Just saw Maleficent yesterday, and afterwards this idea was bouncing around in my head: what if, for whatever reason, Maleficent's kiss didn't work? Thus this was born, the bastard lovechild of a plot bunny and no sleep. Viola!

Aurora stirred.

Maleficent turned back to the bedside, a look of such hope on her harsh face that Diaval's heart ached to see it, even standing as he was far out of the way.

But as the faery hovered over her, whispering her name in ever-louder desperation, the princess stilled, returning to her sleep like death.

"No, no..."

He'd never seen her so vulnerable. Then again, he'd never seen her cry before today, as well.

"NO!" Maleficent collapsed, fisting her hands in the sheets by Aurora's side and burying her face in her hair. Sobs, great heaving things that left both his Mistress and him breathless — he with phantom stabbings at his chest, a residual effect of the magic that bound him to her — and Diaval stumbled forward, gazing on his young charge whose life he had guarded as jealously as Maleficent's.

At the raven-man's approach, Maleficent seemed to pull herself together. Gradually her sobs ceased, and her shoulders stilled, and her fingers — long, clever fingers — uncurled from their death-grip. She stood, unsteady, and wiped her face with her sleeve. The green smoke curled around her fingers, and in an instant she was no longer a disheveled mess, the evidence of her grief gone as if it had never been. In her eyes was a resolve, instead, and Diaval knew there was no turning back from this moment.

"Diaval." Her voice cracked on the second syllable, and she swallowed hard.

"Mistress?" he ventured, still afraid to touch her after all these years. She did not like men touching her, he had found, ever since he had known her. He wanted to reach out, lay a hand on her arm at least. But he did not.

She continued as if he had not spoken. "Diaval. I would ask one last thing of you."

He opened his mouth, about to say anything; that one word had always been his line, and though he regretted it after the dog incident, he felt it stronger than he had ever before. He would do anything. Even become a dog again.

But she held up a hand, took a breath. She did not ask a transformation of him. What she ordered, instead, was much worse.

"Leave me. I will give myself up, and you will be free."

The sound that came out of his mouth sounded so much like a squawk to his own ears that for a moment he wondered if he had turned back into a raven without noticing. When his clumsy human mouth worked again, though, he sputtered, "What? No! No Mistress, you can't — they'll kill you!"

"I am well aware of that," she said coldly. He would have thought her back to her old self if she hadn't just proposed suicide. "Diaval, I have to. I have done the unforgivable, and I must be given justice."

"Please. Don't do this." He dropped to his knees in front of her, hands fluttering between them. He nearly grabbed her robe before he stopped himself. Tears finally, finally, welled from his eyes.

"Diaval!" his Mistress snapped.

His hands dropped, along with his head, and he said quietly, "Then at least allow me to come with you."

"I—" she floundered for a moment, he could tell though his head was still bowed. The silence stretched between them. Finally, she spoke.

"You stupid, stupid bird..." But her voice was laced with tears and relief.

He stood, offered his arm without thinking. Before he could mutter an apology and flinch back, though, her hand curled around his bicep, and they walked, arm-in-arm, to the throne room.

He didn't have time for second thoughts, but he did know that, even if she turned him back into a raven, he would be hunted the rest of his days. More importantly to him, he would regret the might-have-beens. There were plenty — what if that bumbling Prince had been Aurora's true love? What if Maleficent's curse had been broken, years ago? What if Stefan had never stolen her wings?

What if the raven had never met the faery?

Ravens mated for life. He didn't know if this was quite that, but he would follow her to the ends of this Earth and the next if he could.

The castle was deserted, but Diaval felt he was being watched all the same. When they arrived in the throne room, the heavy door creaking open for them, the moon was high and shining through the windows. The stained glass made patterns of red and white on the floor where they tread. A good night, Diaval thought. A good night for what, he refused to think about.

"Stefan!" Maleficent called. Her voice echoed in the halls, sounded stronger than it should. He was afraid. Surely she was too. But he would stand by her.

"Stefan! I, Maleficent of the Moors, do give myself up unto your justice."

Somewhere, a door creaked.

And then, and then the guard was all around them, iron shields forming a wall that hemmed the two in close enough that they could see the whites of the mens' eyes through their helmets despite the dim atmosphere. Maleficent dropped his arm then, holding her staff close. The guards were utterly silent, and no sound could be heard but echoed breathing.

There they stood, back to back, until a movement in the corner of Diaval's eye made him look over. Stefan eased himself through a gap the guard made for him, then the shields closed again. He was wielding a sword and buckler of iron, eyes gleaming with madness.

"Elf-witch, you die today," the king growled. "And your little pet too."

Maleficent held her staff out, magic swirling around the wood, and it transformed back into a stick. She dropped it and it splintered beneath her boot.

"Last chance, Diaval," she said lowly, hand up and ready to cast the spell that would free him.

He thought for a moment while Stefan grinned manically at him, thinking on their time together. The mud fight, the spying on Aurora, the nights he watched over her in bird-form as she slept... The day she had saved him from being beaten to death. "I'm staying," he said. That was all he needed to say.

Ravens mated for life.

Close enough.

Review, please? :3