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The ensuing power struggle is the stuff of nightmares. The kids have no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to. Their parents are reminded of days past for either the better or not. No one has seen De Vil in almost three months, Grimhilde is hardly phased and goes about her days as she always does, which is expected from someone who was actually royal and in a position of power for longer than a few hours.
It’s those that the kids have the most problem with. The ones that had actually succeeded for a time. They think coming back from the dead has given them a free pass to do nothing, to let the world fall asunder around them.
King Ben choked their one source of food to the bare bones. Once a month now they receive a shipment and the goblins ration among themselves to distribute and were they less bitter it would have been a good idea to have a third party distribute it so that they didn’t hoard it for themselves.
Last month, Lise watched Gaston kill a goblin and set things to right before a riot broke out over the distribution. It was an example, she knows her father would gladly kill more, but the more pressing matter had been just getting the food. Tensions were rising, and if something didn’t change soon then they’re likely to destroy each other sooner rather than later.
Probably just what those royals had in mind, Lise thinks bitterly as she weaves through the streets toward the building she had emptied for the kids there. No one bothered them because she wouldn’t let them. Her father causing a scene had done enough to bolster her own image and she was the most like him of all the kids, the most likely to fly off the handle and run you through on a crane hook as well.
“What do you want?” Lise snaps as she hauls up the garage door, the only reliable access into the building and not one most people couldn’t open on their own but the LeGume kids didn’t have a say in their muscle mass.
“I just thought I’d stop by for a chat,” Uma says casually, hands behind her back as she follows Lise into the building. It’s sparse, with a stairwell in the dead center and moldy couches strewn about. There’s a TV playing mostly static in the corner and a huddled group of kids that look in the ranges of six to sixteen.
“Then help me with the boxes,” Lise grunts and lifts up a veritable crate from one of the barges. Uma raises an eyebrow as she catches some of the less moldy looking items from Auradon. She doesn’t move to help, but still walks around the space and looks with interest. Lise doesn’t ask again, and one of the older kids steps up, grabbing it and hiding it with the rest of their food.
“How’d you get all this food?” Uma asks, scowling at the hoard of preservatives that wouldn’t go bad until a nuclear winter. Nothing was fresh, but it kept them full.
“Trade,” Lise grunts and drags in the last box that was fresh. Or as fresh as it got anyway. “And threats. So what did you want?” She drops it and the kids swarm, looking excited at each other. Uma can’t stomach it and looks back at Lise, who’s glaring at her. Back to this then.
“Things have been getting stickier, you noticed,” Uma nods to the boxes, “I’ve a proposal.” Lise narrows her eyes, watching her warily.
“Why should I help you?”
“Because it’s not just me,” Uma snaps, not trying to take offense. “You help me, and you help the Isle, you know what it’s missing. You know we can’t last like this.”
“No shit, but what are two kids going to do? If you haven’t noticed we don’t exactly strike fear in the hearts of men.” Lise scoffs, and Uma smiles.
“Not yet, but we have the stepping stones to get there. We’re nothing to sneeze at, and between the two of us-“
“You want to share something with me?” Lise sounds disbelieving and yeah, Uma wasn’t exactly someone who did this shit, she had her things and they were her’s. But her things were being threatened and she had enough sense to know how to fix it. There’s strength in numbers, even if she hated the idea.
“I want to live long enough to-“ Uma bites her tongue when some of the younger kids look at her in alarm. She breathes out through her nose and looks at Lise pointedly, who nods and then jerks her head toward the stairs.
It must be where she stays, Uma thinks, the room has nothing of much consequence besides a lumpy mattress on the floor, and assortment of weapons. Everything from rusty swords to an actual functioning looking crossbow.
“Things aren't getting better,” Lise agrees as she shuts the door, then leans against it with her arms crossed. “And you want to assert ourselves as the next power?”
“What’s stopping us? You have a whole fucking network of children-“
"They aren’t-“
“But isn’t it time they started pulling their weight?” Uma insists, and Lise frowns. She looks so excited and Lise can’t help but think of what it would be like if things stabilized for a fucking second. Maleficent hadn’t been great, but it had kept everything from going belly up. They’d been able to keep their heads above water. “You can use the kids to find out what’s going on, and the pirates can clean up the rest. We could get things done, make a decent life. Finally have things go our way.”
Her excitement is almost infectious and Lise wants to believe it, that they have a chance at giving this place stability. How full of herself would she have to be to believe that? Almost as much as a child of Gaston could be.
“Our way?” Lise asks, wary of what she was asking. Uma smirks, takes a step toward her.
“Now you’re getting it.”
