Rose wondered how much time had passed while she slept. She wondered how long an eternity of slumber would feel. Had it been a day or a year already, or little more than an hour?

She wandered once more along a path into nothingness, for want of anything better to do. Her surroundings began to take shape, and this time they felt almost familiar, like the woods where she had spend all the years of her brief existence.

Shadows took the shape of a young woman with dark hair and a yellow dress sitting by a stream, leaning in and pushing the water with her hands. As Rose drew nearer, she could hear the girl humming a tune.

"You're in a merry mood," said a man's voice.

The girl startled, but she did not look afraid.

"Yes," she said, but she did not sound happy.

The shadows between the trees took the shape of a man with green skin and sharp features like Maleficent. He conjured up a black rose and offered it to the girl by the stream.

"I shall have to stop seeing you soon," she said.

The man withdrew the rose, and it turned to ash. "And why is that?"

The girl was silent a moment. She traced circles in the water. "I'm to be married," she said at last.

"Married," the man echoed, a mixture of longing and disdain. "Well. Would that you'd said something a bit sooner, little songbird." He waved his hand and conjured a little ring, silver and sparkling. He knelt at her side and presented it to her.

She didn't even look at it. Instead, she withdrew her hand from the water and placed it upon her belly. "I'm afraid it's much too late for that."

The ring crumbled to sand and slipped from his fingers into the water. "You really might have said something," he said, his voice a shade darker than before.

"I know what your kind are like," said the girl, turning even further away from him. "You would have left me in a few years, anyway, once I had ceased to amuse you."

The man stood. "Is that what your lover tells you?" he wondered sharply.

The girl's face contorted subtly. "It's what everyone tells me. Anyway, I'm getting awfully old to be alone and childless."

"Old," the man scoffed. "Is that also something that everyone tells you?"

"Yes," said the girl, but her cool façade was beginning to crack, and her lower lip trembled.

"So," said the man. "It's time to grow up and stop pretending, then?" His brow furrowed and his eyes traced the length of the stream. His fist clenched at his side, glowing faintly with magic. "Did you ever really love me at all, I wonder?"

The girl began to weep, silently, shoulders shaking and hands covering her face. "I'm sorry!" she whimpered.

The man glanced once more down the stream, as though looking at something very far in the distance, then he cast his dark magic into it. "No," he said, darkly. "It was my mistake."

Clouds like smoke billowed up around them until Rose was surrounded by darkness once more, but she was sure she felt someone just over her shoulder—someone familiar, and far more real than the shadows she'd seen thus far.

"I see," said Maleficent.

Rose turned sharply, half-expecting to see another half-formed shadow, or even nothing at all, a familiar voice only a cruel trick of this terrible dreamscape. But Maleficent stood before her, looking thoughtfully just past her at the place where the stream had just been.

"You're here," Rose breathed. "You're…are you real? You feel real."

Maleficent turned her gaze to Rose, and her features softened subtly. Rose's heart leapt. She no longer had the luxury of questioning why she felt such relief, even joy at seeing Maleficent again.

"We only have a short time," said Maleficent.

"You—I saw—" Rose stammered, but there was too much, so much already and not even Maleficent knew how long she must stay here. "Are you all right?" she tried at last.

"All right?" Maleficent echoed.

"I saw…a vision, perhaps, from a future that might come to pass, and she said that Prince Phillip was to slay you while I slept, and I couldn't—I wanted to—"

"You wanted to?" Maleficent's brow furrowed subtly.

"To warn you," Rose finished. She felt herself reaching out without meaning to, grasping at the hanging fabric of Maleficent's sleeves, and it felt so real and so solid that Rose very nearly wept.

Maleficent gazed upon her in silence for what seemed a long time. "Sweet little princess," she murmured at last.

"What are you doing here?" Rose asked her.

"I've come to free you," said Maleficent.

This proved too much for Briar Rose at last. She threw her arms about Maleficent's waist with a cry of "Oh, thank you, thank you!" even as she began to weep afresh for all the horrors she had seen since she had been here.

It couldn't come to pass, could it? If Maleficent was here to free her, then it couldn't be so, what her mirror had said. If Maleficent was here to free her, then she wasn't slain by Phillip, and she wouldn't let that horrible vision come to pass!

Maleficent did not return her embrace. She stood stiffly and patted Rose's shoulder almost awkwardly. When at last Rose withdrew, Maleficent said again, "We don't have much time."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked her. She did not quite let go of Maleficent's sleeves, terrified that Maleficent might dissolve into dust or shadow like everything else she had seen.

