A/N: Uhm, so this has been sitting around 99% finished for two years. On the up-side this means I'm really, really good at procrastinating.
Chapter 3 — Sanguinary Contemplations
Cold, cruel, twisted, you're cleverer than i imagined...my parents are dead, my parents are alive. They want me, they don't want me, they don't even care, they care, they care, cold, cruel, twisted, I know you, I walked with you...boy in the woods that boy she met, the boy is Prince Phillip what does he have to do with anything? Boy, Phillip, boy, that boy she met, only reason I'm unhappy why should I be unhappy will I ever be happy again, cold, cruel, cleverer than I twisted imagined...
Maleficent clasped a hand over her forehead in an attempt to silence the neverending stream of nonsense. She had gotten maybe twenty minutes of sleep collectively in the past three days, and she was beginning to feel just as mad as she had before she'd found the princess. Perhaps she ought to count her losses, abandon her grand scheme, and wring the girl's neck right now. It wouldn't be difficult. Maleficent could snap the limbs of a much stronger person without batting an eyelash. She wouldn't even have to listen to the girl screaming, and then the ceaseless torment of her thoughts would finally leave Maleficent's mind in peace.
...so much worse than the villain in the storybook, knowledgeable, frank, possibly not lying, cold, cruel, the only person who doesn't want me to be Aurora, we spend our lives being judged...
Well, never mind that last bit. She would have to hear the girl's thoughts while she was killing her. This notion caused Maleficent's stomach to twist uncomfortably, and the sensation launched her out of her bed.
Since when had she become so squeamish? Where would she be now if she'd balked at the thought of finishing off her opponents? Where would she be if the mere idea of eviscerating the ones who would have taken advantage of her weaknesses appalled her? Imprisoned. Irreparably maimed. Perhaps even dead. Nowhere good, to be certain.
...villain in the storybook, just anyone, not just anyone, Aurora, Briar Rose, Aurora, Phillip, that boy she met...
She ought to kill the girl right now. Because she could. And she would. It didn't matter. None of this mattered. She wanted it to end, did she not? She had the power to end it, did she not? What was the sense in tormenting herself over some plan that would take another hundred years or more? A hundred years of cold, cruel, twisted, Aurora, Briar Rose, that boy she met? Maleficent would go completely mad. Far madder than the princess who was her intended victim.
Maleficent ceased her frenetic pacing about her room and headed downstairs. Every muscle in her body ached, as though she'd fought some great battle or managed some great feat of magic, when in actuality, her only transgression against her body was the inability to get a full night of rest. She had some half-baked idea that she ought to check on her prisoners before she abandoned her castle, and it was at the very least enough to drive her forward as her rage began to recede into lethargy.
"Don't you worry, Mistress Flora," came the voice of Prince Phillip. "I'll think of something. I'll get out of here, and I'll save her."
Normally Maleficent would have found such an absurd statement monumentally amusing. He, a simple human boy whose only skills were sword-wielding and charming guileless would-be peasant girls, would think of a plan to escape Maleficent's clutches? She wanted to laugh, but her body wanted to groan. The idea of being amused was exhausting.
"I'm sure you will, dear," Flora replied. "But do remember to be careful. Maleficent is more dangerous than you might realize."
"Ha! I have no fear of that old hag!"
Perhaps she ought to kill the boy first.
"Well, you ought to," Merryweather chimed in with a huff. "She could snap your bones clean in two if she got a hold of you."
"A skinny old woman like that, snap my bones? What an absurd thing to say!"
Well, she'd be happy to give him a demonstration. If only she weren't too tired to move. Why was she here, anyway? Where had she been going?
...cold, cruel, twisted, villain in the storybook, cleverer than I imagined, Aurora, Briar Rose...
Right, to strangle the princess. She really ought to get on that. She'd think so much more clearly without that jumble of nonsense forever in her ear.
"Phillip, you mustn't think of Maleficent as an ordinary woman," said Flora. "She is a fairy, after all."
The boy's pompous laughter made Maleficent's lip curl, even though she was only half-listening. "Well, so are you, Mistress Flora," said Phillip, "but, all due respect, I doubt you could snap my bones, either."
"Well, no, but..."
"Mistress Flora, I think perhaps you give this beast too much credit. After all, what has she truly done to warrant such a fearsome reputation?"
"Phillip—" this voice was Fauna's "—don't you know what's become of Aurora?"
"She's under a curse."
"A curse Maleficent placed on her sixteen years ago, when Aurora was scarcely a day old," said Fauna. "A curse that has haunted her for the entirety of her life. Every...every move she made, every word she spoke...every song she sang...Maleficent's curse was a part of it. We did what we could to shield her from it, but the truth of the matter is..." she paused and sniffled a couple of times, and when she spoke again, her voice was tremulous. "The truth is, without you, Phillip, Ro—Aurora will never truly be free of Maleficent."
...am I Aurora, am I Briar Rose, am I both, am I neither, we spend our lives being judged, cold, cruel, twisted, that boy she met, fraction of my despair, is there any hope for me at all?
Free of Maleficent, indeed. Maleficent should be only too happy to be free of Briar Rose!
"I understand, Mistress Fauna," said Philip. "I shall take my responsibility very seriously. I will free my beloved Aurora, and then we will be married, and she'll never have to think about any of this again."
