𝙼 𝙰 𝚈 𝙱 𝙴
stave ii 🃏 chapter 17

( third person narration )

𝙒𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮'𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚,
"𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙯𝙮, 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩?"
𝙄 𝙖𝙞𝙣'𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚.

It was quiet. Other than the sounds of Harriet and Quinn's boots, the sound of something dripping, and the occasional scream, followed with an evil laugh, the walk to Pirate's Bay was quiet.

Harriet didn't mind the quiet. The quiet allowed her to think. From an outside perspective, the walk to Pirate's Bay would seem awkward. But, considering the fact that Harriet and Quinn were from rival gangs (rival gangs that were currently beefing), and the fact that the two of them definitely weren't friends, the silence wasn't that bad.

The silent walk would only last for, barely, ten minutes. After that, Quinn could get Percy out of Harriet's hair, and Harriet and Quinn could go back to hating each other. There weren't any vendettas–surprisingly–between Quinn and Harriet. Harriet had only known Quinn as Evie's other best friend. She had only known anything recent about the Hearts girl if Harry had happened to talk about her on a given day.

Harry—for as insane as he was—somehow had Quinn's description down to the last thread on her clothing. She did have long hair, green eyes, and she did wear red as Harry had said. From Harriet's perspective, Quinn was very attractive. Harriet would have had no problem with going after Quinn (Quinn definitely wasn't straight, which definitely would have made things easier), but, alas, she respected her brother, and his random pursuits with Quinn in the past. Harriet didn't need to butt in.

Even though Harry had butted in between Harriet and Uma any chance he could get. Which pissed Harriet off, but it was what it was. Uma had no feelings towards Harry. The only problem was that Harriet wasn't sure if Uma had feelings towards her or not.

"So . . . " Quinn's voice broke the silence, interrupting Harriet's thoughts, "Uma isn't gonna be mad at you if she ever found out that you and I were conspiring to free Percy."

Harriet gave the girl a look before scoffing. "Pfft, no," she said, "Ben is the only important one. Percy is just a bonus."

"What the heck did you and Harry do to him?" Quinn asked.

"Oh nothing permanent," Harriet smirked, "We just toyed around. You know, normal pirating things. We were gonna let our dad deal with him. But, I know you would be distraught at the thought of something terrible happening to him."

Quinn rolled her eyes, "Oh please. I couldn't care less if he's alive or dead. I was the one who told Harry I didn't care if he threw him to the sharks."

"Wow. Environments do really change your personality," Harriet said. "In Auradon, you're in love with Pan, but when you come to the Isle, Hook's all you can think about."

"Well, Percy cheated on me."

"Oh. That's gotta suck. Can't relate."

"And I despise Harry."

"Oh really?" Harriet questioned, looking at Quinn with a scoff. "I'm sure you two did plenty of things that would make you like him just a little bit."

The half-redhead rolled her eyes, "In his dreams."

"Well, he's dreaming about a lot of things. I know that for a fact—"

"So what did Percy do?" Quinn cocked an eyebrow, "Because I know for a fact that you would be dead before you went against Uma's orders."

Harriet stopped talking. Quinn looked over at her when she realized that Harriet wasn't saying anything. Harriet had a grumpy look on her face, and rolled her eyes after folding her arms at Quinn's question.

"Well?" The Hearts girl egged Harriet on.

The pirate sighed, "He kept flirting with Uma."

"Oh," Quinn smirked, "I could've guessed that."

The duo made a turn. "Yeah well," Harriet said, bitterly, "Uma said that I couldn't kill or hurt him too much, so this is the next best option to make him shut his mouth."

With that right turn, Harriet and Quinn found themselves in the literal entrance of Uma's ship. Uma's ship wasn't anything new or special to either of the VK's. Harriet had remembered being starstruck when she first saw it, but—like all things on the Isle of the Lost—Harriet had gotten used to it, and it wasn't a new and shiny Isle thing anymore.

Pirates were bustling around. It was at least 4 in the morning at that moment, but for some reason, there were still people catching fish, carrying crates, and threatening people everywhere.

Sure, Harriet wasn't the smartest person on the Isle, but she could tell time, and she had plenty of useless knowledge in her head that made her smarter than most Isle kids.

