#descendants fandom

Footsteps.

They didn't sound like what your mother's heels would on the pavement. These ones were heavier, too familiar in a way you didn't like. Still, you didn't look up. The dock creaked, and a rope in front of you shifted.

Then, a voice, one that was clear and smug, sharp enough to cut glass.

"You know, for someone so small, you cry awfully loud."

You didn't flinch, didn't respond. Your knees were still tucked under your chin, and your fingers were in your mouth, trying to bite the skin off, trying to feel something that could let you wake up. You knew that voice.

Harry.

Even in the haze of grief and disappointment, some part of you, the one that was definitely your mother's daughter, felt like standing up and screaming so hard that the pirates would not get in your way of disappearing, trying to protect what was left of your dignity.

But then there was a clang of boots jumping off something, and a second voice, warmer but no less intimidating.

"We thought maybe you'd finally floated away with all that sad humming."

"Hi, Gil," you said, your voice raspy, the thoughts of cutting someone's head off going away. After all, Gil was one of the only people on this side of the Isle you were on good terms with.

You could sense them closing in around you without needing to look. Your body had already filed away their rhythms from years of watching, dodging, avoiding, all of the things the VKs had taught you. You shook your head, trying to scatter the images, the memories of afternoons filled with laughter and the feeling of being invincible.

Then came the third voice, soft, cold, and dangerous.

Uma.

"You ran with them." It wasn't a question; it never was with her.

You finally lifted your gaze.

There, Uma stood, her dark hat shadowing her face, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked so confident that someone else would have already bared their neck like some kind of animal surrendering to those stronger than them.

But the echo of screams somewhere in your head reminded you that you had survived someone worse, much worse, than her. After Iracebeth, everyone felt tame.

You didn't deny her claim, just nodded once, slowly.

"Used to."

Uma took a step closer, her boots resounding loudly across the dock as the wind whipped around all of you. She studied you the way one might study a crack in a ship's hull, measuring whether it was dangerous or just weak.

"They left you." Uma's words were simple. Blunt. It didn't feel like she was trying to be cruel; she was just stating a fact.

Still, your breath caught in your throat. You blinked hard, trying to keep the beginning of your tears at bay.

"They didn't mean to."

Even you couldn't believe that claim.

Harry gave a sarcastic little laugh behind her, not missing a beat before replying,

"Right. And I'm the future King of Auradon."

Uma tilted her head. Her gaze wasn't mocking, it wasn't even angry. It looked like she was searching.

"You were supposed to go with them. We all saw it. You were part of them for a bit before they left."

Your throat tightened, their promises coming back to you.

It's all happening so fast, but we are coming back, promise.

We are coming for you. Don't forget it.

Bunch of liars, all of them.

Uma began to speak again.

"So... what are you now?" Her tone was almost a sneer.

That question hung in the air. It was something you had been asking yourself for the past weeks, and you only had one answer.

You didn't know.

The last bit of your life had revolved around them in a way you had never let yourself do, loving them in the purest way you could, the only way you knew: a way that didn't hurt anybody and let you fantasize about being cared for in the same way.

Uma turned her head slightly, just enough for you to see her eyes. And for the first time, there was something different there. It wasn't pity -you would have left immediately if there had been even a bit of it in any of them- but... it wasn't cruelty either.

It felt like understanding.

"You think they'll come back for you?" Uma asked, quieter now. Her tone was so different from what you were used to hearing from her that it gave you whiplash.

Uma stepped forward again, this time crouching to Rosaline's level, her tone eerily calm.

"They won't."

There she was, the Uma you knew.

"But I'm not leaving," you said, your voice small but sure. The docks were one of the few places Iracebeth didn't dare to step into. Her charming personality clashed with Ursula's and Hook's. Crazy, all of them.

You were safe from her there.

Harry made a sound behind them, like he was ready to say something snide, but Uma raised a hand to stop him. She studied you again, looking you up and down one last time before starting to walk away.

Then she paused mid-step.

"If you're going to rot here, you might as well rot somewhere useful. We've got use for quiet girls with nothing to lose."

The pirates walked away with that.

Sounds just like my mother, you thought, but it left you thinking. Logically, you knew that without a place to stay and people to be with, the rest of the Isle would eat you alive.

Hours later, when the cold swept into your bones and your clothes felt too thin, your feet moved -not towards your mother's salon, not even the hideout that now only brought a sense of despair to you.

You walked deeper into the docks.

You hummed as you walked. It was cold, and the sea was loud. It was almost comforting to know that if everything became too much, you could just let the waves take you in.

You stood at the edge of the dock, looking at the ship, your breath fogging in the cold. With the humidity in the air, suddenly your dress felt inappropriate for this part of the Isle. Your teeth chattered as you came closer to the diner of Ursula.

