A/N: This is a response to several requests for a Maleficent/Aurora story where they meet before the onset of the sleeping curse. I'm hoping it will be finished fairly soon, and am expecting it to be around 10 chapters total. Your feedback is always much appreciated!

Maleficent had never devoted very much thought to music.

She had always been naturally gifted in most of her pursuits. She'd easily learned to sing a few folk tunes in her earliest youth, easily learned to play the occasional instrument she came across in her travels, and hadn't even the faintest doubt that she retained this knowledge, although she'd encountered little more than idle raven song in the past several decades.

But did she care? The folk tunes and the instruments meant nothing to her. They were diversions, ways to pass the time on those rare occasions when time seemed infinite and not of the essence. Maleficent valued knowledge and skill for their own sake, but apart from the satisfaction she gleaned from her easy expertise in the realm of music, she had always felt that she would be much the same without it.

That is to say, she had always felt thusly before this moment.

Not an instant after she had stopped dead in her tracks, Maleficent was overcome by a surge of irritation at herself. How imbecilic. A human girl singing in the forest was enough to surprise her?

Few things had ever given Maleficent pause. She had an uncommonly agile mind, and she seldom had any trouble attending to multiple matters at once. Peasants sang frequently, though seldom quite as well or as sweetly, and simple-minded mortals were moved to song by something so commonplace as a pleasant afternoon. What was a lovely voice to Maleficent? She had a most pressing matter to attend to, and it had just recently come to her attention that the minions to whom she had previously assigned the task were wholly incompetent.

Loath though she was to admit weakness in any fashion, even in the confines of her own mind, Maleficent had never been particularly good at locating people. Magical proclivities showed themselves in curious ways, but this one was straightforward: she'd never had any interest. As far as she was concerned, people could come and go as they pleased, so long as they did not stand in her way.

When news of the missing princess had reached Maleficent, she'd at first been little more than mildly amused by such a feeble attempt to thwart her will. But her idle mockery had soon turned to maddening frustration. Maleficent was among the most powerful fairies of her generation, and yet she could not locate a defenseless human child? She would not stand for it.

When at last Maleficent caught sight of the mysterious singer, her irritation with herself grew quite suddenly all-encompassing. Truly, years of sleep deprivation must have addled her mind. Golden hair, flawless skin, bright red lips-so clearly the daughter of the Queen who had bargained so dearly for her-of course no peasant, mo mere mortal, could sing with such a voice. Beyond sweetness, beyond warmth, beyond even virtuosity, that voice had been gifted to her by a fairy at her christening.

The Good Fairies had hidden the Princess Aurora here.

Right under Maleficent's nose.

Maleficent wrapped her fingers about her staff to steady herself, narrowly avoided clawing at her face for the sheer force of the rage that washed over her then. Her vision blurred and her hands began to shake.

Maleficent had scoured the entire Earth and several realms besides looking for this girl. She had called upon every ally she had ever made, every creature she could will to do her bidding without any chance of beginning a nasty rumour that she was experiencing any difficulty with her task. She had sent her idiot minions into the surrounding towns and forests every few years, but she had never personally searched them, because she had honestly believed that the three Good Fairies who served as the King's counselors, simple though they might be, were not quite stupid or reckless enough to hide such a precious commodity in plain sight.

Clearly, she had done something she'd believed impossible: she had overestimated their competence.

Maleficent's knuckles whitened around her staff, and she readied herself to charge into the clearing where the princess wandered. She would drag the girl back to wherever the fairies were keeping her and eviscerate her in front of them. She would send the remains to the King and Queen in a box with a ribbon. Good game! she would say. I'll bet you thought for a moment that you stood a chance against me! Well. Here's your precious—

The princess's singing was broken off by a musical sigh. She collapsed gracefully into the grass and reached out with a delicate hand to stroke the head of a rabbit at her side. It did not run or shy away. Indeed, it moved nearer to her when she spoke. "Have you ever been outside this little clearing?" she wondered.

Something in Maleficent's chest twisted ever so slightly, and she frowned instinctively in response. There was no way the girl could have sensed her presence. No. She was speaking to the rabbit. Of course.

Aurora swung her legs around to sit properly upon the riverbank, and she dipped her bare foot into the water. "It's all right," she told the rabbit. "Neither have I, and yet..." Another sigh. Wistful. Beautiful. "I can't help but wonder if the rest of the world is as dangerous as my aunties tell me."

So. The Good Fairies kept her in this minuscule corner of the woods and told her the rest of the world was dangerous. Their plan grew more idiotic by the minute. If Maleficent's mother had tried to feed that nonsense to her or her sisters when they were teenagers, she'd have had three runaways on her hands before nightfall.

"I know they only mean to protect me," she continued. Her melodious voice grew heavy with melancholy, and Maleficent's frown deepened. "But they can't very well do that forever, can they? Why, in a few months' time I'll be sixteen years old! They're going to expect me to act like a grown-up, take on more responsibilities... But will they still insist that I don't speak to anyone then? How am I ever to grow up if I've never even met another person? How am I ever to..."

Another sigh. A sad, self-deprecating little laugh. "Can't even talk to you anymore without hearing Aunt Flora's voice in my head. 'Don't you have better things to worry about than falling in love?'"

