He was angry. So, so angry. So angry, he could barely see straight. Too angry to break or shatter his precious objects as he had in years past, so instead, he just sat there in his tower, his hands clenched into fists carefully balanced on his knees. He was almost certain that he squeezed one so tight a bone had broken. But focusing on that pain was all that was keeping him from doing something stupid, from going out and killing someone that he knew he shouldn't kill. If he did, the Seer warned, it would destroy everything. All his plans, his future, Baelfire, everything would be lost if he didn't control his temper at this moment.
Baelfire. He had to think of Baelfire. He was willing to give everything and anything to kill but not Baelfire. He was the only thing keeping him from going and killing Merlin's fucking Apprentice!
Snow White was pregnant. And now there was no doubt that the child would be a Savior, made of pure Light Magic. He knew that because he'd watched as her parents paid a high price to achieve that. The Queens of Darkness…it was all because of them. Them and a peddler and a unicorn and a fucking Apprentice who had been a thorn in every Dark One's side since before the Dark Ones were born!
After the incident at the tree with the Queens of Darkness, Snow and David had been unsettled. It had driven them to search for something, something they'd found in his land—a unicorn. Pure White Unicorns, as this one had been, had the ability to give visions of the future if the horn was touched. It, not the horse, was magical and why Unicorn Horn was an ingredient in powerful spells, especially those where a future element was called into question. They'd found such a beast, searched far and wide for it, and found it in his own damn back yard. When they'd touched it, David had seemed relieved but Snow, less so. The pair had stormed off and met a peddler who directed them right into the Apprentice's welcoming arms for tea and shelter from something awful.
Maleficent's magic had been off ever since she'd regrouped to inform the Charming's of the Curse…now he knew why. Her dalliance with a male dragon named Zorro had resulted in Maleficent finally laying her egg…a fertilized egg. Dragons tended to lay eggs frequently, especially after a heat cycle, but only a few were ever actually fertilized because of the species' rarity. They couldn't mate with ordinary dragons; it had to be one of their own, shapeshifters. Even then, if they were lucky enough to mate and lay a fertilized egg, very few of those managed to hatch. Hard as stone, dragon eggs were difficult things to break open even for the baby dragons within, who were often born with the soft bodies of human infants. It took something special for a new dragon-baby to break free.
Maleficent had laid the egg in his lands. That was really the only reason he was aware of her since he'd returned from the mines. It was hard to ignore the screams of a dragon lighting forests on fire and nesting in a cave not far from him. Admittedly, since she laid the damn thing, she left infrequently, maybe twice in the last month to find food. Cruella and Ursula had been busy lately as well, helping her to guard the cave that she'd chosen to make her nest in. Whenever those three were involved, he always thought it best to keep a sharp eye. But he'd never expected trouble to come in the way that it had. He'd never expected that the Queens of Darkness would fall prey to the likes of David and Snow that any of them would ever be victims next to them.
It was shocking. One minute he'd seen Snow and David, rerouted by the peddler at the Apprentice's house, but that night he'd seen movement in the cave Maleficent's egg had been laid in. He'd watched carefully, fearing for the day it would hatch, which would be soon as dragons and their eggs had a short window for gestation. But the movement he saw didn't come from a baby hatching. It came from Snow and David. They'd entered the cave. And what they did there…he hadn't been prepared for and never would even if he'd lived a thousand years.
The pair stole the child.
Stole it! Snatched it right from the nest Maleficent had prepared for it. Maleficent noticed, and he stared in horror as the Charmings tossed the egg around, back and forth between them as if it were nothing but a chicken egg! Maleficent fought hard to protect her child, but ultimately her hands, or claws, were tied. As long as either of the Charmings held that egg in their arms, she couldn't allow any harm to come to them lest her egg be caught in the crossfire. And so she'd transformed, back into a weaker human whose magic would be weakened until the child was a year old. Ironic…dragons were some of the most powerful magical creatures in their land, but when they went into heat and bore children…they became weak until the child could defend themselves. They were vulnerable. Maleficent was vulnerable.
She wore her famed black cloak now but beneath it nothing but a dressing gown. Even her infamous horns were gone, replaced with straight blonde hair and big eyes that begged the pair to leave her child alone.
They didn't.
They muttered words that he couldn't hear and was certain he wouldn't understand and then took off back through the cave. In a last-ditch effort to salvage her child, she used her staff to power a spell that might have stopped them, but weak as she was, the spell went wrong in the worst way. It hit the top of the mouth of the cave instead of the Charmings. There was a cave-in. Maleficent was trapped. Trapped until her friends, who he now saw were asleep outside the mouth of the cave, woke and found her and could shift the rocks to release her. She was trapped, and she knew it. On the way out, David had stepped on a small rattle, and he watched as the Mistress of the Night fell to her knees, cradled the thing in her hands, and wept.
