A/N: Schoolwork has cut into my free-time and these chapters are beginning to lengthen. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, your feedback is very appreciated. Especially the reminders about grammer and tenses. I currently run text-based RPGs and have formed the bad habit of not caring about tense due to just pushing scenes forward. I will strive to make sure that doesn't linger on too much here.
"I know what you are up to." Maleficent trailed a distance behind Aurora and the young human Prince. The two teenagers had become lost in conversation, with Prince Philip regaling Aurora with stories from his childhood and time spent with his brothers. Aurora was delighted, it showed in the way she kept turning in the saddle to keep Prince Philip in her sight.
Berend had also lingered back, walking his horse instead of riding it. Much like her, he stayed a respectable distance to give the two up front privacy. He raised a brow. "Do you, now?"
"She is not a means to an end, Captain. Not even for your benevolent wishes." Maleficent watched Diaval flutter from the saddle of Aurora's horse to land on a branch further along the road. The raven waited until the humans passed underneath his perch before diving between them, showing off his own acrobatic flair before he returned to the saddle to repeat the entire affair. The prince and princess seemed to enjoy it, cheering on Diaval's swoops and flips.
"She isn't?" Berend watched Diaval's antics. "A shame you didn't feel this way sixteen years ago."
Anger flared white-hot in the pit of her stomach and crept upward until the grip on her staff would shatter anything non-magical. "How dare -"
"- Just because you grew a conscience, Lady Protector, does not mean you are exempt from what you did." Berend lifted a hand up to run along one of the prominent scars that marked his face. "You are the reason that this feels bribery for the Princess when I am simply showing her the good that is within this kingdom that she would have known had you restrained yourself."
The anger coiled tight in her chest now, and just underneath her skin, Maleficent can feel the magic crawling through her veins. Her vision is tinted at the edges with a vivid green. Her wings have flared out, arcing to either side of her. It's blatant intimidation, and it worked because Berend faltered in mid-stride.
"You understand very little, Captain, of what happened sixteen years ago."
"What I may or may not understand does not change the fact that the Princess was raised in the middle of the woods, without any human contact, and without the awareness of what she was born to do."
"I did not make him send her away." Even to her own ears, that was a weak justification, and it's one she regretted the moment she did.
Berend must have noticed the sudden creep of shame because he doesn't continue that line of conversation. He adjusted the saddle bag on his own warhorse and let that part of the past rest uneasily between them. His eyes flicker from her to Aurora up ahead. "What matters is the Princess now."
"She is far too kind-hearted for this Kingdom. Your rulers have been nothing but ambitious, violent men who have crashed time and time against the Moors. I do not even know if you have relations with other human kingdoms beyond warfare."
"There were lucrative trade routes sixteen years ago, then the textile economy collapsed. Our tailors and weavers couldn't keep up with the demand from the southern kingdoms with simple hand-spinning."
Maleficent shrugged a wing. She had not set out to crush that industry, but it had brought her vindictive pleasure after she laid the initial curse and watched the kingdom buckle under Stefan's foolish decree. As if burning all the spindles would stop such a powerful curse.
Berend ran a hand over his chin. "You know she deserves to spend time in the kingdom."
"I know no such thing." Maleficent scowled.
"You do, even if you don't want to admit it."
"The Moors can provide all that she could ever want." Maleficent knew that. After all, she'd been raised within the Moors and had turned out exceptionally well.
"I do not doubt that. Can it provide what she needs, though?"
Maleficent's wings arced forward, then rolled back against her shoulders. "Explain."
Berend's smile was a wry one. "The fact that you would require an explanation should be enough of an answer, Lady Protector."
Maleficent fell silent. She stared down at the path they walked on, and the fight left her in a rush. The anger from earlier turned inward, into a cloying sense of guilt. She didn't need the keen sight of the eagle to notice how Aurora lit up with companionship. The girl was now regaling the young Prince with one of her earlier birthdays and it somehow involved spiders.
