fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

Over on this part of the school lawn... yeah, it was still chilly. Stupid winter, doing its winter thing. But there were plenty of chairs and tables for people watching, feasting on warm foods and drinks, and generally attempting to meet the new folks!

[OCD is up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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"Because sometimes people have to turn around and find someone weaker than them to make them suffer so they can feel strong," Uma said, lip curling.

She didn't realize how much she'd given away with that single sentence. It was a fact of life that every kid on the Isle grew up with.

That was quite a lot, wasn't it? Norman nodded a little, chewing on his lip for a second before coming up with a reply.

"That, too," he agreed. "Not everybody does cruel things because they're afraid."

Sometimes they did cruel things because they were hurt, or jealous, or because they wanted to stop feeling small. And sometimes, the cruel just enjoyed being cruel.

"Not that I'm anything to be afraid of, anyway," Norman added. "Angry mobs can also be pretty stupid."

Angry mobs were fantastic at being stupid.

She studied him frankly. "Yeah," she agreed. "You don't look like you need a whole mob to take you out." Again, sorry kid, but you kinda looked like a stiff wind would knock you over. "So what were they afraid of?"

Eh, Norman wasn't about to take it personally. She wasn't exactly wrong, after all. And he'd even grown some since he was eleven.

"Zombies, curses, witches," he replied. "Things they didn't understand, mostly."

"So why take it out on you?" Uma asked. "Are you a witch?"

She was actually eager to know the answer to that. She was the daughter of a sea-witch somewhere that didn't block all magic. If there were witches around who could teach her some stuff, that would be really cool.

"Not me, no," Norman replied. "And the one they thought was a witch wasn't really, either. Not until after they hurt her."

And there was a long and depressing story, right there.

"I was the one who was telling them not to hurt the zombies, I guess."

"Zombies?" Uma asked.

Sorry, wrong kind of fantasy canon.

"Um..." Norman shrugged a little. "Dead bodies, standing up and walking around again. Movies and stuff always have them eating people's brains, but these ones weren't interested in that at all. They just wanted to make amends for something horrible they did before they died."

"That sounds like some proper magic," Uma said. No wonder she'd never heard of them. There was no magic on the Isle and very little any more in Auradon. "So these other folks saw you talking to the zombies and decided you needed to be burned for it? Like that might maybe make the zombies go away?"

People were so stupid.

"... More or less, yeah," Norman sighed. "It didn't happen, obviously. But it was way too close for comfort."

And he probably would have been angry about it, afterwards. Blithe Hollow really couldn't have handled him and Aggie freaking out like horror-show poltergeists, tearing apart the town from the afterlife.

...But would that have been so bad? Kinda sounded like it'd had it coming.

"What happened?" Uma asked. "Instead?"

Oh, it'd had it coming for three-hundred years.

"Well," Norman said with a shrug, "my sister and a friend of mine-" and his friend's brother, and the school bully, "-started yelling at the angry mob, and then we took off with one of the zombies to find the ghost who had cursed them and who was tearing up the town."

He shrugged again. Seemed like the thing to do while he was kind of awkwardly worried that it sounded like he was bragging.

"It got messy. But it turned out okay."

"Sounds complicated," Uma said. "And like the ghost maybe had some good reasons."

"She did," Norman replied, giving a firm nod. "She really, really did. She was mad at the people who killed her. She wanted them to suffer the way she'd suffered."

You know. The zombies.

Hell yeah. Uma could definitely go along with that vendetta.

"So she got what she wanted in the end?"

He'd said it had worked out okay in the end!

"For three centuries," Norman agreed. "And then she found peace again."

He could understand the vendetta. He'd gotten angry, too. One of the few things he'd ever encountered that had actually made him livid. But it had been time for Aggie to rest.

"So, that's what a happy ending sounds like," Uma reflected. "Huh."

Auradon's versions had nothing on this one.

"I guess it sort of is, yeah," Norman replied. "I'm sorry she had to suffer for three centuries right along with them. But when she left, she was... she was okay. She was better."

"So who got sent to the Isle?" was Uma's normal and very obvious follow-up question.

"To the isle?"

Norman wasn't following.

"Yeah," Uma said. "Who got sent to the Isle? There was the happy ending, which means that there was true love's kiss and then the villain was sent of to the Isle. Or if they were dead, resurrected and sent to the Isle."

And she didn't really care about who did the kissing.

"Resurrected?"

Sorry, Norman was following marginally better, but mostly just growing increasingly horrified.

"You mean, raised from the dead, just to be exiled?"

There was another pause, still.

"... I don't think there was any love really going on between anyone, either. No kissing."

"Yeah," Uma said. "That's what happens to the villains. Sent to the Isle and stay there, behind the wards."

She was confused about why this was confusing.

"I..."

Norman was forgetting about the food he'd picked up entirely, and was just sort of scrubbing at his face for a second while he processed this.

"We don't have some island we send villains to. The zombies were allowed to die and stay dead, the ghost found her rest, and everyone just... kind of got on with their lives."

He was working on all the reasons why raising the dead just to exile them was sick and wrong, here.

It can't be wrong! The heroes did it! And the heroes are the unironic good guys, yaaay!

Of course, Uma was looking utterly confused at his explanation. "If you don't have an Isle, what do you do with your villains?"

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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