Chapter 1: [Friendzoning] Freeing Diaval
'Twas exactly a year after the King's fall; 'twas a year of pixies and fairies, and knights and humans living in concord and amity. The moor's lake was black but the fairies' winglets and creatures that bear and sparkle light in shades of yellow, and green, and purple, seemingly dancing under the twinkling starlight, drowned the water's darkness and filled the night with luster, color and bright.
The castle, now iron-free, of course, shares the evening's festive mood with the neon banners and red and blue flaglets that hang over its walls and over the fair that house stands of food and liquor, dancing merriment and singing gaiety.
'Twas Queen Aurora's 17th birthday. Long-live-the-queen chants were sung in drunken hurrahs and mud was thrown in laughing faces as the whole, vast kingdom, both the enchanted and the mortal sectors, celebrated goodness in oneness and goofiness.
In the tar-filled mayhem, Diaval was still holding his sides as he shook with laughter as he witnessed Thistlewit and Knotgrass ganging up on, and throwing a seemingly endless pile of black mud on Flittle's face when he heard something he almost never does; Maleficent's unrefined, childlike laughter.
He looked up and saw Maleficent laughing at the Queen and Phillip for having themselves involved in the mess. Their crowns were tainted and their faces and party dresses were soiled. By the look on their faces, it was Maleficent that got them involved. The two of them candidly gestured toward Maleficent and shouted.
"Get her!" All of them, the enchanted and the mortals, got themselves as huge a pile of mud they could muster into their hands (or tentacles) and started chasing Maleficent. She lifts off the ground and her wings carried her with grace. Diaval watched mesmerized and slack-jawed as she effortlessly dodged their attacks like a black angel pirouetting gracefully in the night skies.
Catapults were being loaded with mud, and their operators waited for the Royals' command. Aurora and Phillip shouted "Fire!" in unison at the same time Maleficent incanted "Enter giant flying squirrel" and flicked her finger.
Diaval felt his body soften like the mud they throw around him and, with ease, resiliently changed into a giant fur-ball of a cute-yet-intimidating giant flying squirrel. He felt something weigh atop him and realized that it was Maleficent that was riding him.
"Giddy up." Maleficent said in her usual monotonous tone. Catapulted mud stained his whole, giant squirrel wings and squirrel body as Maleficent used him as a shield as they glided through the loud shouts and raucous laughter that pierce through the cool night. Though he can't see anything, since she was out of his line-of-sight, Diaval knows that Maleficent was smiling; that Maleficent was enjoying herself. He looked up and checked if the moon was blue. Strange, because it was not.
Diaval thought that in the year that has passed, Maleficent grew younger. In a sense that with her playfulness, the smiles she brought to every enchanted being when she was younger were back, and now, she brings smiles to humans as well, and most important of all, she brings smiles to herself. Diaval smiled through his squirrel mouth as he thought of how people slowly accepted her as a friend despite her menacing, intimidating traits. Diaval shouted through the wind, along with everybody else.
"You're enjoying this too much!" But it came out as a garbled, squirrel squeak as he forgot his current form.
"Now, now, it would all be over soon." Maleficent coolly and self-assuredly said, and, somehow, Diaval's high spirits turned somber as he overthought of what that could have meant.
With Stefan's descent and Maleficent acquiring her wings back, followed the decline of Maleficent's ordering around Diaval. When Stefan still plotted of Maleficent's downfall, Diaval's orders were longer than an emo-teenager's self-harm playlist.
He exhaustedly flew through chilly winds and freezing drizzles to serve the woman who saved his life. At first he was bothered by her blackened heart and her ill will, so he flew through his missions like a private on mandatory orders. But as time went on, as he saw Aurora thaw Maleficent's frozen heart, he found himself flying through hismissions with a smile.
As he saw Aurora grow into a beautiful woman, he saw Maleficent's heart grow as well. And one night while he was flying through the thorns Maleficent's put up around the moors, Diaval realized that his heart did too. That distracted and disabled him from seeing the wooden prickle that punctured his left wing. As he fell through the thick thickets of thorns, Diaval realized that he was falling in two ways and he was frightened. He was scared as the thought of navigating through the thorns Maleficent put up around her own heart crossed his mind.
