Second in Line - Descendants (?Mal) ~Slow Updates~

●°●BEN●°●

Green/brown eyes shot open, immediately squinting against the bright, white light above. It was all he could see.
     Ben didn't move. Not that he couldn't move, he could. Or at least he thought he could, but something was off...
     Ben brought his attention to every part of his body. Legs, arms, fingers, toes, and hands, but they didn't feel right.
     How did I get here?
    Where is here?
     The questions floated through his head as clouds slowly moving through the clear blue sky on a calm summer day. Everything was so peaceful...
     Shadows started to form between the clear white above. Softly swaying.
     Still, Ben didn't want to move.
     White flecks started to fall from the sky. They felt soft against his skin as they started to cover him.
     The shadows above turned into tree branches, dark and leafless, moving in the wind. Behind them, the sky took form, white clouds, some were slightly darker, making Ben realize the white flecks falling from up above were snowflakes. 
     Voices. He could hear voices, somewhere in the distance, but they clearly were.
     Eventually, Ben brought himself to sit up and look around. He was in a with snow covered field at the edge of a small forest. I know this place.
     The snow beneath his bare hands didn't feel cold, and as he stood straight, non of it had stuck to his clothes or had melted on his skin. 
     Ben ignored the surreal feeling he had while standing there and turned to the voices, feeling a strong pull to them. 
     As he walked past the many neatly placed stones and statues, he realized this was the Royal Graveyard. Ben could see the source of the voices in the distance. A big group of people, all wearing black standing in a big, half circle around a woman. 
     A funeral?
     The woman was speaking in a shaky voice, clearly trying to keep her emotions to herself. As he walked closer, Ben recognized the woman in the middle. Fairy Godmother was speaking to the grieving crowd. Tears stinging in her eyes, but it seemed like she was the only one capable of talking. 
     Ben wanted to walk up to them, but disturbing the service seemed wrong. So he stayed quiet, watching from a distance. 
     Looking more closely, he recognized more people in the crowd. His girlfriend, Audrey, her face berried in her grandmother's chest, who stroked her perfectly combed hair. Lumiere was there, as were Pogo, Perdita, and their pups. They had grown so much since they had escaped Cruella de Vil and her henchman. 
     Then his eyes found a group of three, huddled together. A father, a mother, and a daughter. His family. 
     They all seemed so devastated. What is going on?
     Not able to keep to himself anymore, he walked up to them from behind. "Mom?" His voice sounded weird, hollow. But he got no response. "Dad?" He didn't say anything, he just stared at Fairy Godmother. "Emma?" He raised his voice. Maybe he was whispering too soft for them to hear. 
     Emma turned her head to look over her shoulder, her dark brown hair that resembled their mother's had been braided into a bun at the back of her head, her nose and cheeks rosy as they always were in the cold wind. Ben smiled at her when their eyes met. Hers were glistening with tears. "What's wrong?" She didn't respond, her eyes seemed to look right through her brother. 
     "And now, our dearest Emma-" Fairy Godmother's voice cut through the silence, making her snap her attention back to the fairy. "-has prepared something very special, haven't you?"
     Emma nodded her head a few times, a soft 'yes' coming from her lips, barely audible even in the abnormal silence that surrounded the graveyard. 
     "Come on, Sweetie."  Fairy Godmother waved her over with a gentle smile. But Emma didn't move.
     Belle leaned down while dad rubbed her back, "only if you want to." Mom whispered at her. 
     The young woman nodded once, "I need to do this..." She mumbled as she straightened her back and walked to the front of the crowd. All eyes were on her, and her brother knew she wasn't comfortable with that, it was clear through the tense way she held her shoulders. 
     She walked to a piano Ben hadn't seen standing there before. Weird. He thought. How did they get the piano outside? 
     Emma sat down on the seat like he had seen her do many times before. Out of the pocket of her black coat, she took a piece of crumpled paper, flattened it out, and put it in the holder. She sniffled and cleared her throat. Her hands hovered over the keys, her eyes switching from the paper to the crowd and back to the keys. 
     "Come on..." Ben mumbled, "You can do this, Kat..." 
     She started to shake and took a deep breath and then...
     Her hands clenched into fists. "I can't do this." Her voice was soft, but for the people who couldn't hear her it was clear what she meant when she hastily stood up- knocking over the chair in the process- grabbed the paper and ran off into the forest. 
    "Sweetheart -" Their mother called after her, already moving to stop her, but her husband took her hand in his. 
     "Leave her, she needs to calm down on her own." 
     Belle pulled her arm loose, "what she needs is her mother." She bit at him, even he could hear the edge in her voice even though she was whispering. Not waiting for him to answer, she went after her daughter. 
     "Nice one, dad." Ben said, walking after his mother. Emma would never say she needs a shoulder to cry on, she never did. Ben knew that, when was he going to learn that?
     The young man caught up to them eventually. But only because Emma had dropped down to the ground, knees pulled up to her chest. The snow stuck to her black clothes and dark hair, slowly melting, only to be replaced with new snowflakes. 
     "It's okay..." Her mother said in her soothing voice, kneeling beside her daughter, her arms tightly around her. 
     "Mom, Kat?" Ben spoke clearly as he walked up to them, kneeling in front of the two. 
     Belle continued as if her son hadn't said a thing. "We all miss him-"
     "He's gone..." Emma interrupted in her shaking voice. "He- he left us." She sucked in a breath. Saying that Ben was confused was an understatement. What had happened? 
     "Your brother loved you, and he didn't mean to leave us. It was an accident..."
     Ben froze. "I'm right here." He answered, but they didn't respond. "I am. I didn't leave. Mom? Emma?" Ben reached out to his sister, wanting to grab her arm and make her look at him. But his hand went right through her. 
     Panic shot through him as he fell back. "What..." 
     Then the memories hit him. All of them at once, and everything made sense again. 
     Devastated, Ben sucked in a breath he realized he didn't need anymore. 

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