There was a long silence, during which even Briar Rose's thoughts made no sound, and then Fauna spoke again. "I do hope you're right, Prince Phillip," she said quietly.
Briar Rose had no more thoughts to offer, and for this reason (and absolutely no other, thank you very much), Maleficent elected not to murder her or her precious Prince, and instead, to get some much needed rest. She would be much happier in the end, she reminded herself groggily, if she had the patience to allow her plan to come to fruition without throwing away her chess pieces so early in the game.
Something strange awoke Fauna from her restless slumber. It was the sensation of walking in the darkness and placing one's foot where there was no ground to hold it. She awoke with a start and she could not fathom why she would have experienced such a sensation, since her feet were rooted steadfastly to the floor of Maleficent's dungeon.
Earlier (though who was to say what time of day it had been), Fauna and her sisters had been trying to impress upon Prince Philip the severity of their predicament. This was not just any old evil they were up against. The evil who ruled over all evils had set her sights on their little Rose as a means for revenge against the Eastern Kingdom. Philip's flippant attitude towards her power was exactly what had caused all this trouble in the first place. Maleficent was demonstrating her power because so many had dared to doubt it, and if Philip's need to demonstrate his carefree bravado brought any more harm upon Briar Rose, Fauna wasn't certain she'd ever be able to forgive him.
Shortly after their possibly fruitless conversation with Philip, Flora and Merryweather had gotten into another argument about whose fault all this was. They had ended the argument by refusing to speak to one another, and it was in this tense silence that Fauna had fallen asleep. Apparently so had her sisters. It seemed they, too, had been too tired to glare angrily at the walls for very long. They, like Fauna, had settled themselves into awkward sitting positions which allowed them to rest their heads against a wall, though their feet were still steadfastly rooted to the floor.
Fauna let out a small, sad sigh. Surely three magical beings who had lived without that magic for sixteen years, something she'd wager Maleficent had never done, must have learned something from that experience. Surely they could have used their wisdom, which ought to be yet another thing that their captor knew nothing about, to figure some way out of this.
But it seemed they hadn't learned anything at all. Sixteen years in the life of a fairy was not very long at all. Raising the little princess had been such a surprise and a joy and an opportunity that none of them had ever even thought possible, and the whole thing had seemed like one big game. And then the years had passed and suddenly Rose was there and not a baby anymore and their time was up and oh, sixteen years in the life of a human girl made so much difference!
Fauna had no idea how the King and Queen had managed. Rose had not even come from her own womb, and she felt as though a piece of her heart had been ripped out at the idea of losing her. They had been so certain that night, willing to do what they must to protect their daughter. They had even contained their tears while the fairy sisters were present. What must it have been like for them, wondering every day and unable to receive an answer, even a simple sign that their child was still alive?
Fauna knew that they would be overjoyed to have Rose back. Rose was, after all, a delight. She sang and cooked and cleaned with the sunniest of dispositions. She was so friendly—it was a shame that she wasn't permitted to talk to anyone. Fauna hoped that she would enjoy having people to talk to. And she would certainly have a social life once she returned to court. Everyone in the kingdom would adore her almost as much as Fauna and her sisters did.
Fauna wondered suddenly why she was so certain that they would make this mess right. They were up against Maleficent, after all. If Maleficent weren't so wrapped up in making her particular scheme come to fruition just the way she wanted it, she could be rid of every last one of them with a snap of her fingers.
Because, she thought simply, good always triumphs over evil. The kingdom is asleep, so we have time. Flora and Merryweather aren't speaking to one another, but it isn't as if that hasn't happened before, and has that ever stopped us coming up with a solution?
Flora and Merryweather actually had much in common. Their stubborn, argumentative personalities were a start. They were not fond of most animals, and though their favourite colours clashed, the shared a distaste for the colour green in any other place than what they believed to be its rightful one: leaves. Beyond that and perhaps most importantly, they believed that the good were always good and the wicked always up to no good at all.
Fauna would never have admitted it, because it was a wicked, selfish thing to think, but she was the tiniest bit glad that the two argued so often. If they had ever realized how similar they were in comparison to their middle sister, Fauna felt she would have led a very lonely life.
Fauna, for example, believed that there was good in everyone.
Prince Philip had informed Fauna and her sisters of Maleficent's most recent revision of her plan for revenge. She would keep Rose, and consequently the kingdom, asleep for a hundred years. Assuming Philip was still alive by that time, she would allow him to kiss and wake her. Then she would enjoy the tragedy of an old man in love with a young maiden who didn't know that any time at all had passed.
It was horribly cruel, to be certain, but there was one thing missing from Maleficent's revenge this time around: she didn't plan to kill Rose. Sure, it was probably because she had some other plan in store—probably something far more cruel and twisted than Fauna and her sisters could predict—but the mere fact that her goal was no longer for Rose to meet a swift and early death by her hand spelled endless possibility to Fauna. As long as Rose wasn't dead, they had a chance of saving her, truly saving her, from this whole mess.
Poor Philip still didn't know what he was in for. He was too young to really understand what it would be like to stay in this prison cell for a hundred years. And he was too confident in his abilities to take on someone like Maleficent, who was confident in her abilities for a very good reason. Fauna and her sisters would have to find a way to protect him from his own foolhardiness.