you can't just drop a maddie has a sibling that got taken at birth headcanon and just say nothing else?! lore now!
Oh but of COURSE!!! Ahem: It started with me wondering about Cassandra's overprotection of Maddie, which is one of her greatest faults in TRR. It almost overwhelms her personality at times, which makes me feel like there had to be some catalyst or problem that made her SO worried about Maddie. What could that catalyst be? Well, losing a child seems really likely.
So then it got me thinking--what if, back when Maddie was VERY young, only two or three, Horace and Cassandra had another child. But one terrible night, the child was stolen (Tangled-style), and disappeared. The royal family couldn't have broadcast that a royal child was missing, since that would put them in even more danger. So the Corps was dispatched to search for years, but never found anything.
I think if Maddie is a mirror to Cassandra, this child is a mirror to Horace. Similar build, able to fight with a sword, but has far more anger issues due to the way they grew up. I have a few pieces of fanfic about this kid, and how difficult it would be for them to find out they had a family all this time. How they and Will would probably bond over feeling lost and separated from family, and how Halt would help them adjust from commoner to royal life, since he did the same in reverse.
Imagine found family but you actually, uh, find your family. This character kind of has a lot of my gender and frankly I just want to write Maddie sibling bonding. If there's any interest, maybe I'll develop them more and write the fic one day!
