A/N: This is the final installment of ETERNITY. I'm already missing writing this. It ends quite suddenly, but I assure you that it is very much complete. And if you don't think it is, write your own damn story :P I jest; I love all my readers. Especially the ones that review *wink wink nudge nudge*

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Aurora named her prince child Philip, after his slain father, and she rebuilt her kingdom. All of their iron was traded for food and clothing for the remainder of their people. With the fall of Sir Seth, the men fought with each other over who would be general of command, before the queen appointed one John Jones. Slowly, their populace began to grow again, and the kingdom flourished once more, though never quite as it had been before. The young queen was soon no longer young, but instead just the queen, and men stopped requesting her hand in marriage as she passed the age to produce children.

Maleficent and Diaval frequently flew to visit her, though the raven would never go anywhere in the sky without her right next to him. She began to once again operate on his eyes—charm after charm, spell after spell, potion after potion, nothing ever worked, but he let her try.

It was a warm summer's day when they stopped at the queen's balcony after receiving word that she was not well. Diaval followed Maleficent's touch into the room, and he knew from the freezing of her muscles that the queen's condition was not well.

The one they once called girl but now called woman was thinner than she had ever been with gray lining parts of her hair, wrinkles crinkling the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes had darkened since she lost Philip, and now they were nearly empty, almost soulless. Her breaths were shallow and slow. "Godmother," she greeted quietly. Her voice was paper thin.

"Beastie." How old was Aurora now? She hadn't noticed the passing of the years, not so quickly. She was immortal. How many years had vanished without her even noticing? She counted back the decades. Sixty-five. Her goddaughter was sixty-five. Wasn't that young for a human? She pushed Diaval to sit on the foot of the bed while she sat nearer the queen's face. "You aren't well."

The empty eyes fluttered at her. Her bony hand latched onto the wrist that was about to perform healing magic. "Don't."

Maleficent's heart nearly stopped. "I can heal you." She blinked quickly, tears budding in her eyes. "Beastie, I can—"

"I'm dying, godmother." Her face lifted into a slight smile. "I'll see him again." Her eyes fell closed. She felt something, someone, clasp her ankle—Diaval, perhaps, but she hadn't seen him come in. "I love you." Tears splashed onto her cheeks. She wished she could wipe them away. "Don't be afraid," she whispered. How long ago was that? A lifetime. An entire lifetime. Her breath exited her lungs, and her heart gave a final beat, and she shuddered into death.

Then there were wails pouring from Maleficent's lungs. She fell to the ground on her knees and pressed her face into the dead queen's chest, and she sobbed brokenly until Diaval patted his way toward her. He fumbled with her shoulder for a moment before stroking her hair. "Wifey?" he whispered. "Wifey dear." He sank down onto the floor next to her and touched her wet cheek.

She slid her hand out of Aurora's cold one and reached for him—him, him, he would have died for her, he took the curse for her, and she was still gone, still lifeless before them. "Pet," she whimpered. She latched onto him and buried her face into his chest. She couldn't move. "Pet." She remembered a time so many years ago when he had professed his love for her, and she had known that she would never be able to intimately return his feelings. But now? Now she was broken, shattered, nothing, and he made her whole enough to stand up.

She couldn't be in that room anymore. Not in that castle with their thick walls, where the maids would soon run up the halls and find the body of their young-but-old queen, and where they would soon report to Prince Philip the son, not Prince Philip the husband, that he was the new king. But she couldn't manage to release her grasp on Diaval. Together, she dragged him out to the balcony, but she didn't change him back to his natural form, instead curling herself around him and spreading her wings.

"Maleficent, this is crazy. You'll hurt yourself." He tried to pull away, but she followed him with her movements.

"Did you ever think that that may be my goal?" She let her nose slide against his. "Do you think I would drop you?"

"I know you would never let such a thing happen."

She looked him up and down, up and down. Her magic had preserved him. But for how long? Would he age, too? Would he die, too? "Then fly with me." His only response was tightening muscles around her. Her wings unfurled and then flapped, easily lifting them both off the ground. He buried his face into her neck. At first, she thought he was trying to hide his fear, but at the wetness that met her flesh, she knew he was trying to hide his tears.

