Note: I was interested in doing a oneshot on phantom limb syndrome (which I have experience with after my cousin got his arm amputated). I think it turned out pretty good.
What hurt more than anything in the instant she woke that morning on the shore was not that her wings were gone, it was that, for a brief second, she had felt them there. Because that's how natural her wings had been to her, she and her body had simply assumed they were still attached. The pain came after and she knew they were gone.
"Be my wings."
At the time she'd wanted a spy, a scout, someone to be her eyes and ears where she could no longer reach. And he'd fly out for a few hours, return and suffer to be made human, report what he knew, and then she'd turn him back again. Then again, sometimes, if he displeased her, it was into other, less graceful creatures for the night. In the morning he'd forgive her. He always forgave her.
"How'd you like it if someone turned you into a fly? Disgusting, small and that's not even the worst thing you've—"
"At least I'd have wings."
And he got quiet. She knew he wanted to ask, desperately wanted to probe her mind to know what it was like to be a winged creature suddenly stripped bare. But he wasn't that bold, not yet anyway.
Sometimes she could still feel her wings, they'd itch or ache on the feathers or the spine. And there was nothing she could do because there was nothing there. And when that happened, under the moon and the stars, her eyes would tear and she grip the moss of the ground and squeeze as tight as she could until the phantom feeling let her be.
"Are you alright mistress?" Diaval asked the first time it happened and he could hear her stifle her cries and saw the trail of wet beneath her eyes.
She didn't respond, she waved her fingers and turned him to a beetle. Still though, he scurried closer to her, crawling up her hand and resting there all night. He sat upon her hand while she cried and cringed hoping her wings would remember they were no longer a part of her and stop itching and twitching on her back.
That's what it's like to lose your wings Diaval, they haunt you.
She eventually fell asleep and awoke to find the beetle still sitting on her hand. Her wings were gone again, her back weightless and bare. Diaval had sat with her there all night, perhaps begging to be turned back but the content in the way he stayed still upon her told her in that moment he'd stay a beetle for as long as she needed him to be.
That's when she knew, he was her friend.
When she turned him back into a man he just looked at her.
"Whatever you need," he said.
And sometimes she needed a cat, sometimes an owl, sometimes a squirrel, whatever it was he took it, not always quietly, but nonetheless he became what she needed. And at night, she'd look at the moon and know Stefan was looking at the same one, in his castle halls.
"I hope he's warm and happy and surrounded by everything he ever wanted," she said sharply.
"Did you love him?" Diaval asked.
"I was a girl."
"That's not an answer."
He was getting bolder. Was it that he wanted to know why he was forced to be her wings? Or perhaps it was because he was her friend and demanded to know who hurt her? He would say it was curiosity if she asked, small talk.
"No," he said, looking at her, "You still are in love with him."
She said nothing.
"If he came back tonight, right now, and said he was sorry you'd forgive him," he said.
"I will not forgive him this," she gestured to her back where the two, feathered nubs sat.
"No, but if he kissed you, you'd kiss him back."
"What does a bird no about it?"
He was not accusing her, he looked sympathetic as she felt her eyes heat up and mist over. When a wave of feeling came over the place where her wings once were she closed her eyes tightly and two tears, one for each eye, escaped and raced each other down her cheeks. She gripped her staff so tight she feared it would splinter. She could feel her wings just like she could feel his lips. His boyhood eyes shined at her even with her own closed tight.
She would never forgive him, she would hate him until the day she died and she would hate that she hated him. She would hate the look on his face and hate that she missed looking at his face. She would hate that she wanted him dead and hate herself for wanting him to live. And all the while her wings, gone forever, haunted at her back, twitching and itching and panging from top to bottom as if they were still attached to her back.
And he was somewhere far away with a wife in his bed who would kiss and hug him and sleep by his side and she was jealous to know it would never be her and all thoughts of the word Maleficent were gone from his mind.
