Maleficent Beauty 

Love is a bitch. In this case, a bitch with a long black cape and an exceptional pair of horns on her head.

“Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!” Prudence exclaimed as she began to surface from her trance.

“What is it Pru? What did the sight bring you? What did you see?” Juniper asked, excited as ever.

“Give her breathing room, you know she’s always skittish at the end of a trance.” Sybyl scolded.

“It can’t be right. It mustn’t be!” Prudence babbled, slowly regaining her bearings in the present. Returning from the future was always disorienting. Like having a Monday off from work, waking up on Tuesday and expecting it to be the day before for the rest of the week. But then, so much of sorcery was disorienting. All things topsy-turvy, you never quite got used to it. Or at least Prudence hadn’t. Sybyl, it didn’t seem to bother her. And their youngest sister, even as a child, she’d never been phased by it.

“Oh!” Prudence exclaimed again. Her senses touching ground as the image of her youngest sister jolted her conscious mind. “Sybyl, Juniper! It’s too awful!”

The two women stooped to comfort her as she struggled to sit up on the chaise longue where she always reclined during her trances. The three of them were in a candlelit chamber, well furnished, comfortable by any standard of it’s day.

“Did you see who it was Pru? Was it Prince Philip? Wouldn’t that be romantic? If the princess actually married the man she was to share true love with? Wouldn’t it be? Was it Philip?” Juniper urged.

“Stop prattling. Give her air, get her a glass of water.” Sybyl ordered.

“Wouldn’t it be romantic though?” Juniper sighed as she scurried off to fetch the pitcher. Sybyl could be so sharp tongued when she was anxious. Juniper felt that if she were to be less than charitable she might say that she was almost bossy. But then, eldest siblings often are.

“It’s not!” Prudence shook her head, near hysterical.

“Well, spit it out then!” Sybyl encouraged her. “It can’t be that bad and it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“Oh, but Sybyl,” Prudence whined. “It is! The Princess Aurora’s true love, it’s Maleficent!”

A collective gasp escaped the two sisters standing nearby. A loud crash further punctuated their astonishment. Glass and water spilled across their feet and the stones of the floor as the pitcher shattered, unnoticed. The sisters stood frozen, eyes wide, ears unbelieving.

The first signs of movement were Sybyl’s eyes narrowing. She managed to speak through tight lips and gritted teeth.“What - did - you - say?”

“In the vision, the Princess Aurora’s true love...”

“Stop!” Sybyl exclaimed. “It’s wrong. You saw the wrong thing.”

“But that isn’t possible. You know it.” Prudence protested, indignant. “It was clear in the vision, I saw their hearts...”

“Stop now! Do you hear me?” Sybyl shouted. “We will bring this abomination no closer to reality. To speak of it only increases it’s material veracity. She may even sense it, the atrocious she-daemon. The last thing we need right now is her showing up in a puff of smoke.”

“But Maleficent prefers green protoplasm.” Juniper noted.

Sybyl turned and glared at her sister, once again irritated by her habit of noting the ludicrously obvious and irrelevant. The problem with younger siblings was that their minds, forever clouded by minutiae, were incapable of grasping the complexity of events and their place in the larger scheme of things. And then there was the added detail that Juniper was a half wit. It was fortunate that Sybyl grasped the extent of the crisis that faced them. She worried for the safety of the realm should anything happen to her, they’d never manage without her, of that she was certain. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Think, think, think... What can we do?” she thought aloud.

“Do?” Prudence asked. “There’s nothing we can do. Maleficent is a sorceress, as powerful as we are...” Prudence paused at the look of fire that burned at her from her elder sister’s eyes. Sybyl would never accept openly that the youngest of her sister’s powers had grown so strong. Too strong. It was bad enough that she was a walking abomination.

“Stronger than Juni and I... I, I mean... And in any case, none of us could cast a spell on her as we could on the princess or any prince.”

“True.” Sybyl begrudged. “Still, we have time.” And they did. One of the benefits of being a sorceress with an eye plugged into the future was that it gave you a jump on things. The Princess Aurora, the focus of their concern and magical attention, wouldn’t be born for another eight months.

They used their time wisely. In those eight months they crafted a series of spells in secret. One of the spells was unique, would be extremely powerful and difficult to implement. Sybyl was more pleased with this spell than with any of her previous work. There was nothing like it, had never been anything like it. And given the manner in which it would be cast, never would be again.

The three sister’s, fairy godmother’s all to the soon to be born Princess Aurora, stood in their secret airy in the highest tower of the castle, preparing to cast the spells that would safe guard Aurora and the realm.

“Could it be...,” Prudence began tentatively. “Is there a possibility, that what we’re doing is wrong?”

“Wrong?” Juniper asked. “We’re performing our duty. How can that be wrong? For generations our family has safeguarded the royal family.”

“Well, yes, yes, I know, but I mean, true love...”

“Are you saying that we ought to let this innocent girl fall into the hands of that deviant?” Sybyl was fully confident of her ability to manipulate Prudence’s over-cautious, ever-unsure character. She’d done it for years.

“Now Sybyl, she is still our sister.”

“Only by an accident of birth.”

“You don’t mean that!” Prudence scolded.

“I do. Look at her! She cavorts with the powers of darkness. Lures young women to that vile excuse of a castle. Uses them and casts them off. She wears horns on her head for heavens sake! What more proof do you need that she’s unfit for civil society? Do you want Aurora to be under her influence? Aurora will be queen one day. Do you want Maleficent to wield that kind of power?”

The other two sisters didn’t have to think the last question over. They shook their heads adamantly. They’d learned, as children, that Maleficent and power were a bad combination. Their youngest sister had always been willful and some might say spiteful as a girl. Juniper certainly would. When Maleficent had had the opportunity, she’d lashed out in creative and often cruel ways against her elder siblings. Juniper, being the slowest of the three, had often bore the brunt of Maleficent’s vindictive and foul turns of mind.

Still, there had been moments in their childhood when they’d gotten along. Rare moments, brief moments, but they had occurred. They usually ended with a fight, some small incident would spark the natural enmity that lurked just below the surface between the eldest and youngest sibling.

Sybyl had felt vindicated and justified in her loathing of her sister when Maleficent finally began to exhibit the deviant tendencies that Sybyl had anticipated from the start. Sybyl viewed her prescience in this matter as further proof of her superior powers of sight and the budding of her own awesome magical talent.

Adolescence is the age that separates the wheat from the chaff in the world of sorcery. A talent grows or fizzles on the vine there. One day a precocious sorceress, the next a simple peasant. Happened all of the time. Though it was less likely in a family like theirs. The sisters were heirs to a long line of ancient sorcery. It burned strong and ran deep in their veins.

In adolescence, Sybyl had far outstripped Prudence and Juniper's powers. She was fond of demonstrating this by levitating them and sometimes perpetrating less innocent displays, but they had only been in fun. The day Maleficent had levitated Sybyl, however, the fun had ended. It was Maleficent’s thirteenth birthday. Sybyl was in her early twenties at the time.

It wasn’t long after that that Maleficent began to pursue avenues of magic that the others hadn’t explored. Wouldn’t explore. Knew better than to explore. Decent young sorceress’ didn’t cavort with the powers of darkness. And if they did, they didn’t let anyone find out about it. Not if they expected to be received into wider society they didn’t. But Maleficent never showed an interest in society at all. Not what you’d call normal society.

Not long after Maleficent turned 15, she began to dress all in black. Their parents, who’d adopted a laid back approach in parenting their talented charges, finally stepped in. A young sorceress in all black was usually a bad sign. They’d taken the young Maleficent to a sorceress counselor, but their headstrong daughter had rebelled. This was when the signature horns had shown up. Two, dark, twisting, horns that she wore on a tight fitting headdress. These were to became a reviled and feared symbol throughout the kingdom.

Soon after her sixteenth birthday Maleficent announced that she would be moving into her own castle. Not long after the move, rumors began in the village of a figure, cloaked in darkness, seducing the young women off into the night.

Maleficent was a deep disappointment and a perpetual embarrassment to her family through the years. Her exploits were the topic of many a courtly conversation. Her sisters, all respectable women who had worked hard in the service of their king and kingdom, found it difficult to bear the strain of such an accursed kinship.

Stories abounded of Maleficent’s lewd, debauched and outrageous behavior. The prim, often sheltered women of the court reached for their smelling salts at the mere mention of her name. No one doubted for a moment that Maleficent was the shadowy figure responsible for the twilight seductions of the young village women. And if they had, the tales of beguilement and necromancy the women told the next day erased the lingering uncertainty.

