Chapter Text
Something of a continuation of "Two letters".
The hailstorm should have been a warning, Aurora realized.
And if the said hailstorm- currently sweeping over Ulstead, crashing windows, toppling over chimneys- had been pouring exclusively over the Moors, Aurora would have immediately guessed its magical origin. But since it had spread well over the borders of the magical part of her kingdom, Aurora had hoped, believed, rooted for it to be a simple case of a bad autumn storm.
Now, standing in her and Phillip’s royal chamber, about to open the balcony door carefully, clutching at her pregnant belly and bracing herself against the unavoidable assault of icy rain and wind, she knew with a heavy, racing heart that she had been wrong. Oh, so wrong.
On the balcony, illuminated by the lightning bolts which continuously raked over the night sky, stood her godmother. With her dark robes and wings, curving horns and burning eyes, and with such a dramatic background of her own making, she might have looked like an angel of death, a harbinger of doom, if not for the fact that she had been so profoundly drenched with rain that her usually majestic wings sagged behind her on the stone floor, and her long dark hair, normally so well-kept or carefully folded under her customary wraps, was plastered to her gaunt face, making her look more like a drenched crow caught in the storm, then a magnificent Phoenix that she was.
Seeing her like that, Aurora’s already anxious heart jumped into her throat, beating wildly. What on Earth could have happened? What could have happened, to provoke such an incontrollable display of elemental force from Maleficent? What could have happened to make her not even care to shield herself from the rain, as Aurora knew she was more than capable of? What could have happened, to make her fly from the Moors in the middle of the night, wreaking havoc of a hailstorm in her wake and showing up in Ulstead, on Aurora’s balcony?
Before her hand gripped the knob, Phillip’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Wait!” the anxiety in his voice was obvious, even if he tried to sound collected, she could say. “Aurora- wait! Is she...perhaps I should open that door? She doesn’t look...herself.”
But Aurora shook her head, squeezing his hand for encouragement. “If she so wishes, she can blast away the door and the rest of the castle with it. And she is not going to hurt me. Or you,” she added, hoping that she sounded more assured than she felt. Phillip was right; Maleficent truly did not look like herself.
Turning the knob, her heart hammering so Aurora tried to list all the possible catastrophic events which could make Maleficent unhinge like this- the Moors are attacked; Diaval is killed; the Dark fey are killed; the Nest of Origin is destroyed; Stephan had risen from the grave - and bravely pushed the glass door open, Phillip at her side.
Harsh wind and icy rain hit her at once, and Phillip tried to protect her, embracing as much of her as he could. And Maleficent, ever the one to shied her from all harm, stood rigid, as if frozen by her own storm.
“ Godmother !” Aurora cried, barely recognizing her own high-pitched voice. The baby, disturbed by Aurora’s alarm, kicked her; once, twice, and again. “My goodness, godmother, what happened? Come in, quick!”
But Maleficent made no move, and Aurora staggered forward, almost blinded by heavy rain. Phillip followed.
“ Godmother ?”
Maleficent’s eyes, large and wide and haunted, focused on Aurora, who reached for her and gripped the fairy by the forearms. She was, unsurprisingly, cold and wet to the touch.
“Inside! Godmother, come inside!” Aurora begged, voice trying to outmatch the crack of the thunder as another lightning flashed from the low, heavy clouds to the ground, somewhere nearby.
The look of Maleficent’s eyes, even as the rain was pouring all over her face, was desolate as she slowly shook her head no, lips moving slightly but with no sound. Aurora squinted at her, trying to wipe the rain from her face.
“What happened? Godmother, we have to come inside- please, please tell me what happened!”
“I need to speak to Phillip.”
“ What ?” was said in unison by both young royals, in a similar incredulous voice.
