Oh my Goodness, I'm so sorry that I have taken so long. I've just not had the desire to write in so long. Its been difficult.

Thank you for any who have stuck around, you guys are rock stars!

Miranda looked up from her roses and saw Maleficent's raven fly off from the left tower. She didn't wonder what it was doing here, she'd long ago given up worrying about being watched.

When she first arrived, she was told about the evil fairy that lived in the moors. Stefan had expressly forbidden her from ever going near them and she wanting to please her new husband had headed his orders and stayed away, but the curiosity had never left her and one day it got the better of her.

"Make sure the King's favorite tarts are in there. Have the horses saddled within the hour."

"Yes, your highness."

Miranda entered his study and found him at his usual spot and doing what he did most days, staring out the window which faced the mysterious woods. She cleared her throat softly, "my Lord, the luncheon is ready."

Stefan nodded and followed her to the great hall but she moved past it and to the ornate front doors splayed open where two groomsmen awaited with horses saddled.

"Where are we going?"

She was helped onto her horse and responded, "it's such a wonderful day that I thought perhaps we could spend time outside the castle and enjoy lunch by the lake. I've seen you ride there many times and I'm curious to see the place you clearly love..."

At her words a combination of fury and fear swept over his face which transformed him into a dangerous stranger and she cringed back involuntarily.

"Leave us," he barked at the groomsmen.

The men scurried away and Stefan with great care and with no explanation, helped her down. "You are never to go near the river, you are never to go near that place."

Still weary of him, she allowed herself to be brought down from the animal but could not help saying. "I don't understand, is it not part of our lands?"

"That place is cursed and nothing good can come from going there. Heed my words wife and do not venture there."

"I didn't mean to start a quarrel, I only wanted..."

He gripped her arms so tightly that she was forced to look up at him. "Do Not Go There. Is that clear!"

"Yes," Miranda said and tugged herself free from his punishing grip. "Do you still wish to lunch together?" she asked timidly.

Stefan stepped back from her as if dazed, his face losing the crazed fervor and making him recognizable to her again. "I'm afraid my appetite has left me."

He shook himself again as if trying to remove some invisible force from him and departed leaving her alone and despairing of closing the ever widening distance between them.

Yes, Miranda had obeyed from that day on but as the months stretched on and her marriage continued on a loveless path, she came to understand that the darkness that lived within her husband had its origins in that forbidden place.

Unwilling to live any longer with secrets that were tearing her sanity apart, Miranda saddled her own horse and departed to confront what her husband feared so, only by facing it could she save the man she'd grown to love.

The area was unknown to her and as she traveled further from her home, the longer and darker the woods became. She felt eyes all around her and as she neared the wall of thorns, that lead to the moors, the woods grew unnaturally silent as if the very trees were holding their breath.

She dismounted and approached the wall, the silence unnerved her and she called out, "I seek passage through this wood."

The woman seemed to materialize from the very shadows and Miranda for the first time realized how foolish she'd been to venture out on her own to confront an enemy she knew little about and was ill equipped to fight.

"Well...this is a surprise."

"Who are you?" Miranda asked with courage she didn't feel.

The woman regarded her with amusement, "who are you that dares to challenge me so boldly and in my own kingdom?"

"I am Queen Miranda and this is my domain."

"Ah so he finally married." The woman said talking more to herself than Miranda.

"Who are you?" Miranda asked again refusing to show just how much this woman, whoever she was, terrified her, no she was of royal blood and she would not be cowed.

"You don't know? He's not told you." The woman's smile was pure malice.

"Told me?"

"What a sad little creature you are." The woman shook her head pityingly. "How much must he hide from you."

Miranda felt a rush of indignant anger but did not rise to the woman's baiting. "Who are you?"

"Ask your King, who I am. Ask him and see if he answers honestly. If he does not, come back and I will gladly tell you the tale but you will not like it."

"He has no secrets from me." Miranda assured.

"And yet you came here alone, unbeknownst to him. You don't know who I am." She waved her off, "go on, I'll be waiting."

Miranda rode off determined to ask, and ask Miranda did.

King Stefan was enraged. "I told you never to go near the moors. How dare you defy my orders!"

"What is this fear you have of the woods?" she asked.

"It is not fear."

"Then what is it?"

"Retribution," he sighed.

"For what? What dark deed have you done?"

"It is of no importance if you heed my orders."

"It's tied to her. You know her, who is she?" Miranda insisted, she needed to know how this woman was connected to her husband. She had her suspicions but she wanted to be certain.

"You saw her? Did she try to harm you?" He looked her over searching for injuries.

"Who is she Stefan? Why would she wish to harm me?"

"Because she hates me."

"Why? What did you do to her?" He remained silent and she felt a terrible foreboding claw at her insides. "Stefan, please I need to understand." She pleaded.

He turned away from her and and Miranda caught a brief glimpse beneath the kingly garb and authority and saw a broken man. A man mourning a love lost through betrayal.

In that moment Miranda knew that her husband would never be hers, he belonged to another and she cried for the love she'd wasted on him.

An entire winter passed before Miranda returned to the place that had shattered her world.

"He told you the truth." The woman said. "Why did you return?"

"I came to deliver a warning."

"Really? From him or you?"

"From me, stay away. Do not go near my kingdom, my king or my child." The woman's expression soured. "Yes, child. You heard correctly. He might fear you but I do not."

"Be careful, your highness, I can do much worse than maim or kill, do not test me."

"I don't fear shadows, that is what you are, Maleficent. A shadow of the past that haunts the land." And with her head high Miranda rode away but Maleficent's parting words stayed with her long after she got back to the castle.

"Even the brightest light can't banish all the shadows."

That small skirmish had happened five years ago, Miranda stood and brushed a few errant petals from her dress. It had been a fruitless endeavor, she'd accomplished nothing and had learned first hand how quickly love could cool when it wasn't nurtured.

The child she'd carried had not lived past the season and the little heir had been buried among her flowers. Miranda mourned him still, one of the few things she and Stefan still had in common. He'd never visited the grave after the burial but she imagined Stefan remembered him in his own way.

She knew that he'd gone to the moors the night before, she'd heard the hurried steps to the left tower, the one place locked and kept for his sole use. She heard the purposeful stride back down and to the castle doors and saw as he with infinite tenderness placed whatever his cloak hid on his horse and rode as if the devil himself were after him.

She didn't pretend to understand, she'd heard him too many times talking to voices only he could hear, had seen him converse with that cursed bird that circled their castle and had seen him head to the woods many times only to have the trees literally bar his way and force him back to whence he came. He was gone for many hours and when he returned there was a lightness about him as well as a loving smile she'd never seen grace his lips as he stopped at the gates and looked far off into the distance.

With a pang, she'd released the curtain and had gone back to bed and feigned sleep when he finally entered their bedchamber. He'd placed a gentle kiss on her hair and she'd swallowed the lump in her throat as she wondered who it was he imagined kissing.

Whatever his reasons, she would not pry, she could no longer afford to meddle in his affairs, it was too painful.

She'd slept well into the day and when she did rouse, she'd seen the royal guard was gone which meant so was Stefan. Miranda had spent most of her day in her garden which was how she'd come to notice the bird. Its shadow always seem to loom over her especially when she felt at her lowest.

The bird circled once more and Miranda wished with all her heart that she could leave this place as easily as it did.