#so this happened jkdaljsgkldsg

[sparrowmoth]

Concept: vaguely Tam Lin-flavoured Malvie love story where mortal Evie and faerie Mal meet as strangers in the forest and slowly fall in love, prompting ever less fanciful talks of how they could marry and run away together (not necessarily in that order).

The problem is that Mal’s mother is not just any fae, she’s queen of her court and she expects Mal to inherit her position someday. Worse, Maleficent thinks of mortals as beneath the fae. She would never approve of Mal being with Evie.

The solution, Mal decides, is to stand up to her mother and tell her that either Evie’s accepted as her consort or she’s leaving the court to grow old with her.

Mal tells Evie of her plan, but insists it’s something she has to do alone. Evie has a bad feeling about that, so she decides to follow Mal back in secret...

As expected, Maleficent is furious at the notion of her daughter with a mortal.

She’s more stunned than anything when said mortal steps out from the crowd and challenges her ruling, which would have forbidden Mal from stepping foot in the mortal realm again until such time that Evie would be long since dead.

Maleficent, though... she thinks she knows this story. She had a mortal lover once. She knows how weak the passion pumps through their hearts, no matter what their lips say, so she decides to teach her daughter instead of sparing her.

“Hold her,” says Maleficent. “Prove your love.”

It’s too easy a way to convince her. Mal knows that. Evie knows that. But still, Evie is stubborn and determined and, in Mal’s eyes, naive to what Maleficent is capable of, so... when Evie rushes to Mal’s side and wraps her tightly in a hug, Mal lets her because, in her own mind, this is the last embrace they’ll ever get.

“Hold her,” Maleficent says again, now smiling cruelly as she works her magic on her daughter’s form, shifting her from the soft, small girl with tear-brimmed eyes to a hissing serpent with dripping fangs—then a wild dog, barking and drooling—then a boar with blood-stained tusks—then a dragon with burning scales, growing more and more and more until Evie can scarcely grasp her...

“Hold her,” Maleficent commands with venom as she draws out Evie’s truest fear: her own mother. Grimhilde. The monster she was born to, but has never held like this, because—because—

“Let go of me! You’re embarrassing yourself! What kind of behaviour is this for a proper young lady? Men will think you’re desperate. No one will ever love you.”

All these words spill from Grimhilde’s mouth as if it were Mal who spoke them, or... it were truly Grimhilde herself, or—no, but it’s not, and Evie knows it’s not, so if it’s not, then it’s Mal, but it’s not her face, so... are those still her words?

Evie closes her eyes and holds tighter, refusing to let go even as her mother continues to berate her. It’s a strange thing, because if it were really her mother, she’d be shoved off, but she isn’t. Her “mother” holds her like she never has before. It doesn’t feel good, like Evie thought it might. It feels wrong.

But isn’t all of this?

And then, finally, with a screech of fury and impatience, Maleficent recalls her magic and, when Evie dares to open her eyes, it’s Mal she’s holding, trembling and weak and vulnerable, drained by her efforts to resist her mother’s magic.

Mal, though she can barely stand, takes Evie’s hand in hers and whispers simply, “Don’t let go.” Then, with a last long look at her mother, she turns away and pulls Evie with her, out of the court and into the woods, to the borderline.

This time, when Mal steps through into the other world, she sheds her wings and nearly collapses from the rush of magic leaving her body. Evie catches her before she can fall to her knees and, as she holds her up, the both of them shaking from adrenaline, she whispers to Mal, “I won’t let go. I promise.”