Tulips

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/12711519.

Rating: General Audiences

Tulips
by Heart_Seoul_Soshi

Summary

5 times Mal wanted to kiss the girl and the 1 time she did

Notes

from an anonymous request on tumblr

When Mal stormed into her first class of the day as if she were a hurricane, and the sight of the
princess who made a dainty little throne out of her desk stopped her short like a punch to the chest
(and believe her, Mal knew plenty about a punch to the chest). The hurricane lost its violent winds
and its driving torrent of needling rain and quelled to a sudden spring drizzle, warm and quiet.
Meadow green eyes, usually narrowed in scorn, now strikingly innocent in their curiosity as they
traced the length of blue hair that rolled like the churning waves of the sea within The Isle’s magic
barrier. Meadow green eyes, strikingly innocent in their curiosity, following the waves down to full
lips of pink, soft like the petals of roses Mal had only seen within the torn and weathered pages of
books. When even as the storm began to swell once more and frightened the princess away,
meadow green eyes found themselves drifting again and again to a soft pink rose, longing to take it
and plant it within a garden of scowling dark red.

When "the princess" came to be Evie, and Evie sat before her with a makeup brush and a gentle
touch, dusting an all-too-familiar pink across Mal's cheeks, barely even having to nudge a finger
against Mal's chin to turn her head. Evie's voice was not a voice, but a soft rasp, a summer breeze
through the leaves, a shiver down Mal's spine. A date with a prince lurking in the back of her mind,
but a moment with Evie standing front and center. The gentle touch carried onto a perfectly
manicured fingertip as it dabbed color onto Mal's lips, color that had since flushed to cheeks long
before a sprinkle of blush was ever swept over them. When scowling dark red lips were painted
petal pink, and Mal's artistic eye envisioned all the different ways pink could blend with pink.

When lips came together not in the ways of happily ever afters, but in song; two friends sharing in a
duet that carried the weight of more than just friendship to everyone's ears but their own. What
used to be dark brown eyes were now chocolate eyes, as chocolate—much like Evie—was a thing
that Mal had come to know very well in Auradon, and chocolate eyes bored into her as her walls
came tumbling down and her almost-royal defenses were shattered. As the melody passing through
Evie's lips sang promises and vows that not even a bespelled prince ever once uttered, as two
friends sharing in a duet stood before each other by the stained glass of a window like two lovers
stand by the stained glass of a church alter. When Evie made instant good on her promise to never
be out of reach by letting chocolate eyes flutter shut and her head fall to rest on a bed of purple
bangs did Mal wish that lips would come together not in song, but in the ways of happily ever
afters.

When it was that fateful day at Dragon Hall all over again, and meadow green eyes carrying the
dying emerald embers of dragon fire watched waves of blue tumble free from their elegant pool
under a golden crown pin. Peace had been made; an uneasy peace with a sea witch's daughter, a
relieved peace on board a soaked ship, and an internal peace as Mal and her former prince (former
in more ways than one) said their goodbyes and finally accepted that what they were meant to be
was simply not meant to be at all. The night carried on, hard feelings could find no purchase here,
and if Mal believed in such things, something akin to fate had her glancing over just in time to
watch Evie letting her hair down to revel in the evening's festivities. When Mal saw that waterfall
of blue cascading down around Evie's shoulders, everything rooted firmly in her very soul was
drawn to the water's edge, not caring in the slightest that she knew not how to swim.

When purple and blue twirled past each other again and again on a watered-down dancefloor the
way flowers might twist and twine in a rainy wind. Mal's starry eyes were trapped within sapphire
—sapphire hair, sapphire lashes, a dress of sapphire sparkling grandeur that outmatched the
majesty of the night sky by far. Her hand came to Evie's without her even having to look, like for
that very second in time it was just meant to fit there. A crowded, watered-down dancefloor
suddenly only carried two, Mal's starry eyes suddenly saw nothing of cotillion, or Auradon, or the
rest of the world, for that matter. All she saw was herself as she danced with Evie, the very first
time a dragon had ever been stolen away by a princess. When the soft pink petals Mal first spied
back on The Isle now bloomed a deep, luscious red, Mal wanted nothing more than to taste of the
apple promised on Evie's lips.

And when the night came to an end as all nights do, a dragon and a princess found their way back
to their still, empty dorm. Curtains thrown wide, corners touched with moonlight, with magic. The
entire room glittering with the gleam of stars, and Evie glittering along with it. Mal's breath caught,
as Auradon truly was a place of beauty, and wonder, most of it standing right there before her with
lidded eyes and soft breaths. Through hurricanes and blushes, promises and waterfalls, petals of
pink and petals of red, Mal had walked with Evie—walked heart to heart under the sun but now
stood two hearts as one under the moon. Hurricanes and blushes, promises and waterfalls, petals of
pink and petals of red were all wonders that Mal had let slip too easily through her fingers, but here,
and now, with the whispers of Evie's heart dancing across her skin, Mal was done letting wonder
pass her by. And when Mal held her and kissed her, kissed her and tasted the sweetness of the
apple, felt the softness of the rose, it was magic pulsing through her veins like no magic she'd ever
wielded before.

Fingertips dancing gently across Evie's cheeks like she was a sapphire of glass, fingertips suddenly
warm to the touch as a flush spread beneath Evie's skin that was in no way the work of makeup, a
flush hot like Mal's dragon fire that lured her in closer as such. Drawn to the flames, to the
heavenly taste of apple with the faintest hint of strawberry, Mal held her princess tight and more
than made up for the moments she dared let pass by. The princess who made a dainty little throne
out of her desk had now built a castle within her heart, and there she would stay forever, as two lips
would forever come together in the ways of happily ever afters.

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