Of all the impossible, unimaginable things to happen, Maleficent coming wrecked like this in the middle of the night to speak to Phillip was certainly among the least probable ones. Aurora squinted at her again, now seriously worried for her godmother’s mental health. The lack of Diaval at her side was just as unnerving, and Aurora was still mustering the courage to ask about him. For him to leave her side when she was in this state was unimaginable, and Aurora felt sick upon the realization that something happening to Diaval would explain both his absence and her obvious emotional breakdown. But why Phillip, why Phillip?
“That is- by all means”, the man in question, after initial shock, took the lead and grabbed the opportunity to remove both distraught ladies from the torrent outside. He gentlemanly gestured to Maleficent to come inside, still hugging Aurora as if he could will the rain away from her, and gave to his mother-in-law a perfectly nice smile, as if they were standing in the parlor with tea and cookies, rather than getting thoroughly soaked and windswept in the middle of the night at his balcony.
And it worked .
Aurora’s jaw dropped when it actually worked . Maleficent stiffly nodded back...and moved, slowly, with her large, soaked wings dragging behind her. She paced the small distance with deliberate, measured steps, her back rigid, her eyes only partially focused, as if seeing something they did not. Phillip and Aurora followed a step behind her longest primaries, which dragged behind her.
Once inside, Phillip closed the balcony door, barely managing to pull it back against the wind. Aurora again reached for Maleficent, taking in her reddened eyes, disheveled hair, sagging wings. What happened, what on Earth could have happened? The baby kicked her again, upset with her thundering heartbeat, or perhaps with the literal thundering storm outside, and Aurora rubbed her belly, frowning shortly with pain. The baby kicked very low, in a very sensitive spot.
This stirred Maleficent. Finally, she looked at Aurora as if finally looking at her rather than through her, and apparently, Aurora’s state of being completely soaking wet and slightly shivering reached her at last.
“Oh, Beastie”, the fairy murmured, and Aurora felt a bit of relief at the expression of recognition in those glimmering green eyes. A wave of hand, a golden glow, and Aurora was dry as if she had never stepped a foot out on that balcony.
“Ahem”, Phillip cleared his throat. “A seat, Maleficent? Should I call for some warm tea and...oh. Thank you.” The golden glow washed over him, too, and in a blink of an eye, he was dry and warm. The only one still miserably wet, dripping on Phillip’s priceless Persian wool carpet, was Maleficent herself.
“Is it Diaval?” Aurora blurted out, unable to hold back anymore. Her voice trembled, and she caressed her belly protectively, as if shielding her child from the worst news possible. “Is it? Godmother? Tell me!”
Maleficent stared at Aurora with wide, stormy eyes, and Aurora, having her answer, covered her mouth and clutched her belly. Phillip came behind her and embraced her shoulder, pulling a velvet- padded stool for her to sit on. His own eyes were wide and his hand cold and trembling on Aurora’s shoulder.
“I…” Maleficent uttered, sounding as if that small word had hurt her, “…have made a terrible mistake.”
A part of Aurora’s mind was almost disturbingly amused by the irony of a fact that a person which had once cursed a baby, caused an innocent mother to wither away out of grief, forcefully proclaimed herself the ruler of her land, and started a war with a neighboring kingdom- that person, which had never vocally expressed regret over those misdeeds which caused disturbances in the whole nations, regret though she them did- was now admitting with obvious dreadful remorse to something that likely affected only their own little mismatched family.
Another part of Aurora’s mind was terrified over that.
Plopping unceremoniously on the stool (and wincing because of the pressure it caused to her groins), she gaped wordlessly at her godmother, waiting for her to continue, and fearing it too.
He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. He can’t. Please, please, don’t let him be dead. I need him. She needs him. He can’t, he can’t -
“I said something”, Maleficent continued with eerie softness, each word like pulling a fingernail out with a hot iron pincer, “that I should not have.”
Aurora looked around the room for her barf pot, should she need it. She hadn’t used it since her early pregnancy days, but the way things were going, the way her stomach was twisting in sickening knots, she might revisit her old habit.
“And now you ”, Maleficent suddenly turned to Phillip, fixing him with an expressionless, predatory glare of a snake targeting a mouse, “are going to tell me how to undo it.”
