A/N: Some of the dialogue in this chapter is borrowed from the movie. As always, your readership and feedback are much appreciated!
Chapter 1 – The Good Fairies
"Why, Merryweather!" Flora exclaimed. Her youngest sister, whose emotional states usually included only happy and furious, was crying.
"Whatever is the matter, dear?" asked Fauna, pushing a lock of grey hair out of her eyes.
"After today," sniffed Merryweather, "she'll be a princess, and we won't have any Briar Rose!"
Fauna had gasped, clutching a pile of dough to her chest maternally. No more Briar Rose. That thought hadn't occurred to her. "Oh, Flora!"
"Now, now, now," Flora scolded, but it was clear the thought had not occurred to her, either. "We all knew this day had to come!"
Fauna felt tears begin to well up in her eyes, "But why did it have to come so soon?"
"After all," Flora continued, "We've had her for sixteen years."
"Sixteen wonderful years," Merryweather gushed, and the three sisters stood together in a rare moment of unity.
As usual, the eldest of the fairy sisters regained her composure first. "Oh, gracious!" she blustered, and the moment was broken. "We're acting like a lot of ninnies!"
Flora later argued that this moment of emotional weakness had been the beginning of the end.
"I'll never forgive myself," she had uttered as the sun set, much to the shock of her younger sisters. In just over five hundred years, Flora had never lost an argument—at least in her own mind—and therefore had never seen any need to take responsibility for her nonexistent wrongs.
Fauna, touched by her sister's sudden epiphany, replied kindly, "We're all to blame," because that was the way it felt. In reality, they probably couldn't have avoided this moment if they had an infinite number of chances. Maleficent's magic was complex and far-reaching. Their fault lay in believing the danger had passed. Maleficent was ever dangerous, and though Flora maintained that she was as old as all time, she always struck Fauna as seeming young. Lurking beneath her icy calm exterior was a current of boundless, almost frantic energy. Fauna got the sense that long after she and her sisters had died, the danger Maleficent posed would still not have passed.
With the help of their wands, Fauna and her sisters fashioned a bed of sorts in the tower room and settled Rose upon it. Outside, the party for Aurora's return had begun with fireworks and Flora, overcome, went out onto the balcony to watch.
Fauna and Merryweather exchanged a glance, for they had never seen Flora like this. They followed her outside.
"I don't know what's worse," Merryweather muttered. "Seeing Rose like that or seeing all those people out there waiting for her."
Fauna was absolutely certain which was worse.
"They're going to be very disappointed," Flora replied miserably. "We're going to be sent away. Stefan is going to think we—"
"Nonsense—how could he?"
"How could he not, Merryweather? We failed," she sighed. "We're going to be burned at the stake like witches."
"Flora, we're not going to be burned at the stake. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If you'd just think for one minute, you'd realize…"
Merryweather was right—it was ridiculous. Fauna had never heard of a Good Fairy being burned at the stake, and she and her sisters didn't have enough magic between them to put a curse on a fly.
Really, it was an odd thing to be worrying about. Rose was under Maleficent's curse, three kingdoms worth of people were waiting for her outside, and the King and Queen—oh.
"Oh, the King and Queen—oh, the poor dears," Fauna breathed through a fresh wave of tears. Stefan and Leah, who had wanted a child for so many years and who had finally created a miracle, had been forced to let her go the very next day. They had waited nearly half of their lives for this day. Fauna, who could expect to live at least ten times longer than even the healthiest human, could not even imagine waiting half her life for anything.
Fauna suddenly realized that her sisters had stopped bickering. After a moment of only the sound of fireworks and cheerful party-goers, Merryweather sniffled. "They'll be heartbroken when they find out."
Flora had suddenly gotten a grip on her emotions and was staring wide- and dry-eyed at the place where the sun had just set. "They're not going to," she said at last.
"They…?"
"They're not going to find out," Flora repeated, sounding vaguely irritated. "I'm going to fix this. We are going to fix this. We'll put them all to sleep until Rose awakens."
"But—"
"Flora—you're going to put all three kingdoms to sleep? Until the curse is broken?"
"Didn't you hear me?" Flora snapped.
