Summary: a dark curse hit the Enchanted Forest, casted by the frightening Maleficent. But Maleficent has not always been as bad as she looks like! She was once known as Emma and Killian Jones, the one she was engaged with since her birth year, is the only one who wants to try to save her.
Notes: The song that inspired me was 'Once Upon a Dream' by Lana Del Ray, so you can listen it, if you want, during the reading.
This is one of my first english fic. So, I apologize for every mistake, but I'm really working on it. ;]

Chapter I
I know you

Darkness and death. It was all she has been carrying with her. The Enchanted Forest stopped being enchanted many years ago, when the most beautiful creature of all the realms appeared in a black cloud of dread and oblivion. Her name was Emma, but noone used to call her that way since she was a child. She was known as Maleficent by now.
The inhabitants of the realm, both animals and people, didn't even see it to come, the danger. And it made so easy for her to win over them with her charm that they couldn't stop the spell she casted over their land. Abruptly, the trees started to lose their leaves, the grass dried up, all the nature died and an unfathomable halo of darkness fell down them.
But she did more than that. She stole their happiness, as she could glean a peerless pleasure from their suffering. She didn't need to see it, the pain, the despair, the fear; she could feel it on her skin, in the silence of the day, in the strong smell of death hovering over the trees and the roofs. And they could hear her happiness: in the darkest nights, they could hear the hoarse laugh coming from her castle, placed on the top of the mountain where anyone dared to reach, to haunt their dreams.
"Goodmorning, sunshine!" she whispered, walking through the room, and, when she reached the balcony, she breathed in with smugness. A laugh, coming from the back of her throat, flooded the atmosphere and she couldn't help but laugh even more loudly, when she looked at the sky searching for the sun and she realized it wasn't there.
"I love this place, my pet. Don't you?" she asked her raven, coddling his beak almost with tenderness. "I should have come many, many years ago, my pet. This forest and its weak inhabitants make me happier than I've ever been."
Stretching herself, she was starting to hum a lovely music she used to sing when she was younger, different and people still knew her as Emma, when something draw her attention somewhere else.
"We have visitors, my pet!" she said, eyes burning with amusement.
Softly, she headed out for the inner rooms of the palace, walking through the corridors, the halls, down the stairs. Her long, black dress brushed against the cold marbel of the floor, following her even closer than her own shadow.
"I know you. I walked with you once upon a dream…" she started singing, her voice cold and gentle at the same time, but the words sounded like a warning. "I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam…"
A distant noise, as someone was walking fearless and waiting for her, rang out in the biggest hall of the palace and, when she reached it, all she could see was the masculine silhouette of a stranger. He was the first visitor since she arrived into the Enchanted Forest and she was pretty excited.
"And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem…" she continued, her black, rough eyes set on him while she was walking down the stairs, the hems of the dress in her hands, the pale skin of the legs completely exposed. She was as maleficent as stunning.
"Emma…" His voice echoed through the hall. There was terror and even homesickness in the four letters he almost whispered. "Is that really you?"
"Apologize, sir, but there's no Emma in this palace. There's only me and my name is Maleficent. At your service!" She stretched one finger and her black raven roosted upon it. Gently.
"That's not who you are, Emma. I know you. I know you more than anyone else." She tilted her head slightly to the left, both curious and confused. He took a step closer.
"May I dare to ask your name, sir?" she asked and, even If her words sounded pretty polite, her tone showed him that there was something different in her, that she wasn't only Emma. Not anymore.
"I'm Killian, Killian Jones." he answered and stopped before he could reach her. In the distance, looking at her, for the first time he realized that maybe it could be too late for him to save her. The corner of her mouth titled up and he couldn't help but thinking how beautiful she was, even more than he used to remember.
The last time he saw her, they were adolescents, engaged since their birth year to satifly their parents'desire to found one strong realm. And briefly they tasted that dream, when Killian, eight years older than she was, fell for Emma without even realizing it; he was too proud and determined to be the master of his own destiny to accept that imposition. Long, blonde hair as her mather's and green eyes as her father's, Emma was as pale as the snow and her lips were as red as blood and she looked more stunning year by year.
But their happines didn't last long. The morning of her seventeenth birthday, the threat made by the Evil Witch came true and Emma disappeared.
"I see…" she said. "I think you risked your life invane, sir, and at you own risk." she smiled soflty, showing the white teeth, and Killian realized he was right. That dark, maleficent woman was Emma, his Emma.
"I apologize, your majesty!" he said, recklessly.
"So, you knew who I was…" she fell silent for a few seconds. "Follow me!"
He knew it was insane. He knew he was risking his own life for a dream, for a glimmer of hope, for a fantasy, but he had the strong belief that it would worth it. He followed her through the palace, down the stairs, listening to her sweet and quite hum. When she stopped in front of a little door, waiting for him to go inside, he suddenly go weaker and weaker.
"Emma, please, don't…" he was about to say but he couldn't. Walking through the door as soflty encouraged by an invisible hand, the last thing he could hear before passing out was Emma's voice singing:
"You'll love me at once the way you did once upon a dream."