Maleficent was shocked to find she had actually fallen asleep with the amount she had cried. She hadn't wept so much as a single tear since Stefan's betrayal, and she supposed the energy spent sobbing had been more than enough to push her into sleep's arms.
'And Diaval's,' a voice whispered nastily in her mind. She flinched and tugged away from the raven-man, pulling her fingers from his grasp. She couldn't allow herself to think of him like that. For goodness' sake, he was bound to her for life! Pushing for anything... nonplatonic to happen would destroy the careful boundaries of mistress and spy, of protector and confidant.
'Then what exactly do you call holding hands with him in his sleep?' the voice murmured.
Maleficent shuddered and blocked out the noise as she began the process of relocating Diaval.
She took the time to run down to the stream and rinse the tear stains from her face. She glanced down at her reflection. 'This is as much as you deserve, you monster,' she thought spitefully. 'You should be writhing under the agony of a cage of iron, not free in your kingdom.' She struck the water with magic as green as her eyes, and her image shattered and rippled to unrecognizable proportions. Maleficent left before it could reform.
Diaval still slept on his perch, his head lightly tucked under one wing. She called, "Diaval," and the bird immediately woke up, a welcome contrast to the day before.
When he fluttered down beside her, she changed him back to a human. As always, he staggered slightly with the new balance, but this time managed to steady his landing by dipping into a bow.
"Thank you for not shocking me and then kicking me in the side to wake me again, Mistress," Diaval said with exaggerated formality. "Waking up to a speeding boot is not nearly the same as your smiling face."
"It's closer than you might think," she responded with one eyebrow arched. "Both are signs of your impending doom." Maleficent smiled broadly, and Diaval flinched.
"Go bring Aurora here. I couldn't tell her about the curse yesterday, and she has to hear it from me." Sudden solemnity filled her voice, and Diaval nodded. With a flick of her fingers, his wings sprouted, and he circled once above her head before gliding away.
Diaval arrived without Aurora a short while later. Maleficent looked up from a small fawn she was feeding with surprise and changed him to a man to hear his story.
Diaval was quiet for a moment. "Mistress, Aurora is coming here in a few moments. But... I think the aunties told her something. She seems… very upset," he told her carefully.
"Upset? But whatever do you mean by-"
Maleficent was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps. Someone was running clumsily over. With a flick of her fingers, Diaval was an ebony-feather raven. He vanished into the forest as a figure stepped out.
The girl looked terrible. Her smooth skin was blotched with patches of red, a few stubborn tears still clinging to the lashes that surrounded her crimson-rimmed eyes. Aurora's voice, normally a soothing balm to Maleficent's ears, now grated on them with more unshed tears as she began, "When were you going to tell me that I'm cursed?"
Maleficent slowly turned to face the girl. Aurora took her silence as an answer and continued. "Is it true?"
"It is." Maleficent felt her heart break with those words, as pure desperation filled her Beastie's eyes. Somehow, the child had retained hope that her aunties were somehow wrong, that the woman she believed to be her Faerie Godmother had not been deceiving her for the past nearly sixteen years of her life.
Aurora's voice grew raspier with gasps. "My aunt said it was an evil faerie. I can't remember her name." She paused, her mind clearly fumbling to remember. "They said… it was…"
"Maleficent," the faerie answered smoothly. Her face was frozen into a façade of glass, only her full lips curving around the words. Something surged to life in her chest, its fluttering pulses still too weak to ever altering her icy disguise. Funny, how easy her name had been to tell the girl now that Aurora would leave her forever- in more ways than one.
Aurora nodded ever so slightly. Now the tears that had swayed on her lashes began to fall, staining her skin even more. She took a few shaky breaths. Finally, the girl asked, "Is that you? Are you Maleficent?"
Something broke within Maleficent, and the faerie couldn't respond. The only outlet she found was to step quietly toward the girl, the tips of her fingers shaking invisibly. Maybe if she could just touch the Beastie, lay one hand on her shoulder and tell the truth, everything would be all right.