"Flora," Fauna cried, scurrying after her, "we don't even know if that boy is her true love!"
"And even if he is, that's going to create a whole new mess of problems when Rose wakes up and still has to marry Philip!" Merryweather agreed.
Magical true love was a tricky matter. It made for powerful magic—certainly the most powerful of which the three sisters were capable, hence Merryweather's use of the stuff to counteract Maleficent's curse—but it was volatile and highly subjective. Unsurprisingly, it was next to impossible for one person to determine another person's true love.
"And if he isn't, who knows who her true love could be?"
"Where he could be! Without Rose awake, it'll take us ages to find him!"
"Do you have a better idea, Merryweather?" Flora snarled. "True Love's Kiss was your brilliant idea, after all."
"You know very well that was all I could do—"
"That was all you could think of! If I'd had a gift left to give, I could have—"
"You could have what, exactly? Tell me what your idea would have been, and then remember that I had about half a second to decide!"
"Oh, poor you, left with the daunting task of thinking of anyone other than yourself!"
"You're one to talk! If it had been left up to you, you would have turned her into a flower! And do you know what would have happened then? I'll tell you…"
Fauna squeezed her eyes closed and tried to tune them out as they made their way down to the screaming crowd. Fortunately it was so loud that the fairies were able to cast their sleeping spell and bicker at the same time without attracting undue attention.
Fauna wondered privately whether adding more magic to Maleficent's spell was a good idea. The combination of Maleficent's magic and Merryweather's already seemed like a match made in the depths of Hell, itself; adding Flora's and Fauna's couldn't be much better.
But Flora was in charge of the spell. Flora had come up with a solid enough plan where Fauna and Merryweather had none. In truth, even if they'd offered a plan, Flora would have dismissed it as nonsense, so there was little Fauna and Merryweather could really say on the matter.
Flora, for her part, believed that she had come up with a foolproof plan. This way, she and her idiot sisters had ample time to scour the world for Rose's magical true love and no one would know the difference . What was more, with the greater part of all three kingdoms sound asleep at the foot of Stefan's castle, they could search this realm with relative ease.
As she cast the spell upon Kings Hubert of the North and Stefan of the East, she overheard the end of their conversation.
"…been talking to, ah…Philip," said Hubert through a yawn.
Stefan was apparently very susceptible to Sleeping Charms, because he did not respond.
"Seems he's fallen in love…with some…" he yawned again "peasant girl…"
Peasant girl! Flora stopped in midair and whirled back around to face Hubert. Could it be?
"Yes, yes?" she prodded Hubert, who was blinking sleepily, then tried yelling in his ear. "The peasant girl—who is she? Where did he meet her?"
"…oh….hmmm…just some…peasant girl…" he mumbled.
"Where, where!"
"Oh, what was he…." yawn "…on about? Once upon…" yawn "a dream…"
Once upon a…oh!
Oh, this changed everything! The boy Rose had met in the woods, the one she was so upset about earlier, was Prince Philip! If he was just as taken with her as she was with him, then it was very possible that he was also her magical true love!
Additionally, if Philip was the boy, then Philip—and not an unnamed peasant—was going to the cottage in the woods right about now to meet Rose, who would not be there. And if Maleficent had found out about Rose, it was quite probable she also knew where to find Rose's would-be rescuer.
There were many things Flora despised about Maleficent—indeed, if there was a thing and it was related to Maleficent, Flora despised it—and one of these was that Maleficent was a masterful schemer. She absolutely always had at least one hidden agenda, and she predicted and planned for a multitude of possible outcomes to any decision she made. If Maleficent knew that Rose had a potential true love, she would find and capture him as soon as her main target had been secured.
"Come on!" she shouted to her sisters. "We've got to get back to the cottage!"
"Why?" asked Merryweather. "What's the matter?"
As they flew, Flora quickly explained what she had just figured out. "Prince Philip was the boy Rose met in the woods! Which means he's going to be waiting for her at the cottage tonight, and I'll bet my wings Maleficent won't be far behind!"
Unfortunately for the three good fairies, Maleficent was not far behind at all. She was, as usual, quite the opposite. Maleficent was, in fact, so far ahead in her plans for the evening that she was feeling positively charitable.