As for the Charmings, he followed them until they met with the Apprentice in the woods. A spell was performed. He blanched at the realization that it was the Spell of Intent. He assumed that was what it was. At least, it appeared to be a textbook Spell of Intent, and if the way Snow continued to grasp at her stomach told him anything, it was a Spell of Intent on their child and Maleficent's.
Every child in the world was born with the ability to be good or to be bad…or somewhere in the between, as most were in the end. The Spell of Intent changed that. It removed the part of an unborn soul that had the intent of evil and essentially swapped it with another soul's intent for good. It was Dark Magic. Dark, dark magic. For while it gave one child an ability to be entirely good-natured, it cursed another to be dark-natured, no possibility of fighting back. It was a spell not even he would perform. And it wasn't just him.
That magic was outlawed by Merlin himself, Nimue hissed angrily in his ear. She didn't even know where the Apprentice had learned it! It was a terrible, awful thing! Even most of the Dark Ones thought so, and that was saying something.
But it was what he saw afterward that made him angriest, that made him want to leave his tower and murder that same Apprentice.
Beneath their feet, in the place the egg lay on the ground, a portal opened. A portal that looked just like the one that had taken his father away, a portal that looked like the one that had taken Baelfire away from him! It was a portal to another world!
Cruella and Ursula arrived and began screaming at the Charmings, but a moment later, they, along with the egg, had been pulled into the portal. And then it closed. Cruella, Ursula, and the baby were gone…Maleficent was trapped within the stronghold she'd meant to protect her child from the world. The Charmings at least looked remorseful, but the Apprentice…
It was as though it was nothing. As though he hadn't just opened up a portal to another realm, one where he assumed the evil dragon would be of no danger to anyone. Simple logic told him the only place that would happen would be a Land Without Magic. Oh, yes…there it was in his head.
The familiar face of the blonde-haired Swan standing next to a woman with dark hair and Maleficent's cheekbones, both girls reeking of magic, an invisible chord between them which called out to the mismatched pieces of their souls dwelling in another body.
He'd sent her to the Land Without Magic. Which meant that the Blue Fairy was a liar.
The entire time…the Apprentice had the power all this time to send him to Baelfire, and he hadn't given it to him! He'd allowed the Charmings to do such a terrible, horrible, selfish thing to a child, but he who wanted so badly to have his son back had never been gifted the opportunity to go! He could have killed the Apprentice right then and there! And he was tempted too! Ever so sorely tempted to go! But the Seer kept him in check. And as he sat there in the stillness seething, it helped to remember that it wasn't just the Apprentice who had done this to him. No. The Blue Fairy shared the blame in this.
The pair were friends, the letters he'd seen long ago proved that. That meant that she did have the power to send him to the other world all this time. She'd only had to ask her "dear friend" to open the portal, and she could have done it. But she hadn't.
Oh, he'd make her regret that decision. She'd informed him that the cost of the Curse was this world for the next. Well, that was on her now. She could have sent him away, banished his evil from this world as easily as the Apprentice banished the girl from this one. But she hadn't. Once the Curse hit, she and the Apprentice would regret it with every fiber of their being.
So, here it is. There's honestly not so much to say about this that hasn't already been said. It was a tough thing to watch, it was tough to write, I expect it's probably tough to read. With this chapter, I will say that I used a lot of the "magic excuse" to explain Maleficent. The idea that gestation time is different for a dragon allows Lily to fit into a story she really wouldn't have fit into otherwise. Her magic being weak until the baby is born is why she's trapped in a cave. And of course, that fact is also the reason why her aim is suddenly so terrible, and it misses the Charmings. It's clear as mud, I know, but for such a big character, A&E really did a shoddy job on her mythology.
Thank you, Jennifer Baratta, Alarda, and Grace5231973 for your reviews on the previous chapter. I can't say I hope you enjoy this chapter, but I hope you'll at least find it an acceptable edition from an unacceptable storyline. I did sort of enjoy shaming the Charmings a bit with Nimue and the Dark Ones saying it's a terrible thing that's happened. And it is. Totally unacceptable. For me, the motivation behind it was what made it just too much. I know the Charmings thought they'd bring the baby back and were ill-informed; I know the Apprentice wasn't working for himself but under Isaac's sway, but to still take a child just to make sure your own would be good, it just reeks of evil. Peace and Happy Reading!