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meviesdust · 10 hours

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#her song #mal bertha #edit #my edit #descendants

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meviesdust · 10 hours

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a pirate by any name +

"Samson Smee?" Ben asks, tapping the name on the list. “Is he related to Captain Hook’s sidekick?”

Evie leans closer on instinct. She doesn’t need to see the paperwork to know who Sammy is, but it’s a habit now to press close to Ben and tilt her head just-so to see the paper lists and forms when they’re working on VK matters together. It a comfort, to know that she’s not in this fight alone, and Ben certainly hasn’t complained about the increased contact with his girlfriend’s girlfriend. “Yes. He goes by Sammy. He's probably not going to want to come over without his brothers, but we can still make the offer."

"Can we bring the brothers?"

The last time Evie saw the littlest Smee children, they were sobbing over a pirate’s body before the adult crew members tipped them over the harbor for the sharks to take their share. They couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old, and what Evie remembers the most is the way their tears had carved clean tracks out of the dirt on their faces.

She hums her consideration. “They're young. Elementary age, maybe ten or so now. I think they'd be okay to come, but they're shy, and I'm not sure how they'd do at school. As families go, I think all the Smee boys would do well in terms of goodness integration, but they may be difficult to integrate on a social level unless they can come over with someone they already know."

"Alright. Who do you think they'd do well with?"

Their father.

“Their father,” Evie says, bitingly, before she reigns her tongue back in again. Not that it matters around Ben, who is handsome and kind and just listens when Evie needs to shout at somebody about the horrible unfairness of it all, but it’s good practice. She’s a politician now, just like her mother wanted. She’s got to be the best, because she’s an isle brat, and she cannot afford to make mistakes. Anything she says, anything she does wrong will reflect on the isle as a whole, so she’s got to be flawless. She will prove herself not just for her mother’s sake, but because she’s got a thousand hungry kids waiting for her to mess up and snip their only thread of hope at getting off the isle. “But that’s exactly the problem. Sammy has a crew, but the twins just tag along with him or their father all the time, and I don't think Auradon Prep, or any other high school for that matter, wants to have a pair of kids following their new high school student everywhere,” Evie sighs. She’s so fucking tired. “We have schools on the isle, obviously, but Sammy doesn’t attend very often. The pirates usually stick with their ships and learn what they need from the older members of their crews. It’s not a traditional Auradon education, but the pirates are actually some of the better educated kids on the isle. It works for them, but it won’t work if we bring them here.”

Ben puts a warm hand on her arm. It’s all Evie can do not to sink into the touch. She’s so, so tired of this. Of begging for any scrap they can get. Any concession to the norm comes at the price of another sliver of her own sanity, it feels like, and there’s so many children who won’t be able to handle the pressure of Auradon Prep, who will need more exceptions than the system is set up to give them, who won’t be able to thrive without the attention that nobody is able to give them.

“We can ask the charter school,” Ben says softly. “There's integrated schools, all ages sort of places. My mother’s village has one. We can reach out. She provides a grant each year, they might decide they own me a favor.”

Evie presses into his touch. Gods below, but it’s nice to have somebody who knows better than her the networks of favors and family histories that keep the kingdom governments running. “Or if we could find a family who would be willing to keep them together and send them to separate day schools, they might get used to being on their own like that,” Evie suggests. “Sort of slow and steady. A gradual break.”

Ben makes a note, a shorthand scribble on the side of his list. Evie’s eyes are swirling too much to read it exactly, but she knows their code. Foster family, special education, sibling unit. That’s what they need to know in order to place the Smee boys. A whole life, reduced down to three shorthand scribbles. “That could work. What are the brothers called?"

Evie laughs, exhausted. “Squeaky and Squirmy, but I believe their birth names are Sawyer and Simon. They're not bad kids, they're just shy. They would do better here, I think. Where there’s less adults around to bully them into staying quiet.”

Ben slips his hand up her arm, around her shoulders, pulls until she can rest her head on the side of his own. He’s warm and sturdy and if they weren’t in the middle of important work, Evie could fall asleep just like this. And then cause a scandal when the service staff come in to wake them both up, and find the young king sleeping on a girl who is not his girlfriend, no matter how many interests and people they share between them.

