Still hesitant from the last confrontation that Aurora stormed away from, Maleficent remained quiet for quite a while. The pounding hoofbeats filled the silence that Idoya seemed just as unwilling to break, either from the correct assumption that Maleficent didn't want to speak, or because of her own reasons. Regardless, the ride was thick with tension. The wind snapped through Maleficent's wings, drawing a chill around her that only furthered her foul mood. Her horse read the distress of his mistress for his usual smooth gait was distressed, rocking from side to side as he fed off of Maleficent's own temper; already hot-headed, he began to rebel and fuss, which fed back into Maleficent's foul mood. It was Idoya who called the first leg of their journey to a standstill, suggesting that they allow the eager stallion time to calm down.

Maleficent knew that Idoya meant her, but the Iberian woman never once glanced crossly her way as she brushed away sweat from Enbar's coat. The proud faery horse had demanded that he be allowed to accompany the women despite his wounds and need for rest. He felt guilty for allowing the attack to happen, and quite honestly, he was their only lead to where the attack took place. Though Idoya seemed focused on scrubbing away what little grime accumulated on the proud stallion, Maleficent could sense the bubbled need to speak. She waited out the Iberian, fingers tapping along her staff until Idoya sent her another sideways glance.

"She won't be mad at you for too long," Idoya paused in her movements just long enough to make sure Maleficent heard her. It was another long stretch before Maleficent allowed her the knowledge that she had indeed heard her.

"It is arrogant to assume what she will feel," Maleficent countered. Away from Aurora, her voice gained a measure of superiority and steel, a defense mechanism that brought her to lofty, haughty heights - untouchable by human cruelty or ignorance.

"Could be, but I've raised enough daughters and trained enough boys to know how the young mind works -"

"Aurora is not my daughter," Maleficent said brusquely. "There is no filial obligation that she needs to fulfil thus your observations do not apply to this situation."

Idoya continued as if Maleficent hadn't interrupted her, " - and I've had enough friends in dangerous situations to know that she'll come to understand why you chose as you did. If the Princess carries anything of her mother in her bones, you'll both reach an accord."

Maleficent scowled at Idoya's profile. Her wings fluttered restlessly against her shoulders - agitation never sat well on her, or within her. It rolled in her stomach like a stone, and made her arms tingle like she stood in the middle of a lightning storm.

Idoya patted Enbar on the shoulder and gestured over to Maleficent's steed. "I think Ruarc's ready to behave now."

The young stallion, grey with a dash of white over his chest and face, whickered in response. He danced, fore hooves pawing the ground as Maleficent approached him, and he took her restlessness and fed it into the ride, Enbar and Idoya a horse-length behind as Ruarc honored his namesake and ran like he raced a storm itself.

It was six or so miles beyond the far fields that surrounded what Maleficent deemed 'Gemma's Village' before she called the next rest. She did not use the horses as an excuse, they were both descended from the original Enbar, a tireless champion who outraced waves and ocean squalls, and would take after their grandsires endurance. Instead, she pointed out the pallor in Idoya's cheeks, a strange blanching that turned the woman's skin tone somewhat grey, and mentioned that she'd watched the woman's head bounce against her chest thrice from exhaustion. She deliberately went for blunt honesty, to regain some of the social face lost in the last conversation, but Idoya merely shrugged.

"You're probably right. I'm not as young as I used to be and I haven't ridden for as long a stretch as this since my last deployment along the southern border marches." Idoya stared forlornly behind them at an inn whose lights still blazed even from the distance they were at. She let out a wry chuckle and guided Enbar off the road and down a dirt-weathered path through the wheat fields. Maleficent followed at a fair distance, wary to Idoya's motives. "Anyone with a field this far out of town is going to have a small shed set up so they don't have to trek all the way home during harvest. Less time travelling, more time bundling the grain to get the first bite at the market vendors."

Sure enough, the small shadow of a rickety building stuck out from the pale silver of wheat like a sore. The door hung off a hinge, and there were several holes from inclement weather, but it would serve as a shelter for Idoya for the night. The woman ducked into the building as soon as she dismounted, and the horses were happy to explore their surroundings and waded through the sea of grain without difficulty. They wouldn't need tending to for quite some time.

