us around some more. So in exchange we taught them how to make smoke bombs."
Mal froze. "You. Did. What?!"
"Taught Emir and Akiho how to make smoke bombs."
"Oh Gods," Mal sighed and rolled her eyes. "I told you back when I brought Ben to the Isle before his coronation that Emir and Akiho were like Harry and Jay. Why in the world would you give them another way to be like them?"
"Because they asked," Uma shrugged again and Mal sighed.
"You'd better be thankful I'm on my way to a meeting otherwise I'd be wiping the floor with you in sparring Uma!"
"Is that anyway to speak to your captain?"
"When I'm co-captain? Yes. Yes it is! Now I just need to pray that this stuff'll come off with just water!"
Mal gave a small laugh to try to cut the tension in the room. "I'm sorry, by the way, for cutting our meeting short the other day. I had family coming in that I hadn't seen in a while."
"Oh yes, King Ben did state that you'd have relatives coming in from the Isle," Natalie nodded. "I take it one of those relatives is responsible for that smudge?"
"Yeah," Mal nodded.
Natalie shook her head. "I know we've only just met but I would advise you spend more time with your family not from the Isle. After all, as a daughter of Hades, you have family all over Auradon. Why not the daughter of Hercules? You two should be around the same age."
Mal rolled her eyes. "I do spend time with my cousins on the Auradon side of things, but I spent my whole life around Uma."
"I know, I know," Natalie said in a strange tone of voice that Mal honestly couldn't put her finger on but it rubbed her the wrong way. "But you wouldn't want something to happen that might embarrass anyone would you?"
Mal tilted her head. "What do you—?"
"Now, as your handler, I'll be in charge of making sure you have the skills to make it in the royal court," Natalie said, cutting Mal off before she could finish her question. "That'll mean meetings, lessons, and of course you'll be arranging a tour of the kingdom and be responsible for planning cotillion."
"Isn't there a committee—?"
"Yes of course but you would be the head of that committee and making the final decisions on things like, lighting, decorations, party favors, etc. Princess Audrey had the spot previously but as she is no longer dating King Ben..."
Oh Gods, I've got a Sleeping Banshee fangirl as my handler, Mal thought and then inwardly shook her head. Okay you don't know that. After all, she's only mentioned Audrey once and really, did she say anything that wasn't true? Audrey's no longer dating Ben.
Natalie turned around and picked a book up off the desk behind her before turning back to Mal. "This will be the most important thing you'll ever use," she said. "King Ben's council has everything in place for your schedule."
"Okay...but what about classes?" Mal asked.
"That's factored in."
"Ben said he'd block out time for me to practice my magic," Mal said and unless she was mistaken, Natalie seemed to roll her eyes.
"Yes, yes. King Ben did reach out and we've blocked out three hours a week for you to practice your magic."
Mal smiled as she saw that those hours were in fact blocked out, highlighted in purple. If Ben knows about this planner, I've no doubt he's the one who blocked these hours out, she thought. All in all it wasn't as bad as she had thought. A few more lessons than normal, and she wasn't looking forward to the meetings about cotillion but all in all, getting used to the royal court wasn't as bad as she'd been imagining.
"Now these meetings are subject to change," Natalie told her as Mal thumbed through the planner. "I would suggest you read up on the royal court and the proper way to act."
"Oh, my mother's already done—"
"While I'm sure Maleficent has taught you many things, Mal, Auradon is different than the Isle," Natalie said as she plopped a stack of books onto one of the desks that was in the room.
"Lady Persephone's my mother," Mal stated, noting that it was probably one of the few times Natalie hadn't cut her off in the conversation.
"Of course, of course," Natalie nodded, as if she was humoring Mal. "But you did say that you lived with Maleficent for six years. That's what I understood from your speech at the coronation."
"Well yes but—"
"So like I said, I'm sure Maleficent taught you many things but Auradon differs wildly from the Isle," Natalie stated. "It'll benefit you to spend time with people who seem to have already grasped that concept."
Mal sighed. "Thank you for your suggestion Natalie but I'm not going to just kick my friends to the side just because they've made a bad impression on you. Ben likes them and so do the friends I've made here in Auradon."
Opening up her planner, Mal pretended to notice a meeting. "If you'll excuse me, it looks as though I've got a meeting scheduled with Ben."
"Very well," Natalie sighed. "I'll see you in your Charms class."
Charms? Am I actually going to learn magic? Mal thought as she gathered up the twenty some books Natalie had given her plus her new planner. Wait, no. Knowing Auradon, it's probably something like how to be a prissy princess. You know, how does Lonnie deal with these people who insist women can only be one way?
That being said...something about how Natalie hadn't believed Mal when Mal had said Persephone was her mother had irked the Godling. It wasn't the first time she hadn't been believed and likely it wouldn't be the last.
She had publicly announced that Maleficent wasn't her mother, what more did these people want?! Besides, hadn't Hercules proven that blood didn't make a family? Despite their biological tie to Zeus, Hercules' kids also considered their father's adoptive parents to be their grandparents.