Phillip, who had appropriately frozen solid under the glow of her piercing green eyes, still managed to blink in utter confusion. “Undo it? Who, me? What, a curse? Me? Again? Because the last time- “
“Not a curse , you...” Maleficent bit her tongue before something along the lines of ‘ pathetic excuse for a royal offspring ’ could leave her lips. “The words!”
Aurora jumped from the stool she was sitting on, almost knocking her temple into Phillip’s chin. “Godmother, enough riddles! What happened to Diaval? Is he cursed? Is he dead? Hurt? What words are you talking about? Tell us already!”
The lightning outside cracked the sky open again, showering the balcony door with another bout of icy water and refueling Aurora’s fears. Nothing short of a life-threatening condition could elicit this kind of destructive response from Maleficent. Nothing.
Maleficent closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath.
“ Godmother! ”
“He is not dead”, she said in a painfully controlled voice. Aurora dropped down to her stool again, clutching at her belly. Tears of relief sprang to her eyes, impossible to control.
“But I am”, Maleficent added quietly, eyes still closed. “To him.”
Aurora frowned. Then blinked. Then exchanged a confused look with Phillip. Then frowned again, when Maleficent’s seemingly erratic, incoherent words started to make sense.
“Godmother. Are you telling me...” Aurora had to close her eyes, too, to ward off and uncharacteristic onslaught of anger, “Are you telling me that you two had a quarrel? And he’s not talking to you? Is that why- ”
But Maleficent’s eyes flashed open again, once again piercing into Phillip’s. Shadows fell on her gaunt face, from which only her eyes glowed like green embers.
“You will tell me”, she growled, fangs bared and wings ruffling, even if they were still sogging miserably, still dripping wet and creating rivulets on the polished wood, “step by step, how to shove some sense into that bird brain of his. You will not hold back any important detail, or else, my daughter’s mate or not, I will make you regret deeply. Very deeply.”
“Wait. Wait.” Phillip held out a hand, forgetting to appear acceptably frightened. “Let us just...check. If I understand well, you and Diaval had a...disagreement? And... are you... asking for my advice? Mine ?”
“Don’t you mock me!” not only Maleficent hissed. “You impertinent little brat!” The shadows seemed to creep in the corners of the room, familiar and disturbing. Her magic simmered at her fingertips, bright green.
“I was not - “
“ Mother !”
“- mocking you- “
“Do you think I would stoop so low as to ask for your assistance if you weren’t just as insufferable as him? Like two peas in a pod, you are! Just as ridiculous- just as stubborn- just as annoyingly kind ! Just as infuriatingly sanctimonious! Just as stupidly... nauseatingly... loving !” She spat out the word like poison. “If anybody can get into the head of that fool of a bird, it would be you!”
Aurora stared at her godmother, at the rare loss of words. And Phillip, as if to prove himself worthy of the comparison, puffed his chest in a very Diavalish manner.
Maleficent, of course, caught that, and bared her teeth. “I was not giving you a compliment, you foolish boy!”
“Of course”, Phillip nodded placatingly. Now, when he learned that Diaval was in no immediate danger, he was much more at ease, and much more like himself. As if intimate heart-to-heart conversations were a regular occurrence between himself and Maleficent, as casually as it gets, he gestured towards an ottoman with a gentlemanly bow and a warm, visibly relieved smile. “Please, sit down. Let us talk.”
Aurora was quiet, partly because of her immense sense of relief, partly because she was trying hard not to let her anger get the better of her.
You scared me to death, she wanted to say. What were you thinking? I thought he was dead! I thought he was dying! And you had a quarrel? All this over one quarrel? Godmother, have you lost your mind? Have you any idea what you just put me through? And look at the damage outside- there cost of the repairs will be astronomical- oh, mother, sometimes I feel I’m the one raising you instead the other way around! Do you ever think of the impact your actions have on others before you throw a tantrum like this? I swear, any toddler has a better grasp on their emotions than you! I swear this child which is currently trying to push its heel up my stomach has a better grasp on its emotions than you!
