#malora week

“This will have to be my last trip, won’t it?” Aurora whispered when Maleficent joined her in the hammock. She shivered, accepting the bowl of nearly-human soup the faerie had cautiously flown up to her. “The sickness is getting worse.”

Tucking the furs more closely up to Aurora’s chin, Maleficent nodded. “As much as you know I enjoy taking care of you, iron poisoning is nothing to take chances with.”

“I suppose I never thought it would come this far,” she murmured. “I thought I might have the best of my faerie and human lives for all of my days.”

Maleficent settled at the far end of the woven sling, lifting Aurora’s feet into her lap. She offered a gentle massage even as she nursed her magic into Aurora’s blood, healing and tending all in one. “You have not aged a day in years. I haven’t been able to reclaim your wings for months. You are faerie, Aurora, and you must accept the consequences as well.”

Her trips to the human throne grew shorter and shorter each year, yet her recovery in the Moors had been taking more and more time. No longer did Aurora return heartsick and power-weary, but physically ill instead. When Maleficent had finally realized that Aurora had become allergic to iron, the queen had been able to promote its limited use in the city with monetary compensation, but for many, iron tools were a staple of survival, and she could not ban them forever without destroying the trust she had so painstakingly built between man and fae.

The Moors churned in her blood every day she was beyond their borders, calling to her, sapping her strength. “I have to step down,” she whispered. “Too much of me is faerie.”

“How’s Ma doing?”

In a flutter of feathers, Ava came to perch beside Maleficent on the widest branch of their great tree. Maleficent had crafted the wings for her on her eighteenth birthday and no amount of political persuasion had been able to talk her into giving them up again, so Aurora had a series of tumultuous months as her human subjects adjusted to a crown princess who could fly. Now, many years later, a winged queen was hardly the strangest thing the Moor’s Edge humans had seen.

“Better,” Maleficent replied, continuing to chase the sickness from Aurora’s blood with her power. 

Aurora was thrilled to see Ava again. Instead of accompanying her to their kingdom in the past months, an insatiable wanderlust seemed to have taken hold of her daughter’s wings. “You’re home!” Aurora murmured, grasping and squeezing her hand as Ava slid closer along the branch. “How far did you go this time?”

Ava’s eyes lost focus, drifting back to distant lands in her mind. In that moment, despite their daughter’s golden hair and human physique, Aurora saw nothing but Maleficent in her. There was a fire that burned in her daughter’s soul, a piece of her that thirsted for new knowledge and power, and in moments of memory, it glowed in her eyes just like her mother’s magic.  “Farther than ever before,” she began. “I discovered an entire desert kingdom across the wastes… they live in constantly moving settlements of cloth houses that can uproot themselves and move in a single night, and they worship the sand fae as gods. Across the desert lies a kingdom of marble… a city far larger than any I have ever seen before carved entirely from the stone heart of a mountain, yet there are no men there. The streets have been reclaimed by the forest. A marble city of foxes and rabbits and deer, can you imagine?”

Ava’s ability to craft worlds with her voice was of arguable inheritance. Aurora swore it was Maleficent’s rare and silvered tongue which had gifted their daughter her way with words, but Maleficent insisted Aurora’s bedtime stories – especially about how the two had met – were the root of her wordsmithery.

“Then… nothing but ocean. I tried to fly across it on three separate days, but there is nowhere to land. No ships have sailed across it. I cannot believe it is the end of the world, but I am content that it is far enough.”

“Far enough?” Aurora asked.

“I’ve seen enough of the world to know I’m ready.”

“Ready?” Maleficent echoed, but there was a knowing current running beneath the question.

“To rule one small piece of it.”

Aurora let out a squeak of happy shock, sitting up despite her exhaustion and pulling her now-grown child into her arms. Ava had always known there was a throne should she wish to claim it, but she had never expressed any real desire to do so. She had learned all her mother knew of ruling from her time at her side, then she had begun to disappear into the world, seeking lands far beyond the reaches of their trading networks and maps. “Why now?” Aurora asked, pulling away.

“I had to know… I had to see how others rule. I believed you were a good queen, but you are also my mother. I had to be sure that I wasn’t wrong. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen… different. I have seen kingdoms who have no connection to magic, no knowledge of any mind greater than or equal to that of man. There are streets where men preach the philosophy of power to a crowd of starving peasants as though they had any say in granting their lord his authority. I have never seen an easy peace, but I have seen peace, and I know you have created it here. This… this is good. You’ve done well, Ma. I’m ready to try for better.”

“I’m amazed she hasn’t decided she’s too old for the swing,” Aurora mused, watching Ava kick her feet in the air as the woven vines dangled her over the edge of the cliff for one chilling heartbeat before tugging her back safely towards the earth.

“She might keep at it for years to come if she knows it will always terrify you.”