Maleficent moved to follow Idoya into the shed, uncomfortable with risking exposure if she remained out for the night. Her foot crossed the threshold when Idoya yelled out for her to stop. She did, and with an arched brow, silently demanded an explanation.

Idoya shoo'd her backwards, three or four feet. "Stay." She paused, reconsidered her words. "Please. Just, stay there a moment."

Maleficent drew herself up to full height. She glowered as Idoya disappeared back into the shed only to deflate with understanding once the woman returned carrying four scythes, two under each arm. Idoya set the tools carefully against the outside wall, underneath an overhang that likely provided shade during the day.

"I didn't know how close you could get before iron affected you; or if you could even enter with them in there. Figured not to risk it, and the night's clear enough that they shouldn't rust from rainfall." Idoya wiped her hands clean along her pants. "Should be clear now. Place is mostly sparse - probably not in use yet, not close enough to harvest to waste leaving anything worth more than old, dull scythes around." She spoke with her hands braced on her hips, peering into the shed's interior. "Right, I'm looking forward to a nap. Are you taking first watch?"

Maleficent could only nod.

Morning arrived as meek as a lamb. The sun crested over the horizon with a dazzling display of color that washed the wheat in shades of gold. The sky was clear, and what dew had condensed in the early hours dried up by the time the sun crept fully into the sky. Idoya woke not long after on her own accord. Her grumbled protest at the lancing light that pierced through the slats alerted Maleficent to her waking. The faery had spent the night just inside the door, one foot resting out in the open, eyes on the fields and the town beyond, then even further to the forest that felt too far away. The horses dozed in the wheat field, having made designs on the grain by their passing through the night.

"Are you hungry?" Idoya asks, drawing Maleficent out of her thoughts.

"No."

"Sure? I think I have a wrapped honeycomb in here."

Maleficent couldn't stop herself before her head turned at the mention of sweets. She glowered. Idoya grinned. The honeycomb was sweet on Maleficent's tongue.

That first full day of riding was still filled by silence, but it no longer felt like tension driven into Maleficent's body like links of iron. Instead it's just there, a third companion on the journey. Maleficent's time is spent on Aurora and forgiveness, and what it meant to question the Coilie who had been there eons before her, and would most likely still be there long after she has gone. Once again, Idoya doesn't break the silence. It sets the theme for their travel as one day turned into two which turned into three. They spend the days bent low over the horses, racing towards a goal that's outstripping their reach every passing hour. They spend the nights split between sentry watching (on Maleficent's part) and restless sleep on Idoya's part.

It's the fourth day, a clear morning about to be lost to the heat of a muggy afternoon underneath an approaching grey sky that Enbar finally arrives at the ambush site where Berend and Diaval were wounded. The cultivated fields and villages of the central plains of the Kingdom gave way to an eastern barrier of woods, though these trees weren't the overgrown wilds of the Moorland outskirts, but rather an orderly garden of birch, pine, ash, and oak. The trees stretched out boughs high above their heads, a maze of leaves that spilled dappled light over them like raindrops that threatened to fall. The path here was neat, a wide expanse of cobbled stone that was well maintained. Grooves were worn into the stone itself from years of wagon travel, and along the edges were established lampposts that supported dark, empty cages that were too heavy to swing in the weak wind that blew through the woods. Riversborough, according to a sign, was a mile up the road.

"Riversborough?"

"They're a Waystation on this side of the King's Forest," Idoya explained. "They mark the northern border of the woods, and Aldon's on the far side - marking the boundary between here and northern Ulstead."

"I though Ulstead was to the south of Aurora's kingdom?"

"Most of it is. A century ago, King Edward pushed north into Aldon and claimed a section of the coastline for Ulstead. It's a small strip of land, only thirty miles separating the river from the eastern coastline, and it's a sore spot of contention for the two Kingdoms - don't let the talks of peace convince you otherwise. If Stephen had not held such a vendetta against you and the Moors, he would have pushed to reclaim these woods."

