Chapter Text
Kisses and Laughter
“But only by… True Love’s Kiss.”
Diaval turned the words over in his mind for weeks after he and his mistress had left King Stefan’s castle. He had a feeling she’d said so as one final dig at the man, but he had still felt better knowing that there was some loophole in the curse she had placed on the innocent child. Not that he would say that to her. Ever.
Still, the words confused him. Ravens knew love, monogamous as they were, but the rest…
“Mistress?” He ventured one night, about a month after the christening. It was late, and he could perhaps blame his exhaustion for letting his curiosity overtake his good sense.
Maleficent looked over from unbinding her horns, preparing to sleep. Usually she would have returned him to his true form long before now – clearly she had other things on her mind. Thinking that was what he wanted she raised her hand to transform him.
“Um, I had a question first, if I might,” he stumbled. Maleficent’s moods were something he spent much of his time trying to unravel. She could be playful and gentle one second and cold and furious the next. Diaval was still working on what he could and couldn’t say. Too late to back out now, though, he thought.
Thankfully, she simply raised perfect eyebrows. “And what is it?”
“What is a kiss?”
She blinked, startled. “You really don’t know?” She asked a slightly strangled note to her voice, her eyes glittering.
Silently, Diaval shook his head.
And then, to his amazement, she laughed. Really laughed, without a trace of bitterness or sarcasm to it. He had never seen her so truly delighted since he had met her, and he was so enthralled he couldn’t even feel insulted that she was laughing at him.
At last, his mistress calmed and sat back, returning to her task of unwrapping her hair, and spoke calmly, almost absently. “I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s quite simple really. Two people, typically… mates, or a courting pair, touch lips.”
Diaval cocked his head, a little lost still. “For what purpose?”
Maleficent’s own lips twitched, on the verge of laughing again. “There is no purpose, Diaval; it’s simply mating behavior. Nothing more.”
He wasn’t sure that made sense; raven mating behavior always had some kind of purpose, he thought. Nesting and mate feeding and the like, all this he understood. Still, he found himself looking at his mistress’s full red lips, the small smile tucked into the corners. He wondered, somewhat vaguely, if, as a faerie, she had no practice in human mating customs either, or if she indeed experience with kisses.
He had worked out, not long ago, that the king had courted his mistress before betraying her and stealing her wings, and that was what hurt her the most. In light of this conversation Diaval wondered if the human king had kissed her, if a kiss meant a sort of promise in mating, and if that was why she had used that in the princess’s curse.
Abruptly, as if sensing his thoughts, all humor left her voice and face. Her expression closed into what he had come to know as her ‘King Stefan face’. Before he could ask, she waved her hand and he was a raven once more.
“Go to sleep, Diaval,” she added. As if to soften the harshness in her tone, she gently stroked him. “Don’t concern yourself with human affairs that don’t apply to you.”
He nodded, and flew a few branches up, where he nested. While the conversation was awkward, he had enjoyed seeing her smile, making her laugh. He wondered how long it would be before he did again.
Over the years Diaval’s presence at the palace drew the attention of some more suspicious of King Stefan’s nobles. When that suspicion resulted in several traps and some very dangerous escapes, when Diaval nearly lost a wing, Maleficent decided they needed a second plan for how to get information about Stefan.
This second plan included Diaval going to the Palace in his human form, much to his frustration. He certainly didn’t like making the journey, and definitely did not like the level of human interaction he had to do in order to keep up the rouse. Six years since he had been given the human form he wasn’t as uncomfortable as he had once been, but he certainly didn’t feel right among human men.
And human women, for that matter, as Diaval realized soon after beginning these trips, posing as a traveler or a merchant, a fair number of shopkeeper’s wives and daughters, found his human form attractive. He certainly didn’t mind the admiration, something to flatter his vanity, but when it came to actual conversation and social cues, the raven was lost.
It became especially troublesome when an innkeeper’s daughter began to recognize him as a local traveler, and took it upon herself to speak with him on every trip he made. Diaval tried to use this to his advantage; the smitten girl also was in a position to hear all sorts of interesting and important news from the palace, but he could also see no way to dissuade her of notions of- of mating, at the same time.
After several months of this strategy, Diaval returned to his mistress, metaphorical feathers particularly ruffled. Maleficent eyed him with some amusement.
