The Ones Who Wander

The Beginning

Hi, everyone! I'm back!

See, my beautiful beta, geminalupus had a very good idea―she suggested that I waited til the second movie came out to post the third chapter out, but then we decided against it because something very important will happen in the fourth chapter, so... we want to give you that surprise as well as the movie, and that means story will be updated either this Friday or this Saturday.

During this chapter there are some mentions of past abuse, though they are not very grafic, more like hints, just in case you need to know.

I don't think I have anything else to say, so... please enjoy!

PD: Oh, I almost forgot! The conversation between Mal and Ben (you'll know which one... hopefully) includes some mentions of another one story I wrote called 'Destiny If You May,' it is nothing more than a short, sweet Bal fic and you do not need to have read it to understand this story, but I thought I'd just let you know in case you were confused.

The Beginning

Unfortunately, Belle had failed to mention that the title Mal had been given would only become official once Auradon held a party to honor the occasion and Ben personally put the golden badge in her hand.

So much for keeping a low profile, Mal thought, holding back a huff as she remembered the countless times she'd turned, trying to find a position in which she felt comfortable while wearing the mermaid dress Evie made her. Evie insisted she'd worked around the clock to finish in the two weeks that had passed since the council's meeting, but Mal was pretty sure that the daughter of the Evil Queen had been hiding her development on that dress ever since she and Ben had allied to make her the ambassador.

She suppressed a smirk. Evie had done a good job hiding the dress in progress, Mal had to hand her that, and while she was still a tiny bit mad at her and at Ben for hiding their decision from her, she understood why they had acted like they had.

On the other hand, Mal also had to admit that she liked her new dress way better than the one first one Evie had gifted her with.

In all honesty, she would have worn anything Evie made, but it appeared that her friend had listened to her reviews on the dress she'd worn to Ben's coronation and had planned the new one around them, taking away the frills and turning the color into a darker shade of purple.

Well, good thing it was over, Mal decided, putting down the picture frame that had sent her thoughts swirling back to the celebration of the night before.

Ben had insisted on giving her an office in his castle, to ensure she had a place to work, he'd said, no matter how many times she repeated that as long as she had Evie and a notebook she would manage.

In the end, it turned out to be good idea, given that they wouldn't be able to stay in Auradon Prep for summer vacations and Ben had offered them to stay at his family's palace.

Still, Mal couldn't help but think that a whole room to call her office, with more furniture than she'd had at her bedroom back at the Isle was, more than a necessity, an extravagance.

On the other hand, perhaps all of this luxury was only Ben's way of apologizing for the fact that, now that she was actually absorbed in politics, she'd have to brook a good number of council meetings and royal lessons, the first of which would begin in roughly fifteen minutes.

For this first meeting, Mal had explicitly asked that no actual sovereigns were present. Yes, she would have to get used to their more-often-than-not backward ways, but for the time being she didn't want to worry about accidentally pissing off an important queen, therefore she'd requested that only Ben, Evie, the Fairy Godmother, Belle, Adam, Jay, Carlos and Freddie be present.