Second in Line - Descendants (♡Mal)

Chapter 04

●°●BEN●°●

As time passed by and life went on for my family I stuck around. 
Things had changed drastically. 

A few weeks after my funeral Emma's training started. Mom and dad hired the brightest minds, their most trusted friends and qualified subjects in order to prepare my little sister for the next chapter in her life. 
Besides from all those teachers and outside forces our parents did everything they could to make sure Emma would be coronation ready at the end of the year. 
I had never seen her more determined in my life- and the time after it- as she was the first day she walked into the classroom. 
Unfortunately that determination did not last very long....

🐉●°●👑●°●🐉

●°●A month after the Funeral●°●

Just like everyone else, Emma had moved back into her dorm at Auradon Prep. Her parents wanted her to stay in the castle so she could receive all of her education there. But Emma had insisted she went back to school, needing her life to feel at least a little normal again. It had been a few weeks of going to her normal classes, followed by her Queen studies, followed by evening study and homework sessions and things just kept piling up on each other.
     Emma shared her room with Aggie, again, something she didn't have to do but had consistently insisted on every year. 
     The young woman had pulled her hair back in a messy, low hanging bun as she sat at her desk, bowed over her English homework. It had already turned dark outside, and the only lamp in the room was the one above Emma's desk. Besides from the soft yellow glow bring cast by Ray, but that wasn't visible for anyone still in the land of the living. 
     The door of the room opened and in came Aggie, back from her nightly stroll. "You still working on that?" The girl questioned, her chic accent as always sounding through every word. "Yu can't keep this up forever, lassie." 
     "I'll have to." Emma mumbled in response, suppressing a yawn. 
     "Ya know," Aggie kicked off her shoes and let herself fall back on her bed, "when my maw was done with nana's constant nagging and expectations, she turned her into a wee bear. We could always try tha', turning your parents into wee bears. Should be a blast." 
     Emma chuckled, "no, Aggie. I'm not turning my parents into bears, I'll just have to rule the kingdom sooner. And besides, I'm pretty sure Lady Elinor wasn't that small when she was a bear." 
     "How do ya know, you weren't there." 
     "Neither were you," Emma responded, turning in her chair to look at her friend. The redheaded princess sat down on the edge of Emma's desk, ignoring her last remark. Aggie's eyes scanned the pages of her textbook and then shifted her gaze to the young woman's answers.
     "Still don't get why we need to learn this stuff, we can talk, can't we?" 
     "You know most people don't understand most of what you're saying, right?"
     This time, Aggie smirked, her many freckles visible so close to the bright light source. She booped Emma's nose as she answered. "That's not my problem now, is it?" Before her friend could respond, Aggie leaned over the table and turned the light off, casting the room in total darkness for the girls. 

🐉●°●👑●°●🐉

●°●Three months after the funeral●°●

Just as his sister, Ben also had hisown lessons to attend to. 
     Turned out spirits are able to do more than just walking around and sitting on the floor, and fortunately for the young man, Ray was eager to teach him everything he knew. Which turned out to be a lot. 
     Walking on stairs? Check!
     Climbing a tree? Check!
     Blowing out candles? Barely, but Ben had managed it multiple times.
     Moving objects? Still nothing. But Ben was determined to learn that skill, which us why they were working on that right now. 
     They were outside the dorm rooms where a decorative mirror hung on the wall. As Ben stared into the surface, he couldn't see even a trace of his own reflection, obviously needing a fysical body for the light to reflect, but that didn't make it any less hard for Ben.
     Ray had taken his seat on the top of the mirror, giving his human friend instructions. "Com'n, Ben. It's not that different from climbing and walkin'." Ben had to keep himself from telling Ray that he knew that. "The only thing you gotta do, is concentrate all your energy to that li'le hand of yours and boom! You can move things around." 
     "I'm trying..." Ben mumbled as he tried to focus everything he had to his hand, reached out and pushed against the mirror. Only for his fingers to go right through it. 
     "Ow man, you were so close this time!" Ray snapped his fingers, "let's try again." 
     Ben shook his body, loosening up his non-existing muscles as he prepared to try over, only for his ears to pick up on two familiar voices. Emma and Aggie had come back from school. 
     "I'm telling you, Aggie. It's getting ridiculous." Emma told her friend as they walked through the hallway into the direction of their room. "I have to speak up, but Gods forbid I raise my voice. I didn't even know there was a difference! And I already hate speaking up! They could just give me a microphone, but noooo, I have to be audible through an entire atrium without a microphone or raising my voice. And did you know there are multiple pages of chapters with special laws for side kicks? Because I sure did not! There are fifteen, front and back! And I'm supposed to know every. Single. One. And those are only the Side Kick Laws..." Emma let out a deep sigh as she pushed through their dorm room. "We have too many laws..." 
     "You're telling me." Aggie scoffed, dumping her bag on the floor. 
     "I'm seriously getting so much respect for your mother right now..." Emma mumbled, making a small chuckle escape Ben's lips. 
     "Speaking off my ma-"
     "No, Aggie! I'm not turning my parents into bears." 
     "They don't have to be bears, whot 'bout a rabbit? Or-" Aggie got cut off mid sentence by a pillow, thrown by Ben's little sister. The shock on Aggie's face once she realized what had happened got both Ben and Emma to start laughing. "You fucking bawbag!" Aggie grabbed the pillow from the ground and shot forward, slamming the pillow against her shoulder. 
     Emma gasped, trying to shield her face with her arms from the blows that followed. Squealing, Emma ducked away from her attacker and grabbed a pillow herself, making it an even fight. Ben couldn't help but laugh at the scene in front of me, he hadn't seen Kat laugh like this for months now. It felt good. And for one moment, one small moment, he could've sworn that Emma had looked at him while she laughed, not through, but at, for one of the first times in months, making him feel less out of place.