A/N: Hello again from beyond an endless hiatus! I made the mistake of rereading the earlier chapters, and since I started this rewrite so long ago of course my style has changed again haha and I'd like to rework the beginning a little bit! Nothing will change content-wise, I just want the style to be consistent before I put this story to rest!

I come bearing no false promises of speedier updates this time—at the moment, my focus is mostly on reworking my longer fic, The Prisoner, and on finishing my shorter AU, Songbird, and those will likely take priority. But I am hoping to spur this rewrite towards completion in the next few months, and you may rest assured that I will never abandon it completely! Thanks for sticking with me!

Chapter 6 — For Whose Crimes

"Your Highness," said Maleficent's voice, in the memory. "You are surprised to see me, yet you are the one who summoned me here."

Her voice was so different. It was the tone she had used with Rose in the beginning, Rose realized suddenly. She thought she had noticed a change, something softer, or at least less openly malicious, but had not been fully able to appreciate the contrast until it had been laid plainly before her.

The young woman who was like a mirror stammered out a few syllables, averted her gaze and focused her attention on whatever she had spilled. Broken glass and some kind of liquid at her feet, but she did not move to clean it up. "I...yes. I summoned you," she said to the floor.

"I've never been summoned by royalty before," said Maleficent airily. "I imagined a queen might have the sense to leave well enough alone."

The young woman looked up, golden blonde hair and violet blue eyes, and an expression of terror Briar Rose had once witnessed on her own face in the mirror of a castle. She had truly been this woman's mirror then, all dressed up in finery and wearing the crown of a princess.

"But you came," the woman breathed.

Rose could feel the echo of something she herself had never experienced. There was a word for it, but it belonged to the part of Maleficent's consciousness that had been bestowed upon her: power. "I had hoped it might be worth my while," said Maleficent.

Queen Leah bowed her head, overcome by something deeper than fear. "Anything," she said. "Anything I have to give."

Maleficent chuckled, low and dark and chilling. "One ought to be wary of making promises she cannot keep."

Queen Leah fell to her knees. She did not merely kneel, but collapsed, amid the broken glass and the spilled liquid. To Briar Rose, the sight was shocking, upsetting. To Maleficent it felt like amusement, which perhaps Rose should have expected, but tinged with a sliver of pity she could not have anticipated.

"Please," said the queen. "I don't know where else to turn."

Maleficent folded her arms. "I'm listening."

The queen was silent for a moment. But then she began to tell the story Maleficent had just recounted to Rose, about how she had made mistakes in her past but her husband and her kingdom should not pay for them, about how she would never recover if her husband were to stray, for she had come to love him dearly, and she wished to give him what he required of her.

The pity Maleficent felt was coloured with disgust then. Some distant echo of Briar Rose felt a twinge of fear as Maleficent approached the kneeling queen.

"Rise, Majesty," she said.

The queen looked up with eyes like a mirror, and she scrambled to her feet. The green-skinned hands reached for her, and she recoiled. Maleficent laughed sharply.

"You plead on your knees for my help, a queen bowing before a monster, and you cannot endure the sight of my outstretched hand?"

"I'm sorry," said the queen. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over.

Maleficent ignored her. She was standing still, and that was enough. She had to lean down to press a hand to the queen's belly. She closed her eyes and the world went dark, and Briar Rose felt through Maleficent's hand the strange tingle of magic. She knew because Maleficent knew that Leah could not carry a child in her current condition, but that Maleficent could solve the problem. She felt the queen trembling beneath Maleficent's hand, and wondered whether this creature who watched over her in sleep was truly so fearful to behold in the waking world.

Maleficent opened her eyes. The queen was weeping. Briar Rose felt pity. Maleficent felt only revulsion. "I can help you, Majesty."

The queen turned wide, wet eyes upward, gratitude marred by trepidation. "Oh, thank you, your Excellency," she breathed, but the unspoken question was clear even before she managed to speak it aloud. "I will gladly give you anything you ask in return. Anything that is mine to give."

Maleficent afforded her another dark chuckle, and she turned away from the weeping queen to survey the room. "I'd advise you to choose your words with greater caution, Majesty," she said. "Suppose I granted your request and then took away your kingdom? Suppose I demanded the life of your husband in exchange for the life of your child? Suppose," she turned sharply, and the queen staggered backward, "I asked for your body? You wouldn't like that very much, now, would you? Why," Maleficent considered the queen with an intensity that turned Rose's stomach, and she curled her lip, "you don't even want me to touch you through the safety of your corset."

