The Ones Who Wander

Tales of a Very Long Day

Hello, hello, hello! I can't believe it took me so long to write this chapter. Honestly. I swear I've been working on this since September and... it just decided to be a pain in the ass. To be fair, though, it's the longest chapter so far (and that's already saying something, okay?). It didn't help that this was the last filler chapter. Gods, I'm so glad the introduction is finally over! 68k words later!

Just a quick warning before you start reading! There is a mention of past abuse with Desiree concerning a certain... incident surrounding her. I can't tell you more because I would spoil that part for you. It's not much, it's only a couple of paragraphs concerning a past injury.

Other than that, there are just hints of past abuse here and there. We're only getting to know the children, so you may see mentions of them limping or maybe them mumbling, but we don't get to deepen in their reasons behind it.

So, I think I've held you back long enough, moving on to geminalupus' notes!

Hi again! And we're off! Back to Auradon and all the chaos that will bring :D Karen as always did amazing so please show her love with kind reviews! We'll send cookies in return! Happy reading!

Tales of a Very Long Day

Of all the things Mal had thought she would do that day, establishing an alliance with Harriet Hook was not one of them. To be fair, though, nothing had really been going her way for at least a month.

Harriet had never been someone Mal rubbed shoulders with. True, she was a good fighter and a person you didn't want to have as an enemy, but unlike Jay, Mal had never been interested in holding friendly quarrels with her fellow islanders. Until then, they had lived politely ignoring each other.

There was no ignoring now, Mal knew that. Ever since she had arrived in Auradon, Mal's days going by unnoticed had ended. In the Isle, people had feared her, true, but no one had felt a morbid satisfaction in watching her, no one had dared to stare at her for too long.

It was different in Auradon. People felt curiosity, awe, not only because of her parentage, but because of her attire, of her looks, of the way she talked.

Perhaps that was why her return to the Isle had shocked her so much. She should have felt as if she were returning home, regardless of the bad memories she had of the place. Instead, she felt like a guinea pig taking part in an experiment―each one of her movements being closely watched by those in Auradon, and, now that she was back at the Isle, the only place she had believed she'd be able to melt into a well-known crowd, the very same people she had attended school with turned over their shoulders to inspect her, as if she were an exotic animal.

Before, people in Auradon had either watched her in fascination or distrust, the first desiring to see how different the islanders were from those who lived in the Fairy-Tale-Land, she supposed. The latter, because of her mother's deeds and her own bad attitude.

Three weeks in the past, as she left Auradon under the critical eyes of hundreds of Auradonians, Mal had felt she was under a different kind of attention. Some people still glared at her in distrust, but, mostly, there was expectation. Things wouldn't be the same after Ben's decree, no matter what came out of this... experiment.

So, in the end, it all boiled down to the fact that each of her movements was being closely followed and promptly judged now, both at Auradon and at the Isle.

For the islanders, who had never trusted her much in the first place, the change could probably be explained because now she looked more like an Auradonian than like someone born and raised in the Isle of the Lost. They couldn't be more wrong.