*Do not read if you have not seen the movie Maleficent!*

Author's Note: My sincerest apologies for not posting in so long. My internet hasn't been working properly for what feels like weeks, and it still isn't. But, I am finally able to post this chapter. Enjoy!


"Diaval." The black-feathered bird tore his eyes away from his view of the great wall dividing the humans' and his mistress's domains. He had often watched the area in place of Maleficent for the past sixteen years. They would almost always switch and take shifts keeping a protective eye over the Moors and keeping a protective eye over Aurora. The bird swooped down from his perch in the branches and waited for either his mistress's orders or the transformation that would allow them to speak to one another. The faery chose the latter.

"I want to speak with you about something."

"Well, yes," Diaval began. "I would imagine that was the reason you turned me human." Diaval felt the sarcasm dripping from his lips but he couldn't make it stop. "Unless, of course, you just wanted to stare at my sexy human form. Would you like me to strip for you… Mistress?"

Diaval's eyebrows quirked and he gave his best shot at a seductive smile. He couldn't hold it for long, however, because he was soon overcome with a fit of hysterical laughter at his mistress's completely unamused face. It reminded him very much of the expression she had the first time Aurora called her her Faery Godmother. Funny, that now seemed to be a title she rather didn't mind from her Little Beastie.

"I know you may strain yourself in the process, but do try to be serious." Diaval looked at her and was now becoming worried. Her face went from unamused to… dark? No. Dark is her expression when she meditates on her revenge and hatred for King Stefan. This was different. Her eyes were downcast. Her brows were furrowed. This was pain and worry.

"I can't take it back." She finally met Diaval's eyes.

"What?" Diaval asked, confused.

"The curse. I cannot undo the curse I placed on Aurora… I have tried."

Diaval's brows unknit and his eyes became clear with understanding. He knew that Maleficent had begun to regret cursing Aurora. He could see it in her eyes when the girl would make her smile or when she watched her expression fill with wonder at something new she had discovered in the Moors. But, to think that his cruel, vengeful mistress had tried to revoke her punishment on the king… It meant something huge. It meant that her love for the girl had outgrown her hatred for the man that took her wings and her trust from her.

So… she and Diaval were on the same page. Neither of them wanted the fate that awaited Aurora in a matter of mere days.

"What will we do, then?" Diaval asked, determined.

"We?" The faery raised an eyebrow.

"You know that I want the curse lifted just as you do."

"Yes… I certainly know that you do…" Maleficent kept her brow quirked and fixed Diaval with a knowing stare. Alright, so she knew. She definitely knew. Whatever. It didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was breaking Aurora's curse.

"What. Can. We. Do?" Diaval asked a second time, more sternly.

"Did you not hear me when I said I tried?" Maleficent's words could have had more bite and malice laced in them, but her tone was too defeated to sharpen her words. "There is nothing that can be done and you know it."

"What if you didn't exactly break it?" Diaval was desperately trying to come up with ideas to suggest. "What if you just altered it? Or… or redirected it?" Diaval was at least mildly confident that this solution could work, or rather, confident that he would do whatever needed to be done to make it work

"Redirect it? You mean transfer it? Place it on someone else?" Maleficent looked at Diaval skeptically and a bit shocked.

"Yes." Diaval answered, hoping it was an option. Hoping that her expression meant that there could be a way.

"Place it on yourself?" Maleficent asked staring at him very hard, as if asking if he was sure of his answer. Asking if he knew what the consequence of his words could be.

"Yes." Diaval replied with a tone and expression of equal severity.

She stayed silent for a moment longer, looking at him. "You really do care for her." Maleficent turned her back to Diaval and walked to a tree, leaning heavily on her staff and then the tree when she reached it. Her eyes stayed to the ground as she walked and when she turned her head slightly back towards her servant once more.

"It can't be done," she began gravely. Diaval felt his hopes and his heart fall to the floor.

"Why not?" he demanded, suddenly fuming. Maleficent turned back to face him fully once more and looked at him with complete surprise and no small amount of indignation. He was her knave and he owed his life to her. As such, he should not be allowed to speak to her that way and he knew it well. He just couldn't help it. It was this damn human form. Controlling his emotions was always so difficult. But, then again, that was only when it came to something about Aurora.

"You heard the words of the curse that I spoke on that day." Maleficent walked towards him again, keeping eye contact with him. It was a habit she had, trying to intimidate people. Normally her bright eyes unsettled people when those eyes landed on their own. She used it quite often on the day that she spoke of. But, Diaval was not affected by her eyes now. "I said that no power on earth can change it. That means my own power is included. I cannot break or change the spell. Nothing can." Maleficent went back to the tree and sank to the ground, leaning against it's trunk.

Diaval looked at her in despair and tried frantically to think of something. He remembered the words of her curse well. What they needed was a loophole. Any way to get around the curse. Of course, Maleficent had already created one: true love's kiss. Diaval sank to the ground like his Mistress. Part of him screamed within, "You love her. Your love is true. You can break the spell! You can save her!" But, it was losing a battle with the rational part of himself that told the other part to shut the hell up. Diaval was a bird plucked from the clutches of a net and an angry farmer by a faery with a vendetta against a king. His destiny was to die by that farmer's club. A disturbance of fate had interfered with that destiny and lengthened his life, just like one had stepped into the life of the woman he loved and shortened hers.

A bird may love a princess, he thought ruefully. But, where would they make a home together?