Berend's voice came soft. The strain to be gentle was obvious in the inflection, but he was trying. "The midsummer's festival is not just for the Princess' benefit."
"You cannot be referring to me." Maleficent's chin lifted.
"Oh, but I can."
"What benefit could it be for me, Captain?"
"That there is goodness and joy within the kingdom. The Princess loves the Moorlands, that is obvious to even the blind beggar; but you do not love her kingdom - and with understandable reason," he hastened to elaborate when she scoffed. "If the Princess is just, she will take the crown in a month."
Maleficent scowled but waved him off of explaining his thoughts further. She could follow them without him voicing them aloud. She could remember being affronted that Stefan had never warmed up to the border guards and wondered for the longest time why he could not make the attempt to see the harmony within their gnarled bodies as she could. "After the festival, I am taking Aurora back to the Moors for the remainder of the month."
Berend waited for her to continue.
"You are correct, I suppose. It is growing obvious that the more time she spends in this kingdom, the more she is considering your offer. I do not know if humans are born to their roles as faeries are …" she twirled the staff between her fingers, suddenly aware that she had only a few short months with Aurora before the girl's sixteenth birthday and a curse she thought would go unbroken; and now she had even less time before Aurora was lost to the world of men. There had been … there was so much Maleficent wanted to show the girl within the Moors.
Berend looked as if he wanted to answer her, but a piping music on the wind interrupted him. Maleficent realized that the two young humans had stopped to wait for her and the captain to catch up.
...
The sun had left it's apex and was sliding down towards the western sky, drawing long shadows throughout the farmer's field that had been transformed into a maze of market stalls and crackling bonfires. Children weaved through the crowd of adults as easy as pixies dancing in flight, and music filled the air with a upbeat, lifting tune. Truthfully, Maleficent had to begrudgingly admit that the captain's bribe was a cunning one, both for Aurora who stared at everything around her with wide eyes that refused to blink lest she missed one little detail; and for Maleficent, who was growing to understand that sheltering Aurora within the Moors was impractical. Not when the girl wandered from stall to stall marvelling at sights she'd never seen before.
The music turned Aurora's light steps into a sort of dance as the girl flitted and darted through a world new to her. The wonder in her eyes was close to the gleam that had entranced Maleficent when she'd invited Aurora into the Moors. The faery had taken to old habits, ducked into a shadowy grove to watch the girl from afar. Aurora had protested, at first, but the music and the sights tugged at her as novelty tugged at all children and soon she'd wandered off with Prince Philip and Berend at her side, the men promising to keep her safe.
"She really does belong anywhere she goes, doesn't she?" Diaval's voice is hoarse from the day and night spent as a raven. The way he came up next to her, head bobbing as he tracked Aurora's path as closely as Maleficent did was birdlike in mannerisms.
"Yes," Maleficent breathed in reply. She did not want to answer the unspoken question she could see in Diaval's eyes, but ravens were impulsive and rash creatures and cared little for ideas of silence and brooding thoughts. They lived their lives noisily, with their feelings and concerns voiced in loud, harsh tones that shattered a forest's stillness. Diaval was no different. Not even after nearly two decades wearing the skin of a man.
"What do you think of the offer of the human Captain?" He stood directly at her side and side-stepped the sweep of her wing outwards, as if it was ingrained in him to do so. "I tried to keep Aurora distracted so the two of you could speak freely. I know as well as you do that there's bad blood. You don't just eat all the mice in the owl's territory and then expect him to share the tree hollow."
She raised a brow.
"Uh, that is Aurora is the mice and the eating of is ...the stealing of her… stop looking at me like that. You know I hate it."
She complied. She prefered keeping her eye on Aurora anyways. "Your analogies are terrible, Diaval."
"They're not terrible! It's this speech that's terrible."
"Shall I turn you into a wolf again so you can continue this baying in a form proper for it?"
He scowled and came to lean against the tree she hid behind, turning his back toward the colorful tents and crackling fires. "I can see that you're in a lovely mood."
"You do not have to stay if you think I'm ill company." She caught him with her gaze for a second, then looked away once more.
