#she's not mean and controversial and obviously magical like Mal is

[thebluestbluewords]

something dumb to do

“What age does Auradon royalty usually get married?” Mal asks, flopping her head backwards to look at the ceiling. There’s a spider web in the corner. Maybe it’s a new assassination method, death by spiders, and eventually someone will release a venomous one and expect poor kind-hearted Ben to trap the thing rather than kill it, and that’s when it’ll be trained to strike and kill him through nefarious spider-bite means. 

Maybe Mal should stop watching crime dramas late at night when she can’t sleep. 

Or maybe she should be the one to clean out all the spiderwebs. In the name of keeping her people safe, of course. A little bit of fire would clear them right out, no problem. 

“Ben,” Evie says, voice sharp and dangerous like a warning. Like a rattlesnake, maybe. “What age?” 

Mal lifts her head again to watch this go down. Evie sounds upset, which is never ideal. Asking uncomfortable questions is normal, but she sounds outright pissed, which is…. 

Bad. 

Ben cringes so hard that it looks painful. Mal almost wants to try and squish his face back into shape. Like he’s a stress ball. The look is sort of a pained grimace expression, with a hint of something else around his mouth.

“Between eighteen and twenty,” Ben says, looking down, “is what’s considered the typical marriage age for royalty,” He gets the words out quickly, like if he speaks as fast as possible he won’t really be saying them out loud. “Sometimes as late as twenty-four or five is still acceptable. It’s stupid and antiquated and based on creating firm alliances as soon as possible.” 

“What the fuck,” Mal whispers to herself. Just to herself. She’s older and wiser now than she was a few months ago, and she’s aware that it would be a truly terrible idea to say this truly out loud.  “Oh no.” 

Ben hears her. Because of course he does. 

 “Auradon is really just a pile of smaller kingdoms in a trenchcoat!” he cries, looking pleadingly at Mal. “Political marriages are a thing! If I don’t get married young I could be considered unfit to rule because I’m not “considering the legacy of Auradon”, and I’ll be replaced with the next person in line once my father steps down.” 

Oh, gods. “And that next person is?” Mal asks, already afraid that she knows the answer. 

Ben makes a truly terrible face, all scrunched up and painful looking. “You’re not going to like it,” he says slowly. “And in my father’s defense, the council set the order of inheritance before any of them actually had children, so it’s not like they could have known what they were doing back then.” 

Jay lifts his head. “It’s Chad,” he announces, and promptly flops back down again. 

Mal’s pretty sure that she can actually feel her body do a little dry-heave at the thought. “What the fuck.” 

Ben looks physically ill. “It would be Audrey, but women aren’t allowed to inherit directly.” he says quickly. “It’s stupid, I know. If I’m declared unfit, the crown goes to Chad. Then if he abdicates or is found unfit to rule, it goes on to Audrey, assuming that she’s married to a man who will become the king regent to her queen. If she’s unmarried, the crown goes back to Charmingburgh, and Chad’s sisters are set to inherit next, from eldest to youngest. If they’re found unfit–” 

Mal is pissed on Audrey’s behalf, and she doesn’t even like the girl. “And by unfit you mean unmarried?” 

Ben winces. Over his shoulder, Evie is making almost the same face. Of course she’d pay attention in their Auradon history classes, she actually cares about this princess shit. Of course, she’s more of a princess than the rest of them will ever be, so that makes sense. Evie technically stands as like, fifth in line to inherit part of Charmingdale someday. Assuming she can jump through enough bullshit goodness hoops first. 

They’d covered Auradon inheritance order in class at some point this semester. Mal vaguely remembers it. It was a guest lecture, they’d brought in some ancient crusty historian to give the most mind-numbingly boring lecture ever about inheritance lines and the historical precedents that the Auradon royal structure is based on, and Mal had stabbed herself with her own pencil just to stay awake through the whole thing. Not that it worked that well, obviously. She’d been putting all her energy into staying awake instead of remembering the class, and after the pencil went into her thigh it wasn’t much good for taking notes anymore, due to the blood and stuff. 

Mal is the proper queen of the Moorlands now that her mother is officially living in permanent exile as a stupidly fragile little lizard, but she’s got no interest in cashing in on that inheritance, even though it would make some things easier. They’re still waiting on a proper place to stay for the summer, for one thing. The moorlands aren’t perfect, but they’re better than staying with Fairy Godmother for the summer, so Mal’s keeping that inheritance in reserve as a backup option. Unlike Auradon proper, the moors don’t adhere to the new inheritance rules that were established with King Beast and his High Council. They believe in inheritance by blood, either inherited or spilled, and last Mal checked, she’s still the only blood descendant of Maleficent, their last true queen, so she’s got that in reserve if absolutely everything else goes to shit and they need somewhere to hide for a while. 

There’s no castle in the moorlands though, and it’s all swamplands and soggy trees, so she can’t even magic a decent house into place. They can’t exactly live for the summer in a fucking swamp. The moisture alone would ruin Evie’s hair, not to mention the number of electronics that keep appearing in the boy’s pockets.

Anyway. 

“Yes,” Ben says, sounding sorry about it. He’s got a real talent for acting genuinely regretful for the shitty choices he’s forced to work around. It’s comforting to know that he’s got that much of a self-defense mechanism. “If they’re unmarried, which is unlikely to happen, as the eldest two are already married and have children on the way, the crown would theoretically move on to some of Audrey’s cousins.” 

Mal moves closer, until she’s close enough to touch. It’s easy to slip a finger under the upcoming king of Auradon’s chin, tipping his head up with one delicate human finger until he can’t help but meet her eyes.  “I don’t like the way you’re saying theoretically there, princeling,” Mal says, breathing the words out over Ben’s lips. 

Ben smiles, eyes tight. “Me neither,” he agrees. “In theory, the crown would move on to Audrey’s cousin Leon. And then to Dahlia, and then to Artie of Camelot, and then probably Snow, if she has a child with any interest in politics.” 

Mal cups his chin in her hands, the tips of her fingers resting on his throat. “What’s actually going to happen?” 

Ben sighs. Mal can feel the vibration in her fingertips. “If Auradon can’t agree on a ruler by that point,” he says, looking directly up at her “I highly doubt that there’s going to be an Auradon left to rule.” 

Shit.