Unrest
High above the glistening pools of the Moors, lying face down on a moss covered stone column rested the newly winged fairy, Maleficent. Her wings, folded into a large black heart atop her back, were able to shield most of her body from the sun; however, she did not choose this unusual roost for sunning. She lay up there, high above the forest, so she might once again feel the soft breeze through her feathers. If she had to describe the sensation to one without wings, she supposed it could be similar to wind running it's cool fingers through ones hair, only better. The pleasure she felt top this rock was one she had not felt in over 16 years. She drank in the sensation like a sinner at communion.
From below, the trills of water sprites forever tracing patterns on the pools rang out above the low buzz of honeybees furiously pollinating flowers. Water softly trickled from slippery rocks and splashed with the quick surfacing of rainbow colored fish, noises that added definition to the river's melodic burbling. The trees whistled their high notes, and the Waller Bogs croaked their baritones, rounding out the symphony of the Moors.
High above her home, Maleficent felt herself slowly melting into the rock column like butter on a hot roll, gradually becoming one with nature, and just as her eyes grew heavy with sleep, her happiness came to a screeching halt. A terrible dread clutched her chest and shook her awake. It wasn't a physical pain, but rather an awful sinking feeling in her core, like she'd just been informed of a death. Confused, she lifted herself from her perch and peered over the edge. It seemed that many of the creatures below had stopped in their routines as well. More than one looked up at her, as a child looks at their mother for guidance in troubling time, expecting some sort of answer in her eyes. They received merely the same worried stare. Below, she spotted the three fairies, Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle, each touching their chests with the same sinking look on their tiny faces.
Rapt with concern, she returned to her senses first. Standing, she leapt from the stone column, her tawny wings catching her in an updraft. Though she didn't know specifics, she could tell the dread came from some terrible imbalance in nature occurring, and as the most powerful fairy in the land, it was her duty to protect the earth and its creatures.
Diaval felt it in midair, a sinking feeling like a boulder in his belly that threatened to take him to the ground with it. Luckily, the ruins were stood crumbling only a few yards ahead, and he could simply ride the wind the rest of the way. He entered through a dusty stone window into the mostly intact room he called home. He changed into a man immediately upon entering, clutching his heart as he walked on wobbly knees. He figured he'd have a better chance of surviving whatever this was in human form. He braced himself against the wall as he felt the newfound hole in his center pulsing, making it hard to breath. It appalled him, this utter wrongness he felt. As soon as he returned to normal, he would find Maleficent and inform her of this... this… whatever this was.
As if on cue, the horned fairy herself strode through the door-less arch leading into his room, her hand still clutching her chest. She moved with purpose, though hunched in pain, like a Queen on a mission, and upon seeing her friend in distress, dropped the pomp and rushed to his side.
"Diaval," she breathed, real worry knitting her strong eyebrows together. She reached out to do something, anything, only to have him hold out a hand in restraint. To admit that he needed help was a terrible blow to the combined ego of a bird and man.
"What," he whispered in a voice more hoarse than normal, "was that?"
"You felt it too?" she asked, more a statement than a question, searching his eyes with concern. Unlike the others, who revealed more confusion and sadness in their eyes, Diaval held a sort of anger behind his black orbs.
"Like I've been thumped in the chest," he explained between deep, scratchy breaths, "like I've had the wind knocked out of me. There's a deep disturbance in the balance, I can feel it."
"I as well. However none were as affected as you."
"Other's felt it too?"
"All manner of Moor folk at least; I cannot be sure of the humans." Both paused, noticing the sensation to have lessened.
"What do you think it is?" Diaval asked finally, removing his hand from the wall, no longer needing its support.
"I don't know," she answered, casting her eyes down in thought, "But I must know the extent of its reach. I need you to go to the castle and speak with Aurora, find out if anyone else was affected."
"I, em," He garbled, recalling how he left after their last encounter.
"What?" she asked, slightly suspicious as his eyes became flitty and he unconsciously touched his black hair, pulling a downy feather out in the process.
"I don't know if I can make it," he answered finally, thinking quickly. "I nearly crashed when it hit me, what if it happens again?"
Maleficent hummed in thought. He had a point; they had no way of knowing if the sudden melancholia would strike again, and the last thing she wanted was for harm to come to him under her orders. She quickly glanced at the crescent scar on his face; he had already sacrificed so much for her.
"Besides, if Aurora had a problem, she would come to us," he explained further, eager to get his mistress off his case.
"True, " she conceded, already dismissing Diaval's anxiety over the errand as embarrassment over his fear of flying. Birds and their terrible vanity.
"I'm calling a meeting," she announced after some thought, "To see if we can shed light on what just happened. Walk, or fly low, but either way attend," she instructed, true concern showing behind her glimmering eyes.
With that she made her exit out the archway, leaving the man to his thoughts.