The sisters noted that these maids, who claimed all manner of spell binding and enchantment by the dark sorceress, had not exhibited signs of being influenced by anything more otherworldly than their own lust. This knowledge did nothing to diminish the sisters’ distaste and disgust. The villagers, not gifted with the sisters’ abilities to discern such things, believed Maleficent a truly powerful force of darkness capable of bending a person’s will to her whim. Which, as it turned out, was the truth. So the fact that the maids had gone willingly to the sorceress’ castle was practically irrelevant. It was to Maleficent in any case, who could have cared less what the lot of them put together thought about anything in general, and her in particular.

And if all of these things weren’t bad enough... if the insults had not been added, then multiplied to the sisters’ injuries, there was the matter of Maleficent’s all female personal guard. Her Sapphic Guard. Ten large, strapping women in matching leather and black enameled armor who escorted her everywhere. Needlessly, since by the age of twenty, Maleficent could have fried the entire village with a nasty look. The escort, Maleficent claimed, was an aesthetic statement. One more thing her family could have lived without.

Though Maleficent’s behavior was certainly beyond the pale, her presence menacing and her power awesome, she was not violent. In the main, she kept to herself and a small group of friends, made occasional forays into the villages of the kingdom, and interrupted the odd family function to remind them that they weren’t rid of her however much they would have liked to be.

When their parents passed away, together, as many sorcerized couples did, Maleficent attended the funeral. The three sisters, by then having taken over their parent’s roles as advisors to the royal family, with Sybyl as chief counsel, barely acknowledged their notorious sibling, who they were convinced had all but escorted their parents to an early grave.

In their secret castle aerie, the sisters’ prepared themselves for a long evening of vigorous spell work.

“Oh Sybyl,” Prudence whined as she stretched her arms. “I know Maleficent's always been... difficult. But she isn’t the only party involved here. What we’re doing has vast implications. What about Prince Philip? He’s destined to marry a peasant girl. We’ll be altering that course of events as well.”

“Prudence, you worry too much.” Sybyl said as she rolled her neck and shook her shoulders. “Besides, it’s hardly appropriate for Princes to go cavorting with the peasantry.”

“Oh, but how romantic!” Juniper exclaimed, hopping in place.

“Romance is rarely practical and is politically useless.” Sybyl replied. “Sisters!” She exclaimed, cutting off further debate. “The time is upon us, let the casting begin.”

With an excited hop forward, Juniper entered a chalk circle that had been drawn onto the flagstones of the sparse chamber. She placed her feet carefully to either side of one corner of the triangle drawn within. As she did, the chalk dust of the triangle began to glow near her feet, ever so gently. Sybyl followed her. As she placed her feet to either side of her triangle corner the chalk began to glow in earnest. A quiet, sizzling noise accompanied the growing light. Prudence hesitated, then sighed and joined her siblings.

A pulsing glow illuminated the room as the three sisters stood within the circle and held hands. They smiled at one another, taking a moment to enjoy the sensation of the powerful energy that flowed between them. It was always a pleasant interval, and never having had sex, they believed that this feeling was as good as it got. And perhaps on that night it was close. For it was the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month, twelve days before the birth of the Princess Aurora. A very powerful night indeed. Spells cast by three, joined by blood, in perfect unison, on such an auspicious night - nothing could break such spells.

The first test of the spells came a year later when the baby Aurora, swaddled in an ornate gown, was christened. A holiday was declared and the princess was presented to the populace for the first time. It was a grand occasion. People came from near and far to pay their respects to their future queen. One guest in particular was watched with a wary eye. Well, several wary eyes.

Maleficent had materialized in the midst of the reception in a froth of green protoplasmic fire - understated, but with a hint of menace. She was quite pleased with the effect. So were many of the guests whose eyebrows and tapestries had been singed once too often by Maleficent's more fiery, theatrical entrances.

The sorceress glanced at the small, squirming bundle in King Stephen’s protective embrace, noted that it looked cheerful in its ignorance, deemed it sufficiently unthreatening, and left.

Many years passed in the kingdom. They were uneventful, save for two glaring exceptions.

King Stephen, noting Maleficent’s attendance of the christening and her inspection of his daughter, decided that the youngest of the sorceress sisters was a threat to his realm. He acted against the adamant counsel of the other sisters by sending troops to attack Maleficent in her castle. She sent them back to him, their bodies neatly packed into wagons drawn by the magically animated bodies of their own dead horses. The king, never the brightest ruler, tried other methods, periodically, all of them ending in a similarly ghastly manner.

The second exception pertained to the sorceress herself. Aside from her response to King Stephen’s unsuccessful attempts to evict her from her home and life in general, Maleficent was notably quiet. It was an unnerving quiet that enveloped the towering peaks and turrets of her forbidden estate. She did not appear at any family function and there were no sightings of her in any of the villages. King Stephen pronounced his campaign against her a victory. He’d had to lower his expectations from termination to containment, but he was satisfied nonetheless.

Despite the lack of activity on Maleficent’s part, there was no mistaking that she was still in the castle. A black, stormy atmosphere clung to the precipitous cliffs and spires of her lair. Clouds roiled and lightening flashed, but they made no sound. Nothing good could come of such a long and ominous stretch of silence.

At least, Maleficent was planning that nothing good would come of it. Her silence was the by product of an emotion. A difficult to pin down, swiftly changing, black, creeping emotion that had penetrated the sorceress’ heart and worked a spell of its own.

Maleficent had never been an easy going, laid back sort of person. She was a headstrong individual, determined first and foremost to live life on her own terms. No one else’s terms had suited her.

Since her youngest days she’d been adamantly opposed to submitting to anyone, to anything. This was the root of the problem she’d always had with her eldest sister, Sybyl. Just the thought of her self-righteous sibling made Maleficent sneer with disgust. She couldn’t fathom why it was so difficult for others to see what had been so clear to Maleficent from the first. Sybyl was one big, giant suck-up.

At seven, Maleficent could recite the entire Canterbury spell book from memory. Had that impressed her siblings and parents? No. Sybyl, who still probably couldn’t stumble through the more complex incantations with book in hand, had won the Miss Sorceress competition for the kingdom that year. Big whoopie fucking do. Maleficent could have transmogrified the entire contestant pool into a sticky mass of smelly goo. As a matter of fact, when she’d turned Miss Minnie, the pageant runner up from the Magic Kingdom of Dinsley’s hair into a blazing fire cone, Maleficent’s parents had spelled her out.

Maleficent spent a lot of her childhood spelled out. Being spelled out was challenging for a young sorceress who relied heavily on her powers for retaliatory purposes. Being spelled out meant that your powers were suspended for an indefinite period of time. It was a method used by some sorcerer parents to discipline their more unruly charges.

It taught Maleficent an important lesson, one she never forgot. It became her guiding principle. Never, ever, be weak enough to be overpowered. And while it remained her guiding principle it was hardly necessary because everything changed when Maleficent turned thirteen and hit her stride.

At thirteen Maleficent felt her body flood with a heady sensation. It didn’t take her long to figure out that that sensation was an ancient stream of magic that had sprung up from deep within her being. Bundled with this new power came an added benefit of sight. It was different from the sight that her sister Prudence was gifted with. This was insight and the young sorceress needed all of it she could get to help guide herself through what would have been a truly difficult transition for any young woman.

Maleficent’s parents and siblings couldn’t understand this transformation, and in any case, she hadn’t felt the need to explain it. She already knew they wouldn’t care. They were too preoccupied with Sybyl, who was being prepared to assume the position of King’s Chief Counsel. Heaven forbid Maleficent interfere with such a bothersome revelation as having felt the fiber of existence move across the sensitive pads of her finger tips or having seen the subtle colors of life’s energy as they whizzed and crackled through the atmosphere.

She held her tongue. She withdrew. She moved away from her family and lived apart. She found several people, some living, some not, whom she felt she could talk to and share something worthwhile. But mainly she kept to herself and was satisfied.

From time to time she appeared among her family. Perhaps for no other reason than to remind Sybyl that she was not the most powerful. To see her sisters cowed by Sybyl, watching them supplicate themselves to her false prowess made Maleficent want to regurgitate her last meal. Which was why she never ate before or during a family visit. The final and most egregious insult in Maleficent’s eyes was to watch her sisters, all of them competent sorceresses in their own rights, bow to the puny, impotent King Stephen when they could easily take the realm for themselves. As Maleficent soon would.

