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diatu2021-09-13 10:00 pm
smilingarmor) wrote in diatu2021-09-13 10:00 pm
Reunited
Who: Sylvando and Mal
Where: A less frequented walkway between two campus buildings
When: A few days after the Festival of the Gods, late afternoon/early evenging
What: Sylv finally runs into Mal again for the first time since the Magic Kingdoms. Awkwardness and emotions are likely.
Warnings: Maybe some stuff from Mal's backstory? But otherwise probably none.
Sylvando was on his way back to his room after a bit of successful busking in the nearby square. Another few tweaks, and he'd be ready to take his act to the city at large. Plus, the pocket full of cash would be useful, both for immediate wants and needs and projects down the line.
It was a bit later than he usually headed back, though so a shortcut was in order. Thankfully the cafeteria was open for another hour or two; he could pick up some food, take it back to his room and...
He paused just before turning the corner to head down said shortcut though. There was a distinct hissing sound coming from down the path a bit. Someone's cat or snake familiar? No, it was too constant; it almost certainly wasn't an animal. And he also caught a whiff of a sharp, acrid smell. A familiar one. Could it be...?
He turned the corner into the alleyway and spotted a familiar head of purple hair, one attached to a young girl who was busy painting graffiti on the wall of one of the buildings that bordered the alley. "Mal, darling!", he said. "There you are! I was beginning to think we were going to keep missing each other forever." He'd seen her graffiti at various places around campus, so he'd known she was there, but for some reason they hadn't run into each other yet.
Where: A less frequented walkway between two campus buildings
When: A few days after the Festival of the Gods, late afternoon/early evenging
What: Sylv finally runs into Mal again for the first time since the Magic Kingdoms. Awkwardness and emotions are likely.
Warnings: Maybe some stuff from Mal's backstory? But otherwise probably none.
Sylvando was on his way back to his room after a bit of successful busking in the nearby square. Another few tweaks, and he'd be ready to take his act to the city at large. Plus, the pocket full of cash would be useful, both for immediate wants and needs and projects down the line.
It was a bit later than he usually headed back, though so a shortcut was in order. Thankfully the cafeteria was open for another hour or two; he could pick up some food, take it back to his room and...
He paused just before turning the corner to head down said shortcut though. There was a distinct hissing sound coming from down the path a bit. Someone's cat or snake familiar? No, it was too constant; it almost certainly wasn't an animal. And he also caught a whiff of a sharp, acrid smell. A familiar one. Could it be...?
He turned the corner into the alleyway and spotted a familiar head of purple hair, one attached to a young girl who was busy painting graffiti on the wall of one of the buildings that bordered the alley. "Mal, darling!", he said. "There you are! I was beginning to think we were going to keep missing each other forever." He'd seen her graffiti at various places around campus, so he'd known she was there, but for some reason they hadn't run into each other yet.
no subject
She wasn't sure which scared her worse - not that she'd ever admit to being scared, of course - that he'd not know her, or that he would. It had hit her at some point when she realized she had been avoiding him, that the only ones who could have hurt worse from the kingdom to not recall her would be Lydia or Ace. Maybe not. When had Sylvando started to matter to her so much? She had been trying so hard not to let anyone in. Lydia had slipped in easily enough because in a lot of ways... Lydia was like her. Not quite one or the other. They shared more than just aesthetics. They were both a foot in each world, both stuck between.
So Lydia made sense. And... it made sense to her why Lydia and her.. why... At the end, Lydia had other people around. She didn't need Mal anymore the way Mal had stupidly let herself need Lydia, and that made the things Lydia normally would have just accepted as Mal being Mal weigh more heavily. They had been too much alike. Mal had seen the issues coming when Lydia accepted Beetlejuice. When another Lydia shown up, that had just been it. She didn't blame Lydia, not really. Mal knew what she was like. And hey, a huge fight was the least bad way she'd ever lost a friend. At least Lydia hadn't betrayed her or tried to kill her.
But Sylvando...
Sylvando she didn't understand at all. Where Lydia could easily have passed as a VK who moved to Auradon... Sylvando was like... Auradon plus. She didn't understand him at all. Which was dangerous, because... he seemed to understand her all too well. She couldn't predict what he'd do next at any given time, except that he would do it in the loudest most flashy gaudy way possible.
When had that gone from irritating to endearing? Ugh, she was disgusted with herself. But... Sylvando was a friend now. The whys and wherefores didn't matter as much at the moment, what mattered was that somehow... she cared. A lot. She had tried so hard not to. But she did.