Diaval exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Another crisis averted. While the sudden affliction of the Moor people worried his brain, a completely different thought plagued his heart which, as the strongest muscle of the body, bullied his brain into having it's desires take precedence.
Aurora. What was he thinking, bringing her that rose? In what world would that gesture be appropriate? He didn't know what wave of confidence hit him when he thought to pick it for her, but it was gone now, squashed underfoot like the ugly spider it was.
Having raised Aurora since birth, Diaval practically considered her his daughter. But over time, as she grew from a giggling child to a beautiful young woman, his feelings evolved. What began as nurturing instinct slowly became a friendship that became, at least on his end, something more. He adored the way she still played in the rain of autumn leaves, and how she shamelessly engaged in mud fights with the Waller Bogs. Yet from behind the rose-hued haze of love his rational mind screamed at him, she is your daughter. So it disgusted him, this love he had for her. He tried suppressing the thoughts but, when he wasn't looking, his mind would wander into visions of them together, his calloused hands grasping her shining, sunny hair, bringing her silken lips to his scarred face— pictures as sweet at wine, and twice as intoxicating.
They would never fit together; she, the Queen of two kingdoms, verging on three if she chose to marry Prince Phillip— he shuddered at the thought — and him, a dirty crow that on occasion became a man. She was a purveyor of light, as virtuous as freshly fallen snow. He, on the other hand, had never felt more ugly, dirty, and dark, the polar opposite of her. It would never work.
Even if he'd mustered the courage to approach her, flower and all, and confess his feelings, what then? If she didn't feel the same, and he was almost certain she didn't, it would ruin their relationship. She would be as horrified and disgusted with him as he already was with himself. She would cast him out. She would tell Maleficent, who would unleash her fury on him, turning him into range of creatures before revoking his transformation abilities so he could never become a man or bird again.
But what if she did feel the same way? The thought had such miniscule odds that he barely considered it, but what if?
He glanced to his left where a makeshift mirror hung above a horribly scratched and sagging table. The "mirror" was the shiny inner side of the late King Stefan's breastplate. Diaval looked into his eyes, dark as the deepest sin, and compared them to the crystal blue of Aurora's. His hair hung thick and black and his skin looked clay white, smudged with ebony where the crow inside shown through. He only saw his impurities. He would never be clean enough to touch her.
He tore his eyes away and walked back to the window. In an instant, he turned himself back into a bird and flew away from the ruins he called home, and the mirror that insisted on taunting him, to the pools of the Moor where the meeting was set to begin.
Shadows played on the seams and notches of the cold stone walls, growing and shrinking with the twitching of the fire in a primitive tribal dance. Despite the flame's desperate gyrations, the room still maintained an icy blue-grey hue, as if viewed through a cobalt lens. Even the ornate red tapestry near the window possessed a dusty greyness, though no dust could be found. The only thing in the room that lacked this steely hue was the large man sitting in a ball by the fire, shivering. Too, his soft warmth seemed to grow by the minute.
Stefan could not be more thankful for the heavy furs the huntsman he inhabited left him to wear. He had no body heat to warm them up, but with the help of a fire and the wooden stein of hot cider in his thick, calloused, and quivering hands, he was beginning to feel just a tickle of heat. But that tickle was not enough for the former king.
"Wh-why am I s-so c-cold?" he croaked in his strange new voice, deeper than before, turning to his savior.
Ravenna observed him with great curiosity from her cushioned chair. Her spell book said nothing about aftercare. She'd truly taken a gamble when she chose to revive Stefan. She found his body far too broken for a traditional resurrection (falling seven stories can do that) so she opted for a little old-fashioned body snatching. Using the living form of one of the local peasant huntsmen, she transplanted Stefan's essence, his conscious spirit, into the body. She really didn't know what to expect. For all she knew she could have created a vampire or ripped the veil between the living and dead. So for now she monitored him, giving him what he asked for and taking notes on his complaints.
"I'm not sure," she answered, "it may be a memory of the cold you felt in your dead body," she speculated, watching him flinch at the mention of being dead. He had trouble accepting his passing, thought she'd told him multiple times. He claimed that he simply felt like he'd woken after a long sleep.
"Other than being cold, how are you feeling?" she asked, equally concerned and curious. Stefan paused for a moment in thought.
"Strange," he answered finally. "I feel as if I'm inside a glove, a huge body-shaped glove. All of my senses are there, just muted. I feel a sort of barrier between my conscious and the world around me." He ran his fingers over the huntsman's thick, calloused hands, feeling the sensation but not truly experiencing it.
Ravenna eyed him further, trying to comprehend his words, when she noticed his cracked and peeling lips. Dehydration. Apparently body swaps took more energy than she thought.
"Drink," she urged, "you'll feel better."
