Chapter 7: Touch

Beatrice had taken a vicious blow to the head, and her wrist and hand were broken. There had been no other injuries besides a few bruises. Maleficent only had regard for this human because she had attempted to protect her Beastie. Although she had done a poor human's job of it. At Aurora's insistence, Maleficent stooped next to the injured guardswoman where Diaval had dropped her in the clearing, away from the green fire that was consuming the inn and the two dead men Diaval had torn to shreds.

Aurora's wrists had been very quick for Maleficent to magically heal, as there was only a bit of chafing and bruising, nothing that wouldn't have healed in a few days on its own. This older woman had blood seeping through her brown curly hair, which was escaping its ponytail. She was still unconscious. Maleficent decided to heal the wrist and hand before the head, lest the woman wake and start fussing.

The faerie took the broken human hand in her own and closed her eyes to better feel the natural energies of her patient. Just like the snapped branches she healed almost every day, the lines of energy looked like glowing rivulets in Maleficent's mind's eye. They were interrupted and distorted, and it took a few minutes for Maleficent to coax them back into shape, knitting together fractured ends and smoothing eddies that shouldn't be there, until the hand was hand-shaped again. The wrist was a tangled mess as well, but soon Maleficent had put it to rights.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that Aurora, Philip, and Diaval, who had decided to remain in giant black eagle form for the meantime, were all watching her work. Maleficent snorted at the little smile on Aurora's face and wordlessly moved to kneel behind Beatrice's bloody head. She put ten slim fingertips on the guardswoman's scalp and closed her eyes.

Oh yes, quite the mess. The head was always more complex than any other body part, and she had only healed one or two faeries' heads in the past, never a human. She usually preferred breaking the heads. But now, for Aurora, she concentrated on mending the bodyguard. It was clear where each thread of light should go, but so many were disarranged that it took almost a half hour before Maleficent was satisfied with her work.

She stood, and Beatrice, still prone, opened her eyes, fixing Maleficent in her inverted gaze. The human's eyes were the rich brown of chestnuts.

"You did it!" Aurora cried, flying forward to crouch at Beatrice's side. The guard sat up quickly.

"Your Majesty," she gasped.

"Shh," Aurora hushed her, putting hands on her shoulders. "Don't fret. The Protector of the Moors and her companions have remedied all."

"Please forgive me," the guardswoman pleaded. "I will not be so easily overcome next time."

"Certainly not," Maleficent drawled from above the two on the ground. She looked down her nose at the failed guard. "I have done more than mend your hand. And your mind."

Bewildered, the two women stared at her.

"Your right hand will never miss again," Maleficent elaborated, and an echo of prophesy rang in her words. "And your mind will never sleep when foes are near. You will hear them coming a mile away." Others may use it as a figure of speech, but the Protector of the Moors meant it literally.

Beatrice leapt to her feet as spryly as if she had never been injured, although blood was still drying in her hair. She bowed deeply to Maleficent.

"Thank you, my lady," she said solemnly. "I will never be able to truly repay you."

"I know," Maleficent drawled, and Beatrice flinched while still in her bow. "That is why you will spend the rest of your life using my gifts to protect your queen."

Beatrice straightened and her chestnut eyes met Maleficent's steadily. "Yes, my lady."

There was a moment of silence.

"You should return to the castle, Beatrice," Aurora said. "Summon our captain of the guard to our Throne of Eternal Spring in the Moors. We will not return to the human lands until we are assured our position is safe."

Beatrice made a quick bow to the queen. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Take my horse," Prince Philip chimed in. "He is tethered not far from here. No doubt he is through gorging himself on the foliage."

"Thank you, Your Highness," the guard said with another short bow.

Philip locked eyes with Maleficent. "Thank you for your assistance, my lady." He bowed to her, and then to Diaval's huge avian form. "Diaval. This would have been much more trouble without you."

Maleficent scoffed. "This should never have happened at all." Beatrice cringed. "We will all be hunting the traitors until they are rooted out permanently."

