Cora was up to something, but it was difficult to tell what it was exactly. He'd noticed of late that she was becoming increasingly paranoid, hanging blankets and clothes over the mirrors just as he'd taught her to as if she was trying to keep someone from watching her. She'd done it in her own private offices and studies, even in her bedroom and the place she kept her magic. Was it paranoia? A lucky guess? Or had he gotten sloppy and used the wrong spell one night, allowing himself to be seen in the mirror. Whatever the reason, for great chunks of her day, his view was often hindered. In the place where she practiced her magic, his only saving grace was that the red cloth she'd placed over one of her mirrors was thin. He couldn't see everything, but he could make out outlines and tinted colors. She was working with something. Something long with two colors, one dark and one light. But he couldn't make out much more than that. He'd tried looking through the cauldron, but she'd cast some kind of spell to block the sight from him. Certainly suspicious.

Fortunately for him, her paranoia only extended so far, and he had a clear picture into most of the rest of the house, from Regina or from Henry. His vision of them remained just as clear as his vision of all the other players in his little game. David, James, Snow White, and Regina…all still came in clear. And because he could see Regina, he could see the effects Cora had on her. They weren't good. Cora was suddenly devoted to taking her daughter away from the estate. At sixteen she was eligible for marriage and he watched time after time as Cora dressed the girl up in lavish clothes, twisted her hair up into fancy knots, and then paraded her in front of eligible men that were hardly "young". To her it was all about status. It was about finding someone higher up in the food chain than Cora was, closer to the grasp of Queen than she ever would be, and getting Regina there.

But with the age of sixteen came much more than eligibility for marriage. There was also rebellion. And Regina was good at it. He'd been right, Cora's nagging and heartlessness had an obvious effect on Regina. She hated her mother that came in clearly through the mirrors. Her father was her favorite parent and often let her be just who she wanted to be, but he was just as much a pushover in his old age as he'd been in his young age, kowtowing to whatever Cora wanted for their daughter. But as she grew Regina was coming to speak her mind, to show an interest in sneaking off when her mother wasn't looking. Though the art lessons she'd convinced her mother she needed looked harmless and innocent enough, he could see the way that Regina smiled every time she was in her tutor's presence.

Regina was good at rebellion, but unfortunately, Cora was better-an old pro.

He'd watched the scene from the cauldron that morning as the tutor had touched Regina, innocently enough to show her a painting technique if his assumptions were correct, and Cora had thrown him out, devasting Regina. And while Regina was getting very good at sneaking out, Cora had her spies everywhere. The girl was never alone. Recently he'd watched as she'd taken a heart from a young woman Regina had been spending some time with. He was almost positive that Regina had no idea the girl was a slave to her mother. Now, everywhere that Regina went, her mother was almost always there in some form. Including the upcoming ball at King Leopold's castle.

Snow White, Regina, Queen Eva, and Cora all in one place together…that was something he had to watch.

But sometimes plans could go awry. And on the night, as he'd sat in front of the mirror with a small bowl of soup watching the party, he felt a familiar tug in his chest. One of desperation but also power. A power that he recognized. It was strong but ignorable and yet…the party was just starting, people were only just starting to arrive, and Snow White had already been sent to bed. He wasn't happy about it, but in the end, he was forced to admit it was his own curiosity that forced him to answer the call. And when he did, he was glad he had.

Maleficent's home was nothing like it was before. The lush green forest was gone, the ground smoldered and crumbled as if...as if set on fire. He sensed magic, her magic. His body tingled in warning as he drew his power into him for extra protection. What had happened?

It was nearly black inside the cottage, but he could still see the woman he met there sparkled, dripped in jewels and glitter. But her hair hung in lifeless clumps from her head. And her eyes, they were dark, nearly black from where makeup ran down her cheeks. Maleficent had been crying.

"This!" she screeched, throwing a piece of paper at him the moment they locked eyes gazes. "This apple tree! A poisoned apple, the one you told me would take too much time, will it work?!" she demanded. Her voice was choked, crazy. Her eyes were wild though it was difficult to see them with how contorted her face was. She was trying to hold back tears, but only marginally successful.

The last time he'd seen Maleficent, her power had been undeniable, just as it was now. She'd been upset then too, angry. This kind of upset didn't come close to that.

"What happened?" he questioned, trying to piece together what was going on. It had been over a year since he'd seen the Dragon and last he had heard her plan had been successful! Not long after he gave her that spell the Princess, Briar Rose, had "taken ill" as reports claimed. She'd not been seen publicly, but a little look in his mirror had told him the girl was under a sleeping curse. The marriage had been called off, and not long after Prince Stefan had taken a new woman to be his betrothed. Maleficent. He was under the impression that in a month she'd be married to the man just as she wanted. She'd be Queen!

