Hooks and Fairy Cages

Orphaned

Chapter 1: Orphaned

I was a villain kid. At least that's what I'm told. The place I live, the place I grew up gave that away more than anything else did.

I wanted to believe that this isle I live on doesn't define who I really am. I did. I, like my mother, didn't truly belong here. It was a prison, a land for the villains to live out their lives without disrupting the ones of those outside it.

Sure, my mother could seem a little rough around the edges, but in truth, she was a good person. Kind hearted and generous. She deserved better than this. We both did.

The reason she was put here? An accident. A disaster that caused her to run away from her home and join a band of pirates. They used her. Tricked her. Pretended to follow her as if she were their captain.

That is until she gave them what they actually wanted: Pixie dust. James Hook, their real captain, revealed his true colours. In the end, she had realized her mistake, but it was too little, too late.

To the people of Auradon, she was just as much a villain as they were. She did, after all betray her own kind.

Still, that was old news now. The past isn't really that important as of late. I was panicking more than ever right now, searching for her, my mother.

I knew she had been working on her new pixie dust underneath the docks for quite some time now but she'd usually swoop back home to show me some progress.

It had been a while, and I was beginning to worry. As I flew under the docks, I noticed the unsettling lack of sound. Usually, I could hear her inside, humming softly to herself, moving things, or even knocking stuff over.

"Mum? Hello?" I called out hesitantly as I wandered inside the tiny cabin she had built many years ago.

No answer. I didn't know what to do. So I flew high, resting on sail of the isle's only ship. Making sure I was out of sight from the swashbucklers bellow. I looked out to the sea and frowned. Somehow, it was the only beautiful thing out here. Staring out there, it made me long for something. But what, I wasn't so sure. Freedom, perhaps? A place where I felt safe.

Something so close, yet unreachable. Sure, I could dip my toes in the water but the idea of having my feet bitten off by killer sharks wasn't really that inviting.

"So... Did it talk?" A voice asked from below, I knew that voice. It made my blood run colder than ice. Looking down, I saw him. Harry Hook, a pirate even more brutal and cruel than his own bloodthirsty father.

I could only just make out the scoff of James from where I was. "Hardly. She barely even screamed as I tore off her little wings. Stubborn as a mule, that one."

I gasped. Surely, they did not mean...? I leaned closer, trying hard to catch every word without getting caught. Eavesdropping was easy enough being my size. "What? So, ye killed her?"

"Aye. She had it comin'!" He sneered. "Tiny wench thinkin' she can make a fool out of me!"

My stomach churned painfully, "No..." I whispered the reality of what was actually happening began to set in. In that moment of loss, my world collapsed. Where there was light became shadows, the pain coming and going like waves on frigid sand.

"Didn't she have a daughter?" Harry asked. I bit my lip at that. He knew damn well that she did.

"Aye. That little firefly is still out there. She won't be much use, though. It's pointless going after her. If Zarina didn't talk, ye can bet yer mug that her little lass won't either."

"Perhaps. But she's all alone now." Harry sneered. "I've caught her before. Her mother helped her escape. So I'll just have find her again."

It was true, I had met Harry before and I had never been more scared in my life. We were only children, and if my mother hadn't swooped in and rescued me while he slept, I would either still be sitting in that cage on his bedside table or worse... I dreaded to think.