She flew slowly, but they were still back home soon. Neither of them took the bed, instead curling up together in the special place where Diaval had mourned his eyes and where she had mourned Diaval. They were together, mourning together, grieving, crying, touching each other in failed attempts to share comfort. "I thought I saved her," he whispered.

She had no words of comfort to share with him, her pet, her little bird. "I love you, pet." Her voice was broken, so broken, broken into a million tiny little pieces, but he was with her. He was broken, too. But at least they were broken—destroyed, shattered, inconsolable—together. Togetherness was important. Loving a blind bird had taught her that. Loving his sole trusted guide had taught him that. They were together.

They didn't attend the funeral. Neither of them had tolerance for such celebrations. There was to be a dance afterward commemorating the new king. Neither of them wanted that. So they went several days later. Neither of them spoke to the lump in the ground, because it was just a lump in the ground. Maleficent touched the stone, hoping she would feel some sort of connection with Aurora, but she didn't.

As they walked away, she saw two other stones side by side—John Jones and Casimir Jones. Their death day was the same. The boy had been fifteen. She wondered if he would have lived longer if they had kept him. And she marveled at how short life truly could be.

After their great and terrible tragedy, they spent hours together in silence. It was comfortable, and in it they would be nearer than they ever had before. They awoke, ate, bathed, slept. But nothing was quite as it had been before. They lost track of time. Days mattered no more, not the weeks, not the months, and not even the years. They lived by seasons, but they didn't count them; they just adjusted their lifestyle to them. Rumor had it that King Philip had died, but they never went to confirm it. The humans didn't bother them, and as long as they didn't, there would be peace.

Maleficent took to her whimsy of adding flowers in Diaval's hair, and he didn't mind because he knew it made her smile. She taught his inept fingers to braid her hair, and he would often spend hours doing just that, perfecting his new skill. She tried teaching him to write, but one could not write without reading, and he could not read because he was blind. And she read to him.

One winter morn, after several days of not leaving the palace and not caring to groom because of it, Maleficent pushed Diaval up and took a comb to his disheveled mess of hair and feathers. She delicately pulled it through his tangles, apologizing any time he winced. And that was when she saw it. Her fingers went stock still. The breath in her throat caught, froze, wouldn't move in or out. She couldn't speak. She couldn't move. She could just stare blankly at the streak of silver that made itself prominent in Diaval's dark locks. "No, no, no…" she whispered.

He turned. "Wifey, what's wrong?" He fumbled for a hold about her waist and pulled him near. "Maleficent?" She cried into his chest for reasons he couldn't identify. "What's wrong? What's so terrible about my hair, love?" He tried to tease her, but she didn't respond to his jests. She was dangling from a string and clinging to him, but he had gray hair, which meant he was aging, which meant he would die.

She managed to compose herself, if only a little, and whimpered, "There's a gray streak in your hair, pet. That's really—" She broke off in another choked sob. She couldn't say "That's really all there is," because it was so much more than that.

He held her close to him and rocked her back and forth. "Maleficent, I'm not immortal. Wifey." He tried to calm her down. "Wifey, calm down, I'm not dying." He scratched at the bases of her horns like he always did, and she fell still. "I've got plenty of time left to be with you. It's just a bit of gray hair."

She looked to his face, examined it closely. "But it's not." She traced the small crinkles around his scarred eyes, down by his mouth. "You're aging." She pressed her face into his neck. "And I can't—I can't do this alone, pet, you can't leave me alone!"

"I'm right here," he replied patiently.

And then, she had an idea.

She tore apart all of her charm and spell books, the ones she had scoured countless times for vision repairing spells. There was one spell she could use. There was one spell that could fix this mess. When Diaval questioned her, she simply replied, "I can make you immortal." He fell sullenly silent, and she paid no heed to him until three days later, when she had found the spell.

"Maleficent, have you ever thought to ask what I wanted?" he asked quietly, staring at his hands in his lap.

