DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything except the story! Watched Maleficent and loved the movie, so decided to write a fanfic. Really grateful if you read this. ;) Please read and review!- Your Fellow Conspirator
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world?
There's nothing to it
There is no life I know
To compare with Pure Imagination
Living there
You'll be free
If you truly wish to be
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Princess Aurora had never fallen in love before. She never felt jealous when she heard all the maids gossiping in the kitchen about how it felt as though 'their hearts were flaming in gasoline' whenever they saw their beloved. She thought males were perhaps a tad rough, the only representative of their gender she had ever seen with the royal guards who mocked each other about one another's privates. The princess screwed her nose in their direction, men were indifferent.
Her sixteenth birthday was drawing closer by the coming day and she yearned for freedom outside these castle walls every minute she dared. Her birthday meant a feast, a ball, a proposal and then a marriage. Aurora wasn't dumb; she knew this was the only path princesses were allowed to tread. But she had made a wish when she was young to break free of her bonds, her responsibilities and reclaim the freedom she was never given. Strangely enough, somewhere far beyond her royal bedroom, her wish was to be granted by the least likely of accomplices.
Aurora stood at the top of the lavish castle balcony, fiddling with her dress. She had been told to wait there and to proceed down the moment the trumpet blew. No doubt that would make quite an entrance on the party-goers. Aurora had snuck down a book between the folds of her ball gown to kill time while she waited.
Sure enough the moment the crowd caught sight of the princess, they stood in silent amazement of the unworldly beauty heading their way. She came as elegantly down as she could, the book bumped painfully against her thigh with every step she took.
The celebrations went as according to plan, Aurora greeting guests wearing a fake smile every time they complemented her on her looks while trying to shake off the gathering crowd of princes who had taken a hobby to courting her almost immediately. The king and queen looked on with wide smiles upon their faces; King Stephen's hands shook slightly behind his back.
Then suddenly the lights blew out, the whole room was thrown into a pitch dark nature and the mighty wooden casted doors to the castle were pitched open. Aurora wavered with unconcealed excitement. A slender figure stood silhouetted in the frame of the doorway by the light of the full moon outside. Aurora could dimly make out two gleaming horns and a staff glowing with an eerily green light that casted no shadow on the polished floor.
'Why, what a coincidence that I should meet you all here. Is this a party I see?' the voice murmured softly, 'Such a pity I was not invited, who is the lucky girl?'
Before anyone could do a thing, Aurora stepped forward into the light, no, not out of foolishness, but somehow she knew this was the miracle she had been waiting for, 'This is a celebration for which I am to turn sixteen tomorrow,' she looked closely at the figure's face and was astounded by what she saw.
Beautiful sharp cheekbones adorned the misty pale complexion of fine china, two flickering embers of churning colours and blood red lips curled upwards in satisfaction, the picture of terrifying perfection, 'Oh I see, and what gifts has the guest of honour received?' she questioned, studying Aurora quietly.
'You have no right to come here, you…you incarnation of evil!' spat Stephen, very much out of character, Queen Leila put a comforting hand on his shoulder to be shoved away in the darkness.
The mysterious apparition started muttering, then the words turned in chanting, some sort of rhythm repeated over and over in Aurora's ears, making the hairs on her forehead stand in attention, a globe of light formed in wispy green strands in the creature's hands, finally forming into an orb shaped light spinning wickedly fast in mid-air.
'Princess Aurora shall stay one week in my company, starting tonight, and by the end of those seven days, she shall have a choice to wed to me, if she refuses the whole kingdom shall suffer!' Then Aurora and the spell- caster disappeared in a strong flash of light.
Aurora hugged herself as she disappeared, for this was only just the start of what was to come. Frightened? Of course. Excited? No doubt, she knew it.