His mistress did not hate the little girl. In fact, Diaval doubted that his mistress was capable of any kind of true hatred. Rage – certainly. Jealousy? Everyone could feel that but when it came right down to it, Maleficent could have killed the king and ended everything right there. When she didn't, Diaval saw her weakness. It was her heart.
"Come down from there, Diaval, and help!" Maleficent insisted.
The small Aurora kept wandering to the edge of the forest, playing in the thickets where small fairies nested. There were a few green ones buzzing angrily around her, trying to stop the infant from crushing the flowers in her glee.
Diaval – a man – slid from the low branch and landed on his feet. It seemed keeping him a man did nothing to tame his bird instincts.
"It is not that difficult, mistress," he insisted, scooping up the little girl and settling her on his hip. She grinned up him, happy as you like.
"Well – take it back," she waved her hand dismissively at him.
Diaval only laughed, carrying the tiny princess through the forest to the cottage. Ever since that afternoon in Spring, Maleficent had not picked Aurora up again. He assumed it was because she could feel herself getting attached to the cursed creature.
"Don't you worry," Diaval whispered to the baby girl. "Your fairy godmother is not as cranky as she sounds. She's lovely really," he paused for a moment, a smile on his lips. "When you get bigger and you get to know her, you'll understand."
It was hot – high summer in the Moors and all the creatures that usually spent their days buzzing about in chaos were strewn over the river bank, trying to cool off. Anything that had wings beat them slowly to make a breeze. Maleficent had no wings so she'd found herself a cool hideaway against the cliff, shaded by the walls of stone and veils of vine that dripped all the way into the water. She envied the fish and their life away from the sun. They dashed madly around from rock to rock as though nothing was wrong.
Diaval refused to let her turn him back into a bird. Feathers were hot, he had complained. Instead he was beached on some huge bolder in the middle of the water wearing absolutely nothing. He was going to get burned if he wasn't careful – a concept that was entirely new to him.
Maleficent was of no mind to disturb him now.
As the sun rose higher and the heat became unbearable, she gave in to her desire for the water. With a careful snap of her fingers, her clothes vanished and the dark fairy – now a porcelain white save for her long, black hair, slipped into the cool water. It wasn't every day you saw a fairy swim. Most couldn't manage it with their wings.
She spied Diaval and indeed his skin was red but not painful enough to wake him from his sleep and alert him to his folly. Maleficent smirked and swam around to the rock, eyeing him as though she were a savannah creature and he her prey. Instead of pouncing, she cupped her hands full of water and splashed it over his chest.
Diaval sat up with a surprised shout – overbalanced – and toppled off his rock into the cold water of the pool. His ungraceful splash sent a wash over the creatures on the bank.
"Serves you right, silly bird..." Maleficent was grinning, her lips dark red and eyes green.
Diaval emerged with a definite frown. If birds swam it was carefully and certainly not with so little demure. "What did you go and do that for?"
She pointed at his scarlet chest.
"Ow..." Diaval drawled, the pain coming as soon as he looked down and saw his skin. "What good are humans if they can't stay out in the sun!" he complained.
"That is why they wear clothes, Diaval," she explained.
It was only then that he realised his mistress's naked shoulders were visible out of the water. His gaze faltered and it dawned on him that she wasn't wearing anything at all.
Thank goodness the sun had turned him red or she would have seen him blush.
"Honestly, would you stop doing that? The poor worm is long gone..." she muttered, as Diaval scratched around in the dirt, flapping his feathers in search of a grub. He'd been at that for hours. "Into a man!"
Diaval found himself crouched in the dirt, hands black from digging around. He looked up through his long, wild hair with a frown. "I was busy."
"No, you were annoying." She had been watching a steady column of smoke rise from the kingdom all day. "What are they burning?"
Diaval dusted off his hands and stalked away from the worm. There wasn't much point now he was man. They simply didn't taste the same. "Spinning wheels," he replied. "Every last one is to be dragged into the dungeon and burned."
"I thought the kind did that already?"
"He did but he's had more brought in from the neighbouring villages. No one is allowed to own one. He uses the heat from the flames to melt the steel."
"He is mad," she whispered. "Aurora is only four years old. Why do all this now?"
"The king is mad," he agreed with her. "I sit at his window sometimes. He talks for ours but there is no-one there with him in the room." Diaval neglected to add that it was Maleficent he spoke with, night after night – questioning her, begging her – raging at her. The king stared at those beautiful wings of his mistress and cursed all the world. His words had no power and his curses fell dead on the stones. "Who can guess what he will do next."
"Why don't they ever heal?" Diaval asked. He'd interrupted his mistress, finding her alone in the woods. She wasn't wearing her normal cloak and he could clearly see the severed stumps in her back where her wings were cut off. They were red and bleeding – always inflamed. "I have seen you heal many creatures in this forest, why not heal yourself?"
"Magic cannot heal magic," she replied, turning so that he couldn't see her wounds. She was self conscious about them, even in front of her faithful bird.
"Well – have you tried?" he took a step closer to her but she shied away and he stopped. Sometimes he did not like this form. His mistress was not as easy with him when he was a man even though he had the same heart.
"Of course I have tried," she snapped. It would be easier to heal her heart.