"Well, here we are," Harriet pulled her sword out. Quinn looked at her surroundings. "Look, you hide behind the ship," the point of Harriet's sword pointed to the barrels behind the platform behind the ship, "I'll give you a signal once the coast is clear. And then, I'll free Percy, and you can do whatever you want with him, and we can go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.

"I'd rather leave him in Auradon and cut my own head off than do anything with him," Quinn crossed her arms, "I'd rather him be fed to the sharks."

"Well, that's too bad," Harriet looked at Quinn, "Because you're gonna have to see him in Bore-adon after all this."

"That's too bad for you, because once Uma gets rid of the barrier, you're probably gonna see him again in Bore-adon," Quinn lied through her teeth.

Harriet, unfortunately, didn't catch the lie.
She smirked, "Well, he'll have to deal with my father. And at least I'll get a break from him for eight hours."

"Cool plan," Quinn said, proceeding to walk away from the conversation, "I'm gonna go hide so we can get this over with–"

"Before you go," Quinn stopped in her tracks when Harriet spoke, "Don't go thinking up any plans about getting King Ben. Even though he's hidden, I'll have Uma's crew dealing with you faster than you can say hook."

Quinn smirked, "You say that, but you forgot about how oh so easily I can wrap your brother around my finger."

Harriet returned the gesture, "We'll see, Hearts."

Turning on the heels of her boots, she walked over to where Percy was being held. Percy was being held in an old map room on the ship previously, but—almost noon—Uma had wanted him to be tied to one of the posts on the ship for when the VK's had come around.

Just in the nick of time, the door to the old map room swung open. Out came Harry with Percy in hand.

Percy looked terrified.

"What did you do to him?" Harriet crossed her arms, slightly tilting her head.

"Nothing permanent," Harry insisted.

Percy still looked utterly traumatized.

"Harry," Harriet taunted, "you know Uma said that neither of us can hurt him until noon."

Harry and Percy had finally approached Harriet. Harry sighed, "I didn't actually hurt him, Ettie." He leaned Percy—whose legs and arms were tied up, giving him no good chance of escape—against one of many of the posts on the ship.

The raven-haired pirate looked at the terrified Percy up and down. "Then what did you do to him?" she asked her younger brother.

Percy's mouth was stuffed with some sort of cloth. All of his cries came out muffled, which was Harriet's doing, because she was tired of Percy screaming when she threatened him.

"I said a couple things," Harry wickedly smiled, approaching Percy once again to taunt him with his hook.

Harriet wasn't having it. So, she walked over to a tied-up Percy, and took the cloth out of his mouth. All of his muffled cries came out at that moment.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt her! I won't do it again! It was just one time! Please don't hurt me, PLEASE!"

"Hurt who?" Harriet asked.

"Quinn!" Percy exclaimed, "I didn't mean to! I'm so sorry! Just please don't hurt me and my family! Please–"

"Oh, go cry about it," Harriet put the cloth back into Percy's mouth. She, then, turned to her brother with her arms crossed and an annoyed facial expression. "You're seriously threatening him because he cheated on Quinn?"

Harry looked up, "So? Why does it matter?"

The older sibling took a deep breath. "You are insane," she pinched her fingers together, looking at her little brother dead in the eyes.

"And you aren't any fun," Harry gave Harriet a wicked smile, and then started looking around him.

Harriet took another deep breath. "Let me guess," she began, "You forgot the rope."

"But he's already tied up!"

"Just go get some rope!"
Harry huffed, before glaring at Percy (who was still tied up). His heavy boots carried him to some corner of the ship, in search of some kind of rope. Finding said rope would take him a while because Uma rarely held people on the Isle captive. The only time rope was really useful was for things on the actual ship.

Harriet sharply exhaled, looking over at Percy who was still being held captive. "I swear, Uma should've made me first mate. This would have never happened." Percy began to squirm and cry for help again. "Little siblings are just . . . ugh," Harriet began to grin. "However," she looked Percy up and down, "this does make my job easier."

Harriet arrogantly crossed her arms, looking over at the spot where she told Quinn to hide. The raven-haired pirate looked back over at the brunette. "Oh Quinn," she said in a sing-song voice, dragging out the two "n's" at the end of her name.

She smirked as she watched Quinn strut over to the two of them. Percy had looked over, and began to squirm more at the sight of Quinn coming to his rescue. Once she had approached Percy, she sharply exhaled, before beginning to cut him out of the little rope he was tied up with.