They could never be meant for each other. He could never be meant to break her curse. He could never be her true love.


Diaval sat perched on a branch high in a tree, his thoughts and emotions swirling from one thing to the next. Despair. Hope. Determination. Love. Sadness. He couldn't take the storm raging within him in his human form. It was too much. It was still a horrid experience to continue to worry in his crow form, but it was still less. His only comfort was also the only thing that could add to his torment - watching Aurora.

Maleficent had told her that she could stay in the Moors and live there for as long as she liked. So, here the princess was, pacing in the forest and rehearsing what she would say to her "aunties" when she told them that she was leaving. Time was running out and Maleficent's last-minute solution of keeping Aurora in the Moors sounded to Diaval about as good a plan as King Stefan's plan to keep her in the forest. But, he had to hope that it would work. Although, his realistic side made him constantly aware that it was his desperation, not his rational thinking, that fueled his hope. A voice in his head kept repeating that there was only a small chance that this plan would work, but he persistently silenced it.

He internally chuckled a bit at something Aurora said about the three idiots accidentally feeding her spiders when he and Aurora were both startled by a sound. Suddenly, it was no longer just them in the clearing. Diaval swooped down to where his mistress stood, watching the events unfold herself. For some reason, Diaval kept wondering if she would do anything about it. Shoo the boy away, or scare him, or threaten him, or just annihilate him. He didn't like the little prince. He didn't like the way he looked at Aurora. He shifted his position constantly, raising one foot, then the other as if preparing to take off and fly right into the boy's face. However, Maleficent put her hand in front him in a silent command for him not to move. Diaval looked at his mistress's face, somewhat annoyed, but then followed her intent gaze to Aurora's face.

For the fist time since the boy entered, Diaval really saw the face of his princess. He saw that she was fascinated, curious, and a bit frightened. But, there was much more. She was in awe, she was happy, and she liked him. She liked looking at him. She liked hearing him speak. She liked that she could help him find his way. She did not like it when he turned to leave and asked if he would return.

A dark black cloud settled over the raven as he sat, motionless next to his mistress. At first, the cloud drenched him in sadness, despair. In a way, the despair was deeper than even the despair he felt at not being able to break Aurora's curse. Before, if the curse never existed, Diaval may have believed at least there might be some chance that Aurora would grow to like him and never belong to anyone else or any other man. But now, at her first sight of a man other than Diaval, her heart seemed halfway gone already. The despair that came with that revelation cut him like nothing else had.

Then, he felt the storm cloud rain down anger upon him. Who was this boy to walk in and steal her? Who was he to like her? Who was he that she liked him? Diaval wanted to kill him, or better, go back in time and ensure that he never even existed. That way, this never would have happened in the first place. Diaval would still be the only man that was ever in Aurora's life. Jealousy consumed his body and heart and he felt the weight of it so heavily in even his bird body that he did not want to change to his human form to see what this feeling was like as a man. He knew it would destroy him.

As the cloud kept pouring these emotions over him, something kept yelling and nagging him from inside himself. It was trying to make him realize something and after a moment, he spared a bit of his concentration to listen. Of course… the curse. The curse!

He had it wrong before. He should not have been thinking of what would have happened had the boy never existed. What would have happened if he did not exist now, just like it was supposed to be? Could be? Was there even the slightest chance that this boy was Aurora's true destiny? Her true love?

The thought sent a dagger straight through the crow's heart, but he knew that that was only because the thought held truth. He could be. Maybe. Half of him was still fighting against the notion. Hard.

How could he be her true love? He didn't know her. She didn't know him. They have nothing in common. They cannot be meant for each other. He is not the one. He couldn't be. The answer to all our problems can't just fall out of the sky like this. It just doesn't happen.

But, as the boy, Phillip, and Aurora said their goodbyes, he gave her a promise that they would meet again. That moment clinched it and stilled Diaval's every argumentative thought against the idea. Because, in that moment, Aurora gave Phillip a smile. A special smile. The smile that Diaval cherished and believed was only ever meant for him.

At that moment, he was crushed under the weight of his own, selfish sadness, but his mind was made up.

He cawed and cawed for Maleficent to notice him and change him quickly as soon as Aurora and Phillip were both gone. As she did so, though, Diaval instantly regretted changing to his human form with his human heart. It felt the pain so much more intensely. The only way he could push past it was to remind himself of his mission. He had to save Aurora. That was more important than anything. Damn his pain. He could wallow in it and die later.

"Well?" Diaval asked his mistress expectantly, impatiently.

"What?" she asked as if nothing of consequence had just occurred.

"That boy is the answer! True love's kiss, remember?"

Maleficent laughed a cruel and bleak laugh right in Diaval's face. "Heven't you figured it out? I worded it that way because there is no such thing." The pain in her face made it evident she was not gleeful about this fact and it reminded her of darker times before her servant entered her life.

Her servant would have none of it, though. This was the only way. So, you damn well better believe that true love did sure as hell did exist. "Well, that may be how you feel, but what about Aurora?"

The faery looked at him impatiently and with an annoyed and hopeless expression. She raised her hand, but Diaval's words halted her.

"Go ahead," he challenged gravely. "Turn me into whatever you want. A bird, a worm. I don't care anymore."

Nothing you turn me into will change what has happened or what I feel. There is a chance that Aurora will live happily with her true love. Let her have that and let me have my grief.