"Which is why we require an audience with our captain of the guard," Aurora said pointedly.

"We're going," said Philip said, and turned away to head out of the clearing, Beatrice close behind.

No sooner had they disappeared than Maleficent suddenly found her arms full of Beastie. "Thank you for coming to get me," Aurora sniffed into Maleficent's black robes. "I love you so much."

Maleficent wrapped her arms around her Beastie and returned the hug, tilting her head back to the sky so no tears would fall from her eyes. Diaval was still an enormous black eagle looking down at them, and their eyes met.

He cocked his head and chirped, and when Aurora finally pulled back, Maleficent flicked golden transformation magic over to him, watching as he shrank into man form.

The feathers hadn't yet finished receding into his skin before Aurora seized him in a hug too. He folded himself over her as much as he could as she whispered her thanks to him.

The young woman pulled back and regarded both her dark protectors with a watery smile. "And now," she said, "Let us go to the Throne of Eternal Spring. Diaval, I am so glad you're back with us. I hope you never have cause to leave again. We love you."

Maleficent didn't miss how rigid the raven went at this last. How did Aurora already know he had left voluntarily? But the young queen was already slipping through the trees toward the Throne, and her two guardians were obliged to follow, the last of the green flames crackling on the ruins of the inn behind them.

"We love you."

"We…"

They?

Aurora was leading Diaval and Maleficent on foot through the woods of the Moors. Twilight was falling, the air was getting cooler, the insect-like faeries were singing, the shadows deepening. Not a leaf rustled under Diaval's or Maleficent's feet, so smoothly did they walk, although the occasional leaf or twig crunched under Aurora's step. The air smelled of moisture and the burnt scent of ozone—a storm was coming.

Diaval knew Aurora loved him, as a father or maybe an older brother, felt it from her as she grew up in front of him, and especially since they had begun to speak together in human form. Her love was as bright and unambiguous as the rest of her. She did not speak it aloud so often, though, and was careful enough with the word that Diaval knew it held deep meaning for her.

But Maleficent…

Diaval glanced sideways at the horned faerie walking beside him now. They had naturally fallen into step, Diaval one pace behind her and to the side, as if nothing had happened between them.

If Aurora hadn't meant her, whom could she have possibly meant?

But "we"...

Trying to imagine a brotherly sort of relationship with Maleficent was akin to perching on the side of a tree—the whole perspective felt sideways with gravity pulling awkwardly only on one side. Diaval knew siblings as nest mates, huddled together for warmth, fighting over food and space, feeling safer as part of a group. He hadn't seen his real nest mates since he had bound himself in service to Maleficent. Trying to imagine a tiny, featherless version of baby Maleficent in the nest next to him was halfway between hysterically funny and somehow nauseating.

And as a parent, a caregiving relationship, it was equally laughable. They shared food and such but neither of them looked after the other as if they were a hatchling. Not they way they looked after Aurora. Together.

It must be the love a mistress has for her servant. Diaval thought of the languorous strokes she would often give him in raven form. Her slim, lithe fingers and their sharp nails sliding over the smooth feathers of his head and back.

He shivered; the air seemed damper and colder. He was still quite close to her. He looked at her shoulder, covered in black cloth.

She was pleased with him when he did well for her. He felt as if the very sun's heat were warming him when she smiled at him. But was that love?

The human way of romantic love Diaval knew about from stories. When Philip's kiss failed to wake Aurora from Maleficent's curse, it had not quite matched how a human story might go, but Maleficent's love for Aurora had been so obvious to Diaval from the moment she had begun to take care of her as a child, that the faerie's kiss awakening the young woman had not been surprising. Overwhelmingly relieving in the moment that it had, in fact, worked, but he had meant it when he called it "no truer love."

But to be a mating pair, that was different. That thought made Diaval's face warm in the gathering mist and he allowed a few more centimeters to widen between where he and the faerie walked. It was different with ravens, but not very much. And it was different with humans.

