Those Who Are Lost
Disclaimer: I don't own Descendants.
Author's Note: Thanks for the faves, follows, and alerts they make my day! This chapter gets a little bit darker than I originally planned for the parts during her first year still I hope you enjoy it…
Chapter 4: The Isle of the Lost: Jane's First Year
Mal thought this is what it must be like to have a younger sister... a younger sister that her mother treated worse than her, much worse or maybe it was just harder given that she could use magic.
At first, the purple haired girl had been extremely jealous of the brunette for being able to access her magic when Mal could not despite also having fairy blood in her veins, in fact, she'd been downright mean to the other girl and it still surprised her that she was eventually forgiven for her actions.
Of course, forgiven doesn't mean forgotten, not that Mal could blame her.
The girl still had nightmares about that one day with her mom and Jane that she wasn't supposed to see and well after witnessing that it just felt so wrong to be jealous of her and if she wasn't jealous there was no reason to be mean.
Speaking of Jane there she was practicing her magic... the dark half-fairy still wished she could do it too but shaking those thoughts away she calls out, "Jane, I'm meeting up with Jay we're going to pick on Shrimpy wanna come?"
Losing focus the other girl looks over, "Okay."
After all, it was better to bully someone else than getting bullied yourself, she'd learned this the hard way...
Two months into her stay at the Isle and Jane was getting used to the other girl's hurtful words, they used to make her cry or at least tear up but now it was if they rolled right off of her truthfully it still hurt but it was just words.
Words she could handle, even getting shoved and pushed around by the slightly bigger girl wasn't too bad her skin didn't bruise as easily anymore either.
Today though she awoke like normal, a little cold, more than a bit hungry, and sore but at least she had gotten herself a mattress a week before it was moth-eaten and lumpy, but it beat the floor.
Opening her eyes, she blinked something was on her face... it was fuzzy and a spider she screams knocks it away then sits up or tries to, but she's stuck by her head, so the brunette's hands come up to her hair and find it sticky.
Her hands get stuck too, there's laughing in the background and Jane turns her head as much as she's able to see Mal's laughing face, "What's wrong Jane are you stuck?" The mocking in her voice makes her sound more like her mother than she knew.
"Mal... please get it off me?" Her eyes had tears in them, but she blinked them away not wanting to show weakness.
"Sorry I'm powerless to help you, oh I know why don't you use your magic?"
The blue-eyed girl struggled some more before admitting, "I can't!"
"Well that's just too bad then isn't it?" She smirked and then another voice entered the room it was the dark fairy herself, "Girls what is all this racket first thing in the morning?"
"It's nothing mom Jane's just a little stuck right now," Maleficent enters the room, "Really Mal gluing her hair to the bed?" For a second the young girl looks down thinking she's about to get into trouble, "Next time get the skin darling it'll be much more painful."
Mal brightens up at that and Jane witnesses another bonding moment between mother and daughter that makes her sick, but she doesn't say so, in fact, she says nothing, but the purple-haired youth does, "Well the idiot grabbed her hair and it's still wet so at least her hands will be sore!"
The evil fairy laughs at this and praises Mal once more before helping the brunette by ripping her hands away along with some skin causing her to cry out in pain, "This is strong stuff my dear," she looks back at the girl in question and said girl puffs up, "I mixed it myself."
After that she told her daughter to get something to cut her hair with, later her hair was uneven all over and she was sent off with some minion to wash the remaining stuff out of her hair, for a while after that the green-eyed girl would tease her about her hair and having bald spots.
All in all, it was a bad day but not the worst one she'd ever had.
Two and a half months into Jane's stayed and she was hiding, it would do no good she'd eventually be found and punished she knew this but right now the brunette didn't care.
The half-fairy wasn't her mother she couldn't do the amazing magical things that a Fairy God Mother was capable of and if she couldn't then what would happen to her?