This urge for conquest was inextricably linked to a creeping, inky darkness that had seeped within the walls of her heart. Not long after Maleficent had first set eyes on the Princess Aurora, whispery tendrils of this darkness had begun to embrace that oft neglected, yet still responsive organ.

By the time King Stephen sent his first offensive strike against the sorceress she had already sequestered herself in the vast catacombs of her castle library. There, she’d begun to study in earnest.

Maleficent’s powers grew yet again as she absorbed information from the vast holdings of her magical library. With the exception of one or two breaks to enjoy one of the realm’s classic authors, the years were a marathon absorption of knowledge.

Her scholarly efforts paid off. Maleficent barely had to lift her head from a text to snuff any assault King Stephen made on her domain. Knowledge, in her case, was certainly a deadly form of power.

A day arrived that could have been like so many others, but wasn’t. On that day, Princess Aurora, now grown, would be engaged to Prince Philip. Maleficent stood, stretched her back, gave an elegant roll to her shoulders, smiled a self-satisfied and indulgent smile and let out a rich peel of laughter. It reverberated against the bookcases that reached high into the vaulted chamber. Before the sound had fully played out, she’d dematerialized into her signature froth of green protoplasmic fire.

In the brightly lit, pleasantly cheerful reception hall of King Stephen’s palace, a celebration was under way. There were many guests enjoying fine food and wine to the accompaniment of a lively musical ensemble. King Stephen introduced his daughter who, until that day, had lived a quiet, somewhat secluded life within the palace walls.

Aurora was a bright-eyed and intelligent young woman, fair-skinned and fair-haired. She greeted her guests, her future subjects, with poise and grace. She stood at her father’s side, awaiting the arrival of their most anticipated guest, her soon to be husband, Prince Philip. He was a man who was handsome, valiant and true, or so she’d been told.

As the reception continued on, the gathering was infused with a genial, light energy. Aurora took her first independent steps, trying out her newfound mingling skills. Her parents watched with pride from their thrones as their daughter charmed her way into the hearts of the realm. They acknowledged that even though the young woman would one day be the absolute ruler of the realm, it never hurt to be liked. The three sorceress sisters looked on with pride as well. They had spent the years preparing Aurora for this moment and the rest of her life. They’d been surrogate parents to the young woman - giving her the guidance and training she’d need to be an affective ruler. They sighed, watching the promising beginning of what would surely be a brilliant reign.

A quiet crackling noise began to filter through the cheerful voices that filled the space of the hall. It seemed to move about, racing through the gathering until all were aware of its prickling, insistent presence. It concentrated itself in the center of the room and spiralled into a pillar of flame. Green flame.

“Oh no!” Juniper gasped. “Not now.”

Maleficent stood tall in the center of the room facing the thrones. King Stephen and Queen Penelope sat stunned. Maleficent smiled upon hearing the rush of air as two hundred people remembered to breathe.

A murmur went up from the gathering. Several guests fainted. Curses were muttered, exclamations whispered as people took in the black cloaked form that had stolen the center of attention. “The nerve!” was a common utterance from the lips of many.

“Blasphemous!” mumbled the Duchess of Ornsbury.

“Dreadful!” Lord Hindersbrook wheezed.

“Righteous horns!” Gimlet, one of the palace guards whispered to his comrade as they watched the sorceress glare menacingly at the royal pair. “Where do you think she got ‘em?”

“Probably wrestled them off of Lucifer himself, that one did.”

“Right on!”

“Am I missing something? How can you find anything about that monster even remotely positive?”

“My mum was a strong-willed lady. Never took any shit from anybody. Everyone on the block called her a bitch. My mum probably would have liked a pair of horns like that.”

“That lady’s not just a bitch and you know it. There are fifty heads on pikes lining the drawbridge to her home just to prove she’s not your run of the mill misunderstood hard-ass.”

“Trying to keep people at arms length, I expect. Classic defense mechanism, that is.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore, you’re not sane.”

“Didn’t know it was a requirement for this job. Is it?”

Nearby, another set of eyes watched the impressive figure who dominated the room.

“Who is she?” Aurora asked the man to her right, the Earl of Grovelsworth. He was a cousin from a neighboring kingdom she’d just met.

“One of your four fairy godmothers, I’m afraid. Though in her case, the title is hardly suiting. She’s Maleficent, an evil temptress, a mistress of darkness, the downfall of many, a scourge on what’s good and right.”

“A temptress?” Aurora considered the imposing figure. “She looks kind of intimidating for that.”

“Well, she hasn’t done much in the temptress line of things lately. Been keeping to herself quite a lot, cloistered in that castle, cavorting with the powers of darkness. She was once a blight on the land, no virtuous young woman was safe from her twisted, deviant ways. Recently, she hasn’t shown much interest in things flesh and feminine. I’m sure she’s still as loathsome, despite her lengthy hiatus. Must’ve become a full-time preoccupation, conjuring up evil.”

“So what you’re saying Earl, is that after having spent a good many years holed up in her castle, there’s a distinct likelihood that she’s single?”

The Earl blinked at his younger cousin and stuttered, “Well, I, I suppose... Aurora!”

Aurora didn’t hear him. She’d begun to walk to the center of the room, drawn inexplicably to the dark figure that loomed there. She watched, fascinated by the radiant glow of green fire that sparked and streamed off of the tall woman, and admired the effect.

Maleficent was basking in the discomfort her presence had provoked in the room. She especially enjoyed the terror she glimpsed in King Stephen’s eyes as he sat, transfixed, disbelieving, on his throne. A seat of power soon to be tragically (or conveniently, depending on your point of view) vacant.

A slight figure moving at the edge of the crowd, caught Maleficent’s eye. Caught may not aptly describe what the figure did to her eye. Captured, trapped, absorbed might be more fitting descriptions.

She watched the young woman make her way across the deserted space that separated Maleficent from the stunned crowd. The gentle sway of the woman’s hips, the sheen of her hair, the ripe swell of her breasts as they nudged persistently at the neckline of her gown’s bodice...

Maleficent wondered if she hadn’t spent one, maybe two years too long in that library. Surely such a strong attraction to a woman, even such a lovely specimen as the one before her, could only be the result of extreme deprivation. She felt herself hesitate, felt the fine muscles of her eyes resist her brain’s request to move away from the pleasant visage. This was hardly the sort of business she’d come all this way for. “But what’s the rush?” she asked herself. She’d waited this long. What was another minute or two? Not even a blink in the cosmic scheme of things. And besides, the alluring creature before her looked as though she might speak. As indeed she did, after making a deep, respectful curtsy, “Through some tragic oversight, we’ve not met. I am the Princess Aurora, your fairy goddaughter.”

Maleficent’s eyes widened slightly. This was Aurora? The princess? Maleficent wondered at the woman, she wondered at herself a moment as well. Wondered how it was that the gentle tones of Aurora’s speech could so fire up the engines of her long dormant libido. The sudden rush of desire distracted her from realizing how it was that she, an awesome sorceress by any standard, hadn’t known Aurora on first sight. It was the kind of thing she could discern of a stranger by looking at them. But it was what had happened when she’d first set eyes on her that was wrecking havoc on her otherwise singular determination, derailing, however briefly, her carefully planned takeover of the realm.

A delicious prickling sensation moved through Maleficent's body as she gazed at Aurora. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt in some time. An insistent call, an irresistible intoxicant. The princess was stunning, that wasn’t helping matters any. She was wearing an off white brocade gown, her fine golden hair flowing down to shoulders that were tastefully covered, yet the cut of her dress displayed a smooth and surely soft expanse of skin. Maleficent was determined to explore this certainty at the soonest possible opportunity.

“What’s going on?” Prudence asked in confusion. The sisters stood nearby, watching the spectacle unfold with the rest of the audience. “Why are they looking at each other like that?”

“Perhaps the spell has weakened over time. Perhaps they’re falling in love? Maleficent has grown so powerful since the christening.” Juniper lamented.

“I-don’t-think-so.” Sybyl said through clenched teeth. Watching the duo closely, she’d detected something.

As Maleficent's mouth watered Aurora’s went dry. The sheer presence of the sorceress was enough to make her quiver in her shoes. Shoes, she noted, that no sane woman would choose to wear of her own accord. But her godmothers had adored them and insisted that she must. She’d capitulated, never wanting to let them down. But she would have liked someone to tell her how it was that you could have three fairy godmothers, sorceresses all, and still have uncomfortable shoes. There was no magic in the realm to make a pair of glass slippers comfortable. But there seemed to be something else that could. Distraction.

