As it turned out, the resounding crash far below the tower where Aurora slept was not a sign of success. Indeed, Phillip and the two remaining fairy sisters had made very little progress on hacking their way through Maleficent's forest of thorns since Fauna had mysteriously disappeared, and her absence had lowered their morale considerably.
In a desperate effort to make some forward progress, even at the expense of magic to use later in the inevitable confrontation with Maleficent, Flora and Merryweather had imbued the Sword of Truth with some of their combined magic. They had hoped to save the bulk of it for the inevitable confrontation with Maleficent, herself, but Fauna's surprising absence had rattled them considerably.
The Sword glowed with promise, hummed with power in Phillip's hand, and Phillip raised it above his head grandly.
When the Sword made contact with Maleficent's magical forest of thorns, however, there was a terrible flash of light and noise, like an explosion, and not only were Phillip and the two fairies catapulted quite violently backwards, but the forest of thorns seemed only to close in more tightly for the attempted intrusion.
Merryweather sat up first, and scrambled to her feet, for she knew that the noise would alert Maleficent, and that they must not be caught off their guard. Flora, who had been closer to the blast, had more difficulty righting herself, but she, too, pressed past her pain in anticipation of what was to follow.
Phillip, who had received the worst of the blast, was also mortal, and therefore far more fragile than even the weakest of the fae. Flora and Merryweather struggled to help him to his feet, and together they hurriedly handed him the Shield of Virtue.
The two sisters, who so seldom saw eye to eye, exchanged a knowing look as Phillip steadied himself and dazedly took the shield in hand. They would not say it aloud, but each was thinking the same thing: compared with the full extent of Maleficent's power, this was nothing.
Flora looked up suddenly, and Merryweather followed her gaze. First, they saw Fauna returning to them in a hurry. Next, looming upon the balcony of the castle's topmost tower room, they saw Maleficent. Dark clouds gathered in the sky above her, a storm of her own devising.
"Fauna, what's happened?"
"Is this your champion?" Maleficent's voice resounded through the air as though she were right in front of them, or behind them, or everywhere all at once. Thunder and lightning from her unnatural storm crackled through the sky.
Phillip held his head high, and brandished his Sword and Shield bravely. "I have no fear of you, witch!"
Maleficent laughed coldly. "Only a fool would look upon me without fear," she said.
"I am no fool!" Phillip cried. "I am a man who knows his skill and his prize."
"Prize!" Maleficent echoed, infuriated. The angry clouds thundered and lightning sparked around her as she threw her hands skyward, but Phillip was undeterred.
"My prize is the lady who sleeps under your curse!" said Phillip. "I take it you will not free her of your own accord?"
Maleficent was silent for a moment. Her hands fells to her sides, and suddenly she grew eerily still. "Nor will you," she said at last.
It was an odd thing to say. Only Fauna understood her meaning. Phillip fell silent.
Maleficent opened her palm in a sweeping gesture, and dark magic spiraled out before her. She descended from the tower as though upon a grand staircase, regal and unhurried, and all the more threatening for the ease of her manner.
She landed before her forest of briars and held out her arms, welcoming. "I shall give you a sporting chance, noble Prince," she said. The beginnings of a cruel smile played upon her lips. "At your leisure."
Phillip squared his shoulders and prepared to attack, but the three fairies tugged at his arms to stop him. He looked down upon them with nothing short of derision, but mercifully, he stayed his tongue. Even a fairy so peaceful as these three might have taken offense at what he had in mind to say.
The three fairy sisters formed a circle around him and looked to Flora for the incantation. Even with all their power combined, they were not nearly as strong as Maleficent, but the Sword and Shield had powers all their own.
Maleficent folded her arms as she watched them, and quirked a brow in unsubtle mockery, but she said nothing more. Again, Phillip brandished his weapons, now glowing with a magic far beyond the sum of its parts. He charged forward bravely.
Maleficent flicked her wrist, as one might shoo away a fly. Phillip froze mid-stride.
"Please," Maleficent turned her attention to the three fairies, smile now fully-formed in smug satisfaction. "End this charade now, before someone gets hurt."
"Oh, what do you care, you—you-!"