"We can ask. If Sammy's willing to come over without them, who do you think we could bring with him?"

"Anthony. Dizzy's cousin. They run with the same crew, and they'd do well together. I would say that we should bring over Harriet, but knowing her, she's not going to come over unless we can get the rest of her crew out first, and she's got one of the biggest crews on the isle."

Ben skims the list of kids, running his pen down the side as he goes. “Harriet?"

She’s not on the list.

“Hook,” Evie explains. “She’s one of the eldest pirate kids. We didn’t add her to the list because she won’t come until we can bring her crew with her, and we can’t promise that yet.”

“Hook.” Ben echoes, voice flat. “As in—?”

He’s encountered Harry, and came away with almost as much vitriol for him as Mal.

Evie presses herself closer to him, so that he can feel her heat, and maybe remember that they’re in her office, not the wet deck of a ship. That he’s not tied to a mast, waiting to die anymore. “Yes. There are three Hook kids, and they all hate each other. We only hate Harry, the middle one, so Harriet and CJ are our allies. Sort of an enemy-of-our-enemy kind of thing."

"Harry's the one who's involved with Uma.” Ben says, so softly that Evie can barely hear the words. “The one who tried to kill me.”

"Yes. He's....” Evie hesitates. She’s safe to hesitate here, in her own little office that smells like citrus wood polish and old papers. She doesn’t have to preform just for Ben, because she can trust him. Her sweet, kind king.

Trust doesn’t mean she wants to tell him everything. Understatement is a tool that Evie is well practiced at wielding, so she lets herself close her eyes, and forges ahead. “He’s a lot. We don't like him."

Ben smiles, small and sweet and almost sad. "I take it there's a history there?"

"Just a bit." Evie agrees. "There's been a few incidents."

"Would it be useful for me to know?"

Evie breathes in, and out, and relaxes her shoulders in an attempt to let go of the anger that she's still holding in her body. "I suppose so. Yes."

"Do you want to tell me?"

Honesty is the foundation of good relationships. "No."

Ben nods. He's too good to them. "You could tell me later. If you'd like."

The memory of blood spills over Evie's hands. The slippery, awful feeling of insides that were never supposed to become outsides against her leather gloves. The gritty feeling of dirt in her eyes that she can't rub out, blown up from the shattered crates they'd been aiming to take back from the pirates. The blood though, that's the part that she can't forget. She's been a medic since she first started sneaking out of her mother's house, but she's usually restricted herself to broken arms and legs and noses, some shallow stitches, fever medication, abortifacients and concussion care for the kids who can't take the dubious mercy of the barrier's spell. She's done medications for the kids who cared to try them, all sorts of poultices and remedies for the ailments that are within her power to fix.

She's never been able to fix someone once they start bleeding out.

She knows the theory of it. Blood transfusions, tourniquets, ways of stopping arteries without killing the patient. The problem is that she's never had to do it firsthand, because they've always known that the spell on the barrier was there to catch them before they died for real. The spell heals the killing blows, so it's easier to lean into the death than it is to staunch critical bleeding. Evie's killed kids herself, those who wouldn't die quick enough on their own, so that they could have the mercy of the barrier and the spell healing them back into a body marginally less broken than the one they'd left from.

"He killed us." Evie manages, around the memory of blood spilling up from her throat. "They made it a game. Him and Uma and their crew. We killed each other."

They've told Ben enough. He can figure out the rest, and he's smart and good and kind, so he does, and she can see him go white when he figures it out.

#when i tell you this has been messing w me since i read it yesterday #wow #evie grimhilde #smee twins #fic #king ben

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meviesdust · 2 days

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this scene but evie and doug are the nerdy gay besties and they’re attending mals first ever big art show and mals just been introduced and doug came as evie’s +1 so they could go support her gf

#mevie #evie grimhilde #doug descendants #mal bertha #descendants 2

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meviesdust · 2 days

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mals canon reaction to stress being flapping her hands, pacing, dissociating, and aggressively trying to get it out of her system without hurting anyone (ie the pencil stabbing scene in d2) is so special to me

#i do that too !!!!!#when she storms into the boys room immediately and starts pacing and flapping her hands and GOD #mal bertha #descendants 2

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meviesdust · 7 days

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