But Aurora said none of those things. She could not, because the image of Maleficent appearing on their balcony, drenched like a lost sparrow and with a desolate, haunted look of someone who had just lost half of their heart and soul, was still in the back of her mind and she could not shake it away. She could not, because Maleficent, once again suddenly spent of her rage, walked with no objections to the ottoman, her wings dragging behind her in a sad display of utter lack of care, wet hair still plastered to her forehead, eyes sunken in, and sat slowly down with vigor of a mud-drenched ragged doll.
Without a word, Phillip offered his mother-in-law a blanket, but she scrunched up her nose and flicked one lazy finger. Finally, the icy rain started drying from her disheveled wings, hair and robes.
“It would be wise to know”, Phillip said, dragging a chair for himself and sitting down in it, facing Maleficent, “what exactly happened.” He never took his eyes from the fairy, gauging her response, which was such that she looked away and swallowed hard.
“Is that so?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you a specific advice without something to work with.”
“Well, be unspecific, then”, the fairy sighed, closing her eyes again. “Just name a few things which you...which you would like to hear if...which would make things better if...if you two...”
Watching the magnificent creature like her stumble over her words, brought down so low and humbler than anybody could ever think she would be able to, was obviously not sitting well with Phillip, Aurora could tell by a sympathetic flinch in the corner of his mouth, in the arch of his eyebrows, and Aurora hoped Maleficent wouldn’t notice it, or she would likely take it as an offense. As for Aurora herself, her heart was writhing in pain for her mother all along, not to mention that the fear was rearing its ugly head again, and all harsh words were forgotten.
“It depends greatly on the situation”, Phillip said patiently. “It was, I take it, something...er, a bit unbecoming you have said? Not something you have done?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, godmother, come on”, Aurora tried. If they keep going like this, they would still be none the wiser come the morning. “Whatever it is, we all know Diaval would never stay angry at you for long. It can’t possibly be so bad that you can’t even-”
“He left.”
Aurora and Phillip both stare for a moment incredulously. They might as well have heard that the sun had abandoned its post in the sky.
“Left...for the day?” Aurora’s voice became very small and child-like. Her heart started fluttering like a startled swallow.
But Maleficent shook her head slowly, and to Aurora’s horror, she witnessed for the second time in her life a sight that most folks, fair or human, never had an opportunity to see: Maleficent’s eyes full of tears, green like forest and bright like shimmering stars, and sadder than anything Aurora could ever imagine to see. Her baby kicked, and Aurora caressed her belly in slow, soothing motion.
“Forgive me”, Phillip whispered, now pale and serious, “but I can’t believe that. I just can’t. If there had ever been a person...Are you certain you are not...misinterpreting something?”
The look of annoyance in Maleficent’s face was a welcome change from the devouring grief in her eyes, but it lasted only for a moment. From her robes she produced a letter, miraculously dry despite the fact it should have ben by every natural law drenched and unreadable by now, and handed it over to Phillip. Aurora, however, stood abruptly from her seat and snatched the letter first, ignoring the startled looks of both her husband and her mother. With shaky, clammy hands, she unwrapped the paper and her heart sank at the sight of familiar, clumsy letters, so carefully written in what she knew was likely a tenth attempt before it had been pronounced decent enough to be sent. She could say with heartbreaking certainty, by the thickness of the lines, that it was written very slowly and with great care. Even more heartbreaking were the occasional splotches on the ink that she somehow knew without doubt that were not made by raindrops.
My dear Mistres.
I am glad you are finaly happy among Your own. I have ever only wanted joy and happ i ness for You, and seeing You having Friends and Family is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
The last thing I wish for You is to enduer any needless burden out of duty, or pity. I gave You my Word to provide You with anything You need. That Word still stands. it doesn’t mater if I like it or not but I can say that what You need now is to be free of me.
