A Tale of the Shapeshifters

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑿𝑿𝑰𝑰 - 𝑺𝒊𝒓 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓

Petals of rain fell against the windowpane.

Wishing they were petals of roses, Sir Claudius's broad chest rose and fell. He hated late autumn and its descent into winter because almost every moment of his life for the past twenty years had been a spiraling descent deeper and deeper into winter, with no hope of spring.

Except for Ath—

But Athena was not refreshing like spring petals, as he once thought. She was stabbing like the summer sun.

She only wrote one letter, when threatened. One. And much shorter than even the shortest he had written her.

She brought Henri to his attention—Henri who was somehow still alive. In turn, his eyes caught aflame and the monster inside came out.

Even so, Sir Claudius told her the story. The story of their first meeting and the deal they made. Why—he did not know....

The rumble of the rain morphed into what he thought to be a voice: "Sir Claudius! Sir Claudius!"

Athena's light, yet firm, calls shook him awake, out of the narration of his mind. He did not move from his point at the window.

"Please, answer me!"

"What?!" He jerked about, exploding, his eyes aflame. "I have already told you everything you need to know about Henri—from his upbringing to the deal we made! Happy now?" He clamped his teeth together, ready to strike at any moment. His blue eyes were the heart of the flame—the hottest, most dangerous part.

Athena backed away, retreating to the Grand Hall, before recomposing herself and facing him. "You—you have not told me—" She looked into his eyes and faltered, shivering. "You have not told me why... you thought Henri was dead...." The girl had remained in his eyes for long enough, her pupils soon darting away to the floor.

Sir Claudius reached a hand out to the windowpane. He leaned over, putting all of his weight to the balls of his feet, and his hair fell over his face. He traced his fingers along the streaks of cold rain before letting go and breathing in deep. The brooding man sucked all the air of the room into his lungs, leaving Athena with only gasps to take. She held onto the final breath she had taken prior.

"Athena," he spoke, no music in his voice at all, no anger either, "one of the stipulations as a housekeeper in this castle—is that there are certain things which are not to be discussed. You know that."

"Yes, Sir."

"And if you are not pleased by this stipulation, you have every right to leave."

The girl gasped, her eyes narrowing. She clutched her heart, ruffling the ribbons of her dress. "Sir... no, I do not wish to leave." Her voice trembled, like tree limbs shaking in winter storms. "Sir... please...." Athena's heart ate itself from the inside-out. Her grip tightened.

"Then everything I have told you today is the final time we discuss such matters. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Very well then. You may return to your duties."

The man tore away from the window, his cloak sweeping behind him like a shadow. He trudged to the lower portions of the castle. His broad shoulders became smaller and smaller until dissipating into the morning fog residing all throughout the icy castle.

Athena wanted to sink to the floor but instead held herself up by the windowpane.

~❦︎~

Sir Claudius bolted in through the dungeon doors, the boom echoing throughout the extended hall. He marched straight to his writing desk, took his pen in hand, then flipped through the pages of his journal. Once he found a blank page, he commenced writing:

My Dearest Rosethorn,

You will never know what you have inflicted upon me.

You will never know the hours I've spent craving your attention, pacing back-and-forth across the Grand Hall, anticipating the mailboy, yet to no reward.

You will never know the painstaking moments when I ripped to shreds every piece of fabric and furniture that Henri designed; the agony I persevered through when singeing and scorching the castle's stone walls—the stone walls I was so proud of upon first viewing hundreds of years ago.

They are destroyed now, and it is your fault.

My heart is destroyed now, and it is your fault.

By your cowardice, your unawareness, your lack of concern, and your desensitization to the number of letters I wrote, you have caused me to sink into despair.

And yet, you were—and are—my only stabbing sunlight. My only piercing streak of morning shooting over those rocky cliffs and breaking in through the cracks of my castle. When at night I reside in the dungeons, you are the final dying embers from the fireplace, entering my nostrils and lullabying me to slumber. Even then, after the embers die and before the morning sunrise, you are in my mind's eye, swirling in golden flashes, all throughout the night.

Why must you torment and forsake me so? Why must you return only to remind me of times past? Why must you be a rose?

You will never read this, I know. But someone—not I, assuredly—wants you to. Wants you to understand what I feel. Wants you to understand the great longing in my heart. The great looming despair in my heart, too. Perhaps that someone is my heart.

If only Dublin weren't blossoming, if only the village weren't deserting its ancestral roots, if only Henri weren't banished, if only you weren't a rose...

And, if only, I weren't—

A dragon.

Your "friend", Sir Monster