"Gods, I need to talk to Ben," she muttered to herself, marching toward Ben's office. Out of the corner of her eye, Mal noticed how people seemed to almost dive out of her way; as if afraid of her.
Turning into a dragon at Ben's coronation probably didn't help matters, she thought with an inward sigh. It's only been a month though, they'll get over it.
Before she reached Ben's office, however, Mal was pulled into a nearby alcove.
"What the hell?!"
"Sorry," Rowyn said, biting her lip. "But we wanted to get your attention."
"Well you got it," Mal muttered and then paused. "What do you mean 'we'?"
"Me, Kitty, Jane, Lonnie, Jordan and Ally."
"And why did you wanting my attention constitute pulling me into an alcove?"
"So we weren't overheard."
"I really don't like the sound of that."
Kitty chuckled dryly. "How familiar are you with the tabloid The Gazelle?"
"Oh you mean the rag that Ben was so worried about, he told me about a fight he had with Audrey in case they wrote an article about me because Audrey mentioned my name?" Mal scoffed. "I'm familiar. Especially since they seem particularly preoccupied with Evie."
"Well...they seem to have changed focus," Ally said gently, pulling out a copy of that week's edition.
"It's not Ben is it?" Mal said instantly.
"No, no," Lonnie shook her head. "Ben's got PR people out the wazoo to prevent any reports from slipping out to The Gazelle."
"Jay? Carlos?"
"Not really the typical subject of The Gazelle," Jordan rolled her eyes. "Since they're not royalty."
Mal tilted her head. "Well then I'm lost. Uma's the only 'royal' they'd report on since her mom's Triton's sister so she'd be an Atlantican princess along with being the granddaughter of a God. But she's too new in Auradon."
"You're on the right track Mal," Lonnie said. "It's you."
"Me?" Mal scoffed. "A bit behind the times aren't they? I'm not exactly news."
"This...this isn't the first time they've reported on you," Rowyn said softly. "It's just the first time they made it front page above the fold."
"Oh," Mal said and then shook her head. "Let me guess, how dare the king date a VK, does Mal have no shame, poor Princess Audrey....that sort of thing?"
"While that is the usual tripe The Gazelle produces, it's not what they wrote this time," Ally sighed and then handed Mal the copy of the trash rag. Mal raised an eyebrow and then paused upon seeing the headline.
Godling or Hatchling: Can One Claim Mal Isn't Maleficent's Daughter?
"Well...they're stretching," Mal scoffed, conjuring up a fireball and not even giving the rag a second glance as she brought it to ash. "Honestly, if that's the best they can do, it must have been an off day for them."
"We thought that wouldn't phase you," Kitty grinned. "But we wanted to let you know so you weren't caught unawares. That's happened to us...well not Ally or Jordan or Lonnie."
"Perks of not being a royal I guess," Ally shrugged.
"Are you going to be okay, Mal?" Rowyn asked.
Mal chuckled. "It'll take more than some gossip rag to knock me down," she said. "I know who's daughter I am and it's not the Dragon's. No one else's opinion matters to me."
"Good on you," Lonnie said. "When Audrey got her first article written about her, she didn't stop ranting for a week."
"Oh yeah, isn't that when you stopped being friends with her?" Kitty asked and Lonnie shrugged.
"Wait, you were friends with Sleeping Brat?" Mal asked Lonnie in shock.
"Jane and I both were," Lonnie said. "She gave us an ultimatum when she and Ben officially started dating when we were fifteen. The only way we could stay friends with Ben was to become friends with her."
"And by friends, I'm sure she meant lackey," Kitty said, rolling her eyes. "Gods, what my brother saw in her I'll never know."
"Still bitter about the kitty litter in your locker?" Rowyn asked.
"Of course! All because my name is 'Kitty'! If Audrey actually had a brain, she'd know that it's just a nickname! My full name is Katherine just like my father's full name is Christopher Rupert Vwindemer Vlandamier Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman Gregory James Charming but everyone just calls him Kit!"
"...and I thought my middle name was bad. Herman?" Mal muttered to herself after taking a minute to process the full name of Prince Charming. Well...King Charming technically since the Charmings ruled Charmington.
"And suddenly your brother's 'C' name makes so much more sense," Jordan told Kitty. "Considering your mom's true name is Ella and all."
"Yet your sisters' 'L' and 'A' names make no sense," Rowyn shook her head.
"Alex is named after Nana," Kitty stated and then noticed Mal's confused look. "My dad's mom. Lucy, on the other hand, was just because it means 'light' in French and the sun began to rise when she was born."
"And you?" Mal asked.
"I'm a twofer," Kitty grinned. "Katherine was my mom's mother's name but my nickname comes from my dad's nickname."
Mal smiled softly. Must be nice, to be named after a parent and not feel ashamed about it...
"So...if your dad's got a mouthful of a name, I guess you do too?"
