Once upon a time, there were two kingdoms that were the worst of neighbours. So vast was the discord between them, that it was said only a great hero or a terrible villain might bring them together.
In one kingdom lived folk like you and me, with a vain and greedy king to rule over them. They were forever discontent, and envious of the wealth and beauty of their neighbours. For in the other kingdom, the Moors, lived every manner of strange and wonderful creature. And they needed neither king nor queen but trusted in one another.
In a great tree on a great cliff in the Moors lived one such spirit. You might take him for a boy, but he was not just any boy. He was a fairy.
A young boy, no older than twelve, lay against a large branch, small golden swirls of magic dancing about his fingers. Above him twirled two beautiful figures made of branches and the petals of flowers, their hands joined by the magic.
Suddenly, he heard a crack and the magic stopped, the figures dropping into the small wooden pool in the centre of the tree. The boy climbed up onto the branch, his large wings flapping carefully behind him as he moved. He noticed a small branch that had cracked and cupped his hands gently around the splintered angle. Shutting his eyes in concentration, he silently willed the beach to heal, and beneath his still fingers, he could feel the veins of the tree come alive with his magic, slowly pulling itself back together.
"There you go," he said with a small smile to the renewed branch. It pleased him a great deal to see the wonderful beauty of his home being repaired by his gentle touch.
And his name was Maleficent.
Maleficent dove off of the tree, his wings tucked close to his body as he fell. The wind cooled his face and he smiled gaily, stretching out his wings and allowing the air to catch them. He soared through the sky, enjoying the feeling of the wind in his hair and the sensation that tickled his wings. Few could enjoy the pleasure that came from flight, and Maleficent was overjoyed to be one of them.
"Good morning, Mr Chanterelle," the boy called as he noticed one of his friends emerging from his home in the mountainside. "I love your cap!"
In response, Mr Chanterelle removed his cap and tipped it to the boy in a gentlemanly fashion.
Maleficent moved on to the river where three of his friends were gathering mud on a large flat rock. They waved to him as they saw him, though one reached into the mud and started gathering it in his hand. He smirked and pulled his arm back to hurl the mudball at the young fairy.
"No. No, don't do it!"
The wallerbog didn't listen and launched the mud. It arched through the air, narrowly missing the fairy, and instead hitting another fairy in the face. He squawked in discontent, but Maleficent simply ignored the irritation.
"You missed me!"
Further down the river, some small fairies of blue and orange were tending to the flowers that grew on the side of the river.
"Good morning," Maleficent called.
"Good morning!"
Some fairies danced across the water's surface, flecks of gold magic floating behind them just beneath the surface of the water. It looked like pure gold followed the fairies each time their feet graced the water.
"Lovely work, girls!"
Feeling almost overwhelmed by the pure joy that he felt, Maleficent performed a beautiful loop in the air, whooping as he did so. He continued his flight down the river until he reached a small pool of water just off of the main river, and landed on a small stretch of land where some other fairies and moorfolk were gathering.
"What's all the fuss about," he asked, landing in the centre of the group.
One fairy, dressed in the petals of pink flowers, spoke up. "The border guards have disco-"
"Why do you want to tell her? I want to tell her!" A fairy dressed in blue cut her friend off with her hands on her hips.
Maleficent couldn't help but sigh. These fairies had a certain talent for cutting each other off and thinking that they should be the one to speak instead of the others.
"There are rules, Fittle," Knotgrass said with a huff. "I tell this time, you tell next time."
"No, you told last time, so I should tell this time, and Thistlewit next time."
"Tell me what," Maleficent questioned, his patience drawing thin.
"Fine," Knotgrass exclaimed, throwing her hands down in irritation.
"Thank you. Maleficent, the border guard -"
A fairy dressed in green cut Fittle off. "The border guards have found a human thief at the Pool of Jewels!" She turned to her friends and upon seeing their irritated faces, she paled a little. "I'm sorry."
Maleficent wasted no time and flapped his wings once, allowing him to take flight once more and quickly fly to the source of the problem.
"He's always in a hurry with his big wings," Thistlewit huffed, brushing a few strands of her golden hair away from her face.
"Humans, here," Knotgrass twittered. "I hope there's not another war."
When Maleficent finally reached the pool, he noticed that the two border guards were standing at the mouth of a cave with their spears pointed toward the entrance. Both tree-like moorfolk were over ten feet tall and more intimidating than any other fairy in the Moors, hence why they had been chosen to be the two lead border guards.
Between the two guards was a small rock poking out of the water and Maleficent easily landed on it, the moss tickling his feet.
One of the guards made a strange grunting noise that to anyone else would have sounded strange, but Maleficent understood with ease.
