I can hardly call it a warm greeting. Flora and Merryweather glare at me with something akin to hatred in their eyes - apparently it is not impossible for Good Fairies to feel that way, after all. Fauna only looks dejected. I almost feel sorry for her. I have always thought that if she didn't have her sisters to pour all sorts of unpleasantries about me into her ears, she could have been my friend.

"Maleficent! How dare you coming back here? Haven't you done enough harm already?!"

I take the scold in stride.

"Yes, I have. In fact, I am trying to undo it."

"Do you expect us to believe that?"

"I can't force you to believe me, but I am telling the truth." I turn to the bewildered prince, who cannot seem to decide what to do. "Go ahead. Kiss her."

I turn back to the three fairies. I don't want to see him wake her, I don't want to see the kiss, I don't want to see her in his arms. I'm not very keen at looking at my enemies either, but it doesn't hurt as much.

"It didn't work. You tricked me!" the prince growls from behind me. "You are the most vicious creature I…"

"I didn't trick you." I choke out. "I swear I believed it would work." I look to Fauna. If anyone in this room is to have mercy on me, it's her. She eyes me carefully.

"I believe you," she finally says. "I don't understand why you would bother trying to undo the curse, but I do believe you."

"Well, I don't," Merryweather remarks. "Why would you ever want to undo your life's quest? Harming others is after all the only thing you live for."

No. Maybe it has been that way, but it doesn't have to stay that way. I may never be the perfectly pure-hearted, wide-eyed type, but I am capable of feelings. It has been proven to me only today. And I am capable of caring.

And I am capable of love.

Of love…

"May I try something?" I ask. I direct the question at Flora, who will be the one to answer it either way.

"Not before you tell me why you do this," she says. Her voice is firm.

"If it works, I will."

"That's not good enough. How can we be sure you won't cause even more harm?"

"Is that possible?" Fauna interrupts in a timid voice. "I can't see how."

"But she is right, Fauna." I can hear my voice tremble, threatening to fail me altogether. No. I will not cry in front of them. I simply won't. I clear my throat and try to get myself together, and this time my voice carries. "She is right. How can you be sure? Even I can't be sure. With magic this strong, who can be sure of anything?"

Flora and Merryweather look suspicious, and I don't blame them. Fauna takes a deep breath and steps forward. She looks me in the eye and nods.

"Go on, Maleficent. If you can do anything to wake the princess, do it."

"Thank you," I whisper and walk by her, up to the princess's bed. She looks so innocent. I smile when I recall that she is far from that. Oh, if I only could stay with her. I stroke her hair once more, hair of sunshine gold. How beautiful she is… and how grotesque I must look to her. It hurts to know that she will never see what she stirred inside my heart.

I lean forward and kiss her lips, gently. Someone gasps behind me, but I don't know who it is. The prince, perhaps. And at that very moment, I feel Aurora's lips respond to my kiss. It frightens me and I pull back as though she bit me rather than kissed me. And then she sits up, fully awake, and her hands grasp mine. The grasp is soft, but I have a feeling it would harden immediately if I tried to pull loose. She may look delicate, even fragile, but she is so much more than meets the eye.

"Maleficent," she says. Her eyes stare into mine but she shows no sign of repulsion or fear.

"How do you know my name?" I ask. It is a fair question.

"I know everything about you. Don't you remember? I walked with you, once upon a dream. Inside the green light. We were one."

Oh. Of course, that makes sense. Our souls melded together. What I took from her, she also took from me. She knows every last thing about me. How I lost my wings. What horrors happened to me when I was a child. My yearning to belong, and my despair when I never did. And how I cried over being the only one in the kingdom not invited to the most important gathering under king Stefan's rule. She knows I have always felt inferior, and tried to hide it behind a condescending and evil persona. She knows, and she doesn't judge. She doesn't laugh at me. And I can finally let go.

"Thank you for waking me," she says and pulls me closer. She kisses me again, and I feel tears streaming down my cheeks. "I know you are the one who cursed me. I know why. And I forgive you."

Nobody has ever forgiven me anything before. I lean against the princess's shoulder and weep like a child, a very tired child who has been through horrible things and finally is safe again, and she puts her arms around me.

"I know. I know you felt like you never belonged anywhere. But you do. You belong with me, Maleficent. Let me love you."

How brave she is to offer such a thing to someone like me. Brave or foolish. I can feel my heart open to hers, like a flower to the sun, and it frightens me. But one look into her eyes calms me; she means it. And this isn't because of a magic spell. Unless you want to call love magic, which it is. It is the greatest magic in the world. And when it strikes, apparently even Wicked Fairies surrender to it.

A/N

There. A ficlet of mine, that turned into a story, that is almost as unlikely as a fairy turning into a dragon... no, wait... ^^

I hope you have enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews make the muse happy. Thank you everyone for encouragement and cheers! Oh, and I apologise for the mistakes that doubtlessly got in here and there; I do try to spot them but since English isn't my first language, some of them slip through anyway.