While he flew with ache and difficulty, he thought of the things that Maleficent and he did together whenever they were not watching over Aurora or getting ready for Stefan's judgment day; they patrolled around the moors every other night, quickly flying over the vast, sleeping land, through the calm silences of midnights, and under the pale glow of the silver moon, Maleficent riding Diaval as a giant night owl.
She orders him to find the parents of lost creature-lings, revives wilted flower bushes, and heals the fair folk who were wounded and injured either while goofing around or while defending the moor from the mortals. And for those who did not make it, she orders him to bury them in a barren area that seems to be a graveyard specially made by her to honor their efforts.
She disinterestedly flicks her fingers in lightning speed correcting the wrongs in the moor, even the littlest broken twigs, in a… snap. ( o_o)… (⌐■_■)
That was why when he was injured, he didn't care for his wound because he knew that a little flick of Maleficent's fingers could heal him.
And when their patrolling was finished they view the beautiful oddities of the dark moor while sitting on the branch of the highest tree, in the highest hill, in the far corner of the moor, where they share the stillness of things in peace and companionable silence.
"Wonderful job, Diaval." Maleficent says neutrally, lacking warmth. As if she thanks him just because it was societal convention to do so. And although it seems that way…
"Thanks, you too." Diaval says, just as cool (although it was barely under the control of betraying no emotion), which was funny, for every time he hears Maleficent praise him (societally conventionally), he has this ember-like feeling consume him.
He barely made it back to report to Maleficent in one piece due to the rough weather and his injured wing. Her cape gently swayed with the gentle breeze over a cliff that oversees the moor as she flicked her finger to turn Diaval into a man.
Blood was still flowing from the wound on his left shoulder and it painted his pale, white, sculpted, human body with crimson lines that drew random patterns down his arms.
He was gasping and shaking when he reported that the King was steadily completing his preparations to bring her down and she told him to tell her things she didn't already know when his vision blurred and his knees gave out.
Maleficent sophistically turning around at his grunting noise to see him, her brows raised slightly in concern, her face in stoic consideration – her eyes like blue-green flame, and warm hands hovering over his open wound were the last things he remembered before he slipped into black oblivion. Oh, and he also wondered why she actually hovered her whole hand over him when she could just flick her fingers. Then, really, he slipped into black oblivion with a smile and the hope of being someone special.
They landed safely on their nest. Diaval was referring to their just-finished-patrolling tree and he felt a little tingly as he referred to it as their nest. Up there, they were safe from the mud-slinging. Maleficent turned Diaval into a man and his face and a large expanse of his body was covered in black and he glared at her spotless cleanliness.
"Oh come on that was funny." Maleficent said as she chuckled. She chuckled. He checked the moon again if it was blue and from his peripheral vision, he can tell that Maleficent also looked up. The two of them stood on a branch, staring up at the dark, gray sky. Maleficent flicked her finger to clean him.
"You know, you can go now." Maleficent said solemnly. "I have my wings back and I no longer need your services." Suddenly, it felt like the celebrating kingdom was faraway. Diaval successfully schooled his expressions but not his emotions. He breathed deeply and tried to reply when Maleficent quickly cut her off.
"You have been a wonderful servant." Diaval saw movement from his side and realized that Maleficent turned to look at him. "Thank you, for being my wings when I thought that I have lost them for good." Diaval felt a fire start in his lungs and he took deep breaths to put them out. Diaval refused to look back at her as he tried to count the stars that shined brightly to distract himself. Maleficent looked up again and cut him off again before he could reply.
"Wings bespeak freedom." Maleficent said with serious conviction. "And I seem to keep yours in chains." Maleficent's face grew haunted like she tries to run away from the immortal ghost of an undying memory.
This time, he turned his head to look at Maleficent as he remembered the story Aurora told him 'bout the time the king slashed off her wings. He came to to a wingless Maleficent and he thought of what a wingless her could've felt when she used to fly freely into the clouds above. He felt a twinge in his chest and a pulse skip over his heart – a cross of sympathy, want of un-burying Stefan and torturing him by cutting his legs and arms, and an unfamiliar desire to protect. Which was unnecessary because he knew well that she could do that herself.