"You're always ill company when you don't like what I'm telling you," Diaval's exasperation was laced with the fondness of years together. He shuffled at her side, a human mimicry of dancing from foot to foot while a bird. "Mistress…"
She did not feel in the mood to correct him at the moment. A peevishness had come upon her since she'd spoken with the human captain. It had been obvious enough that even Aurora had caught on and quickly found reason to go venture forth outside the protection of Maleficent's wings.
Not that she minded. She preferred her space.
"Maleficent," Diaval drew her attention again. His eyes were wide and black and imploring, like he wished he could solve this dilemma for her. Her fingers twitched with the urge to change him into a raven, her hand even left her staff to come up in warning. "She's not that oblivious - she knows there's something bothering you."
"What could be bothering me? I am enjoying - I was enjoying a moment's relaxation to myself without the nagging input of a raven or the constant attention of a little beast." Her voice was high and imperious and her body ramrod straight. She even managed to keep her wings furled tight to her back and they only twitched twice to give away her agitation.
Diaval gave her a strange look. "Are you angry with Aurora?"
"What? Of course not. She is only doing what is natural for humans."
Diaval's eyes crinkled in sympathy. He knew what she was referring to. Still, he attempt to make her say it. He always made her voice aloud that which she would rather keep buried. "And what is natural for humans?"
She sidesteps the answer he's expecting with a quick shake of her head. She tensed when his hand set upon her own. A trembling noise stopped then, and she realized it'd been her staff shaking against her palm. "You are the only one who has never left me Diaval."
Diaval chuffed soft against her shoulder. "She's hardly going to leave you. Aurora adores you."
"She will leave. Maybe not for ambition, or power; but because she is young and this is a world that has been denied her for her entire life. Humans are flighty, Diaval."
"As the only avian creature in a hundred miles who has the wits about himself to speak, I would like to protest the implied insult against birdkind and suggest that you relate humans to anything else. Like dogs." Diaval sounded so affronted, and the look he gave her was so wounded, that Maleficent could not help but let out a breathless chuckle. He grinned, then leaned in close until they were shoulder to shoulder. "Maleficent, hatchlings have to leave the nest sometimes."
"Aurora is not a hatchling."
"All right, maybe she's not your hatchling, but I like to think of her as mine."
"Do you?" Maleficent furrowed her brow.
He blinked at her. Opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Or, thought of something else, she couldn't tell. "Are you telling me that you think the curse kept Aurora alive?"
She shrugged. Human children were not her area of experience. "I do not know. It would have been a very poor curse if it had allowed her to die when she was sixteen months old." She frowned, puzzled at the look upon Diaval's face. "What?"
"I can't speak to you right now." Diaval stepped back and smoothed out his shirt like he was preening, an action he did when he was disgruntled. He left the shadow of the trees to stalk forward into the clearing, backlit by the bonfires.
"Diaval?" She called after him. He shook his head and threw up his arms. Along the way, he bumped into Aurora who had her arms full of small, wrapped bundles. "I am no longer speaking to Maleficent."
"All… right?" Aurora's brow knit in confusion as she stopped to watch him disappear into the crowd. Once he was gone, she continued on her trajectory to where Maleficent was. "Is Diaval all right, Godmother?"
"Who knows with that bird?" Maleficent put the matter behind her. "What are you carrying?"
"Huh?" Aurora glanced into her arms. "Oh! Come here and I'll show you! Philip was nice and let me pick out some things."
"Did he?" Maleficent was glad the human prince was nowhere in sight. She would not have been at fault if he somehow happened to turn into something neither human or princely, but then she would have to explain the sudden change to Aurora and Maleficent was certain that the young girl would not understand the irrational dislike the faery had for the boy. Or believe her about accidental magical mishaps.
"Mmhmm! If you come out here and sit with me, I'll let you see them."
"Who says I want to see them?"
Aurora smiled. "I do."
