XF → Harry Hook [2]✔

Lifted

Mal stared into an eerie darkness. It was darkness because she couldn't see anything, and it was eerie because there seemed to be a thin veil of silver that swam through the pitch-black.

Have I gone blind? The thought struck her like lightning, electrifying her with fear. In fact, it terrified her so much that only upon the third familiar mumble into her ear did she register someone was nearby.

Help me! She wanted to scream, but her mouth seemed wired shut. What was happening? Had she been kidnapped?

"Mal?" A familiar voice spoke into her ear, sounding too far away.

"What's wrong with her?" someone else asked, so concerned that they seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Her eyes are white!"

White? Panic rose within her, scalding her throat. What the hell did white mean? The panic forced her mouth open like a dentist's pliers. Mal was about to scream for help, only for her jaw to fall shut before she could speak, painfully rattling her teeth.

"Watch out!"

There was a shriek and then a sigh of relief, which Mal took to be a sign of survival.

"Come on, Mal, we're trying to help you!" a voice said exasperatedly, with more than a hint of annoyance, but Mal barely registered the irritation directed at her as she realized who was nearby.

But that was impossible, not unless the spell had been broken. And something had happened to her while she had been trying to knock Audrey out, and all Mal remembered was pain in her side and lightheadedness and falling...

"It's me, Mal; it's me – Ben," the king of Auradon said gently, his voice now closer than it used to be. "Can you hear me? Give me a sign if you can."

His very presence slowed her heart. She was with Ben. She was safe. But how was he here? Curiosity began to replace fear, and the silver veil was starting to overpower the darkness, strange threads of silver knitting themselves together across her vision.

"It worked – her eyes aren't rolling like crazy anymore."

Mal recognized that voice too. Jay. The last time she saw him, he had been turned to stone. How...?

"Oh, thank god." The sound of Evie's voice brought relief so strong that Mal was about to cry. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's stuck in her dragon form." Uma explained, and Mal could almost hear the frown she wore on her face as she spoke. "Mal, don't worry; you'll be back to normal soon. You probably can't talk because your human consciousness is detached from your dragon form, so everything feels too big and too heavy. Just take deep breaths, alright?"

So, she hadn't been blinded and she hadn't been kidnapped. That set Mal's mind more at rest than Uma could ever know, and in that moment, she was grateful for her previous adversary, something that she wouldn't have believed possible only a month before.

"Breathe in. Breathe out." Ben soothed, guiding her. It sounded as if he was speaking into a plastic cup attached to a long piece of string, and Mal was holding another plastic cup to her ear. It was a game every child of the Isle had played, easy and made available by trash and scrap. It was the closest thing to a toy any of them had ever owned.

Gradually, Ben's voice grew closer and closer. In her head, Mal imagined the line getting shorter and shorter as Ben got louder and louder. At the same time, the silver veil lighted up the dark, illuminating the inky blackness until Mal was looking into seven pairs of worried eyes and silver that was revealed to be merely moonlight.

Breaths and sighs of relief filled the air. Mal's vision was clouded once more, but this time by a warmth that was impossible for her to not recognize.