"No," Kitty chuckled. "Mom prevented it with Chad's birth since she wanted to be the one to raise us and not an army of nursemaids and governesses."
"...how did Chad turn out to be like himself then?"
"A lifetime of being around Audrey," Kitty said with a shrug. "But we clearly interrupted something since you seemed to be in a hurry."
"Oh it was nothing. I was just going to see Ben—"
"Oooh!" Lonnie, Jane and Ally squealed. Kitty, Rowyn and Jordan winced and rubbed their ears.
"Yeah, you? You don't do that. Ever again," Rowyn told the three girls.
"At least give us some warning," Kitty added. "I swear my sisters have less ear piercing squeals that you three."
Lonnie rolled her eyes. "Sorry for being excited!"
"Besides Ben and Mal are so cute together," Ally stated, bouncing a little. "When they're talking to each other it's like they're in their own little wonderland!"
Mal rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. Chill out, the three of you. Nothing major was going to happen, I was just going to stop by and say 'hi'. He's in his office right now working on something."
"Mal, do you know the number of times Audrey used to stop by Ben's office just to say hi?"
"...I'm guessing, since Audrey didn't even know where his office was until he told me and the others when we arrived, that number is zero?"
"You would be correct. So, as Ben's best female friend—"
"And practically his head of security amongst the students,' Jordan smirked.
Lonnie nodded. "Yes and that. You're good for Ben, is the point I'm trying to make. You make him happy. Just know this: you hurt him, I hurt you."
"You're telling this to a girl who can turn into a dragon."
"Don't care. I've got Mushu on my side, plus my mom's lucky cricket."
Mal smirked. "Good answer Lonnie. But I'm not going to hurt Ben."
"So now that we've gotten that 'older sister' speech out of the way, should we let you continue on to Ben or....?"
"Don't trail off like that Kitty, you know how that intrigues me."
Kitty chuckled. "Lonnie told us how you were going to whip her into shape for R.O.A.R. You want to head down to the gym, show us if that's true or if you were just blowing smoke up Lonnie's ass?"
"I do believe I've begun to corrupt one Auradonian," Mal smirked.
"No," Jane shook her head. "She's always been like that."
"How—?"
"I've been friends with Chad since practically birth," Jane chuckled. "Fairy Godmother's daughter? Our stories are practically connected."
Mal rolled her eyes. "Well then thank Zeus I was born on the Isle. Otherwise I'd be connected to Sleeping Banshee."
"Akiho?" Lonnie asked.
"Who else?"
"As fascinating as this conversation is, we are burning sunlight people," Kitty said, tapping her foot. "I still have my homework to do for my Bad Fairies class."
"What do you have to do?" Jordan asked.
"A five page paper on identifying bad fairies," Kitty sighed.
Mal chuckled. "You need any help? I've got two identifiers for you: they have horns and are called Maleficent."
"Yeah I don't think that'll fly but thanks Mal," Kitty snorted in amusement. "So come on! If we go now, we can get some sword work time in before Chad and the other R.O.A.R members take over the gym."
"And then you'd have no choice but to write that paper," Jane said. "I'll come with you guys. I need to talk to the new head cheerleader."
"Why?"
"I'm thinking about joining the squad," Jane said as they made their way to the gym. "I was the mascot but it's time for me to think bout retiring that."
Mal tilted her head. "Wait? Isn't...isn't Audrey the head cheerleader?"
"Well she was," Rowyn told her. "My sister Rose is on the squad and they said that after the way she acted at the Championship Tourney game, announcing Chad as her boyfriend three minutes after Ben broke it off with her, the squad basically kicked her out."
"Whoa," Mal said softly. She hadn't really expected that. Then again, maybe it should have been a sign when the cheerleaders started dancing with the Tourney team after Audrey stormed off the field.
"Kelsey's the new head cheerleader," Jane said. "Kuzco and Malina's daughter," she added.
"You guys do know you don't need to say who everyone's related to, right?" Mal asked, rolling her eyes.
"Sometimes it's more for our benefit," Jordan said with a shrug. "Like with the kids of the seven dwarves. There's Doug sure but there's also Gordon, Bashful Jr., Sleepy Jr., Derek, Shy, Crabby, Hap, Cheerful, Snoozy, Doc II, and Gesundheit."
"What'd Gordon do to get a relatively normal name?"
"You know, I'm not sure," Jordan chuckled. "Now, let's get the sword work done before Kitty has a conniption."
Mal chuckled as she unsheathed a sword. As the sword work went underway, on the other side of the school, a different kind of work was also getting started as Ben began to start digging through the files for the food deliveries to the Isle.
I've got to look into digitizing these records, he thought with a sigh as he set a timer on his phone. He knew full well that Mal, Akiho, Lonnie or Emir would come drag him out of his office if he didn't leave to get a full night's sleep.
He also knew that, at least for Mal, he didn't want her to know. At least not right away. His girlfriend deserved answers.
And who better to get them for her than the son of the man who was the reason she was on the Isle in the first place?