Her magic barely made a spark big enough to light a candle and only had enough force to move a pencil... it was hopeless and Maleficent was anything but a patient teacher, in fact, the only one happy about the current situation was Mal.
The evil daughter just loved to rub her worthlessness in her face and watch her fail though she never seemed to stick around when her mother lost her temper probably because she didn't want to be caught in the crossfire.
Jane rubs at her left wrist and the newly made burn visible there, it was a punishment mark. She'd been made to magically light a candle and then forced to hold her wrist over it until the evil woman was satisfied.
A few minutes into her own personal pity party and figure jumps down from above starling her, "Oh, it's just you, Jay..."
Her first 'friend' personally she didn't blame him for her plight anymore after figuring out how the adults here worked it's not like she's any better than he is but at least she still wants to be but maybe that's the problem.
"Hey what happened to you lose a fight with an alley cat?"
She glowered at him, "What?" He points to her head, "Oh," He means her new haircut courtesy of Mal it's not as if she's forgotten about it how could she with a certain purple haired menace constantly reminding her but it's her first time outside in a while and well having no one but the other half-fairy to listen to she's started to tune her out.
"No, it was Mal."
"Yikes, she still that jealous of you?" The brunette shrugs, "I don't care," she didn't really Mal had already decided to hate her and she didn't see that ever changing so she'd just deal with it like everything else she couldn't run away from, "So who are you hiding from Mal or her mom?"
Jane doesn't answer that, "Why do you care? What do you want Jay, help to steal something?" She eyes him suspiciously he just throws up his hands in mock surrender, "No nothing like that."
The blue-eyed girl snorts, "Yeah right." The silence afterward is thick, she'd understood where Jay was coming from and that time he said his dad would kill him if he came back home at that time she knew now was not just a kid exaggerating but one stating the obvious.
She's seen the adult villains lost their temper after all and she's even seen a dead body recently... she's not looking forward to seeing someone actually kill somebody, but it's bound to happen at some point.
Still, she does not trust Jay because he's a liar and a thief.
"Well if you need a place to hang until you're ready to face the music you remember were the abandoned flat is right? You can go there."
She didn't want to owe him and even if he was sincere enough now later when he needs something he'll use it for leverage, "No thanks, the longer I stay away the more time it gives her to come up with truly dreadful punishments."
"Hmm, so it's Maleficent then." He looks thoughtful, "Guess your right but if you ever wanna get away from Mal my offer still stands."
Jane stood up, "I can take anything Mal throws at me."
"Maybe you can but your hair can't, there's not much left." It was said jokingly but well it was still mean which is probably the only way he knows how to joke but still, "Keep talking like that if you want to sport a matching hairstyle."
That shut him up, even if it'd be hard to get ahold of him to do the same things to him well everybody lets their guard down at some point.
"Hey, no need for threats though..." His eyebrow goes up, "Though what?" The girl asks.
"You've changed from the little Auradon crybaby, now your making threats and pulling off some mean looks."
She rolls her eyes, "I haven't changed that much but I don't cry anymore so you got one thing right."
"Really?" He asks not convinced.
"Really." She states with arms crossed tightly, "Well okay if you say so before you head home to face the music wanna grab a bite to eat?"
"I knew it," She points at the boy beside her, "you did come here for help stealing something!"
He rolls his eyes then, "Hardly I can get my own food, just thought I'd invite you if you're up for it. So, are you?"
She probably wouldn't get anything to eat tonight as one form of punishment, not the worse one coming her way but still, it might be smart to eat before like Jay said, "I am hungry so sure okay but I'm not being the distraction."
"Alright."
He wasn't going to mock her but inside he was playing back there first meeting in which she said stealing's bad and even had a judgmental tone, well that tone's sure changed now though in a way Jay missed the naïve little girl he first met over two months ago she was unique and now well whether she realized it or not she was becoming one of them and sooner rather than later there wouldn't be any difference other than parentage.
