Aurora stared unseeingly at her night-kissed kingdom. Her kingdom? No, it still didn't feel like it, and she wasn't sure it ever would…
I know I am to be married to Phillip, and I couldn't be happier, but Ulstead… is not my home. Phillip is, but not his entire kingdom. There was an ache in her chest, a hollow hole in her heart, and it sang and cried out for the Moors. Hmph. How funny. How many servants of the castle have asked if I ever felt a yearning ache for the human world, the life that I left behind at birth, but they have it all wrong, all backwards…
Aurora shook her head, and a few tears finally slipped down her cheeks. There was no going home. Not so long as Maleficent was this mad. But oh, how it hurt, how it stung! No daughter wished to displease her mother so deeply that she was disowned. Aurora would not deny the fury she felt at what Maleficent did to poor King John, but all she wanted was her mother's arms and wings wrapped protectively and comfortingly around her again. The cruelest irony was that Maleficent was the last person she could turn to, and the very one that hurt her in the first place.
Ashes to ashes, Aurora thought bitterly. Tension was rising between Ulstead and the Moors every single day. So much death, destruction, and despair… Had the two races learned nothing of what came of fighting one another incessantly? A field of Tomb Blooms filled her mind, and she prayed that Maleficent's would never be among the lot. She also thought of phoenixes, legendary creatures of death and rebirth. Why couldn't her and Maleficent's story have ended like that? It's how we began, after all…
Maleficent came into Aurora's life in a burst of green fire, and from enemies to family they went over the years. They were reborn thanks to one another, eyes opened to see another way of living. Maleficent's broken heart finally began to heal, and Aurora saw a life beyond her tiny cottage with her three beloved—albeit ditzy—aunties. Nurture overcame nature. Then the green fire came back the night Maleficent cursed King John, and all that remained in Aurora's memory were the ashes and acrid smoke, the only trace of Maleficent after she fled into the night. Was nature stronger?
ooo
"M-M-Maleficent? MALEFICENT?!" The name was strange on her tongue, but in the midst and heat and chaos of battle, she knew that merely crying for her mother would not work. She could only hope and pray that they saw one another again before anything serious happened.
Oh, mother, I'm so, so sorry… This is all my fault! Searching frantically through the screaming and fighting humans and fairies, the smoke and red dust blinding her, she stumbled across the courtyard and struggled to keep her bearings. Where was Maleficent?! Oh, please, please, please! If there is any sort of deity or higher power out there, please! Let me see my mother again! I- I- I have to… apologize…! Don't let me die too soon… Or her!
With every knight and fairy that was slain right before her, Aurora's own sense of mortality cut her deeper and deeper to the bone. How much longer did she have before she died? And would she have a chance to see her mother again before that?
I want to make amends! We cannot die like this! Her stomach pitched at the thought of her mother being caught in one of those bloody clouds of dust. Spurred on by fear and love, she ran faster and faster, head whipping around frantically as she continued to cry and cry out.
"M-M-Maleficent? MALEFICENT?!" Mother! MOTHER! She couldn't see, the dust was blinding. Please! Don't let any of it be her! Not yet! Not when I still have so much to tell her! So much to apologize for… I love her! I love my mama… And I just want to see her again… One more time…?
More explosions shook the ground and more red dust filled the air. Aurora was terrified and alone, but on she raced, frantic and desperate. It was a race against time, but how much time was left?
ooo
"STOP!" It was the first word out of Aurora's mouth that wasn't a desperate cry for her mother. It was a desperate cry to her mother. "Stop!" she pleaded, panting and tearful, flinging herself between the two queens, one black and one white, one good and one evil. Aurora may have been dressed in white, but it was the black queen she faced, pled with. "I'm sorry I doubted you, but this isn't you!"
Like the inhuman creature she was, Maleficent lost all sense of reason. She snarled and growled threateningly at Aurora like a wild animal.
Aurora, however, was undeterred. Just like so many years before, when she was only a toddler, she was the only human unafraid of the Mistress of All Evil. "There's another way! I know who you are!" I know you, we shared many "once upon a dream"s… "I KNOW you!"