Maleficent was neither.

And she had a terrible past with her first love, and her disdain for love.

But Aurora had been—was—so sure.

The frustration made him want to stop in his tracks and let them advance without him, or take a sudden turn and lose them in the woods, if he could.

But Aurora was still vulnerable. He could not stop guarding her. So he walked on.

They reached the Throne of Eternal Spring just as the rain began to fall.

Aurora was more just than Diaval or Maleficent would have been when she met with her captain of the guard. Diaval was proud that the young lady looked every bit the queen on her ever-flowering throne when the older man arrived on horseback. On Prince Philip's instructions, the captain had come alone, as his corps was clearly infiltrated with rebels.

The captain knelt in the mud before the throne where Queen Aurora presided, flanked by Maleficent and Diaval, as well as Balthazar and another ent. Night had truly fallen now, and torchlight threw crazy reflections from the curious eyes of dozens of different kinds of faeries as they surrounded the court. Rain was falling in a light mist that hissed in the fires and gave everything a silvery wet haze.

Aurora let her captain babble nervously for a minute or two until he ran out of apologies and excuses, then masterfully let silence hang heavy in the air. When she finally spoke, it was soft but clear, and every creature in the clearing had gone still so as not to miss her words.

"You have one last chance," the queen said, the mist landing in her blonde hair and frizzing it into a fluffy shape around her face. "If you or any of your soldiers again prove disloyal to us, we are afraid we will not be able to prevent the vengeance of our guardians upon your person."

The captain had been sweating since he arrived, and now flicked his eyes up to the dark Protector of the Moors, who radiated caged black rage in an oppressive, almost visible aura. Power was sparking between her horns every few seconds, like the lightning threatening in the coming storm. The sweating human even glanced furtively at Diaval, who stood on the queen's left, and the raven must have had black threat in his face too, for the captain shuddered again before looking back at his knees in the dirt.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said hoarsely.

"Do not fail us," Aurora chided softly, like a gentle mother with a recalcitrant child. "All your guards must appear before us at dawn to hear their fate."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Now go and tell them." And she smiled her sweet smile.

The man all but fled the clearing, mounting his horse while it was already moving before galloping away, clods of mud flying from its hooves.

The queen dismissed her court and left with her two protectors toward Maleficent's hideout just as the rain began to intensify.

Maleficent sat Aurora down on her own bed of woven branches, insisted the young woman eat some roots and berries from the faerie's own store, and finally bade her lie down and covered her with the spare cloak. Aurora was asleep in moments.

The look in Maleficent's yellow-green eyes when she looked up at Diaval was intense. Frustration and relief warred over her features as she held his gaze in silence.

"You came looking for me," Diaval said.

"I had to," she replied, facing him fully.

"Why?"

She scowled deeply. "You are mine."

That pleased and offended him in equal measure. "No longer," he retorted.

"You said that before. It makes no sense."

"You have your wings now." He pointed his anthropomorphized hand at her enormous brown wings. "You needed me to be your wings, all those years. Now you have yours back, and I have unbound myself."

"And thus unbound," she gritted out, "you would leave me? You stayed only because of your oath?"

Diaval crossed his human arms, a gesture he'd learned over the years in this shape, and looked away.

"You said I had enchanted you," Maleficent accused.

He wished he had never admitted it. He nodded, still not looking at her. He'd known she wouldn't understand.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "I have transformed you," she began, "many times. But I have put no other spell on you."

He finally looked up at her again. She was stunningly attractive as ever, her face, her body, now her wings. But more, he was here, with her, again, after believing he had separated himself from her forever. They were talking again, but without the ease they'd built up over a lifetime. The sense of imprisonment gripped him again and he choked out, "My mind—"

Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head.

"Your enchantment," he tried again, "is of my mind. My—heart. I cannot be near you any longer," he turned and began to walk out, not even caring that he was stuck in human form, "not now that you have no need of me."

"Diaval!"

