Sixteen years. Sixteen long years of painstakingly looking for the little brat and she’d been nearly under Maleficent’s nose the entire time. Her minions had paid for their ineptitude and it had turned out perfectly fine in the end. The girl was located, easily manipulated, and practically dead now. Maybe a hundred year long sleep wasn’t as poignant as death by spindle, but it would do as punishment. How the King and Queen had thought slighting her as they had done all those years ago would have gone unnoticed was beyond her. Didn’t they know she had eyes and ears in all the lands? She knew every coming and going, every rise and fall to power. She’d practically instigated a number of them.
Once she’d slept Maleficent had half a mind to find the bumbling three and destroy all manner of goodness that still blazed within them. Twist them about until they were nothing but shells of their former glory for keeping the princess out of her grasp for so long. Destroy their happiness, taunt the young prince some more. She was fairly certain she could fit all that in before lunch. But sleep was required first, something she had sorely missed during all those fruitless nights of searching for the lost girl.
No sooner had she shut her eyes when Diablo’s cries could be heard echoing through the air. She ignored them at first, waiting for the bird to shut up so she could slumber. The cawing only seemed to become more frantic and she burst from her bed, sleep forgotten as she made her way to where the sound was coming from.
Irritation whirled through her as she appeared on top of the tower, ordering Diablo to stop talking. Except he was no longer squawking and as she took in his now stoney appearance she knew he never would again. Rage filled her at the sight of her one true companion and she watched as the prince and the damn fairies made their escape from her stone fortress. She could not lose, not now, not when she was so close to enacting her revenge.
And then the world changed and she was no longer standing on her stone tower nor could she see the prince and fairies making their escape. The air tasted different, the aura of the world felt strange. A new realm. But how? It didn’t matter at that moment. All that mattered was that she had been denied justice and someone, everyone would pay for that mistake.
Magic rippled around her, different than her own and with a vibrancy that called to her, begging to be manipulated to her own will. Somehow ancient and new all at the same time, different threads dying to be plucked and strung as she saw fit.
She cocked her head from side to side, letting the rage melt away into nothingness. Perhaps it would be a good idea to observe where she’d landed and then figure out what her next course of action might be.