"I'm not afraid. Besides, I have never seen a human up close." Maleficent peered into the cave, wondering if he could see the strange thief. "Come out!"
"No! They mean to kill me! And besides, they're hideous to look at."
The guards took offence at this and started grumbling.
"That's extremely rude," Maleficent huffed. He turned to one of the trees. "Don't listen to him, Balthazar. You're classically handsome." He turned back to the cave, slowly getting more irritated with the boy, or at least, he assumed it was a boy. "It isn't right to steal, but we don't kill people for it. Come out. Come out this instant!"
A small boy, the same age as Maleficent, stepped out from behind a wall of ivy, squinting at the sudden burst of light. He was dressed in scruffy clothes and seemed dishevelled, but Maleficent found it much more curious that it was a human boy standing in front of him.
"Are you fully grown," Maleficent asked.
"No."
"I believe he's just a boy..."
"Same as you," the human boy scoffed, taking another step forward. "I think..." The wings on Maleficent's back made him do a double-take.
"Who are you?"
"I'm called Stefan." He paused, his eyes flickering to the guards. "Who are you?"
"I am Maleficent."
Balthazar started speaking to Maleficent, and the boy nodded, remembering the reason why he came to the pool in the first place.
"Yes. Right." He turned to Stefan. "You must give it back."
"Give what back?"
Maleficent rolled his eyes and held out his hand, not interested in Stefan trying to deny the fact that he had stolen from the pool. The human boy sighed and reached into a small burlap pouch on his hip and pulled out a small crystal that shimmered in the sunlight. He held it for a moment before tossing it to Maleficent.
The fairy stared at the crystal for a moment before tossing it back into the water, letting it sink into the depths.
As the two walked down the path, back to the border where the human kingdom and the Moors met, Stefan decided to comment on the way that Maleficent had carelessly gotten rid of the jewel. "If I had known that you would throw it away, I would have kept it."
"I didn't throw it away. I delivered it home. As I'm going to do for you."
The two came to a stop on the border, where tall stone pillars covered in moss marked the change from the human lands to the magical lands of the forest beyond. In the far off distance stood the castle, outlined by the sun.
"Y'know," Stefan said with a sigh. "Someday I'll live there. In the castle."
"Where do you live now?"
"In a barn."
"So your parents are farmers then?"
"My parents are dead," Stefan said, angered by Maleficent's reminder.
"Mine too."
Stefan turned back to the winged boy and gave him a small smile. "We'll see each other again."
"You really shouldn't come back here, y'know" Maleficent warned. "It's not safe."
"And if I made that choice, if I came back... would you be here?"
"Perhaps," Maleficent said with a shrug, though he was glad that Stefan wanted to return. He had never had a friend before. Not a friend who was his age. The three fairies were older than he was, and there were no others in the Moors who spoke the human tongue. It was... nice to have Stefan to talk to.
Stefan held out his hand for Maleficent to shake, and the boy took it, smiling. Until he felt the burn on his palm.
"What's wrong," Stefan asked at Maleficent's shout.
"Your ring," Maleficent said. "Iron burns fairies."
"I'm sorry." Stefan pulled off the ring and cast it away. Both boys watched as the ring sailed into the distance and landed somewhere amongst the tall grass.
Stefan started to walk away, but before he did, he called out once more to Maleficent. "I like your wings!"
Maleficent thought of how Stefan cast his ring. He who had so little in the world, so that their hands might touch again, and his heart was moved. Thus did the young thief, who had hoped to steal a jewel, find friendship in the most unlikely place.
"Maleficent!"
"Maleficent?"
"Maleficent!"
Maleficent landed on the grass behind Stefan, nearly startling him out of his wits. "After all these weeks," he said with a smirk, "Look who came back."
Stefan returned the smirk. "I thought it worth the risk. So... what do you do for fun?"
Maleficent showed Stefan every joy that lived in the Moors, from flying down rivers to splashing in the mud with the wallerbogs.
Stefan and Maleficent became the most unlikely of friends. And for a time, it seemed as if, in them at least, the old hatred between men and fairies had been forgotten. On Maleficent's sixteenth birthday, Stefan gave the fairy a token of their friendship. A bracelet, made from the grass that grew between the pillars of the Moors and the human kingdom, so that the two might always remember the beginning of their friendship.
But it was not to be. As the years passed, Stefan's ambition pulled him away from Maleficent, and towards the temptations of the human kingdom. while Maleficent, the strongest of the fairies, rose to become the protector of the Moors.
As Maleficent flew through the sky, weaving in between the rock pillars, anyone could see that he was no longer the boy from all those years ago. He was a true fairy, stronger and wiser now that the years had passed.
Maleficent often wandered alone, and sometimes wondered where Stefan might be, for he had never understood the greed and envy of men. But he was to learn.