He froze. She sounded—afraid? He looked over his shoulder at her, and she was suddenly coming toward him, reaching out, grabbing his left shoulder. She turned him to face her.

"I have need of you," Maleficent insisted thickly. "Aurora has need—"

He jerked his shoulder out of her hand. "Do not speak to me of her need," he hissed. "She speaks for herself. You—you have need of me? Well, I can no longer serve, I am unbound, I must go." He turned again, more abruptly this time, but she grabbed him again and spun him forcefully.

They glared at each other. "I have need of you, although I have my wings back," she insisted again. Her feathers were bristling. Diaval envied the feathers for a flashing moment, missing his own. "My wings have nothing to do with it," she said.

Diaval leaned away from her and shook his head. "I cannot serve—"

"Then do not serve!" she almost shouted, then they both winced and looked back at Aurora, who lay with her back to them. When they saw she did not stir, they faced each other again. "Do not serve," she repeated lowly. Her eyes searched his face. "Only stay. With us. With—me."

He stared at her in shock. Her right hand was still on his left shoulder. He looked at her face—she was worried, embarrassed—and down at her hand. She shifted her weight and gentled her grip, stroking his shoulder as she might have stroked his raven feathers. Just a flick of her long fingers, really, but Diaval's breath caught and he swallowed. He looked back at her face. She was getting anxious now; he needed to answer.

"With you," he repeated, and she seemed to relax for a half instant. But then he frowned. "As always?"

"Yes," she said quickly, but noticing his frown deepen, she added, "and no. You will not serve, as we said. But we would stay—companions."

He cocked his head very slightly.

"You come and go as you please," she elaborated, warming to the idea. "I transform you on your request."

"Only on my request," he emphasized, not yet completely daring to believe he might still stay with her. But her hand was still on his shoulder, a sweet warm pressure. "We follow my ideas sometimes," he said.

"Yes," she agreed quickly, and Diaval didn't entirely trust the hint of desperation in her voice, but she was almost smiling.

They were so close that her eyes kept jumping back and forth between one of his eyes and the other, seeking his thoughts. His answer.

He thought of leaving, of breaking her hold and her hope and his own hope and walking out, human shape and all. Of what he would be turning to, the solitude of winter, the empty chatter of the flock, the circling in the air scavenging for a meal. And if he were stuck in human shape, how much more miserable would he be? Trying to live among the humans? It was as laughable as it was sickening.

And to stay with her, the sharp torture of having her near but untouchable—but here her hand was literally on him. He had to test one more thing.

He straightened even more and, in a flash, reached across with his right hand to his left shoulder, covering her hand with his. He met her gaze again, almost defiant, daring her to object.

Her eyes were wide and she did not scowl, looking at his hand over hers. After a moment she sighed into a little smile, and looked back up at his face. Her free left hand came up to the side of his face and smoothed the hair just behind his ear, trailing under his jaw and falling away from his chin. She squeezed his shoulder gently and he squeezed her hand over that.

Then she stepped back and they both looked down at the stone floor.

"Nightfall is coming," Maleficent commented lightly.

"I'll scout around," Diaval said. Their eyes met again, and the old sense of teamwork returned between them like a bird coming back to nest after getting tossed about by a hurricane.

She smiled faintly again and Diaval, for the first time since he had initially left, felt himself returning the smile.

She flicked golden magic at him and he felt himself shrink into his original shape once more.

He decided to dare once last risk. He flew to her and landed on her shoulder. He turned to look over at her face with both eyes, crooned, and spread his wings halfway.

Her smile grew and she reached up to pet his head. Diaval closed his eyes to savor the sensation. Then he opened them again, looked one last time at her, and took off through the paneless window.

He felt light as he ascended over the treetops. Their enemies might have gathered around them to attack, but they were all together once again, and Diaval felt that power in his whole body as he flew.

As it should be, he admitted, at least to himself. But he knew she would have said the same.

Thank you to everyone who favorited and followed! I am still writing this story in my free time.

Please let me know your thoughts in a review.

Thank you!