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The great tree in the aerie still flourished. Deep hollows gaped in the thick trunk, and there were ticks and lichen clinging to the rugged bark, but its roots were strong and its leaves green and plentiful. From the roots digging deep into the crags to the crown filled with pale flowers, it was as overwhelming and imposing as she remembered it.
Maleficent landed gently on the perch carved into the mountain side. The braided nest in its crown was still there, though tattered and not at all suited for living in. She could still see the remnants of the magic that had sheltered their home from weather and winds, but even that had withered with age. In order to be able to live here once again, someone would have to make a great effort. To awaken all the trees in the aerie, to make this a home once again – it would take more than a lifetime.
A sparkle among the twisted roots caught her attention. She picked it up, finding the item to be a small pierced crystal, much like those her mother used to wear embroidered onto her clothes. For a moment she thought that she could hear her mothers voice, “One day, little love, you’ll decide what patterns to weave and what thread to spin. And you will be the one to search the pools for the glimmers you like.”
The sound of wings startled her out of her thoughts. A moment later, a solid weight landed on her shoulder. Her hand went to stroke Diaval’s back, while she clenched the other around the crystal and tucked it into her dress. He cawed at her, plucking at her hair.
“I suppose you bring me news – though how you will tell me what they are while still winged is beyond me—shoo!”
Diaval snapped at her, pulling a single strand of hair from her head, but obligingly dropped to the ground in his two-legged form. “Aurora has come, mistress.”
Maleficent stared up at the remnants of her childhood home. “Has she now? Then I suppose we should go to greet her.”
They found their visitor in the most distant valley in the Moor. Her little beastie, having long since left the nest and now being a fully grown woman in her own right, was flinging mud at her fae subjects among much laughter and foolery. It had always been in these situations that she had seemed to be at her happiest – mud up to her ears and flowers tangled in her hair. Aurora’s youngest was giggling under the care of the three pixies and an elderly thorn knight, the father no doubt tasked with caring for the human half of their kingdom for the day.
Maleficent set down on a big flat rock above the pools, taking a moment to fold her wings properly—when had her beastie become this woman that looked as regal in mud as human finery? When she finally descended to the pools, Aurora had come to greet her.
“Hello, fairy godmother.”
Maleficent gave her former charge a once-over. Aurora was…hovering, for lack of other words. “Yes, that I am indeed.”
Aurora looked like she wanted to say something exasperated – she had never been one for formalities, and certainly not with her…fairy godmother.
“What brings you here, Aurora?” Maleficent bent to give a fresh boost of energy to a straggling sapling, escaping the look in Aurora’s eyes. “I believe you shared with Diaval that today in particular you would have a certain amount of duties to attend to.”
Aurora was still watching Maleficent as she straightened. “I do. I came to see you, fairy godm—Maleficent.”
“On much important business I assume.”
It was tempting to walk away—or take to the air. Something, however, in the way Aurora watched her every movement, said that not even that would let her escape the uncomfortable look in Aurora’s eyes.
Aurora turned abruptly, walking off to pick up her young son. “I wished to ask you to look after Percival. It has been much too long since he had someone to spoil him—the difficulties around Esther’s birth…”
Diaval appeared—from where, Maleficent found she didn’t know—and took the child before Maleficent could deny her. “Much obliged! It’s been long since we’ve cared for one of your fledglings.”
Aurora laughed. “Douwe still speaks of you – flying with you is her fondest memory.”
Diaval tickled Percival, making the boy laugh. “Don’t you worry about this tyke; we will take care of him.”
“Then I will come to fetch him at nightfall—or after. I’m afraid the petitions are unusually many this year.”
Maleficent carried Aurora to the border, where her horse and entourage waited.
“Beastie,” she said as parting words, “you are too cunning for your own good.”
Aurora smiled and tiptoed to kiss her cheek. “And who taught me the art of it? Dear fairy godmother, you have brought this upon yourself.”
That was, undeniably, true.