First, she had given her minions (the ones she had not killed in a minor lightning storm shortly after her raven Diablo had done in an hour what had taken them sixteen years to miscarry) leave to do as they pleased for the rest of the evening, which was evidently to throw a slightly disturbing party wherein they danced cheerfully in a circle around the incinerating carcasses of their brethren.
Momentarily relieved of her responsibilities, she gave herself leave to sit atop her throne overlooking them for a spell whilst she stroked the feathered head of her dearest (and only) friend and indulged in frivolous contemplations on the various things she might do to toy with the royal families of Kings Stefan and Hubert.
She had two rather valuable playing pieces at her disposal at the moment, and the best part was that they had all but fallen neatly into her lap. She must remember to thank her fairy kin for that. The Good Fairies of the East were many things (though admittedly the only thing that came to mind at the moment was uncommonly irritating), but planners and schemers they were not. Indeed, Maleficent had never seen any evidence that they ever planned ahead for any reason at all, except for parties, of course, but Maleficent hardly considered social gatherings a worthwhile venture.
For example, Maleficent had planned to simply waltz into Princess Aurora's christening, enact a good, clean bit of revenge and forget about the whole matter, a rare act of generosity if she did say so. She'd given the Queen—and by extension the Eastern Kingdom—a gift, her stipulations were not met, and she reserved the right to take her gift away. The sixteen years were more than just a fun little twist; they were a safety net. It was cruel poetry, surely: the King and Queen could have the precious child they had wanted for so long, but she would not live into adulthood. On top of that, however, it gave Maleficent ample time to change her plans to kill the princess if, for example, a more useful or entertaining idea came to mind in the meantime.
Then those three bumbling idiots had decided to complicate the spell, so that it turned from an amusing hobby to a time-consuming obsession.
Maleficent supposed she had been slightly off in her timing. She'd intended to appear in time for the gift giving ceremony, but the way it had happened, Merryweather was able to use her gift to muddle Maleficent's curse. As if that weren't despicable enough, a few days later, Maleficent had learned that the infant princess had been hidden away somewhere by the three good fairies.
At first, she'd been amused. It was quite difficult to hide anything from Maleficent. Though her magic was, tragically, not at all amenable to tracking people, between her hundreds of minions, the countless ravens surrounding the Forbidden Castle who were more than happy to do her bidding, and a smattering of powerful acquaintances with access to almost every kingdom on Earth, if Maleficent wanted to find someone or something, she could find it with very little effort.
After a few years of aforesaid lack of effort, however, the princess and the three good fairies had not been located. Maleficent was not only immensely surprised by this, she was quite furious and proceeded to conduct the search herself in a kind of frenzy. She felt that this failure showed a weakness in her abilities which she had not noticed and she wanted to find and correct the flaw as soon as possible.
The only stones she left unturned, as it happened, were the houses of peasants in and around the Eastern Kingdom. She'd sent her minions to search them every so often, but she had sincerely believed that the good fairies weren't stupid enough—or at the very least, reckless enough—to hide the princess in plain sight. If Maleficent, herself, had taken a quick stroll through the woods and come upon them, she would have found not only the princess she sought, but her three greatest annoyances, powerless and completely at her mercy.
Maleficent gathered that they had made this foolhardy decision as some sort of statement to or about her, but she couldn't even begin to understand what it was. Any way she looked at it, hiding the princess a stone's throw away from her home with only three out of shape old women as her protection from one of the more powerful wicked fairies in the world was colossally idiotic, and she found she would almost be interested in hearing Flora's self-righteous explanation for her actions.
Well, anyway, Flora had perhaps won the battle, but not the war. Maleficent had found the girl in the end. Now, though, with sixteen years of relentless searching behind her, she must carefully consider her options.
After cursing the princess and capturing her would-be rescuer, Maleficent had returned to the tower. Her intention had been to battle the good fairies (which, while she imagined it wouldn't be very difficult, would be a bit tiresome) and move the princess to a more secure location. She had found to her surprise that the tower was abandoned but for the sleeping girl and that the entire welcome party for Princess Aurora, which consisted of the greater part of the entire realm, was asleep along with her. What was more, they were cursed to sleep for as long as she was. What in Hell's name were those fairies playing at?