The moment she’d set eyes on the dark, flowing creature standing before her, she hadn’t given her feet another thought. She had however, pinched her cheeks and wiggled in her dress as discreetly as possible to lower her bodice, thus displaying her cleavage to best advantage.

She’d been successful Maleficent noted. She swept an appreciative glance over the young woman’s figure. Not a full figure as yet, but one near maturity. Near enough. She smiled a most enchanting greeting at her godchild. As enchanting as her years of cloistered study could make it.

Unknown to her, all of the enchantment dissolved in an impotent fizzle before ever taking hold on the princess. Something else had got hold of the young woman, however. Something urgent, something raw, something to do with the youngest of her godmothers. And while that should have been a disturbing and awful thought, all she could wonder was what that woman would look like without those horns on. Possibly, without anything on at all.

“This isn’t possible.” Prudence whispered. “That was no simple spell we cast, to be outgrown, no matter how powerful she’s become. Something else has happened.”

“Oh yes,” Sybyl agreed. “Something else altogether.”

“What? What is it?” Prudence asked.

Sybyl made no attempt to disguise her disgust, “True lust.”

Part III

“What is true lust?” Juniper asked.

Sybyl, having lost all patience with Juniper a good two weeks after she was born, didn’t bother to answer. Prudence, having more compassion for their ever simple sibling, smiled, but also neglected to give a response. No one had ever informed Juniper about the facts of life. Prudence didn’t think it was the appropriate moment to amend the oversight.

“How on earth could that be?” Prudence asked.

“How indeed?” Sybyl turned an accusatory glare on her.

“Well it’s not my fault! What are the chances of anyone sharing true love and true lust at the same time? Besides, I only saw what the sight revealed to me.”

“We’ll have to make do now.” Sybyl’s tone made it clear that Prudence was to blame, whatever the circumstance. But then, she always was. It was a convenient truth for Sybyl. “We’ve got to get Aurora to look at the Prince the moment he arrives and then the true love spell will take hold. She’ll forget Maleficent in a heartbeat. Literally. Until then, we do what we can to keep things under control.”

“Perhaps if we distract Maleficent?” Juniper offered.

“Aurora seems to be doing a fine job of that.” Prudence noted. They looked to the center of the room and saw that the two women had removed themselves to a less conspicuous position in the hall, off to the side. The guests, having decided that no one was in danger of being singed or turned into something disagreeable, began to converse. The music started up again.

The King, regaining his senses, rushed to the three women huddled nearby. The Queen, listing slightly to the left, followed. She seemed unaccountably placid considering the circumstance. Perhaps her calm was reinforced by the large quantity of mead she’d sampled earlier in the evening.

“I want her removed at once!” The king ordered in a petulant whisper.

“As do we all, Your Highness.” Sybyl agreed, bowing in deference to the monarch.

“Then why is she still here? If you wouldn’t help me destroy her at least keep her from marring this, of all days.”

“But Your Highness,” Juniper bleated. “We can’t!”

“You mean you won’t!” he accused.

“No Sire. She means we can’t.” Prudence amended.

“What manner of insubordination is this?” The King looked directly at Sybyl, his trusted counsel of many years.

Sybyl gave an embarrassed smile. Having been a successful over-achiever, it was difficult for her to admit error or defeat in any arena. Especially one that contained her sister Maleficent. She answered as best she could. “It’s nothing we can’t manage, My Lord.”

Juniper and Prudence stared on in amazement. Surely their sister was aware of the magnitude of the situation? They were in a room surrounded by innocent people, with spells running amok, a deadly sorceress with a grudge, and a soon to be betrothed princess acting like a common strumpet. This wasn’t like anything they’d managed recently.

Prudence looked up from their agitated huddle. “Where is Aurora?”

The rest of the group looked up as well, then around. But she was nowhere in sight. Neither was Maleficent.

“Newt toes and bat scat!” Prudence exclaimed. “They’re gone!”

“Don’t panic! And keep your voice down.” Sybyl hissed. “No one seems to have noticed but us.”

“Guards!” The king yelled.

Sybyl restrained herself from clamping her hand over the king’s mouth. As it was, the spell she put there would keep him quiet for some time.

The queen gave her husband a curiously amused look. He stood there looking like he’d been hit directly in the jaw and might fall at any moment. She took him by the elbow, smiled wanly at the sisters and led him back to his throne.

“Sybyl!” Juniper exclaimed. “You hit him!” Both she and Prudence had seen the telltale stream of magical energy. It was visible only to the gifted.

“I most certainly did not! I just...” Several guards circled round them waiting for orders and looking confused.

“Oh, go away!” Sybyl waved a hand in irritation, another arc of bewitched energy flowed from her fingertips.

The guards dispersed with purposeful steps.

“You’re using your magic in your own self-interest!” Juniper accused. “As King’s Counsel that’s not allowed.”

“In this case we’ll call it enlightened self-interest, or would you prefer we sit by and allow King Stephen to attack that plague of darkness? Who knows what it would provoke her into? She’s going to ruin everything. She always ruins everything!”

“That isn’t entirely true.” Juniper tried to reason. She was sure that there was one occasion Maleficent hadn’t managed to disrupt. Juniper liked to keep a positive outlook on life in general. Her siblings made this a challenge.

“Oh no?” Sybyl was quick to argue. “How about Thanksgiving and Solstice for every year since she was born? How about your sixteenth birthday? Forgotten that already?”

“Well, no...” Juniper would never forget that. Maleficent, having become bored and then sullen as a result, found no end of amusement from turning all of Juniper’s guests into rabbits. Unfortunately, the precocious young sorceress couldn’t remember, or claimed not to remember, the exact wording of the incantation she’d used for the spell.

It took their parents a week to reverse the prankish magic cast by the girl, who was cheerfully remorseless about the whole thing. Juniper, who’d never had an easy time making friends, had found it nearly impossible after that. She had, however, discovered that she enjoyed the company of rabbits and had kept several ever since.

“I suggest that we make haste.” Sybyl said. “And find some method to dispatch our loathsome sibling before she decides she’s not enjoying herself. We must ensure that the rest of our spell is enacted.”

“What about Prince Philip? He’s not arrived yet.” Prudence said.

“Oh yes he has.” Sybyl assured her. By no coincidence unaided by magic, trumpets rang out through the hall heralding the arrival of the royal guest.

“Sybyl!” Juniper and Prudence exclaimed in unison. There was no mistaking Sybyl’s further meddling, not when the sisters’ could still see it streaming about the room. Very colorful was Sybyl’s magic.

“There’s no time! We must find them!”

The sisters decided, or rather Sybyl decided, that the best way to locate the missing pair was to enact a search spell. They meandered purposefully to a corridor off the main hall. They rounded a corner and came to an abrupt halt, as did their search.

There, pressed firmly against the stone wall, illuminated by the warm glow of guttering torch light, was their wayward sister. At first glance it looked as though Maleficent was under duress. A small, vigorous figure in an ivory brocade dress, appeared to be assaulting the taller woman, while simultaneously kissing her senseless. The heated grappling continued as the sisters stood looking on, slack jawed.

Aurora had decided that she really, really wasn’t able to get at enough of Maleficent. Not that the sorceress was in any way hindering or resisting her fervent explorations, but her clothing, not the usual button and buckle attire, wasn’t cooperating with the princess’ urgent attempts at entry. She broke their heated marathon kiss and was about to ask Maleficent for the key or magic word that would undo her inconveniently enchanted attire, but the sorceress dipped her head and kissed the skin of Aurora’s neck. This had the instantaneous effect of undoing something altogether different, and Aurora quickly lost track of whatever it was that had seemed so important to her just a moment before. She reached up and grabbed Maleficent by a horn, pulling her head, and more importantly her mouth, into closer contact with her neck, thus increasing the delirious sensation of Maleficent’s attentions. Who could have guessed that a fairy godmother could use her tongue like that?

Aurora was all for it. She was more than ready for it. Having been holed up in the castle for years with nothing but her three fairy godmothers, her parents, and several attendants for company. And while she did honestly love all of those people, she felt that she was ready for something new, something different. No more lectures from Sybyl about decorum. No more lessons with Prudence on economics. No more fussing from Juniper. No more adolescent fumblings with a couple of giggling handmaidens in the palace gardens. She was ready to strike out on her own, ready to forge ahead, ready for a mature relationship. And while Maleficent was possibly a wee bit more mature than Aurora had had in mind, she’d do.

