Curseless

A jet-black sky stretched as far as the eye could see, white specks dotting the canvas. The moon shone at its zenith, high and mighty in the deep dark sky. Chilling winds rustle the leaves of the castle grounds. An eerie silence enveloped the castle. When the world goes to sleep, I come out to play.

“What shall I feast upon tonight?” I questioned myself flying through the castle grounds. Quiet as a mouse, I flew high and low through the mesmerising foliage, up and down through the branches and leaves, my feathers skimming the surface of the pond. Light flickered through the foliage, creating a picturesque scene. Roses and tulips covered the garden. “Maybe I’ll catch these pesky little rodents here,” I wondered as a mephistophelian smile lit up my face. Out of nowhere, a rustle, a flash of tail and panicked squeaking. “Oh, an entire family. More for me to gobble.” Whoosh! I flew in to swoop them right into my sharp claws until…

“Help!” A voice shrieked, causing a cacophony of sounds to erupt from the grumbling residents of the sleeping gardens.

“Wh-wh-what was that?” Terror clouded my thoughts. Dead in the middle of the night, what had disrupted the serenity of the garden? Scared of out of my feathers, I peeked my tiny head out from behind the apple tree. Crimson red blood pooled on the steppingstones to the garden. “Is she hurt? Should I help her? What should I do?”

“Help!” She screamed again. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see several families of rodents getting riled up by the incessant shrieks piercing the peace and quiet of what they called their home. Like a mouse, I inched as quiet as possible. “Should I be doing this? Why should I help her? All humans have done is hunt our kind for sport and rule over us in the cusps of their hand. All while we lived surreptitiously in the shadows of their land, planning for revenge to no avail.

“Hello” I whispered. She froze. She turned around slowly and cautiously, took one look at my face and screamed. This time she screamed so loud; it woke the dead. Instantly, I took off and flew into the deepest darkest corner of the garden. Through the prickly roses, through the weeds and into the shadows. Why did she scream? What did I do? I contemplated over the answers before, tracing the scars on my face. I blinked with my only eye. Was it because of my face?

Embarrassment crept up my cheeks, turning them into two tiny little tomatoes. Shaking my head, I chanted, “No, this can’t be happening,”” A human girl. Why did I care what she thought? Maybe I’ll try and go back tonight,” Gathering my courage, I slowly moved, caressed by the wind to move faster. Finally, I peeked my tiny eye out. Then, I gasped. Two men were dragging her away. They looked similar but I could not make out their features in the darkness enshrouding the garden. They looked like two androgynous guards, unencumbered by the weight of a human fledgling. I was terrified until she turned around and looked at me. However, this time instead of screaming, the edges of her lips curved upwards to form a smile. “I am not well versed in human gestures,” I thought as I smiled back, vowing to find her another day.

“Day by day, I tried and failed, scared by the implications of being caught. Being a tiny fraction of potbelly humans’ dinner really did not seem enticing to me at all. I stared at the castle from my humble abode, too afraid to fly out and explore the world. Fear kept me at bay, and I succumbed to it day in, day out. However, one day I took a silent vow to break the cycle and sneak into the castle. A minute passed, then an hour, then a day and finally a week had passed.

“What am I doing? Why am I sitting here?” I spread my wings and flew. Fear would not hold be back any longer. I flew free through the wind, ruffling my feathers, through the sunshine, with a flame of hope, the fuel of my ever-burning heart. Courage danced through my blood, there was no way I would stop now. Making a beeline for her window, I slowly made my way, closer and closer. With the destination in sight, my heart throbbed up and down, trying to escape the bars of its prison. However, I froze just shy of being able to see through the window. “What if this isn’t hers? What if my bravery was just foolishness in disguise all along pushing me closer and closer until the world collapses under me? I shouldn’t give into my fear. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. After all, should I live in regret over the fact that I never checked, or just hope for the best. My feelings pulled me to try and bite the bullet, my logical mind trying to make me dodge it entirely. This might be my only chance. I have to do it.” Taking the ropes of my fears, I bit the bullet, took a flight of faith, spread my wings and, no one. “There was literally no one in the room. Should I go inside? After all, the window is wide open calling, no begging for me to enter.”