She stopped. "What do you mean?" What more could he want than to live forever? Surely he didn't want to die! Surely he didn't want to leave her here all alone! Her heart was falling, falling, the little remnants of it breaking off as she sat on the edge of the bed next to him. "Tell me, love, what is it you want?"

He muddled through a little speech. "I…I have been blind for most of my life, wifey, but I always had hope that…when I died, I would be able to see in the afterlife." He gulped. "I don't know if I want to spend an eternity as a blind man. I fear I'll go mad."

"Diaval…" she whispered. She was shaking. How could she convince him? She didn't have to convince him; she could just force it on him, but she would never do that. Not to him. He had already been cursed once. If that was what he considered this, he didn't deserve for it to happen to him again.

He took her hand. "I'm not saying no, love, I just really need to think about it, okay?" He gave a slight smile. "Forever is a very long time to be crippled."

She curled her wings around him. "You are not crippled, little birdy. You are my precious pet." She kissed his cheek. "And I will love you until the end of time, whether you are by my side or not." She closed all the space between them, and soon they warmed the room with their bare bodies in a lock and key fit, in a familiar and comforting way, as they joined together in love and devotion and passion, in clumsiness on Diaval's part, in fear of losing him on Maleficent's. They were together, unified as mates once more.

When spring's first warm day arrived, they headed to the water hole and bathed and swam together. Diaval preened her sopping wet feathers, and they splashed each other, letting laughs warm the air around them. Laughs, because Diaval had not yet told Maleficent whether or not he wished for immortality, and she wasn't willing to waste a single moment spent with him. After the blind man had some way or another won their tickle war (she admitted it; she was far more ticklish than he, and he knew exactly where her sensitive spots were), they sat on the edge of the water hole, letting their legs dangle in the water.

"Maleficent," he murmured.

She turned to look at him. "Yes, pet?"

He leaned in to her face and brought his lips to hers. "I have decided to accept your offer of immortality," he whispered. His eyes were conflicted, but he smiled at her in a reassuring way. "An afterlife with eyes wouldn't be worth seeing without you there. And I would never, ever hurt you in any way. You deserve whatever forever you desire, and if that forever happens to be so in the literal sense then let it be so."

Their crowns rested against each other. "As long as you're sure, love." He nodded. "Okay." She took each of his hands and let their fingers intertwine tightly. "The book said it is painful. But it is very important that you don't let go of my hands, or the spell will backfire and has the potential to kill us both. Do you understand?"

He tensed, nervous. He didn't want her to risk her life for him. But she wouldn't want him to back out of this just because she was at risk. He squeezed her hands tightly and nodded. "I understand."

Maleficent squeezed his hands back. "Here we go, pet." Her lips began to glow, and she leaned forward to kiss him. She exhaled her gift into him, and a bright agony ripped through her. She feared her hands were going slack, but could do nothing to ensure their grip as she shuddered uncontrollably. Her back arched, trying to escape the pain, and she was vaguely aware of someone screaming and a lower voice giving guttural groans. Just her fingertips were on his now, and she clutched at them. Squeezing, squeezing until she swore she felt bone crack, and then—

It was over. They lay on their sides, facing each other, still completely nude and utterly exhausted. Their hands were still clutched together. She smiled. "Diaval, love? Pet?" she prompted. She didn't dare let go of his hands yet, not until she saw him breathe.

He breathed. "What the hell was that?" he mumbled, eyes still closed tightly. But the crinkles around his face were gone. She dragged herself to him and checked his hair, which was all black and feathered.

"Do you feel alright?"

"I feel like you just pulled me through a volcano of molten lava and then let a herd of horses trample me," he complained.

She sat up and pulled his head into her lap. "Sleep, then, if you want. I'll stay right here." She traced the scars on his chest that hadn't faded.

A smile slipped onto his face, and his obsidian eyes flickered open. She gazed into those sightless eyes, watched them twitch, watched the irises constrict as the pupils tried to focus as they always did and eventually dilated. And in one smooth movement, his mouth was on hers. He blinked once, twice, three times. Then he pulled back, and he whispered to his new eternity, "You are so beautiful."