The queen backed herself into the opposing wall. When her hands collided with the unyielding stone, she began to cry afresh—her sobs racked her body and shook her shoulders. She closed her eyes and struggled to steady her breathing. "I am not in a position to bargain," said the queen, barely above a whisper. "Without an heir to the throne, I am worthless."

Maleficent watched the queen in silence for a moment. Rose could tell that Maleficent was considering her options, but either her mind worked in a way Rose could not grasp, or Maleficent had deliberately obscured her thoughts.

"Pitiful creature," Maleficent spat, and shook her head. "I shall grant you mercy, but be warned: squander my sympathy, and you shall know true suffering."

"Anything," said the queen again, eyes still closed, still weeping, trembling all over. "Anything you want!"

Maleficent approached. The queen did not recoil when Maleficent touched her belly, but then again, she had nowhere left to run.

"When next you lie with your noble king," Maleficent's hands began to tingle with magic, "you shall conceive a child. There is a tradition in your kingdom that when a royal child is born, all the fairies in the land may bestow a gift upon it. That tradition will be extended to me."

The queen opened her eyes. "What will you do?"

With her free hand, Maleficent traced two long fingers along the curve of the queen's cheek. "Have faith, Queen Leah," she said, with mocking sweetness. "When regarded with the respect I deserve, I assure you I can be most agreeable."

The face of the queen began to fade around the edges, and soon the light and the warmth of the room faded with it. The sharpness, the clarity, the certainty all vanished, and Briar Rose was left with only herself again.

My mother...you...the... The christening, Rose managed at last. They didn't invite you. It was, I thought...

Everyone had made it seem like a given. Of course they hadn't invited the evil fairy Maleficent to Rose's—well, to Princess Aurora's christening, why would they? But she had asked and the queen had said anything, but she had—

"Why, indeed," said Maleficent.

The queen, the queen who was her mother, had made a promise she couldn't keep. Surely Maleficent must have known that. Rose had never met the queen, not outside of someone else's memory, but what could one queen do against a king, against an entire castle of advisors who didn't know her secret? Of course she wouldn't be permitted to invite Maleficent, even if she'd wanted to, even if she'd—

"Perhaps," Maleficent agreed, to Rose's immense surprise. "But make no mistake—she could have tried ever so much harder than she did. Why, she was only too happy to meet with resistance."

Rose didn't know what to think, or how to respond. She wondered whether the queen had really tried very hard. She wondered what would have been enough effort to satisfy Maleficent. She wondered what Maleficent's face looked like, and why the queen had been so terrified just to look upon her.

She thought about the memory Maleficent had shared with her, the clarity of it, and the strange release she felt now. She could feel things in Maleficent's memory. Strange, frightening things—things that did not seem to belong to her, like power and disgust and loathing. But she could feel them. She could not quite feel anything the way she was here, frozen in time, preserved in slumber.

"I..." There it was again. That strange, choked hesitation of a sound. "I could show you something else."

Something happy? Rose wondered, long before she'd had time to gather her thoughts.

Maleficent didn't respond, but Rose felt her presence grow nearer once more, felt a hand hovering above her forehead. "I don't have very many happy memories," said Maleficent quietly. "But there's one you might like."

Again, the cold of her hands, the warmth of her touch, darkness into light, swirling uncertainty into aching clarity, and the sweet release of being outdoors. Sun streaming through the treetops, a gentle breeze against her cheeks, ruffling her hair, and birds that sang and crowed and shrieked and fluttered and—

Briar Rose had only once seen a raven in the waking world, and it seemed like something that oughtn't to be real. It was like a crow, but bigger—statuesque, which was an odd way to describe a bird. To see a whole flock of them together, cawing and singing and chattering, all of them looking like they existed just beyond the realm of possible things, would have overwhelmed Briar Rose.

What Maleficent felt was something like serenity.

One of the birds caught her eye and he cawed at her. Rose felt Maleficent smile. Was that a happy sound?

"Hello, pretty bird," said Maleficent. She sounded younger, lighter, less tired.

The bird cawed again, and Maleficent laughed, low and rich and quiet and—and almost sweet. It was nothing like the laughter from the other memory. And then Maleficent began to hum, an old folk tune Briar Rose recognized. She reached out with long-fingered green hands, and the bird fluttered over to rest upon her forearm.