And yet here she sat, in her father's house, the once green foliage around her burned to a black and gray colored char that extended as far as the eye could see. It appeared the dragon had been on a rampage. How had this happened? How had it all gone so wrong so quickly?

But the woman didn't answer. It was as if something broke inside of her. She began to sob, horrid, ugly cries before she doubled over and then fell to the ground, huddled against the hearth clutching her heart. She continued to cry.

"What happened?!"

"She woke up!" the dragon screamed. Blubbering away she wiped her nose on her sleeve then pushed her fingers to her hair, grabbing at it so it clumped together and knotted even more than it was. "After all these years she woke up…" her voice trailed off as she gathered her knees up to her chest and rocked. The result of a woman scorned. The rest of the tale was easy enough to guess.

"Then you must not have prepared the curse correctly," he explained. He wasn't about to have this fall back on him. Their deal was the curse for the scales. He'd delivered. She'd delivered. He had no obligation to make sure her hopes and dreams came true.

"It wasn't me!" she cried out rocking. "It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me! It was…it was him!" suddenly she took a deep breath, the rocking stopped and her voice…it was a growl. The Dragon. "I've been carrying this burden around with me since it happened…for over a year! And one night I just couldn't take lying to him anymore. I told him."

"The truth?"

"All of it!" she yelled, her legs falling back to the floor as her hands tangled in the strands of her fallen hair. Her chest was moving rapidly, heaving with her upset. Her heart rate was dangerously high for a Dragon and he had the feeling that if he could get a clear look at her eyes they would be yellow. There was danger in this place if they continued on like this. "It was all perfect," she cried on. "We were happy. The King had taken his Briar Rose back and without the Dragon they saw no more need for an army. He was free to marry me, he promised he would."

"Until you told him everything!"

"I had to!" she shouted. "You don't understand! It was a stain on my soul, lying to him!"

"And now he's left you."

She disintegrated again. Throwing her head back against the stone wall and wailing with her eyes closed got her nowhere and it certainly got him worse than nowhere. This was bad, it was very bad. She was hysterical, her heart rate sky high, her body cramping and jerking. That kind of magic moving inward would be dying for release. And if she'd become the Dragon before then she'd know that letting if free would eliminate her pain, but it could also potentially cause her to shift and never shift back. She'd been lucky this time, it seemed. Upset as she was he didn't know if he could continue to be that lucky.

He didn't have time for this. He hadn't come this far only to lose his progress by a scorned woman turning dragon and wreaking havoc in the lives of those he needed. She needed to be calm. Sedate. Unable to shift.

"What happened?" he questioned as he strolled around the kitchen. Obviously she hadn't been to this place in a long while. Aside from the chilly dampness, spiderwebs, and lack of fire, the ingredients for the sleeping curse he'd given her were still in the house, still in plain sight. Including the spindles. It was as if she'd crafted the curse yesterday and then just walked off into her new life. It was foolish and irresponsible, but he could work with that.

"Stefan listened," she explained, her voice suddenly emotionless. "He sat there with a stone face and listened and when I was done…he left. He said…he said…" as she heaved his fingers moved over the ingredients on the table with precision and dexterity. Though he had never made a sleeping curse before in his life some Dark One of old remembered it perfectly. This would have taken time for a lesser witch or wizard to craft, with his magic, he was practically done with a single dose before she could finish her story. Now all he needed was seawater and toadstool.

"He said 'my Briar Rose would never keep anything like this from me' and he left. I thought he'd come back, but a week later the city was buzzing. She was awake! He was by her side and…they're married now!" she squealed. "They're married but…but the Curse! It shouldn't be possible and yet…" A small high pitched cry pushed its way out of her and at that point, her knees drew up to her chest once more and she rested her head there and cried as he poured the single dose of Sleeping Curse into a bucket with an appropriate amount of seawater he summoned from the sea and toadstool he found in the cupboard.

Well, he had to admit, her story was something he hadn't heard, but he hadn't exactly been watching closely. With everything happening with Cora and Regina he'd been focused only on those individuals who were integral in his plot to get back to his son. He didn't check in on his other deals, there was no need! They were nothing to him if they weren't part of what would get him back to his son. The only reason he was doing this now was because he feared what would happen to the Enchanted Forest if a Dragon with her power was released in this state. Around here it seemed that she'd already devastated the land. Closer to home it could have the same result and he wouldn't risk that.

"Funny thing about curses," he explained as he grabbed one of her spindles and dipped it into his concoction before moving around the table. "They can always be broken! I do believe I warned you of this when I first gave it to you."