A hum escaped Harriet's lips. "You know, I really couldn't care less about what happened over in good old Candyland with the two of you," she began, "but you are really, really lucky that blondie over here came through."

Once Quinn had freed Percy of all his restraints, she took the rag in his mouth out.

"Quinn! Thank goodness you freed me I—"

"Would you shut up?" Quinn whisper-yelled.

Percy's mouth had shut like a magnet once Quinn had yelled at him. The Hearts girl huffed, before pushing him in front of her. Percy had begun to swiftly walk off of the pirate ship, with Quinn behind him; scolding and urging him to go faster.

"You're welcome," Harriet scoffed, checking her nails.

Surprisingly, it had taken Harry a good minute for him to finally return back to where Percy was supposed to be held captive. He had come from a random corner in the ship, rope in hand, and had found a rag, small remains of Percy's restraints, and a decent-sized shard of glass.

Putting two and two together, Harry was furious.

"Where did Pan go?" He pointed to the spot that Percy was supposed to be in.

Harriet looked up from her nails, "Oh! Your little girlfriend freed him." Harry glared at his older sister. "You know, this wouldn't have happened if you were a better first mate. Uma is gonna be soooo mad."

"Where did he go?!" Harry asked, his voice, laced with rage.

"I think the two of them went that way," Harriet fake-pouted. "You might be able to catch them in time."

The male pirate sharply exhaled, throwing the rope onto the floor of the ship. He pulled out his sword, huffing while angrily walking in the direction where his older sister had pointed to. Harriet watched as he shoved anyone and anything out of his way, and in that same way, people had scrambled off in

Harriet couldn't help but chuckle to herself as she saw her younger brother fuming. He looked like he could explode at that moment. If Harriet was Quinn and Percy in that moment, she would've almost been terrified. Harry had looked like he had wanted to kill someone at that moment.

And all Harriet could do was laugh.

• • •

"Quinn! Wait up! Please!"

Quinn's eyes rolled as Percy's desperate voice kept following her. She was getting quite annoyed with it. Not only was Percy begging for forgiveness, but he was also attracting attention onto the pair. A couple of people had given her and Percy a couple of looks as they heard him chasing after her. It was already enough that Uma was going to be pissed, Quinn didn't need anyone letting her know where the two of them were going.

Despite Quinn's desperate attempts of acting like she had no idea who the person following her was, she was still having attention drawn towards her because of Percy calling out her name. For some reason, Percy had severely lacked subtlety in the Isle of the freaking Lost—where he was literally held captive a couple of minutes ago.

"Quinn, please! I just want to talk!" Percy tried to reason.

Once again, the half-redhead rolled her eyes at Percy's antics and kept walking in attempt to keep the duo out of sight.

"Why are you ignoring me? Can you just stop acting like you're better than me and just hear me out—"

And upon hearing the boy's words, Quinn had finally decided to entertain whatever reconciling Percy had wanted to do.

"Really," she immediately turned on her heels to face the brunette, "I'm the arrogant one? Are you actually serious? After everything you did? I'm arrogant?"

Percy shrugged, "I mean, youve been acting like it ever since you freed me."

If attention wasn't on the two of them before, it would have definetly been now. There weren't many people in the alley where Quinn and Percy were fighting at, but the few people that were there definitely paid a little attention to the quarrel.

Quinn yelled, "Percy, can't you get it through your thick skull that I don't want anything to do with you? You used me and then cheated on me—"

"Is it any different than what you used to do here?!" Percy yelled in return. Quinn's jaw dropped. "Harry told me about you and what you used to do here. What the two of you did. What you did to everyone! How are you and I different? Huh?"

The Hearts girl blinked. Hard. She never thought that this conversation would go to this point. She never thought that she would be having any kind of conversation with Percy like the one the two of them were currently having.

"You know what?" Quinn pointed to herself, "He was right. You can ask anyone. Heck, you can probably ask anyone in this alley. I did use people. I did lie. I did cheat. I did steal. I screwed up. I learned it all and I've done it all. But that is the person that I abandoned on this Island."

Quinn exhaled. "And you know what, I did get used before I met you. You aren't the first ever person I've cared about. I'm sure Hook didn't tell you that. But you wanna know what, none of that was relevant to the relationship you and me had. I liked you—heck, I turned good because of you. So don't you dare use my past to excuse you treating me like garbage."