She’d do plenty. That was the impression Aurora got as she felt herself being lifted and held in the sorceress’ arms. She then felt the coolness of stone against her back as she was pinned to the wall herself. This happenstance, though sudden, was not unwelcome. Maleficent leaned in crushing her mouth to Aurora’s in a deep and passionate kiss. “Oh yes,” was Aurora’s last coherent thought, she’d do just fine.

Seeing their youthful and innocent charge nearly disappear behind Maleficent’s dark cloak jolted the three sisters from their stupor. Or at least Sybyl and Prudence regained conscious awareness of their surroundings. Poor Juniper, Prudence surmised, might not recover for some time.

“Cease, you virulent beast!” Sybyl demanded.

Aurora, hearing the unmistakable tenor of her more rule-oriented fairy godmother froze, mid-tongue thrust. This awkward turn of events brought Maleficent to something like her senses - she’d learned to tune out the judgmental tones of her eldest sibling years before, but a stiff and unresponsive tongue in her mouth got her attention.

She reared back a tad to look at Aurora who blushed a deep and curiously appetizing shade of red. Maleficent leaned forward to sample this delightful hue when Aurora spoke, “Um... You’ll probably call me fickle, but I’d be grateful if you’d, uh... put me down. I’ve never been big on the whole public sex thing.”

Maleficent raised an eyebrow in inquiry and Aurora answered with a tilt of her head, indicating their disapproving audience. Upon seeing her sisters Maleficent suppressed a blink of surprise, smiled pleasantly and let the princess slip gracefully to the floor. “Well, well, if it isn’t the righteous three.”

Aurora tried to smooth her rumpled gown to no great effect. Sybyl stepped forward, took her by the wrist and half led, half pulled her away from Maleficent.

“Tidy her up.” Sybyl directed the others before turning back to face Maleficent. She watched a brightly colored magical sparkle dance from behind her, circle Maleficent's head and straighten the horned headdress that was slightly askew. Sybyl turned back to face Juniper. “Not her! Aurora, you idiot!”

“Still amazed that the world hasn’t gotten into step with you Sybyl? I see the years haven’t changed you much. Not that I expected they would.” Maleficent's eyes revealed none of the casual indifference that her light tone implied.

“And I see that years in seclusion have done nothing to curb your depraved appetite sister.”

“But my, she has grown!” Juniper noted. She hadn’t had to look up quite so far the last time she’d seen Maleficent.

Maleficent laughed. “As refreshingly transparent as ever Juniper!”

Juniper cringed under the weight of Maleficent’s full attention, but it flitted to Prudence quickly enough. “I thought that you might have developed a spine somewhere along the way Prudence. Pity. Still Sybyl’s loyal pet?”

Prudence bristled, but held her tongue. Anyone with eyes could see that Maleficent’s body wasn’t the only aspect of her that had grown. She was a far cry from the spiteful girl or the sulky adolescent they’d once known. Her eyes, always bright, now glittered with an altogether otherworldly vitality. Prudence was sure this wasn’t the result of good diet and a healthy constitution. Or at least she’d never known those things to cause a person’s eyes to glow that shade of iridescent blue. What she once had read could cause such a symptom was a remarkable accumulation of glamour and spell knowledge.

Aurora wasn’t interested in how Maleficent had come by her occultish good looks, she only knew that she was drawn to them. She stepped toward the sorceress. Prudence caught her gently by the arm, “Why don’t you see to your guests dear? We’d like to talk to Maleficent for a moment. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen one another.”

Aurora smiled vacantly and nodded. As Prudence turned her by the shoulders, Aurora’s head remained riveted on the dark figure of Maleficent. The sorceress returned her gaze with an amused appraisal. She found Aurora’s wholehearted immodesty thoroughly engaging.

As Aurora rounded the corner and disappeared from view, something like sense filtered back into Maleficent’s frame of mind. “I really must compliment the three of you.”

“For what?” Sybyl snapped.

“For raising such a lovely young woman. I’m sure I’ll appreciate your labors for some time to come.”

“She’s not meant for the likes of you. You fiendish invert.”

“It’s surprising that you’ve never run out of creative invective to underscore your deep and abiding fascination with my sex life. Could it be, Sybyl, that the absence of your own has left you with an unhealthy preoccupation with mine?”

Maleficent was enjoying herself. She was also enjoying the sight of Sybyl’s jaw flapping like a loose shutter in a breeze. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a young lady that I must see to.”

Maleficent began to walk back to the great hall but Sybyl stepped in her path. She’d rallied her scattered defenses and was ready for battle. Or at least to stall, thus ensuring that the rest of their spells were enacted. The first part couldn’t be working better, she noted. The Love Is Blind spell had rendered Maleficent and Aurora truly blind to anything like decent love. And Maleficent was so preoccupied with the tumultuous effects of the true lust that was racing through her system that she hadn’t noticed a thing. Though that probably wouldn’t last much longer (Maleficent wasn’t easily distracted), they’d have to change tactics to contain her. But that was then, this was now. She looked up at Maleficent who was giving her the most irritating, superior grin. She would have liked to slap her. “Have you no decency left in you whatsoever? Is there nothing that guides your life but your own selfish impulses? This is Aurora’s engagement party. She is going to meet her future husband. The man with whom, one day, she will rule this realm. Can’t you see that nothing good will come from ruining this event? Haven’t you embarrassed our family enough?”

“Actually... no. And I’d say that I’m being quite generous. I had planned to have taken over the realm and extinguished a full three quarters of the people in that room by now, starting with you, of course. But in an uncharacteristically gregarious moment, I decided to postpone that entertainment. To exercise another aspect of my... considerable prowess.” Maleficent had also considered that killing the King and Queen would hardly put their daughter in a desirable mood. Though the way things were going she wondered if Aurora would have noticed. It was comforting to the sorceress to know that after all of those years shut in a library, she hadn’t lost her touch.

Prudence had watched her siblings face off for years. The arguments varied, but the underlying tensions were the same. The only difference in this encounter was that if Sybyl pushed Maleficent too far the result could be most regrettable, if not terminal, for everyone involved. “Maleficent,” she broke in. “Is there some reason in particular you wish to take over the realm and destroy a good deal of the nobility from here and our neighboring kingdoms? Along with your remaining family, of course. Hasn’t it occurred to you that other kingdoms are likely to take objection to such an act? And when they did declare war on you, as they most certainly would, who would administer the business of your realm? Who would defend it? That is, after all, what we and the nobility spend a good deal of our time doing.”

“No reason in particular really.” Maleficent mused. “It came to me out of the blue. Funny thing though, I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it, but the idea came to me on the day of King Stephen’s first attack on my home. Before that, I’d just been planning to fry Sybyl’s brain in a mind meld. My horizons were broadened by each intrusion King Stephen made on my studies. I hadn’t planned on killing you, Prudence, just them.” Maleficent indicated the other two women with a desultory wave of her hand, but she could have easily been indicating everybody else... in existence. “You’d be more amusing to torture over a long period of time. And I’m not really concerned about war. I can raise an army of the dead with a snap of my fingers. Nothing to it. But thank you for your concern, it’s sweet, very sisterly.”

“Why did you go into seclusion?” Prudence pressed on. She was genuinely interested and Maleficent, while often introverted and sullen, rarely passed up an opportunity to talk about herself.

“Ever curious, Prudence. I told you, I was looking for the right combination of spells that would boil the tissue mass that masquerades as Sybyl’s brain. Only, I wanted something that would also keep her alive, just enough to be aware of her newfound vegetative state.”

“Oh Maleficent, how awful!” Juniper gasped.

Sybyl’s eyes narrowed.

Maleficent continued, “Yes, isn’t it? So many wonderful and creative ideas occurred to me while I was there in the library. It was a veritable orgy of darkness. I was having a fine time. Ever since that christening I’ve been inspired to heights of such wicked excess, well, you’d be overwhelmed, I’m sure.”

“Since the christening?” Prudence was beginning to feel a distinctly different form of unease creep onto her flesh.

“Yes, odd really, but the source of my inspirations seem linked with the occasion. I expect that has something to do with having sensed King Stephen’s insecurities which caused his ill fated and ill advised,” Maleficent glared at Sybyl “attempts to remove me from the comforts of my home. I’ll admit that the feelings of betrayal I experienced when my own sisters allowed that insignificant bag of puss to make such a disastrous mistake - ran rather deep.”

Sybyl’s temper overrode the small amount of caution and patience she’d been able to drum up for her despicable sibling, spells be damned. “So instead of saying anything, you thought you’d just show up and crisp everyone, is that it? Really Maleficent, you take sullen to a whole new level. You’ve always been a brooder, you never tell us what’s bothering you - but we do find out don’t we? And we always pay. Why should this be any different?”