"True love…he didn't love her!" she cried as he sank down closer to her. "He loved me! He was supposed to love me!"

As she roared the words at him her mouth pulled back in a snarl, but it was her eyes that scared him the most. They were yellow.

Without letting this get farther than it already had he grabbed one of her hands and pressed the needle into the tip of her finger until he saw blood. The effect was almost instantaneous. With a deep and sudden breath of shock, her body immediately relaxed. The contortions on her face eased and she fell back against the wall she had been hunched upon. Her heart rate dropped. Her eyes roamed the small house, suddenly unfocused and watery.

"What did you do to me?" she whispered.

"Sleeping Curse, heavily diluted with toadstool and seawater," he answered in response.

"You've cursed me," she breathed.

"Hardly," he snarled as he got back to his feet. "It's quite the opposite actually. I'm giving you this blessing and this advice free of charge."

Or at least that was what he was going to let her think. In truth, the payment for this was simply that she wouldn't take out her heartbreak on the rest of the world. He thought he'd seen a shadow in her before, now it was so much more. That kind of darkness, once it turned inward on itself would never go away. But this would at least keep her subdued. It is a shame, if he didn't know that he needed to be invested in Regina, Maleficent was exactly the kind of woman he would choose to cast this curse.

"A diluted version of the Sleeping Curse won't put you to sleep, but it'll numb the rest of you, make it so you don't have to feel the Curse of a Broken Heart."

"A Broken Heart…is that what this is?" she put a floppy hand to her chest and for the smallest moment her chest heaved but evened out after only a few seconds. With the curse now flowing through her veins she was incapable of any responses that would involve too much emotion, either good or bad. Essentially, she was dead inside. But as someone who had experienced the effects of such heartbreak before he could honestly say that dead inside was better than feeling it. Most days, he prayed he'd be dead inside.

"It is precisely what you are feeling. And it's not likely to go away, not without a kiss of True Love and seeing as how your candidate just ran off with his own, I'd say that's unlikely. Love…kills more people than you might think."

He watched as she squeezed her eyes together and let her head fall against the hearth. But no tears came. Her legs uncurled from her chest finally as she sat there almost lifeless. She may have been sleeping, but he knew she wasn't. The drug simply took some time to adjust to. Eventually, she'd learn to live with it.

Any curse could be broken by True Love…suddenly he wondered if there is a weakness to exploit in the Dark Curse. Afterall, one day, he'd need it to be broken. By a Savior...a product of True Love...

He waved his hand over the bucket he'd used to mix the potion and tiny bottles filled it up.

"That should be enough to keep you at peace for now. If it wears off a single drop in the bloodstream is all it takes. You'll find your magic duller with its use, and you won't be able to become the Dragon you are which should keep the army at bay. If you're not a threat it'll be difficult to raise desire to kill. But that won't stop your beloved from trying if he's angry. There is a castle close by here, one the Kingdom believes is haunted. I recommend that you get together what you need and take refuge there. Between the hauntings and what they say you can do it should be enough to keep them at bay indefinitely. I can't promise a happy life, but life it shall be. Perhaps you might look into getting a cat…I hear they make great companions for the lonely."

"How long until a Broken Heart is cured? When will I feel like myself again?" she questioned sleepily before he could turn to leave.

"Oh, now that's the problem with love, Dearie," he smiled. "It changes us, molds us into something new and irreversible. You'll never be who you were again. Different you may be, but certainly never the same."


Oh, come now, you didn't think I was going to title Maleficent's chapter "The Dragon Before", leave her happily with Prince Stefan, and keep Rumple out of her misery, now did you? You know me better at this point, right? The thing about Maleficent, and eventually Ursula, is that when Rumple gathers the Queens of Darkness together the pair of them, in my humble opinion, had a good amount of resentment toward him. And sure, for Maleficent, I suppose you could see how she could have walked away from the former encounter a bit resentful, but I didn't see his actions as resentful enough, if I'm honest. So here we have this chapter! Between this and the former events, I figured there was finally enough resentment to explain Maleficent. As for Ursula...you'll have to wait a bit for that encounter. It's a bit less of a crazy exchange, but it's an important one.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, MissAmande, Grace5231973, and Jennifer for your reviews! I'm so happy you enjoyed that chapter and thought that George was spot on! I'm not sure how many of you will recognize what is going on at the start of this chapter, I don't know how much of the canon works everyone has read. The events are essentially what happens in the book Regina Rising. A&E have said it's canon and so by my timeline it fits in right about here. And the next chapter...well, it might not be the most exciting thing, but I think it's a really important chapter, especially since it's the final chapter in the Preparation Section. Peace and Happy Reading!