Chapter 8: Unity

Warning: Graphic violence

This story is not dead. I am still writing it. Thank you very much to all who reviewed and favorited!

"Maybe they won't come," Diaval doubted, once again in man shape.

They were standing at the edge of one of Maleficent's favorite cliffs in the Moors, looking down on the field below as the sky turned light gray in the east. Diaval stood right beside Maleficent, subtly pleased to be so close. If he reached out to the side he would surely be able to brush her hand. Aurora stood in front of them, crowned with a coronet of ever-flowering apple wood. The young queen's gaze was fixed on the misty field below as the dawn light strengthened. Her back was straight, her shoulders tense, but her hands were relaxed by her sides and her breathing was steady.

Beatrice, having fulfilled her order to send the captain of the guard to the Throne of Eternal Spring, had sent along a letter begging a day or two to care for her canine partner, the yellow mastiff Cheer. Aurora, touched by the guardswoman's love for her dog, had immediately granted her permission, with instructions to return to the sovereign's side once Cheer had been settled in a place of healing.

Two riders appeared out of the mist at the far end of the field, and Diaval recognized the captain of the guard's cantering horse before he recognized the man, but there he was. Prince Philip, also mounted, was beside him. The captain and Philip stopped their horses in the middle of the field and waved up at the queen on the cliff.

"Hail, Aurora Queen!" the captain shouted.

"Hail, Aurora Queen," shouted hundreds of soldiers' voices as they appeared, walking in formation out of the mist, and lining up in rank behind their captain.

The queen silently raised her right hand in salute to the company. All eyes were on her. She did not so much as shift her feet, but stood looking down on her army.

The first rays of dawn broke over Aurora as she spoke into the quiet, illuminating her light hair and white dress like a beacon.

"Thank you for coming," she began. Maleficent snorted but Aurora ignored it. "I am Stefan's heir, and through that I claim your allegiance. But I will keep it with our shared mission." The soldiers' eyes were all fixed on her.

"War is to be no more!" the queen proclaimed. "Gone are the days when humans and faeries fight each other for their lives. I rule you all, and so you are all under my protection. If we must defend ourselves from other nations who do not understand our unity, then so be it. But our mission is to build a world of harmony and trust! We must not kill each other any more!" Aurora took a moment to catch her breath, as she had begun to let choking passion into her voice. "We will build a new city," she continued. "Together, human and faerie. It will be a center of learning and trade such as the world has never seen! Dawn City. We will build it together, and together reap the benefits of human ingenuity and faerie magic working in tandem. They will sing for generations of our triumph over hate!"

Diaval thought the majority of the army had looked dumbstruck for most of Aurora's speech, but here and there he saw a nod, and now even some stamping spears. He also spotted some scowls and shuffling feet.

"I know," continued the queen, "that some of you have not yet let go of your hate, that you think this mission of unity is impossible, or even wrong." Now the stillness of the ranks was total. "We invite those of you with these thoughts to step forward."

Some of the soldiers glanced among themselves, and Diaval saw some shaking heads. Three hotheads shoved their way to the open field in front of the ranks. Diaval spied at least one soldier hold back the arm of another who tried to charge forward. Out of two hundred men, four dissenters was not many, but the slyer ones would not bother to identify themselves.

The three at the front had begun heckling the queen, calling her names and such. Diaval had forgotten some humans were that stupid. Maleficent took one step up behind Aurora and loomed over her right shoulder, and the idiots fell silent as they realized what deep shit they were in.

"We cannot afford dissent," said the queen. "Not on this, our one true mission of unity. You traitors will choose to accept our mission or die."

That caused much shifting from foot to foot of the whole army, but Diaval wondered what they had honestly thought would happen. Yes, Aurora was a cute young girl, but she was queen. She had even started this by reminding them all she was Stefan's daughter.

