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Chapter 3: The Boar

"Diaval, be quiet."

The sharp command made him snap his mouth shut in an instant. With something akin to hurt he looked at Maleficent – he had merely been trying to amuse her, after all – but the faerie's eyes were fixed on a distant figure moving slowly through the forest.

"Mistress?" Diaval whispered. His eyes, still as sharp as if he were a raven, could easily make out the outlines of a soldier. The metal armour reflecting the soft moonlight and the quiet jingling sounds his weapons made as he snuck through the nightly woods gave him away easily. "Is he... searching for something?"

"Rather someone," Maleficent replied quietly, eyes still fixed on the man. "I believe he has lost his companions."

"You mean there are more of them?"

"I am most certain." The faerie's face was perfectly clear of any emotion but Diaval knew she was burning up with rage. For a reason he didn't know, she seemed to hate humans more than anything, even if she apparently made an exception for the 'Little Beastie', as she called the princess.

"Can't you hear him whispering their names?" Leaving him no time to answer, Maleficent slowly moved to follow the intruder. Diaval trailed in her wake, as he did so often, and the words his mistress whispered sent cold shivers down his spine. With every measured step she took, she counted down the soldiers' names.

"André... Jonathan... Ben... André – you had that one already, you imbecile... Karl..."

The pair followed the man for some time as he moved in seemingly random patterns through the forest. While there were little more than shadows between the trees, the soldier seemed to know that they were there.

Every so often, he would look over his shoulder, wide eyes searching but finding nothing in the darkness of the woods, and his steps would quicken only to slow down again moments later.

"He is afraid," Diaval murmured.

"He should be," Maleficent answered. He looked at her and flinched at the cold look in her eyes which were still fixed on the soldier.

The faerie waved a hand when the man quickened his pace once again and Diaval could feel his body transform.

Please, not a dog again, he pleaded silently. A quick check, however, blew away his worries. A glance at a nearby puddle revealed massive shoulders covered in bristles, short but strong legs, and a huge head supported by a broad neck. Enormous fangs protruded from his long muzzle. Little eyes stared back at Diaval, twinkling with intelligence.

So, a boar then. It could have been worse.

Turning to look at Maleficent, he noticed that his shoulders reached past her waist. Diaval was pretty sure that the average height of a wild hog was a lot smaller than that.

"Go round them up," the faerie ordered in a quiet but firm voice. And, as always, Diaval obliged.

The boar wasn't as quiet as the man had been. Every step Diaval took sounded incredibly loud to his ears despite all his efforts to move silent.

The soldier now turned to look over his shoulder more frequently as he hurried along. To Diaval's discomfort, his sight had decreased considerably, but his nose made more than up for it.

Keen and swift to place the different scents, his new sense of smell told Diaval everything he needed to know and more.

It was a wonderous experience. Everything had a unique smell to it, smells he hadn't been unable to notice before.

Beneath the thick, obvious layers of moss, forest, and such-sort, all the things he had been able to notice in his previous forms- he now detected finer notes of... well, of everything.

His wet nose, quivering softly as he pulled in a deep breath, picked up the most astonishing things in a whirl of scents and- Diaval was awed- the invisible odors were so intense in his present form that he was almost able to see them, his brain sorting them away in a flurry of color, all based on their intensity.

The golden glow of the resin that clung to the trees around him like amber tears, rich brown of delicious mushrooms, hidden away beneath layers of leaves and earth, the heavy green of soaked moss growing on slowly decaying trunks, the icy blue of dewdrops littering the petals of delicate flowers...

Diaval followed the soldier who was cloaked in a black cloud of fear, all the while stumbling through an explosion of impressions. His brain felt obscure and clear at the same time, and he could feel his heart beating erratically in his chest. It was wonderful.

When at one point he turned around to look at his mistress who was still following them in the distance, his breathing almost stopped.

The faerie was engulfed in a mass of colours and emotions, all of them swirling around her at lightning speed, mingled in such a way that Diaval could not tell one scent from the other without being drawn to the next one.

There was the ever-present black, but against what he had believed, it represented fear, not hatred. It was littered with streaks of flaming red anger and an acidic green of spite, both of which took up a great section of the mix and seemed to pour from her very chest.

But there were other colours, positive ones. There was a leafy green, the same light hue he noticed in the still growing saplings around him, a calming deep emerald that reminded him of old trees and spoke of great wisdom. He saw soft purple, speckled with a faint note of rose that told all the world how dear she held the Moors, her home, and various shades of blue representing the life pulsing through her and the changes she underwent, quick and sudden, just like water.

And, of course, there was the golden hint of magic, engulfing the whole faerie and twirling around her like a playful little kitten.

Awed, he could do nothing but stare at her until the sound of snapping twigs behind him caused him to jump. Whirling around, he once again followed the soldier. After some time, the man stopped and turned, eyes darting frantically from one side to the other.

"Karl?" he rasped, voice thick with fear. Diaval's ears twitched and he decided it was enough.

Growling low in his throat, he stepped out of the shadows until he was a mere meter away from the man. The soldier stared at him, eyes wide, and the smell of fear became so overwhelming it caused Diaval to set back his ears and hunch his shoulders.

Another step forward was all it took to send the man, the prey, running. Screaming and shouting, he darted through the forest and Diaval threw himself forwards.

At high speed, he chased after the soldier, sliding and skidding in order to keep up whenever the man changed direction.

Closing the distance between him and his prey, he revelled in the sensation of running and the smells whipping past him.