"I've come to free you," said Maleficent, averting her eyes briefly, "and to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Rose echoed. The word left her feeling hollow and cold. "After…after all this? After everything?"

Maleficent didn't respond. Her gaze was focused downward and away, like she could see something Rose couldn't in the endless darkness.

"Why?" Rose pressed.

"I endeavour to keep my promises," said Maleficent quietly.

"Not all of them!" Rose cried, pulling away at last. "You promised you'd be there when I woke! You promised you'd teach me to dance!"

Maleficent considered this a moment. Then she brought her hands together as though cradling a fine goblet, and they began to glow with magic, like the green-skinned man in the vision. "I have something for you," she said, but she still wasn't looking directly at Rose. "Consider it a birthday gift."

She held out her hands. Rose inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes closed as she felt strange magic wash over her like cold water.

"It won't last forever," said Maleficent, "but it will give you the protection you require in the weeks to come. In this way, I will be with you when you wake. As for the dance…"

Rose opened her eyes. Maleficent bowed low and extended her hand. "There is time yet."

Rose reached out, then hesitated.

Maleficent quirked one brow. "Are you frightened?"

Rose thought of what she had seen, of the woman weeping for her children and the woman burning for imagined crimes and the woman like a mirror who was forced to bear the burden of hope for her people.

"A little," said Rose as she took Maleficent's hand. "But not of you."

Maleficent drew Rose near with a hand at her back, and Rose felt a shudder course through her at the gentle touch. They began to dance, just as Rose had always danced alone in the woods.

"I expect you'll find yourself with countless opportunities to dance in the days to come, if you wish it," said Maleficent.

"And if I don't?" Rose looked up into Maleficent's dark eyes, and found herself momentarily overwhelmed by the intensity there.

"If you don't find yourself with countless opportunities?" Maleficent led her in a turn, then pulled her close again. "Or if you don't wish it?"

Rose shivered deliciously. She leaned closer. "If I don't wish it."

The corners of Maleficent's lips twitched in to a small smile. "Well," she said. "But you are royalty, little princess. Bend the world to your whims, if it pleases you."

Rose's surprising good mood was dampened as she thought of the visions she had seen. "I don't know how," she said.

"Yet you wish to try," said Maleficent. "I think, little princess, that you might be exactly what your people need."

Rose looked up. "I don't want to be like her!" she said, all in a rush, forgetting momentarily that Maleficent had not seen, that she did not know- "I mean…the vision I saw. I don't want to…there were so many children, and she was so weak and so…"

Maleficent shook her head. "You will not be what your people need in the way that they imagine," she said, " and that will be your greatest challenge. But I have gifted you with ample protection. I would not—" she hesitated, and her brow furrowed.

"You would not…what?" Rose pressed.

Maleficent averted her eyes again. She led Rose in another turn and bowed to her, but then she took Rose's hand between both of hers. When at last she met Rose's gaze again, it was with so much intensity that Rose very nearly felt compelled to look away.

"I would not leave your side," said Maleficent, "if I thought you were in danger of meeting such a fate."

Rose felt frozen in shock. She looked down at Maleficent's hands grasping hers, then back up into Maleficent's eyes, at a loss.

"It is better, this way," Maleficent continued. "This way, you may carve your own destiny."

"Will I ever see you again?" Rose asked her.

Maleficent's lips twitched into a sad smile. "Not if you're lucky," she said. She looked up suddenly, just above Rose's head. "But our time grows short. Live well, little princess."

Rose woke with tears upon her cheeks, gasping for air and grasping for hands that no longer held hers. She looked around her frantically, unseeing, as shadows formed shapes the way they had in her dream, and she was certain she was still trapped, that Maleficent had just been another vision, that she would have to endure being told that the evil fairy had been slain again and again and again for however long she slept.

"Oh, Rose! Rose!" her aunties cried as they gathered around her.

But Rose could not cease the flow of her tears, could not steady her breathing or slow her thoughts. She was awake, and Maleficent was gone—she knew it, could feel it in the hollowness of her heart.

"Where is she?" she breathed, even though she already knew the answer, even though she did not want to hear. "Where is she?"

"Maleficent is gone, Rosie!" Merryweather cried triumphantly. "She's gone and she's never coming back, don't you worry!"

"Everything is all right now, Rose! Everything is going to be all right!"

"It's all right, Rose! You're safe now!"

"Oh, Rose!"