One of the traitors fell to his knees, head down, hands at his sides. Everyone knew his face now, so he had to publicly join or die, he seemed to realize. One moron actually tried to run away back into the ranks of soldiers, thinking to disappear in a sea of uniforms or that his fellow soldiers would protect him, Diaval couldn't tell. But the others avoided him like he had suddenly contracted a virulent plague, leaving wide gaps of several meters of open land around him wherever he tried to run. The last failure of intellect actually ran toward Aurora, brandishing his spear like he would throw it at her.

Maleficent leapt into the air and flattened the attacker with a huge wingbeat of wind. She landed with her feet on his hips before he could rise and punched through his throat to the ground, her wings flaring behind her. She straightened and shook the gore from her hand, her eyes seeking the runner.

He was easy to find in the bubble of open space the others had left around him, and he whirled in a panic, drawing his sword against Maleficent. She took flight again and hovered above him before landing behind him and shoving him flat facedown on the ground. She seized his hair and yanked his head back up to face Aurora.

The Protector of the Moors looked up at the queen for judgement. Everyone else did too.

"Soldier, will you recant?" Aurora projected the question across the space.

He said nothing, and Diaval would have ordered his death, but Aurora continued, "We do not desire the death of our subjects, although they may disagree with our royal commands. We desire the chance to show our united realm what wonders the future may bring, difficult though the path may be. Maleficent, release him." The dark faerie scowled horribly but dropped the human's head so he flopped down, and she backed up away from him. The man scrambled to his feet but luckily wasn't stupid enough to pick his sword up out of the mud.

The queen's voice rang out again. "We ask for the last time, soldier. Will you recant?"

There was a moment when no one breathed.

Then the soldier dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "I recant, my lady." Diaval suspected he was lying but the raven was not completely sure. The soldier raised his head and continued, "I would rather see what kind of work men and fey could somehow do together than die here and now." That at least sounded sincere

Aurora's smile seemed brighter than the waxing daylight, and Diaval could have sworn he spotted a few of the men blushing. "We are eager to show you and your fellows what potential we have together. Thank you for your faith."

The singled-out soldier stood and Diaval could definitely tell he was blushing now. As well he might, having just been thanked by the queen after narrowly avoiding death, the raven thought sourly as the soldier scurried back into the ranks. The one who had immediately knelt in defeat once Aurora had threatened death scrambled away from the corpse of the one whose throat Maleficent had punched out and back into formation as well.

Maleficent's face was radiating rage but she did not move, her intimidating presence in the middle of the field causing a wide berth of space in every direction around her. Her wide, furious eyes scanned around her for any other obvious dissenters.

"Aaayiiyaaayiiiyowww!"

The deranged battlecry came from behind Diaval and Aurora out of the woods. The raven and the queen whirled to see a young soldier come barreling out of the trees not fifteen meters away, brandishing Maleficent's staff.

Diaval had blocked Aurora with his body before he knew he was moving, arms wide. He wished for a weapon as the young man advanced on them, his right arm flopping uselessly and the staff in his left hand seething with green magic.

There was no way left and no way right and neither of them had wings right now and the soldier screamed and thrust the staff at them, green lightning snapping out and striking Diaval full in the chest.

Every nerve ending in his body screamed as Maleficent's magic infused him entirely. He couldn't even fall down because the writhing green light was holding his body rigid as it attacked him. Pain like fire burned him inside and out, but then mellowed to a sensation of intense heat. The staff's magic began to recognize the magic that was keeping Diaval in human shape, and ceased to attack. It rolled around in furious coils up and down his body, slowly absorbing into him. Diaval collapsed in a heap at Aurora's feet, tremors shaking him uncontrollably.

He was able to lift his head in time to see Maleficent swoop high over him and Aurora and fly at the assailant. But the young man screamed again and shot a bolt of magic from her own staff at her, knocking her out of the sky. She fell spinning into the treetops beyond where Diaval could see.

From the ground of the clifftop, gasping to fill lungs that wouldn't open all the way, Diaval saw the soldier fix wild eyes on Aurora and begin to turn and shoot her from five meters away.

