Secret in the Heart ||Descendants|| (♡Ben)

30

"How come Uma knows who your father was and I don't?" Ben asks me as we stand on a balcony of the caste overlooking the sea. "There was only one person who knew." I say. "Then why did Jay know and not me?" he asks. "Jay?" I ask in confusion as I turn to look at him. "Yeah, I mean you are close with Jay so I figured he must know." he says as he looks at the ground. "Jay didn't know." I say. "Wait what?" he asks as he looks at me. "Nobody knew." I say as I look out over the sea. "Not Jay, not Evie, not Carlos, and not Mal." I say. "Then who knows?" he asks. "Somebody on the Isle I considered a friend." I say. "Who?" Ben asks desperately. "Harry. Harry Hook." I say the name with anger. "What?!" Ben says in disbelief. "When my father was still alive we were friends. He came home with me one day and since then he knew who my father was. He swore to me that he would never tell anyone he knew, let stand who he was." I say. "But he told Uma." Ben states. "It appears so." I say. "But why, you said you guys were friends." Ben says. "When I went to the Chip Shoppe to find out their demands to let you go he said it. He said out loud that he knew who my father was. Uma seemed to relish in that bit of information and seeing how she has him under her thumb he probably told her and they had a good laugh about it." I say. "Right." Ben says. It is silent for a while as we both look out over the sea. "But Jay does know right?" Ben asks. "I told my friends the day of Cotillion who he was." I say. There is silence once again and I can feel Ben's eyes burning into me. "Do you really want to know?" I ask him. "Of course, I want to know. I love you and I want to know more about you." he says. I let out a sigh. He's right. I said I would try to open up to him and let him get to know more about me. I turn to him. "My father is Rumpelstiltskin." I say. "As in the Dark One?" Ben asks and I nod. "Okay." he says as his eyes shift left and right, processing the information. "And your mother?" he asks. "Agathe." I say. He frowns. "Who?" he asks. "The woman who cursed your father to be a beast." I say. His mouth falls open a bit. "I know, seems like the world isn't that big after all." I say with a small smile. "How?" he asks. "I don't know how they ended up together. My father only talked about the adventures they had and how much he loved her." I say. "Right, I'm sorry to be asking about this stuff." he says. "It's okay. I promised you I would open up to you and I am. I am happy you know." I say and I hug him. "So you can change into a dragon and make dresses because of the powers of your mother right?" he asks. I lean back. "What do you mean?" I ask. "Well because, your father only had powers because of the Dagger, but no one has seen that thing in decades." Ben says. "Oh, yeah. I hadn't really thought about that but I guess you are right." I say and I smile at him. I know I told myself to stop lying to him, but I can't tell him about the dagger. It is too dangerous, nobody can know.