It is understandable. I should have seen it sooner. You no longer have the need of my company now that You have your People at your side. The Dark Fey can offer you better wings, better eyes and ears, better shoulders to lean your head on. I could never compete. and I wouldn’t want to. You are finaly complete, and That is what I always wanted for you. You don’t need someone like me any more. All I do now is hinder You. I am only a reminder of something ugly from the past. I became a burdan and that is the last thing I wanted to be for You. I wanted to help you to be free. To be your wings as was my Word.
I hope I lived up to my Word. I hope you faund my service satisfaktory. I always tried my best. On that I swear.
forgive me for mistaking your generosity for friendship. I never should have asumed myself to be worthy of it. that is my mistake. I hope You will be able to forget that transgresion and remember me fondly.
Thank You for all the years at your side. For every Form and Shape you gave me and everything that made me more than any raven could ever dream to became. Most of all. For Aurora.
May You be happy forever.
Diaval
Aurora was grateful to feel Phillip’s hands on her shoulders as he joined her in reading, both silent as death.
“It took him a long time to write this”, Phillip whispered. His voice was quiet and thick in Aurora’s ear. By the end of the letter, she couldn’t see anything through the tears. Even knowing that nobody was in mortal danger no longer helped.
“He wouldn’t want this.” When she spoke, her voice was as hoarse as if she had truly been a daughter of a raven. “He would never want this. What happened? Why would he think…? What did you do?”
The question sounded much more accusing than she had wanted it to, but it was spoken and there was no going back. Maleficent stared not at Aurora, but at the letter as if it was a hateful, vicious living thing.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters!” Aurora snapped, wishing to crawl out of her skin with grief and fear. “How do you expect Phillip to counsel you if he doesn’t know what to counsel you on? Godmother, this is not the moment to stroke your wounded pride! Whatever happened, we must find a way to get him back! He hadn’t been on his own for decades- would he even survive a fortnight? Can he find enough food? Can he avoid the predators? Hunters? Angry farmers? Bring him back, for goodness’ sake, and we can talk-“
“I can’t!” Maleficent’s voice rose, higher than usual, hands in fists. “I can’t find him- I can’t trace him!”
“What? But how? Isn’t your magic binding you to one another? He found you easily when Count Alain kidnapped you, led me to you without any- “
“He severed the bond.”
Maleficent’s face was stone- still, but her eyes glowed and simmered. Aurora watched, mouth agape. She was not hearing this. No. She was not.
“How on Earth can he...”
“He had never been a slave to my magic. He had bound himself to me out of his own free will. He only ever allowed my magic to connect us. Once he...stopped allowing it, the...the bond...was...gone.”
Maleficent looked like she was about to slide off the ottoman. She rested her head against it, strangely still.
“What did you do?” Aurora whispered, clenching the letter in her hand. She wanted to rip it into thousand cursed pieces, but it might have been the last thing her birdfather had ever left them, the last thing he held in his hand before leaving, and she didn’t want to destroy that.
“Aurora, don’t”, Phillip said seriously, squeezing her shoulders gently. “Your mother is right. It does not matter now.”
Aurora spun around to stare at him with eyes full of shocked disappointment. “Phillip! You are supposed to- “
“- to remind you that we all make mistakes. Sometimes out of error in judgement, and not out of malice. Sometimes with grave consequences. No one is immune. Not a single one of us. Not even you.”
Aurora wanted to snap at him, to tell him that he is talking nonsense, that he’s just wasting his time trying to make the impossibly bad situation better, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, because a certain black veil came to her mind, and a memory of herself asking her godmother to hide her true nature with it. A memory of Phillip’s mother throwing insults at her godmother, and Aurora doing absolutely nothing to stop her. Then, a memory of Phillip’s father prostrate on the floor, and Aurora siding with the one who had hurt him, instead of her godmother. Memory of Diaval in the Moors, telling her that he believes Maleficent to be innocent, and Aurora not accepting it. Memory of what came as a result of her stupidity and cowardice: her own folks slayed in that bloody chapel, their queen as well as having abandoned them; having betrayed them, having sided with their enemy.
