a Sambucky Sleeping Beauty AU
Authors Note: Hi!!! I'm back(kinda)! I got a new computer (yay!) so now I can get back to writing :) Here is part two of the sambucky AU, the ending gets a bit rough, so a slight trigger warning for self harm. There will be a part three :) Happy New Year Everyone!
“I’m sorry what?” Bucky exclaimed.
Merriweather had earned two slaps on the back of the head, both delivered by Flora and Fauna.
Merriweather just rubbed her head in frustration. “It’s obvious isn’t it? And better he know now than at the party!”
Bucky just stood to the side, mouth agape. It all lined up. And in truth, it was quite obvious. His sixteenth birthday, on the same day as the prince? Could very well have been a coincidence, but it did line up. The fact that his godmothers were not his biological mothers, something he had known for a long time? Yup.
“But what…” The three godmothers looked up from their bickering.
“Yes darling?” Fauna asked, wringing her hands together on her crumpled hat.
His voice cracked, just a bit, but a sense of purpose lifted it to sound hopeful as he asked a question he was afraid to ask long ago. “Why would they send me away?”
Flora clenched Fauna’s arm, nerves swirling around her as she grasped for something she could say to make Bucky not look so sad. “Oh honey, there are many reasons parents give their children away, you do know that right? And it’s usually only out of love sweety, only out of love.”
“And this was out of the most love,” Merriweather added thoughtfully.
“Yes, the king and queen love you very much darling,” Fauna nodded.
“It’s Maleficent,” Merriweather blurted out. “She cursed you.”
“Yes, quite. And they sent you away safely, they did. Your parents that is.”
“You wern’t supposed to find love you see, you were supposed to fall asleep on this day and they-”
“-the king and queen that is-”
“-yes thank you Merriweather, the king and queen sent you away because they were afraid for your safety.”
“Yes darling, all out of love.” The three worried godmothers waited in anticipation as Bucky absorbed the news.
“Oh,” was all he said for the rest of the way.
Once they reached the main part of town, the mothers went shopping for a bit; one of their first stops had been to get Bucky some clothes and a cloak from a shop picked out by the king himself. Bucky waded through crowds in the square as his mothers weaved through the various stores.
Bucky picked a fountain to perch on and twiddled his fingers around the thick cloak until a familiar face showed up, no one but a horse in tow.
“Well aren’t you looking rich,” a voice scoffed behind Bucky.
Bucky turned, rolling his eyes.
“What, you have a problem with that, Prince Sam?”
Sam just scoffed. “Just wondering where you nicked that outfit from, or who. Now I’m not telling, but I’m just wondering. You know, asking for a friend and all.”
Bucky swiveled around, eyeing Sam as he smirked. “Come to think of it, you don’t sound all that princely to me. Where are your parents anyways?”
The eleven year old turned his nose up. “You’re avoiding the question.”
“Let’s just say they couldn’t make it.”
Bucky scrunched his eyebrows. “Sounds suspicious.”
“You don’t question a prince. And anyways,” Sam leaned in, “Let's just say, from one commoner to another, how else am I supposed to get free royal sweets if I don’t show up as one?” Sam winked.
Bucky’s eyebrows raised. Now that was something he didn’t see coming. “You- I- Well… that’s a bit funny now isn’t it.”
“What’s so funny ‘bout it?” Sam pouted.
Bucky just let out a deep chuckle. “First off, lose the commoner accent if you want royals to think you’re one of them. Second off-”
“-I gotta go, see ya commoner Sam!”
Sam just stared after Bucky, pushing out his lower lip. “You’ve got quite the commoner accent too,” he mumbled after Bucky.
After the market, Bucky was taken, hidden under his hood, by his step mothers as they made their way into the castle through a servants gate. They arrived in the room, tired from their trek. Bucky sat on the bed, feeling a little more than overwhelmed.
The mothers locked the door and looked on at their child. Merriweather pulled out her wand and waved it, procuring a sparkling gold crown from nothing but air. Bucky’s jaw dropped.
“Yes dear, we’re magic, we’re sorry to say that you best get over it quick, there’s lots to do,” Flora explained as she placed it atop his head.
Bucky just swallowed. “So I guess my name is Aleric then?”
“Your name is whatever you choose it is Buck- well… what would you like it to be?”
Bucky slumped but smiled slightly. “Bucky is just fine, thank you. Anything else I’m supposed to know?”
