#maleficent conall

Conall (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Reader

Conall (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Human!Reader

                    “Mm, you are my everything.”

Conall sighed fondly as your arms linked around his middle. You didn’t have to wake to see him off to council, though you still often did; it was as much a fault of your nonexistent space as it was a lingering habit – you slept enwrapped in his arms and his wings, your fingers resting upon the small, soft down-feathers that punctuated his chest like hair upon human skin, only to hear the first notes of birdsong and half-stir as if you still had to rise to see him off under the first blue-silver rays of dawn. (He had cherished the memory of your sun-loved skin bathed in the pallor of first light for so long that he could conjure it even then; your dark hair mussed and rumpled, your dark eyes half-lidded and warm, even the sad, half-hearted smile that touched your lips while you fought the sleep from your eyes and the heaviness from your quilt-wrapped limbs. You did not know how many times he had to fight the impulse to simply take you in his arms and carry you away before the night had come when he finally had.)

Conall has five scars on his right arm and one on his left; four, close-together circular wounds near the top of his shoulder and one graze-line over his bicep (right), and a more significant graze wound that looks as though he got it from an angle that would’ve placed the shot from behind him (left).

Conall also gently brushes Shrike’s wing back to get to Maleficent when she gets up to go fight in the Tomb Bloom fields.

There are five(??) other fires on the ground in the Tundra, meaning there are a lot of Tundra Fey.

Also, there are like 3-4 other bonfires going on the cliffs as well as the three(??) already at the dance. (Watching the Dance is a sensory Experience, honestly. There is So Much Going On Always; I love it.)

There are offerings at the base of the Tree of Life.

*gently whips more Unfettered universe at you guys*

                                                        Your father did not know how to address your utter and absolute lack of craftsmanship.

When you were a child, it was faintly amusing. Your distress was understandable, and you could be consoled; your mother had learned to weave, to paint, to steady her hands so well that the healers called for her when they needed her peculiar even-temperateness. Though you were, by no means, held to that standard, they had both presumed you would improve with time and practice.

You did not.

If it was possible, you might’ve gotten worse.

There was nothing wrong with you, regardless; even if you had possessed some misplaced instinct, some physical inability to complete the task (be it in your fingers or your gifts or your eyesight), your people were not human – they would not allow you to go without simply because you could not fashion your necessities for yourself. Everyone had different skills (or so he told you several dozen times throughout the course of your life); if yours just so happened to be something else (you often let him get through the reassurance without pointing out that it was supposed to be an instinct, as intrinsic as breath and flight) then you would discover it, in time.

Your people were not human; no one pushed for a reason as to why, when you tried to repair a basket (with a patch, no less; you didn’t even try to take the whole thing apart like your mother would’ve), the whole shape of it changed. They did not whisper to your father to make sure it was not your eyesight, or your talons, or – Phoenix forbid – your gifts. Even if it had been, those were all things one could live without. Even if there was some definite reason as to why you could not  make anything but a mullein candle, nothing would ever be withheld from you; your life would not be lacking or lesser for it.

The moment he landed, the floral massacre you’d made of the nest became painfully apparent.

Conall knew you’d heard him. He knew you would be expecting him to join you in less time than his pause took, but he had to prepare himself for your valiant persistence in the face of terrible odds.

Stars above, Noren, our daughter would’ve made a fierce warrior.

It was a floral massacre. In every sense of the word.

He had thought the sight of the petals scattered across the down-laden floor would’ve been indication of your state enough, but it was not. He did not know if you had asked anyone (or who you had asked, for that matter, if you had) for guidance on whatever it was you were supposed to be doing, but he imagined that you had either been intentionally mislead or accidentally misheard. Or, hopefully, you had not asked at all. Hopefully, it was a whim gone wrong. Hopefully, you would not be offended if he did not laugh at the sad state of whatever in skies it was supposed to be, or the sorry little pile of stems that looked like they had been hacked off once, then hacked down again, and perhaps a third time only to end up too short.

By the ancestors, there were flower petals everywhere.

For a heartbeat and a half, he considered not even acknowledging it. He knew you; you were quick to embarrass, sensitive and so very well-intentioned – he could’ve waited until you went to bed to pick the petals out of everything and leave them in a heap outside.

But he had seen them, and he knew you knew he’d seen them, and so you sat there in your nook with a pile of mutilated flowers tied together at the stems so thickly that he could see the knots from where he stood, and you stared at him with the most forlorn eyes he’d ever seen on an un-wounded creature. And he, in turn, stared at you.

“I was trying to make a flower crown,” you said. There was a quiver in your voice.

Oh, Cas.

He stepped over the ledge of woven branches, so well-aged that they crinkled underfoot. Some of the petals were not bruised enough that he could tell what they were – you’d taken whatever you could find, apparently, as long as it flowered.

Had you only tried to make just the one?

He wrapped you in his arm and his wing at the same time. The usual reassurance was on the tip of his tongue, but he let it go. “You put too much pressure on yourself.”

You held up a limp-worn section of stems six flowers thick. The flowers themselves were no longer whole and the stems were not viable for support, but the braiding was nice. The knots could’ve even been decorative.

He took it from your hands and laid it out flat across your folded legs. “Tell me what you see.”

“A mess.” Which was true. It was, without question, a mess – you had made a grand mess.

“Did you enjoy making it?”

“No,” you admitted. Not even a little. You’d had fun gathering the flowers, though you’d spent the whole time biting back the anxiety that, perhaps, if you were lucky, this time would be different.

“Then why did you do it?” He stroked back your braids.

