Defending the Mask

They Just Ran

Notes:

Heya Descendants Fam!

Look-it us all caught up!

Thank you all for the patience and understanding.

-Dark-

He knew they were good, that they survived the unsurvivable.

He hadn't been expecting them to be this good at hiding.

But-

Three days?

Three painful, scary days.

Three long days full of worry and concern.

Three days of barely eating and hardly sleeping.

He had, unfortunately, hoped that in their condition they'd be more sloppy.

He should've known better.

VKs were nothing if not resourceful.

All of Deez's letters should've taught him that by now.

Still, with their condition, he had hoped.

Three days of having to coax his friends to come back to rest, when all he wanted to do was exactly what they were desperately doing.

Find their missing friends.

Their terrified, wounded, and missing friends.

Instead, he was assisting Nani and David with Council hearings, speaking as both witness and Heir Apparent, and in general trying to get ahead of the anonymous members of the council calling for a full search of Auradon for any and all villains, adults, and children alike.

The villains he understood. But seriously?

His friends that had saved hundreds of lives?

He swallows a growl.

Sometimes it was all he could do to stay ahead of the mob of people clamoring to tell him and his father how to do their jobs.

"Prince Benjamin, we understand that the group of children brought over to Auradon from the Isle were not at fault for the summoning of the evilest villain in the history of our Kingdoms."

Did she understand? "But?"

"The conversation between Maleficent and her daughter Mal does raise questions that members of the court are demanding be answered."

"Does it now? And what questions would those be?" He knew Hiro was doing his best to find them, and he could kiss the man for it- But still, he wished he could be here for this. He couldn't shut down these inane questions with the same vigor and vulgarity.

Though he really, like really, wished he could.

"Maleficent made it sound as if the retrieval of the wand, the very magical artifact that is anchoring the magical barrier that separates the good citizens of Auradon from the evil that was banished to the isle, was a plan they came up with together. And we are having a difficult time proving the fault of the crack in the barrier to be a mere accident of a half-fairy taking the wand from her mother. Many are asking why Maleficent only showed up once her daughter was in possession of the wand."

It takes every ounce of self-control he possessed not to roll his eyes. Or slam his hands down against the desk. "As someone who has fallen to Maleficent's darkness yourself, do you really not believe she could have, perhaps, come up with that story on the spot upon Mal's defiance?"