Only One Truth Remained

As my body shifts, my limbs lengthen, my face contorts, and my shoulders drop, as I turn from man to beast and am tracked by the huntsman my father sent for the purpose, I realize that one truth remains. Though my humanity slips away and the beast steps into my skin, I am still more human than my father who would steal the sun from the sky and the moon from the stars. While I become the beast, my father, the king remains the monster, the monstrous, and I the humane.

I fall to padded feet and snuffle the frosted air. The huntsman approaches. I have but a moment to escape, but I do not. I throw back my head and howl. The cry of the golden eagle answers my call, and the huntsman goes still. The forest falls silent in anticipation.

The huntsman pulls his bow taunt, his arrow seated and aimed at my heart. The Solaris Magnific, the jewel my father seeks, casts a spotlight on me. The creek of the bowstring sets my newly sensitive ears quivering.

The girl with the golden eyes steps from the tree shadows and approaches the beast I have become. She carries a smooth silver orb, Lunara Minor, Solaris’s sister stone taken from the king’s throne.

Does he still live?

I think not.

The bow releases. The arrow flies and finds its mark in the earth between the girl and the wolf, as the huntsman dissolves into the forest, his work undone.

[Manipulated photo, original by Matt Nelson]