Maleficent(18)

            “Why have you come?” Stefan demanded.

            Knotgrass turned to Flittle. “Tell him, Flittle.”

            “Why don’t you tell him?” Flittle asked.

            Stefan grunted impatiently.

            “Ugh! You’re impossible.” Knotgrass threw her hands up. Then, to Stefan, she said, “If Your Grace obliges, we would like to live here. We seek asylum.”

            Stefan blinked in surprise. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting them to ask, but this wasn’t it. “Asylum? Why?”

            “We don’t really love wars,” Thistlewit explained.

            “And you have ceilings!” Flittle gestured up toward the fixtures under discussion.

            “And apparently you play dress-up,” Thistlewit added, nodding at Queen Leila, who smiled back.

            Knotgrass tried to rein in the conversation. “We have a strong feeling that darkness descends on the Moors.”

            Stefan took in this information, knowing full well what had caused this change in the place he had once loved to visit. The choking guilt began to flare up again. Once more, he pushed it down, convincing himself that he’d been in the right to take the actions he had. This was the life he was meant to lead, one that he had worked hard to make for himself. Anyone who stood in his way was nothing more than an obstacle to be overcome.

            “And it’s very wet and moldy there,” Thistlewit added.

            “Dank, actually,” Flittle said, correcting her. “And smelly. Not here. Here it’s fresh as a baby’s bottom.” She breathed in deeply to make her point.

            “The baby’s bottom that we wish for you and the queen. We wish that a baby will soon grace your family,” Knotgrass said.

            In rapid succession the other two pixies added to this new thread of the conversation.

            “But not just any old wish. We have magic!”

            “And are very good with children!”

            Leila smiled broadly and looked at Stefan. His gaze softened. He knew that their presence would make her happy.

            With a wave of his hand, he dismissed them. “Fine. You may stay.”

            The pixies curtsied and flew off, cheering loudly.

            “No more bog!” Thistlewit cried.

            “I get first choice of lodging!” Knotgrass said.

            “What’s that smell?” Flittle added, sniffing the air, which, to her, no longer had the appealing scent of a baby’s bottom.

            Outside, the patient raven cawed and took flight, ready to return to his mistress.





                              WITH DIAVAL TO BE HER EYES AND EARS, MALEFICENT WAS NO LONGER IN THE DARK. A wave of her hand and he could be changed back into a raven, allowing him to fly over the country side with ease and gather news of the kingdom.

            Returning home from his first flight to the castle, Diaval flapped down into the ruins. As soon as Maleficent turned him back into a human, he began to tell her the news he’d learned.

            “Mistress, Henry’s dead. Apparently, he decreed Stefan would succeed him,” Diaval reported to Maleficent.

            A look of pain flashed across her face. As the information sank in, Maleficent clenched her fist, her long nails digging into her palm. The truth of Stefan’s betrayal was now crystal clear.