Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Descendants.

This comes after my fanfic 'Amethyst'; you don't have to read that fanfic beforehand, but it would totally make your reading experience better if you read it beforehand. :D

Evie wiped at the tears that'd spilled from her eyes onto the white wedding dress she was working on. She knew they wouldn't stain, but she didn't want Mal to notice them.

What kind of tears were they? They weren't reflexive tears, like tears that come to your eyes when you suddenly stub your toe or ram your hip against a desk. Nor were they pure tears of human sadness. No, Evie's tears were a complex mixture of happiness, reflection, and sadness.

Evie had never cried from happiness until she came to Auradon. Really, crying of any sort, even by babies, was frowned upon as weakness on the Isle, especially when your parents are Villains. "Don't cry, Evie. It'll weaken your eyes, and your looks are all you've got. Which isn't much to say, since you haven't much to ruin," Mother said whenever she caught Evie at a tearful moment.

These were good tears, Evie decided, yet she didn't want Mal to see. Mal would be confused if she saw her best friend crying while she hand-sewed her best friend's wedding dress. What was there to cry about? The biggest, most significant royal wedding was in three weeks and Evie was obviously the maid of honor. Mal, her best friend, was getting married!

It was the biggest, most exciting uproar the kingdom had ever been party to; even the first coronation of a new king and a royal cotillion couldn't hold a candle to this historically-significant event: a Villain Kid marrying the King of Auradon? Insane. Really, the media had been having a field day every day for the past six months.

Yet, despite a few talk show interviews, press-conferences, and an occasional intimate interview with just a reporter in the palace, Ben and Mal had been telling the public approximately zip about their wedding. All the people surrounding the wedding, from Jane, the wedding planner, Jay the best man, Carlos the ring bearer (in reality the rings were to be brought up the aisle on a pillow on Dude's back, but Carlos was the only one who could handle a talkative Dude in front of an enormous crowd), to Doug the music director, kept their lips sealed, and only teased the media with coy smiles and vague comments that really told them nothing.

Evie had never enjoyed an event more than the planning of this wedding. She and Mal and Dizzy and Jane were inseparable from day one—they divided some projects and schemed together on others. Today Jane spent all her time running frantically between three differently decorated rooms, picking and choosing the best elements of each to decorate the reception hall. She worked herself constantly into a sweat and drank copious amounts of water, and often dashed into the huge sewing room to sit down for a second and pour out her woes and worries to an infinitely patient Evie.

Evie found herself the confidante of many, sitting there on the carpeted sewing room floor, surrounded by yards and yards of intricate lace and fine, smooth silk. She herself had glowed when Mal assigned her the coveted task of making her wedding dress. All the eyes of the media on the day of the wedding would be focused on Evie's handiwork. Her name, if not heard of before, would become a household name in all of Auradon.

Evie didn't care about the fame. She just loved the idea that she got to make her best friend's wedding dress.

Another tear hit the fine fabric. Evie sighed and wiped away at it and hurriedly looked up when Dizzy spun into the room—quite literally. The soon-to-graduate Auradon student had many credentials to her career already, including designing and creating every single piece of jewelry to be worn by the wedding party at the wedding. She stayed awake for days on end, living almost solely off the wonders of bubble tea, to finish her work: all pieces had to be completed a week before the ceremony, so as to be properly photographed and featured in magazines published days before.

"Evie, Evie! I've done it!" Dizzy squealed.

"Dizzy, what is it?" Evie honestly wondered. She'd recovered herself enough to speak in a calm, normal voice.

Dizzy raced across the room holding two small pieces of jewelry away from her like they were poisonous. She fell to her knees, barely missing an aerated puff of silk, and held up her masterpieces. "Your earrings! I finished them!"

Evie gently laid aside her needle and thread and gasped as she took them in: they were dangling vines, glittering and gleaming with emeralds. At little intervals were rubies with tiny emeralds atop them, resembling gleaming, delicious apples.

"Dizzy, they are perfect. You've done it again. I can't wait to wear them!" Evie held out her arms and warmly embraced the hyper kid. Oh, she was proud of her. This little star indeed shone like the bright light she was. She was suffocated by shadows, living on the Isle. Here on Auradon, like the other VKs, she truly shone.