Maleficent’s wings were unevenly, carelessly splayed over the ottoman, long primaries bending in uncomfortable angles. Her face was motionless and pale like polished bone, cheeks more sunken than ever, skin pulled tight over her skull, giving her the appearance of a dried corpse. Only the fast, shallow breathing, and a hailstorm still raging outside, showed that she was still very much alive and very much in pain. And Aurora’s anger gave way to the grief and fear that it truly was, and with a strangled sob, she fell to her knees before her godmother and wrapped her arms around her thin waist, spilling tears in her lap.
A moment later, aurora felt Maleficent’s wings wrapping around them, her bony hand caressing Aurora’s disheveled hair. The fairy was still silent like death, but now, embracing her like this, Aurora could feel and hear convulsive hitches in her chest which likely marked her effort of preventing herself from crying. Or screaming.
As she sobbed, the anger on Maleficent turned into anger at Diaval in Aurora’s heart. How could he do this to them? How could he just...leave? And now, when Aurora’s baby was on the way, to that? And he didn’t even leave Aurora a letter. Or something! Anything! How could he just leave without as much as ‘goodbye’? How could he be so selfish, so...so...
And you are being a selfish, childish brat again, your majesty, something whispered in her mind’s ear. And you are not thinking straight. Isn’t there something you should think of?
“My dear ladies”, Phillip’s soft voice reached her. “It is understandable that you are distraught. But I must insist that we all leave our emotions aside for a moment and act as soon as possible. With every passing moment, he might be further away, though, if I may point out, I can’t see anybody going anywhere in this downpour outside. If he still doesn’t need our help, he’s more likely to be needing it with every day which passes.”
His warm hands caressed Aurora’s arms again, and she sniffed, pulling reluctantly away from her godmother. When she looked up, she saw the fairy’s face still frozen in the same expressionless mask, but now with traces of tears down the sharp bone edges of her sunken cheeks.
“Maleficent, how capable is Diaval of taking care of himself outside of the Moors?” Phillip asked. “Finding food? Staying away from trouble? I suppose he wouldn’t stay in the Moors if he doesn’t want you to find him, and I don’t know how much is he, well, adapted to...the outside world.”
“And how well would you fare in the ‘ outside world ’, Phillip?” Maleficent hissed, not making any attempt to wipe away her tears, which in itself was disturbing.
“I’m not trying to insult his competence”, Phillip answered patiently. “I am trying to decipher how best to help him.”
Isn’t there something you should think of? A thought came to Aurora again, uninvited and unsettling.
“I don’t know”, Maleficent answered with lips that barely moved. Her gaze was unfocused and distant. Confused. The look of someone who had found himself in a nightmare and was still having a hard time discerning dream from reality. “As a bird...he should be all right. He would be. Yes. He would do fine. But...as a man...I am not certain if he would...he is adaptable, yes, but I am not certain...if he would know how...”
“Well, did you last leave him as a bird, or a man? Whom are we looking for?”
“Whatever his true form is now”, Maleficent whispered. “Which had been something of a debate lately.”
Aurora took Maleficent’s icy cold hand in her own and squeezed gently. “A raven, certainly?”
“Without my magic’s influence, he would take his true form”, Maleficent repeated softly. “Do you remember what happened after I had been wounded and my magic faltered?”
Aurora closed her eyes at the bitter memory. She hadn’t seen Maleficent being shot, but pleading ignorance was a poor excuse for the fact that she had failed her mother then, plain and simple.
“A man”, she whispered. “He had shifted into a man. Not a bird. But I thought...I thought you had left him...”
You are missing something important. Think.
“I did not. I wanted him to fly with me.”
“But then...then why? How?”
“Because our true selves are what we make of ourselves. How we model our souls. And not the state we were born into.” There was a barely discernible hint of a smile in a corner of Maleficent’s lips, but it died away in an instant. “And to Diaval, his soul had modeled to belong with his family. As...as an...equal.”