"Merryweather, please!" Fauna grasped onto her arm.
But Maleficent only chuckled darkly. She waved her hand again and Phillip staggered, unfrozen but disoriented.
"Be careful, Phillip!" Flora called.
Phillip's gaze landed upon Maleficent and her beastly smile. He thought of the beautiful girl from the forest and how she was meant to be his, how this ghastly creature was the only thing standing between him and all he desired, and his resolve hardened tenfold. He charged once more.
Maleficent 's magic spiraled forth from her hands, dark and deadly, and when it hit him it stung bright white like ice. He pushed the sting from the forefront of his mind, however, for although Phillip had never personally fought a sorcerer, he knew one rule to be true: wielders of magic were deadly at range, but no match for even an untalented swordsman in close combat. And Phillip was no novice.
Another blast of cold and terrible magic punched Phillip squarely in the gut. He staggered and coughed from the impact, but he would not waver now. He was so close—so close to landing that first, crucial blow, and then the odds would turn at last in his favour! He raised his sword and swung with all his might.
Maleficent caught the blade with her bare hand, and her cruel smile turned to a menacing snarl as she looked down upon Phillip.
Phillip met her gaze, unable to hide his bewilderment, his betrayal. He pressed harder, but Maleficent held his sword aloft as though all the force in his body were nothing to her. He pressed harder still, even saw blood upon the witch's hand, but Maleficent did not falter, did not wince, did not even seem to struggle before Phillip could not maintain his effort even a second longer.
He staggered backward. Maleficent's terrible smile returned, and the sky thundered above them.
"You've a long life ahead of you, noble Prince," said the beast, sickly-sweet. "Why throw it away?"
Phillip's fists clenched at his sides. "Why—" he heaved, "—such concern—for my well-being, witch?"
"By all means," said Maleficent. She shrugged, revealing the bleeding cut Phillip's sword had left upon her left palm. Only it wasn't bleeding anymore. It looked like he had barely grazed her hand at all. "Carry on," she finished lightly.
It was impossible. Phillip had never fought a sorcerer, but he knew their tricks. He knew how this was meant to go. He had trained tirelessly all his life to be a masterful swordsman. Everyone in his father's kingdom admired his strength and skill and dedication. He would not be defeated now, by this-!
Phillip threw himself at Maleficent once more. He lunged at her again and again and again. He tried every angle, employed every strategy he knew, reminded himself not to show his intention before he struck, but still, every single time, Maleficent countered him like it was nothing.
He staggered backward, exhausted, sweating profusely and gasping for breath, but, to his surprise, otherwise unharmed. He wiped his brow and looked up once more, reinvigorated by his epiphany. "Have you gone soft, witch?" he asked her as he righted himself. He held out his arms, the way she had done when first she had presented herself. "I am fatigued, certainly, but you haven't left even a scratch upon me!"
"Phillip, no!" Fauna cried.
Maleficent's expression did not change much, but something in her dark eyes turned suddenly quite menacing. "I shall ask you one last time, foolish Prince," she said, low and icy-cold. "Is this to be your end?"
"No," said Phillip, glowing warm with confidence. "It is to be yours."
"Phillip!"
Maleficent advanced, lightning-fast, positively crackling with magic, and that might very well have been the end of Prince Phillip of the North, but for one small and very frightened fairy.
Maleficent stopped cold and snarled down upon Fauna, who stood before Phillip with arms held out as though to shield him, praying that Maleficent would honour her promise to the sleeping princess.
"Maleficent, please!" said Fauna tremulously. "He loves her! He-he is fighting for her! You can understand that, can't you?"
It was an odd thing to say, Phillip thought, and surely not something that would deter Maleficent, if such a phrase even existed. But Phillip hadn't much time for contemplating such matters, for he felt the magical Sword of Truth humming in his hand while Mistress Fauna spoke, and somehow he understood what it meant.
"Sword of Truth, fly swift and sure—" Flora murmured.
Maleficent looked up at him, but it was an instant too late.
Phillip threw the magical Sword, and it pierced Maleficent straight through. She threw her head back and cried out in anguish as she fell to her knees.
"It's over, Maleficent," said Flora.