"I have to get to work on your necklace. Also, meet me tonight at seven: I have sooooo many hair designs I want to try out on you! Oh, this is going to be the best wedding ever!" Dizzy leapt to her feet and squealed all the way out of the room.

Finishing the jewelry a week early left too much time on Dizzy's hands. When Mal made a sly remark about Dizzy maybe doing the wedding party's hair, Dizzy had pounced on the challenge with her usual enthusiasm.

"Sounds great. See you then, Dizzy!" Evie called, even though she knew Dizzy was two rooms over by now. Evie sighed and fell back to her task. Mal would be here soon; the last Evie had heard of her was when she was dragged away by Jane to choose between seven different colors of table bunting. ("I didn't even know table bunting was a real thing," Mal said to Evie as Jane pulled on her hand.) She'd be back soon, to sit in the corner and pretend to not notice her phone until it dinged every half-minute from a text from Ben—and talk to Evie, in the meantime.

Evie breathed in deep and said to herself, "Get yourself together, E. Now's not the time to be sad about the future. Just because you're going your own ways doesn't mean you won't still have the best friendship ever." That little pep talk had the opposite effect of what Evie wanted it to; instead of being comforted by the fact that their friendship was as strong and sure as ever, Evie thought back to the days past, of their childhoods and time in Auradon Prep. As long as she could remember, Mal had always been her best friend, always by her side. They were inseparable. They'd escaped their homes together whenever their mothers got overbearing and particularly nasty. They braided each other's hair and had sleepovers and complained about the lack of Wi-Fi on the Isle ("Wi-Fi must be the greatest thing ever, or why would they talk about it on TV all the time?" Mal sighed, staring at Snow White giving them the latest scoop. "Probably just to rub it in that we on the Isle don't have it," Evie had said as she sighed and stuck another bobby pin into the curls on Mal's head.)

They'd been each other's comfort and confidante, even a little more with each other than with the boys, seeing as they were girls and the boys usually turned squirmy at the very idea of girl-talk; they'd shared a dorm at Auradon Prep and an apartment after they graduated. Now they'd be separated; not forever, but enough to make it seem like a chasm. Mal would go on to live in the palace with Ben; her days would be filled with palace events, entertaining other royalty and signing treaties and visiting other countries and planning wicked tea parties and stuff. Evie would go on living alone in their old designer apartment; she was the most in-demand clothes designer in all of Auradon; she'd go to high-end parties and fashion shows and debut more clothing lines and go on fun dates with Doug. Both of their lives would become so busy and consumed with other things, would they ever find time to hang out and gossip and be best friends?

Evie sighed and stood up, wiping at her face. "No crying, Evie," she said shakily to herself, trying to laugh it off. "Crying only makes your mascara run." She decided that the wedding dress needed to be put off or else her eyes would be so blurry she'd stick herself and get blood all over the fabric. The world's cameras would be on this dress and she would run away to the Isle if they found a blood drop on it.

She sat in a plush palace chair next to the one Mal had been sitting on and caught up a fine piece of pale purple chiffon in her hands. This was another project—Mal's wedding veil. Her dress was white, as they stuck to Auradon tradition, but its accessories? All complementing pieces of different shades of purple.

Evie obviously had a hand in designing the entire wedding party ensemble. On the bride's side, Mal wore purple while her bridesmaids (Evie leading the helm of her, Jane, Lonnie, and Dizzy) wore her other signature color, dark green. Evie planned on having dark green highlights interspersed in her hair, and the filmiest, prettiest dark green dresses for them all. Then, Ben was to wear the most perfect dark blue suit while his men wore shiny gold suits. Evie collaborated with some of Cinderella's mice to work on the suits—she received texts every half hour updating her on the pressing and stitching and ironing of them. The groom's party consisted of Jay and Carlos, obviously, with Chad Charming (as he and Ben had actually been all-right friends in Auradon days, despite the whole Audrey thing), and Dude. Even Dude got a sick golden suit jacket, with an ornately stitched pillow that sat next to the veil Evie was working on that very moment. It sat ready, in anticipation for the rings to be lightly stitched onto it and the entire thing saddled onto Dude's back.

