《Watch and Learn》Chapter 17
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"Nice pronunciation," Mal chuckled, resting her head on Ben's shoulder. She had missed the performance as the four of them thought it would be a good idea not to incite panic right off the bat.
"Thanks," Ben told her. "Lumiere helped me with it."
"Um, it's still daylight," Dizzy pointed out.
"Late lunch didn't have the same ring to it," Kitty shrugged. "Ben chose the lyrics."
"Now I guess we're lucky that it wasn't ridiculous," Terrance muttered to his wife.
"Dear, be nice," Tinkerbelle muttered back, nudging her husband on the shoulder.
"Neal, if you went any lower, your head would be in the ground," Emma teased her brother.
"Sorry for wanting to be respectful," Neal muttered.
"There are a lot of things Belle can do," Rapunzel muttered to Eugene. "Dance is not one of them."
"To be fair, there wasn't much anyone could do in terms of dancing to that beat," Eugene muttered back. "By the way, has anyone commented on how plastic Beast's crown looks? What, does he wear a fake one when he's out and then has the real one in a safe somewhere?"
"Late lunch."
"We get it Kitty!" Lucy shouted, having heard her twin sister's correction.
Kitty couldn't help but smirk. "Oh, I'm so sorry baby sister. Was I being annoying?"
"One minute! You're older by one minute!"
"Nice dance moves," Evie chuckled as Doug flushed.
"I always got the timing wrong in rehearsal," Doug muttered.
"Oh why did that have to be shown?" Paige groaned and hid her eyes as the screen version of herself caught Ben's napkin. Her best friend Maggie patted her on the shoulder in commiseration as her screen self celebrated
"Okay then," Mal blinked in surprise at the change in beat. "Some warning would be nice. Also, I'm pretty sure none of you are dishes."
"Pretty sure it's Auradon," Carlos pointed out.
"Can the dishes sing and dance?" Dizzy asked, a huge smile breaking out on her face.
"Possibly," Mal told her.
Meanwhile, Ben was having to fight the urge to hide his eyes at his parents' dancing. No one would say anything, as they were the King and Queen, but the second hand embarrassment was too much.
"Who cleaned those up?" Cinderella asked.
"We all did, Mom," Kitty told her. "Well, most of us," she corrected, shooting a sour look at her older brother.
"Nice dancing Jack," Maggie chuckled.
"You're just jealous," Jack scoffed.
"Oh, I'm so sorry dear!" Fairy Godmother gasped as she saw that she had knocked Jane into the wall. "I was having so much fun that I guess I didn't notice."
"It's fine mom," Jane said with a genuine smile. "It didn't even hurt."
"You know, minus Carlos holding the dog, I have to say they look fairly intimidating in that shot," Jamie muttered to her dad.
"Oh look Mother, no one's running around in fear from Mal, Evie, Jay, or Carlos," Aurora pointed out, shooting her mother a look. Leah though just scoffed in disgust.
"But I'm broke," Evie joked, causing the other three to laugh.
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"Seriously Mal?" Evie groaned. "Could you leave the strawberry alone for like two seconds?"
"E, when you find a fruit you like, you'll understand," Mal told her best friend.
"You know, with the exception of Evie, all the kids from the Isle have something from here that they're obsessed with," Kion pointed out. "Mal with strawberries, Jay and Carlos with chocolate."
"Oh, I think there's something Evie's obsessed with," Kiara said with a chuckle. "It's just not food."
"I'm disgusted and yet not at all surprised," Rose sighed. "Boys."
"Hey!" Evan cried, in his own defense. Rose lifted an eyebrow.
"Have you seen your room?"
"It's no worse than yours!"
"So what I'm hearing is that both of you need to clean your rooms?" Rapunzel asked, raising an eyebrow. Both Evan and Rose flushed.
"Yes mom."
"Ben!" Mal exclaimed. "That's the worst time to tell them!"
"What?" Ben asked. "I was excited. Sides, I don't have secrets from my parents."
"Okay but dude. Timing," Jay added.
Audrey couldn't help but frown at that. Was that how the queen really thought or was she just trashing Ben's ex to make him feel like he made the right decision in getting together with Mal?
"You could say that," Carlos muttered.
"Oh I'm sorry Mal," Ben said. "I should have gone over there."
"Ben, it's fine," Mal chuckled. "You were with your parents after all."
Ben still felt guilty. He knew why Mal couldn't have her mother there but felt that it might have possibly seemed like he was rubbing it in his girlfriend's face that he had his parents and she didn't.
No one looked at each other in fear that they would burst out laughing. The look of shock on Belle and Adam/Beast's face was just too much to bear.
"In case you mistook me for Mal from Agrabah," Mal quipped.
"A man of few words," Jack chuckled.
"He's nervous," Maggie chided her brother.
"Wow, they look less than thrilled with the idea," Phillip Sr. muttered and looked over at his wife. Not for the first time he wondered why he didn't follow her in moving to sit with the kids from the Isle. Maybe it was because unlike Aurora, who got to know Maleficent when she was a young girl, Maleficent held him hostage and tried to kill him as a dragon.
But Mal wasn't to blame for that. It was then that Phillip made a pact. If his mother in law continued her gods forsaken rambling about how the Isle kids should be sent back, he was going to move over and sit next to his wife.
"Umm he said 'girlfriend,' Kimberley said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Say it with me. Girl Friend."
"Kimberley," her father Koda warned.
"Sorry dad."