“Don’t tell you anything? Why would I bother to tell you anything? When is the last time that you listened to anything but your own voice?”

“Still the same old story, poor Maleficent, ‘I’m misunderstood. Nobody loves me.’ You used that one up on our parents, don’t try it on me.”

“I wouldn’t trouble you with a request for understanding, I know you’re incapable of it. I would like to note, however, that I am the youngest child of this brood and I damn well should have been spoiled by our parents.”

“You were.” Sybyl said. “How do you think you got so rotten? You know full well we’d never advise the king to attack you. Heaven forbid we furnish you with an actual reason to unleash your ill controlled temper.”

“You could have prevented it!” Maleficent yelled.

“We advise! We don’t control! You know that. There’s a balance to things, expectations...”

“Expectation? You let that pathetic little despot send soldiers to my front door in some bizarre charade of keeping up appearances?”

“It’s more complicated than that and you know it. For those of us who’ve not shirked our responsibilities...”

“Enough!” The walls shook with the force of Maleficent’s anger. “For a trained sorceress you’re doing an uncanny impersonation of a two bit psychic channeling our mother. It’s disturbing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m in the mood for a little dancing.” The three sisters felt themselves levitated out of Maleficent’s path. This was no simple feat and the sister’s were awed by the ease with which it was accomplished. A mature sorceress is a dense concentration of energy, even a sorceress with Juniper’s light hearted disposition. That energy is grounded in a connection to the earth, the source of a great deal of her power. She’s connected to it in much the same way a tree is to the ground. Lifting her, lifting them, was not child’s play, it was a threat.

“Oh dear.” Prudence felt much better once her feet had reconnected with the solid stones of the floor. “I think we’ve made a mistake.”

“You mean by not drowning her at birth?” Sybyl asked.

“Sybyl!” Juniper exclaimed.

“I wonder,” Prudence continued. “If a black heart with at least a glimmer of hope for love isn’t better off than one that has been blinded to the possibility of it entirely. And I wonder if a black heart infused with true lust isn’t preferable to one who is about to find out that the object of that lust has just met her true love?”

“Well not technically her true love...” Juniper was interrupted as Sybyl’s hand clamped over her mouth.

“Are you insane? Keep your mouth shut. And if you,” Sybyl turned on Prudence “think it’s our fault that that monstrosity is in there contemplating our demise, then I’ll have to wonder exactly whose side you’re on.”

“Sybyl!” Prudence was amazed that her loyalty could be called into question in such a manner.

“We don’t have time for this. We have to get in there for damage control.” Sybyl pushed passed her sisters and headed off.

At that moment, Maleficent was experiencing something more akin to incredulity than anger. She was being drawn across a crowded dance floor by a glowing Aurora who had bubbled up to her full of cheer and excitement. The warmth emanating from the young woman’s eyes was something Maleficent had never witnessed before. It was charming in every sense of the word. Maleficent had had trouble making out most of the stream of chatter that flowed from Aurora’s mouth, but it was beginning to add up to something she wasn’t liking one bit.

“Oh you must see him!” Aurora chirped on, oblivious. “He’s kind and true and so very handsome! I can’t wait for you to see!”

Maleficent wondered if the princess wasn’t quite right in the head. And she also wondered at the rapid change in the focus of her affection. They arrived in the center of a group of people who had parted for Aurora seemlessly to reveal a young man. A dashing little sod, Maleficent thought. She heard a sigh escape Aurora’s lips and felt what must have once been her heart constrict. Aurora stepped forward and placed her hands in Philip’s, “I think I’ve been waiting for him my entire life! Who knew that I could find true love in an arranged marriage? What are the odds of that?”

Maleficent watched the pair gaze deeply into each other’s eyes. The two of them glowed from the first blush of new love. While this warmed the hearts of onlookers, it thoroughly irritated Maleficent. A woman who, until that very moment, hadn’t given much thought to the idea of true love. True lust was a concept that she had found much more appealing. Having witnessed the warmth in the princess’ bright eyes, a warmth that danced on the surface and hinted at a singularly delectable underlying disposition, she’d been stirred. To see all of that squandered on an insignificant pimple, barely entered manhood, stirred her again. Not in a way that boded well for anyone’s peace of mind. It dredged up feelings of neglect, recalling misplaced parental affection...

“Am I to understand,” Maleficent began. “That you, the little strumpet who not five minutes ago was trying to suck my tongue out of my mouth in the back hall, is expecting me to be giddy with delight over meeting this overdeveloped gonad in tights?”

Aurora hadn’t thought of it like that. Quite frankly, she still couldn’t. Her mind was completely overrun by the true love spell that was making itself very much at home in her person. Everything she experienced was filtered by and through the deliriously hazy effects of the spell. So it was no wonder that she responded to Maleficent by saying, “But Maleficent, I’m so happy! I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Pleasure...” Maleficent loomed over Aurora. “Is not a word I am willing to associate with that.” She indicated the prince. “You, on the other hand, I’m willing to make an exception for. Don’t try my patience.”

The sparkling smile fell from Aurora’s face and eyes. Maleficent felt as though she’d extinguished a rare and vital force. It affected the sorceress more than she would have liked, but she wasn’t in the mood to regret it.

Prince Philip was quite a nice lad really. He stood by watching the exchange between his betrothed and the rather large spectre of darkness she’d lead over with such fanfare. If Philip had learned nothing of Aurora in their brief acquaintance, it was that she was unequivocally enthusiastic.

Before Philip had departed his kingdom to attend the function, he’d had the fear of death and rebirth on the lowest rung of the peasantry scared into him by his parents. He was on his best behavior. He was also high as a kite. The spell was having the same effect on him as it was on Aurora. Nevertheless, he gathered that a certain tension had developed. His soon to be wife and the intimidating woman with the impressive head gear had reached an impasse.

The prince had attended many diplomatic functions in his time. He was known to be able to bring even the most quarrelsome guests to agreement with a light word or an insightful comment. The princess, a most exquisite fiance, and her... friend, were surely in need of his help. He was about to step in when three women approached. He recognized the leader as King Stephen’s counsel, he’d met her on several state visits she’d made to his parent’s kingdom. She’d handled the negotiations and arrangements for the wedding.

“I see we’ve all met.” Sybyl nodded to the prince.

Maleficent turned, her eyes already narrowed in displeasure. “No. And we’re not going to. Aurora and I are leaving.”

“We are?” Aurora stepped forward, creating a loose circle that included her fairy godmothers and Philip.

“Yes, we are.” Maleficent answered.

“Have I missed something? When did we decide this?”

“You won’t care in a moment or two.” Maleficent smiled at Aurora. There was something indulgent in the tone, but mostly it was condescension. The unnatural blue of the sorceress’ eyes began to glow gently and fine blue threads of electricity fanned out, following the arc of Maleficent’s long, dark lashes. Aurora found it an engaging sight, it was terrifically difficult for her to feign indifference. But she would not be seduced into compliance, however appealing Maleficent made the prospect appear. The woman’s eyes were simply fantastic.

“Ah, ah!” Sybyl interrupted, sounding not just a little smug. “That won’t work.”

Maleficent, who’d intended to hypnotize Aurora into compliance, was finding it difficult to pull her own gaze away from the princess. There was something intriguing about the woman, something that begged for Maleficent’s undivided attention. That smug note in Sybyl’s voice, however, won it momentarily.

“You cannot affect Aurora with your power now. She shares true love with Philip. I’m not surprised you’d be blind to such an obvious fact. Look at them, anyone can see it. It was clear to us many years ago that this would come to pass and so we’ve protected their union.” Sybyl allowed the words and all they implied to hang in the air.

“Union?” Maleficent’s mind snagged upon a weakness in Sybyl’s logic. It would have been unseemly, tantamount to a breech in the etiquette of their relationship, for the sorceress to forgo pointing out such an error to her eldest sibling. “How can there already be a union? They’ve just met. Aurora’s fast, but I doubt they’ve had sex yet.”

“They don’t need to have sex you vulgar beast. True love’s first kiss was all they required.” Sybyl’s smile was triumphant. She couldn’t have been more pleased with herself.

“Ah...” Philip spoke up. “Technically, we’ve not done that yet.”

“What?!” Sybyl exclaimed. The two of them had had enough time. Aurora certainly hadn’t dragged her feet with Maleficent. “Kiss her you fool!”

