Of the line LeGume
A young girl stood in the centre of a circular room. Her dark hair reached her shoulders and was held back from her face by a faded yellow ribbon. She wore a plain black frock with a white apron tied around her chest. She wore school shoes and white socks that came up to her knees. She stared straight into her own eyes, into the dirty mirror that lined every room of the wall. Something rattled, and the chipped door slammed against one of the mirrors, spreading the cracks further across the gleaming walls. A boy sprinted in, his shoes scuffed bare, middle button on his shirt popped off. His hair was the same dark shade as hers, and his ears stuck out from his face.
"Gizelle! Gizelle!" he shouted joyfully, disregarding the fact that she was barely five feet from him, "Ils sont dehors! Viens vite!" His mostly pale skin was blotched red from excitement, and an angry blush trailed his neck down into his collar. He turned and sprinted back out, his footsteps slamming loudly against the woodblock floor.
Gizelle followed.
Out in the street, she saw a beautiful girl, a little bit older than she was, laughing at a small figure lying in the dirt. The pretty girl had dark hair like Gizelle's, but it wasn't as long as hers. It was in that awkward stage of an adolescent growing their hair out, not quite brushing her shoulders. Then the girl started kicking the figure, and she wasn't so pretty anymore. She started cutting the figure, which Gizelle was vaguely able to discern as a young boy, and then she became affreux in Gizelle's eyes.
Gizelle and Gaston were eight when they watched Mal maim and torture for the first time.
The same girl stood in the same room, but everything was older. One of the mirror panels had fallen off in the passing years, and the others had become so dusty only the brightest part of her eyes could still be seen. Her hair had the same qualities- dark brown and slightly stringy, but that was one of the only ways to tell that this was the same girl from three years ago. Her jaw had broadened, and she now wore just the slightest touch of makeup to cover up a scar that marred her cheek. She was not a pretty girl.
A faint noise could be heard- there was jeering in the street. Gizelle sighed as she left the room, graceful yet awkward, adolescence making her limbs unfamiliar and uncontrollable, but dancing making them strong and capable.
There was a crowd on the street, forming a crushing circle. Gizelle pushed her way through with the shoulders inherited from her father, making her way to the centre of the pack. On the floor lay a boy with ears too big for his face.
"Idiot, garçon! Se lèvent et se battent! Êtes-vous un homme ou un lâche?" Gizelle looked down at the figure of her whimpering brother and scoffed. Weak. She nodded at the other boy in the fight- he wasn't much bigger than Gaston Jr, in fact, he might've been smaller (he was pale and skinny- she could see his bones through his ribs).
"Finis-le." Finish it.
The boy smiled, and suddenly his weight didn't matter anymore. He was everywhere at once, kicking and cutting in a style that seemed vaguely familiar to Gizelle (like from a dream, or a distant memory). And he didn't stop when it looked like Gaz was going to bleed out. Aucun honneur parmi les voleurs. And so she stepped in.
Gizelle was eleven the first time she nearly died.
Gizelle was on the barge that brought the rubbish from the mainland. The rubbish that she fought tooth and nail for. She clutched at the almost mould-free loaf of bread and the three pens that seemed to still have ink. She glanced around desperately for Gaz, but her sight caught on the pale boy- his name was Carlos, she'd found out. Cruella's son. He had a strong alliance with Maleficent's daughter. And he was smart. Smarter than anyone on the Isle had the right to be. She started moving in the other direction, only to bump into someone she'd never seen before- quite a feat on the Isle of the Lost.
He had a sturdy build, like her, and dark hair and skin she associated with those cast out from Agrabah. Next to him, there was a girl so pretty she might have been an angel. She had blue hair, the colour of the darkest night, and pale skin. She smiled at Gizelle, and for a second Gizelle smiled back she lowered her guard. And then her spoils were gone, and the boy was laughing with Carlos.
"Voleur!" she shouted after him, "Putain!"
They just laughed.
Gizelle was twelve when she met the Core Four for the first time.
A girl lay on a broken bed, the frame creaking and rusting, the mattress worn through. She was curled in on herself, coughing and hacking up blood. She wore thick clothes to keep out the chill, but they were ineffective. She was dying. Her hair was falling out in clumps, and she had a bleeding nose. Her teeth were rotting and her nails were brittle. She cradled her womb, extreme pain ripping through her every few seconds. There was no muscle on her body, and when she spoke, the words scraped her throat like sandpaper on bark.
"Ne pleure pas, petit frère. Il montre la faiblesse. Mais tu es plus fort que le père. Je connais," a figure creeped out from behind the door. He was growing into his ears, and there were tear stains down his face. He came as close to the bed as he dared, not willing to catch what she had, "Je vais chercher papa. Vous avez besoin de médicaments."
She shook her head weakly, eyes closing. She coughed some more, and blood spotted the thin blanket she curled under. Her shoulders hunched, and her yellowing skin pulled taunt against her bones, "Je suis passé à sauver."
She stilled for a second, and then her eyes shot open, "Travailler avec eux. Ils sont dangereux. La fille de Maleficent. Le fils de Cruella." Her eyes dulled and closed.
Gizelle was thirteen when she died.