The first time Ava had braved the jump from the highest point of the swing’s arc, diving into the lagoon below with a cry of exhilarated fright, it had taken all of Aurora’s self-restraint not to wake the vines on the side of the drop to catch her mid-fall. Now, at sixteen, Ava was as in touch with the Moors as either of her mothers, so Aurora trusted her to flirt with adrenaline and still skirt disaster.

“I’m trying to imagine you at that age,” the queen mused, staring up into the ageless face of her faerie partner.

Maleficent’s gaze grew distant in a heartbeat, falling backwards through time and memory. “Oh… that was a different era indeed.”

“Tell me?” Aurora asked, leaning over to rest her head in the faerie’s lap. Even after all these years, she never tired of those fine-boned fingers playing through her hair as that low, level voice whispered tales of their kingdoms in her ear.

“I was a wild thing at her age,” Maleficent mused. “The closest I had been to humanity was a sunken ship in the southern sea, and I had never seen the Moors cloaked in darkness. I was just coming to realize the extent of my power, the unusual connection I had with these lands…” For a moment, Maleficent’s voice lost its weight, but she quickly resumed with equal furor. “Yes, I couldn’t have been older than Ava when I pledged my service to the Moors.”

“Pledged?” Aurora mused. “You’ve always spoken of your connection as… a duty, I suppose, but pledged? To whom?”

Maleficent stared off into the distance. “To her,” she whispered.

Aurora straightened, leaning closer. “Her?”

“She is the Moors.” Maleficent spoke as though those four words could answer Aurora’s question.

“The Moors… are a person?”

“Hardly,” Maleficent muttered. “The Moors are… infinitely more than either you or I can comprehend, but… I have spoken to her. Twice. The first when I was still a girl, the second… not long after you were born. She granted me leave to raise my wall of thorns. I have not seen her since.” 

“What was she like?” Aurora murmured, surprised at this kingdom’s continued ability to inspire awe in her, no matter how many years she had ruled it. In moments like this, Aurora realized just how little power she truly had over this realm. She had never needed it. “Have others met her? Did you seek her out?”

Maleficent chuckled, Aurora’s incessant questioning finally drawing her back into the present. “Still ever a curious Beastie. One question at a time. No, I did not seek her. She came to me, as she has to each protector she has chosen. When the very earth that sustains you asks for your service, your strength, your wings… you do not turn her down.”

“You said you were only Ava’s age, though: still just a child!”

“Indeed. But in wartime, faerie lives are not so long as they might otherwise be, and that of the protector tends to be shorter still. Once my predecessor had passed away, a new bond had to be forged. She is a being far older than any fae, older than time, some say. She does not wait on mortal years. Besides, I was ready.”

Aurora did not interrupt again.

“It was a day no different than this… clear skies, midsummer heat… I will never forget that morning. I had flown to the border in the hopes that I might see your fa—well… She came instead. You asked what she was like…” Maleficent shivered. “She was a figure of light. Her skirts were the roots of some great golden tree, growing into the form of a woman who put the design of humanity to shame. Her eyes were so full of power that I could see no color in them, yet I knew they saw me far more than I would ever see myself. A forest grew from her head, pale, shimmering branches clawing their way towards the heavens… disappearing into the sunlight above her. She drew me towards her without words, without motion, yet the forest around her seemed to pull away, leaving her an unobstructed path between land and sky. Even rooted in the earth, her very being was sculpted of sunlight, and even as the sight of her burned my eyes, I could not turn away.

“When she spoke, her voice was fire, and the trees were bathed in it, sprouting violet spritestools even as the bark of their trunks were stained with a darkness I had never before seen. The closer I drew, the more certain I became that I was walking towards the end of my life, but when she spoke my name, I no longer felt fear. I knelt before her, breathing flame into my lungs with every draw of air, and drawing her unspoken words into my very being as they echoed in my mind. Yes, I would serve her. Yes, I would heal the forest. Yes, I would stand against the tide of man, I would brave the touch of iron, I would give every bit of strength and power in her name. I would serve the Moors.

“She moved only once, one limb of light tilting up my head, lifting my gaze to hers, and even as I was blinded by her eyes and the power flooding into me from her touch, I swear, the faint shadow of her previously motionless lips mouthed, ‘I am sorry.’

“I did not understand it then. Since, there have been times I did not believe I would survive the weight of carrying a piece of her being inside of me, times when I did not think I would ever forgive her for the darkness that my life became, but… I have. I forgave her the day I brought down the wall, and I do not think I will see her again until the day I die.”

Aurora did not speak until well after the image painted by Maleficent’s words had faded from behind her eyes. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I forget sometimes that there are pieces of your past in which I played no part. Taking on so much so young—”

“—I think you forget your own childhood, Beastie. At the age when I began protecting your future kingdom, you were cursed, woken, and saved my life. Childhood… is a state of joy, not of innocence. I served the Moors for many years whilst still a child. You have worn childhood in this realm and shook it off to rule the human kingdom many times over. Compared to the Moors, we will always be but fragile pieces of youth.”