"What makes them so vital?" Maleficent studied the tamed growth as they passed it by.

"Well, beyond the Royal Castle, Aldon nestles at the mouth of the river, and is the second best port to deep-sea fish for cod and salmon. Riversborough is a trade town, it makes money on the traffic that runs down the King's Road here," Idoya gestures to the wide, smooth road they've been on for the past day. It was cobbled, the stones worn flat from centuries of use. "It's east enough that the snows don't block passage in the winter and the summer storms don't flood it out like the western lowlands tend towards."

Maleficent nodded once, then turned upon her horse to stare around them once again. "Did Berend say why they were travelling east? The Moorlands are west and north. Was Philip already returning to his kingdom?"

"Berend didn't say. Only that we needed to reach Philip as fast as possible before he was returned to his father."

Maleficent watched as orderly pine and oak gave way to rows and rows of apple trees that hung heavy with fruit ready to be picked come the last days of summer. Life stirred in the wood. Here, a deer bounded without care close enough to an orchard worker that the man could reach out a hand to brush the animal's fur. As if Idoya could follow her thoughts, the woman began speak.

"This is the Forest of Kings, the middle land between the river that divides us from Ulstead, and the open plains. It's governed by Lord Cananach, one of the Twelve. His family has long held the rights to the trade that passes through and as it lends profit to both Ulstead and Teorann."

"Teorann?"

"The name of Aurora's soon-to-be kingdom. It means -"

"Border, yes. Are they referring to the Moorland?"

Idoya shrugged. The two walked slowly underneath the opening canopy. The orchards demanded space from the kings of the trees and so the royal crown of leaves disappeared in the face of ordered civilization. "It's where the Romans made their stands against the Picts up north. The Legions could never get beyond the eastern foothills and the Moors were impossible to breach."

"The Tuatha de Danann still roamed the lands then, before the battle with the Milesians." Maleficent remembered that from her history lessons as a child. "Though we could not push the Iron Eagle south beyond Eboracum."

"The fortress the Romans established? Aurora's castle stands on the very hill. Some of those stones were a part of the first wall that divided your people from mine." At the look directed her way, Idoya grinned. In profile, the curve of her lips was sharp, like a hook. "When the girls could not get to sleep some nights, Berend would read to them about the history of the kingdom before he became Guard Captain."

"Did Berend know the type of man Stephen was?"

Idoya turned to face Maleficent fully. "I'm not sure what you're asking."

"Your husband, the oath he gave to his king? Did he know the type of man he was pledging himself to?"

"Stephen was a hero at the time, praised by the soldiers and admired by the common folk to have reached a height that none thought possible to strive towards. It was an honor to align oneself to the new king -"

"He was no king-"

"He vanquished the Beast of the Moors that slaughtered over three hundred men and left that many families without a son, a brother, a husband, or a father."

"King Henry attacked without provocation! I defended my home!" Maleficent rose up in her seat. She could not loom over Idoya as she could if they stood on the ground, but she was still a force to be reckoned with with wings spread and horns raised up in challenge.

"King Henry was challenging the fair folk who had bewitched the fields to be barren for the past two summers," Idoya mentioned. Unlike Maleficent, her voice never rose beyond what was needed to be heard. "The farmers were growing angry, the nobles were grumbling at the lack of taxes, and on his eastern border was an Ulstead Army fattening itself on fish raided from our fishing boats. The Kingdom needed a scapegoat. Your Moorlands? Perfect fit." Idoya looked away. "King Henry did not realize how vigilant you were with the Moorlands' protection - or that any Aen Sidhe still existed. All of the other tales said that your people went west back to the Isles or up north."

"Most of the People went to the sidhe when the division of the land was ordained. The rest went deep into the Moorlands to sleep until the morning comes that they can travel all the lands without contest." Maleficent thought back to the sleepers, the ones far north that dozed beneath canopies of ancient bones that belonged to creatures long lost to any memory. "I do not know how many of us are still here."

"Who aids you with protecting the Moors then?"

