Chapter Text
Different.
That's what I was. A wing-less, horned Fae born to (mostly) human parents (my parents; Queen Hermia and King Lysander were human, but somewhere in the bloodline was a Fae gene that was pure magic). I had magic and whatever mostly because of my parents' camaraderie with the true Fae and the fact that they summered on the Moors).
But yes, I was different. I had two different "friend" groups; the perfect, prissy royals that I loathed and my Faefolk family on the Moors. I preferred Fae over humans of course, so I spent any moment that wasn't spent doing something princessy on the Moors.
A rival kingdom who greatly feared magic started attempting to make our people fear me. Because of this, Mother and Father decided it best to send me away for a while so I'd be safe.
In simple terms, that meant goodbye palace, goodbye Moors, hello boarding school, hello...
Gorgeous?
Yep, gorgeous is right. My first day at the boarding school, called Merlin Academy, (fortunately, it offered magic classes), I tripped and fell into the most beautiful person to ever grace the face of the earth.
Literally, tripped and fell. It wasn't a good look for me, at all. There were a bunch of rowdy first years running around and one of them ended up tripping me and the next thing I saw was him.
"Did it hurt when you fell?" he asked as he helped me up.
"Oh, no, not really. I'm a Fae, we're made of pretty tough stuff..." I answered with a chuckle, trying not to make myself look any more foolish than I already had.
"I'm Hades, and you are?"
"Maleficent. Most people call me Mal, though. It's lovely to meet you!"
"You too."
The exchange didn't last nearly long enough, but I knew right then that my year away wouldn't be as boring as I feared.
I got roomed with a silly little fairy named Fay (who'd have guessed)? I suppose the headmaster or whoever decided who was roomed together thought "oh, they're both Faefolk, they'll get along splendidly." Not true, rooming people, not true!
Fay was a silly little girl, had never endured anything to have any grit (my one condolence was she didn't have wings either, which I didn't understand the reason for her lack). All she wanted to learn were spells to turn fruits into carts and mice into horses. Basic alchemy. I mastered that stuff as a child. I wanted to know more important things.
Like where what's-his-name hung out after school. And it didn't take me all that long to piece it together.
I found him in one of the common rooms, messing with this newfangled magic game thingy. (Who knows? We didn't have this stuff back on the Moors). He was using a sort of thing not quite like a wand to battle a girl with turquoise hair to have his little magic leprechaun thing throw a golden hoop over a peg before her little magic leprechaun thing (which were terrible likenesses, I must say. As someone who knew and was even related to quite a few leprechauns, I was offended).
The thing was, though, the game was illustrated in the air in some multi-colored glittering substance instead of on a table or whatever. We sometimes played checkers back on the Moors using basic telekinesis but this was something I'd never seen before. It was like it wasn't even there.
He glanced up, saw me, got distracted and the girl beat him in the game. He didn't seem to mind and came over to me.
"Why hello, Maleficent." he told me.
"Hello yourself." I answered. "I didn't mean to interrupt..."
"Oh, forget that, it's just a silly game. I'm glad to see you again though."
"Really?" I asked, kinda surprised.
"Yeah. And since you're here, I'd like to introduce you to my niece, Uliana." he indicated the girl with the turquoise hair. She waved at me with one hand, still invested in the glitter game.
"It's good to meet you!" she said.
"Same." Then I thought of something. "Your niece? How are you...?"
"So close in age? You wouldn't believe me if I told ya..." he shook his head as if he didn't exactly believe it either.