The small toddler smiled toothlessly up at Maleficent, gurgling and vocalizing odd sounds that meant little to her ears. His mother would, no doubt, have been able to understand but it told her nothing. She graciously held out a finger as he waved a hand towards her and he grabbed it eagerly, leaning forwards to chew on it.
“The beastie of a beastie. What an odd world we live in.”
A branch above her shook and sent scattered leaves raining down on them as crow turned into man. “A natural consequence of mating, mistress. As you…”
“Quiet.”
Diaval muttered something under his breath that Maleficent didn’t catch, and then dropped to his knees to coo at Percival and ruffle his tuft of hair. The stab of yearning in her chest startled her and feeling Diaval’s attention turn to her, Maleficent busied herself with untangling the mess made out of her hair from Percival's tugging and chewing on all he could reach.
When she could no longer avoid their young charge, she picked him up and settled him on her hip. He snuggled against her, drooling on her bodice as he looked up at her, fist in his mouth. She stared down at him for a moment, and then said, “I believe it’s time to put this small beastie to sleep.”
“Then you should tell him a bed time story,” Diaval said, unperturbed by her mood. He climbed to his feet and came to kiss Percival’s cheek, standing close enough to her that she could smell the magic of his gift of transformation. A gift she sometimes was not sure was a good thing—but most definitely was the right thing to do.
“Should I?” Maleficent said, half to distract herself. Percival cooed—and she relented. “Oh, perhaps I will. You are the child of my beastie after all.”
There was a small moss-covered seat beneath the tree she had called her home for so long, and she settled there with the child in her lap and Diaval perched above, his thigh and calf pressed comfortably against her and his fingers straightening her hair.
“I believe I will tell you the story of the great fairies, little love—a tale I tell very few, so I trust you to pay attention—and how I came to be the last great fairy alive.”
Maleficent looked up toward the abandoned aerie, for a moment remembering times when black wings had been shadowed against the setting sun. Then she began.
The great fairies once lived among the cliffs above their moors. Born among the gnarly trees and moss-covered crags of the mountains, that’s where they built their aeries and kept watch over the lands they called theirs. They flew above the moors on powerful wings and protected the borders with their magic.
The spirits, pixies and fae all loved them and were loved in return. The great fairies had a special love for all young—no matter their species. For that was the great sadness of their kind: they rarely carried their offspring to term and few fledglings survived the descent from the crags to the pools in the valleys below.
And so their numbers dwindled until there was only three left—a woman, a man and their child. When the wings of their daughter grew strong enough to leave the aerie, they carried her to the edge and told her to fly. She cast herself over the edge but her wings did not carry her. And her parents loved her so that they cast aside the custom of their people and carried her to the ground.
The child lived, but the magic that had given her parents life was revoked, and so she became the last great fairy through the sacrifice her parents made in the name of love.
The fingers that had braided and straightened her hair slipped away, falling to her shoulder and then to the base of her wings. Few dared touch them – fewer still would she let do so.
“Your wings are strong. Stronger than any other I know of—except my own, of course.”
And Diaval was not a fairy, he was something…new. Something unknown. He took Percival from her arms and settled him into a cradle of moss. Then he offered her his hand. She took it, more for its warmth and love than its help.
He walked them to her dive cliff and held her as the winds beat against them and ruffled feathers and hair. “Our fledgling will fly,” Diaval said. “And should its wings be weak, I will turn into a dragon and carry it.”
Aurora had been the start of something new—the promise of new life she carried within would be another. The great fairies were gone, but with her actions—though born out of anger and spite and pain—she had created a new era. And she had gained a daughter—for all that they never put it in words.
Maleficent summoned the pixies—and the more sensible thorn knight. “Come, Diaval. Let’s put the time the beastie sleeps to use—I wish to see if the aerie might yet be salvaged.”
“It looked sturdy enough to me,” Diaval opined. “Not as beautiful as a work by yours truly but suitable enough—with a few adjustments.”
Yes, she thought. I’m last, but I’m not alone. Never alone.