"So, just so you know, I've changed a lot, and I'm not the same person, okay?" The Fairy Godmother didn't want to be judged and knows that her past attitudes were odious to say the least. "Years ago, in Fairyland a fairy was born, but she was unlike any other fairy we had ever seen. My sister was traveling when this child was born, but she and I could see the future, and when I saw this little fairy's future, I feared for us all."

"What was this fairy like?"

Mal asks innocently.

"Did she become a famous fairy?"

Evie asks, treating the whole thing like a history lesson.

"Like Tinkerbell?"

Ben asks. Helena waits a while to be sure of how she should speak. She looks mainly at the queen and feels a chill run through her body.

"She was your mother, Mal."

"What?"

The question asked by Mal was asked earlier, while she was looking distractedly at her boots. However, now that she has heard what Fairy Godmother has just said, she turns her eyes to her, still not believing what she has heard.

"Your mother. She was born without wings, a pair of frightening horns, her skin was green, as were her eyes, which were like two emeralds." Mal listened dumbfounded and just didn't say anything, because she couldn't say anything in the face of this information. "She appeared in a huge tree and the crows who lived there began to look after her, because we feared her too much to help her. Believe me, I really regret my past." The Fairy Godmother is embarrassed to say what she wishes was just a blurred shadow of her past. "When Nanny came back from her trip…"

"Nanny?"

Jay interrupted her, not recognizing that name from the story.

"It's my sister's name, The One of Legends, is how the others know her. She's Nanny to me. Anyway, when Nanny saw the little girl, she fell in love immediately and even though she knew the future, she helped the child and took her home to look after her. My sister treated Maleficent like her own daughter. Her mother Mal was a very intelligent and powerful fairy, which is probably why we can't see her as just a fairy. Nanny also brought her up very well, so there must be some other reason. Maleficent new more magic than many fairies at a very young age, which is why she left Fairy School early."

"Wait a minute, are you saying that Maleficent, the Mistress of Evil, had a mother? And she loved her? How?"

Carlos asks what's on everyone's mind, they just haven't asked out of respect for Mal, who still can't define how she's feeling.

"You don't know Nanny, she's the kindest fairy I know."

Rashid says, which makes Helena a little jealous.

"Yes, she is." The Fairy Godmother smiles involuntarily. "Maleficent grew up with love and care, but nothing prevents the future from being fulfilled." That part wouldn't be leaving Mal's thoughts any time soon. "Some things happened when she turned sixteen. From then on, things went as you know them, Maleficent became the worst person you'd ever met and years later she cursed Aurora."

The Fairy Godmother told all or part of the story and when everyone expected an explosive reaction from Mal, she remained silent.

"Mal?"

Evie asked, apprehensive at her friend's disturbing silence.

"What happened to her when she turned sixteen?"

Mal asks, still perplexed by the whole story that seemed to have been made up.

"I think she should tell you that."

The Fairy Godmother says with a smile.

"She?"

The queen looks at the Fairy Godmother and Rashid, who smile at each other.

"Your grandmother. She's waiting for you upstairs."

Rashid said, knowing that the fairy was in the castle.

The queen hadn't expected that, she was silent and thoughtful for a few minutes, but then she got up from the couch and went out into the corridors.

"Mal."

Ben tried to call out, but she was already walking.

"Leave her, Ben, it's important to do this alone."

Evie warned him. The subject of Maleficent and anything to do with maternal feelings affects her friend and, as such, is treated as a matter of the utmost importance.

(...)

Mal's thoughts wander from the little lizard trapped in an isolated room to everything she's heard in the last few minutes. It's hard to see that the woman she's spent sixteen years of her life with is the same character in the story she's just heard. She has to stay calm, but it's hard. She takes a deep breath and holds back her tears before opening the door.

As soon as she plucked up the courage and turned the knob, she saw a lady sitting on the edge of the bed and Jane next to her. She looked like the same woman who had offered her an apple earlier.

"I'm going to see Mommy." Carlos' girlfriend kissed the woman on the cheek and left her alone with Mal.

"See you later, darling." Jane left the room, earning a smile from her friend. Nanny then smiled and got up to go to Mal. She had dreamed of this moment for so many years, and now she didn't know what to do. "Wow, you look a lot like her." She stares at Mal. Except for her purple hair, she is identical to Maleficent.

"I haven't heard this in many years."

It's true, since she arrived in Auradon years ago, no one compares her or says she looks like her mother.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Nanny."

The fairy looks like a Fairy Godmother, but her hair is white, her smile is that of a lovely person, her cheekbones are as rosy as ever. Her blue eyes are watering and in front of her granddaughter she tries to keep her posture, even though it would be incredibly difficult without her wings. Anyway, she looks like a nice lady who bakes cookies for her grandchildren.

"Mal."