And Sylvando not knowing her, like the rest...? She wasn't sure she could survive that. Kaiba? Fine whatever. Atem... well that hadn't gone well. But Sylvando...?
Thankfully she had a decent idea of the kinds of places he frequented. So she avoided those. But she couldn't evade her own thoughts.
If he forgot her too, that would hurt. A lot. If he remembered, he'd work to undermine the rep she was building and that would be... tricky. But worst of all....
In the kingdoms, they had needed each other, the apprentices. But here? What if all this time he'd been working his way under her skin was because they had to stick together, because he was trying to make sure she would do her part, or worse, because he had designs on taking over that world and was trying to subvert her because he wanted to get her out of his way or use her? What if he remembered her here, but since he no longer needed her...
What if he had been playing her this whole time?
It always struck Mal as odd how brave people thought she was, because for all she tried to play up to that appearance, what she remembered most of those times was fear. When they thought a dragon was coming up on them on the way to Nowhere, and the others fled... they told her later how brave she'd been standing there, but it had been fear, she had been paralyzed with it. When she had walked through the fog that scared the others... it wasn't that the fog wasn't scary, it was that facing her mother as a failure was scarier than any fog could be. First on the bridge leaving the Fortress. Even facing her mother at the coronation. Fear. All of it. She had never confessed that to any of them. Well a little to Evie, but no one else. Because fear was a weapon you aimed at yourself and handed to your enemies. You couldn't show it. Ever.
That was why she needed the rep. Here especially. For some reason her magic wasn't as strong here as the native magic was, and she wasn't learning the new stuff fast enough. If she showed fear, she was dead. Done for. She had to convince everyone else that she had the swagger, that she had the confidence which meant that she had to have the power to back it up.
And if he did remember her and he did actually... if he was actually her friend? Then he would be his usual sparkly self and try to soften her, try to make her less thorny. He never seemed to understand why she needed those thorns, why they were so important.
and so far here there was no big bad for her to prove herself against. In the kingdom she had been able to square off against the corroded. She had been able to prove herself against a measuring stick they all had. Between patrols and missions she practically lived out there half the time, among all that danger. and always came back looking like she stepped out of her dorm room, fresh and ready for the day. In Auradon...? She was the one who stood up to Maleficent, as well as being a VK. No one saw her as soft there. And on the Isle? She was Mal. Maleficent's kid. Ever since Evil Queen refused to invite her to Evie's party when she was five and her mother banished the pair of them for ten long years as outcasts on the Isle... Very few people had ever been brave enough to mess with her on the Isle. Jay, though that was mutual and people saw that. Uma, who she got her own revenge on. Maddy. She'd proved herself with Uma and Maddy. And she was the only one who pushed back against Jay publicly. And oddly enough, stopping her mother hadn't made her the pariah on the Isle that she had expected to be. To the true villains it made her more. Worse. She had taken down the worst of the worst of them. Her motivation almost didn't matter. What she had wanted conflicted with what Maleficent wanted, so she took Maleficent down. She would have earned her E in Selfies for sure, if she still attended Dragon Hall. And to the other VKs who wanted to try being good? Apparently it had put the four of them on a pedestal.
The memory of Bargain Castle trashed... except for her room which was just as she left it. The Anti-heroes club.
No... people feared her, or at least respected her in a "she could destroy me if she wanted to" sort of way wherever she went. Sylvando... didn't. And he tried to tear that down, tried to make her more like what she was becoming in Auradon. Soft.
So it was a weird and complex terror that had kept her to lurking around back alleyways. And well, skulking about at night was second nature to her, and it wasn't like she'd actually SLEEP in that dorm. Her familiar stayed there at night to make it clear the bed was HERS. But like in the Kingdom, she found somewhere else to sleep. Or not sleep, as the case more often was.
She had been throwing herself into her paintings more and more the last few days as exhaustion was pulling on her. Stay awake spells apparently had less and less potency over time. She'd have to see if there was a local version.
That was why her usually sharp hearing didn't catch the sound of someone approaching over the sound of her painting. he should have heard him coming. should have. But the first clue she had that she wasn't alone, the first thing she heard was... "Mal, darling."
The paint can fell from her hand in shock. Thankfully the tension in the spraying finger went first, so the art wasn't ruined.
