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She knows how it will end.
Despite what Diaval might say to the contrary, Maleficent is not blind. She catches the looks sent her way sometimes, during the long summer of Aurora’s adolescence. The admiring glances, the tentative biting of red lips, the drawn-out stares when the girl thinks Maleficent is not paying attention.
(“It’s cute.” Diaval says, amused. She hisses at him, tells him to shut his foul mouth.)
It is all and well for the raven to laugh, but it is Maleficent who has to be subjected to the stares; who has to school her face to stillness and force herself not to flush, because good grief on some level the girl is quite effective.
It is too much, she knows, and not enough. Aurora is only a child, for one thing, and the child of Stefan, for another. She has always been a curious thing; it is natural for her to be curious in this too, to push for answers, for reciprocation, for reaction.
(That tells Maleficent, more than anything, that this should not be encouraged. A face burning from fervent compliments is one thing; love, and trust, and mutual understanding, are quite another.)
So Maleficent deliberately misunderstands Aurora, replies to her awkward compliments as one unaware of the implications, and pretends not to see the hurt and disappointment. (Surely a small hurt is excusable, if it prevents one of a much larger magnitude.)
Because she knows how it will end, has known it all along.
000
Things change, Maleficent knows, and humans most of all.
Aurora is no exception. She remains a happy, bright-eyed thing, but there is a sureness in her step now, and a heaviness in her gait. She walks like one burdened; sometimes Maleficent imagines that she can almost see the weight of two kingdoms balanced on her hands, Aurora holding them in a tentative harmony.
(Sometimes she imagines burning it all down, of taking Aurora away to some abandoned castle in the wilderness; she imagines a sleeping princess, and a dragon curled up around her, like stones around a fire, and then Maleficent has to strictly talk herself down to earth.)
000
As the years pass, Aurora only grows surer in what she wants. And if Maleficent is interpreting her glances right, it seems that what she wants now is Phillip. Luckily for him, he seems to want her too.
She spies them once, in her daily trips around the moors. Curiousity stops her mid-flight, and Maleficent watches from above, as Aurora shows Phillip the proper way to ask a rose bush for the favour of a flower. Phillip’s movements are clumsy, his flattery trite, but it seems that Aurora is a patient teacher, and the young man is trusting of her wisdom.
Maleficent flies on, leaving them to their courtship. Some part of her nags that she had been the one to show Aurora that rosebush, she had told her how best to coax the flowers from it, it had been her her her.
She ignores that part fiercely.
(True love’s kiss is a fine thing for the stories to sing of; but Aurora is a princess and Phillip a prince, and Maleficent knows how these things end.)
000
“Have you replied to the northron lord about his trade terms?” Maleficent asks her, as they lie on the grass at the edges of the moors, enjoying the cool spring breeze.
Aurora shrugs, taking another bite of the apple. “I’ve written him a reply, one I think will work out for both of us, but the messenger only left last evening. I suspect I won’t hear back from them for a week, if then.”
“And if he wants better terms?” Maleficent can’t help but sound skeptical. From what she has found about the lord, the man has never been known for settling on lesser terms; and it seems his army is large enough that he hasn’t had to settle for a long time.
“He can try for them.“ Aurora’s tone is light, but somewhere underneath it there is a hint of steel, burning and unbreakable. “He will fail.”
She turns; the sunlight catches her hair just so, and her lips gleam red with the juice of the apple.
Suddenly Maleficent’s tongue seems stuck to the roof of her mouth, so dry is it.
(She knows how it will end, but it seems she hasn’t anticipated this part of it. )
000
“I’m sorry.” Aurora abruptly says to her one night, as they lie in their respective nests on adjacent branches.
Maleficent, idly playing with a straw doll, does not register the soft-spoken words at first.
“For what?” she asks, sitting up, when her brain finally catches up with her ears.
“I’ve been thinking.” Aurora’s hands are trying to twist themselves into knots again. “About the advances I made to you, when I was younger.”
Maleficent blinks, her mind taking a while to adjust and remember. “Why on earth are you bringing this up, now, of all times?”
