Her Royal Highness

Chapter 10

There was giggling nearby. Mal screwed her face up, then wrenched her eyes open. A group of nine fairies about four inches high was gathered near her head, playing with strands of her hair. They were all different colors of the rainbow, with one black and one white fairy. Their skin tones matched perfectly with their wings, while their hair, outfits, and jeweled eyes were a darker shade of the color they represented. Their wings were uniquely circular.

When the fairies noticed Mal was awake, they jumped up and scurried off. Mal scrunched up her eyes and then rolled onto her side. Ben began to wake up beside her as his arm was dislodged from around her spine. The two new rulers sat up, rubbing their eyes and yawning widely.

"Good morning." Ben greeted Mal as he rubbed the feeling back into his legs. His shirt was ruffled and his hair twisted oddly to the side.

"It is morning." She affirmed, chuckling as he ran his hands through his hair, trying to straighten it and making it much worse. She got to her feet carefully and ruffled his hair into his eyes.

"Your hair is curly," Ben told her as he pushed his now-ratty hair back and squinted through the sunlight.

Mal felt her hair. It had, indeed, been curled into many tiny, springy curls. She wondered if it was a result of sleeping beside a magical tree, or if the fairies or woodland creatures had done it in her sleep. Since she'd become queen, a sense of familiarity had entered her. She considered for a second, and then called out: "Thank you!" To their surroundings. Something inside her told her that whoever had done it had heard her thanks.

She helped Ben to his feet. He swayed a little and rested a hand on her shoulder. When he focused again, he smiled at her. "You look different." He said. "Lighter."

Mal stretched her arms out. "I feel lighter." She said. She popped her shoulders and then all the joints in her fingers before she stretched out her legs. Ben watched her, silently contemplating. Besides her curly hair, her eyes seemed even more green than usual, almost like they had fire behind her irises.

"So, where do you fit in here?" Ben asked. "Like, what was Maleficent's species?"

"Mom was a fae," Mal answered. "She told me that a long time ago. Fae are basically the balance between fairies and humans. I'm half fae because my father was human."

"Hey," He started, clapping his hands together, "If you're part fae and you have horns you can will in and out of your head, do you think you also have wings?" He made a series of pretty-pathetic flapping motions with his hands.

"I don't know," Mal admitted, pausing to consider the idea. Maleficent, of course, had had wings that Auradon had let King Stefan carve off. And sure, if she had her mother's horns, there wasn't really a reason she shouldn't have wings. "Maybe?"

Ben shrugged. "Just a thought." He assured her, though it was clear the idea appealed to him. Mal chuckled

Ben and Mal wandered underneath the trees of the moorland together, chatting and picking fruit off of trees. Mal seemed to know which ones were actually jewels, and which ones only had a jeweled texture. Ben could tell no difference, but when Mal began to peel the garnet covering off of a pomegranate the size of a baseball, there had been real fruit underneath. On the other hand, when Ben tried to bite into a jeweled apple, he had discovered nothing under the surface except more gem. Mal chuckled and explained that it was a dead fruit. If fruit wasn't eaten in a certain amount of time, it hardened into a gem. She picked a different apple for him, and they continued their walk.

Down by the river, a group of long-faced fae women waited. There were four in all, and each had various patterns in different colors of skin in place of tones or shades. A lady with black dots across her eyes stood to greet them.