Her wings were gone, her power was gone, her heart was gone. It was just her and the raven in the cold night air. The flowers and light from her childhood were all gone. The smile was stolen from her face, everything inside her that had once been light and free was lead.
And she let herself cry in front of the damn bird.
"I know you want to let go," he said. "But maybe hold on a little longer."
"Things will never be as they were."
"Never is a long time and lot can happen, even in the blink of an eye," he said, "In a few days, a few years, it could get better than you know."
Wings indeed, even now he wanted her to fly when all she could do was sink. Perhaps the loyalty of her true wings had been reborn in the crow, never faltering even in their death.
He promised her a shining dawn at the end of her darkness. How fitting was it then, that, unknown to either of them, Aurora had been born that night.
"Into a man," she whispered as Diaval and Aurora came running toward her, the later slamming in her with such force she nearly fell over but her wings stayed true, fluttering slightly to balance her as Aurora clung to her tightly.
"I'm quite alright beastie," she said, pushing the teary eyed princess away but keeping her grip to examine the girl. No burns, no cuts, perfectly fine if not for the tears in her eyes.
Maleficent pushed Aurora away and down the walkway to keep her from seeing her father's crumbled body. All the while her goddaughter gripped at her arm muttering her fears.
Maleficent stole a glance behind them to Diaval who followed silently, allowing the pair their moment, allowing Aurora to get out her tears and adrenaline. But he was watching her wings with a grin she'd never seen before, his pitch black eyes were twinkling, running up and down the feathers.
"Down boy," she muttered to him and smirked as his pale cheeks turned red.
Later that night they three sat in the forest around a fire, Aurora fast asleep, head next to Maleficent's lap while a wing fanned out and draped over the princess. Maleficent could not name what had possessed her to send the bird to bring her food and make sure she slept through that first night she'd taken charge of the girl. It cannot starve to death before my curse, she once told herself.
But the way the infant's cries grated on her nerves was unique, not so much annoying her as it was breaking something inside of her. And it wasn't until many years later as she watched the toddler nearly run herself off a cliff that she felt the first pang of what she could not deny was worry. Pure, unchecked, unconditional fear.
"I think you're beginning to like her," Diaval sneered after the incident with the cliff. And Maleficent had not responded telling herself it was because she wouldn't dignify the statement and absolutely not because she was afraid her voice might be betray her.
"No true love?" Diaval asked in the present over their campfire. He was not sneering now.
She must have looked sheepish, and to that he smiled, not cocky, not rubbing anything in, he looked genuinely happy.
"I think you misunderstood the phrase," he said. "True love, it's just—you love someone, really love someone and that's all."
"Your insight is a true gem Diaval."
"No, what I mean to say is, it's not greedy or lustful or arrogant or all those things the king was," he said, "It's just love. Plain as that. And you love Aurora, no getting away from it this time mistress."
She had no desire to get away from it. As much as it came as a shock to her the moment she watched Aurora cry because of her and call her evil. Her heart shattered in that moment and she realized it was still beating after all, and it was running far away from her within Aurora. And it would die with her if she did not do something. Calling for the boy had been an act of desperation to salvage the light back into her life.
She loved Aurora, fully and truly, for everything she was and everything she knew she'd one day be. The princess was daughter and younger sister and apprentice all in one. Across her time in the darkness of the castle with only Diaval she'd felt a wrenching pain inside much like the sensations her stolen wings gave. It was a phantom heart, the real one was Aurora.
She understood now how people could throw themselves in front of swords for loved ones or drink poison for them. The thing you loved became your heart, and how could you possibly sleep at night without being certain it was still beating strong and safe?
Diaval knew, the wretched beast, he'd guessed years ago. And he looked at her now, the girl sleeping at her side laying safe and warm beneath her wing. He was smiling without moving his face. He was right, and he knew he was right, but what he was telling her now was that he was proud, not boastful, proud that Maleficent was restored; the black would come off, the walking stick disappear, the green magic was no more, and her anger and hatred was gone from the world.
She lost her wings and she lost her heart. She never imagined both would come back to find her.