Diaval can feel warm sunlight on his skin. Filtering down through the trees. Blinking his eyes half open, he manages a small smile as he watches Aurora play with a delicate and exquisite woodland creature. He is propped up against a tree outside, Maleficent and Aurora had insisted it would do him good, and he hadn't argued. He agreed with them, and even if he didn't, he wasn't sure it was a fight he could've won. At least not in his current state.
So he's sitting under the trees, drifting in and out of consciousness, feeling ever so slightly better, but not all together well. It's only been a day and his wounds are bandaged, but healing, bruises still sore, but fading.
"Aurora." he calls out, his voice is weak and she doesn't hear him. He tries again and then gives up with a sigh. Having just woken to the warmth of the sun, he is curious where Maleficent is. She must be around here somewhere. He decides he should go look for her and stands up, an action that takes a gigantic effort. Swaying, he glances around for Aurora, but she has accidentally wondered some distance off chasing some beautiful forest creature. Unsteadily, he makes his way in to the forest.
"Mistress?" His voice comes out cracked and hoarse and he clears his throat. "Mistress?" No answer. The minutes blend together as he stumbles on. He's suddenly very thirsty and his search becomes half for water, half for Maleficent. At one point, he thinks he hears the trickling of water and wanders towards it for what seems like hours only to find nothing. He doesn't remember the Moors ever being so big or so confusing. He feels like a hatchling who has lost sight of his family during a flying lesson. Mind confused and desperate, throat burning and body sore, he keeps putting one foot in front of the other.
He's really not feeling well anymore. He finds himself clinging to each tree for dear life. "Mistress?" He's finally facing the ridiculous truth that he's completely lost, sick and alone. The forest is so warm it feels like the trees around Diaval are burning. Everything feels hot. Even the air in his lungs. Then the next minute it's freezing cold and Diaval is trying to remember if it really is summertime. Panting for air and vision blurring, he looses track of his feet and finds himself splayed out on the mossy forest floor. His hands are stinging from trying to halt his rapid and unplanned descent on a rough barked tree. Looking up, he freezes.
Deep black eyes meet golden ones. Diaval stops breathing, staring, transfixed, at the creature in front of him. It lowers it's head a half inch, black nose sniffing the air and paws shifting almost imperceptibly. Diaval doesn't dare move. He thinks maybe he should yell, or run, or do something, anything; but he just stares, lying prone on the piney ground. They stay like that for what seems like hours to Diaval but he knows is closer to minutes. Then, as if it coming to a sudden decision, the wolf turns away and seems to glide soundlessly away, disappearing in the brush without making one leaf stir. Diaval doesn't move until his eyes close of their own accord and his head falls softly on to a mossy pillow.
Diaval knows he's moving before he opens his eyes. He's up in the air, something rough holding him up under his knees and behind shoulders. Swaying back and forth, back and forth. Diaval forces his breathing to ease and keeps his eyes closed, silently assessing the situation...silently, at least, until whatever he's lying on jolts suddenly. He can't contain a moan of pain as his fresh injuries are jostled roughly. Thankfully though, his captor takes no notice. Inside, Diaval's mind is racing. Where is he? How will he escape? Is he lying in a tree somewhere, being rocked by the wind? Perhaps he hasn't been captured at all. Maybe he's up in a tree and this is just a cruel joke Maleficent has decided to play on him-letting him fall asleep as a raven before making him human. Whatever he's laying on does feel a lot like a tree-but then why is the ride so bumpy? Diaval doesn't hear any wind. Still recovering, the constant movement is making him feel ill. Deeply frustrated Diaval decides just to look and see for himself. He opens his eyes slowly, blinking at the blurry mess his eyes present him with. At first, he can't make out anything except green and brown and flecks of blue. All a swaying, tilting, fuzzy blur. After a few blinks though, he can make out a tree of sorts above him...a few more blinks and he realizes its Balthazar. Diaval isn't sure what to think. The looming, grumbling figure had always intimidated him a bit, but on the other hand, he was pretty much the opposite of a dog, and that had to count for something, didn't it?
Dogs. Wolves. Same thing.
Diaval remembers with a start. Long face. Huge paws. Fearless golden eyes in the woods, meeting his. But Diaval isn't fearless. Right now, suddenly, he's terrified. Suffocating, crippling panic surges in around him and before he knows it he's flailing, gasping, nearly falling out of Balthazar's steady hold. "Calm." The words comes to him suddenly and it takes him a minute to realize the voice was Balthazar's. He's never understood a word the Moor dweller has spoken before right now. Miraculously, Diaval feels his heartbeat slow slightly, his breathing even and he realizes how exhausted he is, still. Eyes falling shut, the steady swaying begins again, rocking Diaval into an almost peaceful sleep.
"-Idiot, what were you thinking? You could have been-Aurora was-" Maleficent's voice seems to fade in and out. "-Thezar hadn't found you then-" He opens his eyes and a blurred image appears above him. It makes him dizzy so he shuts his eyes again, head falling lethargically to the side as he reaches up to grab Maleficent's shoulder.
"Shhh," he mumbles before falling back asleep rather abruptly, leaving Maleficent fuming.
"Idiot. Could have killed himself."
"He wasn't thinking straight, Fairy Godmother." Aurora says reasonably. They are sitting in a grassy clearing on opposite sides of the sleeping Diaval. Balthazar is standing a few yards away, tall and stoic and silent, magnificent head turned towards the trio.
"Balthazar, thank you." Maleficent says, bowing her head respectfully in his direction.
"For you, anything." His low voice hums in his strange speech Maleficent easily deciphers. He bows low and gracefully and disappears into the woods without a sound.
"I should have been paying better attention." Aurora sighs regretfully. She rests a hand on Diaval's forehead, pleased to find his fever almost completely gone. He's resting more peacefully than she's seen in days.
"Nonsense. It's his own fault." Maleficent glares down at Diaval's tranquil expression-finding it hard to be truly angry. She had been more concerned and afraid than anything else when Aurora had called frantically for her after she'd discovered her injured friend missing.
Aurora helps Maleficent pull the exhausted Diaval to his feet, which draws him back into consciousness. "Mhhm?" he groans hazily.
"You're fine." Aurora reassures him quickly, and one side of Diaval's mouth tugs upwards in a weak but genuine smile. Every since Aurora had become a part of their odd little clan, Diaval had felt less like a slave. She had brought out kindness and compassion in Maleficent that Diaval had never known. The long, dull, lonely years were over. Diaval was no longer a simple tool of Maleficent's, no longer bound by his debt to her. He could call her a friend now, almost. Someday, certainly. Looking back on those years, servant to a wingless fairy who's bitterness and anger infected everyone around her, Diaval was glad it was over. Those years had stripped him of his identity. His body shifting from feathers, to fur to pale human skin without his permission or control. But he understood Maleficent, he understood her pain and the reason for the darkness of those years. It wasn't a darkness like the night, not the kind you could wear like a blanket when you sleep. Darkness like a windowless room. Suffocating and unnatural.
But there would be no more pain, and no more darkness. Diaval's sure of that.
