The Ones Who Wander

Trying

Hi there! I'm back!

So, you know how sometimes you make plans and you're sure they will work out and then... they don't? Well, that's my life. I've been meaning to publish this (because it's been done and ready for that long) for a week, but... life got in the way, as always.

Also, I messed up (if you plan on following this until the end get used to it, as it happens often). Remember months ago when I published a list with the names of the characters to try to make this madness a little easier to understand? Turns out, I wrote Dizzy twice without noticing and she's listed in both the ten-year-old and twelve-year-old group age. In this story, she's supposed to be twelve, just clearing that up.

As always, huge shoutout to geminalupus for being kind enough to deal with me sometimes in the wee hours of the morning. She is the best, I swear.

And... without further ado, I'll leave you to read!

Trying

For the longest of times Doretta Tremaine had believed that, if the time ever came for her to leave the Isle of the Lost, she would have been thrilled out of her mind. That, of course, had been a long time in the past, when she'd been naïve enough to think that one day in the near future Auradon would look down and remember that the Isle of the Lost, apart from being a floating junkyard, was also home to a handful of people.

At the moment, Doretta wasn't sure if 'naïve' was the word she was looking for. Someone in Auradon had finally turned over their shoulders and remembered the Isle, after all, but she wasn't convinced that such a thing was good anymore.

Certainly, things had gone smoothly ever since Mal had returned to the Isle. Mal was dressed differently, she even held herself distinctively, but she had carried on with what she'd pledged. Still, Mal was Maleficent's daughter, the spawn of one of the wickedest creatures in the Isle of the Lost. It made no sense to trust her, especially because she had returned to her hometown with a tongue that wasn't as sharp and with promises that sounded like Auradon's commercials.

Doretta knew better than to trust someone who acted nicely, she knew better than to fall for a pitiful smile. After all, the times when her mother would call her name gently, the faintest trace of fondness in her voice, were the ones the pain of her slap stung the hardest. The times when a man would approach her with a non-threatening demeanor and no weapons in sight were the ones Doretta knew for a fact that she had to fear for her life.

No, Doretta Tremaine didn't believe in good people, she had no reason to do such an idiotic thing. She was simply convinced that some people were better at hiding their twisted intentions than others. And, if she were honest, that was even worse―the idea, the small, tingling hope that there was even good in the world to start with was so much more destructive than just the raw truth. Honestly, Doretta preferred to be beat up straightforwardly, rather than to be led to believe that there was something better, that someone like her could aspire to become someone better.

There was no use. Pretty thoughts had never put food in her plate or meat in her bones. Therefore, Doretta Tremaine refused to believe there was a pure reason behind Auradon's sudden interest in the effete subjects they'd imprisoned in the Isle of the Lost.

Which was certainly not what her younger sisters thought about the matter. Well, probably. To be honest, Doretta never really knew what Daryn had in mind, so she merely assumed that her younger sister would agree with Desiree. Which, in return, meant that Doretta would loathe whatever those two were up to.

Doretta couldn't remember a time she had gotten along with her eldest sister. Desiree was just... unreasonable. All the time. It was unnerving. And, like all good things, her sister's character had only become even sourer after the incident with Gaston.