All this time being afraid, telling herself she was preparing for any answer and for a second she was frozen. Paralyzed again.
He knew her. And sounded like he'd been looking for her. That... was good, wasn't it? Was it? Relief she refused to admit ran through her, along with an urge to... to run up to him and hug him. Or to cry. Or both.
Stop it, she scolded herself. Are you evil or are you Auradon soft? Choose!
She had tried the Auradon way, all that was left was evil. It was all she was good at. And he knew that already. She bent to pick up the can as he spoke, to buy herself time to get under control.
Finally when she thought she could pull off the attitude she was sure he expected she turned to face him, smirk on her lips, purple brows raised. One hand was on her hip, the other was holding the paint can. "Then maybe you weren't aiming properly," she said, trying for a cool and under control joke. She would have tossed the paint can in her bag, but rather than looking cool it would have shown off the fact that she was shaking slightly. The stance was wide enough to hide most if it, but her aim would betray her. So she kept her hand on the can, all calm and casual seeming.
If she could fool him, that was. She never was sure when she managed to fool him and when he was just playing along. It was part of what made him so dangerous, really. Which had been fun in the kingdom but was terrifying here.
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But as it was he simply smiled, and returned her smirk with a cheerful one of his own. He hadn't missed the hesitation or how she'd dropped her paint can in shock, but he wasn't about to call her on them. At least not right then. "Or maybe you've been playing a moving target," he said with a wink. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he wouldn't put it past her.
"Now that I have hit my mark, though, we have quite a bit of catching up to do. And what better way to do that than over dinner? I was just headed for the cafeteria; care to join me? It'll be my treat." If there was one thing that would get Mal's interest, after all, it would be free food. And he could still study a bit afterwards.
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Like putting on an old favorite leather jacket that was already all soft and comfortable.
"If you throw in desert, you've got a deal," she said with a bit more of a grin, and a more natural one at that. She was careful that accepting free food wasn't something that could be used against her. So long as it was safe, there was no reason not to except. Even if she wasn't saving for a new place like she had been in the other world.
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"And of course dessert is included. It would be silly for it not to be, and besides, I hear that they're having strawberry shortcake tonight." And he knew Mal's fondness for strawberries.
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"I'd ask what was keeping you busy these days, but if I did you might just answer," she said with a smirk, tension draining as she bent to pack up her bag. "We can grab our food to go, I found a few out of the way places for a snack that have some great views." And are away from other people.
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It wouldn't take long to get to the dining hall from there, nor to select some relatively portable food items from those on offer to bring with them, including some carefully packed strawberry shortcakes for desert. Then it was off to wherever Mal chose to lead them to eat and talk.
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Maybe not even then.
Once they had their food packed up - and she did pick up a few more apples as part of dinner though he'd know by now they were for ammo s much as snacking - she led him to one of the spots she had found. She had no clue that there was any significance to anyone that mattered to either of them to the clock tower she headed for. She led him up the interior stairs, now decorated with trailing designs of thorns around the rails and along the walls, up to the ledge.
"There was some weird blue staining here when I found the place, but paint made it look intentional," she said gesturing to the dark shadowy shapes that now designed the ledge, with piercing sea salt blue eyes.
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"Very clever, darling," he said regarding the shapes painted onto the ledge. "Most likely we're not the first to come up here to spend a bit of free time; it really is a lovely view." He took a moment appreciate the sight of the setting sun casting a golden glow on the rooftops of the campus buildings, and those of the city beyond its walls. It was such a peaceful scene that one could almost forget how chaotic the grounds below could get at times. Almost.
But they did come up there for a reason. Sylvando took a seat on the clock tower's ledge and began unpacking his food. "Now then, Mal honey, tell me; just what have you been up too lately, hmm? I've seen your work around campus of course, but I'm afraid I've been too busy lately to catch up on the latest gossip."
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"I'd be more surprised if we were. Thinking of putting up some warding spells to keep this ours though." Once she, you know, learned any warding spells. Small details.
"Not much to tell," she said with a shrug. "Doing my art, going to classes occasionally when I remember they exist. Exploring. You?" Asking him to elaborate on himself as a way to side step further questions about herself? Yes, yes she was. She wasn't about to let him know she'd actually been going to classes more than occasionally, that she'd been hunting for places to sleep that weren't the dorm, and spending as much time studying as sleeping when she found them.
She eyed the strawberries then grabbed a bite of meat instead. Perhaps she could delay the strawberries so much he'd get tired and leave, and she could have them to herself, to eat alone.
