"You did what??!!" asked Annie in shock as she looked at Maddie with an unbelievable expression on her face.
"Yes, yes, I threatened a poor maid so she would tell me what exactly was going on around the workers in this Castle." replied Maddie lazily as she nodded her head.
She and Annie were in the lounge talking while Ollie and Matt decided to continue their tour of the Castle grounds and this time Annie did not want to leave Maddie all on her own and to be honest she was tired of hiking, her legs were still aching her from yesterday's hike.
So while they were here talking Maddie decided that it would be better that Annie heard what happened from her and not from someone else, just in case they tried to make the story seem worse than it was.
"Maddie!!" called Annie with a gasp as she was not proud at all. She shook her head clearly showing her displeasure.
"What?? Shouldn't I at least get a good pass for telling you what I did myself?" asked Maddie as she pouted trying to garner Annie's pity, but it was not working at all.
"No, no you don't get a good pass for anything. I thought that you were past your being mean phase, but clearly not, you should have never threatened that poor maid." said Annie as she shook her head.
"Hey, in my defence, what the blondie did was not nice at all, he should have at least informed me, but he didn't, and you don't get it, everyone was avoiding, literally everyone, I couldn't just keep on putting up with it. I needed to get to the bottom of it, and that's exactly what I've done." she declared proudly feeling no guilt, she did what needed to be done.
"Nothing can justify what you did Maddie. You didn't want people to be afraid of you anymore, but what you've done has had the opposite effect. I am sure that all the Castle staff will be talking about you and what you did, it will be the talk of the Castle and they will all agree that they were right about you." said Annie.
"They wouldn't dare say that because the blondie would have them all fired if he hears even a peep about that." said Maddie proudly with a smug smile on her face as Annie frowned and shook her head.
"I just feel bad for the poor maid you gave an awful fright this morning. I of all people know just how scary you can be when you want to." said Annie.
"Her name is Adi, and I did apologize for what I did after, I felt a little bit bad that she had to be a scapegoat." said Maddie.
"You better have, or else I would insist you apologize to her right this instant." said Annie.
"So that's it? You're not going to scold me any further?" asked Maddie in surprise.
"Well what would you have me do? You're a grown woman and I'm not your mother, heck you're even older than me!" said Annie.
"Only by a year." Maddie happily added.
"Still doesn't matter, anyway, you're right, I'm glad that I'm hearing it from you and not someone else." said Annie as she stressed those two words.
"Besides, I know that deep down you feel bad for what you had to do, but I agree with you... it's not nice for being to avoid you and ignore you... it's the worst, believe me I know from your many years of torment." said Annie as Maddie laughed.
"Yeah really... you know, have I every directly apologized to you for that?" she asked with a smile as Annie shook her head.
"No." she replied.
"Well this is me apologizing right now for the many years of torment and bullying I subjected you to over the years. Believe you me it wasn't personal... or maybe it was considering the history of our families." joked Maddie.
"Maddie!" Annie called as Maddie laughed.
"Okay, okay yes I won't go there, that's a really serious topic, anyway, I'm sorry for being mean to you and bullying you and making your life at school miserable... I don't know why I did it... wait I do... I guess that I projected my own unhappiness onto others as a way for me to cope, but that's no excuse, bullying isn't nice at all and I am proud to say that I am a certified changed mean girl." said Maddie proudly.
"Yeah you are... only that you get these sudden bursts of meanness, but what can I say, it's hard to change that quickly." said Annie as she laughed.
"Hey, you can't say that you don't love me the way I am." replied Maddie as she laughed.
"You're right, I do, but don't think that I will tolerate your sudden bursts of bad behaviour." said Annie as Maddie laughed and gave her a hug.
...
"So what did you and Maddie talk about that was so important?" asked Matt as he and Ollie walked through the several trees.
"Oh well it wasn't really important, she found out that I had given stern warnings to everyone in the Castle not to mistreat her and she did not take it lightly at all." said Ollie.
"Really?" asked Matt as Ollie nodded.
"Well how did she find out in the first place?" asked Matt.
"She threatened one of the poor maids into telling her the truth and well once she found out she decided that she had a score to settle with me." said Ollie as he chuckled.
"Yep, that sounds like Maddie alright. Although I understand why it would be a big deal for her, I don't know why she decided to fight you on it." said Matt as he bent down to pick up a stick and then he threw it away.
"I also don't get it, but she seemed really upset and I didn't want her to be upset, I do understand that she felt bad with everyone ignoring her and avoiding her and I never wanted that to happen." said Ollie.
"It just makes me sad that everyone hates her to such an extent... they can't even be nice to her." said Ollie sadly.
"Please tell me that you didn't look this sad in front of her while you were arguing?" asked Matt as Ollie turned to look at him.
"No, why?" he asked.
"Well because Maddie hates it when people feel sorry for her... she absolutely hates it when people pity her and look down on her. She doesn't like people fighting for her, she hates looking or feeling weak." said Matt.
"But she shouldn't hate needing help. We all need help some point in our lives and I don't get why she sees it as such a weakness when it's not. She said the exact same thing to me, she said that she didn't need anyone to fight for her, but we are friends, we defend each other, we fight for each other don't we not?" asked Ollie as Matt nodded.
"Maddie just honestly confuses me, I don't know why she behaves the way she does." said Ollie.
"It's not her fault dude... it's the way she was raised. She didn't really have it easy at all being raised as Azazel's only daughter, she had really terrible expectations to fill." said Matt.
"She told you that?" asked Ollie.
"Well yes... let me tell you now that Maddie doesn't open up to just anyone, but when she's really vulnerable, she knows that she does need help." said Matt.
"Tell me more... I really want to understand thoroughly how she is, the way she thinks, because I think that's the only way that we can truly get along." said Ollie.
"Well for one, she was taught to be terribly wicked, she had to be the absolute best at magic and she was void of the true love of a family." said Matt.
"Imagine being raised by a tyrant, a man responsible for the death of thousands, a man whose language is nothing but violence. A bloodthirsty oppressor interested in nothing but power." said Matt.
"Annie told me that Maddie used to bully her all the time and that she was really the meanest girl in school, when I met Maddie I found that really hard to believe since she was very nice to me." said Matt.
"But as the months went by I started to see how truly wicked she was." said Matt.
"If you ask me, I think that Maddie was that way because she too was treated that way by her parents, especially by Azazel, so maybe it made her feel just a little bit better to be the one hurting others and not others hurting her." said Matt.
"That's really awful..." said Ollie as he really did not know what else to say.
"I agree... I can only imagine how terrible it was to grow up like that." said Matt with a sad sigh.