The queen shakes her hand politely, but she's not sure how to behave.

"My name is a bit different, if you want to call me like the others, that's fine."

Nanny is nervous, and she's not one to be shy around anyone.

"Nanny is fine with me, if you knew my name, you wouldn't complain."

Says the last part more quietly.

"Maleficent is a nice name, but I admit that Mal is better." As Mal already suspected, the lady knew her name and not just part of it. "If you will excuse me, I need to sit down." She said, referring to sitting on the bed.

"Sure, go ahead."

Her back was aching and Mal accompanied her, sitting down in front of her.

"I think you have several questions for me."

Nanny assumed.

"A quite a few."

"Well, I'll answer as many as I can."

Mal still avoided eye contact and as much as she understood it, Nanny wanted to look at her.

"So, you looked after my mom?"

That's the first question. Every story Helena tells still seems to be made up.

"Yes, from the moment I saw her in the crow tree until I was sixteen, she lived with me."

"Why?"

"She wasn't the woman you knew, Mal."

Nanny clarifies. Mal knew one Maleficent, and Nanny had another one in her heart.

"No, not that, why stay with her? The Fairy Godmother said she knew what would happen in the future."

Mal couldn't understand why someone would intentionally get close to his mother.

"I thought I could change what was written. Maybe I was wrong, but I wouldn't change anything. I didn't take care of your mother with the intention of saving a kingdom, I just listened to my heart." She confessed, leaving Mal stunned that there was someone other than her who wanted Maleficent's good. "I did, she's my daughter, my sweet Maleficent. Next question?"

"Fairy Godmother told me that something happened to her when she turned sixteen, what was it?"

"Well, you know how people hate what's different, right? Maleficent suffered a lot for that, for being different. When fairies turn sixteen, they are at their most powerful. The same thing happened to you. When you turned sixteen, your powers really started to show, too." Mal nods. "It was no different with her. Your mother wanted to pass the wish-granting test, she didn't have to, but she wanted. She was very attached to her crows, she loved them too much, and on the day of the exam she was worried that her favorite hadn't come home." Years have passed and Nanny still remembering that day. Mal couldn't understand why the lady looked so sad and vulnerable. "She was doing very well, but out of nowhere the world collapsed. Those fairies." She was referring to Fauna, Flora and Merryweather. "They and most of the Fairyland filled her head so much with the idea that she wasn't a fairy that she couldn't take it."

"I'm sorry if I'm being rude, but I'm not sure if I understand."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know how hard it would be to remember." Mal was about to say that he didn't need to keep talking. "No, I can go on. It was my fault, I should have told her about what I saw in the future, but I wanted her to understand that I never saw her as a dark fairy." The girl is astonished, as she has never seen anyone defend the worst villain in the world. "It all happened quickly, we wanted to know where Diaval were, their crows, the fairies started accusing her by saying terrible things, someone said something about the future and her being evil, plus we were inside the wish-granting exam. The magic inside her went into massive overload. Maleficent turned into a dragon and destroyed Fairyland. After that, she disappeared for years and when she came back… Mal, forgive me, but I don't think your mother would like to talk about her past."

"My mom's just a lizard now, and I don't know if she wants to talk to me much."

It's definitely too much for your imagination. It's too much for her to be the daughter of the Mistress of Mal, and it took her a while to accept that, now she also has to be the daughter of this person she's just met.

"Knowing your mother, I know that certain things, if she hasn't told you, are better kept secret."

Nanny tries to agree with her daughter, even if even her existence was hidden from her granddaughter.

"And what was she like before she became the Mistress of Mal and wished for the end of the world?"

Mal feels at least minimally able to listen anymore now.

"Beautiful, Maleficent is the best daughter you could wish for. Clever, did you know she learned the teleportation spell before anyone else thought of it? She changed color according to her mood." She laughed, remembering. "If she was nervous, or angry, or even worried, she turned white, almost lavender and when she was dying of anger…"

"Green." Mal says, remembering her mother: "Once she said she was born green, and I was the one who took her natural color. When she got furies, she'd turn lemon green and…"

"Then her eyes started to shine…"

Nanny could spend hours talking about her little girl.

"Yeah, that's exactly it."

"She loved her crows so much, I had to put the tree in the backyard. She loved to read, she read all the books on my bookshelf. Maleficent knows so much about magic, it's amazing. Of all the hundred spells in one book, she knew seventy of them, and she liked pies, she loved pies."

"Really? The Maleficent I know isn't much of a cook."

Her mother didn't even know how to open the fridge.

"Hey, she ate the pies, she didn't bake them."

The two smiled like best friends.

"And you knew about me?" Mal got straight to the point. "Did you know that my mother had a daughter?"

This is one of the questions she wanted to ask the most, because it seems that the woman in front of her is her family too. Mal asks, but is afraid to hear the answer.