A.N: So, you're all pretty happy. I'm glad, I like it when my readers are happy. I also like totally angering them and sometimes causing riots via review but hey, I'm a person of mixed personalities. But seriously, I am so thankful for all of you who've reviewed, and favourited/followed. You're my motivation guys!
Disclaimer: I do not own Maleficent and all rights go to their respective owners.
...
Diaval watched Maleficent from a far, they had walked all the way to the other end of the Moors. It was for their safety she had said, until she could deal with the creatures.
Aurora and her sat leaning against the trunk of a tree, talking as he and his mistress used to do. Used to for what was days ago seemed like decades. Soon the princess stood and left, giving him a sympathetic look. He mumbled a quiet warning for her not to stray.
"Diaval, come here."
His head snapped up, and he too, slowly walked towards his Mistress.
"Mistress." He greeted, making his movements as slow and unthreatening.
"Sit with me?" She offered, gesturing to the spot in front of her.
The faerie could detect the still attached fondness in her voice, and the love which had survived her recent heartbreak. As she had told Aurora, even without hearing his reason her heart was lifted with Diaval.
Diaval sat across from her, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Aurora has told me her side of the story, but there are a considerable amount of holes. I'd like to hear the rest of it."
Diaval couldn't resist the small sigh of relief, she wanted to listen. Perhaps he could mend what had been done.
"After I sent Aurora to rest," Maleficent grinned at that, remembering the girl's reaction. "I sat by the stream to think, as you know I killed a man that day."
Maleficent curtly nodded, tipping her head as if to say, 'go on.'
"I took notice to the girl, which I later realized a siren, watching from the woods. I felt like I was being pulled to her. When I tried to approach her she ran, and I foolishly followed." He spat, obviously disgusted.
"Sirens attract men like that Diaval, you couldn't have controlled it if she intended for you to follow." Maleficent comforted, hating the look on his face.
"I came to the lake, and she was waiting. She called herself Giselle, told me she was waiting for me. After that it was all sort of a blur."
Diaval took a small glance upwards, assessing his mistress's facial features. There wasn't so much hurt there anymore, but diffenent confliction.
"When she grabbed me, I lost control of my body. It was like being a prisoner in my own mind, I didn't have any control over what I did, or what I said."
Maleficent's eyes flicked to his. He really hadn't any control over his actions? If that was true, then maybe her heart could be mended faster than before.
"Mistress I beg forgiveness, I never wanted to hurt you. It killed me to watch myself do that." Diaval's face was one of immense pain, his eyes pooling with unushed tears.
Maleficent opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. Her words thickened in her throat, refusing to leave her tongue.
"I understand." She said in a cold indifference, she still needed those guard walls around her heart.
"No you don't Mistress. Through everything that has happened, everything, that was the hardest and most painful thing ever to happen to me."
Maleficent drew back at his response, startled and shocked at the same time.
"It broke my heart." He finished, looking down in shame.
"I forgive you." She then spoke the three words he had longed and dreaded to hear. "It was not your fault, as Aurora said, but you seem to have some conflictions of it. So I forgive you."
"Thank you Mistress." He breathed, a small piece of the weight lifting from his shoulders.
"It hurt, not so much physically as mentally, being struck like that again." She supplied hestitantly, trying to get her heart to trust a man again.
"I know." And that was all he could reply to that, but while saying it his voice lightened.
She was talking to him, really talking. He had feared that she would completely close herself off, as she had done years before.
Maleficent had tried, he had seen it. But at least with Aurora as a crutch for love she was able to keep her heart hanging by a thread.
A tear slipped from her eye, and he instinctively went to brush it away.
She could see his hand coming towards her, and it killed her that she had to remind herself he sought not to hurt faerie felt pride in herself when she did not flinch at his cool touch.
Diaval was again, elated at her reactions. She didn't tense, or flinch, or even blink.
A small smile crept onto her lips, her downcast eyes raising to meet his.
"You mended my heart." She whispered, her smile turning shy.
"Pardon Mistress?"
"You mended my heart, then and now. When I was hurting over Stefan, you were there, and now, I am hurting again and you are still here. Still comforting me..."
"I'll be here till the day I die, I doubt anything but would keep me away."
"I still trust you Diaval, just as much as before. What I lost was in myself, the ability to believe I could be loved like that, but if it came down to it, I still trusted you just as much."