“Bad day in town?” She asked him, playfully, after receiving his report.
He scowled at her, in no mood for being teased, even if her smile was a rare thing. “Kissing is strange,” he told her.
Maleficent made a sound that might have been a snort if she were not far too dignified for such things. “Have you been kissing people, Diaval?”
He explained the day’s situation; the lovely innkeeper’s daughter had suggested they speak privately, and Diaval had obliged, entirely ignorant until her mouth was on his. He couldn’t really remember what he’d said or done, except that he got out of there very fast, very flustered and very confused.
To his immense annoyance, Maleficent laughed at him again. “My poor, poor little bird,” she teased. “You really do know nothing of human relationships, do you?”
“Raven mating is far more simple,” he said, still glaring despite the heat rising to his face.
“I have no doubt it is.” She seemed more pleased with this than she did not. Her experience with human men being what they were, perhaps she simply enjoyed the knowledge that though he make take the shape of one on occasion, he was not human. “I suppose we can’t be sending you as a man for a while now. I can’t have you kissing anyone else and getting mauled by angry fathers and brothers.” She waved her hand and Diaval was a raven once again.
He caw’d at her, pecking at her hand when she went to stroke him. She laughed again, as he flew off, annoyed. He hadn’t kissed anyone, thank you very much. He had been kissed, and he certainly had no intention of letting that happen again.
Maleficent sat in the trees, in the evening, watching as a fourteen-year-old Aurora returned to her cottage from a day out to prepare dinner. Shortly after, a black raven joined her on her branch, a fairly large branch heavy with dark red berries in his beak.
After transforming him into a man, Diaval grinned at her. “Helped her pick berries today,” he said, cheerfully.
He liked spending time with the child, Maleficent had found, raising her as his own nestling. His position as an avian father figure amused her as much as it concerned her. Aurora’s sixteenth birthday was growing nearer, and while she had been doing just fine at denying her own attachment to the cursed princess, she had realized that to lose her would hurt Diaval deeply.
Well, that was no matter of hers. He was her servant; what did she care about his feelings?
Annoyed at herself for such thoughts when Diaval was smiling at her in such genuine warmth, she plucked the branch in his lap. Popping a berry into her mouth she focused on the taste, on enjoying the day, on anything other than the princess Aurora, or her fate. Sparing her servant a glance she picked another berry.
“Diaval,” she said, when he looked at her she tossed it at him. Belatedly she remembered she only did this trick with him, with nuts or fruit, when he was a raven.
All the same, Diaval made a solid attempt to catch the red berry in his mouth. It smacked his long nose and fell to the ground. He looked down with an exaggerated mournful sigh, and Maleficent’s lips twitched. Catching that tiny encouragement, Diaval looked back at her, eyes alight. “Again,” he requested.
Maleficent raised an eyebrow but obliged. “I don’t wish to waste all of these on you,” she informed him.
But he caught it that time, grinning as he swallowed. Feeling lighter, she tossed another. Then another. Her next throw fell short. Diaval nearly fell off the branch leaning forward, barely catching it in his teeth. She laughed, watching him steady himself, before biting into the fruit and positively beaming at her, red juice clinging to his pale lips.
Her smile faltered slightly, watching him lick his lips clean absently, faced with the sudden, absurd, desire to perform that service for him. She shook herself from the idea immediately. Maleficent remembered earlier questions about kissing, his confusion and obvious distaste for the action and almost laughed again, imagining how he would react to her doing so. He was a raven, a raven, for all that she might have been leaving him as a man more often in the recent years. For all that she had grown accustomed to his voice and his smile.
He was her servant, her familiar, she told herself for the second time since he had arrived that day. Certainly she was fond of him, grateful to have him at her side all these years. But that was where it ended.
Diaval had caught her absent expression, “Mistress?”
She waved her hand, not to transform him, simply brushing his concern aside. “Nothing, Diaval. It will be dark soon, we’re returning to the Moors.”
He nodded, a small obliging smile at one corner of his mouth. Looking away, she turned him back into a raven, and absently tossed the branch, with what fruit remained off the side. Diaval swooped suddenly, catching it before it hit the ground.
“Now you’re just showing off,” she told him, getting down herself.
He made a sound like cackling laughter, and took his place, flying just above her shoulder. She shook her head, but felt better for his good humor, for having a constant reminder that she could still smile.