The prince stepped forward, but found himself unable to move any further. He found himself unable to move at all.

“Sybyl?” Maleficent asked. “What if I were to do... this?”

On her last word, Prince Philip disappeared. There was no trace of him.

“Leave you and your protected union in a bit of a bind, wouldn’t it?” Maleficent looked at Aurora who was desperately waving her hands in the air where her true love had once been.

“You’d leave me no choice. I’d have to do this.” On Sybyl’s last word Aurora fell to the floor, lifeless.

A collective gasp escaped those who witnessed it. Juniper knelt next to the princess, adjusting her gown and the hair that had fallen across her face.

“You’d rather have her dead than with me? Who’s the villain here?” Maleficent protested.

“She’s not dead.” Sybyl explained, as much for the benefit of the crowd closing in around them as for Maleficent. “She’s in a state of suspended animation, from which she can only be released by true love’s first kiss. That kiss will join Aurora and Philip forever and secure the safety of the realm. It has been ordained.” Sybyl refrained from mentioning the rather large part that spells played in the inevitability of her statement.

Maleficent was not a woman easily cowed by fate, “And if I were to do this?”

Maleficent snapped her fingers. Everyone in the hall slumped to the ground. Only the sisters remained standing.

“You’d save us the embarrassment of them seeing your peevish behavior.” Sybyl responded.

“Maleficent!” Prudence’s eyes were riveted to the sea of lifeless bodies surrounding them.

“Oh, don’t worry Prudence. They’re just waiting for true love’s first kiss!” With an impatient flick of Maleficent’s wrist, Prince Philip reappeared. He was running and looking over his shoulder with a terror stricken expression on his face. Until he tripped on a recumbent noble. He looked around the hall in complete confusion. He spotted Aurora and rushed to her.

“Kiss her.” Maleficent demanded. She glared at Sybyl. “I’ll undo whatever you’ve got on her when he wakes her up.”

Prince Philip looked to Sybyl, the only familiar authority figure left standing. She nodded.

It wasn’t so much the nod as how Sybyl had closed her eyes as she’d bent her head that tipped off the ever vigilant, ever watchful and super suspicious nerve centers of Maleficent’s brain.

The prince leaned over Aurora and once again found himself paralyzed. It occurred to him then that Aurora, a truly wonderful and remarkable creature, had family issues that would take some getting used to.

Maleficent closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was faint at first, tickling the delicate hairs of her nasal passages, hinting, teasing. She focused in on it, the familiar, slightly charred smell. She knew it all too well. She must have been too distracted with Aurora’s effervescent presence engaging her senses. It was the only plausible explanation. With the princess unconscious, her head had cleared somewhat. This was good and bad. Good because she was able to think, bad because it made room for the anger that rushed in to fill it. “Spells! He’s spellbound! He’s fairly reeking with it. You! All of you!”

The sisters stepped back as Maleficent closed in on them. “Your spell prints are all over him.” She glanced at Aurora to see if the same prints were on the princess. She found it odd that she couldn’t read anything off of her at all. Given the circumstances perhaps it wasn’t so odd as it was enlightening. She spun on her sisters, sparks shooting from her eyes. An unearthly glow emanated from her entire person - an unsettling effect.

In a quiet, but chilling tone, Maleficent said, “Undo it.”

“There’s nothing to undo.” Sybyl stated truthfully.

“You’re already a dead woman. I’ll give you an opportunity to choose your fate. It can be slow and painful, stretched over years, or short and relatively painless, over in a matter of weeks. It’s up to you.”

Prudence stepped forward. Threats were nothing new between Maleficent and Sybyl, but this had escalated beyond the usual squabble. “This spell cannot be broken Maleficent, but there is a back door.”

“No.” Sybyl stated. “There’s not.”

They all looked at Sybyl. The eldest sister became defensive. “These spells were perfection! There was no need for a back door.”

Juniper and Maleficent’s jaws dropped slightly.

“Why you arrogant bitch!” Maleficent was amazed. “No one casts a spell without a back door. Not even me.”

And it was true. To seal a spell completely was to court disaster. No one could see the full extent of any spell, even if they were gifted with the sight. A “back door” was always left in spells to allow the sorceress to tinker, to readjust the magic to meet the unforeseen complexities of life.

“She’s right Maleficent.” Prudence said. “The spells are perfect. It was their application that troubled me. There is a back door. I put it there.”

The sound that escaped Sybyl’s lips could only be described as a hiss. “Traitor!”

“We cast the spells many years ago to preserve Aurora from her true fate, from her true love. It never occurred to us that she might also have a true lust. The sight didn’t reveal that.”

“How inconvenient for you.” Maleficent snapped. For reasons she couldn’t fathom and was reluctant to investigate the sorceress found herself further irritated (yes, this was possible, she possessed an unending reserve of pique) to hear that there was some other rival for Aurora’s attention. Philip had been so present, so convenient, so easily terminated. “Who is it?”

“Who is whom?” Prudence asked.

“Her true love. Which odious corpuscle in tights is it now?”

“It’s you.” Prudence bit her lip to suppress a grin.

Maleficent did not respond. She stood staring at Prudence, her brow furrowed. The information was doing the rounds in her considerable intellect. After careful examination, it still made no sense. “Me?”

Prudence nodded. Juniper smiled. Sybyl groaned.

“True love?” Maleficent inquired.

“Yes.” Prudence answered.

“How dreadful.” Maleficent said.

“That’s what we thought.” Sybyl agreed.

“Still...” The sorceress was in shock. At no time in her life had she been confronted with the reality of such a thing. It had thrown her off her game. She wasn’t sure how she felt.

“I wanted Aurora to have a choice.” Prudence explained. “I thought it fair to see what it was that she’d want. Let him kiss her Maleficent. Give her the choice.”

“I’m not letting him touch her. What about my choice? Seems like no one was too keen on getting my input. Just for a moment though let’s put my concerns aside, that shouldn’t be too terribly difficult for you... How is she supposed to have free will to choose anything under these perfect spells of yours? I could have saved you a lot of trouble, you know. What made you think I’d have even a remote interest in anything so puerile, so dangerous, as true love?”

“We had the realm to consider. It was the influence you might have over Aurora that concerned us.” Sybyl said.

“Influence? You don’t get it do you, big sister? I don’t need influence. I have power.” The air around them crackled and sparked in a clear demonstration of the sorceress’ words.

“It’s only fair to warn you,” Not wishing to see her siblings go at it again, Prudence spoke. “If Aurora wakes, the effects of the spells on her will be suspended briefly, but they’ll be lifted from you altogether. You will no longer be blind to your love for her. If she chooses Philip, you’ll suffer the curse of unrequited love. I’m not sure we’ll survive it.”

“This just gets better all of the time, doesn’t it? You know you’re not likely to survive this day, so why bother telling me this?”

“As hard as it is for you to believe, we do care for you, Maleficent. You’ve never made it easy and perhaps we’ve not been as understanding as we might have been, but I thought you ought to know all of it.”

Maleficent considered her options. She could call it a draw, wipe her sisters from existence and begin with a clean slate. That sounded refreshing. Or she could allow Philip to kiss Aurora for the hell of it, to see what would happen. She knew what would happen. Aurora would choose the prince. That’s always how these things turned out and besides, anyone in their right mind would choose Philip. Even Maleficent could see that he exuded good intention and all of those qualities she’d always attributed to the sensitive and the terminally boring. But she could see the advantage they gave someone who might be interested in something like an actual functioning relationship.

On the bright side, a side Maleficent generally avoided at all cost yet found herself dallying in over this matter, Aurora hadn’t given the impression of being in full possession of her faculties. As first impressions went the princess came off as a bit of a loon. An enticing little loon. One the sorceress reluctantly admitted to feeling rather conflicted about. Maleficent considered the option of letting nature take its course. Then once the princess had chosen Philip, Maleficent could then wipe her sisters out of existence to cheer herself up. She released Philip and let him kiss Aurora.

What would have been a proprietary peck in any decent fairy tale became a rather heated affair, complete with tongues and moaning. Aurora, Maleficent observed, was no slouch in the passion department. The sisters, in varying degrees of discomfort, looked on. One of Aurora’s hands moved up, in what looked like a maneuver to pull Philip’s head impossibly closer. Instead her hand patted about the top of his head as if looking for something. The princess stopped moving. She stopped kissing too. She opened her eyes. Her brain was jolted out of a rather dense spell-fog by the realization she’d just been kissing... a man. Years of training in every aspect of decorum kept her from wiping her tongue on her sleeve. She smiled politely up at the prince, “That was very nice Philip.”