Her tone is not encouraging; it is all but threatening Aurora to drop the subject, really, but the queen continues doggedly. “Because I shouldn’t have pursued you like that, not when it clearly made you uncomfortable.”
“Aurora-“ Maleficent begins, thinking it odd that she should feel a lot more discomfort over this now, than she had at that time. “You don’t have to, really-”
“But I want to.” Aurora insists, looking earnest and sheepish by turns. “It was kind of you to pretend not to notice, but I need to apologize formally. It’s been bothering me for quite a while now.”
She means it, Maleficent thinks faintly. She means it, this slip of a woman who rules two kingdoms and has survived a war, and who still sees Maleficent as someone good, some worth loving. Someone worth apologizing to.
“There is nothing to be sorry for.” She replies, lying back down and closing her eyes.
I’m not deserving of you.
000
It is like dragonfire, this love; sure and swift, threatening to burn down everything in its path.
She tamps it down, noting the way Phillip looks at Aurora when he thinks no one is watching, and the way that Aurora’s joy seems to intensify when he’s nearer.
(The stories don’t make much mention of dragons in this particular regard, anyways, now that she comes to think of it.)
000
“As you say, you Grace.” The man murmurs, bowing in deference. “Your father would be proud of such a bold decision.”
It is a barb, Maleficent knows, though Aurora doesn’t react in kind. Her hand twitches, the blood pounding in her ears is deafening, and she wonders why Aurora doesn’t say something.
If Maleficent has her way, she would burn them all down, raze their houses to the ground until they know what it means to tempt a dragon’s temper.
But when she moves forward, every step deliberate, Aurora only says no, and Maleficent stops in her tracks.
“A mark of the queen isn’t the crown she wears on her head.” she tells Aurora later, instead, when the last of them have left. “Or a long lineage traced out in blood and inbreeding. You’ve been a far better ruler than they deserve, and no one could ask for more. ”
Aurora’s eyes turn fierce then, and she grips Maleficent tight enough to strip the fairy of breath. Maleficent strokes her hair, pretending not to notice the hot wetness running down her shirt, as Aurora sobs into it.
(This love is crafty too; for it wants to hold Aurora, of all things; to kiss away the pain and love her, until she learns to smile again.)
000
They are all gathered in the moors, for the springtime festival, when Aurora divulges to Maleficent that Phillip has asked her to marry him.
“I’m happy for you.” Maleficent tells her. She is surprised to find that she means every word of it; true love is …true like that, it seems.
She expects Aurora to gush, to regale her with tales of her happiness. Instead, Aurora watches her tentatively, upper lip caught between her teeth. (Something that makes Maleficent shift uncomfortably, even now.)
“Will you stay with me forever?” Aurora asks her, the worry plain on her face. “Even if I won’t be able to visit the moors as often?”
Maleficent considers fervent declarations; lies; empty promises of endless devotion.
“I’ll stay with you, for as long as you want me to.” She says instead, because she won’t make a promise she can’t keep, not to Aurora.
Aurora smiles wide at that, as if that was the answer she had expected. She learns down and kisses Maleficent’s forehead gently, before skipping back to Philip.
Maleficent’s entire face seems to be burning, as she watches Philips turn to catch the running Aurora; he twirls her around in his arms, and she lets out a delighted laugh.
And Maleficent has known how it would end, and she is happy for Aurora, but she has never thought it would hurt so much.
000
Aurora demands to be married in the moors, of all things. That sets the courtiers’ tongues wagging, and it is perhaps of a mark of how much Phillip loves her, that he agrees to it at all.
And so they say their wedding vows by the river that runs through the middle of it, with Maleficent and Diaval standing in the place of their elders.
Maleficent forces herself to listen to every word that Philip recites of love and undying fidelity; she does not flinch when Aurora replies in kind, and she does not tear her gaze away when they learn forward and kiss.
In the moonlight, they both look beautiful, shining, in love. (Maleficent doesn’t know how that will end, but she imagines they will be very happy together. Perhaps not forever after, but for long enough.)