An arrow sprouted from the joint of the attacker's left shoulder between the panels of armor, and the wide-eyed look turned from homicidal to shocked. Without a sound, the young man's hand lost its grip on the staff, which dropped to the grass and started a small green fire.

The traitorous soldier was still collapsing as Aurora rushed past Diaval and grabbed Maleficent's staff up, backing away with her prize. The hem of her white dress caught green flames and she stomped it out.

Air finally rushed into Diaval's lungs and he flew to his feet, staggering as the tremors almost sent him toppling again.

Prince Philip stood straddling the prone assailant, an arrow nocked and aimed twenty centimeters from the attacker's nose. The captain of the guard was positioned behind Philip's right shoulder, sword drawn to back the prince up, the green fire lazily spreading near his feet. The trees were suddenly full of soldiers in the same uniform worn by the attacker, their faces grim, their weapons drawn.

"Where is Maleficent?" Aurora's voice was tense, demanding. Diaval's shaking was subsiding gradually.

A rustling was heard in the underbrush and one unit of soldiers parted to allow the Protector of the Moors to shuffle through, limping but still on guard, her wings half-open, her eyes glowing. Maleficent was the only one who moved as she continued her stiff, uneven walk across the grass and over to Aurora. The green flames extinguished themselves as her black cloak dragged over them, and the faerie used one arm to grab Aurora around the young woman's shoulders and pull her tight against her.

A long moment passed in the hug. Aurora leaned back and offered Maleficent her staff, which the faerie grasped, head bowed for half a second in anguish, Diaval could tell, over her mistake. Then, with the support of her staff correcting her balance, Maleficent turned and joined the queen, Diaval, and the entire army in staring at the terrorist.

Aurora stepped from behind Maleficent and stood shoulder to shoulder with Philip, who was steady as a boulder, eyes on his enemy's face, his arrowtip having moved not a fraction. The royalty looked into the attacker's eyes.

"Why?" the queen asked, neither loud nor soft.

The young man's arms were both ruined. Blood spread in a wide pool behind his left shoulder, stinking of copper. The right arm had been chewed by some beast. Aurora suddenly recognized him as one of the attackers who had ambushed her in the castle with Creighton. His face was twisted with hate, whites showing all around his bloodshot eyes. His chest heaved with labored breath between Philip's boots and he turned his head to spit blood into the grass before saying, "You are no queen." Aurora scowled. The doomed man grinned bloody teeth at her. "You love the faeries so much? Go and get spirited away and turned into a mindless slave picking glow in the dark berries for your freakish masters for the rest of your life and leave the rest of us the fuck alone."

"We are queen. We love everyone," the queen said flatly. "We will build a world without hate together."

The wheezing laugh sounded like that of a man four times the attacker's age. He drew breath to spew some other insult, but Aurora turned her back and placed a hand on Philip's shoulder. The prince released the arrow. Diaval saw the iron point punch out of the back of the prone man's skull. The raven's tremors had subsided, leaving just the internal heat that made Diaval's body feel like an oven.

Aurora stepped between the dead body and the army corps, turning her head slowly to regard them all. The white hem of her dress began slowly soaking up warm crimson blood as it trailed in the puddle.

Diaval could hear the hundreds of humans breathing in and out.

"We must be together," the queen told them. "We must act together. We must think together. We must love together."

She turned only her head slightly to look over her shoulder at the dead body. "Or we die," she said simply. She held the army again in her regard. "Hate kills. It killed this man inside, then drove him to kill others. We have killed so many. So many." She paused. "We want to live."

"Live," Philip agreed from behind her.

"Live," Maleficent echoed.

"Live!" Diaval shouted, and the captain of the guard looked at him, startled.

The captain hoisted his sword in the air and faced his troops. "Live!" he roared, and the men raised their weapons and chanted, "Live! Live! Live! Live! Live!"

Thank you again to all my readers! The next chapter is half written and I think you will like it.

Be safe out there.

—Sarisi