This time, it was Maleficent that didn't want to look back at him as she continued to stare at the cloudless night; her face a sad melody that colored his heart blue.
"You deserve to be free." Maleficent turned and the two of them locked eyes. Diaval saw that they weren't the luminous blue-green they used to be, and in their dimness, he assumed that the things going around in her mind and out of her lips are against each other. He felt warmth spread through his taut veins as he felt, well, assumed, that Maleficent was feeling melancholic over his departure.
"And that's an order." Maleficent said as she looked back up again.
"Okay." He said, agreeing, testing the waters.
"Oh." Maleficent's face turned gloomier.
"That means I get to do what I want to do right?" Maleficent nodded and snapped her fingers. A bright green light enveloped Diaval's body and he glowed like a thousand fireflies dancing in the night. He expected to be turned into another form but he stayed human.
"What did you do?"
"I'm giving you the ability to turn into anything you want to be. You earned it." Maleficent smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. With each passing second, their colors faded.
He concentrated and thought of ravens and he flinched when he literally heard the bones in his left shoulder break, and it felt clammy, and itchy, and unbearably painful all at the same time. A reflexive growl tore through his throat. He felt like the blood that was flowing through his left arm was a blend of bad wine and mercury.
His left arm became a huge, raven wing but the rest of him stayed human. It was only when a drop of sweat from his chin fell down his naked torso when he realized that he was breaking a sweat.
"This didn't hurt before." Diaval said, wiping away the sweat in his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Practice makes perfect." She said, laughing feebly and mirthlessly at his failed attempt. "And it probably hurts because when you transform without my help, it is your body that facilitates my powers. It needs some getting used to."
"Now, I both get to do what I want and be what I want?"
"That's right."
"Then, I want to be your servant." She finally turned to face him, one of her brows was lifted, her face contorted in confusion. She had dozens of question ready for firing when he quickly cut her off.
"Back then, you told me you needed me to be your wings because you don't have them. Now, I'm telling you to be my master because I don't have one." A breeze blew through them and Maleficent's hair danced with it.
"Besides, I need a trainer for this." He wiggled his wing and that earned him a chuckle and a lit-up face.
"That's different, I can't live without my wings, well, I did but it was a horrible, horrible experience. You on the other hand, living without a master, living freely without having to heed to a finger snap, flying across waters and greeneries at will will be an indescribable, fascinating experience." Her face was bright as she probably thought of her flying experiences when she was younger.
"You deserve to be free." She repeated as her face turned subdued again.
"And I deserve to choose to be yours." His face heated and he quickly tried to recover. "Your servant, I mean. I'm no longer staying for paying a debt for you saving my life back then. I'm staying because you're dear to me now and I wish to be free with you bossing me around."
This time, Maleficent's smile did reach her eyes, their color like the early, morning sky, the bright yellow sun piercing through the bluest hues.
She seemed to not notice Diaval's indirect confession and she just flapped her wings and started to lift off the ground.
"You are a strange little man." She said in her sultry yet monotonous voice.
"And you are-"He was unable to complete his statement as a huge ball of black mud, made by Maleficent, hit him in the face.
Out of balanced, he fell from the very, high tree. He can't fly with just one wing and he can't seem to complete his transformation. All the while, Maleficent was flying down with him, but was not helping him.
"You are a dear friend to me too." She said sentimentally.
"And I think that this is the best time you prove it by helping me." He shouted through his fast free-fall. He tried hard to think of ravens and that just got him headaches and feverish aches. He felt a splitting pain in his legs as his right foot turned into a claw.
"I need a right wing! Not a right claw." He shouted and tried to turn his head to Maleficent while falling. "Anytime now!" He screamed at her. They fell for a few more seconds, Maleficent getting entertainment from a screaming Diaval.
It was only when they were ten feet from the ground when she helped him with his transformation and the two of them hovered over a giant-alligator-filled lake. Diaval's form was that of a human with huge raven wings.
"I think that you are a terrible friend!" Diaval exclaimed in between short, shallow gasps.
"That was funny." She laughed her childlike laugh and he followed suit and the two of them laughed over the hungry alligators. Diaval's laugh was stopped abruptly when another huge ball of mud hit him in the face. She saw that Maleficent was still laughing as she flew away.
"I'm changing my mind!"