“I rather thought so too.” He gushed.

Aurora craned her neck and peered over the prince’s shoulder. There, looming over them, stood the spectre she’d been hoping for. She beamed a smile at the shadowy figure.

Maleficent was undone. Nothing had ever come close to the impact that that spontaneous, uncalculated smile had on her. A feeling she couldn’t describe flowed out from the very center of her being. It radiated forth, dissolving anything untoward in its path. The toxic intrusion was washed from Maleficent’s heart. If she’d been anybody else, she’d have been giddy with the release of such a powerful force. As she was Maleficent, she only raised an eyebrow and was mildly irritated. Perhaps love wasn’t such a terrible thing after all.

Aurora felt a calm come over her and she became aware of a shift in her perceptions, a deep sense of knowing. It was a curious sensation, she felt at once spacious and light within. And then she understood, knew all of the things that had transpired before she’d been in a state of suspended animation and since, and a whole lot more besides. What an odd feeling, how could she know those things?

The look of confusion that had overtaken the princess’ cheerful expression was noted by all.

“What is it?” Philip sat back, lifting Aurora as he did so. Juniper comforted her charge.

“It’s the sight.” Prudence answered for her. “I’ve gifted her with it so that she’d be able to make a balanced decision.”

Again, Sybyl hissed. “You what?!”

“It’s only fair and mostly temporary.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sybyl demanded.

“It depends on her choice.” Prudence answered.

“If we live past sunrise I want you to know that I’m never casting a spell with you again. Why on earth have you gifted an untrained human with the sight?”

“How else could Aurora make a decision? Under our spell she’d be influenced, as she’d be equally influenced by true love. Aurora,” Prudence kneeled at her side. “You have a brief time to make this decision of your own accord. You are a wonderful young woman with your life ahead of you, you do no less in this moment than choose your own future.”

“So it’s a low pressure kind of thing?” Aurora laughed mirthlessly.

“Not really.” Prudence had never understood humor as a response to stress.

Aurora didn’t think she’d ever get used to waking up next to Maleficent. Not that one could easily grow complacent about sharing a bed and a lot of other aspects of one’s life with one’s fairy godmother.

She turned carefully, propping her head on her hand to observe the curious creature that was Maleficent at rest. She didn’t often see the sorceress asleep. Maleficent was always up until the wee hours and woke at a ghastly hour, just after dawn. It was only after nights spent in pursuit of things other than rest that Maleficent slept in.

Aurora observed the planes of the older woman’s face, severe even in sleep, as the soft morning light caressed them. The scene aroused a deep affection within the princess. In the relatively short time she’d known Maleficent she’d become desperately attached. True love was like that.

The princess was deeply grateful to Prudence for the gift of the sight. Her fairy godmother had explained that since Aurora chose Maleficent, the sight would remain with her.

“You’re going to need all of the help you can get.” Prudence had sighed.

Aurora had asked her why Prudence had thought she’d need such an extraordinary boost. Maleficent clearly loved her, had even committed to their relationship, so why did she need supernatural insight and knowledge?

“To level the playing field.” Prudence had responded.

Aurora had learned since then that Maleficent was a woman used to pressing every advantage she had. It was her nature. Keeping up with her lightening fast wit and astonishing intellect was a Herculean task. A little enchantment went a long way when dealing with a woman who was willing to use every tool in her arsenal to win even the simplest argument. It was a quality that Aurora had wondered at. She couldn’t fathom where the sorceress summoned all of that energy from or why she bothered to summon it half the time. It seemed a bit extreme, sometimes absurd. She’d decided, however, after the fourth time Maleficent had turned her into a spotted newt, that the sorceress didn’t like being teased about it overly much.

There were many things Maleficent didn’t like. It was as if anything that came into her immediate sphere irritated her in some way. Everything but Aurora, though that wasn’t necessarily a given. Maleficent was possibly the most sensitive person Aurora had ever met. She needed a lot of space.

Aurora was glad to give it to her. As long as she asked for it nicely. She’d had to explain to her harbinger of darkness several times that baring your teeth in a grimace and narrowing your eyes was not considered polite behavior. Aurora found that persistence paid off where Maleficent was concerned. And besides, it was well worth the trouble.

In her lighter moods the sorceress was a delight. To see that dark visage broken by a smile was bliss for the princess. And Maleficent could be most entertaining when she chose to be. She told wonderful tales of the many realms, earthbound and otherwise, that she’d visited. She was constantly surprising Aurora by noting some small thing she’d done or the manner in which she’d done it in a way that demonstrated the sorceress’ attention and affection.

Yes, Aurora had decided that being with Maleficent was everything she’d hoped it could be. And knowing that the sorceress was willing to work to make it even better, well, that ensured a future. Now, if she could only convince Maleficent to turn Sybyl back into her fairy godmother things would be that much better.

“If I turn her back, Juniper would be disappointed.” Maleficent had argued, craftily.

“Juniper has enough rabbits. She didn’t need another one.”

“I think Sybyl is her favorite.”

“Only because you made her pink. She didn’t have any pink ones before.”

Aurora was sure that given time, Maleficent would relent. The novelty of the King’s Counsel hopping across the banquet table in the Great Hall or nibbling on the center piece would certainly lessen with time.

Aurora sighed. So much had happened in the few months since that fateful night. She watched the corner’s of Maleficent’s mouth curl into a slow smile as the sorceress awoke.

“Heavy thoughts weighing on your mind?” Maleficent asked, her eyes still shut.

“I was just thinking about how much everything has changed.”

“It’s a lot to get used to.”

“I miss Prudence. Does she really have to live in Philip’s kingdom?” Aurora was still having difficulty adjusting to the absence of one of her dearly beloved guardians.

“If she’s going to do her job properly, then yes.”

“I think it’s terrible that Sybyl talked her out of her duty all of those years ago. I mean, just because Cinderella was a peasant doesn’t mean she didn’t need a fairy godmother too. I really didn’t need four fairy godmothers. And poor Philip! He could have ended up with me instead of Cinderella, his true love.”

“Sybyl’s always been a god awful snob. And poor Philip nothing! He would have been lucky to get saddled with you. What about poor Maleficent?”

“What about you?”

“I wouldn’t have had a true love at all.”

“Would have served you right, neglecting your fairy goddaughter the way you did.”

“I should think I’ve made up for it by now.” Maleficent smiled a meaningful and self-satisfied smile at the princess who blushed a light shade of pink in response. “And let’s drop the familial references, we’re not remotely related and frankly, it creeps me out.”

“I shouldn’t think such conventional trifles would bother a mistress of darkness like yourself.”

“Let’s just say that I have my conservative moments.”

“I’m glad you weren’t having any of them last night.”

“You didn’t do so bad yourself, Your Royal Deviance.”

“Who’s deviant?” Aurora challenged. “I’m not the one with all of the supernatural power who’s only got one outfit in her wardrobe.”

“You haven’t mentioned not liking my outfit. Besides, black is classic, you can never go wrong with black.”

“The color, no, but every now and again it might be nice to see you wear something else.”

“You don’t just pluck enchanted garments off the rack, you know.”

Aurora noted that the room had grown more humid. She looked up and saw dark clouds beginning to obscure the elaborate skyscape painted on the ceiling. She reached over and swatted Maleficent’s shoulder, “Stop sulking, I was only making a comment. And I love your outfit, you know that. I just find it hard to understand why a woman with your power has fewer accessories than the simplest peasant. With your coloring you could wear anything.”

“What do you suggest? Pastels?”

“No, you’d scare pastels. A rich blue, perhaps a deep violet... I know it’s an outrageous idea, but something with more than one color might be nice.” Aurora saw the clouds disperse. It was another aspect of Maleficent’s personality that took some getting used to. Once or twice during mild disagreements, full electric storms had broken out in the room. Aurora always enjoyed a good storm, so it never bothered her overly much. “Of course, what you’re wearing now is perfection.”

Maleficent smiled. “It’s shameless flattery, but a commendable recovery.”

“Flattery nothing, you’re magnificent and you know it.”

“People say it’s my most endearing quality.”

Aurora smiled back when she felt Maleficent reach out and touch her. “I’m not sure that I agree.”

The sorceress’ warm touch sent a shiver through Aurora’s body that was a magic all it’s own.

Note: The image of Maleficent is a digitally enhanced rendition of a T. W. Dewing painting. If you're terribly curious, you can click here to surf to the original image on the Smithsonian collection site.