FicWad

Dad had never pushed Quinn on what happened while she was gone. Everything she had told him and had been when she was ready to.

But one evening, when they were sitting on the back porch, he saw her pull a dagger from under her clothing and fiddle with it absentmindedly.

“Do you carry that everywhere?” he asked, his tone light but Quinn could hear the concern.

She did carry it everywhere – hidden under her clothes or stuck in her boot. She shrugged. “Old habits die hard, I guess.” The truth was that she did not quite feel safe without some kind of weapon on her. She knew it was silly – no one was going to attack her; she did not have to worry about the Innocents or the Queens or even Maleficent over here. And yet... she felt the prickle of someone watching her and immediately prepared herself for a fight. But she did not want to tell Dad about that. He was worried enough about her as it was.

He watched her closely and then looked back out at the dark forest. “When King Richard returned from the Crusades and took back his throne, I thought everything could go back to normal. Robin got his land back, the rest of us got handsome rewards. But we had been living in Sherwood Forest for years by that time, always ready for a fight, knowing that at any given moment, we could be attacked.” He looked back at her. “That fear doesn’t disappear overnight, Quinn. It sticks around, in the back of your mind, in the muscle memory and reflexes that you needed over there. In the old habits –” He gestured at her dagger. “– that you just can’t seem to break.”

Quinn smiled a little and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Does it ever go away? Will I eventually feel completely safe again?”

She did not see it, but there was pain in his eyes at her words. She was too young to be asking questions like that, he thought. But of course, there were younger children than her on the Isle who had experienced the same and more than her. He held Quinn tight to him. “Maybe not entirely, but it shrinks to a manageable size. And reflexes like those aren’t all bad. They can come in handy. Remember that time Alex Dale lost his balance during target practice and nearly shot Mark?”

“Uncle Robin had an arrow notched in a split second and shot the arrow out of the air,” Quinn remembered. “One of the best trick shots I’ve ever seen.”

“He would not have been able to do that had he not been Robin Hood of the Merry Men,” Dad said.

Quinn nodded and they looked out at the forest again.

•••

Resistance to the campaign had picked up after the press conference. Posters were torn down faster than they could put them up. The coverage of their campaign was overwhelmingly negative and Quinn was starting to see how far ‘goodness’ really went.

A week later, they organized a demonstration outside the palace, hoping to get the attention of the king and queen.

When the guards saw them all marching towards the gates, they tensed and looked around in concern. The head guard stepped forward and approached Quinn.

“What are you doing?” he asked gruffly.

“Staging a peaceful protest,” Quinn said calmly. “As is our right.”

“It is your right to bother the king and queen while they work?” he asked.

Quinn frowned. “It is our right to criticize our leaders and voice that criticism through demonstration.”

The guard looked at her, then at the crowd behind her, holding signs. “Don’t cause any trouble,” hie said finally and headed back to his post.

Quinn turned back and smiled. “Let’s go,” she said.

Somebody had brought a megaphone and passed it to Quinn, while someone else pressed a paper into her hand. On it was various chants they had come up with. As they spread out in front of the castle, she led them in the chants, like “All the kids on the Isle Didn’t get a fair trial” and “If a dream is a wish that your heart makes Then I dream of King Beast fixing his mistakes.” She felt a thrill when they roared the words back at her.

When she grew tired, she passed the megaphone on to Cory, who took up the chant. She melted into the crowd and shouted with them. The feeling was indescribable. The energy and adrenaline made her heart pound hard in her chest. Her whole being felt warm and full, standing shoulder to shoulder with people who agreed with her, with whom she belonged, fighting for all the kids of the Isle. It was a sense of belonging that reminded her of the Crew, and for a moment, she stilled herself and looked up at the clear blue sky. This one’s for you, Harper, she thought.

After about half an hour, she was pulled back to the front and handed the megaphone again. “Something rousing,” Mark said to her, before pulling away, leaving her alone in the semicircle of space she stood in.

Quinn looked out at the crowd and felt that rush, that righteous anger, build up in her chest. “We are here today to fight for the rights of those who cannot fight for themselves!” The crowd cheered. “The children of the Isle were set up to fail! They were born to villains on an island rife with crime, poverty, and abuse. They did nothing wrong! They are being punished for their parents’ crimes!” They roared their approval.

Mark caught her eye and gestured for her to turn around and pointed at the palace. Quinn turned to face the gilded gates. “King Beast, Queen Belle, I now speak directly to you. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I hope you can!” She took a breath. “How can you sit in your palace and claim to be ruling your people fairly, when children are suffering at your hands? The hardships that the children of the Isle endure are all because of policies you put in place! What did you think was going to happen to them? They had no chance to choose a different path from their parents. You set them up to fail, your majesty! Do you even care?” She was so caught up that she did not realize the guards were approaching until one grabbed her shoulder. Quinn jumped and nearly punched him in the jaw out of instinct.

“I think that’s enough,” said the head guard. “Time to break it up.”

“We’re barely been here an hour,” said Quinn indignantly. “And we have the right to be here.”

“You’re causing a disruption,” he said. “Go home before you cause a scene.”

“Causing a scene is kind of the point,” Quinn snapped.

Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw a tv camera, with Snow White reporting. The guards were glancing over at her apprehensively as well.

She pulled her arm out of the guard’s grip and shouted into the megaphone, “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme! Imprisoning children for no crime! Innocent kids doing time!” The crowd, who had started shuffling nervously at the advance of the guards, quickly took up the chant.

