The Beast

Chapter Three

After that day with his mother, Ylvir decided for himself that he would help her with her garden more. They spent many days and hours in the dirt, and Ylvir loved every second of it. He began to appreciate the raw beauty of the natural world, but the flowers still held the most of his admiration. He loved to see how they brought joy and light to the world with their vivid colors, how even the insects were attracted to their sweet scents, and how they danced and swayed in the breeze with a wistful elegance. He loved to hear his mother humming softly as she worked, then quietly impart to him the secrets the flowers held in their petals with their many properties and uses, but he was still careful to avoid their thorns.

And when he wasn't in the gardens, he was with the animals. He discovered in helping his father with the chickens that same day he was in the garden that he had an affinity for them. He understood them and they understood him, and he found the same held true for the other animals his parents kept. In them, he found his long-awaited companions that he had failed to find in the human children. He even offered to help take care of them, and though his father was reluctant in letting his already animalistic son traipse around with beasts, his wife saw the opportunity it presented, and wore him down enough to where he begrudgingly agreed.

Ylvir was finally content in his youthfulness, and remained so for some time, even with the occasional loss of a baby tooth.

But eventually, the seasons changed.

~*~

"They're all fallin' apart, mum," Ylvir cried with horror as he held the stiff, faded form of a dead petal.

"Yes," his mother said sadly. "But they were never meant to last through the winter."

"Why not?" he asked, confused by the injustice of it all.

"The winter is cold and harsh. It's not suitable for the likes of flowers," she said, then reached out to her son and stroked the spot of soft feathers on his shoulders in comfort. "But don't fret, dear. They'll be back. When the season is through and the sun melts the snow and warms the days once more, the flowers will grow back. They're more resilient than you might think."

Ylvir nodded, accepting her words, but still unable to help the feeling of wishing he could somehow prevent their decline. He also felt the youthful excitement of wanting to share anything and everything with his friends, but he realized he could not visit the animals and tell them of the tragedy that had befallen the pretty flowers and hear their thoughts on the matter as they had recently taken to sleeping most of the day, sheltered away from the chill that had settled over the land—one that currently bit at his wet nose, but left him otherwise unaffected.

After some hard thinking for a moment, he looked up at her with anxious red eyes. "Whatta we do 'til then?"

He intently watched as his mother tilted her golden head in thought, as if searching the icy blue sky for the answer with her similarly colored eyes. He knew when she had an idea by the bright spark in those eyes when she turned them back to him, and by the curl of her pink lips. "I think it's about time I taught you to read."

"Wossat?"

"You know how I have to speak my stories to you for you to learn them," she began as she led Ylvir back to the cottage.

"Yeah."

"Well what if I told you that I didn't have to tell them to you—that there was another way for you to learn them?"

"There is?" Ylvir asked, bewildered by such an idea.

"Yes, sweetie. There is," she confirmed, opening the small door to the welcoming warmth that emanated from the sweet-scented cottage and letting her son step in first. "Come now. Let's sit by the fire, and I'll tell you all about it."

As his mother removed her shoes, Ylvir crawled to the spot in front of the fireplace, circling himself, then settling down in a curled ball of black fluff where he could watch his mother settle down into her chair that sat opposed to her husband's next to the fire, whose vermilion flames flickered and danced about wildly, sending shadows skittering across her fair face.

When she found herself suitably comfortable in the creaky chair, she continued her speech. "Ylvir, did I ever tell you that when I was your age, I too loved to hear stories from my own mother?"

"No."

"Well I did. And so did she when she was little, and so did her parents before her, and their parents before them, and so on."

"Tha's a lotta stories," Ylvir commented, his strange voice muffled slightly by the thick fur of his arms.

"That's a lot of. Remember, dear. Speak clearly," his mother lectured as she often did. "And yes, it is. And because so many people and their children loved stories, they decided long ago that instead of telling it over and over and having it constantly changing for what was forgotten, that they would write it down."

"How's that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure of what the exact process was. I don't know if anyone is, seeing as it was so many ages ago," his mother explained. "But I do know what the results were. Every sound we make with our mouths was given a designated symbol or combination thereof, and when they're arranged together in certain ways, they form certain words. Though, I think it would be easier if I showed it to you rather than describe it."

Ylvir perked up as his mother stood up from her chair, which groaned with protest at the process. As she walked away, he lifted to his hands and feet, trailing closely after her, their feet thudding and scraping dully against the floorboards. He watched her enter the lone bedroom of the house from the threshold, crouching in wait as she retrieved something from atop the dresser. He shifted aside as she came back out and followed her back again until they resumed their spots by the crackling fire. Until, that is, Ylvir's mother beckoned him closer with a wave of a hand to properly look at the rectangular object with her. He approached it slowly, sniffing curiously and discovering it had a new, but pleasant scent. Not sweet like the flowers, but something completely different and unique, unlike anything he had sniffed before.

"What is it?" he finally questioned his mother when he had thoroughly examined the smell.

She wore a smile that reflected her great amusement. "It's a book, sweetheart."

"I like it," Ylvir exclaimed with firm opinion.

His mother laughed merrily at his assertion. "Just wait dear. Soon, you'll like it even more."

"Really?" Ylvir said, his red eyes shining and his fuzzy body shivering, not with cold, but barely contained anticipation.

"Really, really. See here. These are the symbols I told you about," she spoke, leaning over and allowing Ylvir to get a good look as she opened the old, worn book to a random yellowed page and show him the dark words inked across it, relishing the childish awe that overcame his expression.

"They look funny," he yipped a giggle.

"I suppose they would to you, but I am far too familiar with them myself," she conceded, stroking the thinned and wrinkled pages with her thumb, a wistful look in her eye, before she returned her gaze fully to her son, her bright smile broadening. "And if I am correct—and I usually am—then it won't be long before you become just as familiar."

"Now hop up. I'll teach you to understand them. Maybe then, I won't have to tell you a bedtime story every night and you can simply read yourself to sleep," she teased, patting her legs in an invitation.

Ylvir did precisely as she asked, bounding up and settling in her lap, where she held the book out in front of them both, starting the first of many lessons. Lessons filled with joy and frustration, content and restlessness, success and failure.

But by the time winter drew its last chilly breaths and bright green shoots could be seen sprouting from the dark earth, Ylvir found he could make sense of the letters and words without the aid of his mother, for the most part. Once more through her efforts, Ylvir was introduced to a new kind of beauty.