As a fairy, Maleficent had little understanding and patience for human customs. The fairies operated on a set of laws far divorced from written treaties, currency exchange, and alliances formed out of fear. Her own misguided attempt to dominate the moors aside, her homeland had never seen a leader that paralleled the rule of human kings and queens. As for Aurora's time as queen, the young woman served more as a political defender of the moors. From her father's former throne, she negotiated with other human kingdoms to keep the mystical lands safe.
So when the newly crowned King Phillip approached Maleficent in the moors one morning on horseback, the fairy bristled at the thought of speaking to him. Surely, she thought, he would have some sort of rite of passage agreement to negotiate.
"If you're looking for Aurora, you won't find her here," Maleficent said before the king had time to halt his horse. "She still has three days left at the castle before she spends a week here in the moors. Any political dealings should be addressed to her."
"I am grateful for the information, but it is not Aurora whom I have come to see," Phillip said, ever polite and gracious.
"Then what do you want?" Maleficent asked sharply. "I don't appreciate having my time wasted." She turned towards a nearby tree trunk, running her hand along the bark to heal it from the damage caused by a buck shedding his antlers.
"I haven't come to waste your time," Phillip said a bit defensively. "I've come to aquire your permission to ask for Aurora's hand in marriage."
Had Maleficent not had years to prepare for a man to speak those words, she may have turned on the king with fury in her eyes. Instead, she kept her gaze on the tree and monitored the progess her healing powers made. "What makes you think my 'permission' will have any effect on Aurora's likeliness to say yes?"
"I don't." Phillip did not comment on the fairy's rudeness, either out of properness or fear. "Only, I thought perhaps you might disapprove."
Maleficent stopped touching the tree trunk. "I do disapprove." She turned back to face Aurora's suitor, staring at him with narrowed eyes. She seemed to tower over the king, despite the fact that he was on horseback.
Phillip lowered his head. "Then you refuse to give your blessing," he said, the disappointment obvious in his voice.
Maleficent studied him for a few moments before softening her gaze. "You are a foolish, infatuated child," she said simply. "But you are good at heart, which is a trait I find rarely in humans. If Aurora were to choose you as her husband, I would not attempt to dissuade her."
The relief that came suddenly on the boy's face was almost comical. "I appreciate that, madam," Phillip said, and the fairy nearly scoffed at that. No one had ever called her "madam" before, and it was an experience she hoped not to relive. Suddenly, the king became serious once more. "It's only… if Aurora were to be my queen, then she would have responsibilities in my realm as well as her own. She would be absent from the moors far more often."
Maleficent had to turn away at this. For several moments there was nothing but silence between them, and for a brief moment Phillip feared Maleficent's wrath. Finally, the fairy began to speak. "Aurora is a grown woman now," she said firmly, trying her hardest not to betray the tremble in her heart. "What path she chooses for her own life is out of my control."
Phillip smiled, thankful that the awkward conversation was over and that he had not been transformed into some mud-dwelling creature. "Thank you." The king gave a polite bow before turning to leave. He circled his horse back around and spoke to the fairy one final time. "You will be invited to the wedding, of course."
Maleficent watched the young king depart on his horse, not taking her eyes off him until he disappeared into the woods. But when the sound of the horse's hooves faded completely, she opened her giant wings and took to the air.
She flew until her wings and shoulders felt as though they would be torn apart. Then she flew a little longer, willing the pain of her body to grow and mask the pain she felt in her heart. Before she lost her wings, flying was her way of escaping the vile nature of humans. The fairy could leave the human world far behind while she disappeared into the air. As thoughts of Aurora marrying Phillip and leaving the moors filled her head, Maleficent realized that her old method of removing herself from the ways of humans would no longer work. Not when the young queen had ingrained herself so deeply into her heart. Still, even as her wings complained and her back ached, she felt as though she had to try.
Perhaps she would have flown forever had a raven not suddenly swooped upon her, trying his hardest to get her attention. At first the fairy ignored him, staring straight forward at the darkening horizon. The raven would not be ignored, however, and continued to dive at her face while cawing loudly. When she decided that it would be impossible to shake the bird, Maleficent acquiesced and dived towards the ground. She soon found a large tree, and landed on one of its thick branches.
The raven contined to attack her as she made herself comfortable on the branch, flapping its wings and crying out, until Maleficent snapped her fingers. Golden dust flew from her hand, and the raven perched on the branch as he quickly took the shape of a man.
"There you are!" the man cried as his voice became one understandable by humans and fairies. "Do you have any idea how long I've flown looking for you?"