Maleficent had lit upon the balcony of the tower room to find that she could hear a voice. It was strange, though: the voice did not change volume when she moved, it hardly ever formed clear sentences, and it seemed somehow not to exist in the corporeal world. It was, the more Maleficent thought about it, the mere shadow of a voice, as though it were a memory or a half-remembered dream. She had eventually determined that the mysterious voice was none other than that of the Princess Aurora, whose cursed slumber was evidently not quite as restful as Merryweather had intended.
The princess had an unclear, disorganized thought process which was prone to wander off-topic. She seemed to find it deeply troubling that she had no access to the visual or kinesthetic world. Indeed, her thoughts often seemed a bit like rambling nonsense and they were generally either frightened or dreadfully melancholy, emotions with which Maleficent was unaccustomed to contending.
The truly baffling thing was that, after chatting with the princess, Maleficent found herself strangely even less certain of how to proceed.
Her first instinct was simply to allow the Prince to kiss his Princess. There was no way that could end well. Aurora—or Briar Rose, as she preferred to be called—had grown up a sheltered peasant. She seemed like a pleasant enough person—likeable, even, which was a rather gushing compliment coming from Maleficent, who rarely felt anything more than begrudging tolerance towards anyone. Briar Rose had even inspired Maleficent to make the closest thing to idle chitchat she had ever attempted.
But beauty and an agreeable personality did not make the life of a Queen any easier. Briar Rose seemed in general to be a bit of a fragile creature; Maleficent gathered that she might be easily overwhelmed by the challenges of a life so foreign to her.
This seemed the best decision for Maleficent's purposes in that her involvement in the matter would be quickly ended. She could fight battles to protect her castle or, if she didn't want to bother, she could squirrel herself away for awhile until the chaos died down and the banalities of everyday life drove her enemies insane for her amusement.
However, upon consideration, Maleficent was not certain whether letting Philip kiss Briar Rose was an option. Maleficent would be the first to admit that she knew next to nothing about Magical True Love. She found the spells based upon it to be almost entirely nonsense, and the complications it had imposed upon her own brilliantly crafted spell did not endear it to her any further. Still, there was something very peculiar about the way Briar Rose had reacted to the news of Prince Philip. Her thoughts had been very jumbled and difficult to understand—not the kind of thing that indicated the magnetic draw of magical true love. She'd seemed rather taken aback (rather than romantically entranced) by the idea of her mysterious stranger as the same man Princess Aurora was to marry. Most importantly, though a part of her had wanted to make some sort of plea to sacrifice herself for him, the thought that had won out in the end had been a self-centered one. That was to say, she chose herself over Philip. Maleficent had always heard that people bound by magical true love—even when they barely knew each other—were almost incapable of doing that.
Then again, perhaps Maleficent was overanalyzing. That sentiment had always stricken her as utterly absurd. She had no idea why she would suddenly put stock in such nonsense now. Besides, True Love magic was extremely subjective. Maleficent would be perfectly contented to die without having any idea of what Mistress Merryweather considered an ideal love match, but Philip—a prince with a strong build, a symmetrical face, and a superficial charm—seemed as likely a candidate as any.
Maleficent decided that, in order to err on the side of caution, she ought to proceed as though Philip were indeed Briar Rose's true love. If the information became somehow important to her, she could always invest the time it would require to determine whether this was true. What she ought to focus on now was what she wanted out of this situation, in the short term and in the long term.
In the short term, she wanted to gloat—that much was clear. She wanted the Three Kingdoms to mourn the loss of their beloved princess. She wanted them to beg her for mercy. She wanted to act as though she might show mercy and then rip it away from them. She wanted them all to know that this was the fault of Queen Leah, that she had not held up her end of a bargain they would condemn, anyway. Ideally, she could turn Hubert and Stefan so avidly against one another over the matter that they would start a war.