It was sad but then again nothing was ever really happy on the Isle because the Isle destroys happy things.
And once she was probably a happy girl, after all, she gave him a genuine smile once before, didn't she...? It was probably the last one she'll ever give which was ironically the first one he'd ever seen.
Probably the last for him too... not much to really smile about here after all.
Five months it's been nearly half a year and any lingering hope Jane still had that her mother was coming for her was well and truly crushed by this point.
"Look at her," Jane who was reading an old magic tome looks to where Mal's pointing, "Who, you mean Evie?"
The purple haired kid frowns, "Yeah little miss self-proclaimed princess who thinks she's too good for us lowly commoners." The blue-eyed girl looks back to the blue-haired girl who is staring or more like day-dreaming at the window of her mother's castle.
"Doesn't it just make you sick?" No, not really, she looks lonely not like she's snubbing anyone at least that's what Jane sees looking up at the other little girl but that's not how she replies she knows better after all, "Yeah absolutely disgusted." But only with herself, she thinks again.
"I know right," A wicked grin appears then and the other girl knows she's going to be doing something that she doesn't want to do, the story of her life really. "I just saw a cart full of apples and I think little miss princess Evie would appreciate if we got some for her what do you think?"
"I think that's a great idea... to start with but why stop at just apples when you could give her a variety?" This makes Mal laugh, "I like the way that you think." Jane just grins outwardly but inside she thinks that she hates it but maybe one day she won't if this becomes second nature if it becomes fun then maybe it'll stop hurting so much.
It seems to have worked for the other kids she's met on the Isle or maybe they never had the disadvantage of having been taught about right and wrong, good or evil at least not from the right side, the good side... she's had both and wishes that she'd only had one.
But her wishes don't come true, her dreams don't come true... Fairy God Mother's don't visit the Isle of the Lost.
She doesn't know when she stopped believing in dreams and wishes and Fairy God Mothers and all that, she does know is that she has but maybe that's okay... she picks up a random rotten fruit which happens to be a tomato out of the lot that she and Mal have collected, "So you first?" Jane's light blue-eyes find Mal's piercing green ones and she smiles, "Sure."
Then facing the castle looking up at the clueless daydreaming girl she throws it and hits her right in the face and Mal laughs before joining in and they both get in two or three strikes before the girl gathers her wits and leaves the window.
They both laugh, and the dark fairy's daughter raises her hand for a high-five and the good fairy's daughter gives her the high-five.
It has to be okay.
She'd make it that way even if the girl had to lie to herself and be someone she was not.
If she had to be a villain to not hurt anymore then that's what she'd be.
And with Mal beside her and Maleficent as her teacher, she supposed she wasn't off to a bad start or actually she was a very bad one but bad was good here so that was okay.
Six months and she'd pretty much gotten a lay of the land so to speak, catching sight of a familiar head of purple hair she stopped her stroll.
"What are you doing?" Jane asks her fellow half-fairy, "Making an improvement." That said she goes back to her artwork which consists of graffiting a poster of King Beast, "Is that really an improvement?"
"What you don't think warts are in this year?" The girl shrugs, "You wanna help?" She turns around and extends her paintbrush, "Nah I'm not that good at drawing."
Mal grins, "All the better then, here." She hands her the brush with red paint, "Go wild."
Taking the brush and looking at the poster she wonders if she'll feel guilty if she as Mal says 'Goes wild' after all she's met the king before and he was nice.
As if sensing her hesitation, the purple haired girl speaks, "You know it's his fault that you're here right?"
"What?" The girl asks confused, "He brought all the villains back, gathered them up and stuffed them on this island with that stupid barrier... sure a villain kidnapped you, but they were just being a villain, what's his excuse?" She points her paintbrush with all it's dripping green paint at the poster hard enough to sling said paint at the poster.
Jane had never really thought about it like that before, wasn't trapping all of the villains together in one place a not so good thing... he had to know that it would make for a very bad and dangerous living environment... had he cared?