“Alright,” grunted the guard, trying to grab at the megaphone, but Quinn danced out of the way, repeating the chant.

The crowd chanted along, but guards were starting to try and break them up. Quinn continued to dodge the guard but knew that she could only avoid them for so long without resorting to violence – and that was the last thing she needed. So she turned back to the palace to say one last thing. “Your whole thing, King Beast, is the power of second chances, so why don’t you –”

The megaphone was ripped from her grasp as a pair of strong arms pulled her arms behind her back. Quinn thought she saw a curtain in one of the high windows move like someone had just let it close. Like someone had been watching. She felt a bit of stubborn satisfaction; somebody had heard them, so maybe the king and queen had too.

“I think that’s enough,” said the voice of the guard behind her.

Quinn struggled a bit. “Am I under arrest, sir? If so, for what crime?”

“Disrupting the peace,” he said. “Unreasonable criticism of the king and encouraging a rebellion against the king.”

“First of all, that second thing isn’t illegal, secondly, I was not encouraging rebellion, I am merely voicing my criticisms of the king’s decisions.”

As they led her away, Quinn saw that a lot of the others looked like they wanted to fight back. A few others were also being arrested. She caught Chloe’s eye and shook her head urgently.

Chloe quickly turned to the crowd. “Hey, remember, we are here to lead a non-violent protest! Let’s try not to give them the wrong idea here!”

Quinn found Mark’s face in the crowd and he looked at her in concern. She could almost hear him saying, “I didn’t mean that rousing.”



Quinn was put in a separate holding cell from the others. It was squeaky clean in there and she laid on the cot, staring at the ceiling. She knew she should be concerned about this, but she was not. The adrenaline from the protest was still pumping through her veins. Maybe getting arrested was not the best image for the movement, but at least they had made a mark. There was no way anyone could not know about them now.

She dropped off to sleep for a little bit and when she woke, the rush was gone. In its absence, doubt crept in. Maybe this was a terrible mistake. Maybe no one would take them seriously now. Maybe righteous anger was not the emotion to go with.



The next morning, Quinn and the few other protesters who were arrested, including Mark, were released. They were not going to be charged with anything but were given strict warnings.

Dad was there to pick them up. “Your father,” he said to Mark. “asked if you’d visit.”

“But we have so much work to do!” Quinn protested. “This is just the beginning.”

“If this is just the beginning, are you going to get yourself charged with something next time?” Dad’s tone was direct and strict, and he flinched when he heard himself. He sighed. “Let’s just go home for the weekend.”

“We’re fighting injustice, Dad,” Quinn said quietly, knowing she sounded like a petulant teenager. After living with next to no adult supervision on the Isle, she had to get used to it again.

“We should probably let everything cool down a bit anyway,” Mark said.

Quinn nodded. “You’re probably right.” Admitting when you’re wrong: another thing not encouraged on the Isle.



Robin and Marian Hood met them at the train station, looking concerned but clearly trying not to look it.

“Hi, Uncle Robin, Aunt Marian,” Quinn said, uncomfortably, but they hugged her, just as they had Mark.

The ride back to Sherwood was rife with polite conversation – avoiding the protest. They talked about Will Scarlet’s new horse, the upcoming wedding of one of the Sherwood kids, and how the apple harvest seemed to be doing very well this year.

Finally, it was Marian who snapped. “Are you two alright?” she asked.

“We’re fine, Mom,” Mark reassured her. “We got roughed up a bit – but no worse for wear.”

“What actually happened?” Robin asked. “They’re making you all sound like crazy rioters on the news, but they’re not showing a lot of footage.”

Quinn thanked all the powers that were that she ended up in Sherwood. “We were peaceful – a bit loud maybe, but nothing more. I think we just questioned the king’s decisions a few too many times and the guards weren’t comfortable with that.”

Robin kept his eyes on the road but nodded understandingly. “I thought that might be the case.”

“But you definitely need to work on your optics,” Marian said. “Because even Sherwood people were hesitant to support you all after yesterday.”

Quinn and Mark shared a look. They had a long road ahead of them.

•••

Jax was starting to realize how helpless he was. It had been weeks since Quinn had left, and he had no idea what was happening. He had started to watch the news broadcasts from Auradon, but there was no sign of her.

“And should we be concerned about this campaign led by a girl from Sherwood?”

Jax’s head shot up and he caught a split-second shot of Quinn in front of a crown before it was cut, replaced by one of King Beast’s anti-evil PSAs that were shot specifically for the Isle and no one took seriously. “What the hell?”

He watched the news even more carefully after that and realized that the news coverage would sometimes, seemingly randomly, be interrupted, usually by the ridiculous PSAs, or by old footage from past broadcasts.

Finally, he decided to consult the little whiz kid of the Isle himself. Carlos was in his usual spot in the back of Jafar’s Bargain Shop, fiddling with wires.

“Hey, kid,” Jax said, sitting down next to him. “I was wondering if you could do me a favour.”

“Don’t you already owe me?” he asked, not looking up from his work.

“No, you owed Quinn, so we’re all even now.”

“What do you need?” He held out a hand. “Can you hand me the needlenose plyers?”

Jax did so. “Can you get the Auradon news broadcasts, not the ones they censor for the Isle?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, probably.” He looked over at Jax. “What’s in it for me?”

“Free passage in Crew territory,” Jax said. “You can come over, stay, whatever, whenever you want.” He had seen in Carlos what the saw in all the kids – the need to get out from under his mother’s thumb. Maybe he could give him that.

“Alright,” Carlos said. “That sounds like a deal.”