"The Coille, as they are made to do so. The roots themselves will also rise up in defense. There are a few of the young fair folk that will lend a hand."

"What about others like you?" Idoya steered them off the path when they grew close enough to Riversborough that the torchlight flickered along the dirt underneath the horses. She led the way down a game trail that smelled of fawns and opened up close-by a water mill. The giant wheel was half-rotted away, but the roof looked mostly intact and the interior was dry and large enough to support all four of them resting within for the night. Maleficent allowed the short detour to end the conversation thread before it spiraled further.

"The forest is rather ... " she frowned around her next word. "Tidy."

"It's a Deer Park now. Cananch's men tore through the forest, trampling the undergrowth and pruning away the trees until, well," Idoya gestured across the wide river toward the orderly span of trees that lined the other way. "It served, at first, as a way to cripple the banditry. Once the memories of the war cooled a bit, the woods weren't as welcoming to outlaws. By then, the lack of hunting gave the deer ample chance to fatten their population and Canach and… Teviotdale on the Ulstead noble line turned the woods into a noble's hunting ground. Beyond either King's men, only men bearing the colors of the two houses can hunt within the woods. Anyone else is deemed a poacher and hung for the crime."

"What crime?"

Idoya shrugged a shoulder. She dismounted Enbar and left him to wander the shoreline for a place to dip his head down for a drink. "Poaching."

"I do not understand the word," Maleficent elaborated her confusion. "What is so wrong about hunting for one's food? Or for hides for the coming winter?" As long as the humans respected the animals that they hunted and took only what they needed to survive, Maleficent could see no crime.

"Nothing, as far as I'm concerned; but in these woods, the deer belong to the King. Or, well, to the Princess now. To hunt them is to steal from the crown and that is punishable by hanging from the neck until dead."

"It is a foolish law." Maleficent nodded viciously with her statement and dismounted from Ruarc's back. The grey horse followed his counterpart to the water's edge to drink his fill. Behind her, she heard Idoya rustling in her pack for dinner that evening.

"After King Edward attacked, there was about thirty years of just back and forth sniping of caravans, or any laborer who attempted to remain neutral with the seizure of the Forest of the Kings. The lumber trade dried up and so the mill was shut down. I think we might need to worry only about young lovers sneaking down here for time away from chaperones, but you can frighten them off with a ward, right?"

Maleficent could, and so she did. She established a perimeter that would discourage humans from approaching the mill at all until the next sunrise. She explored the woods as much as she dared to without risking an encounter with a hunter, or a woodsman. When she returned to Idoya she took the chance to take a moment to herself and approached the river a few meters downstream from the horses. Here, she undid the cloak that covered her wings and allowed them to stretch wide. Enbar nickered and sidestepped her leftmost one, shooting her an affronted sidelong glare that suggested how inconvenient her relaxation was to him right then. She ignored him because he was a horse, and they always found everyone else to be a nuisance - and telling him to mind his manners would only result in time wasted and tempers lost from the resulting argument. Better to let them have their indignation.

"Rabbit sound good?" Idoya inquired. Maleficent waved a hand off to one side, and didn't wait to see the human woman's reaction. She settled down on the bank, and curved her wings forward. Then, much like she had done underneath Aurora's inquisitive gaze, she trickled water from her hands over the feathers and washed away the grime of four days on horseback. The ritualized movements are so familiar and yet still so novel to her that she doesn't notice the passage of time until Idoya called her title.

"Lady Protector?"

The forest was dark now save for the campfire that crackled in the shadow of the mill, on the far side away from town to prevent keen sight from picking it out. Over it, Idoya set several long sticks in which several cuts of meat from the rabbit caught in a snare that morning cooked. The pieces sizzled as the flames licked at what little fat there was and the pieces looked nearly done.

"I didn't want to interrupt you, but I don't know how well-done you take your meat. Or, well, if you eat meat at all? Do you?"

