“Oh, you have your mother’s wings,” Sweetpea would say during a morning flight. Maleficent flew haphazardly next to her, unable to control her large, ungainly wings just yet. But hearing that her oversized ebony wings were similar to her mother’s made Maleficent blush proudly.
“Your dad had those same glittering eyes,” Finch would remark as they walked through the forest. She looked at herself in the gleaming pond, paying closer attention to her bright eyes.
Maleficent most enjoyed spending time with her best friend, Robin. Sometimes they’d play made-up games, trying to get each other to guess what animals they were pretending to be, or rewarding whomever made the strangest-looking face that day. Often he’d teach her how to play funny little tricks on the nearby faeries. Their shoulders would shake with laughter when they saw the bewilderment on the stone faerie’s face after they moved her recently arranged rocks right next to her. Or when the pixies bickered with one another, not knowing that Robin and Maleficent were the ones who had eaten their berries.
Other times, they would sit lazily in the Rowan Tree. He had known her parents the best and told her stories about them all the time. Sometimes they were silly, sometimes they were sweet, but they always made her smile.
“And then I popped up from under the bog, scaring the living fireflies out of Lysander, I did.” Robin guffawed, thinking of the memory, and Maleficent joined in.
“Oh, Robin, you devil! When he was trying so hard to impress my mother,” she said, giggling.
“He still impressed her, even after jumping ten feet high like a scared ninny.”
After their laughter subsided, Maleficent broached the subject that Robin so carefully avoided.
“Robin…have you ever seen a human close-up?”
He frowned. “No, lass, I have not. Nor would I want to. They’re nothing but trouble, humans.”
Maleficent sat up, talking more animatedly now. “But you said my parents believed there were good ones out there. That we could have a good relationship with them someday.”
“I did,” Robin agreed. “But you know what that belief cost them.” He spoke gently but firmly. It was sometimes hard to remember how young, how innocent Maleficent still was. “They try to steal our treasures, pillage our land. They even carry weapons made out of iron, they do, the stuff that burns our kind.”
“But, Robin, humans are a part of nature, too,” she continued. She’d clearly been thinking quite a bit about this. “I know there are horrendous ones. Monsters. But there are mean faeries and animals out there, too, just like there are plenty of nice ones. The humans cannot be all bad.”
Robin sat quietly. He could not give her the answer she wanted. After that dreadful night years earlier, he despised all humans for what they’d taken away. “No, my love,” he said, patting her arm. “They are.” He flew away from the Rowan Tree, unable to continue their conversation.
Maleficent sighed, resting her back against the trunk of the tree once more. Maybe Robin didn’t believe it, but she did. And she knew her parents would be proud of her for doing so.
TWO YEARS HAD PASSED, YET THE ROWAN TREE REMAINED MOSTLY THE SAME, ITS TWISTED TRUNK ONLY SLIGHTLY DARKER WITH AGE AND ITS BRANCHES ONLY A LITTLE MORE BOWED. While the tree had not changed much, its inhabitant had.
Unfolding her wings, Maleficent lifted herself up and out of the Rowan Tree. As her wings carried her higher into the sky, she soared on the wind, dipping and spinning with ease over the Moors. Gone were the awkward days when she had no control. Now Maleficent and her wings were one. Climbing higher and higher into the sky, she burst through the clouds and then hung suspended in the air. A look of pure joy washed over her face as she delighted in the moment. Then, with a laugh, she swooped back down.