000
Long enough turns out to be five years; five years of happiness and sorrow, trust and respect, fighting and making up; all the things that comprise an enviably successful marriage.
(Looking back, it seems too short to Maleficent, even judging by the lifespan of humans.)
It happens during a routine winter patrol; the king has long been fond of going ranging with his soldiers once in a fortnight, considering it an attempt to build solidarity between the ranks.
A wrong turn through the woods, a jittery horse, and one throw from the saddle, is all it takes. His men don’t find him until hours later, and by then, the snow has proved far more effective than any enemy sword.
They march Phillip’s lifeless body back in the evening, and watching Aurora, it seems as though her happiness sets with the sun.
000
Dragons are made to destroy, not to heal. Maleficent tries, nevertheless.
Flowers fresh from the moors every morning, long flights at twilight, songs sung to the queen by the sweetest of the water fairies. Everything has bent, eventually, to her will; she flatters herself that this will be the same; that Aurora’s heart will heal in time, if Maleficent tries hard enough, if she wills it fiercely enough.
(“The human heart doesn’t work that way.” Diaval tells her sadly. Maleficent refuses to listen.)
But no amount of flowers will make a smile bloom on Aurora’s face. The many trips to the moors, the mudfights, the flights around the kingdom; they all seem to be mere distractions. The joy doesn’t reach Aurora’s eyes; her smiles die the moment her face turns from the light.
Dragons aren’t made for remonstrances or reproach, either, but Maleficent inflicts much of both on herself. If only she had been by Aurora’s side. If only she hadn’t gone flying to the saltlands that day. If only she had been in the kingdom; she could have found Phillip, could have brought him to safety.
What use is true love’s kiss, Maleficent thinks fiercely, when the woman you love whiles her mornings in joyless councils and wastes her evenings away in the crypts, mourning a husband who will never return?
000
There comes a day, though, when Aurora accepts the flowers with joy dancing in her eyes; and another day when her happiness slips only a little, as she plays in the fallen autumn leaves.
Then they come faster, the days, piling up on top of each other, too quick for Maleficent to catch up. It is more than a year until the summer returns to Aurora’s face, and another year before the smiles come easily again.
(“Thank you.” Diaval tells her, and when Maleficent asks why, “For not listening.”)
000
They have almost three years of peace - three years of sorrow, and healing, and eventual joy - before the winds of war come blowing again.
000
A stripling boy of a prince from the hinterlands, who says he seeks justice for old wounds; but Maleficent smells the stench of ambition on him, a greed willing to lay waste to the world in return for its fruition.
(That is what decides her, in the end, to fight on the side of the humans of Aurora’s kingdom.)
And so Maleficent takes to the air, assuming her dragon form as easily as other creatures breathe.
From high up in the air, she spies the prince who would be king; if dragons could smile, she would have smiled then, a thin knife of a smile.
This, she can do. This is what dragons are supposed to do; fight and burn and destroy.
000
For all his greed and arrogance, the human prince is valiant. She razes his army to the ground, sets every last stronghold on fire until she corners him on the ramparts, but his last arrow flies swift and true.
Maleficent has time for one final burst of flame, well-aimed; she drops, afterwards, like a stone through the air, blood and magic spurting out of her in great gusts of agony.
The heart, she thinks through a haze of pain, as her human form hits the ground. The bastard got the heart.
A woman’s scream goes on and on, but the rest is silence. That is soothing; silence is the messenger of peace.
Maleficent closes her eyes. Yes, she knew how it would end, all along.
But Aurora is alive, and breathing; and hale, if those loud screams are anything to judge by.
As far as endings go, that isn’t too bad.
000
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Dragons aren’t made for love, anyway, and that woman is still screaming.
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000
Maleficent blinks, and there is sunlight, incessant cawing, and a drawn-out sigh of relief.
The corner of her mouth tingles, and she looks up, into blood red lips framed by golden hair.
“It’s the strongest thing in the world, isn’t it?” Aurora asks her then, eyes glinting with unshed tears. “You weren’t breathing, and I was desperate and well, I had to try, didn’t I?”
--The End--