You shrugged. Even your wings shrugged in time with your shoulders. “I wanted to be able to.”

“To prove your opinion of yourself wrong,” he clarified.

You let your wings slump; gave him a look that could’ve withered the flowers on your lap, had you not already done that by hand.

“Cassia,” he touched your chin, “do you think I would tolerate anyone speaking of you the way you regard yourself?”

“No.” You knew he wouldn’t. Even if he was not a warrior any longer, he would always be your father. “But they would be right.”

He gathered the ends of several of your braids to show them to you. “I did not do these.” Though he used to, when you were younger and far too impatient to take the time to do it yourself.

You rolled your eyes. Anyone could braid hair, though your curls were a special exception – not everyone could navigate them as well as you did.

“I did not forage for nettle for Clove’s tea, or scent a candle with honey for Maple. You accomplish far more with success than you believe you do – and,” he did not let you brush honesty aside, “this was your first attempt, was it not?”

“I made one as a child,” you muttered. “It was terrible then, also.”

He gave you the same dramatic show you’d given him, sighing and rolling his eyes. “Yes, it was terrible, and I’ve spoiled you on worldly pleasures. How vain I am, how blind, to know my daughter cannot weave because I’ve spoiled her rotten.”

The laugh that bubbled out of you was entirely involuntary, according to you.

“My daughter cannot weave, but she can braid. Though she is certain, quick-witted, compassionate, beautiful, and kind; though she is loved by all and skilled at many other things, she cannot weave, and, for that...perhaps I ought to throw her into exile.”

“I am not a child!” you exclaimed, though his broad wing still came up to cover your face like he was blotting out the sun – “trapping” you away somewhere. When you were a child, it was different – he could cover the whole of your body with his dense, broad wings, and you laughed and play-screamed with mock fear at the nonexistent threat of “exile” like you didn’t brush your hands over his feathers with the knowledge that you were always safe.

“Ah, but that is where you’re wrong – you are my child, and you always will be.” The thumb-claw at the apex of his wing brushed over your cheek, and tapped the tip of your nose before withdrawing. You put your hand over it – to stifle your smile, not because you always did. “You are my daughter, my heart, and I love you. Just as you are.”

You shifted, unfolding from yourself to press into his side. He tucked your head between his shoulder and his jaw like you were still small, and you wrapped your wings around him in return. His lips pressed to your forehead, and his hand settled, steadying,  just below the joints of your wings.

“Quick witted?” you muttered. There was only one way to salvage your abomination, and it felt like cheating. “Do shortcuts count?”

“Shortcuts support nests,” he replied, as though that wouldn’t give you pause. You’d never considered it, but that made sense – even if one built a nest from what had already fallen, wove together the tree-parts already shed, there was nothing to stop a swift rain from washing it away but its weight – to shield it from the weather, though you had always presumed there was an element of mud-seal, like a robin’s.

Your abomination grew a bit in length when you touched it, though since it was tied together it could not grow far. Some of its bruised leaves rekindled, and the flowers you’d beaten half to death returned to life – new petals and all. It was just barely long enough to wrap around your head, so you took yet another shortcut and slipped the knotted joints at either side over your horns. “Is it pretty, at least?”

It was. Quite pretty, for no two of the same flowers grew upon it. Your father didn’t tell you that, though; he folded you close within his wing and pressed you tightly against his side. “It’s yours. That is what makes it beautiful.”

“By the Phoenix,” you muttered, reaching up to pull it off.

He didn’t let you. It was unconventional, perhaps – not what you’d intended to make, but beautiful all the same. It was yours, so unique that he could imagine no other existed like it. “If you will not wear it, I will.”

The look of horror that crossed your face was ample motivation for him to sweep it off your horns and drape it over his. You reached for it, even sitting up on your knees to try to grab it out of his hands, but he would not be dissuaded.

“Papa--” you nearly begged.

“It is beautiful, Cassia,” he repeated, making sure it settled nicely on top of his head with the petal-laden side facing the sky. “I will wear it to council in the morning.”

“No!” You’d die of embarrassment. It didn’t even matter that you saw it with different eyes, now that it wasn’t yours – it was not a gift you’d freely given, but all parents saved terrible creations, didn’t they? Though it was strange, and didn’t necessarily sit right, you’d chosen colorful flowers, and your gifts breathed life back into them. Even if some of the flowers didn’t look right the second time around. “If you love me, that thing will never leave this room.”

“You are my heart,” he repeated, taking your face in his hands as though it was necessary to cup your cheeks when he kissed between your horns. “Trust yourself not to falter. You will do what you are meant to.”

Arguing was fruitless. You sighed from the very depths of your chest and practically crawled back into his wings. “I’m sorry about the…” you gestured faintly to the mess you’d made.

“It can be picked up.” His concern did not lie in the easily remedied. “Will you promise me something?”

You quirked your head. Perhaps, depending upon what it was.

“Forgive yourself when you make mistakes. I am not concerned with what you could be, I love you as you are.”

You could stop trying to make things. That would solve the problem. You could stop trying to fix what you had no business touching, but it would still be easier to promise than to do.

“I can try,” you murmured.

“That is all I can ask for.” He gave you yet another gentle squeeze, and you tucked your head into his shoulder. You could smell the different perfumes descending from his hair, and you linked your fingers through one of the shell-plated straps of his not-armor.

“Please do not wear that to council tomorrow. I am actively begging.”

“I will leave it here only if you promise to let it stay.”

“I promise,” you muttered, if only because you were not totally disgusted with it now that it had flowers. Now that it was no longer yours.