The silence between Percy and Quinn was deafening. Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw the few people watching their argument slowly turn on their heels and go back to what they were doing.

"Quinn," Percy breathed out, "I'm so sorry I—"

She put her hand up, as if she was signaling him to stop. "I don't want to hear any lame apology coming from your mouth again," she said. "I want you to go to the old garage where Jay parked the limo. And you're gonna wait for Jay and Carlos to come back from Auradon and take you back after everything goes down. And I want you to never, ever, ever speak to me ever again. Copy?"

Percy sighed, hanging his head low as he gave the girl a small nod. And with that, Quinn turned on her heels, walking away from Percy for—hopeuflly—the last time.

It was all a clumsy concept—Quinn's love life. Yes, she had been known to toy around with people's feelings. The amount of people she had done things to was uncountable. But, it had always seemed like when she tried to actually care about someone, they ended up playing her.

The VK's had learned this concept in Auradon called karma. Was this Quinn's karma? Was her inability to hold a stable relationship simply because of the mistakes she made with love on the Isle of the Lost? She never really thought about anyone actually, really caring about her. She didn't think about how there could've been at least one person's heart who she broke actually cared about her.

Life was just . . . weird.

Quinn's rage-walking definitely wasn't helping distract her from everything Percy had said, but it was a good attempt at distracting herself. Quinn never really participated in self-loathing, but she was really participating in it at that moment.

However, in true Isle of the Lost fashion, something was off.

The air had changed. It wasn't like there was literally something in the air. But, Quinn just felt that something was . . . weird. Almost like, when you walk into a party, and then someone you hate walks into the room you're in. You don't know it yet, but you can just feel them walking in.

Funny how that analogy almost literally represents Quinn's current situation.

She looked to her left and right, deciding that the eerie feeling was just the Isle mood when she saw nothing. But as she continued walking, the eerie feeling wouldn't leave her alone. So, she continued to dismiss it.

That was until, said eerie feeling had a voice.

"You really thought you could run away from me."

You've got to be kidding me.

Just like that, it was like cat and mouse between Quinn Hearts and Harry Hook again.

She wanted to run. That was the original plan, that was Quinn's original instinct. But, Quinn's contempt feelings had led her to forget that she was at the end of the alley. The dirty sign, reading "END" in shaky red lettering seemed to pierce right through Quinn's body.

"It's a dead end, darling."

Quinn thought of a couple of very bad words.

She slowly raised her hands in surrender, turning on her heels coyly. "Harry this really isn't—" her words were cut short when she processed the point of Harry's sword being pointed straight towards her throat. "Oh god . . ." the heartbreaker breathed out at the sight of Harry's sword that close to her throat.

"Indeed," Harry tilted his head a little.

You've got to be serious. You've got to be serious. You'vegottobeserious–

Quinn had looked around the end of the alley for a moment, seeing if there was any kind of weapon, or way out. However, Harry's sword had brought her attention back to him.

"I've got you now," the pirate said with a wicked smile.

The Hearts girl had taken a small step, her back meeting with the wall as she avoided the tip of Harry's sword. She sharply exhaled, her eyes tracing the sharpened blade of the sword, following it all the way to its handle, and still tracing the little red cloth that had dangled off of the handle.

If it was any other moment, Quinn would've been her usual self. Smirking, crossing her arms, making remarks about how infatuated Harry must've been with her to make the two of them even bother to associate with each other. In this moment, Quinn didn't even want to bother with dealing with the pirate. She was drained, tired, and just wanted to go back to the old appartment to take a nap and forget about Percy's conversation before they had to go to Pirate's Bay.

Sadly, Harry seemed like he was pissed, and he had Quinn right where he wanted her. Quinn saw no way of using her charm (or her apparent exhaustion) to get out of this situation nick free.

"Look, this is cute and all, but I'm really not in the mood for your antics right now," she said, trying to make it sound as threatening and cool as possible.

Fail.

"Is there something wrong with Quinny today?" Harry said.

It was either Harry had this weird telepathic ability that he obtained after Quinn left the Isle of the Lost, or, Quinn was just that bad of an actress.

Quinn seethed, "There is nothing wrong. You have zero effect on me."

"Are you sure, darling?" Harry gazed at the girl, looking up and down at her, "You're nervous."

"No I'm not."