"Look who didn't sink after all," Harry's voice called out from behind you.

You didn't respond. You just stood there, your fists tucked inside the only coat you had. After all, you had walked all the way there with nothing more than a thin resolve and nowhere else to go. You had nothing to lose, and the bit of pride and self-respect you had left was something you had decided not to let die.

Harry looked down at you for a moment, then called back into the ship in a singsong voice,

"Cap'n~ We've got a ghost!"

For a moment, it was silent before both of you heard footsteps approaching. Uma emerged, her silhouette sharp against the lantern light behind her. She didn't smile, she didn't frown. She just looked at you. Maybe it was the dress, the shoes, your hair, or your eyes, which looked so dull with the dark circles beneath them.

You were a ghost of the girl who once walked beside the four VKs. And even if you were a leftover from the ones everyone considered better, now you were her leftovers. And she would rejoice in the way it would hurt the four VKs to look at what they had made of one of their own.

"Get on board."

Her voice conveyed a mischievous, almost childlike quality. It was like a kid who had gotten away with something.

The deck creaked under her shoes, and you kept your eyes low. You had expected mockery, maybe a dare, maybe one of Gil's awkward attempts at kindness that always came out sideways, but none of that came.

You looked around, seeing the other pirates on board looking down at you, sneering like you were the one who had decided to make the VKs leave the Isle behind. You were as close as some of them would ever get to taking vengeance on the group.

"You want to stay, you work," Uma said flatly. "We don't do dead weight. We don't do pity. Got it?"

Her voice left no room for argument, so you just nodded along with what she was saying.

"Good. There are buckets on the side. I want the floor shining before the sun rises."

She looked at you for a bit, trying to see if you understood her. You didn't know what she saw, but after a few seconds, she left, with Harry walking behind her.

There was no welcome. No comfort, not like the one Evie would have given you after an encounter with your mother, not like Carlos' quiet hugs in the middle of a breakdown, there weren't Jay's whispers trying to cheer you up, there wasn't Mal giving some kind of comfort that would come out sounding like a scolding.

But there was no rejection either.

And for you, that was enough for now.

You worked in silence, your fingers aching and your knees soaked. Harry passed by once, muttering something along the lines of, "Don't fall overboard, wouldn't want the fish to choke," but even that felt more like habit than real cruelty.

Gil tossed you a piece of bread later without meeting your eye. He tried to make it seem like he didn't mean it, despite the hard looks the rest of the crew gave him. You muttered a thank you, weren't sure he heard above the noise on the deck.

As night deepened and the stars blinked coldly above, you sat at the edge of the ship, exhausted, sore, and... something else. Your hands stung with splinters from the mop handle, your back ached after hours of carrying a bucket full of water up and down, side to side across the ship. But, oddly, your chest didn't feel quite so hollow.

And you let yourself relish the feeling of freedom for a bit.

Kindness didn't come as naturally with them as it had with the original four VKs. It came slowly, cautiously, almost afraid. It started small: helping Uma with her mother's business, serving people, and making food without being asked.

Cleaning swords and floors, mending coats and shirts, saving food for Gil after he was kicked out for saying something insensitive. It was slow and steady. They weren't friends; they were more like acquaintances. You had learned your lesson, and you weren't going to let anyone get close to you like them again.

And sometimes it seemed like the feeling was mutual. When Carlos or Jay appeared on the screen, laughing in the background as Mal talked to the camera, Harry slid a drink across the counter and muttered, "Still got weird taste." And for the first time in months, you smirked. It wasn't a smile like the ones you'd thrown around months ago, but you were getting closer, day by day, to a shell of the person you were.

The first time you got a thanks from the captain after mending Gil's coat. Hushed whispers under the moon between Gil and her about his father and harsh words, about her mother's claws. Every moment pulled you back together, piece by piece, like a puzzle that had lost pieces.

Days blended into weeks, and weeks into months. And just like that, a year passed.

The days on the Isle were never kind, but they had become predictable.

You had a routine now. Mornings on deck, afternoons scrubbing tables, evenings counting coins behind the Fish & Chips counter while Uma paced and Harry twirled his hook like a showman. It wasn't home, not really, but you weren't drifting anymore.

The noise from Fish & Chips still echoed faintly through the docks, the hum of someone arguing, the scrape of cutlery being sorted, Gil's laughter floating up from somewhere below deck. The kind of sounds that used to irritate you, now they were just... familiar.

You sat at one of the tables, your eyes tracing the place. The cold settled into your bones, your body still not used to being this close to the water, but you didn't move.

"And while she tried to be a star~"

You hummed under your breath as you watched Uma dance and sing across Fish & Chips.

"He always tended the bar~"

You looked at Harry dragging a wasted customer outside.

They sure were interesting people to hang around.