"I couldn't possibly, but I'm sure you're dying to tell me." Maleficent couldn't help but smirk, laughing none too discreetly at her companion's harried appearance.
Diaval's expression did not change at this mockery of his panicked state. Instead, he implored his mistress to be serious. "Please don't be like this now. Aurora needs you."
The smile vanished immediately from Maleficent's face. "Where?"
"In the moors. Inside the clearing by the riverbank and the largest tree."
The soreness from flying most of the day melted away in an instant. Maleficent took to the skies once more, followed loyally by the raven-form of Diaval, to the place where a fifteen year old girl once began to melt a bitter fairy's heart.
The winged pair landed behind a bundle of bushes and trees, several yards from the clearing where the queen could be found. It was difficult for them to see her at first, for the sun had long since set and the moon offered very little light. Finally, from the light of a few water fairies, the two spotted Aurora exactly where Diaval had left her. Maleficent oberseved her quietly as she had done when the girl first awoke in the moors, and saw her lying facedown in the grass. Her shoulders and back were moving, and Maleficent let out a relieved breath at the knowledge that Aurora was alive.
"What's wrong with her?" she asked after transforming Diaval back into human form.
"I don't know. She won't speak to me." Diaval looked on sadly at the forlorn figure before them. It was no secret that Aurora felt closer to her self-appointed godmother than to him, but that failed to soften the blow when there were secrets that she refused to share with him.
Maleficent at last decided she was through listening Aurora cry. "Leave us," she ordered, dismissing her follower with a flick of her hand. "And I will know if you are eavesdropping." Diaval sighed, but he obeyed by flying away when the fairy gave him back his raven form.
Maleficent stepped out from her hiding place and began walking towards the weeping figure on the ground. Her footsteps were silent, so the only indication of her presence was the sound her wings made as they moved against the tall grass. A few moor-creatures, who had been watching over their queen with concern while whispering among themselves as to what could cause her such distress, quickly picked up the foreign noise. They scurried away as Maleficent approached Aurora, not out of fear as they would have once, but in order to give the two women their privacy.
"Aurora?" Maleficent asked once the two were alone. She kneeled on the grass as the young queen raised her head from her arms.
"Godmother!" Aurora looked alarmed at the sight of her guardian, and Maleficent could see from the girl's wet cheeks that she had indeed been crying. She began to sit up on her knees as she talked. "I know I'm not supposed to be in the moors for another few days, but I couldn't stay at the palace any longer. I left them a note to tell them that I was safe and I rode a horse here. I just need some time away, I promise that I won't stay very long…"
"You know that I would never stop you from coming to the moors," Maleficent said, cutting off Aurora's rambling. "Now, will you tell me what's wrong?"
Maleficent's words seemed to bring Aurora's troubles back to the forefront of her mind, for her eyes quickly filled with tears once again. "Oh Godmother," Aurora whimpered, "something terrible has happened!"
"I gathered as much," Maleficent couldn't resist commenting. Now that she could see that Aurora wasn't in any clear danger, the fairy felt free to allow her acerbic nature to slip through.
Aurora was not mollified by her godmother's teasing. "Phillip asked me to marry him,"
In her state of misery, Aurora did not notice that her godmother was unsurprised by this announcement. "I fail to see why this is cause for tears," Maleficent said coldly. "You are fond of the boy, and I was under the impression that you would be pleased having him as your husband."
"I would be," Aurora sobbed, putting her face in her hands. "But I said no."
Maleficent could think of only one time when the girl had surprised her more than she had at that moment: the night when she had first mistaken her for her fairy godmother. Like that night, she responded in the same way. "What?"
The girl dropped her hands from her face, though she kept her gaze on her lap. "I told Phillip that I wouldn't marry him," Aurora said.
"Why?"
The heartbroken queen thought for a minute before answering through tearful sniffs. "Being queen of a human kingdom has taught me so much. There is so much work to do as a leader; I couldn't imagine having the same responsibilities I have now for my lands, the moors, and Phillip's as well. I told Phillip that, while I care for him very much, I would not be able to undertake the duties required of me as a queen of another realm."
A terrible thought suddenly entered Maleficent's mind: one of an angry and violent King Phillip being refused what he thought he should rightfully have. "Did he react poorly?" she asked, slightly alarmed.
Aurora looked up at her godmother, clearly confused by the question. "He was disappointed that I wouldn't marry him," she said, taking a pause from her crying to wipe her eyes.
"But did he hurt you?"
"What? No!" Aurora stared at her godmother, looking almost scandalized. "Do you really thing so poorly of him that you think he would harm me for refusing him?"
"No," Maleficent said after a few moments. "For all his faults, he is fair."