"I have no objections to eating flesh, no," Maleficent eyed the pieces again and admitted to herself that they did look rather tempting. Her stomach rumbled a soft agreement. A sharp glance went Idoya's direction to see if she'd heard but the other woman did not react. Instead, she pulled a leg from over the flames and stuck the stick outward, to let the meat cool. "Magic tends to require a hearty diet." She meant to leave the explanation at that, but Idoya looked at her with the same inquisitive openness that Aurora had, so she found herself eager to elaborate to an audience. "Other faeries draw their glamour from their environment. Storm Nyxes need open air and wind currents to remain in balance, and Wallerbogs cannot leave the marsh that bore them. However, mine is much like a fire inside of my body."

"I suppose it's similar to why you feed a fever. When you're burning up, you need to fuel the fire or it's going to consume you instead."

Maleficent blinked. Humans burned? "I … " She paused, displeased that there was yet another gap in her knowledge base and that she was about to reveal it in order to sate her own curiosity. "What is a fever? You mentioned it before, with regards to the Guard Captain."

Idoya grinned, apparently pleased that she knew something that the faery woman did not. Before Maleficent could respond to the teasing, the woman tore off a hunk of cooked rabbit and allowed herself an indulgence of a bite or two while Maleficent bristled. "Have you ever been sick?" Idoya asked, and laughed again at the affronted look on Maleficent's face. "Of course you haven't. Well, humans fall ill pretty easily and if the sickness is bad enough, the body starts to burn up. Now, if you go ask one of the clergymen that the nobles hire on, they'll tell you to pray and atone for whatever sin is causing the inferno in your soul but anyone who has ever had a lick of common sense," here, she bite off another piece, then pointed the leg at Maleficent to emphasize her point. "They'd understand that a fever's nothing more than the body trying to burn out whatever's causing you to be sick in the first place. Sensible people learned a long time ago that when a horse got feverish, they recovered a lot faster if their feed was increased during the sickness. Mothers started to do the same on their children and when babes survived illness that used to mean a visit to the local grave tender, we established it as a fact of life. Body's on fire, so in order to make sure that fire doesn't devour you - feed it something else."

Idoya paused in the middle of her third bite, and changed the subject. "Something's been bothering me for a bit."

"What?" Maleficent looked up from her own rabbit. Still rather warm, the meat was tender and easily tore from the bone. It was a luxury that she didn't want to spoil with more talk than was needed.

"The ambush site. It's rather close to Riversboroug. Close enough that the attack must have been noticed by someone from the town."

Maleficent considered it. "Close enough that your Guard Captain should have been able to seek aid there instead of risking a journey home to you - and if Diaval was in human guise, there would be no real risk of exposure."

"Mm, true. Which means that Berend didn't trust this place. But why?"

A twig snapped, and not from the fire. Maleficent's head shot up and Idoya's words died on the spot. They weren't alone. "I thought you established a ward?" Idoya asked, hand stretched out to seize upon her dagger that rested against the wall of the mill.

"I did. No human can breach it."

"What about humans already inside of it?"

The answer to that came from above. Up in the splintered rafters of the abandoned mill stood a woman bloodied and bruised. Her red hair matted with dirt and hay, her skin underneath the mottled coloring pale, and then even paler from obvious blood loss. She stood with all of her weight braced onto one leg, and even then, propped herself up against an overhanging beam to support her upright position. A crossbow was steadied in the woman's hands, the bolt's iron tip apparent even from a distance. It trained upon Maleficent herself, and the woman's finger rested against the trigger.

"Hands where I can see them. Faery - don't even think of casting a spell, I'm wearin' iron." The woman patted the crossbow. "Wielding it too, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to test if you can dodge a bolt from this distance."

Maleficent didn't answer. She only growled, and curled her hand tight around her staff while her wings curved backward and out, ready to take flight and test her reflexes against the bolt's speed. Idoya stopped going for the dagger when the woman tsk'd. "What do you want?"

"Your horses, for a start."

A/N: Yes, it's been a very long break. I began my first semester of my BSN Nursing Courses and found myself way too swamped to even focus on creative endeavors, then a car accident stole a lot of extra time from me as well. Regardless, here is the latest chapter. Read, review, and have a happy holiday season everyone!