They worked all day, but the time inside Fish & Chips went fast. Between being busy with a never-ending flow of customers and them singing and dancing all the time, you were never bored inside the place.

But you could see the tension building inside Uma. She wasn't keeping it together as well as she thought, lying to herself by saying that she knew all along that the VKs were never coming back because they weren't bad enough. But they all knew. All of them had witnessed how heartbroken she was when they had all seen the transmission that day.

"What's My Name?"

Uma started singing with her crew after giving a speech about how the VKs had abandoned all of them. But for you, even after they turned off the TV, you could still see Mal's face there.

It felt weird, almost surreal, to look at the girl you used to share food with, now on TV, blonde and in a dress, spitting food into a napkin. And even with that, she looked like a princess. You had yet to see any of the others appear on their own, only snippets of their faces in the background.

You had become almost desensitized to seeing Mal and the King -or Beastie Boy, as you had called him to Uma one night, sending her into a fit of cackles that had you smiling fully for the first time in months, even a day later. The rest of them were a wound that never healed quite right, and seeing them live their lives happily after leaving you behind could set back months' worth of progress.

"Shrimpy!"

Gil's voice dragged you out of your head, just in time to see him get carried out of the diner by Harry.

You stood up and followed close behind. He was the closest thing you had to a close friend, so it felt right to accompany him during his time-out. You passed Harry, his smile as wide as every day. He bowed his head a little at you, a way of acknowledging you.

Just as you were going outside, Uma's voice called after you.

She leaned back against the wall with the "Swords Here" sign, her arms folded, her eyes unreadable.

"You miss them."

She didn't ask. She almost stated it as a fact. Even with all the energy and moving around, she had seen how your eyes got dull, like you were looking at something far away after she turned the TV off.

You didn't answer and just stood still, looking at her. There was too much in your chest, still too full of things you hadn't said and wouldn't get the chance to say.

Uma watched you for a long moment, like she wanted to say more. Instead, she simply said,

"After all this time."

It was almost a reproach, her tone almost tired just from looking at you still being affected by a bunch of kids who had left one of their own.

You didn't nod, didn't shake your head. You just stood there, waiting for a silent dismissal. Uma didn't press, turning back toward the bar while you stepped outside.

The cold air bit your cheeks after being inside for a while. It wasn't an unwelcome feeling. You remembered how sometimes the cold helped more than company to get your thoughts in order. Gil had been tossed out again, you learned, for sticking his foot in his mouth about something neither Harry nor Uma had found funny.

Gil was talking about something. The newest fish shipment? A cat he saw wearing someone's stolen necklace? It all blurred together as you stared down at the broken cobblestone street.

"...and then Harry said I couldn't possibly be that dumb, and I was like, 'Only one way to find out!'"

Gil laughed, and it was a big, goofy sound. Comforting in its own way.

You gave a quiet, "Mhm," in response. Your mind was still on Uma's last sentence.

How much longer were you going to let them affect you?

"Oh, I have to do something quick. I'll see you at the docks."

Gil said it before running through the market, stopping mid-run to look back at you. "Be safe!"

He shouted one last time before disappearing.

Now all alone, you couldn't stop yourself from going near the edge of the Isle. Maybe it would be the day you could look at it without feeling like you had a hole in your chest, one so big it was difficult to breathe.

You looked at the barrier for the first time in months. Even at night, you could see how it glowed and shimmered a bit, and if you tried to look a little farther, you could see lights shining all over the main castle in Auradon. You stopped yourself from daydreaming too much, trying to focus on how you would have to make it up to Uma for missing your part in her number.

As you kept brainstorming, you looked up and suddenly one of the lights you had sworn was from a building began to get closer and brighter. You squinted for a bit, trying to figure out what was happening.

A car.

The light grew sharper. It had a glow that felt unnatural, especially when it was moving above the water in the middle of the night. You rummaged through your brain for answers. It didn't look like it was coming from torches or lanterns. Then you heard it. It was almost like a low hum that grew louder with the light, the kind of sound that only came from engines you hadn't heard since...

Your breath caught, and your legs moved before your mind could catch up to what your body had recognized.

You stood up from the edge of the roof you had ended up on and ran down towards the stairs. As you did, you tried to remember anything that might have been said at the market. Maybe Auradon was taking more kids, but the idea felt absurd. If that had been the case, it would have caused a major ruckus all over the Isle.

You slowed down your pace. Maybe you hadn't known because you weren't required to, but taking someone in the middle of the night? It didn't sound right.

You shook your head and went to the entrance of the Isle, or what symbolically was, since no one could go in or out. Nothing was there anymore. You dug your nails into your palm just to feel something solid. Maybe the people at the docks were right.

And just like your people, you were beginning to lose your head.

But then you heard something.

Heels.

And hushed voices.