Does he care?
Looking at the paint smeared poster there was really only one conclusion she could come up with. Walking forward she smears the paint down his face from his left eye, it looked like blood... bloody tears.
He didn't deserve tears though so next thing she did was paint the left side of his head downwards like he'd been hit in the head and was bleeding... Jane wasn't sorry for it either.
She'd bleed too much during her short stay here and likely would continue to in the future, and really even if it wasn't his fault it still felt nice to blame someone other than herself for once.
"That's the spirit!" Mal laughs.
Eight months and it was normal to see Jane with both Mal and Jay though more often than not lately she was lying in bed as Mal tended to her burns which she had many, today was such a day.
"Hold still," The girl doesn't, "Stop it!" The other one doesn't listen and just shoves her forcefully to the bed, "I need to do this, or you'll get another infection and that'll just set mom off again!"
She stills at that.
"Okay..." the purple hair girl sighs and applies the burn cream to Jane's burnt back, "Where did you get it from?" the brunette's voice is muffled due to her face being pressed into the other girl's pillow, "Jay got it."
"How?" it wasn't something easily acquired on the Isle after all, "I didn't ask."
Now she owed him, but it was better than getting an infection like Mal said, "You should've just did it."
"Did what?" The girl pretends to be clueless.
"You know what." The daughter of Maleficent says angrily.
Turning her face away from the pillow she whispers, "I couldn't."
"No, you didn't want to," she huffs and coats her fingers some more and adds it to the girl's upper back near her left shoulder where it's the worst.
"..."
"Next time just do it." The dark half-fairy says worriedly.
"...No." Is the stubborn reply she's met with.
Standing up from the bed she slams down the container of medicine on the dresser beside the bed, "Are you stupid?"
Not doing what Maleficent wants is stupid she knows this, "...Yes."
"Then just do it next time if not for you then what about me?"
This causes the girl laying down to look confused, "You?"
"Yeah me, I don't wanna keep having to put medicine on you and Jay has to do who knows what to get the stuff so if you think you're being selfless you're not you're being selfish by making us have to take care of you by getting hurt when you can stop it!" Tears of frustration appear in the girl's eyes, but she swipes them away so fast she's sure they weren't seen.
She's wrong though.
Jane stays quiet as Mal's word's sink in.
"So next time just do it."
"...Okay." Turning her face back into the pillow she lets her tears fall for the first time in months and for the first ever Mal doesn't make fun of her for it.
And next time Maleficent asks her to use her magic to break someone's bones or burn them she does it without hesitation.
She hates herself for it.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she wonders what her mother would think of her, but the thought is quickly brush to the side because it didn't matter… her mother wasn't there.
Maleficent was though and Mal was too…
So, she does it for Mal because the girl who was once just a purple-haired menace was the closest thing she had to a sister to a family anymore and she didn't want her to be upset.
Jane may even have done it for Jay her first 'friend' but only because she owed it to him no other reason.
It's been ten months and Jay was doing his thing which meant stealing while Mal was covering for him as for Jane she wasn't doing anything well anything that anyone could blame her of doing, her magic however made it, so the pursuers got all tripped up over themselves.
Nothing too advanced or horrible and it still made her awfully tired, she was still years away from being able to bring down the barrier her mother put up even Maleficent knew she had to grow both physically and magically before it could be done but that didn't make the waiting easy.
On either one of them but at least for the evil fairy she now had an even better way to keep people in line, threaten to have her use her magic on them, after all, she listened to what Maleficent said and people knew it.
Did this finally make her a villain she wondered while eating the food she'd helped Jay and Mal steal?
Did she even care anymore if it did?
Author's Note: There's no character bashing meant here in case you're wondering. Anyway, this chapter was filled with bits that I thought were important character building moments from her first year on the Isle, Carlos and her meet in the later half of second year on the Isle which will be about two chapters long.