Maleficent's Backstory

Daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon, twin to Aegon III, a baby girl was born with a birth defect that scared the two about her future. As Daemon and Rhaenyra had hopes to rule the Iron Throne, they knew they couldn’t keep this malformed child and sent their daughter away. Her family never found out what happened to her as they figured she would have died. But the child’s birth defect wasn’t a defect at all. They were wing nubs. She was only a week old when they left her in the hands of a servant.

The servant took the baby and secretly sneaked her out of the city and to a sorcerer. The sorcerer willingly took the child and was able to find a portal and sent it through. As Maleficent made it through the portal, she cried and cried. By perfect chance a Fae had heard her cries and took the child to the Fae council asking to keep the child safe within their realm. The Fae agreed and put a few nature Fae in charge of the baby. As the baby grew older, the Fae found that the baby had some unusual abilities. When angry or upset, the infant would somehow set things on fire. Though concerned they felt that the child was an abandoned Fae of some sort and they weren’t going to let her go. They knew she could be taught as she grew how to control her powers.

As the child grew older and reached the age of 5, her numbs had fallen off but she still had no control over her fire powers. Though allowed with play with the fellow Fae children, they watched her closely to make sure nothing happened to the other children. Though the other children seemed to be afraid of this new baby, one child seemed to stick by the new child. They giggled, played and caused havoc to the rest of the fae children together.

Years past and the two children continued to grow closer than ever. The fire child unfortunately had taken on a darker persona, so she was soon named Maleficent. The other child earned the name Gothel. The two grew into their young teen years together, thick as thieves. In fact, it was Gothel, who was the daughter of the Queen, talked her mother into keeping Maleficent with them as Gothel knew Mal had nowhere else to go.

More years pasted and Mal was now nearing twenty. She would go out and explore and practice her fire and magic alone as Gothel had princess duties to attend to. One day, Mal met a young man named Stefan while she ventured out of the Fae realm. The two grew fond of each other and began to meet every day. They had spent almost an entire season meeting every day; Mal had even begun to fall for him. But one day as Mal was waiting for him to arrive, she heard a strange noise growing close. It was Stefan with a small group of soldiers. Confused, she ran to him to ask what was happening, but before she knew it, Mal found herself in chains. Her anger grew more and more as she fought against the soldiers. Her eyes began to glow yellow; she pulled her hands apart breaking the chains then was suddenly surrounded by purple smoke. As the smoke cleared, a large dragon stood where Mal had been standing. The dragon breathed fire at the soldiers killing them all but Stefan who had hid then took off running. The dragon flapped its wings and took off into the sky. Maleficent finally felt free! No one around to tell her what to do or how to be. She could go anywhere in the realms. Seeing Gothel below her in an open field, Maleficent landed and suddenly turned back into her human form. She breathed heavily from excitement and a grin covered her face. Maleficent told Gothel everything that happened as well as telling her that she was leaving. She hadn’t felt like she had ever fit in with the Fae but the moment she took flight, she felt like she knew what had been missing her entire life. Leaving the Fae realm, Maleficent went in search of a life of her own.

As the years pass, Maleficent had spent her time exploring the realms in her dragon form until she found a run-down castle in the Forbidden Mountains and made that her home. She worked night and day on her magic as well as her dragon powers. Maleficent had even come across the Dark One who helped her develop those powers and harness her darkness. He encouraged her to get her revenge which she immediately followed through on. Having been shown how to create a sleeping potion, Maleficent had heard that Stefan was about to be married to a girl named Briar Rose. Flying to the palace, Maleficent lured the Princess to a spinning wheel with a needle that had been dipped into the sleeping curse.

Maleficent placed Briar Rose under the Sleeping Curse. However, the curse wasn’t successful, and she is woken up by Stefan with True Love’s Kiss. Maleficent went into a deep depression, creating her own drug which made her feel nothing. That was until she met Regina, King Leopold’s new Queen, who convinced Maleficent to get revenge and put Aurora, the daughter of Stephan and Briar Rose, under the Sleeping Curse as well. It was also during that time that Maleficent had lost her heart to the young Queen. The two had fallen in love with each other, but Regina was too afraid to lose her anger and live a happy life. So, the two each went their own way though remained friends through the years.