The three fairies looked at eachother. “Was there a marriage arranged?” “No, no I don’t believe so. You know, the curse and all.” “But King Stephan-” “No, I don’t think there should be.”
“Arranged marriage?” Bucky called out. “But… why?”
The three looked back to Bucky. “Well dear, with running a kingdom and all well… I’m sure you’ve been thinking about it?”
Bucky had been thinking about Steve, and that strange boy who pretended to be something more, all for the gain of better food. “Uh…”
“Well dear, when you’re king, you uh… have to produce an heir… To the throne.”
Bucky’s eyes widened, his heart racing. “You don’t mean I have to… do.. That.”
The three fairies jumped about, trying to console Bucky. “Oh no dear, we can figure all that out later but-”
“But the king was very specific on having-”
“Shut up Merriweather! I’m sure it's not- Oh dear he’s crying.”
Bucky was too overwhelmed. He hadn’t met Steve in the forest that day like he was supposed to, his birthday party was early so they could travel for someone else’s birthday party, which then happened to be his birthday party, which then happened to be because he was the prince, which then happened to be because he was cursed and adopted, which then meant someone tried to kill him when he was just a baby. All of that, and now he had to get married to someone he didn’t know and would never love?
“We’ll uh… well we’ll give you some space darling. We know it’s unfair, but we’ll figure it out after today alright? Just stay here okay?”
So the three fairies filed out of the room, leaving Bucky to break down. He had no clue who he was, and had no clue who he would be.
As he cried, a dark essence, unknown to Bucky who already felt a dark essence in his mind from the day’s events, filled the room. It clustered into a small heat next to Bucky’s bed, giving off an unhealthy green glow. It slithered and sneered and withered, settling into the shape of a sphere, bright and dense.
Bucky looked up, confused then immediately mesmerized by it. It was strange and unusual, yet he wasn’t frightened. It felt familiar. Slowly and silently, he rose to follow it as it took him through a hidden passage in his room.
Up and up he went, but his eyes never left the glowing orb. Soon he arrived in a small room, a spinning wheel placed in the center. He blinked and the orb was gone, instead a tall, gothic looking woman peered down at him, her eyes as green as the magic glow of the orb.
Bucky fell, the exhaustion back at full blast now that the orb distracting his mind was gone. Maleficent, her prepared speech interrupted by Bucky’s fall, rushed to his side.
“Oh goodness, what have we here?” Maleficent frowned, slightly disgusted by the boy, yet intrigued.
Bucky just clutched to the elder’s dark clothes, starting to sob. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t!” he wailed.
Maleficent was confused. “And so you find solace in a stranger? You hardly know me and you’re getting your… tears on my robe.”
“I understand now, what they want from me. But I know that I cannot do it. It’s all happening too fast, please,” Bucky begged, though he knew not of what he begged for. He sensed a power from Maleficent, but he did not sense her magic. She just seemed strong, solem, and independant.
Maleficent hesitated. “I uh… hmm. I can’t do much, but uhhh… hmm.” She took some time to think. Her fortune telling wife had been oddly specific about the prince and the course of his life, but Maleficent expected something different, that maybe the prince would resist his fate.
“It’s a change, my love. This boy carries a change for the Kingdom, a change that might let us live freely among the others, and not as outcasts.” Ah yes, Maleficent had been very angry when the King had refused their marriage and banished them from his Kingdom. So before Maleficent and her sweet wife left for woods and wed, she had wished for a time where she could be happy, and not have to live in fear of being found or her wife killed.
She shook herself back to reality, realizing the boy had stopped tugging on her clothes. He was headed for the spinning wheel.
“Wait!” Maleficent cried, slamming her staff on the ground.
Bucky turned to the witch, eyes puffy and red. “I feel the need to touch it,” he whimpered.
Maleficent’s heart cried out for the boy, but she kept a stoic face. “Touch that, and you sleep for a very long time.”
Bucky’s eyes widened. “Like death?”
Maleficent thought about it. “No, but you’ll wake up to someone who loves you, and who you love in return.”
“So a long time? Or never?” Bucky had a strange gleam in his eye that Maleficent would soon figure out was hope.
“Dear child, this doesn’t have to be. There may be fate, but it is what you make it. Why are you-”
Bucky didn’t let her finish. “I’m just so tired,” he breathed out, then jabbed his finger onto the spinning wheel as the bell tower rang out.
A puff of magic -or was it fate?- and the scent of blood filled the room. Maleficent ran to the boy as he collapsed for a very long time.
-So that was part two, stay tuned for part three! Thanks!
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