"Ugh! I'm back!" The voice of the bride-to-be made Evie check herself back into her present task and focud on picking the most perfectly shaped amethysts to hand-sew in a sprinkle across the light veil. "I now know what table bunting is; I also know that it shouldn't take twenty minutes to pick out the best color. But, well, you know Jane. Perfectionist through and through, which, you know, I can respect." Mal picked her way over her pieces of wedding dress and slouched into the chair next to Evie. Evie gave her a prim smile and bent her head back down over the veil, carefully slipping her needle through the back of one of the amethysts, tying it securely to its designated spot on the waterfall of veil.

"Hey, E, what's up? You look about as cheerful as a rain cloud over the Isle," Mal said.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Evie didn't have to look up to know that Mal took notice of her 'I say I'm okay but I'm totally not okay' tone and sat up straight, concerned. Evie resumed a cheerful smile and said, securing the headband of the veil on Mal's head, "Let's see how this looks so far. Straighten your neck," she prompted, tilting Mal's chin up, "look straight ahead. Perfect." Evie sighed a little happily, a little sadly, as she sat back in her chair.

Mal looked at Evie through the curtain of fabric and said, "Okay, while this veil is like the best thing ever, I don't care about it right now." She grabbed the headband and pulled it too quickly, making Evie shriek and take over the operation of removing it. She accomplished this with little to no damage to both the veil and Mal's straight hair.

"Remind me to remind Dizzy to make your hair curly on the big day," Evie said.

"Yeah, sure, but don't you try to stray off-topic, E," Mal said. She faced her best friend with a serious concentrating face. Evie sighed and set the veil back on the table. "You're what I care about right now, E. Tell me what's happening, and don't you try to lie and say that everything's okay. I can spot a lie under all that bravado a mile away."

"You always were good at discerning things," Evie sighed. She looked at Mal and now the tears in her eyes couldn't be hidden, despite her best efforts. "Mal, your wedding and marriage is nothing but the best happiness I can wish for you and Ben. I mean, my best friend getting the guy of her dreams? And he's a prince, to boot?" This she added with a little smirk and teasing, making Mal smile a little. "But, all this wedding prep, it just makes me think—it makes me think of all the things I'm going to have to say goodbye to. Parts of our friendship. You're moving on to a new part of your life and I have my life and it feels like we'll never be as close as we were before. We both have new responsibilities and there's not enough time in the world to do both them and hang out with each other. It feels almost like I'm saying goodbye to my best friend."

Mal grabbed Evie's hand and squeezed it tight. "Evie, you are my best friend. I could search the entire world for a hundred years and never find someone so thoughtful, and kind, and protective, and wise as you. So what, I'm getting married to Ben. That's my relationship with him. And I will not let my relationship with him change my relationship with you. You always were and always are and always will be my best friend. The only challenge we have is time-management, and we can work on that! No matter how busy I am, I will drop everything to answer your call or your text. You've always been there for me even when I've been like, difficult and scared beyond all belief, and I will always be there for you, Evie. Our friendship takes priority over whatever I'm going to be doing as queen. Got it?"

Evie laughed even as she wiped away a tear. "I love you too, Mal."

"C'mere," Mal said, enfolding her best friend in a big, big hug.

Evie felt a weight lifted from her chest; her tears were no longer of mixed sadness and happiness and memories. They were just . . . of happiness. Of pride and joy and a hope towards their futures and plain ol' happiness.

When they broke apart, Mal said, "Now, what do you say to dropping all this wedding business and going out for desserts? I think we could use a break."

"That sounds great, M. Let me get Jane and Dizzy, too. I think we could all use a little break."

The two girls raced out of the sewing room to find the other two frenetically working girls. They abandoned the waves of white silk and webs of purple chiffon, the perfectly-colored table bunting, and the red apple necklace, and went careening in a long limo towards a bakery. All those projects could be left to be picked up at a later time, but sometimes you had to drop everything and give your full attention to your best friends. Making memories together was more important than sewing alone, anyway.

Evie and Mal friendship is GOALS!

Also, personal side-note: this is the sixth anniversary of me joining ff . net. So. It's been a long while, guys. I'm happy to still be here. Gosh. Wow. That's a long time. I'm glad I still like writing fanfiction. I'm certainly thankful for that. :D

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think!