"Kara!" I hear Evie yell. I look towards the ground and I see Evie standing at the bottom of the balcony. "Come on, hurry up, we gotta go." she yells. "Right." I say and I look back at Ben with a big smile. He chuckles at my face. "Go pick out those five kids." he says as he pushes me in the direction of the doors that lead into the castle. "Thank you. Again." I say and I kiss him on the cheek before running inside. When I run out of the big doors everyone is already waiting. "What took you so long?" Jay asks. "I'm sorry I was just talking to Ben." I say as I get in the passenger seat of the car. "What did you talk about." Mal asks as she, Evie, and Carlos step into the back. "I told him about my parentage." I say. They smile. "What?" I ask. "Nothing. It's just good that you aren't keeping lies from him anymore." Evie says. I nod. No lies. That is what I promised. Jay starts the car and we start driving toward the sea. "So we haven't really talked about what happened at Cotillion." Jay says. "I know. I'm sorry. I know I promised I would tell you but this whole planning of getting new kids off the Isle these past two weeks just got in the way." I say. "It's okay. I know how passionate you are about getting those kids out." he says with a smile. "But now it is all coming to a close. At least for the first round of kids." Carlos says from the back seat. "You are right." I say and I take a deep breath. "So you all know that my mother is Agathe." I say and they all nod. "Well seeing Uma attack the ship and you guys all screaming for your lives-" I say. "Hey, I wasn't screaming." Jay interrupts me. "You were." Mal says. "Like a little girl." I add. Jay's face flushes red and we all laugh. "Just go on." he says. "Seeing your lives being threatened I just felt so hopeless and I wanted to protect you. Then suddenly something started to stir inside me and the next thing I know black smoke is dancing around me and I am transformed into a dragon." I say. "You chanted something." Mal says. "Mal's right. How did you know that?" Evie asks. "That's the thing. I don't know how I knew that. I think it has something to do with my mom. Seeing how she was an enchantress and one of her powers was shapeshifting. I just think along with her powers some of her knowledge transferred into me to." I say. "That's weird." Carlos says. "I know but it just felt so natural. Like I just knew what to say." I say. "I get what you mean." Mal says. Mal had discovered she could transform too. She already knew that she possessed magic, since her mom gave her her spellbook but she didn't know she could transform until she accidentally turned into a cat one night when Connor came to our dorm. It was really funny and Mal was embarrassed once we managed to turn her back into a human again. "It's like you've known it all your life. Like breathing or walking." she says and I nod. "Yeah, you're right." I say as I look out of the front window of the car. I can't tell them, right? My father always told me that bad stuff came with the dagger. Jay pokes his finger into my side and I turn my face to him. He quickly scans my eyes. He faces the front again since he's driving and has gotta look at the road. "What did you do to turn into a cat again?" Carlos asks. Mal puts her head in her hands and flushes red. "Carlos we agreed not to talk about that anymore!" Evie says and this starts the bickering between the two. "There is something you are not telling." Jay whispers so the others don't hear us. I look at him. Why does he always know? "I can't talk about it right now." I whisper back. He nods. When we've reached the sea Jay pushes a button and the bridge appears. We drive over the bridge, through the barrier, which naturally closes behind us. And then we're on the Isle. Jay drives us towards a place where we can park our car and people start to recognize us. Well not us necessarily but they can guess that it's us in the car since there are no cars on the Isle. Jay parks the car and we get out. "Okay, what is our plan?" Carlos asks as he looks around. "Well everybody should know we're coming." I say. "Why do you think that?" he asks. I nod at a paper that has been taped to the wall. It's a magnified poster of a newspaper article about us. There is a photo of the five of us, holding the sign-in form with the title "VK day is here!!! 5 more to go ashore!". "Okay so let's all split up and go over a section of the Isle to gather everyone. I wanna make sure we don't miss anyone." I say and my friends nod. "Meet back at the square at three?" Mal asks and I look at the clock. It's now twelve. "Sounds like a plan." I say. Everybody starts to walk away and I hold Jay's arm to stop him. "What's up?" he asks. "Can you do the bay area please?" I ask him. "Why?" he asks. I just raise one brow at him. "Fine, fine." he says. I let go of his arm and he starts walking towards the bay area. I walk in the total opposite direction of that, not wanting to have a chance to walk into Harry. 

