The Beast

Chapter Four

Ylvir developed a routine early on. He would assist his mother in her gardens, which eventually turned into their gardens, in the mornings, learning how to raise the plants himself and feeling pride at the thriving success they showed through his work, which in turn provided Aloris with her own warm, motherly pride.

During the other daylight hours, he could be seen conversing with and caring for the assorted animals that his parents kept for their quaint farm. He would gleefully chase the chickens, one of which he had grown attached to and even helped to raise her chicks, who showed their own adoration of him, following him around as best they could with their small, fluffy bodies and almost pitiful hops. While Reul worked the land, he would watch on in wariness and curiosity as his son had strange interactions with the cows—weaving between their bovine legs on all fours—and the horses, whose glossy coats he brushed lovingly, but always challenged to race with youthful tenacity shining in his blood red eyes, though his father always interceded before anything could happen, much to his frustration.

In the evenings, Ylvir would take his spot between his parents' chairs in front of the fireplace, deciphering his mother's book slowly, but surely. When he came across a word he couldn't understand or simply pronounce, he was quick to ask for his mother's help. He was riveted by the story it told of a poor man who, through great cunning and previous, simple acts of charity come to unimaginable fruition, slowly grew to power and riches he had never dreamed of having himself, only to be corrupted by its influence until he had the epiphany to give it away and return to his simple life. It confounded Ylvir that the man would do such a thing, but he enjoyed the story nonetheless, often finding himself asleep at the end of a spattering of scrawled black letters, just as his mother predicted.

Many days and weeks passed this way with little variation. Maybe an animal would be struck by sickness, only to recover, or Ylvir's mother would bring him a new story for his imagination to take charge of and sweep him away from his small world, but nothing significant occurred, and the days blended happily together into weeks. And slowly those weeks turned to months, and months to years, until one particular day when Ylvir's contented monotony was introduced to a brand new stimulus.

~*~

Ylvir looked at the peculiar object in his paw-like hands in fascination as it glinted in the low lamplight. After studying it for a moment, he looked up to his mother who wore an eager expression.

"What is it," he inquired, his voice changed slightly deeper from his increased age.

She gave him a warm smile that could and had warmed the coldest of winters. "It's a penny whistle, dear."

"It looks expensive," he said with some guilt, already aware of how much his mother spent on purchasing new books for him to read. He may have still been quite young, but he already understood that he and his parents were not the richest of folk.

"Nonsense," Aloris waved it off. "Besides. It's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Alright," Ylvir begrudged. "So what do you do with it?"

"You play it," his mother said as though it were the most apparent thing in the world, though to him it was anything but.

He held it out to her. "Could you show me," he asked gently. "Please?"

She gave a laugh that was almost musical to Ylvir's sharp ears, shaking her golden head. "Oh, I don't play. But your father does. Why don't you go ask him?"

Ylvir hesitated. Though his world was small, he still didn't interact so much with his father, and some days it felt they were more strangers than kin. But one look at his angelic mother's face, and he agreed.