Maleficent stood still, long enough that it would have made Diaval antsy. Aurora just waited and when there was no movement from where Maleficent was, the princess shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the grass without ceremony. She unwrapped one of the bundles and an enticing smell immediately wafted to where Maleficent resided. It smelled of clover-honey with a spice that the faery had never encountered before.
It reminded her of the sweet cakes the shepherds used to leave out on the rocks for the small faeries. Maleficent only tasted one of them once, when she had begged Sweetpea, a flower faery, to go get one for her.
"What is that?"
"I thought you didn't want to see my gifts?" Aurora's tone is far too innocent for the question to be an honest inquiry.
"I do not want to see it, I merely want to know what it is," Maleficent huffed.
"I'll let you know what it is if you come out, Godmother." Aurora smiled again, and it was so easy for her. Diaval was right; the girl belonged wherever she went. The only outlier seemed to be the castle, but Maleficent could not fault Aurora for never wanting to set foot in that monstrosity of iron ever again.
"I am fine here, Aurora."
"You don't need to be my shadow here, Godmother. I don't think anyone knows who you are, and even if they did, they seem to be incredibly fascinated with a drink that tastes like berries, but with a bitter aftertaste."
"You had some?"
"A … little bit. Berend suggested that I not drink more than a cup of it." Aurora sat crosslegged on the grass and lifted up something to her mouth. She took a bite out of it, and then spoke around the mouthful. "Would you like some?"
Maleficent remembered another human upon the green grass offering her a drink. Her body shivered with the memory. "No."
Aurora pouted. Her eyes were black with her back to the firelight, but it lit her hair as if the tresses were truly spun from gold. "You are acting just like my aunties."
"I am not."
"You are! You only want to spend time with me when it's fun for you."
"That is most certainly not the case, Aurora. Do not be foolish." Maleficent waved a hand dismissively.
"Then why won't you sit out here with me?"
"Because this is as close to humans that I care to be, Aurora, and if you ask me again ..." There was a warning in her tone, one not used since the first night Aurora charmed her out of her hiding spot.
Aurora shook her head, and gathered up her bundles. She got back to her feet, a little unsteady and marched to the very edge of the thicket. She set one of the bundles deliberately just beyond the tree Maleficent stood behind, then turned on her heel to resume her march, but this time into the festival and away from Maleficent. She vanished into the crowd much like Diaval had.
And Maleficent? Well. She waited until she was certain that she would be unseen before retrieving the bundle Aurora left. She retreated into the thick of the trees, and then further still, until she could stand in the open far beyond the fire and music, underneath the dying sun where the shadows stretched long over her form and allowed her the freedom to stretch her wings without prying eyes.
Curiosity had always been a vice, and so she could not help but to unwrap the parcel. It was not a sweetcake, or even food, but a strange woodcarving of what appeared to be a barren Great Tree, the branches gnarled and sprawled over the entire piece. Scrawled into the image of those branches was a language Maleficent had thought long disappeared from the world.
Her fingers smooth over the engraved words even though she cannot translate the obviously-fae script underneath them. It was a lovely carving but what had it been doing being sold in a human festival? Even if it had been a lucky guess by the woodcarver, the script was too complete for simple imagination; and Maleficent knew without a doubt that no human save Aurora had ever ventured deep enough within the moors to spy the ruined fragments of what once was.
Her wings slackened as she traced the engraving a second time, then a third time. Now the shadows are more numerous than the sunlight, They play on her like she is a stage for them to dance, and they are fluid and haunting in their patterns. She spread her wings further and the breeze from the east ruffled and stirred through the flight feathers and for a moment she thinks she can smell the richness of the Moors on the wind and the scent of her home carried comfort in a place she'd not expected to find it. The glimpse of home is enough to settle the churlishness of her mood and she thought on a way to make amends with Aurora.
...
Maleficent returned to the thicket and then beyond it. There is a fallen oak tree in the clearing, covered in vines and moss and it is that place she made her roost in anticipation for the return of Aurora, or even Diaval. She doesn't have to wait for too long for Aurora appeared at the edge of the stalls, Diaval at her side.
