Most stories start with a once upon a time. This story is one of them.
Most stories have heroines that are often swooning young maidens, who happen to be princesses. Whose love interests are young, strapping young men, who happen to be princes.
This story is not one of those.

This is a story about love. But not love at first sight like in most other fairytales. This is a love that grows slowly but surely. At its own awkward pace, with all its bumps and hiccups that make it into something wholesome and good.

But I assume you want me to get on with the actual story don't you?
Very well; here we go.

Once upon a time, there lived a great and beautiful faerie named Maleficent. She was not a swooning maiden or a delicate princess. Maleficent possessed all the fierce and lively beauty of her home, the Moors, land of the fair folk. It was said among them, that looking into the face of Maleficent in those days was like looking into the sun; something bright and blinding and filled with warmth.

By the course of fate, in her younger years she met a boy named Stefan. And they became fast friends (and later on something else, which they dared call true love); it seemed as if between them, there might be hope yet as for admitting humans into the moors, who had fought so much with the human kingdom as of late.

Now you might be thinking: 'He's the one! Stefan is her intended who will with the help of Maleficent unite the fair people and the humans once more!'
How I wish this was the case dear readers.
But no; our story begins on a much bitter note. The one of betrayal.

You see Stefan, while a nice boy in his youth, was later in life corrupted by greed and ambition so fierce they warped his whole soul. So when the king felt that he had to have the moors within his reach; and decreed that any who should fell the fairy who protected them would be King after him; a deep and dark longing festered in his heart. So one day sneaking out into the moors he used Maleficent's trust against her. Drugging the good fairy into a powerful sleep from which she would not wake until morning. Then Stefan prepared for a most dark and hideous deed; murder.
Yet in the end, before the very moment he was to dig a dagger into her heart, something of his old self stirred within him. Rearing back in disgust at what he was about to do. Stefan warred bitterly with himself for hours on end before reaching a conclusion. He was not to kill Maleficent, he could not bring himself to such a deed. Instead he decided upon something much worse. He was to take her wings.

It is no easy task, to take a faerie's wings. They not just any old limb, like you or I might have arms and legs. No, they are a great source of power in the inner magical network of such beings. Networks that carry the magic to and fro within them, and as such they are infinitely hard to harm, let alone remove. So Stefan in his desperation set out to do something far worse than murder, black magic.

Now I know what you're thinking. 'Magic? That's only for the faeries!'
Well you'd be wrong in thinking that. Humans, though not as powerful as faeries of course, can do magic too. But those who dedicate themselves to the art rarely have the purity of heart needed to do good magic. Instead they find themselves having to resort to black magic, which while not always necessarily evil was being used for the darkest of acts on this night.

So Stefan set out to prepare everything as fast as he could, knowing he had only till sunrise to finish his task. So he gathered the herbs, the salts and the sacrifice; and proceeded to curse Maleficent's wings off. But as he was finishing up the curse, he looked down at her sleeping face, contorted with pain and the last of his former self was moved to pity. So, in a final act of charity, he left an exception in the curse. Maleficent's wings were to be removed, cut to the quick and expected to grow back nevermore; unless, she was to find someone to love her wholeheartedly and truthfully with all their might. Only the truest of loves could restore her wings to her former glory.

His task completed Stefan stole away in the morning light. Unaware that he had been watched the whole time, his proclamation of the foul curse, exception and all. By a young water faerie, who had in vain tried to gather help at the dead of night to find all the nearby inhabitants of the moors in a deep sleep.

When Maleficent woke in the morning she was told the events of the past hours by the small fae, and a horrible tumult of anger and sadness embittered her forevermore.
The news quickly spread throughout the moors and all the inhabitants who loved their protector dearly came to pay their condolences to the fallen faerie. But it was no use. Betrayal had already soured Maleficent's heart. And to look upon her face now was too look upon a thunder storm, still beautiful beyond compare, but now deadly and cold beyond imagination.

And all the tree spirits, who loved her best, where the ones who most understood her need for isolation. So they wove together great the great boughs that they made sprout form the earth. And made Maleficent a castle, the likes of which had never been seen before; made completely out of wood and towering trees, hollowed out on the inside. And so she became unofficial queen of the moors. Still a protector, still respected, still loved; though she had no more of these affections in her heart.

This is the story of Maleficent and how she learned to love again.