Watching Ava clamber up the face of the cliff, amber sparks dancing about her fingertips to draw helping handholds of vine towards her questing grasp, Aurora was struck by Maleficent’s words. Fragile pieces of youth. She shivered, the sun no longer quite so warm. It had been many years since she had dwelled on the darker side of these woods and rivers, but it would not do to forget the temper of the Moors. In times of war, these trees had feasted upon the blood of humanity. The sea had eaten iron armor and the men who donned it with equal ease. Part of her had always known the Moors were alive, but to imagine a will behind them, a purpose… It had been quite some time since she had felt so small. Ava seemed smaller still, clinging to rocks that could dump her into the sea just as easily as they could continue to bear her weight.

“Do you think I will ever meet her?” Aurora whispered, tucking herself more closely against Maleficent’s side. “You have said many times that I belong to the Moors. Does that mean…?”

“Do the fae believe in… second lives? In reincarnation?”

“No.”

Aurora sighed in mild disappointment, watching their daughter scurrying around in the rain-dampened soil beneath the great oak, collecting worms and pill bugs unearthed by the last storm.

“Why?” Maleficent asked, offering Aurora a curious look.

“I just… she reminds me of Diaval sometimes. I know he must have died right around her birth and… Just a silly thought.”

Maleficent smiled. “A nice one all the same. Then again, I couldn’t say what ravens do or don’t believe in. Diaval was never a faerie.”

Aurora’s answering smile was steeped in nostalgia. “True. After so many times seeing him as a man, I’d forgotten he wasn’t always a creature of magic. I don’t see why not, then. Maybe ravens—Ava!”

At her mother’s sharp warning, Princess Ava reluctantly dropped the pixie she had caught napping in the leaves. The poor little faerie was clearly less than pleased at the toddler’s rough handling, darting off in a puff of glittering magic, leaving the girl laughing in delight as she tried to catch the sparks left behind. Aurora smiled, amused at the thought of just how the girl’s human caretakers would react to seeing their precious princess clambering around in the wild. Aurora could never understand the aversion of man to the natural world; she had been raised in the borderlands of the Moors, raised as a faerie child might have been, and she could not picture a childhood that didn’t center around jumping in piles of leaves, building little bug forts from pebbles and stones, and being far muddier than the royal human court would ever allow.

Maleficent had watched the moment in detached amusement. “The idea is growing on me,” she mused.

“Hmm?” Aurora asked, the train of conversation lost in the back of her mind.

“Reincarnation. We did name her ‘bird’ in the old tongue, after all.”  

Aurora chuckled. “That we did.” When Ava clambered over to them, curling up for a nap against Aurora’s side and in the shadow of Maleficent’s wing, her thoughts returned to their earlier words. “What do faeries believe in, then, if not reincarnation? I know you have never taken part in the religions of men.”

“We don’t need to,” Maleficent began, pitching her voice low so as not to wake their sleeping child. “We’re immortal, or close to. We don’t age, we don’t fade… We have little to fear from the passage of time, so that is not how we measure death. If we are killed, we return to the land. We become part of this… part of the magic.”

As she spoke, sparks began dancing about her fingertips, coaxing fresh grass to spring up where Ava’s muddy play had crushed the fragile blades. Aurora watched the light do its work, nurturing back to full strength the havoc her daughter’s play had wrought. She could feel it now – stronger every day – the pull of the Moors. Maleficent’s magic was changing her, drawing the faerie realms into her blood until the wild echoed in her veins like a second heartbeat. It was a seductive thought, the idea of never leaving the Moors. Feeling the arches of amber power along her spine tingle with the presence of her lover’s magic, Aurora decided joining the power was a lovely notion indeed.

“Might I be part of it someday,” she mused aloud, not so much a question as words with which to weigh her future. “Even if I’m not truly fae?”

“Oh yes, Beastie. You already are.”  

Maleficent’s fingers carefully slid beneath the protective paneling on the back of Aurora’s dress to hover over the power lines there, gently tugging at Aurora’s awareness even without direct contact. When one dangerously questing fingertip dared to stroke the skin far too close to fire, Aurora shook her head, chuckling.

“You know Thistlewit isn’t free to watch Ava until tomorrow morning,” she murmured. “Don’t tempt me now.”

Reluctantly, Maleficent withdrew, taking hold of her hand instead and feeding her stray power directly though her palm in a delicious trickle of sunlight.

“I don’t like this,” Maleficent muttered, pacing back and forth across the clearing. The previous occupants has long since fled, the poor flower fae having no interest in the dark shadows following their protector across the Moors.