"Kara, kara!" a little girl comes running up to me. "Hello there." I say as I kneel down to her height. She seems to be around seven or eight. She's wearing a red dress and has two pigtails in her hair. "Is it true that you can turn into a dragon?" she asks. I let out a laugh. "Who told you that?" I ask. "My brother did. He said he saw you flying over the sea last week!" she says. She's right I tried to search for Uma to see if we could talk. I only did it once in dragon form tho. "And where is your brother?" I ask her as I look around. "He's not here right now, he got a job at the bay a while ago." she says. "Is there anyone else besides your brother to take care of you?" I ask her. "No, it's just us." she says. "Right." I say as I look around. I sometimes forget that there are a lot of kids without any parents here. Kids like me. "Did your brother apply for the academic school year at Auradon?" I ask her. She shakes her head. "He said he didn't apply because I couldn't since I am too young to go to the school and he doesn't want to leave me behind." she says. "Sounds like a wonderful brother you've got there." I say as I stroke her hair. "Could you tell me his name?" I ask. "His name is Noah." she says. "And what's your name, little princess?" I ask her. "I am Julie." she says. "What a fitting name for a beauty like you." I say and she smiles. "Well Julie, how about we go looking for your brother?" I ask. "We can't, he told me not to go near the bay, he says it is not safe." she says. "But you do know where he works right?" I ask. She nods. "Well if we'll go together I'll make sure you are safe and then we can ask your brother if he would consider signing up if you are allowed to go with him." I say. She breaks out into a smile. "Really?!" she asks. "Of course." I say as I stand up. "Now lead the way please." I say as I grab her hand. As we walk towards the bay I speak to as many kids as possible to tell them to be on the square at three o'clock with their sign-in papers. As we get closer and closer to the bay I keep my ears sharp so I can dash away at any moment if I recognize his voice. "So tell me, Julie, do you know who your parents are?" I ask her. "Noah says I can't talk about them." she says as she starts fidgeting with her hands. "It's okay, I understand." I say. We enter the bay, which is a lot busier than the streets we've walked in until now. Street vendors are yelling to sell their goods and there are many people walking, customers as well as fishermen hauling in their catch. I'm about to tell Julie to stay close to me when I get interrupted by a group of boys about my age, walking toward me. "Kara." they say my name when they see me. These are some of the boys that work on Uma's ship. "Hey, what's up guys?" I ask them as I give one of the boys a friendly slap on the shoulder. "You gonna be on the square at three today?" I ask them. "Nah." one of them says. "Why not?" I ask. "You should pick some of the younger ones first, they got a long future ahead of them." another one says. "Don't sell yourselves short." I tell them. "We won't ma'am." the one I gave a friendly slap on the shoulder says. "I mean it guys. You seem to forget that I am one of the people who makes the decisions about the kids. Next time I'll convince them to take you lot back to Auradon." I say to them with a smirk. "Is that a threat?" one of them asks. "See it as a promise," I say as I start to continue walking. "Auradon really isn't that bad guys, I mean sure it could use a bit fewer pastel colors but that's about all." I say and they all chuckle. "Sign up for the next time we come!" I say to them. I extend my arm again to take Julie's hand in mine but all I grab is air. I look beside me and she's gone. I turn a full circle but I don't see her. I start looking into the busy crowd and see two pigtails walking two meters in front of me. "Julie!" I yell. She doesn't seem to hear me over the shouts of the vendors and the bustling of the crowds. I keep my eye on her as I start to push my way through the crowd. Somebody pushes against me making me lose my balance. I regain it before I fall. "I'm sorry miss." the older man that bumped into me says as he keeps his eyes on the ground. "It's okay, don't worry about it." I say as I look back into the crowd. Only now where I saw Julie moments before are other people already walking. I've lost her. "Please excuse me." I say to the older men as I continue to push my way past people. "Julie!" I yell once again, hoping she hears me. I don't get a response. I should've known this was going to happen, it's the busiest time of day here. I continue to push forward through the crowd, only hoping that Julie walked the same way. I keep turning my head from left to right, trying to catch sight of her ponytails or the sound of her voice. "Noah." I hear a little girl say to my right. That is her brother's name. I move to the right. "Noah!" I hear the voice yell again but this time closer. It's definitely Julie. Just as I push out of the crowd and spot Julie standing on a wooden crate I hear a familiar voice. "Julie, what are you doing here?" it says. I freeze. "I came here to look for my brother." she says. "Alone?" he asks. "No, I came with Kara." Julie says and I can feel his eyes shift toward me. I slowly look up at the person who is standing beside her. We make eye contact and I immediately turn around and try to push myself into the crowd.

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2725 words
(15/02/2023)