II – Aurora's visit.

I always knew when Aurora was to come. She was connected with the Moors, and the Moors with her. The grass seemed to feel her presence approaching and became greener, the flowers buttons bloomed, and soon her vanilla perfume filled the air of the Moors. Aurora was now a queen, but whenever she entered the Moors, she was the same girl she was when she first stepped in here: she ran, she laughed, she greeted all the folk, she had loads of fun, like a girl of her age should do. That laugh, so innocent, so pure, so magical that even the birds were envy of her musicality.

"Godmother! Godmother!" she called "Pretty bird! Where are you?" I was in my original form, so I flew down the tree to land near her "Oh, Diaval! My pretty bird! How I missed you!" she said caressing my wings "There is so much happening, and I am so excited with everything! I never had a party before… But I had to come here, to see you all. Godmother!" she said running into Maleficent's direction and hugging her.

"You should be getting everything ready for your party tomorrow night" Maleficent said, but she was still holding her in her arms.

"Yes, but the castle is too stressful now. I know I have my duties, but I did everything I should before coming here. The castle isn't my home, the Moors are"

Maleficent could not avoid smiles to her goddaughter, she loved the Moors more than anything (except Aurora, of course), and Aurora loved the Moors. "Into a man" said Maleficent.

"Thank you godmother! I was crazy to hug my pretty bird!" said Aurora running to my arms and holding me tight. Her perfume penetrated my lungs, waking that feeling inside of me again.

"Hello, your grace" I said hugging her back.

"Stop calling me 'your grace'! I am not 'your grace', I am Aurora! Your Aurora, pretty bird!" she said smiling.

My Aurora… If she just had any idea…

"Would you like to visit the waterfalls? Your flowers have just bloomed." I suggested.

"I would love to!" she said, then turning to Maleficent "If you allow me, godmother"

"Oh, child! The Moors are your home. I am only afraid I cannot join you right now, but Diaval will be pleased to take you there" she said turning "But before you go, Diaval, do you give me a second?"

"Of course" I answered.

"I will be waiting near the river" Aurora said.

Maleficent took some steps into the woods and turned back to me. Her expression was of fear.

"The Moors are being spied" she said all of a sudden.

"What? By who?" I asked back.

"I don't know yet. It may be a smaller kingdom, or a bigger one. They enter by the night and spend weeks here, watching us, learning from us and just leave to come back later. They take leaves, flowers, even dust without any explanation and then come back"

"And who are they?"

"I don't know yet. I know that they disguise as Moors' folk: fairies, elves, animals, anything, and their disguise is perfect: not even I can tell just by looking who is one of us and who is not. The thing is, I will need you to help me to protect the Moors, and for that, you must have the ability to turn into a human whenever is necessary without my command, but with my concern" she said moving her fingers, and from them a golden smoke flew on air and her eyes shone with a magical green light. "You will have the ability of turning yourself completely into any animal, or only a part of you, as long as it is done to protect the Moors or anyone who belongs to it" as soon as she stopped speaking the light and the smoke were gone.

"Well, that is a relief. I was tired of waiting for your command to everything…"

"There is another thing" Maleficent said cutting me "I saw how 'happy' you got when Aurora hugged you. Are you sure there is not anything you want to tell me?"

"No, there isn't. If there were anything I would tell you" I said.

"Very well, then. Go, she is waiting for you"