"No! Don't touch me," Aurora spat, recoiling from the towering figure. Maleficent let out the slightest gasp, so faint as to barely be heard, as she tried to approach the girl one more time. "You're the evil that's in the world. It's you!" With more contempt and loathing on her face than Maleficent had ever seen, the cursed princess reeled away. She picked up her heavy skirts and fled, leaving Maleficent with bitter apologies on her lips.
Maleficent felt warmth gather at the corners of her eyes, but she pulled her shoulders back and stood haughtily tall. She had already grieved for the child before, wept hot tears that had fallen onto Diaval's chest. She would not cry again. She would remain strong. She would not give the child that already held such hold over her heart any more power by giving into her impulses right now, by ripping the forest asunder by green flame and heartwrenching screams.
A flutter of wings sounded in her ears, so loudly Maleficent jumped. As lost in her thoughts and self-hatred as she was, she hadn't even remembered that Diaval remained a raven.
The bird perched on a tree limb in front of her, tilting his head to the side in a decidedly birdlike manner. If he had been human, Maleficent was sure he would have concern glinting in his dark eyes, but she couldn't handle his presence right now.
"Diaval, be gone," she hissed. In return, he soared to the ground and hopped a few steps closer, head still tilted inquisitively. "Be gone, beast! Leave me alone!" Her rage was an emerald flame that lashed out at his face, and Diaval took to the air with wounded cries.
Now utterly exhausted, the faerie slumped against the sturdy trunk of a tree. Another job well done, Maleficent, she scolded herself silently. Lose your Beastie, alienate your friend, and completely lose the Beastie in a few days' time.
Somehow she managed to find the strength to move her legs, and once she was walking, she kept a quick pace, as though she could outstrip her problems and the dull ache in her heart.
Maleficent found herself back at her tree. She couldn't even muster the strength to haul her form up into the nest-shaped hollow. "I miss my wings," she murmured mournfully, but even she could tell that was not all she missed.
Diaval seemed to have taken her command to heart, and he did not return all day, though she curled up on the ground and waited for hours. Finally, as the last rays of sun extinguished, he arrived.
She could tell he had already written off the night and was planning to not even attempt a conversation, so she called softly, "Diaval, wait."
The bird stopped, head tilted in confusion, as he turned back to look at her. Maleficent swallowed. This would be a very difficult thing for her to say, as she hadn't apologized since she was still a young faerie. Taking a deep breath, she mumbled, "I'm s-sorry."
There was a moment of stunned silence on both parts, one because she was so astounded at herself she could barely think, the other because he was trapped in a wordless form. But she broke the silence again. "I… I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. That was wrong of me. It wasn't fair that I took it out on you." Now realizing she'd said more here than during the first few years of Aurora's life combined, she stopped her babbling. "Good night, Diaval." And with that, she lowered her eyes and turned away.
Somehow there was more pain in that small gesture than in losing her wings, Maleficent reflected as she climbed up into her nest.
She would not transform Diaval that night, she promised herself. She had to learn to stand on her own two feet, to face the scorching pain that was losing her Beastie. And she couldn't grow any stronger if she ran to Diaval each time her heart panged.
The stars twinkled merrily above her, mocking her fate with silvery laughs that she could almost hear. Her breath was short and sharp in the night air, but she was pleased that no approach of tears rattled in her inhalations.
Her thoughts were cold and merciless as she struggled to find sleep. Be strong. Harden your heart. You lived alone for many years without Aurora, and you can easily live without her once more. You lived without a servant for many years, and you can certainly do so once more.
You are strong.
You are frozen steel.
You are Maleficent, protector of the Moors.
You will not cry.
She did not.
Hello again! This chapter just *barely* was finished today, haha. The next chapter will be quite a bit longer and should flow much more easily, as I'll admit I am very inspired about the final chapter of this quintet.
Reviews and requests are always welcome! I'd love it if anyone has any ideas about how to end a chapter in a better manner; I feel like this ending was a bit stilted. Also, please excuse the shocking lack of proper time sequence- I can only mark it down to the error of a first-time fanfic writer and pledge to do better next time.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my writing! Special thanks to those who have favorited and followed, and even higher praise to those who have left reviews. I love you all!