Attaching yourself to someone is a liability. It means you have a weakness that can be exploited, and you’re putting someone else in danger. It would be your fault if they got hurt, if you’re compassionate enough to start something with them in the first place then you would be buried by the guilt. And everyone knows it. It’s the mindset the kids were raised in, why most of them had a single parent if they had a parent at all. Some of them knew who both their parents were, but it wasn’t common, their parents never failed to remind them that having a partner just meant that you had another target on your back.
But neither of them were thinking long term, and neither of them were certainly thinking rationally. In fact, Lise had been thinking about how easy it would be to escalate things. Luckily, Uma was thinking it too. So when Lise grabs her face with both her hands and kisses her, it’s well received and returned (she had not thought further than that, had not even entertained that she would be rejected because she was not the type to think that way, why would she be?).
Uma kisses just like Lise imagined she would (and she had been spending an embarrassing amount of time imagining it): With teeth. It’s a far cry from the rough and cracked lips of the boys who thought they could get away with it (who would corner her in back alleys and school hallways and who severely underestimated how hard she could punch and how easily breakable bits of them are), it’s better. Uma doesn’t assume anything, doesn’t try to take the lead but offers it up. Lise wraps her arms around her, lifts her up and takes the few short steps between the door and the mattress.
Lise drops her a little way and Uma laughs, both arms wrapped around Lise’s neck.
“So that’s a yes, then?” She arches her back and Lise puts her hands on her stomach, looking down at her with a flare of desire and smiling with her teeth.
“Wholeheartedly.”
Harry sneers at the building, its crumbling and a good chunk is missing from the upper floors, exposing the inside to the outside. Gil doesn’t pay it any mind, walking right up to the door and heaving it open with little trouble at all. It was easy to forget how strong the boy is when he was so quick to smile and laugh.
The whole family is unsettling in different ways, Harry thinks as he follows Gil into the building and curls his lip once again.
“Heya kiddos,” Gil smiles, the kids looking warily between the two of them. The older ones are standing and waiting for the other shoe to drop, as was the usual case with Harry Hook. “Bonny said she saw Uma head in here.” The kids look at each other, and Diego takes a step toward them, looking at them unafraid in a way that Harry is definitely unaccustomed.
“She’s not here,” he says, looking at Harry because he knows Gil won’t act out in his sister’s house. Harry draws back slightly, smiling sharply, he holds his hook to his chest in mock offense.
“So you’re calling my crewmate a liar?” Harry walks forward, swaggers the way that always make Gil think he’s going to fall over. One of these days he’s going to trip over his own damn feet, Gil is certain.
“Must be,” Diego shrugs, crossing his arms as Harry tries to intimidate. But he wouldn’t take that shit in his home, not when the little kids were here. Lise trusted him to protect them and he would dammit.
“Problem is,” Harry sneers, “I don’t have a reason to trust you like I do Bonny,” the hook’s is right in Diego’s face but he stares down Harry in a challenge. Maybe not the smartest thing, but he didn’t want the kids to have a reason to fear Harry. They needed to know that it was alright to stick up for yourself, and not cower to someone like him. “So you won’t mind if we take a look for ourselves,” Harry smile and bows slightly as he turns to leave and do just that.
Gil grabs his arm and stares at him, eyes narrowed slightly.
“Not here,” he says, and Harry rolls his eyes.
Gil loves his sister. And that might be weak-willed but he does. Lise protected him a child, kept him from their father’s temper and the twins emulation of him. She kept him from turning out like that, pushed him to make connections with the pirates and not shy from the parts of him that might be softer than the Isle would like.
Harry snarls and jerks close to Gil, hook raised and ready to make good on the threat when they’re interrupted, the throat clearing echoing above them from the second floor. Lise and Uma are looking down at them, amused but only so far.
“So she is here,” Harry scoffs at Diego, who shrugs again.
“You boys learning how to dance?” Uma smirks at them, Gil laughs brightly, and Harry wriggles from his grasp.
“The hell have you been!” He shouts at her, and Uma rolls her eyes. Lise smirks, she walks past Uma to the stairs and greets her brother, who always hugs and always hugs tightly.
“Where I go is my fucking business. You don’t have anything better to do than follow me around?” Uma scoffs, and follows Lise’s path down the stairs to the boys, who know better than to hug her like that. “Suppose it did work out that I don’t have to hunt you down. Lise and I have reached an understanding,” Uma announces, and smiles at the way Harry glares fiercely at Lise.
“That what we’re calling it now?” Lise smirks, looking back at Harry as she says it. He bristles, as she hoped he would, he was too emotional, too easy to goad.
“Things are going to be changing around here, boys,” Uma smiles, exposes her teeth, sharper than theirs and known to grow in the right circumstance. “For better, or worse.”