In this very moment, Diaval swore himself to never abandon Maleficent and the gift she gave him, the ability to see the wonders of the world from more than one perspective.

His memories were, after all, his most treasured possessions.

The heavy body of the boar was difficult to steer, despite his strong legs. More than once, Diaval crashed into trees when he was too slow to sidestep, only to shake off the pain moments later and resume his chase.

At one point, he slammed headfirst into a particularly large trunk. A sickening crunch sounded, and next, a new flaring pain momentarily blinded him. He tasted blood and when he looked down let out a surprised squeak.

A broken fang, smeared with blood, glowed softly in the moonlight.

Diaval stared at it for a long time while the hasty steps of the soldier grew distant. That man...

He had actually lost a tooth because of that man.

Growling with barely suppressed anger, the boar turned around and sped off, determined to hunt down his prey.

The soldier stumbled through the thicket onto a broad pathway and Diaval skidded to a halt, desperately trying to control his ragged breathing. The sound of metal banging against metal sounded loudly through the otherwise silent night. A pained huff could be heard.

"Oi, Alex," a gruffy voice said. "Where have you been?"

Diaval moved closer to the road and, peering through the bushes, spotted a group of three men standing around two others who were lying on the ground, one of them being the man he had been following all this time. Alex.

He must have ran right into his comrades.

"God damn it, Alex, get off me," the soldier who had been knocked over grunted. Helping hands soon had both of them up on their feet and Diaval could feel his great entrance approach.

"What happened to you?" one of the men asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"A boar," Alex rasped in response, the cloak of fear lessening now that he was once again surrounded by his comrades. "A giant boar in the woods. It chased me!"

"Yeah, well that's not unusual during this time of the year. You probably scared it or something."

"Scared?!" Alex laughed, a hint of panic seeping through. "I didn't scare it, Karl. That thing was intelligent, I tell you. It knew what it was doing!"

Karl only scratched his had. "Brother, you're seeing ghosts."

In this moment, Diaval could feel Maleficent approach and knew it was time.

He released a deep gush of air.

Karl looked up in alarm. "What was that?"

Still huffing and puffing from his race through the woods Diaval decided to let them know he was there.

Breathing loudly, he stomped back and forth in the covert, little twigs snapping under his weight. The men huddled together, only to scatter like a swarm of pigeons when Diaval came flying out from between the bushes. Skidding to a halt, his hooves digging deep furrows into the ground, he turned and charged again, herding the soldiers down the pathway to where he knew Maleficent would be waiting for them.

A familiar tickle ran down his spine and before Diaval could process what was happening, he was a man once again.

Kneeling on the cool ground, he looked up at his mistress. Still halfway hidden by the shadows, she watched him with shining eyes.

"Are they... are they gone?" Diaval asked and spat when he tasted blood in his mouth.

"Yes," her cool voice sounded. "I sent them back to where they came from. They..." Maleficent trailed of.

Cocking her head, she looked at him, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Mistress?" Diaval asked, barely keeping himself from fidgeting under her intense gaze.

"You have lost a tooth," the faerie stated matter-of-factly, her words slow, as if she couldn't quite comprehend how such a thing could have happened.

"Oh... 'tis nothing," Diaval murmured in an attempt to brush it off.

"You stupid little raven." At the mockery, Diaval scowled at his Mistress who stepped out of the shadows. "Why would I need a toothless servant?" she asked snidely.

Diaval scowled at her, hurt and confusion weighing down heavily on his chest, but before he even managed to draw a breath, she commanded, "Open up."

The words were so sudden that he obliged them without question. Obediently, he opened his mouth, watching the faerie from beneath half lidded eyes as she peered down her nose at him, obviously taking in the damage.

"I cannot regrow a missing body part," Maleficent declared after a moment of consideration. "However... I can do this." She waved her fingers. Transfixed, Diaval watched as a dead piece of bark rose from the ground and changed its shape with a swirl of magic. What, in the end, moved to settle right into the gap in Diaval's lower row of teeth was shaped like a tooth and of a soft, ivory color.

"It is not the same but will serve the purpose," Maleficent explained quietly.

Diaval raised a hand in wonder and gingerly touched the artificial tooth. It was planted firmly in his mouth and even as he tried to pluck it out did not move the slightest bit.

"Thank you," he finally managed, only to discover Maleficent had already left.

Smiling, he rose from the ground, brushed of his clothes and moved to follow his mistress. After a few steps, however, his right foot got caught on something. Looking down Diaval saw a metal helmet, shining softly in the moonlight.

He picked it up and recognized it as the one that had fallen from Alex' head while Maleficent's magic had the group of soldiers whirling through the air.

After weighing it in one hand for a moment, he turned on his heel.

In the stillness of the night, Diaval set out to find a boar fang.

Heyho!

A word of thanks: you guys are AWESOME!

65 reviews for only two chapters? That's... Wow.

Also, thank you so much for complimenting my English skills, that means so much to me, especially since I messed up my final exam :( When it comes to English, I've been a straight A student for most of my life but in finals - POOF! - suddenly I'm down to a C. I'm still pretty ruffled by that, so.. yeah. Thank you guys.

Another big THANKS goes out to I am in Loki's Army who volunteered to proofread this and any future chapters :) Thank you!

Also thanks for recommending clutter for Diaval's heap. Now the piece of armour is ticked off, thanks to Ismeme Daughter of Athena.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know what you think!

Love,

planless