The Guardian of Halloween [A Disney Fanfic]

𝔐𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔱 [𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 1]

☆.｡.:* 🕷️ *:.｡.☆

Maleficent x fem! reader

☆.｡.:* 🕷️ *:.｡.☆

Some flowers could kill. Others could heal. Some could do both if not handled with the proper care. A single touch of the wrong part of a flower could unknowingly coat your skin with a toxin that could leave you sick for days, followed by an agonizing death if not treated properly. And Y/N was obsessed with studying such plants. Perhaps that was the reason some mortals found her frightening and offered her no more than a side eye whenever they passed her on the streets, or why others found her fascinating. Although most people who found her fascinating were children who were always quickly pulled away by their much more cautious parents.

A part of Y/N could understand why people – adults more specifically – were warry around her. Not only because she handled poisonous plants daily in hopes of creating antidotes and cures should anyone in her village fall ill due to one of the plants, but because of her sudden appearance in the village. Y/N had only been in the village for a few months and had almost immediately made a name for herself as the village apothecary – though some more sceptical and superstitious adults skipped over calling her an apothecary and simply called her a witch. Y/N couldn't fault the villagers for calling her a witch either. She was a bit mysterious after all, always keeping to herself, walking around the village at odd hours with her nose in a book, poisonous plants trapped in vials in the bag hanging at her side. It was a curious profession, especially for a young lady with no prospects or hopes of marriage. Both notions were considered extremely odd, bordering on dangerous for some less open-minded villagers.

And it likely didn't help her case that she had a greenhouse behind her little cottage on the edge of the village, full of safe and poisonous plants alike. She had done nothing to hide her odd interests and often spoke about them with those who dared to engage her in conversation, but these conversations often led to scorned looks and withering glares.

Hence why Y/N was currently exploring the edge of the forest by herself, searching for new plants to note in her vast collection of notebooks. This close to the Moors, strange plants grew in abundance, often enough for Y/N to take a small sample back to her greenhouse to attempt to propagate said plants. Her most recent addition had been a small plant of foxglove, which had been difficult to grow. But after several attempts, the little plant had taken root and was growing steadily alongside the monkshood. The little greenhouse was growing more and more full with each passing day.

But today, Y/N was not looking for plants in particular. She was looking for fungi. The various mushrooms of the area had been almost entirely left out of her studies and after witnessing someone's reaction to accidental consumption, Y/N had decided that perhaps it was time to branch out of her usual area of study.

This was the reason for her sudden trip to the forest. She had originally planned on spending the day in her greenhouse tending the plants and conducting a few more experiments, but after the sudden fungi incident that had shocked the village the day before, Y/N had decided to put her studies on hold. She hadn't had a cure for the sudden poisoning and the village was desperate for one. The local doctor was trying everything he could to cure the poison but so far, nothing had worked.

As she made her way through the forest, Y/N thought of the man's symptoms. They hadn't been too severe last she had seen, but the doctor had whisked him away almost immediately, placing the man and his family under house arrest until he was able to cure him.

At first, the doctor hadn't been sure what had caused the man's sudden illness, but after consulting Y/N on the matter – much to the doctor's annoyance she was sure – they had worked together that he had suffered from mushroom poisoning. Testing the mushrooms in his food had given Y/N all the answers she needed. It had been with a little sneaky magic that Y/N had determined the source of the poison. All it took was a simple spell and a faint red light left a trail from the man to the mushroom stools sitting in the waste basket at the back of the house. The wife of the man had told Y/N she had been foraging in the forest a few days before and had found a patch of mushrooms not far from the entrance to the Moors. She had thought they were chanterelle mushrooms, but through her magic, Y/N quickly discovered them to be deadly webcaps instead. Sadly, hardly any testing had been done on deadly webcaps and Y/N had no idea how severe the poison was or how to treat it.