“Of course it did”, Aurora smiled sadly. How did she not think of that sooner? And why did Maleficent’s face suddenly darken like a thundercloud? The fairy had barely managed to produce the last few words, and Aurora waited with trepidation either a furious explosion of uncontrolled destructive magic, or an emotional outpour the likes of which she had never witnessed from her godmother. She didn’t know which one she feared more.
You are missing something. Think. You are his family. A family he wants to belong to.
“Did you send the Fair folk in search of him?” Phillip inquired. Bless his heart; Aurora was entirely incapable of practical thinking at the moment, and obviously so did Maleficent.
The fairy shook her head no, slowly, eyes staring into unfathomable distance. Two fresh tears rolled down her angular cheekbones, and Aurora’s own eyes welled up at once. To see Maleficent like this was like seeing her turn to dust again, only slower, and much more painfully.
He left only one letter for her, thinking he’d never see her again. But he hadn’t severed bonds with the rest of his family. No letter for you.
“Perhaps it would be advisable.”, Aurora heard Phillip’s voice, but the rapid beating of her heard prevented her from paying full attention to his words. “The Dark fey can comb all three lands within a day. And I could send patrols- “
“Do you think he would appreciate being hunted down like a prey animal?” Maleficent whispered, but the hint of disdain was evident in her voice. “He would not. He expressed his wishes very clear in that letter, and he would be embarrassed to have a search party sent after him as if he’s a simpleton which can’t take care of himself. Besides, he had been a spy in a hostile kingdom for seventeen years . And he still- he was my eyes and ears to this day, even. And he excelled in that. He knows exactly how not to be seen when he doesn’t want to. Search patrols would be a colossal waste of time and effort.”
He wants to belong in this family. His soul is a part of it. And he knows exactly how not to be seen when he doesn’t want to.
“All right, all right. Not an extensive search, then. But at least a few trackers...perhaps Shrike and Percival...”
How could he leave me now when my baby is on the way? Simple: he could not. His heart would not let him. Because he’s my father, no matter what.
“Are you not listening to me, princeling? He could be perched on your windowsill right now, and you wouldn't see him if he doesn’t want you to!”
But as a man, he wouldn’t be able to hide on the windowsill .
“Well, on this storm, it is a moot point. Nobody can track anything in this weather, on wing or on foot.”
In other words, nobody goes anywhere .
“Excuse me!” Aurora suddenly stood up, clutching on Phillip when she almost overbalanced over her large belly. She rubbed it where the baby kicked her again and offered to her husband and her godmother the most apologetic smile she could muster. “I have to- I have to go! Oh my, this baby is going to kick my bladder right out of me I swear...” she muttered and waddled for the door.
“Aurora!” Phillip called, alarmed. “Where on Earth are you going? The chamber pot is -”
“I am also hungry!”
“We can call the-”
“I want to pick my own food! You know how I am there days; I have no idea what I’m craving for until I see it! You- you two just keep...making a plan, you are doing great, and- oh, godmother, you wanted to ask Phillip what does he reckon that Diaval would want to hear once you meet him, did you not? Well, it sounds like something that I should not- I mean, I should, but better if I- anyway, I will be back in a... oh, hello, Marjorie”, Aurora grinned at her maid, which came into view when Aurora swung the door open. The maid’s right ear was scarlet for having been pressed firmly against the door for so long.
“Your Majesty!” she stood upright while the rest of her face was speedily reddening like a freshly cooked crab. “I had only just heard voices, and - “
“Yes, yes, of course. Come on, help me get to the kitchen! Quickly now; oh, to think I was able to jump three stairs down three months ago...”
“Don’t jump the stairs!” Maleficent and Phillip cried out after Aurora, which firmly grabbed Marjorie’s arm and whispered into her ear after they closed the door behind them: “To the dovecote. Get us cloaks. Three cloaks. One needs to be black. And not a word to anyone.”
Marjorie puffed her rather buxom chest at the trust she had been given. “Yes, Your Majesty.”