#HolidayHop Kristy Carey’s “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”

He looked into the mirror and saw only the beast he was, nothing else.  With a howl of rage, he picked it up and threw it across the room.  There was no way he could be loved…. He hadn’t been before and nothing would have changed him now.  That didn’t stop the longing in him.  This wasn’t a fable.  Not fairy god mother was about to pop up and make it all better.  Santa Clause wasn’t going to drop down the chimney with a gift to change it all… There was no wizard behind the curtain, with a bag of tricks.

No, he was trapped in this beastly form… With no chance of returning to the person he’d been before.

Moving to the long broken window, Tri looked out at the garden below, watching Calla as she walked through it.  He figured that she was dreaming of her home… Of a time before she’d ever heard or seen of this place.

With a sigh, he turned away and moved toward the door to call for one of his people, telling them to have dinner ready for them in the dining hall, rather then the small room they had been using before.  Since he planned on letting her go home tonight, he thought it best to offer her the best they had, before letting her return to the family she loved.

Inside his own head, the reflection in the mirror was that of a beast, large and snarling.  Fangs dripping, claws ready to rip into the tender flesh of the people around him.  A beast… A monster.  Tri didn’t understand the truth of his unique situation, he didn’t see just what others saw.  But then in truth, he didn’t care.  The beast was there, that part of him that could kill without caring.  It didn’t matter that he had to call it out, that right now… He looked like a 25 year old young man, with white and black hair and stunning, deep purple eyes.

Dinner progressed normally, even with her surprise at the formal nature of the meal.  She tried to engage him in conversation, tried to draw him out, as she’d tried so many times before.  But instead, he kept himself quiet and barely responded to them.  Even when he told her of her freedom, it was as few words as possible.

Calla watched him walk away and sighed softly.  She did want to go home and see her family, but there was a part of her that also wanted to stay and… Show Tri how she saw him.  He wasn’t the monster he thought he was… Even when she’d seen the other side of him, she’d seen that he was far from a monster.

But, it seemed her future was to be spent at home, away from him.  With another sight, Calla packed her things and was soon setting off for her home.

Weeks went by and Tri debated in his mind the choice of letting her go.  He wondered if she was happy, if her family was well… If she missed him.  Spending more and more time in his other form, the servants tended to stay away from him.

So it was, almost two months since she’d left, that movement was heard along the roadway to the large manor house.  Excitement rolled through the servants, hoping it was the young woman returning to them.  The sight that greeted them instead, was what looked like an army of villagers, marching toward them. The anger seemed to roll off them, directed at the house.

Just outside the gates, they demanded the master of the house be brought out to them.  Voices rose in anger at the seeming ‘monster’, that he was.  One man stood at the front, looking arrogantly about as if, he’d been the one to bring them all here.

Tired and lonely, Tri stepped out onto the balcony over looking the courtyard and stared down at the people.  The arrogant man yelled up, here is the master of the house… Here is the one we’re after.  But the people saw only a sad young man, not a monster.  They remembered the young woman, Calla, who had spoken so highly of the man and how he had cared for her, even as he’d held her here… And he had let her go.

Tri never saw Calla again.  The truth of who and what he was finally came to him and he took up his heritage.  The young woman searched for him, gathering tales of his passing, putting them all into a book, hoping they would lead her to them.  Two young brothers helped her as she grew older.

Wilhelm and Jacob never wrote of her story, choosing instead to carry on her work of gathering up stories, believing there was truth in them.

Tri – The Beast, is from a WIP story about the Ulfur Drykkur, my own version of the Werewolves.
Calla – Reprises her role in the retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  Look for her late next year in my novel ‘The Charming Line: Truth Behind The Fables’

I’ve actually been removing a lot of my stories from the net, as I’m preparing to do some self publishing.  I am hoping to edit a few short LGTB stories I wrote a few years back, into a small gathering and publish those, just to get my feet wet.  All this, while finishing school, editing my novels, building my Jewelry Design business, and generally trying to stay a little sane.