Unfortunately, this plan, delightful though it sounded, required that the kingdom be awake and the princess remain asleep. Curse those incompetent little fairies and their insatiable need to meddle! The way the spells were intertwined, Maleficent would not be able to wake up the kingdom without waking the princess. Two powerful sleeping curses in a row were a rather messy, complicated, time-consuming way to kill someone as fragile as Briar Rose, and Maleficent didn't particularly want to do that.
Then again, why not? The timing would be tricky, but if Maleficent worked it out correctly, she could have her fun, and by the time Maleficent acquiesced to the kingdom's pleas for mercy upon the princess, she would already have died from the curse overdose.
Even as Maleficent thought it through, she shook her head against it. It was too messy, too unrefined. There must be a better way of getting what she wanted, one which did not involve killing an innocent girl.
And yet, hadn't she been planning just that sixteen years ago? What had been her motivation for cursing the infant princess to die if in the privacy of her own mind she knew that when the time came, she would avoid getting the blood of an innocent on her hands if at all possible? Had she always known this? Or was it a recent development? Honestly, she rather hoped it was merely the result of her reaction to surprisingly pleasant company and not a newfound softness for the world at large.
Maleficent needed a plan which would buy her more time, not only to come up with a better plan, but to sort out her own sudden and befuddling distaste for murder.
Evidently, this was a simple enough stipulation for her sleep-deprived mind to meet, for Maleficent suddenly felt a smile crossing her lips. "What a pity," she told Diablo, "that Prince Philip can't be here to enjoy the celebration. Come!" she stood from her throne. "We must go to the dungeon and cheer him up."
Diablo, sensing the favourable shift in his mistress's mood, flew eagerly about her shoulders as they made their way into her dungeons, and Maleficent thought fondly upon her long-time companion. He was her dearest and only friend because he was the only creature to whom she had ever felt particularly similar. He shared her short attention span and her taste for irony. He was ever-vigilant and had a sharp mind, assessing a situation and how to react quickly. Diablo delighted in carrying out Maleficent's will, as it often matched his own.
Maleficent unlocked the door to the dungeon in which Philip resided, then the door to his individual prison cell. While she was quite positive he would not escape even if she allowed him to roam freely about her castle, Maleficent was not one to flaunt her prowess in the face of unlikely happenstance.
Prince Philip sat chained to the walls of his dungeon cell, eyes downcast, expression morose. His misery only fed Maleficent's mirth.
"Oh, come now, Prince Philip," she scolded him, her voice syrupy-sweet. "Why so melancholy? A wondrous future lies before you! You! The destined hero of a charming fairytale-come-true!"
He looked up at her, his expression conflicted as he tried to determine whether she was only mocking him or whether she was truly about to tell him something that would cheer him. Her smile widened. Foolish youths, unaccustomed as they were to the cruelty of this world, fell so easily for the tricks of her voice.
"Behold," she said softly and twirled her fingers about her staff, willing it to show Philip her brilliant idea.
As far as Maleficent was concerned, the good fairies had hidden the Princess Aurora in plain sight with the intention of mocking her. Foolhardy though this move had been, it had nearly succeeded. As retribution for their half-witted attempts to play to what they considered Maleficent's weaknesses, Maleficent would play to theirs. She would write them a fairytale.
"King Stefan's castle, and in yonder topmost tower, dreaming of her true love, the Princess Aurora," the name was like silk on her lips. "But see the gracious whim of fate! Why, 'tis the selfsame peasant maid who won the heart of our noble prince but yesterday!" Maleficent's smile softened as she looked upon the sleeping form of the princess and the warmth in her voice was genuine as she continued.
"She is, indeed, most wondrous fair.
Gold of sunshine in her hair,
Lips that shame the red, red rose.
In ageless sleep, she finds repose."
The prince was smiling, too, enchanted, completely won over. This was too easy. Now for the twist.
"The years roll by, but a hundred years to a steadfast heart are but a day!"
The prince's smile faltered and his eyebrows furrowed.
"And now, the gates of the dungeon part,
And our prince is free to go his way!
Off he rides on his noble steed
A valiant figure, straight and tall…"
Maleficent's sweet voice became sickly and sing-song, and Philip's face contorted in anger and disbelief.
"To wake his love with love's first kiss
And prove that true love conquers all!"
