"Sister, do you not want to see your own daughter?" Diaval urged gently. "To know what has become of her?" Diaval, taking the form of a raven, had secretly visited his niece, but stayed off in the distance, keeping an eye on her, out of curiosity and concern.
"No, dear brother." Maleficent told him, again. But he would not give up, and one day, her answer was different.
"Very well then," she sighed. "Go, and tell me what you see."
She had finally agreed, at last. A warrior, his face and body were scarred from shielding the Kingdom, and most importantly, his Clan, from harm. The Prince had not only stolen his sister's wings after she had fallen unnaturally asleep, but left her pregnant; eventually taking the baby girl to be raised in his own Kingdom, which he decreed was in the best interest of the child. Maleficent had breathed deeply out then, casting a cold winter's pall over the land, raising an impenetrable wall of thorns around it and herself, ever since. A curse. Diaval changed himself back into a raven, and flew over the castle walls.
"The child cries for her mother day and night," he reported. "Piteously." Thistletwit and the other guardians appointed for her didn't seem to know how to care for her, or how to properly nourish her. Diaval had to pluck a milkrose from the garden in order to feed the poor infant. As he rocked her cradle gently after, still in the form of a bird, she fell asleep. Something in Malificent's heart began to soften when she was told of this.
"Well, those flibbertigibbets wouldn't know the first thing about raising a baby, now would they." she harrumphed, and hearing more of her brother's reports over time, she began to admit that she wondered more and more about the baby herself. I shall go then and see for myself, she thought. She and Diaval both turned themselves into birds, and Malificent, still in the form of a raven, perched outside the nursery window of the little cottage and peered through the open shutters. This limited way was the only way that Maleficent could fly now, when before she had wings of her own. The baby turned to the sound of the bird at the window, smiling and cooing. She had stopped crying. Someone would have to have a heart made of stone not to love her, and Malificent's heart was not made of stone. And the baby Aurora giggled and babbled.
And as she grew, she would wander away from the cottage, curious about all that was around her. Maleficent and Diaval would watch, and if her tentative steps should lead her to trouble, they would cast a spell around her to protect her. Aurora would disappear off into the forest more and more frequently, discovering all of the magical things she found there. She wished she had wings too, so that she might turn into a bird. From behind her wall of thorns, Maleficent still quietly watched.