Many years later, Maleficent had allied herself with Ursula and Cruella DeVil, and kidnapped Rumplestiltskin’s made, Belle, to get a magical gauntlet from him. However, Rumplestiltskin kept Belle and the gauntlet, leaving them empty handed. After Rumplestiltskin managed to create a bottle of True Love, he hired Prince David to hide the bottle, which is placed inside a golden egg, inside the belly of a beast. David entered the castle of the supposed beast only to discover that the beast was Maleficent. David was confused at first, until Maleficent transformed into a fire breathing dragon and attacked him. He managed to get the golden egg inside Maleficent by sticking it through the gills in her neck, before just barely escaping Maleficent’s castle. Later, Regina visited Maleficent, who is Regina’s only friend, and obtained the Dark Curse which Maleficent had hidden in the glass orb above her staff.

With the Dark Curse in Regina’s possession, Maleficent, Cruella, and Ursula managed to get Snow White and Prince David to use the Tree of Wisdom, which could answer any question for a valiant hero. However, the Tree refused Snow and David, for Snow carried an unborn child with the potential for great darkness. That night, Maleficent visited Snow and revealed that she is also pregnant and tried to convince Snow that they must work together to defeat Regina, for the sake of their unborn children. However, Snow refused to work with Maleficent, and doesn’t want her child exposed to darkness just to stop the Dark Curse. Later, Snow and David used Maleficent’s unborn offspring to transfer their own unborn child’s darkness into it, before the Sorcerer’s Apprentice banished Maleficent’s child through a portal to Earth , where it grew up to be a girl named Lily. However, the condemnation of the unborn was not Snow, David, or the Apprentice’s choice, but the author made it for them under his writing.

Maleficent, along with the other inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest not protected by Cora’s shield, were consumed by Regina’s Curse, and sent to Storybrooke. However, Maleficent became trapped in her dragon form and lived in a large, cavernous area underneath Storybrooke. When Rumplestiltskin claimed that the bottle of true love that he hid long ago is the key to saving Henry, who fell under a Sleeping Curse, he sent Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow and David, and Regina to go to the abandoned library which had an elevator that lead to the underground cave where Maleficent resided in her dragon form. Emma went underground alone, armed with her father’s sword to battle Maleficent’s dragon form. Emma managed to stab the dragon in the chest, which caused the dragon to incinerate, leaving behind the golden egg atop a pile of ashes.

When Regina planned on destroying Storybrooke using a magic fail safe known as the Trigger, she revealed that it is Snow’s glass coffin which resided in the underground cavern Regina and Captain Hook travelled down to the cavern where Regina told Hook he was to be the bait. She then pushed him into a pit where Maleficent’s ashes were. Sensing Hook’s presence, Maleficent’s ashes manifested into a ghoulish figure. By luck, Hook escaped.

Allied with Ursula and Cruella in his plan to find “The Author”, Rumplestiltskin successfully resurrected Maleficent. She learns from Rumplestiltskin that her daughter, Lily, is still alive and somewhere on Earth. When she found out that Ursula and Cruella abandoned Lily in the woods as a baby, Maleficent turned into a dragon to kill Cruella, although Cruella used her powers to control animals to make Maleficent stop and have a nap. Later, Maleficent enlisted Emma on a mission to find Lily, and Regina trusted Maleficent to guard Belle’s heart. Though Rumplestiltskin stole it back. Emma eventually returned with Lily, and Maleficent was reunited with her daughter. But the reunion that Emma made failed because Lily was reluctant to accept Maleficent at first and left her to leave town. So, Maleficent went to enroll the Charming’s to get her back for her instead of Emma. Later on, Isaac Heller revealed to the Charming’s that he made them hurt Maleficent and Lily just to hurt the couple then confessed why he did it.

Moving forward to the present day, the realms have been united by Regina and Maleficent’s castle within the realm. Maleficent finally went to see Regina and confessed her feelings which Regina agreed she felt the same. As their relationship is still new, Mal now is working on rebuilding her castle and possibly even looking for her family.