"I told them you wouldn't leave!" She exclaimed, setting her trinkets and food bundles into Diaval's arms so she could run the distance between her and Maleficent. She kicked off her slippers and darted up the log without a care for her dress, stopping only when she was a foot or so from the faery. "I'm sorry. For earlier. I was just so excited and …" she trailed off, scrunching her face. "I'm sorry."
"I was not exactly on my best behavior either, Beastie." Maleficent tilted her head up, eyes drifting to the velvet sky above them. She could not see the stars due to the fires, but she knew they were there. "Are you enjoying yourself despite your godmother's peevishness?"
Aurora nodded. "I am. There were foods of all sorts and spiced with herbs. Philip says they're from the southern lands beyond even his borders, across a wide channel of water greater than even the lake of the Moors."
Maleficent arched a brow. "How do you know how wide the lake is, mm? Have you been flying without me?"
"Oh yes, Diaval turns into a dragon for me and we soar through the cliffs. I've mapped out the entire Moors already! Haven't you?" Aurora was a fair bit below Maleficent and she rested her head upon the faery's knee. Her eyes are wide and bright and she smiled as if there had not been a spat between them.
Maleficent's hand ran over Aurora's hair. The girl is light and bubbly with the human drink and she hummed like one of the water nixes when her hair was stroked. "No. Even I do not know the Moors that well. You will have to show me this map when we return then."
"It's in Diaval's nest." Aurora nodded, then lifted her head slightly. "Do you know what was my favorite part of tonight?"
"No, what was it?"
"The stories. There were so many stories. There were even faerie stories."
"Were there now?" Maleficent nodded as Diaval came to settle at the base of the fallen log, head lolled back against the bark and moss.
"Yep!" Aurora stretches a leg to poke her foot playfully against Diaval's shoulder. "There were no raven stories though."
"A pity."
"Ravens tell our own stories far better than humans could. They're very biased. We don't steal all the time, and we certainly are not heralds of bad omens." Diaval voiced from his position at the base of the log. His head rolled back so he could peer upside-down at the two of them.
"You do so steal." Maleficent scoffed. "Look what happened to my poor Rowan Tree. Half of the upper branches are devoted to whatever little bits and bobs you have decided to claim for your own."
"I have improved the tree, I don't know what you're complaining about."
"Hmph." Maleficent leaned back against the bark, gaze heavenward once again. "Did you enjoy their faerie stories, Aurora?"
"I didn't stay for them." Aurora rubbed at her eyes, then crawled further up the log until she was at Maleficent's waist. "Can I lay here?"
"Always."
Aurora's smile was visible even in the dark. She was careful, and minded the feathers, and tucked herself against the length of Maleficent's body. Her chin rests at Maleficent's shoulder and when she breathes, Maleficent can smell the berry-sweet wine. Maleficent's wings furl up to keep Aurora steady against her, and the gentle weight of the girl over her wing is a comfort. She listened as Diaval's breathing evened out until he was lost to sleep, still wearing the form of the man. Maleficent envied him the rest, for she knew that she could never lower her guard outside of the Moors. Still, she did not attempt to wake him, and the music is enchanting in it's own way.
"Godmother?" Aurora's voice is more murmur than sound.
"Yes?"
"Where did all the dragons go? One of the bards was telling a story about dragons because there's a rumor that one destroyed the entire throne room, but I didn't really believe his version of events." Aurora turned her head so she could watch Maleficent's profile.
Maleficent's hands were tucked at her stomach and she lifts one to trace out a glimmering, golden thread in the air. She thought to the woodcarving Aurora had given to her, and the mysteries it held. It had been a very long time since she last had the desire to wander into the inlands of the Moors, where the lakes and cliffs yielded to marshes and bogs, caverns and ravines that stretched as far into the earth as the craggy cliffs reached for the heavens. She thought that she would venture back there soon, but first there was a story to be told.
"Once upon a time, before either humans or faeries knew how to build sprawling kingdoms, lived the dragons…"