"But you are," the pirate was loving every little bit of this, "Your nails are tapping against the wall. You only do that when you're nervous."

The Hearts girl had stayed silent. Because to her surprise, Harry was right.

"See, you're clutching your fingers now because I'm right," he flashed a wicked smile.

"Harry let me go," Quinn said through gritted teeth.

"No!" Harry's response was a little too aggresive for Quinn's liking, "You took Pan! I have been waiting for revenge ever since I was born!"

The half-redhead was now extrememly pissed. She was mad about what Percy had said, she was mad that he and Ben had been captured, and she was mad about having to deal with her past, on the Isle of the Lost.

Sure, she was mad about the entire "going back to the Isle of the Lost" situation, but what made her the most mad was Harry Hook. She was mad that she was stupid enough to, literally, get herself backed into a corner. She was mad that he noted her nerves. She was mad at him for threatening her. But she was most angry about Harry's stupid, insane, smile. Quinn knew that Harry had her where she wanted, and his arrogance is what made her so, unvelievelbly angry.

There was this saying. "Blinded by anger." But for some reason, Quinn's anger had helped her find her way out.

The next thing she knew, she had slid in the opposite direction of the sharper part of the blade, and ducked the sword's blade. Since she was directly underneath the sword, she was now closer to Harry, and was able to swing her foot to kick the back of Harry's knee before he could try to swing his sword at her.

When Harry had fallen to the ground (how Quinn's maneuver worked, she didn't know), Quinn had bolted in the opposite direction. Harry had made a couple of desperate attempts to try to trip up the redhead, however, she had already made a run for it.

Quinn had sprinted in the opposite direction. She had taken a couple of lefts and rights here and there, but in the moment, she was most focused on getting as far away from Hook as possible.

It was almost like there was some entity watching out for her when she had noticed that she, conicidentially, stumbled across the old hideout. Quinn sighed in relief, never feeling more thankful in her life that Mal and Evie were in the hideout, and that there was one good throw in Quinn to get her into the old hideout.

When she had entered, the first thing she did was check for Mal and Evie. Thankfully, the two of them were alive and well, peacefully sleeping in their "rooms." Based off a basic estimate, Quinn had figured that it was at least 4 or 5 in the morning. She was glad to see them alseep, especially considering the fact that the VK's had been basically pulling an all-nighter in order to rescue Ben.

Quinn could've almost cried when she had finally layed down on the couch. The entire day and night had been physically, and mentally exhausting for her.

The Hearts girl had barely gotten much sleep the night before. Mainly because of nerves for the day audition results came out. She had also put all her energy focus onto finishing the song that she was supposed to perform at Cotillion. Then, Quinn had found out that Mal ran back to the Isle of the Lost. Ben and Percy got captured. Everyone had been running around to make smoke bombs, or print the 3D wand, or trying to free Percy.

And if all of that wasn't enough, Percy's big speech to Quinn about her past on the Isle of the Lost just put the cherry on top of her chaos cake.

And then there was also Harry Hook—which was a completly different area of stress for Quinn.

Man, maybe Quinn's dream-Isle-Auradonian life did suck a little bit.

Quinn didn't know if she wanted to scream, cry, or scream and cry at the same time. Going back to the Isle of the Lost just brought in one big pile of confusion and stress into her life. One pile of confusion and stress that the Hearts thought she had abandoned when she had completly moved to Auradon.

She exhaled sharply, and reached over the couch to grab the acoustic guitar that had happened to convienently be laying beside the couch she was trying to sleep on. Quietly plucking on the strings (she didn't want to bother Mal and Evie's sleep), Quinn felt a wave of nostalgia through her body. She remembered the good times on the Isle of the Lost where she would run around, writing and performing songs.

"And you were wild and crazy," Quinn quietly sang, lightly strumming the guitar, "Just so frusturating."

There was nothing to care about. There was just Quinn running around the Isle of the Lost, her blonde-red hair being completely out of place and her red lipstick beginning to fade from the cold air blowing against her face.

Quinn wished things could be like that again. Even if it was just a little bit.

"Intoxicating, complicated, got away by some mistake and now . . . "

AUTHOR'S NOTE

okay so looking back i hate how i ended this chapter it's so cringe

but to be cringe is to be free or wtv ✌️

hope ya enjoyed the lore

thanks for bearing with me. :)
until next time.

-crrashingwavves