Maleficent inhaled sharply, somehow, inconceivably, still alive. "Sword of Truth," she rasped. "Clever little fairy."
Phillip charged forth and reached for the hilt of the Sword, but Mistress Fauna stayed his hand.
"What?" he cried in frustration, shaking her off rather violently. Now, of all times, he must wait? Now, when the beast ought to be slain at last?
Maleficent's dark eyes were cloudy with pain, but they flicked between Phillip and Fauna knowingly. "Do you doubt your champion?" she wondered hoarsely.
Fauna clasped her trembling hands together before her and bowed her head as though in prayer. When she looked upon Maleficent once more, there was a certainty about her that no one had ever witnessed before.
"Take her place," said Fauna.
"What?"
But this outcry came from the others, from Flora and Merryweather and Phillip, not from Maleficent. Maleficent's body heaved with anguish and her face contorted without her permission, but her focus did not waver, and her eyes conveyed no confusion.
"You can do that, can't you?" Fauna asked her, but it was barely a question.
To everyone's utter stock, Maleficent nodded subtly. She held out her hands, contorted and trembling.
It was only then that Fauna faltered. She glanced away, not quite at her sisters, then down at her own hands.
"Fauna, what are you doing?" Merryweather asked her, but it was not in her usual manner. Merryweather was frightened, and though she was accustomed to Flora keeping her in the dark regarding her own machinations, she would never have expected the same of Fauna.
Fauna, for her part, had done her very best during Phillip's failed attempt at battle with Maleficent to focus upon finding another way to save Rose.
That Maleficent cared for Rose was monumental, paramount, but Fauna knew her sisters would not be persuaded to see it that way in what little time they had. It was also important that Maleficent operated upon notions of balance, something Flora and Merryweather would also be loath to accept. But now that Fauna had seen it, she could clearly see it across all the time they had known of Maleficent. Maleficent was cruel and spiteful, to be certain, but she was not motivated by pure chaos.
And she cared for Rose. And she cared for this land she called home, even, in her strange way, and she wanted balance restored. She didn't want it to be torn asunder any longer.
"It's better," said Fauna quietly, nodding to herself. "It's what's best."
Maleficent's magic flowed from her fingertips in wispy tendrils now, but next to Fauna's, it still looked dark and foreboding, like a serpent surrounding its prey. Still, their magics did not spark and explode when they combined.
"Merryweather?" said Fauna quietly.
Merryweather stepped forward hesitantly.
"It's your spell, too," said Fauna.
"But Fauna, I—"
"It's all right, dear, " said Fauna, but her voice was strange, and she could not look away from her spell.
Merryweather looked at Maleficent, still heaving from the pain the Sword must be causing her, body shaking violently from the effort of casting, and then to Fauna, steadier and more certain than Merryweather had ever seen her. She did not like the feeling of not understanding Fauna, but she trusted her middle sister, perhaps even more than she trusted herself, especially when it came to doing what was best for everyone.
Merryweather nodded curtly to herself, held out her hands, and called to mind the spell she had formed in a hasty attempt to save the baby princess years ago.
She felt her breath hitch in her throat. It seemed both a day and a lifetime ago.
Merryweather's magic sparked painfully when it joined with Maleficent's, but Fauna's seemed to mitigate the two disparate forces.
"For years beyond counting this land has been torn asunder," said Fauna. "With this pact between us, let it know peace."
"A promise broken," said Maleficent, "and a price repaid. Return the Lost Princess to the world of the waking, and let me lie in her place."
Merryweather spoke up then, voice coloured with spite. "Let her sleep for all time," she said, "or until true love's kiss should wake her."
Maleficent cast a sideways glance upon Merryweather, and let out a small huff like amusement. "Let it be so," she said, anyway.
"Let it be so," the two fairy sisters echoed.
Magic washed over them, and out across all the land like a wave, strange and terrible, not entirely healing. Maleficent withdrew from the casting circle and rested her hands upon the hilt of the Sword still buried in her chest. She took in a shuddering breath and looked up into the night sky, where the clouds from her storm had parted to reveal the stars.
Maleficent closed her eyes and withdrew the Sword from her chest. She let out a little sigh, then fell to the earth, limp and lifeless.
