..Beasts

Open the door, my darling dear,
Open the door to true love here!
Mind the words that you say,
Else find your heart ripped away!

On the end of a long journey, a man took shelter from a storm in an empty palace. As he left that morning he took a rose from the garden. The owner of the palace, a faerie in the guise of a terrible monster, captured him and dragged him towards punishment.

“You picked a rose from my garden.”

“It was only a flower for my daughter!” The man wept.

“I shall now pluck your heart.”

The man begged for life, for he had a daughter whom he loved very much. So, the beastly creature demanded that the daughter come to stay with him.

The man agreed with no intention of sending his daughter to the creature. When he finally reached his home, he found his daughter, lying cold on the steps. He found her as dead as the wilting rose in his hand.

In truth, the Fae took her and replaced her with a fake dead girl. The Fae treats the lovely daughter well but she certainly may not leave. One day she loses all hope for escape and agrees to wed the ever advancing beast. There is no ceremony, just an agreement, a veil and a wedding night.

On that wedding night, he lays with her and she becomes like him - a Beast. Forever; her memory and thought washed away in the flood of sensations. She is marked with the tyranny of now.

Love’s first kiss redeems everything in stories. The Frog becomes a handsome prince. The Beast is a loving man.

It’s a lie.

To kiss the Beast surrenders your mind to instinct. It’s a double-edged blade. Beasts live for spontaneity; they have a simple joy of living that is lost on all others. Colors are bright, sounds are rich, smells are heady and tastes are vivid. Theirs is a lesson in Desire and Wrath. They were shown a need to reign in their lusts and shown the results of their childish rants. Now they deal with the turmoil of feeling too much.

To love the beast is to become the beast. Memory, self-control and consciousness are lost. The animal is amoral. The animal is incapable of true thought.

The road to humanity through the wilds of the Hedge was arduous. They had to claw back their minds as well as their souls. The beast must turn against a life of lush experiences – long enough to chew, rake, and fight through the briar and bracken. Beasts live in a paradox. On the one hand they’re moral and conscious – yet fight and love their infusion of animalistic behavior. They are all that is human and animal. Civilization and wilderness.