Philip strained against his shackles and Maleficent was consumed by uncontrollable laughter. She felt light-headed, almost dizzy, and it occurred to her that she had not slept in…weeks? Months? Really, she hadn't had a proper sleep in sixteen years. Perhaps her mind would be more agile after a full night of much-deserved rest.
"Come, my pet," she said once she had calmed herself. Diablo was swooping in mocking circles around the prince's head. Prince Philip was still glaring at her ineffectually. "Let us leave our noble prince with these happy thoughts."
She exited Philip's cell slowly and made a great show of closing the door behind her before she locked and enchanted it. Tonight, she thought contentedly as she ascended the stairs, for the first time in sixteen years, she would sleep well.
However, before she could even clear the first flight, she sensed something amiss. Shortly after turning on her heel and making her way back down the stairs to check on her royal guest, Diablo crowed an alarm and shot in the direction of what appeared to be three small specs of colourful light disappearing into a crack of the dungeon wall.
Could this day get any better? The three fairies Maleficent most wanted under lock and key had walked right into her dungeon!
"Well!" she remarked. With a wave of her hand, the three specs ceased their attempt to escape and grew into their properly-sized good fairy selves. "This day has been full of unprecedented surprises! What brings you three to my humble abode? Come by for a spot of tea?"
Merryweather made to charge at her, but she and the other fairies of course found their feet resolutely rooted to the ground.
"I'm afraid if you've come to see the prince, you're a bit late. It is well past visiting hours, you know," she absently twirled her fingers about her staff. "You must forgive me for being such a poor host. It has been quite some time since I have entertained so many guests at once and I find myself at a bit of a loss. What to do, what to do?"
"What has Prince Philip ever done to you?" Flora demanded.
"Why, nothing as of yet," Maleficent replied. "I find that one can never be too careful in matters such as these, though it's evident you disagree."
"What do you mean by that?" Merryweather interjected, but Flora waved at her to be silent.
"Where is the princess?"
Maleficent chuckled. "Your negligence regarding your royal charge is astounding. She remains in the tower where you left her unattended. A fortuitous surprise, indeed. If I didn't know better, I would have thought you had no interest in hiding her from me."
"Why, you...you, you...What have you done to her?" Merryweather barked.
"The more important question is," Maleficent retorted, quickly growing bored with the conversation, "what have you done to her, O Mistress of True Love's First Kiss?"
"What's that supposed to mean? I was saving her life!"
"Saving her life from you, you dreadful—!"
"What did she ever do to you, anyway?"
"Sentencing an innocent baby to death, why that's—"
"—been meaning to give you a piece of my mind—"
"—she doesn't deserve to—"
With a wave of Maleficent's hand, the three good fairies were deposited in another empty cell. This did not cause them to stop yelling over one another at her, but she turned her back on them and made to depart, when a third voice caught her ear.
"Would you really rather she had died, Maleficent?" asked Fauna.
Maleficent stood still. She refused to turn around for fear that her face would give her away, and she knew she couldn't leave for fear that her silence would be her betrayal. "No," she answered honestly, composing herself before she turned around. "This," she chose her next words carefully, "is infinitely better."
Flora and Fauna were flabbergasted. Merryweather was distrustful, "What do you mean?"
"No peaceful rest, no peaceful life for her now. I could not have done better, myself," she smiled and the three sisters cringed. "I had already forgotten that I meant to thank you for the amusement you have provided me."
With a wave of her staff, Maleficent disappeared in an explosion of green flame.
She rematerialized in her bedchamber, where she all but threw the piles of books off of her bed, tucked herself in, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. To her surprise, sleep did not come easily to her. Her mind continued to race, and interwoven with her own frantic thoughts were sad whispers of thoughts that didn't entirely make sense, in a voice which was not quite familiar to her.
Am I Briar Rose? the voice whispered.
Then, a few moments later, Or am I Aurora now?
An hour or more passed, and Maleficent finally drifted off to sleep, but it was far from restful. Every few hours, she was roused from her slumber by the quiet, nagging voice of the sleeping princess.
Am I Briar Rose?
Or am I Aurora?
Am I both?
Am I neither?