THE WINGS ON THE MOOR

Diaval had only truly upset the fairy once. He spent the following week as a cat, prowling around in circles, stalking his own damn tail for everything smelled of bird and cat – an endless torment. He was dizzy by the time the enchantment wore off. Finally, he retook human form, crept up to her like he had done on soft paws and fixed his brown eyes on her.

Maleficent was gazing over the moors. The sun was burning its way between the outermost mountains, casting beams of gold across the mist. It was quiet, nothing awake nor truly asleep. She enjoyed this moment of peace where the universe seemed to hang.

"You made a poor cat, Diaval," she said, unmoving.

He lofted his thick eyebrow at his mistress. "As do you, apparently." She had made him that way, too heavy on his feat with feathery fur.

Impossibly red lips twisted into a smile. Maleficent turned to her old friend, happy to see him leaning on an aging oak tree. He had bits of the forest stuck in his hair and mud up to his knees. "True, you make a much better man." Or bird? She was finding it difficult to remember which he really was.

"Are you still mad with me then?" he asked, with smiling eyes. He knew that her anger had trouble lasting the hour. Her amusement – well he assumed that endured the whole week for it brought her no end of smiles to watch him climb trees and get stuck up them. Anything to make his mistress smile. There was so little happiness in the world. The wall kept the humans away but their hatred penetrated like the mist, bringing cold to everything it touched.

"Would you like your wings?" she asked softly, returning her attention to the morning sky. "I presume you ache to fly out into the fresh air and escape the ground a while?"

Diaval shrugged. Yes he missed the sky. "I think I'll walk with you first, if you wish it, mistress."

She didn't turn to him but her eyes brightened with a flare of green. "Then we'll walk."

He watched his mistress sleep. Every night she walked along the river's edge and sought out a large fig tree to curl into its endless walls of roots. She wasn't happy unless their solid forms were pressed against her back, surrounding her as her wings used to. You didn't have to be a bird to know that the most powerful creature in the Moor was also the most fragile. It wasn't just her wings that the human king had taken, it was her trust. Her heart – well Diaval could see that it was still there, buried under all the rage and fear.

More and more he found himself left in his human form during the nights. At first he thought it was because she forgot to turn him back with a careless flick of her wrist but now he understood that she felt safer with him there. A bird could only do so much from its perch.

He walked up the river bank to where she lay and settled himself against the tree. The glow of a dying camp fire was enough to warm his skin. Diaval examined his hands. He was sure he knew them better than his wings now.

"He deserves your hate," Diaval said quietly. His mistress was not asleep.

"I doubt the other creatures of the Moor would thank you for encouraging me," she replied, eyes closed and great horns resting in the leaf litter.

"I do not mind what they think," he replied, snapping a small twig and throwing it into the flames. It crackled violently then died. "Humans are fickle. It is the first thing that we learn. One day they feed – the next they hunt. They listen to our song and shoot arrows into our wings. It is not your fault that you befriended one, nor that you were betrayed."

"Do you think he enjoys being king?" Maleficent dragged her claws softly through the dried leaves.

Diaval was sure that he felt the flames rise a fraction higher with her anticipation of his answer. She knew that he'd been inside the palace walls, watched and listened from the arched stone windows. "It destroys him," he assured her. "He locks himself away from the others and whispers to himself. The king of the humans is mad. He left his mind on the Moor when he took your wings."

Maleficent wasn't sure if that comforted her. "I loved him once," she whispered. Loved him still? She longed for the days when her human called for her at the edge of the forest. She equally hated herself for missing his hushed words and warm arms. After all he did, she wasn't sure that she had ever stopped loving him. She wanted to hate him. "Did I take you from a family?" She'd never thought to ask.

Diaval smiled at his mistress again even though she wasn't watching him. "Well, you did steal me from a rather decent field of corn."

There was a flare of green and Diaval found himself hopping around on the ground by the fire. Well, at least it wasn't a cat this time...

His wings had never felt heavier, flapping against the ice-laden air. Snow stuck in his feathers as he cleared the human village and set out over frosted fields. Skeletal trees made poor nests for the other birds and even the Moor, in all its natural warmth and heated springs, did not escape winter's touch. The mountains scattered through the magical land were dusted with snow while the wall of thorns seemed to shrink at the cold.

Diaval ducked easily through the thicket of thorns and emerged on a pile of fallen stone. He perched, tilted his head and searched with big brown eyes for his mistress. He was magically bound to report his news to her but instead he wished he'd torn a wing on his way here. Anything that might have prevented him from imparting the terrible truth that he'd learned inside the castle walls.

"You took your time this morning," the dark fairy wandered out of a cave with her staff clicking softly on the stone ground. She flicked her fingers and a flare of magic twisted away his wings and claws, replacing them with a troubled human form.

"Mistress..." he started softly, choosing to stay on his knee in front of her.

"Diaval?" she asked.

"It's the king," he replied, eyes to the ground. "There's to be a child."

Maleficent translated his words to what they really meant. The king has forgotten you. "You did not mention that he was married," she replied, cold as the ice settling on the swamp grass.

"Forgive me mistress, I did not know."

"And you lie!" Maleficent's eyes flared jade.

Diaval bowed his head lower. Yes, he lied. She had never specifically asked him if the king had taken a wife.

"Away!" she tapped her staff on the ground and his body crumbled back to feathers. The raven left, swooping over the water where she could not follow.

Many hours later, he found her on a cliff, watching over the lands of men instead of her precious moors. Diaval knew that it was the twisted creature at the heart of the palace that held her attention. Did she torment the king as much as he did her? Whatever love had been there was cursed and spun into something else.

The raven landed and dropped a Moonflower in her lap. She stared at it in surprise. He must have flown all the way to the snowy mountains to pull it from its hiding place in the cliffs. Her raven stood beside her, scratching the ground with his sharp claws.

"It really isn't your fault," she whispered, stroking his feathers. "I should have guessed that this day was coming. He is a king. Kings have their queens. I don't know why I thought it would be different."

Maybe she had planned a very different future in her head since she was a small fairy running around the forest. He was to be king of the human lands and she queen of the Moor. There would be peace and a perfect harmony not seen in hundreds of years.

"Why did he take my wings?" she asked her raven. "He came for my life and I'd have rather he have that." The bird nipped at her fingertips impatiently, wanting to say something. "I would have fallen asleep thinking that all was forgiven and never known this darkness. I hate it. I hate it more than I hate him."

She refused to change his form so Diaval had to stand there and watch the silent palace with her.