Ageless
"Mistress, have you eaten?" Diaval asks a plate of blackberries, nuts, and assorted fruits in hand. Maleficent looks up, her mouth watering a bit. No, she had not eaten. She had not the time to eat, what with arranging affairs and courtships for the careless Queen that dubbed her as godmother. Mentally she had cursed the pixies for giving her the blessing of 'happy all the days of her life' because now, Aurora physically was unable to stand doing anything that made her unhappy.
Such as filing and signing treaties.
"Yes I have Diaval, thank you for asking," Maleficent lies smoothly. No time to eat, there was too much paperwork. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand halfway through his already tousled hair before setting the plate down in front of her, an amused look in his eye. Handing her the appropriate silverware and dressings, he sits directly next to her.
"You can't lie to me, Mistress. Eat… please?" He gestures towards the salad. "I had Balthazar show the kitchen maidens just what berries and nuts to pick for the concoction to be perfect. Please?"
"Well since you went through the trouble…" She smiles. No one – besides Stefan and she had officially marked him off as ever counting for anything – had ever done so much to please her. The faerie was quite unused to have someone looking after her, making sure she was as happy and loved as she could get considering her past. It did feel nice.
Right on cue, Diaval kisses the spot between her horns and murmurs, "Love you."
She doesn't say it back, but instead covers her mouth to speak while chewing. She doesn't need to say it back, Diaval knows. "Have you spoken with Ulstead?"
"Yes, unfortunately. They think Aurora and Phillip are finely acquainted. They want to arrange a proposal in a fortnight."
"Absolutely not!"
"That's what I said! I asked for a little more time, so Aurora can be sure she's in love. I don't want to force her into doing anything she doesn't like. But Ulstead is impatient and we desperately need this alliance, what with Stefan having cut off all Kingdoms long ago. The others realize that he's no longer in rule and our kingdom is run by good-natured, good-hearted people but they are still wary. Especially the fae kingdoms. The main halls and rooms still reek of iron and we've get to get the iron barricade down. Apparently, it doesn't just go away. I said bullshit."
"Tell Ulstead they may have our princess' hand at fifth moon if she is interested enough in their prince. If not, then to hell with the alliance."
"I'll be nice about it," he offers, knowing the dangerous waters their Kingdom was floating in. It was no secret that Aurora had been Queen of both Kingdoms for a day before giving up altogether, handing the title of 'Queen of the Moors' back to Maleficent. They needed alliances and they needed friends if they were going to bring the Kingdom back from the hole Stefan had dug it in. Not to mention the large amount of debt it was in due to all the iron being built and the useless fights against Maleficent herself.
Pressing her temples to her head, Maleficent groans loudly. "I see why Aurora doesn't want to do this."
"Well, they're getting along nicely. Five more moons, then you'll be out of here and Phillip will be running this rodeo. I'm ready to give up too, Malefi, I really am," he says, squeezing a strawberry between his teeth.
"Malefi?"
"Well… he called you Mal as a wee hatchling, no? Phillip uses it too. It's over used. Malefi is perfect."
"Wee hatchling? Diaval you think I was small?"
"I imagine it, yes. But that was long ago now. Your wings are way too large to be considered small… aged to perfection, you are."
"How old do you think I am?"
"Well… fae's stop aging after their twenty-fourth twelfth moon, so I imagine you are twenty-four. As for your literal age… twenty-four was when King Henry attacked you… so twenty-four added onto eighteen?"
"Forty-two, Diaval?" Maleficent hisses. He shrugs, nodding. It seems that the raven part of him simply doesn't understand what was wrong with the age. She notices nothing changes in his eyes – he still looks at her with the same obsidian ones filled with love – but for some odd reason she's self-conscious.
And now she's distracted. Well, the majority of her is distracted, and a small inkling of self-consciousness lies beneath under all that. Diaval doesn't notice her set down her quill – how he hated quills – or look at him. Instead he's focusing on eating all the berries off her plate.
"Well what does that make you then?" She asks, her eyebrow perfectly arched. He pauses, a pout on his lips as he thinks. Diaval wasn't good with arithmetic… hell he couldn't even read. But Aurora, Phillip and herself practiced with him sometimes, and he was exceptionally better at it.
"Hmmm… well since I'm man… ravens typically live to be around seventeen… so seventeen plus seventeen. But in raven years, I'm only seventeen. I'm older, but since I'm shifting my clock stops at seventeen. Actually, there are a lot of animals that if I shift into, I'd probably die."
"That makes you thirty-four," she breathes in a sigh of relief, ignoring the last part. Leave it to Diaval to go from adding his true age to speak of dying as an animal.
"I'm only seventeen though?" He points out, tracing her elfin ear. Maleficent swats his hand away in a huff of indignance.
"Diaval!" Maleficent hisses. He raises his eyebrow, but says nothing. A look of horror washes over the faerie's face. "I'm old enough to be your mother."
"Yeah, if you're into that sort of thing."
"Is that why you're with me? In a motherly replacement?"
"No… at least I don't think so. No," he says firmly. "You are definitely not a replacement, my sweet. And you are ageless to me, Maleficent."
"Oh, you silly bird," Maleficent murmurs, allowing him to kiss her lips softly. Diaval always seemed to know the right thing to say in the end.