Mal couldn't help but give a small smile in Belle's direction. Despite her obvious discomfort, Belle tried her hardest to make sure that Mal was comfortable, even going as far as to invite kids she didn't even know.
"Seriously guys?" Mal sighed.
"I think they're worse than you, Anna," Elsa chuckled.
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"What's croquet?" Dizzy asked.
"A game where you hit balls with a mallet," Mal said. "That's about as simple as I can make it."
"Why would anyone play?" Dizzy asked, scrunching her nose up in confusion.
"Boredom."
Mal couldn't help the smirk that came to her lips but tried to banish it as quickly as it came. However, Ben looked over at his mom with shock evident on his face.
"Why was it such a shock?" Ben asked. "You almost fainted mom."
"Mal was the exact opposite of Audrey that it took me by surprise," Belle said, looking down, shamed by her action. "I hadn't known then what I know now. I know it's no excuse but I do apologize, Mal."
Mal shook her head. "One more time for the people in the back. We are the children of villains. We know we're not the kids you take home to mom and dad. If you had reacted any other way, your majesty, I'd be insulted. You were honest enough not to hide how you felt yet kind enough not to make Ben's girlfriend feel uncomfortable."
"Playing? Yes," Mal nodded. "Dealing with what comes next? Not so much."
"Mother?" Aurora asked, her back ramrod straight in preparation for whatever attack her mother was going to launch toward Mal.
"Gods help us if that was the case," Meg muttered. "If Leah and Mal liked each other, I don't think we could survive their wit."
"Smart," Phillip Jr. muttered. "No need for Grandmother to start shrieking all over the place."
"So you didn't know who she was?" Aurora asked, looking at Mal in surprise.
"I knew who she was," Mal told her. "But the way she acted with me at first didn't match the stories my mother used to tell of Queen Leah and King Stephen. It was almost as if she was a different person."
"Audrey!" Aurora exclaimed. "Mal wasn't doing anything to warrant that sort of behavior! She and your grandmother were having a very nice chat before you arrived, young lady."
"Mother! I was just—"
"No, Audrey," Phillip Sr spoke up. "Whatever you thought you were doing, it only served to make Mal feel uncomfortable and make your grandmother upset. I thought your mother and I had raised a kind, caring young woman but watching this has shown I clearly don't know my own daughter."
Audrey looked at her father in shock. They were going off of a few scenes with those Isle brats?! There were no scenes from cheer practice, where she had to help deal with disputes between upset girls wanting different spots on the pyramid. There were no scenes where she hung out with Jane (yes before her transformation) and helped Jane with her Chemistry homework. Why should a few scenes allow her parents to judge who she was as a person?
"By not being my mother," Mal quipped.
"Honestly they should have been given a chance at birth," Penny chimed in. "After all, they were only born. It was their parents who committed the crimes against us and our families."
"Thanks for stepping in Ben," Mal whispered, giving her boyfriend a small smile.
"She had to bring up the poison apples," Evie muttered, not looking in Snow White's direction.
"You know, I think your mom cast the most spells out of all of ours," Mal told her, trying to get her to ignore Leah's ranting for the second time.
"Yeah but they were just on herself," Evie pointed out. "Your mom was the curse queen."
"Well that's your own fault then!" Phillip Sr chimed in. "I read what Maleficent's curse was. Before the sun set on Aurora's sixteenth birthday—it did not say that from birth to sixteen Aurora would prick her finger, it was on her sixteenth birthday. You still could have raised your daughter but decided to give her to three women who had no business taking care of a child."
"Phillip!" Leah exclaimed.
"If you'll excuse me, Leah, I'm going to go sit by my wife," Phillip Sr told her. Looking over at his son, he asked "Phillip?"
"No need to ask twice, dad," Phillip Jr. scrambled onto his feet and both men walked over to where the ever growing group around the Isle kids was located. Phillip gave Aurora a peck on the cheek.
"Took you long enough," Aurora teased.
"Why?" Dizzy asked. "Just because her mother's Maleficent? That's like saying I should be nasty and cruel just because my mom's Drizella!"
"We're not our parents!" Evie exclaimed, breaking her poised persona for the first time in her life; tears streaming silently from the corners of her eyes. "Despite their best attempts, we know we'll never amount to their villainy, or any villainy if we're given the chance. I can't speak for my friends, but I'm proud to say that!"
It was at this point that the screen began to glow a bright gold; almost as if a giant ball of pixie dust had been thrown onto the screen. But instead of floating, the border of the screen continued to shine.
"I do apologize," the Blue Fairy told the group. "But the future is uncertain at times. What you are about to see is what might have happened had I not come to Mal's defense."
"Don't apologize to her," Aurora told Mal. "The only one who needs to do that is your mother and my father. The only thing you did, Mal, was be born and my mother should know better than to treat a child in such a way."
Turning to her mother "Imagine if someone had done that to Audrey in your presence mother. How would you react?"
"Who would ever do such a thing?" Leah gasped. "Audrey's perfect, and you've done nothing to earn the ire of other parents Aurora."
"Gods, you give her a brain which she does not use," Phillip Sr. muttered. "You give her a mouth and she never shuts up."
"Ugh why am I not surprised?" Kitty groaned.
"Of course you'd find a way to cram yourself in there," Lucy rolled her eyes.
"She walked up to Mal!" Grace exclaimed.
Dizzy couldn't help the small giggle that slipped out. Despite the seriousness of the scene, Ben's strong diction just seemed to tickle her funny bone.
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