Aurora withdrew her feet from the stream, stood, and continued her walk. Her small band of animal companions scurried after her, hanging on her every word, enchanted by her fairy's magic. Not a few steps away, Maleficent stood immobile in the shadows, no less transfixed.

"But you know something?" Aurora's voice suddenly took on a lighter quality, almost playful, but with an underlying spark that rendered it less childish, less flippant. "I don't think there's anything more important than love," she told the forest.

So young. So naive. She said this with a kind of glowing, fiery certainty. There was nothing this poor, simple child believed in more strongly than the power of love. Maleficent scoffed.

Aurora stopped walking. "Hello? Is somebody there?"

Maleficent's fight-or-flight response had always erred rather decidedly on the side of fighting. That a part of her, however small, felt in any way compelled to tun back immediately, to sequester herself as far away from this situation as possible until she could work out why exactly she'd spent the past ten minutes quietly listening in on an idiot juvenile's ramblings on the matter of love when she ought to be ripping her to pieces, was unthinkable. Maleficent would sooner die than live with the knowledge that she had fled from such a creature.

"High praise for something so volatile, so fleeting," said Maleficent instead, quietly. She did not move from her spot, nor did she allow her voice to sound precisely where it was. The inadmissibility of panic incited in her an eerie calm, an icy clarity. She had found the princess at long last. Her prey was in her sights, and Maleficent would savour her victory, after all.

Aurora did not disappoint. She turned in frantic circles like a frightened doe, golden hair whipping violently over her shoulders, bright violet-blue eyes darting wildly between the trees, looking for any sign of something amiss. "Something so volatile? How do you mean—?"

But as quickly as she had been thrown into a frenzy, Aurora stopped and her lovely features contorted into a frown that was far more melancholy than threatening. "Nevermind. I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to speak to strangers." She turned her back to Maleficent and made to leave the clearing.

Maleficent was seized by the bizarre desire to continue the conversation, without revealing herself and without capturing and killing the princess. Why in Hell's name would she want to do that? Just for a bit of fun? Hadn't this gone on long enough? "How shall you ever meet anyone new, if you never speak to a stranger?"

Aurora stopped. She stood still and silent for a moment before she responded, quietly. "I imagine the idea is that I can't."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

"Well, I..." Aurora sighed. "I don't know."

The melancholy had returned to her voice ten times over. Though Maleficent knew the sound of it was only a trick of simple fairy magic, this knowledge did nothing to silence the effect of the voice upon her heart. Aurora was unhappy, and it made Maleficent feel sad to hear her sadness. This, like most emotions, quickly turned into vague irritation, and again, Maleficent frowned at nothing.

"You'll have a difficult time chasing your dreams of love if you continue to live in a world of strangers," said Maleficent coolly.

Aurora said nothing for a moment, and then her shoulders convulsed slightly. After another long silence, she let out a small, pathetic sob. Maleficent's lip curled instinctively in response to the sound.

"Please," said Aurora tremulously. "I know that already. You don't have to be so unkind."

"Run home to your beloved caretakers, then," Maleficent sneered. "Hide your head in your dreams while you may."

Aurora turned around abruptly. Tears sparkled in her searching eyes and her rose-red lips trembled ever so slightly. She focused her attention on a spot not far away from where Maleficent stood. Her near-accuracy was more unnerving than it should have been. Maleficent must simply have grown too irritated to continue throwing her voice about.

"I am sorry that the world has been cruel to you," she said.

Maleficent wasn't certain what she had expected, but she had not anticipated this. "I beg your pardon?"

"Perhaps you've never known the kind of love I know," she continued. "I'm sorry for that. But you see..." A small smile began to tug at her lips, almost imperceptible, but just as warm and as genuine as the inflection it engendered in her voice. "You are the first person I've ever spoken to. Besides my aunts, of course. And for that, I shall always love you just a little bit, whoever you are. Even if you weren't very nice to me."

She turned to leave again, and Maleficent was far too stunned to stop her. Before her golden curls disappeared amongst the trees, Aurora stopped and turned around once more.

"I suppose that means I've proven you all wrong, doesn't it?" she wondered lightly.

Not an instant later, she was well and truly gone.

Maleficent could follow her. She could enact her plan this very evening and be done with the matter. She could get a full night of rest for the first time in nearly two decades, and she could leave this land for a time, find some other place to cause trouble, somewhere the trouble didn't bite back in such infuriating ways.

This brief interaction had left Maleficent feeling perplexed. Uncertain. She had...minimal experience with the sensation, and she found that it did not suit her at all. Generally her motives clearly aligned, and potential courses of action laid themselves out clearly in her mind's eye, all means by which to achieve a single desired outcome. Each had pros and cons to be accommodated, but they certainly never contradicted one another.

Maleficent closed her eyes, inhaled slowly. She wouldn't put an end to the princess tonight. Not without a clear plan. She wouldn't throw caution to the wind simply because she'd been caught off her guard. She knew where the girl was now, and with a few months to spare. So long as Maleficent did not allow her ill temper to get the better of her, she had an abundance of time to concoct a new death sentence, even more horrific and poetic than the first.

Somewhere in the distance, Aurora began to sing again. Impossibly, her song was warmer and sweeter than it had been the first time Maleficent had heard it.

Nonsense! A trick of fairy's magic!

Maleficent scowled and departed the forest in a burst of green flame. She could not endure this torment a moment longer.