Madder than a Hatter (Descendants)

Reconciliation (Edited)

Lonnie was walking so fast it was hard for me to catch up with her, and I could hear her muttering under her breath.

"I can't believe the nerve of those stupid boys-"

"Lonnie, hey, wait up," I called, before I could lose my nerve.

She half-turned, realized who it was, and then kept walking.

"Lonnie, please, wait."

"Are you finally talking to me again?"

"I did things that I'm not proud of, but you did, too," I reminded her, still trying to catch up.

"And I tried to make up for them! But you just avoided me!"

"You're right, I did, and it was wrong- would you please slow down?"

Lonnie came to a dead stop and I almost ran into her. "What, Maddie? What do you want to say to me?"

I looked into her dark brown eyes and the overwhelming urge to apologize rose up inside me. "I am so, so sorry that I wouldn't talk to you and that I kept avoiding you. It was dumb, and stupid, but I was feeling really hurt that you would just turn on my friends like that, when they didn't even do anything to you."

"Since when were they your friends?" Lonnie asked in disbelief. "You almost never talked to them."

"Here, you're right. I didn't talk to them here. But I talked to them all the time on the Isle. You know, where I'm from? The place I used to live before I went here? That place? Whether you thought of it at the time or not, I am a villain kid, and if you insult them, you insult me. And you insulted them pretty heftily. Do you understand why I'm upset now?"

Lonnie looked like she was about to cry. "I never meant to hurt you."

"But you did. I reacted terribly, I will admit that. But I told you things I have never told anyone else. I told you about my mom. I told you about my half-sister, Allie. I told you about everything, and you threw it away for what? Popularity? An in with Audrey? What?"

I started crying. I couldn't help it.

Lonnie didn't start crying. She looked like she was going to, but she didn't. "I'm sorry, Maddie. I shouldn't have done that. I was trying to be someone else back then, someone I wasn't, and I tried to tell you that, but you didn't go to the Enchanted Lake, and I couldn't get you alone after the coronation. I'm sorry, I just wanted to explain."

I hugged her. I couldn't help that, either.

She hugged me back. That's when she started crying.

After a long time of hugging and crying, I noticed some kids were staring at us. "What're you looking at?" I snapped, and they scattered.

That prompted Lonnie to let go. "So, I guess we're good now?" she asked weakly.

"I guess," I said, and smiled in relief.

"So, Wonderland. Tell me about it. You don't really talk much about it," Lonnie said, swinging her feet as she sat on the edge of the dock.

"Oh, it's nothing much. All of this is from stories my dad told me, and he doesn't really like telling me much about it," I said.

"Well, what did he tell you about it?"

"It's a mystical, magical place, filled to the brim with buttons and rats and ungrateful brats. Wisecracking cats and children in hats. Demons with dastardly, dangerous traps. Rabbits and hares boiling in vats. Stuff like that."

"Lovely."

"Wonderland is very full of all things we don't understand. It inspires wonder. I would even go as far as to say that it is a land filled with wonder. The definition of wonder, of course, is a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable. It is also defined as desire or curiosity to know something, or to feel doubt. This means that wonder is not always a good thing, which one must keep in mind when talking about Wonderland."

"I can see why your dad didn't like talking about it now," Lonnie muttered.

"Yeah, well, it held a lot of bad memories for him, and those kind of tainted anything he tried to say about it."

"Maybe you could visit it someday."

"Eh, best to not. There's nothing in Wonderland for me." I straightened up and abandoned my frog hunting. "Wait a minute."

"What is it?" Lonnie asked, straightening up herself.

"Wonderland is its own country, separate from the United States of Auradon, right?"

"Right."

"My dad is a citizen of Wonderland, not Auradon. He was arrested for being, I guess, an accessory to crimes that he himself hadn't committed, but the crimes themselves took place in a different country. Auradon had no power to throw him or the Queen of Hearts on the Isle of the Lost. That would be, like, turbo illegal, right?"

"I- I don't know. I'm not well versed with laws regarding-"

"Doesn't matter. I'm just talking at you at this point. If you're floundering, that's alright. I bet that if I brought this to a court, then my dad would be freed from his wrongful imprisonment. I mean, all the other villains committed the crimes in the land that would eventually become Auradon, right? So that's why they're prisoners of Auradon. But no crimes were committed by my dad, in any country. Do you think I could sue Auradon? I think I could sue them."

"Maddie, please don't sue the country," Lonnie said tiredly.

"Ah, come on, picture it: Hatter versus the United States. It'd be a monumental court case- yeah, you're right, I shouldn't. That sounds like a lot of work, honestly."

"Oh, thank God," she said under her breath.

"I heard that. You brought lunch, right? Let's eat."