He did as she asked, taking a small sip of the mildly sweet, spiced drink. His throat felt like sandpaper, but as the cider ran down it hot and thick, the pain became more tolerable. He took another sip.
"Ravenna, why did you bring me back?"
She hesitated to answer.
"For many reasons," she began taking a deep breath, "For one I believe you have been gravely wronged, Stefan. I've been with you since the beginning of your problems with that wicked fairy. When I first laid eyes upon her at Aurora's christening I knew she would cause trouble, and she did more than that, she wreaked havoc. In an instant she caused the kingdom to go into a panic. And for what? She had no motivation."
Stefan looked away at this. He never told her his history with Maleficent, how they met as children and became friends. How they progressed to young love, their kiss out of a storybook. How he broke her heart. How he drugged her. How he stole from her. He never told anyone. Queen Ravenna continued on, oblivious to Stefan's guilty conscience for leaving out the details.
"For another, you have been an unwavering friend to me. While you were dealing with struggles of your own you still managed to help me with mine. For God's sake you planned my husband's funeral when I was overcome with grief!" The Queen gave a fake sniff here, recalling the events. She hadn't really been overcome with grief, as she had been the one to kill him; however, Stefan's intervention was a great distraction for her court while she plotted the political overhaul of her late husband's kingdom. "You died fighting for the one member of your family you had left, your daughter. And that speaks to me. I've lost my mother and my husband. I brought you back because I couldn't bear to lose anyone else."
Ravenna gazed at him intensely, allowing her message to sink in. Stefan peered into the murky liquid in his stein, remembering the letters they'd exchanged over the years. He'd often poured his heart out to her over the pain of his losses and she returned in kind. They both shared the pain of losing someone dear, and through that, he felt, they could understand each other
"And," she continued, her gaze hardening, "You have unfinished business with a certain fairy."
Of course, Ravenna neglected to disclose the real reason she brought him back: she needed him to return to power so she could take his throne. With him reinstated as King she could continue her conquest, seducing Kings with her youth and beauty and then killing them to take their power. She already controlled half the countryside, but she craved more, more land, more power. Stefan's kingdom always presented a significant obstacle. It held great military power, especially with Stefan's draft calling in an excess of 2,000 soldiers in the castle town alone. Then there were the Moors, with the belligerent Maleficent hell-bent on protecting her lands at all cost. She held off Stefan's armies easily for sixteen years, and King Henry's armies before that. With such a threat as her neighbor, early on Ravenna decided she could settle for a quiet coup; a wedding, a tragic death, and the next day, a coronation.
But, after Stefan's unplanned death and Aurora's coronation dashed her three-step plan, she had no way to take over the kingdom other than outright war, which was far too time-consuming, messy, and risky for her tastes. Besides, her troops were already battling Duke Hammond's men as well as numerous peasant rebellions on the countryside and she feared stretching them too thin.
Stefan scoffed at her remark, taking another draught of cider.
"And what do you propose we do about that?" he asked. "Maleficent's already won, nothing can change that."
"Don't worry about that now. You need to become healthy first, regain your strength. I've never brought anyone back from the dead before," she admitted, giving a slightly awkward smile, "and I'm not sure what to expect. So lets take it slow. Let me know if you need anything, alright? Are you still cold?"
"Yes," he answered truthfully.
"I'll have the maids run you a bath. That should warm you up and make you more comfortable. I'll be right back."
She left the room in silence, the layers of her skirts making soft swish-swish-swishing noises as she passed the former King, huddled on the floor next to the hearth for warmth. He didn't feel very King-like now, not in this position. Setting his mug down he inspected himself, something he wasn't really able to do with Ravenna constantly watching him. Never a skinny man, Stefan, during his previous go at life, possessed a healthy medium build, save that last bit where paranoia and madness caused his physic to decline as well. This body, however, dwarfed his other body greatly. He stretched over two meters high, and his limbs felt muscular from a life of manual labor.
He reached up and touched the greasy hair that fell to his shoulders. It felt thinner than his other body's, and less wiry. Blonde too, he noticed with some surprise as he pulled a long lock over his forehead. He felt his neck, rough from stubble, but fairly elastic. He realized that this body… his body, he reminded himself yet again, must be substantially younger than his old one. He wondered how old he would turn come his birthday, or which birthday he would celebrate for that matter.
Don't trust her, a voice whispered.
Stefan whipped his head around, scanning the room only to find it empty. He stared at the glass window, blackened by the night sky. Perhaps a servant left it cracked and the voice came from outside? Perhaps it wasn't a voice at all, but the wind?
He heard the soft swish-swish-swishing of Ravenna's gown as she returned.
"Stefan?" she called softly from the doorway, "Everything's ready, if you are."
He cast one more glance out the window before turning to face her, nervously running a hand through his new hair. He decided it was best not to tell her about the voice.