You stayed in your hiding place, and suddenly, you saw a flash of blue out of the corner of your eye.

Before you could think more about it, you followed the sound of people not being discreet enough, talking about how weird it was to be back as they moved towards the old garage.

"...Ben, help me with the tarp."

And then you saw them.

Your body began to feel numb while your hands started trembling. Even when you could only see their backs from where you were, you could recognize them from a mile away.

Three of your friends -could they still be called that?- and a boy you couldn't recognize, one who looked at the place with a bright smile and curious eyes. With that alone, you could tell he wasn't from the Isle. It was so painfully obvious that it made you feel pity.

As the others covered the limo with a cloth, you saw him get closer to the entrance to the docks.

"What's in there?"

The voice spoke for the first time.

It was familiar.

Where. Where. Where.

The question kept going around your head.

"Ben!"

They called him as they got closer.

King Ben.

It should have made you feel something. Maybe anger. Hell, you would've taken even a taste of the sadness and disappointment you had felt during your first days without them over whatever was happening to you now.

It was almost as if your body shut down as soon as you saw the others. The feeling of being outside your body became prominent. You tried to ground yourself by forcing yourself to analyze the new details around them, and the one that stood out the most was how healthy they looked. Their faces were full of color and flesh that hadn't been there when they left.

Your breathing was labored, and your knees felt weak.

You couldn't be here.

You had imagined it several times, in the privacy of your room on Uma's ship, how you would act if you ever saw them again. Maybe tears. Screams filled with complaints.

But now?

You couldn't bring yourself to move.

"The last thing we need is someone figuring out we're here."

Carlos' voice broke you out of the fog clouding your eyes.

It had been so long since you'd heard his voice, and your stomach fluttered with nausea when a new thought came around, one that kept wondering if they'd come back for you.

But you pushed the hope away at his words.

Someone?

Of course they weren't here for you.

But why?

Why now?

Why after so long?

Why were they back, and with the King, nonetheless?

Maybe they were the ones who had lost their heads, coming back to the place where, if they encountered the wrong people, they could get hurt. Worse, maybe someone could even kidnap the King.

You felt full-body shivers at the thought of the disaster that would be.

"We'll get in and get out," Jay's voice said.

Oh God. Where is Mal?

Your mind reeled back to the murmurs you might have tuned out during your morning walk.

What had they been saying?

Dizzy. Her saying goodbye to a purple girl.

Purple everywhere.

Her jacket.

Her pants.

Her hair.

How she would become fish bait once Uma got word.

The words ran around your brain, doing somersaults as you tried to put them in order.

That's it.

You shook your head and began to count them again, over and over, even after they began walking deeper into the Isle. And as they disappeared into the fog, so did the hope that Mal was inside the car.

They came back for Mal?

Why would Mal come back to the isle?

The thought cut sharper than you had expected. Sharper than you let yourself admit. The newfound pain made itself at home in the part of your heart you had forced yourself to forget, the feeling almost bringing you to your knees.

As the three VKs and the King walked farther into the Isle, their figures were swallowed up by the perpetual fog and darkness that covered it. You stayed frozen, hidden behind a pile of rusted metal and splintered crates, the kind that dotted the edge of the docks like broken bones.

Their voices grew quieter the farther they got. Evie's soft tone reassured Carlos, the same Carlos who was now muttering reassurances to himself about it being impossible for him to encounter his mother. Jay's heavy steps followed behind them, keeping guard, all of them being followed by King Ben's questions never seemed to end, his voice trying to sound calm but unable to hide the awe and confusion.

The moment they disappeared fully from view, your body unlocked all at once, your knees buckling as you pressed a hand to your chest, fighting the tightness clawing up around your ribs.

They looked so full.

So whole.

Almost like they had grown into themselves without you.

But you had stayed. You had bled, worked, and learned to breathe again while choking on salt and ash.

And they-

They had come back for someone else.

Your body trembled as you got up. You couldn't break down outside, not where someone could see you, where someone could rat you out to Uma. You wiped your face quickly and pulled your coat tighter, hugging yourself, trying to disappear again as you walked towards the docks, where you could get to your room and have a moment to break into tears alone, safe from prying eyes and questions.

You wouldn't rat them out. Uma had a vendetta against Mal, and you knew that the moment she got word that the four VKs, and more importantly, the King, were on the Isle, she would use it against them.

Maybe they weren't your friends anymore, but it seemed that your heart didn't have the strength or the will to hate them enough to do that.

- Short Story with prequel planned and sequel planned -

Rating: Teen Audiences and Up.

Warnings: Violence, Kidnapping, Almost Non Consensual Acts, Swearing, Harmless flirting, Cliffhanger.

AN: I don't know how big the Descendants fanfiction world is, but I thought of this little story, a prequel and a sequel to go with it... I needed to write it.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven