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It was cliche, Uma thinks, to get caught in a storm.
There were so many fucking catwalks and crevices to hide in here it shouldn’t be a problem to find shelter, but everything was full of holes that the pickings became slim.
Especially this far inland. She looks at the sky from the edge of her hiding place, swearing at it like that would get the sudden downpour to stop. Normally she’d be on her ship, but she doesn’t think that would be such a good place right now, if the wind was anything to go by. Ideally, she could wait this out underwater, watch the world fall asunder from the safety of the shallows. But that was out of the question, getting back to the docks would be a task she wasn’t particularly up for at the moment.
Uma turns away and disappears deeper into the crevice between the two buildings, barely five feet wide, it was lucky she didn’t have claustrophobia from learned trauma like the wicked step-grandchildren.
“Shit.” And now she couldn’t even brood alone.
Isabel LeGume, Uma sneers in her head as she watches the silhouette of the girl duck into Uma’s hiding place. She’s wringing her hair out, and muttering to herself. Her hair was impractically long, not as long as Uma’s, she thinks smugly, but impractical for someone who spent all her time above land and working at a place that was all about brawling.
Everyone on the Isle knew, however, that Isabel (Lise she insists on being called) would sooner drown herself than pull it back or suffer any harm to it.
Not too far out of the realm of possibility, Uma thinks and smirks to herself as the rain picks up with the wind for a harrowing second.
Lise turns to walk in further to safety, but pauses when she sees Uma, lurking in the shadows in a way that would make her teachers proud. She was always good at lurking, a natural mermaid quality, though Ariel would say she was observing.
“You’re probably loving this huh?” Lise says as she starts to braid her hair, to keep it back and safely out of the way.
“Less than you might think,” Uma says tightly, hoping not to encourage conversation. She sits down on the ground pointedly, so that Lise doesn’t have any ideas about her leaving. The space is just big enough that her knees don’t hit the wall. She crosses her arms and hunches her shoulders, it was getting colder, but she’s dealt with worse.
“I thought you thrived in water?” Lise either misses the hint or ignores it. But she sits as well, her back against the wall and feet propped on the one across from her. She looks comfortable, as if this was just another afternoon for her. Suffering a deluge with someone you communicated with exclusively through shouting and threats. Sometimes shouting threats, if the tensions had been cultivated between them long enough.
“Salt water, and preferably not falling from the sky at twenty miles and hour.”
“That probably makes a difference,” Lise snickers. Uma can’t understand how she’s so calm about this. The Lise the Isle knew would be shouting and demanding space, throwing a fit about her hair and other such vanities the rain ruined.
She’s beautiful, Uma had surmised, because she made herself to be. It wasn’t natural like some of them (herself, she’s been told. But she isn’t sure if that’s Harry’s bias or teasing so she doesn’t put any stock in it). Lise was plain, except for her confidence. Her dark brown hair didn’t hold any luster, her skin was clear but marred by an overabundance of freckles and the salty air made it dry. She didn’t have full lips or lashes, her eyebrows were thick, and she erred on this side of underweight. There wasn’t anything special about her, which must vex her father to no end.
But Lise made up for it. Any make up that could be found here was in her possession, any hair products or lotions she hoarded. Uma remembers hearing how she’d fought with someone over a bottle of conditioner once and, while she’d won, she’d suffered a split lip from it.
She never cowed though. Lise never cowered as someone who’s biggest claim to fame is vanity might in the presence of psychopaths and killers. Lise looked everyone in the eye and challenged them to hurt her.
“Did you hear about Mal?” Lise asks, picking at her fingernails now that her hair was braided. There were no hair ties so it just hung there, held together by her own vanity.
Goody, just what I wanted to talk about. “The Coronation was today, of course I heard about Mal. The big news is Maleficent.” Uma scoffs, but Lise waves her hand dismissively.
“I say good riddance, she didn’t do a damn thing for this place. Only got by on the fact that people were scared of her. She was as powerless as the rest of us here.”
“She still kept people in line, it’s just going to cause more problems now.” Uma didn’t mourn her either, but she wasn’t looking forward to the power struggle this was going to cause, it just meant life was going to be harder than it already was. No one was going to know what to do, they’d be looking for someone to lead them…
“At least we don’t have her brat running around to add salt to the wound. She can fuck up Auradon now.” Lise smiles, looking back out at the storm. Uma looks a little curious, she didn’t know Lise well enough to know if there was any specific animosity or just a general hate that they held for the four that escaped. Uma can’t remember Mal and her ever really interacting, Lise kept to her neighborhood mostly, and didn’t stick her nose in other people’s business. She had enough to worry about with three brothers and LeFou’s kids to keep fed and out of trouble.
“Do you really thing she’s changed?” Lise asks, soft enough Uma almost doesn’t hear her over the rain. She looks at Lise, the darkness of their crevice keeping any distinguishing features shadowed, but there’s enough to see her fidget.
“People don’t change,” Uma says with certainty, Lise turning to look at her, “they might think they do, and put on a convincing show, but deep down they know who they are.” Just like deep down she knew Mal would leave them here to rot. Even if she has a platform to effect change, nothing would come of it. She was too scared.
Lise hums, chewing on this. She knew it in her heart, that small bit of hope that something was changing because four of them got to leave, it wouldn’t amount to anything. The four that did leave didn’t see far enough past themselves to do anything. They would be so caught up in the freedom of their new lives, of being given a second chance, that they wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. And it might be her father’s biases, but she felt pretty confident in assuming that talk about bringing more people over from the Isle to the royals in Auradon would not be met with the open-mindedness that people convinced themselves they had.
Lightning crackles in the sky, and Lise tenses, moving a little further into the crevice. It can’t reach them through the dome, and for once she’s thankful for it. It still lights up the sky sinister, and she clutches her jacket tighter around her (her father’s military jacket, still decorated with his medals that had become the last vestiges of pride the family had and she would be damned if they were taken away).
“Scared?” Uma smirks, and Lise almost replies automatically that “LeGumes aren’t scared of anything” but she stops. What was the point? With the storm around them, the humid air that seemed to marinate the Isle into an even more lethargic state, it was like a land displaced from time, if she didn’t keep herself in check she would start to believe it. And she was so tired of putting on airs.
Everything in her life was about being stronger, being better. If you showed weakness here it would eat you alive, and the people would pick you apart for scraps. God forbid her father learn that she was not the ruthless cutthroat he had raised. Gaston didn’t want a girl to begin with, but if he was to have one then she would not be the simpering waifs from Villeneuve, nor the haughty know-it-all Belle had been. She might be named after the woman but she would not emulate her.
That doesn’t mean Lise hadn’t turned out that way though. It was the nature of people named Isabel, to look to the future, and she had seen fairly easily that they could not sustain themselves if they continue like this. The Isle would tear itself apart, one way or another. She wold not be part of the problem. She had made herself learn how to swallow her pride, and it still left a bad taste in her mouth, but it was becoming easier.
“Mother Nature doesn’t discriminate. She and Death are the only two things in this world that don’t care where we come from. She’ll do what she pleases, and damn us for getting in the way.” Lise looks at the sky as she says this, Uma quiet and impressed. Normally the people here are pigheaded enough to tempt nature anyway. She was warned from an early age the kind of dangers water poses, how it hurts as much as it heals. Nature was not one to trifle with.
“You’re lucky you picked a hidey-hole with a sea witch then,” Uma says smugly. Lise looks at her, then smiles widely, and Uma will deny it until the day she dies but her heart skips a beat.
“My hero,” Lise teases, and Uma rolls her eyes, groans and hides her face in her knees to buy some time. She chastises herself for not having it more together, losing it when a pretty girl smiles at you? Disgraceful.
But Lise is pretty, and she has it together more so than some of these chuckle fucks in this place. She doesn’t need someone to tell her what to do like her brothers, doesn’t feel the need to be a petty bitch like Mal had either. Uma heard a rumor that Lise had started feeding the younger kids turned out by their parents, and while she (probably) wasn’t thinking child army when she started, it’s what it’s opened up. People didn’t guard their tongues around kids here, and kids were loyal to the people who took care of them. Lise had sown the seeds, together they could nurture it into something stronger.
Together they could wrest the power that Maleficent had left behind.
“Isabel! Dammit girl!”
Both of them startle and Lise looks around the corner. The rain had slowed. A soaking Gaston is shoving his way through the clutter of the alleyway and people beginning to emerge again from their hiding places.
Lise throws one last smile over her shoulder at Uma and then emerges from their hiding place. Uma creeps forward a little, just enough to see the hulking man grab the back of his daughters neck, and drag her toward him.
“LeFou and I spent this whole mess trying to keep your idiot brothers from going out into the storm to find you. Somehow they managed to find their way home, but you didn’t?” He snaps and Lise’s trilling laugh echoes through the stagnant air of a slowly reviving society.