Into the Depths

Chapter 29

Mal grinned as she brushed some fuzz off of her golden robes. It was hard to believe but the day had finally arrived—graduation. The teachers at Dragon Hall had never encouraged graduating on time or at all, so the very idea was something that was somewhat of a culture shock.

But Mal and her friends were completely up for the challenge and proved themselves worthy. The only one of the VKs who wasn't graduating was Carlos and that was just because he was a year younger than them.

Honestly, I don't think Carlos cares that much, Mal thought. He'll be with Jane and Dude. Plus it's not like we're just going to throw him to the wolves so to speak. We'll be coming over whenever we have free time. Jay's going to Sherwood University with Bobby Hood and I'll be working with Ben to get more security put in place. After all we haven't seen one tentacle from Uma—whatever her plan is, she hasn't made it known to Ben or to me since her note. But she wanted Fairy Godmother's wand in the viewing so she might try attacking Auradon Prep first.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it," Evie told her, walking in wearing her own golden robes. "Auradon and security measures can wait, it's our graduation day!"

"I know, I know," Mal said but she was still mentally listing the needed security for Auradon. Thankfully she had almost completely mastered her dragon form and would do a fly by about once a day.

Plus it had the added effect of helping her calm down—flying was very relaxing and the stress of finals was enough to make her head spin. Or at least turn her eyes bright green more than once. Thank the Gods for Persephone once she was off the Isle, and Evie and Kitty and even Ben at times. If it hadn't been for them, Mal didn't know how she would have gotten through her finals.

"Did you ever think we'd be here?" Evie asked, once again pulling Mal out of her thoughts.

"Only in our dreams," Mal chuckled. "There was no way Maleficent or your mom would have stood for us graduating if we were still on the Isle."

"That's true," Evie nodded. "My mom was insistent that a guy wouldn't go for a smart girl."

"And now look at you, almost top of the class," Mal said with a small smile. "If our credits from Dragon Hall didn't carry over, you probably might have been second in the class."

"You don't think I could have been first?"

"Competing against Doug?"

"Good point," Evie giggled. "Doug definitely would have been first in our class regardless of whether or not our credits carried over."

Mal nodded and grabbed her cap. While she would have preferred wearing the dark blue of the boys' cap and gowns, at least it made sense for the gowns to be blue and gold. It would have been worse, the girls' gowns could have been white because of purity or some nonsense like that.

"Does it seem weird to you?" Evie asked as they looked around the dorm. "Leaving Auradon Prep I mean? It...I know we weren't here for very long but at the same time it feels more like home than the Isle ever did."

Mal smiled slightly. "I will admit, it does feel weird to know that we'll never have to deal with school work again. But we'll still be here. We'll need to check on Carlos from time to time, not to mention making sure the new VKs adjust to the school."

Ben had finally gotten the application form finalized and sent out to the Isle. Mal had to laugh when she thought about one of the questions: which of the first wave of VKs is your favorite? She didn't know how that would affect who got selected but she did know that it'd be interesting to see what people put.

The four of them would be going back to the Isle in a few days to collect the applications and announce who the lucky four would be. Of course, Mal already had an idea as to who would be considered to go to Auradon Prep if they put in an application.