"Do you know how to sing, pretty bird?"

The bird cawed again. Somehow it was different from the first sound. Somehow Maleficent understood.

"That's all right," said Maleficent. Rose was stricken again by how different she sounded. "I'm not very good, either. But there's no one around to hear us now, is there?"

The bird crowed again, and now Briar Rose could tell the happy sound from the sound Maleficent took as a no. Maleficent looked up into the sky and she began to sing the old folk song she'd been humming, low and sweet and rich and wonderful.

"Oh, my love is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June!
Oh, my love is like a melody that's sweetly sung in tune!"

And Briar Rose felt the release that came with singing, as though the sound had come from her own body! Some of the ravens in the grass at her feet sang her words back to her, at varying pitches. The bird on her arm crowed along in a terrible approximation of the tune and a strangled imitation of the words, and Maleficent laughed that same happy laugh before she continued to sing.

"As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear, 'til all the seas go dry!"

The forest erupted in the screeching, crowing, and fluttering of ravens alight with the song she had taught them. These strange birds who looked like they ought not to be real circled Maleficent like Briar Rose's animal friends back in her cottage in the woods, and the feeling was the same. Briar Rose felt like she had returned home.

Returned home to a place that no longer existed.

Returned home to a life that was no longer hers.

Briar Rose should never have been.

When Aurora woke, Briar Rose would die.

The sunlight through the trees faded, and the chattering ravens fell silent. No more warmth, no more cold hand on her forehead, no more sight, no more outdoors, no more feeling, no more song.

"I've upset you," said Maleficent. She sounded...genuinely sorry.

No, not you, it was...

But Rose felt her throat closing up and her eyes stinging with the unrealized urge to cry, felt her breathing grow shallow and her cheeks fail to flush, felt as though she would suffocate or collapse into herself if she were not allowed to just simply—

It was a beautiful memory, she thought, and the effort of forming a coherent sentence made her head spin. It reminded me of home, only there's no home left to go to.

Rose heard Maleficent inhale, then...nothing. For a moment, cold panic coursed through her, the usual fear that Maleficent had just simply left her here, alone in the dark with her thoughts, but a hand upon her arm, just above the crook of her elbow, sent an entirely different chill coursing through her.

"I haven't gone," said Maleficent.

What are you thinking? What was she thinking, what was she feeling, what did it feel like to feel? Briar Rose could hardly remember.

Maleficent's fingers curled around Rose's arm. Rose inhaled sharply. It was the only release her body would afford her.

"I don't know what to do," said Maleficent. Her voice was little more than a whisper, yet it seemed to reverberate against the walls, throughout Rose's addled mind, and down to her very bones.

I don't know what to do. What an odd thing to say. Wasn't Maleficent's plan to leave her here? Wasn't it Maleficent's wish that Briar Rose drive herself mad while she waited to be awoken into whatever remained of the world? What was there to do?

Why should Maleficent care? The only thing she cared for was that this, the entirety of Briar Rose's existence, be ended as expediently as possible. In this way, she was no different than anyone else. Everyone wanted Briar Rose to die—it didn't much matter how.

"That isn't true."

You don't want me to die?

"No, I..."

Then why are you doing this to me?

Maleficent's hand fell away from Rose's arm. Rose heard a shuddering inhalation. "I have to go."

No! Rose felt her whole body try and fail to contract with the force of her protestation. It isn't fair! You can come and go as you please and I am left here, imprisoned by my own body! You trapped me here and now you're leaving again! You'll never come back, I know it, you won't, you'll never come back because you don't know what to do so you'll just leave me here and I can't wake up and I can't die and I can't live like this so why don't you just kill me and put an end to this? Isn't that what you want? An end?

"I'm sorry."

Sorry? Sorry for what? What did sorry matter? What did sorry fix? Rose wanted to cry, to fight, to kick and scream and wail and curse, but she could do nothing. Maleficent had stolen even that from her.

I care because I am going to win and this is going to end. That's what you said. So win. End my misery. I don't care anymore! This is no life! What has my life been for?

But Briar Rose knew, she knew before she had even finished her thought, that Maleficent had left her alone. She was screaming at no one and making no sound. She felt her body try and fail to contract, felt her eyes try and fail to weep, felt her throat try and fail to cry out to nothing and to no one.

Would Maleficent truly leave her like this for the rest of her days? Who could be so cruel?