Monster

With his kiss, roughened scales peel off my arms, my horns wilt into curls of golden hair, and my tail is unwoven into the train of a pearlescent dress. Claws dull to toes and fingers, fangs blunt back into teeth, and I no longer stand towering over him. He admires my every feature, every facet, with a look that reads of glorious victory, and I his prize. Though I cower at his touch, he does not withdraw, running his hands through my hair and across my skin, drawing my chin up so he may gaze in my eyes. I would wish to be rid of his. As I catch him staring at my lips, desperate to taste them again for the first time, he wraps me up in his embrace, declaring it true love. But in that moment, his arms are no more than a vice, and his hands more chains to keep me bound. This is not my freedom, nor my rescue, regardless of what the stories say.

We are in the city by nightfall, at the foot of the palace steps in all their grandiose purity - ever white and gleaming under the shimmer of the moon. My old home, my parents - older, yet more or less exactly how I'd left them... As they were when they'd sent me away.

"For your own good," Mother had whispered.

"Better this way," Father agreed.

They gaze at me, clad in finery, with a gladness in their eyes - 'thankful', you'd say.

"He fixed you..." I hear my mother breathe, a single tear dripping down her cheek.

I bite my tongue, flames caught in my throat. Is that what grief looks like? Is that mourning for the ten years she spent separated from her daughter?

She is as ignorant to grief as I am to love.

When it had been my turn to cry, my anguish had cascaded in waves, voice hoarse from screaming, begging, "Don't send me away! It's still me! I'm still me!" Then my claws scraped gouges out of the archway, and a knife met my cheek.

"Hush, creature!" Barked the knight, the same who now shook the hand of my 'saviour' with a show of teeth and congratulations.

I was eleven when I became a monster.

A tired old woman came inside the palace seeking shelter from the storm. None knew how she had passed the guards, and so my father refused her, and ordered his men to surround her and snap her cane. She threw a curse from her gnarled finger. Father stepped aside, and so the spell hit me square and true.

Agony - as my nails and teeth sharpened, scales sprouted from my skin, and my spine contorted into a barbed tail. My limbs extended, until I stood taller than the men, and the younger boys fled at the sight of me.

Mother screamed. Father yelled, "Monster!" And he had them surround me and pin me down. As the air was stolen from my lungs, I saw the old woman vanish into the shadows.

I spent three days in a cell, chained to the wall. "A temporary solution," Mother purred with a sour grin. And after those three days, they came up with somewhere else to put me. I fought fang and claw to keep them from throwing me on that wagon, until the blade sliced me and commanded my obedience. I felt like the hounds when the steward gave them a kick to the snout for fighting the leash.

They'd cleared the road leading away from the city, but the children still saw me, and they soon gathered a crowd.

None recognised me. The tale went that I was an abomination that had broken into the palace - a beast of the far wilds, a nightmare of the waking hours. Neither Mother or Father would speak the truth. They claimed the beast had taken control of me - to protect the 'sanctity' of my purity. A girl helplessly trapped by a monster is much easier to stomach than the thought of a girl becoming one.

The wagon took me east into the hills, where there was a tower on the edge of a cliff - long abandoned and left to rot. The guards secured me in the highest room and told me that, until they could find a cure, I was to stay imprisoned there.

I was kept in the dark until the knight had appeared at my window, declaring in all pompous certainly that a kiss was the solution, and he was not only to be my saviour, but by retrieving me, Father agreed to have him take me as his wife. I remember his disgust as he approached my monstrous form, because with it he bore a snobbish pride. He had volunteered. He had stepped up to do the propostrous thing and kiss a monster, so how generous of him! I was to be grateful.

Upon our return, the people flock to watch the parade, welcoming me with open arms and choral celebration. The lost princess - restored to her seat by a selfless hero!

They wouldn't see how he'd looked at me. How he'd approached without asking. How he'd stolen a kiss on his festering breath.

"A small price to pay; kiss the monster once and ensnare the beautiful princess forever," was what he meant when he had said, "I have come to free you from your curse!"

They sing his praises. Father calls him son, and Mother plans the wedding. Within a day, this stranger has kissed me without asking, and has come to the insane conclusion that we should be married and live happily ever after.

Mother and Father spit their rehearsed lines about the great detail in which they missed me. Meanwhile, I head to my old chambers to be free of the din. I grow weary of their falsehoods. And so I leave them with mine, "I am fine, and I wish you goodnight."

I shut myself in my childhood room. I no longer fit the bed, nor would my clothes suit me now.

The face in my vanity taunts me. She is beautiful, perfect, flawless, free... Free? How could this be better than the years I spent in that tower? At first alone, scared... Then when months blend to years, one has a way of finding a new normal.

The isolation began as maddening. I was tormented by it all: how I was cursed and pushed away, how I was hurt and they screamed, how I was afraid and they locked me up... Rage and despair gave way to clarity, for silence welcomes evolutionary thought. I knew then what a true monster looked like, and she wasn't staring back at me from the mirror.

I picked myself up, and I started fresh. I taught myself how to hunt and forage - the creature was surprisingly resistant to poisons, and so my lack of experience didn't prove costly. I met a blind woodswoman and learned the craft - fixing up the tower with my own hands. I could lift heavy loads then, when my limbs were like trees and my back was strong. Finally, I made clothes for my new form. Sewing helped wile away the hours and refined my control over that body. I had just about mastered it when the champion came and disturbed my peace.

Now, with the help of a bundle of tied bedsheets serving a ladder, I am back in the wilds in the early hours. I cannot return to the tower - not if they would find me there again, yet without scales and claws, my chances of survival are slim.

The moon is full and the sky is clear. I always find solace in the moon. Tonight, I wish not for curses. The creature was made to be challenged... I wish for something true.

The curse didn't make me a monster. And had I chosen to stay, I would forever bear the stain of that term. A lifetime of being reduced, to be conquered, and shamed under the threat of what they named me.

The creature was merely my chrysalis, and soon, I will emerge in my true form. I would not have my transformation under their scrutiny. The only witnesses I need are the moon and the stars.

As I bask in their light, it has begun. Scales, claws, tail... Wings... A fire on my tongue. And I grow to fit my status. Princesses are destined to remain small. As a queen, I shall encompass multitudes.

I will never forget how they looked at me. But in my truth I shall find peace. In my truth, I will be free.