If their dreams were half as bad as mine, I feel so sorry for them.
Who: Maleficent and Aurora What: Breaking the curse for everyone When: Late on 9/6 Where: Maleficent's condo Status: complete Rating: PG, mostly.
Maleficent had tried everything in her power to wake Aurora. Every spell she knew, attempting to reverse the curse, and nothing had worked. She sat next to the bed, head in hands, as she wrestled with the only course left to her. It was one she wasn’t prepared for. It was one that if it didn’t work, would shatter her.
“It’s too soon for this. It is too soon for any of this...what have I done?”
Aurora was dreaming. Horrible dreams. Most of them followed the same pattern: her father found her with Maleficent and proceeded to torture and kill her before Aurora’s eyes. Aurora could never reach her. Something or someone always held her back, and all she could do was scream and plead and weep. And now, in the dream, Stefan had caught Maleficent again.
"What am I to do, beastie?" Maleficent reached over to take her hand, stroking it with her finger tips. "True love does not exist. Not like in our dreams, not like in that fairy tale. I scarcely know if my emotions there are romantic, or maternal."
She smiled wryly. "Which makes what we've done together just a little twisted. Perhaps I'm still evil, to use you so."
In the dream, Aurora watched in horror as her father stabbed Maleficent through the shoulder with a red hot poker. Aurora felt like throwing up, but she couldn’t even do that. Aurora struggled, but she couldn’t free herself from the invisible bonds that held her. Her father thrust the poker back into to furnace to ready it again while Maleficent struggled in vain on the wheel she was chained to.
"Damn it..." The more Aurora thrashed the more Maleficent felt herself break down and start to panic. If this didn't work (and she didn't think it would, dreams notwithstanding) it wouldn't help Aurora and it would mean the end of something before it began. She closed her eyes, then stood, and leaned on the bed, pinning Aurora down. "Aurora...please...!"
She heard Maleficent’s voice, though it seemed to come from even further away from where Aurora saw her chained. It made her pause for a moment, confused. But then her father pulled the poker from the furnace and thrust it through Maleficent’s heart. ”NO!
"I'm sorry," Maleficent whispered, hoarsely. "I'm so sorry." She brushed her lips against Aurora's, then kissed her. She lifted her head and looked down at the blonde anxiously.
Aurora opened her eyes. She felt...drained of energy, but the world came into focus when she saw Maleficent. “You’re alive!” She threw her arms around Maleficent, clinging to her for dear life.
The Faery didn't respond immediately. She was too shocked to utter any words, instead slowly closing her arms around Aurora. She worked her jaw, then squeezed her tighter.
Aurora sobbed against Maleficent’s shoulder. After everything she’d dreamed, the relief at waking to find Maleficent alive and well was a bit overwhelming. “He...killed you. Again and again. In the dreams. And I...I couldn’t do anything to stop him!”
That was her nightmare? Something warm and wet trailed down Maleficent's cheek. She swallowed some kind of dry lump and hugged the blonde harder. "It's over. It's over. They were but a dream."
“I love you.” The words came out in a breathless rush. Aurora hadn’t been able to say it in the dreams, and wasn’t going to go a moment longer without saying it. Life felt amazingly fragile at the moment, and saying it felt...grounding. It made it real, and Aurora really felt the need for reality at the moment.
Mal's first reaction was to let out a short, choked sob. No no, no no no. "You do not know what it is you're saying. You cannot mean that.”
Aurora pulled back to look at Maleficent. Her eyes were red and her face was streaked with tears. “I love you. And I mean it, and I know what I’m saying. I’ve wanted to say it ever since the night you cooked for me, but I kept putting it off.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “And then I dreamed my father killed you...over and over...and I didn’t get to say it any of those times.”
Aurora pressed her palm over Maleficent’s heart where the faery had been stabbed in the dream. “I love you, Maleficent…”
"Stefan." Maleficent said the word like it was the most violent curse she could imagine. She wanted to ruin him, wanted him to suffer and lose everything. But she couldn't take that future away from Aurora, either. She blew hard out her nose, then placed her hand over Aurora's. She couldn't bring herself to say them yet.
Aurora shuddered at her father’s name. Sure, he hadn’t tried anything like that here, but she didn’t know him enough to trust that he wouldn’t do something. If anything, what little she did know about her father made some sort of reaction seem possible. If he bothered to notice. “I’m glad you were here when I woke up.” She didn’t actually remember going to bed, but that didn’t matter right now.
"You passed out last night, after we returned from our date." She pulled Aurora into her lap, kissing her cheeks and her forehead, and finally her lips. "Whatever afflicted the county afflicted you."
Aurora curled in against Maleficent and sighed. “If their dreams were half as bad as mine, I feel so sorry for them.”
"Yes..." She closed her eyes, holding Aurora even closer. Almost too tightly. She rested her chin on Aurora's head. "It was a terrible thing." And she almost felt guilty.
Aurora closed her eyes. “...I feel exhausted.”
“Yet you’ve just slept nearly two days.” She brushed some hair out of Aurora’s face. She hadn’t left her side the whole time. “Though I suspect you sleep will be easier, now.”
“Two days of watching you die…” Aurora rubbed her eyes to wipe away remnants of tears. “You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Yes. Business was mostly closed down anyway, most of the employees were asleep or narcoleptic.” That had been on purpose, to throw the scent off of her own part in all of this.
“I’m glad you were here,” Aurora said. “Even if it can’t have been easy for you.”
"You mean too much to me." She chose her words carefully, enough to show she cared, but not enough to put herself out there. A little selfish, she knew.
Aurora gave her squeeze. She could work with that. She knew Maleficent had walls, but she also knew the faery obviously cared. Even if she tried to shrug some of it off.
She wished they could just be in the Moors, sometimes. Things were so much simpler then. At least, she thought, those blasted incompetant fairies weren't around. She didnt think she could take that.
"You are, the loveliest creature I have ever seen."
Smiling softly, Aurora ran a hand through Maleficent’s hair, her fingers brushing against the faery’s scalp where one of her horns started. “You are magnificent. I am so glad I came here and found you...that we found each other.”
She trailed one long, elegant finger up Aurora's throat. "When I saw you on the network, I could scarcely believe it...that it would be you. I asked myself what I'd done to deserve that."
Aurora grinned. “And having me walk into your office? How did that feel?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it as the tips of her very pointed ears turned bright, bright red.
That got an even bigger grin out of Aurora. She chuckled and gave Maleficent a quick kiss on the lips. “I like that answer.”
"How exhausted are you?" She asked, the blush spreading to her cheeks now. "Because I think you need to be punished."
“Not so exhausted that I don’t want to feel just how real and alive you are,” Aurora said, giving the faery a cheeky grin.
Maleficent gave a little wave of her hand. Green light surrounded them as her magic started to undress them. She sounded breathless already. "That is exactly what I wanted to hear..."