"He's more than that." Aurora began to tear up again as her thoughts went back to the boy she had just refused. "He told me that, as long as he was on the throne, his kingdom would always be a friend to mine. Even after I said I wouldn't marry him."
Maleficent nodded, but she was barely listening. Only two things mattered to her now: Aurora was unharmed, and she was not going to marry Phillip. As those two thoughts danced together in her mind, the fairy felt a tingling in her chest. She recognied it instantly; it was her heart preparing itself for a moment of great emotion. It had happened moments before her first kiss, in the loud silence before a battle, in the fractions of a second when she first felt her wingless shoulders. Maleficent sucked in a deep breath through her nose, awaiting the feeling of happiness to rain upon her. Aurora is unharmed, she thought. And she is not going to marry Phillip.
But the joy that Maleficent expected to feel at this realization did not come. For an instant nothing happened, and Maleficent wondered if perhaps her happiness at Aurora's refusal of Phillip was so great that she somehow could not feel it. She decided that this must be the case, until she felt a pair of arms around her waist. Aurora had thrown herself into her arms, and had begun to cry against her chest.
And then the feeling came, crashing down like the loudest thunderclap, and it was not one of satisfaction and jubilation. It was a feeling that she had felt three times before in her life: when she woke up one foggy morning without her wings, when a young girl declared her to be the evil in the world, and when she believed that that same girl would never wake from a sleep-like death.
After that last time, she had promised that Aurora would never suffer any harm under her care. Now, as the girl shook from the strength of her sobs in the fairy's arms, Maleficent knew that she could not keep that promise.
Unless she did the unthinkable. But with Aurora in such a state, pining after her love and imprisoned by her responsibilities, then Maleficent was prepared to let her go.
"Aurora," Maleficent spoke softly to the trembling figure in her arms. "You do not have to stay queen of the moors if you do not want to."
Aurora lifted her head. "I don't understand."
Maleficent braced herself, preparing her heart to break for the fourth time for the sake of the young queen. "Accept Phillip's offer." The fairy swallowed, forcing her own tears back. "Go be his queen, and the queen of your own lands, and unite the human realms. The moors will always be open to you, but they need no longer be under your protection."
Aurora stared at Maleficent with a curious expression on her face. When she spoke again, it was gentle and unaccusing. "I know what you're trying to do, Godmother." She shook her head, and a small smile crossed her face for the first time in several hours. "I love Phillip, but I love my home more."
Maleficent felt relieved, and then immediately guilty for feeling such a way. So Aurora would not leave, by her own decision, but then there was no way to relieve her pain.
The two sat in the clearing for several minutes, both silent with their arms wrapped around each other. The moor creatures were going about their nightly work and play, starting mud fights and lighting up the river with their dancing. Somewhere in the distance a raven crowed, and both women wondered if it was Diaval. A gust of wind blew through the moors and Aurora shivered, missing her leather cloak. The girl's trembling did not go unnoticed by Maleficent, who brought her wings forward as far as she could to shield Aurora from the cold.
It was Aurora who eventually broke the silence. "Godmother?"
"Yes, Beastie?"
Aurora wrapped her arms tighter around her godmother before asking her question "Did I do the right thing?"
Maleficent had no idea how to answer that question. "How do you mean?"
"I learned from the fairytales that my aunties used to tell me that I should always follow my heart," Aurora said, and for once Maleficent did not sneer at the mention of fairytales. "But right now I feel as though my heart is breaking."
Maleficent knew what Aurora wanted the answer to her question to be, and she knew at the same time that she could not give her that answer. "I cannot tell you if what you did was the right thing," the fairy said honestly. "Only you can say that for yourself."
Aurora let out a sigh, one that Maleficent thought only possible coming from a woman far older than the young queen. "When will this feeling end?" she asked timidly, as if afraid of the answer.
A face flashed through Maleficent's mind: one of a mischievous young thief who grew into a handsome young man with a smile as warm as the sun and a kiss as gentle as a flower petal. "I don't know, Aurora." The fairy looked up towards the moon, not wanting to see the disappointment on the girl's face. Instead, she ran a hand through her blonde tresses while her other hand ran down her back. Aurora sighed, both from comfort and heartbreak, and placed her head back on her godmother's breast. In the silence that followed, more tears formed in the corner of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
As Maleficent held the weeping Aurora close, she thought back on all that had happened since that morning when King Phillip met her in the moors. And while the future was more uncertain than ever, the fairy could conclude three things.
Aurora would not be getting married, and Maleficent would still have her Beastie.
But it would be some time before the moors would light up with the sound of Aurora's laughter again.