Aurora was only a few paces away, having taken an exasperated seat on a log when it became clear Maleficent’s ire was not quick to wane.  “You don’t have to like it. I need to go back.”

“Not now!” Maleficent snapped. “Not like this!”

Aurora couldn’t keep from smiling. It was in no way helping the dark faerie’s temper. “You must admit it is a bit ironic that it has taken nearly two decades for you to finally not be the one telling me I can’t linger here.”

“This is different!” she insisted, wings flexing in exasperation. “It isn’t safe.”

Aurora shook her head. “It never has been.”

“Yes, well…” Maleficent’s words disintegrated into a snarl, and Aurora could see the grass at her feet curling away from her volatile mood. 

“Hush,” she finally murmured, rising slowly and taking hold of her lover’s hands to stop her restless feet. “You’re upsetting the whole forest.”

A long, heavy breath hissed from Maleficent’s lungs, taking the worst of the tension with it. When she finally met Aurora’s eyes, the queen could see that what remained was fear.

“I’m going to be fine, love. The news has been received very well. There hasn’t been any real animosity towards the Moors in five years now. They want to see that I am safe as much as you do.”

“No one wants ­to see you safe as I do.”

Aurora chuckled. “Very well. Almost as much as you.”

Maleficent offered a weak smile. “Better.”

Aurora could see the fight had gone out of her, even if the fear lingered. “I can’t believe this actually worked, even now,” she murmured, drawing Maleficent’s hands to her swollen stomach.

“Nor can I,” the dark faerie whispered, gently turning Aurora in her arms so she could embrace her from behind. Two pairs of hands rested against the bump in Aurora’s robes.

“Do the trick,” Aurora whispered, stroking the backs of Maleficent’s fingers with her own.

Aurora could practically feel the smile taking over Maleficent’s face. “Alright.”

Lifting her hands just above the surface of Aurora’s shirt, Maleficent allowed golden sparks of light to dance between her fingers, not allowing them to sink into Aurora’s skin, but only to play in the air in a miniature landscape of amber stars. As the sensation of magic softly tickled Aurora’s stomach, the life inside of her woke, turning restlessly and beginning to kick. Maleficent allowed the magic to die as she pressed her palms once more against Aurora’s stomach, feeling the tiny movements of their child as she greeted Maleficent’s presence with unknowing joy. Aurora laughed, turning in Maleficent’s embrace to gently kiss the other mother of their daughter. “Only two more months,” she murmured.

A hint of fear immediately returned in Maleficent’s eyes. “I want you here.”

Aurora offered her an understanding smile, reaching up to run her fingers through the hair to either side of her lover’s horns. “I know.”

They had exchanged these words over the past months more times than Aurora could count, and the end result was inevitable. She had to return to the human kingdom, not just for the benefit of her subjects there, but for the child itself. If she allowed the child to be born in the Moors, to come into being surrounded by the lifeblood of the faerie kingdom, her daughter would not be able to choose her own future. Some part of Aurora wanted that, wanted to give her child all the pure, innocent joy of a faerie life, but part of her valued her freedom to come and go as she chose. If this new life formed the fae bond to the land, depended on the Moors for her life, she would never have the chance to rise to Aurora’s throne. She would burn at the touch of iron. She would not be able to craft her own future. As strongly as Aurora felt about not grooming her child to rule, neither she nor Maleficent believed it fair to deny her that right of birth, should she so choose it.

And here they stood, Aurora’s wings hidden once more, at the edge of the Moors. These were not truly words of persuasion. They were fears of goodbye.

“I could still come with you,” Maleficent implored.

“No,” Aurora denied her once again. “Soon; not yet.”

They had already agreed: Maleficent would come for the final weeks, stay for the birth of her child, but not until then. It would not do for her to weaken for months in the realms of iron, nor could the Moors flourish without the protector in their midst.  

“I know,” Maleficent rasped, beginning to tremble as she pulled Aurora close once again, clinging to her. “I know.”

“The carriage is waiting,” Aurora murmured, but she could not bring herself to move away.

“I know.”

The stood together for a long moment, breathing in the life of the forest all around them, new life between them still kicking gently, pulling their attention towards the future. Finally, Maleficent let her go. “Be safe.”

Aurora nodded, gently grasping Maleficent’s forearm. “Be kind to the Moors.”

Staring around the darkened clearing, Maleficent nodded resolutely, trying to summon a smile. She knew the affects her weightier moods could have on the lands under her guard. Aurora leaned in and pressed a long, slow kiss to the faerie’s lips, allowing the magic she was gradually learning to control to slip between them, painting those normally crimson lips a glowing rose-gold. As Maleficent responded, the skies above them began to clear, hidden flowers daring to turn their petals towards the sun again.

“When you are worried, remember that I will be waiting for you in two months, and I expect you to bring me only words of how beautiful the Moors are in midsummer.”