Maleficent locked eyes with Aurora, burning red-gold meeting wet, tearful blue. That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam. And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem… "You do not."
Choking up, Aurora could only stare helplessly into Maleficent's eyes as she nodded and sobbed quietly. But if I know you, I know what you'll do… "Yes… I do…" Her voice broke, and she had to pause.
You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.
Clearing her throat quietly, Aurora forced the words out that she'd wanted to say for so, so long. "Y-you're… You're my mother!" Mama…
Some of the fire in the phoenix's eyes extinguished, and Maleficent returned. Just in time to see iron. Iron pointed at her daughter. An arrow with a deadly tip. The last time Maleficent felt so afraid was the last time Aurora pricked herself on a razor-sharp tip of iron.
No… NO! There was a reason Ingrith's words incited so much rage in Maleficent at the dinner table.
"I consider Aurora my own!" No… NO! NO ONE was going to take Aurora away from Maleficent!
She is MY daughter! All I have! All I have ever had! Ingrith was a queen with everything. She had a king, a son, a beautiful castle in the sunlight, and a legion of loyal subjects and soldiers. She could've had anything she wanted, so why did she have to take what was Maleficent's?!
Well, she wouldn't. Not now, or ever again!
ooo
Aurora was biologically human, but the sound she made when her mother died protecting her, died right in front of her, was inhuman. Even the most fearsome creature of the Moors would've shuddered at the noises and screams she made as she sobbed and fell to her knees.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, nothing left behind, save iron and rust…
"NOOOOO!" It wasn't just a scream, but a howl, the cry of a Moorish mourner, and heaven knew they had plenty to grieve. The pain in Aurora's chest, her entire body, was unspeakable. She'd made amends with her mother before either of them were struck down, but that made Maleficent's sudden death all the more agonizing. They'd just made up! Were so close to reunion! Maleficent was just beginning to reconsider, had smiled…
Now it was gone! All gone! "NOOOOO!" Aurora screamed and sobbed again, humanity slipping away with her mother. She buried her hands helplessly in the ash and dust and rust, all that remained of her once proud, whole mother. Once a body with wings and horns, powerful and strong, she was reduced to nothing. She slipped through Aurora's fingers as Aurora frantically struggled to pick up the pieces and preserve therm. That was all that she had left of her mother. No other memories or mementos or memorabilia. Just ashes and dust, iron and rust.
No, no, no, nonononono! Mama! Mama! What am I supposed to do?! What am I supposed to do now?! What am I supposed to do without YOU?! She was almost too afraid to pick up any of the remains of her mother, lest they blow away in the wind, truly to never return again. All she could do was run her fingers through what once used to be the woman whose hugs she so adored, more than anything in all the world. That was all that was left of her, and Aurora had no idea what to do except trace her trembling hands desperately over the ash again and again. All she wanted was to hold—and be held by—her mother. But how did one embrace—or be embraced by—nothing but a pile of ash, dust, iron, and rust?
Ingrith was speaking, but Aurora couldn't hear her over the sound of her own sobbing. Then grief slowly turned to rage and hatred. A wave of fury washed over her such that Aurora had never felt before, and her entire body tensed up, filling with fire. She could tackle Ingrith right off the side of the tower… Kill them both… Avenge her mother and reunite with her in one fell swoop… It was a good idea… She had no one there to talk her out of it now… And she just didn't care anymore.
Finally Aurora looked up into the eyes of the Mistress of All Evil, a Moorish monster born in the wake of her mother's death. Her own eyes filled with an animalistic hunger for vengeance. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Soon, nothing would be left of any of them, save for iron and rust…
AN: My family and I kinda laughed at the Maleficent death scene just bc it's such a predictable Disney thing at this point to have a heroic sacrifice wherein the victim is immediately resurrected like 5 mins later, but I have to say, that really should've been a really sad scene. I mean, if I watched MY mom get shot and killed in front of me while trying to protect me, I would probably do what Aurora almost did and fling myself at Ingrith to knock us both off the tower.