Black Feathers
"I told you."
It sounds so immensely sad, but mirrors how I feel. I watch Phillip draw back his head from Aurora, how the Faeries buzz around him, disappointed, but not as heartbroken as Maleficent.
When the door shuts with a bang, I watch my mistress, my friend, walk out from behind the decorated screen to her Beastie. The nickname had slowly turned into a way to show affection, and I can't help but smile a little when I think about it.
I stop, about ten feet away from the bed, but Maleficent keeps on walking. Even after sixteen years, she still slightly hunches forward, to compensate for the wings that she lost so long ago.
One moment I had hoped that Philip would be able to kiss the princess awake and, well, they live happily ever after. One moment. But when his lips touched hers, I realised true love doesn't just appear out of nowhere. True love is not a thing a human, a Faerie, or even a damned old Raven possesses.
I realised that true love is like a rose, that one must plant it, water it and shelter it. That love is the seed you plant, the seed planted when a father finally gets to hold his firstborn, or when two strangers bump into each other in the most unlikely of places.
You can only speak of true love when the rose opens her buds and turns her face to the sun.
While all of this crossed my mind in a split second, I can hear Maleficent whisper over the sound of my heart breaking.
"I do not ask for your forgiveness," she says, "For what I have done is unforgivable."
I have to swallow my tears, and suddenly I feel so old. I am old. I had been old when Maleficent pulled me out from under the farmer and his dogs.
I had probably doubled, maybe even tripled my lifespan. The other Raven's don't call me Diaval anymore- the Raven's who knew my name have long but died. They called me Ealdhád- Ancient One. But Aurora had kept me young, Aurora made me feel like I was flying for the first time again- when I left the nest when I was eight weeks old. My heart fluttered with pride and affection when I thought about her nickname for me: 'Pretty bird'.
I saw Maleficent lean forward, to kiss her Godchild goodbye, when I realised, truly realised, what I really knew for ages.
True love doesn't have to do with a husband or a wife, true love can be a mother, or a sister, or a...
"Hello Faerie-Godmother!" Aurora smiled the moment she opened her eyes.
Maleficent smiled through her tears, that beautiful, full teeth smile. "Hello Beastie."