Diaval smiled genuinely, an even greater weight coming from his shoulders. He felt light and good again, and perhaps now he knew how his mistress felt when her heart was mended.
"I will guard you with nothing but my life, I'll guard every aspect of you." He vowed, noticing the way her eyes flickered from him to the ground.
"You already have. And you protected Aurora, she told me what happened at the lake, and before that, with the guard."
"She's as much as a child to me as if I had actually had one of my own."
"Did you wish for it? A family?"
"If I had never gotten caught under the net I would have never met you, and I would have never known what a true family meant."
"Then I'm still willing to try. This was but a setback, as far as I'm concerned it wasn't you, but a creature in your place." She told him, offering a slim hand for him to take.
He took it gently, placing a soft kiss onto her knuckles.
And in the bushes the Princess of the Moors smiled.
...
Giselle only had a moment to look up as she heard the faerie approach, before her fist collided with her cheek.
Maleficent shook her fist, uncaring for the sting in her knuckles.
"That was for Diaval's sake. He's too good of a man to hit a woman, even one as filthy as you." She sneered, smirking in satisfaction as Giselle clutched her cheek in shock.
"Except for you." She retorted, glaring at the faerie.
Maleficent punched her again, this time knocking her to the ground.
"And that one was for me, for everything that you put me through."
Faeries were not usually so directly violent, but obviously there were exceptions.
"What are you going to do to me?" Asked Giselle, slowly standing up again.
"I'll rid you and your sisters of the world."
"So you're going to kill us..."
"No, I'm incapacitating you." And with a forceful shove Maleficent pushed the siren into her crystal lake.
The lake suddenly began to freeze over, before anyone could act or even acknowledge it was happening. Green magic flowed from Maleficent's fingertips. Giselle shrieked as her lake was frozen over, trapping her inside.
"You will not die, and if anyone willingly and knowingingly tries to free you they will be successful. Though I doubt any would want to free a creature such as yourself, and that is my curse to you."
Giselle's shrieks ceased, and the beautiful form she masked herself in suddenly disappeared, Maleficent turned her back and began to walk away.
After exiting the Moors a sudden wave of self-fulfillment washed over her and she smiled. Aurora waited with Diaval for her, and one look from her godmother told them both that Giselle and her sisters would not bother anyone for a very long time.
Wrapping her arms around the faerie Aurora let her chin rest against Maleficent's shoulder.
"It's over?" She whispered in her ear, glancing at the anxious Diaval.
"As much as it could be, and don't worry about your father, I've been dealing with him for years."
Raising her ear to the faerie's Aurora lowered her voice even more.
"I think someone else is begging for reassurances." She whispered, drawing away from her godmother.
Taking a deep breath Maleficent nodded, turning towards Diaval. They shared and awkward grin, and both simultaneously averted their gazes.
"Well... I'll just be... by the orchard, yes that's it, by the orchard."
With a sly grin the princess was off, leaving only Diaval and Maleficent together.
"I hope you gave her what she deserved." Diaval started, shooting her an awkward version of his grin.
"Of course. I am a very justice-driven person after all." Maleficent supplied back, casting a small smile in light banter.
"And turning me into a dog is justified Mistress?" Diaval answered back, his muscles relaxing somewhat.
"Well of course, and a fine dog you make."
Diaval longed to have a nice scoop of mud in his hands to throw at her, but unfortunately, no such thing was around.
"And my mistress makes a fine attraction to danger, I wonder if danger is attracted to beauty."
Maleficent smiled and chuckled, taking a few testing steps forward.
"If danger is indeed attracted to beauty, that must be why you are not often in it."
Diaval falsely scoffed, putting a hand to his chest.
"My beautiful self attracts plenty danger."
"And you say so proudly?"
"If only to contradict you Mistress."
"Cocky animal aren't you?"
"If only to annoy you Mistress." Diaval replied back, smirking in banter.
"Are you going to keep answering me like that?"
"If only to further annoy you Mistress."
Maleficent closed the distance, placing a soft kiss on his lips.
"Would you kiss me again?" Maleficent asked, her voice a mere whisper.
"If only to please you Mistress." Diaval breathed, smiling as their lips met again.
A.N: Sorry for the wait, hope you like it. Please review and thanks for reading! Oh yeah and we should all rejoice! Giselle is vanquished! (For now, hehe.) I'm trying to reach forty-five reviews, which means (hopefully) I get six reviews on this chapter. I'll post as soon as I can. Love you all!