Perhaps she'd even sleep up here tonight. It wasn't too cold for that, yet.
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He paused to take a bite of his sandwich before continuing. "Aside from classes and studying though, I really have been quite the busy bee since I got here. I've been putting together a new act, testing it out around campus before taking it to the city proper. In fact I'd just finished a little performance when I ran into you. Weaving what I've been learning in Fantastics into it has been going along fabulously, and it shouldn't be long til the Great Sylvando is ready to reveal his new act to his adoring public."
"And most recently, I've been helping an old friend from back in Erdrea put together a festival to drum up some faith and in the local gods and hope in the local people. I'm sure you heard about it." And possibly the little rival party that Crowley and Beetlejuice had put together that had ended up summoning one very unexpected guest. "That was such fun! The little troupe I pulled together really gave a command performance, and we had such a wonderful time, we're thinking of doing more shows together in the future too."
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"You got someone from home here?" she asked, avoiding the question about her other classes as she chewed. "So then what are you doing slumming it with the likes of me?" she asked, voice teasing a bit. Mostly to hide actual insecurities. But still, would she be Mal if she didn't make those sorts of comments?
"I heard something about a god thing, but not really my speed." And she'd rather avoid discussing religion anyway. Gods specifically. "Sounded like a sure bet there would be a lot of nose in the air better than you worst of Auradon types at something like that. Not exactly a place for someone with as dark a heart as mine, you know. I'll have to catch your act elsewhere at some point. After all, you need someone not too worried about being nice to tell you what needs fixing." She smirked and leaned back to watch the sky as she sipped her drink.
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"It really is a shame you missed the festival, though. Everyone had such a wonderful time, and I could have won you a plush hawk. Though of course this means we absolutely must go to the next festival that comes up together! After all, all work and no play makes one into a Hendrick, and we can't have that! After all, you may both have purple hair, but I really don't think you could pull off the beard, darling." He gave her a bit of a wink to show he was kidding before taking a sip of his own drink.
He wasn't sure how she could have Draconic Knowledge later than him, as it was his last morning class, and afternoons were devoted to other subjects, but they could figure that out later. "Now then, I know an attempt to dodge a subject when I hear one," he said. After all, he did it often enough himself. "But no more of that now. What classes have you been taking, honey? And what house did they put you in, eh? Have you been settling into dorm life alright?"
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"With all those friends here, it's surprising you even had time to notice my art, let alone find me," she said, blandly. "Aren't they expecting you back by now?" If he really had that many friends here now... what did he need with her? Ugh. She refused to get upset about it. At least she refused when there were any witnesses. She'd done just fine when she was avoiding him - she was good at lying to herself still - She'd be fine when he remembered he liked the other people more. She'd make sure she was.
She shrugged to answer his questions, and to change the subject. "A bunch of them, I'd have to check my notes. They all have weird names. I more just know where to go when. My time skip spell isn't working here as well as I'm used to," read, at all, "So it takes me a bit." she shrugged and took a long drag of her coffee. "They put me in some house called Ka. I mean really, do I look like the snake type? Or did they just see daughter of a dragon and toss me in the reptile one." She presumed it was named after the infamous Kaa, after all. "I have a few dozen nasty little spells around my stuff of course, but other than a place to stash stuff, I hardly see the point." she shrugged, leaning back to look up at the sky above them. "I mean, I'm sure you're not sleeping in your dorm either," she added with a snort. "Probably up half the night telling stories or juggling for coins." She grinned at him a bit, sure he was about to laugh and admit that she was right.
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He took a bite of his sandwich while Mal talked about her house and classes, then grinned when his mouth was free again. "What a small world it is, because both Erik and I are in Ka too! Isn't that wonderful? And you're right that I haven't been staying at the dorm, but that's only because they put me up in a room in the staff quarters. After all, a fellow my age rooming with so many little ones might not go over well with some parents. I'd be a perfect gentleman, of course, but it wouldn't do to set a precedent."
Really he was more concerned about her apparently not sleeping at the dorm. It might be workable for now, but it wouldn't be long until the weather started turning colder, assuming the seasons here followed the same pattern they were used to. "And where might you be sleeping darling, if not the dorm? There's no convenient stables on campus after all."
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Yes. She could work with this. "I'll get my stuff tomorrow," she decided, satisfied with this plan. She was feeling at ease about it enough that she even plucked up a strawberry.