Madder than a Hatter (Descendants)

Oblivion (Edited)

I remember growing up and hearing the story of why my father left Wonderland in the first place. It wasn't a happy story by any means, but it was a comforting story. It was comforting because it always ended in a different way.

My father had not fallen in love with my mother. It was more of a Lima Syndrome scenario, where he had been imprisoned by her and she had eventually become sympathetic towards his needs. He had felt trapped and stressed and had done whatever he could to improve his circumstances.

Over the years, when that part of the story had been retold, it changed ever so slightly as I got older. It started out with Dad telling me that he hadn't really loved my mom and still kind of felt guilty about and ended with Dad telling me that he originally had me to make himself indispensable. Mom didn't really want to raise a kid, but according to my dad, she was very excited for what kind of person I would turn out to be.

Mom kind of shoved Dad to the side to take care of me while she went around doing her job and being tyrannical, allowing him free rein to do whatever he wanted when it came to raising me. I'd been born on the Isle, so they had both already left Wonderland at the time, but he'd always gotten sidetracked at that part and started telling me about the circumstances of my birth before getting back to the original story.

Dad had mostly been confined to a singular room for the duration of his imprisonment and had only been allowed to walk through Mom's castle near the end of it. She didn't want him finding any escape routes or secret passages. She'd visit him a lot to complain and he quietly listened while making her hats and occasionally a dress. At least she allowed him to continue making hats while stuck in his fabric-stocked room.

Somehow, this was enough for her to fall in love with him. From what Dad told me about her, she liked that he always listened to her, never expressed his own opinions, never contradicted her, and never told her she was doing something wrong. Because that is absolutely the solid foundation of a healthy relationship.

But her quote-unquote "love" provided a protection that no other thing would: complete and utter safety. No one would mess with him if she had a thing for him. He was already losing his mind over being imprisoned, he didn't want to have to worry about someone sneaking into his room to murder him.

She was crazy like him, for sure, but he was fun crazy and she was murderous crazy, and definitely at a much higher degree than him. Eventually, that craziness led her to leave Wonderland in an attempt to conquer Auradon. Obviously, that didn't work, and she was thrown onto the Isle. My dad, being associated with her, was also put there, even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

Eventually, they had a child, and that child was me, of course. Mom named me Madison, after my father, the Mad Hatter. That made him the Mad Hatter and I was Maddie Hatter. Everyone's so creative!

When I was two or three years old, Mom went off the deep end and almost destroyed half the Isle. Dad never went into great detail about it, only saying that she was threatening massive destruction and had to be "taken care of."

So he killed her. Her body is buried under our floorboards. I found her skeleton when I was pulling up the floor to look for fun stuff. That was an awkward conversation for Dad and ten-year-old me.

Anyway, that's the story of how the Mad Hatter murdered the Queen of Hearts. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

My greatest achievement was finding a tunnel from Auradon to the Isle, which really didn't make sense, considering the Isle was an island surrounded by water. Unless the tunnel went underwater, in which case it would make more sense. It was hard to tell what was happening while I was walking, considering I was too busy trying not to walk into walls.

I didn't really want to be on the Isle, though. It smelled awful, was full of smoke, and was way too loud. After a week or so in Auradon, I was already spoiled. Though I'm not sure wanting clean air is too ridiculous of an ask.

Something was different, though. I felt compressed, like the Isle itself was tampering with me and crushing something down in me. Was it magic? Most Wonderlandian residents had their own kind of magic, but I'd never been able to use mine, considering the Isle was a magic dead zone.

That brought up an interesting question. What was my magic like? I would try to figure that out once I got back to Auradon.

There was nothing for me to do that wouldn't get me caught and possibly interrogated by idiotic henchmen, so I jumped back into the hole and resigned myself to a very long walk back to the Auradon Prep campus.

There was, however, a skip in my step, excited over the prospect of using magic and deeply hoping it had something to do with cards. I loved cards.

Sooner than I had expected, I reached the other side of the tunnel, and hauled myself out of the hole. I yanked my hat off, reached into it, and pulled out my deck of cards. It was the deck my dad had given me on the day I had left the Isle, the worn unfamiliarity of it allowing me to forge my own bond with it.

The cards fell out of their box almost immediately and scattered on the ground in front of me. I dropped to my knees and tried to gather them up. As soon as my fingers touched them, something surged up from my bones and rocketed through my body. The design on the cards started glowing, outlined in electric blue, and as if lifted by magical wind, began to swirl around me.

I looked up, watching them whirl around me in a tornado of magic. I had no idea how I could do this, considering I'd never used magic before. I reached out with my mind, feeling strings of something tied to each of the cards, tied to my arms, wrapping the strings around me and pinning my arms to my side. My eyes began to hurt, running like crazy.

I began to panic a little, reaching out with my arm to grab one of the cards. It easily crumbled into a ball in my hand, and my horror at the thought of ruining one of the cards made the strings vanish and the cards fall.

Slowly, feeling lightheaded and disoriented, I gathered up the cards and put them back in the box. They went back in my hat, tucked up in the special pocket I had tailored when I had first made it.

Drops of blood hit the grass in front of me, and I pushed my hat away from me so I wouldn't stain the fabric. I wasn't sure if the hat itself was washable.

And then I passed out.

When I woke up again, the blood had crusted on my face uncomfortably and I had a migraine. I struggled to my feet and managed to get myself back to the school before collapsing again, this time on a bench in the garden.

"Oh, my God, Maddie, are you okay?" a semi-familiar voice asked loudly and with too much concern for my taste.

"Too loud. Migraine."

"Sorry." Her voice dropped substantially. "But what happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I need some water, though."

"I have some. Here."

What felt like a water bottle was pressed against my hand, and I blindly shoved it up against my mouth. After I'd drunk enough to drown myself, I offered the bottle back. "Thanks, Lonnie."

"Oh, uh- I wasn't aware you knew my name," Lonnie said, sounding a little surprised.

"Yeah, I know a lot of people's names. I just don't talk to any of you. Mind helping me get back to my room?"

"Of course, but first let me get the blood off your face."

I let her pull me to my feet. "Yeah, okay. Thank you. We should hang out more."

"I would love that."

I let her pull me along and wondered if she would be averse to me prematurely declaring my love for her.

Probably. Best to wait until after the third date.