Maleficent: Diaval's Story

What Fools these Pixies Be or The Milk of Faery Kindness - Chapter 13

Sorry to take so long folks.  Here is a long awaited chapter.    Please comment when you're finished.

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Maleficent laughed.

 "Idiots!  Snot-grass, Thistle-twit, Flibbertigibbet--raising a baby!  What a disaster! I must see this for myself.  Come."

Carrying a small bag and with a wave of her hand and the words, "Into a horse," she changed me, mounted my back and we galloped off to the cottage.  Within a short time we approached the pixies' new home.  My mistress dismounted and changed me to a man.  She chuckled.

"Yes, 'tis a far cry from the manor.  Diaval, why is this cottage so close to our borders?  I thought Stefan wanted to hide the child."

"Mistress, the pixies cannot follow a map.  Mayhap, they have come to the wrong cottage."

"Ah ha, that's a thought." She looked at the cottage with a critical eye.  "'Tis a ramshackle affair.  Only think, we may know where she is, but Stefan knows not.  How droll."

Then we heard the child crying.  My mistress followed her cries to an open window.  Maleficent poked her head in. There was Aurora in her basket on the broad casement sill just inside.    

"Hmm, it's so ugly you could almost feel sorry for it."

It was strange to hear her speak thus.  One would think the babe was not hers.  She hissed at Aurora, her eyes turned to flame; the little one looked up in shock.  But as Maleficent's eyes faded, the child recovered and smiled back at my mistress.  So Flittle's charm had worked:  Aurora would never be blue.

"I hate you.  Beastie," the dark faery said, but her heart was not in it.

We heard a clatter of pottery and dishes that fell in another part of the cottage, that and a muttered faery curse.  Maleficent quickly withdrew from the window.  We retreated to the surrounding forest.  It was midday and I was getting hungry. 

"Mistress, shall I gather berries and nuts for our meal?"

"Nay good servant, I have brought dinner with us."

To my amazement, she held the small bag she had carried with her and drew from it a blanket which she set upon the ground.  There followed in quick succession, two loaves of bread, wedges of cheese, meat wrapped in cloth and a small keg of ale with two mugs.

"I came prepared.  Shall we dine?"

 "Mistress, what other wonders do you have in that bag?"

"Nothing else, Diaval.  I packed before we left.  I cannot create food and drink from air."

"Yet our dinner is so large and the bag is so small."

"It is a device made by goblins.  It will carry whatever you can lift with your hands and render its weight nil."

"Ah mistress, goblins and faeries, you are all such magical folk.  I wish I were a faery."

"Indeed Diaval, and I wish I could fly.  Now no more talk.  Let us eat."

As we sat, I listened with dismay to the cries of Aurora and felt a twinge of guilt as we ate and drank.  We finished our meal.  I was licking the crumbs and meat juices from my fingers, as Maleficent stuffed the blanket back into the goblin bag, when the front door of the cottage opened.  Knotgrass came out carrying Aurora in her basket and set her upon the stump.  Flittle and Thistlewit followed burdened with baskets of vegetables and gardening tools.  Knotgrass withdrew a book from the child's basket and opened it.  She began to read aloud.