My courageous streak was about to run dry, hence, I plunged into the room, like a drunken man exiting the tavern, all giddy and having no control over his body. I searched every nook and cranny, up high, down low. “Oh! A human’s room. How wonderful! That’s soft and fluffy! Oh, I love that!” What had gotten into me, prancing around like a drunken fellow in the room of a human.

“Click! Clack!” The echo bounced off the walls, “Click! Clack!” This time it sounded closer, “Click! Clack!” They must have been close, but my mind had no control over my body. Suddenly, the door opened wide, I turned and closed my eyes. However, the lack of screaming unlike last time seemed promising enough that I opened my eyes to see her. Her lips curved into a smile, a warm one, a hopeful one. Maybe she will be the one after all. Maybe our fates were truly intertwined as I hoped.

However, her smile turned to malice, the curves of her lips forming a mephistophelian smile, as she loomed over me, “What have I found here?” She questioned, malice coating every word, not a hint of another emotion, as she closed my only way of escape.

“I don’t think I’m going to make it out alive. Keep hope. Who was she if not the one I was looking for? Where was the one I was looking for? Maybe I misread her face,” Turning around to catch a glance of her face as she chased me around the room, I could see her face, clear as day. “She looked exactly as I remembered her. What happened to her lovely smile? Was she not the one I was looking for?”

Stopping in her tracks, she shrieked “Guards, help!” Panic flared through my blood, my face paled at the thought of being caught and wolfed down by a carefree human.

“Bam!” The doors swung wide open, and the frightening androgynous guards walked in. The world swam in front of my eyes, everything transforming into a blur.

“Goodbye!” She smiled menacingly as the world dissolved from swirls and gibberish swimming through the expanse of my vision into darkness. Inky night black. “Hopefully I’d live to tell the tale, however, the converse seemed more likely. I’d see what fate held for me, or I won’t. Eh! Time will tell.”

“I lived, surprising,” I blurted nonchalantly, without caring for my surroundings and whether there was a human nearby or not.

“Not for long, for long, for long,” The high-pitched voice echoed

Jumping up in fright, my eyes danced across the room, trying to locate the source of the sound, shadows jumped in and out of sight flying across the walls. It felt like my brain had turned to mush and had given up on me. “After all, I was on the last flight of steps to death’s door. It would not be that long before I crossed the threshold. Resting, my head on the stone-cold floor, waiting till I fell into silent slumber. This would be my death bed, my resting place. Maybe it was the spirits from the afterlife, betting on when I would die, seeing as the how was pretty much a no-brainer.”

“Pstt. It’s me,” A chirpy cheerful voice emerged from beside me. Opening my eyes, I saw her. I was most definitely doomed. “Shh! It’s okay, I’m not who you think I am” She tried to console me to no avail.

“I’ve given up on life. Just take it, no hesitation, no remorse, this freezing floor my portal into the boiling lakes of hell and beyond. Let me pass. This miserable world is no longer for me. Send me into the after,” I lay, feigning resignation, eyes closed. “Are you going to kill me?” I questioned.

“Do you want me to?” A mephistophelian smile curling up her cheeks, “I’ll get the knife right now, and plunge it deep into your throat,” Seeing me visibly squirming, she burst into muffled laughter, rolling around on the floor. “Did you honestly think I’d kill you?”

Taking an internal sigh of relief and cursing under my breath I mumble, “Well you did frighten me till I dropped unconscious, so what’d you expect?” “Confusion basically covered all the emotions I was experiencing. Well, that and an obnoxious amount of fear. That pretty much summed it right up,” I opened my mouth to ask a question, however, she shushed me, and proceeded to answer it herself.

She said that after she learned from me that animals had the ability to speak in the human language they called, “English.” I thought there was just one but apparently, I was way off. Well, there goes my pride. Let us continue her story, shall we? She ventured off into the garden through broad daylight, talking to the animals. Admittedly she was terrified at first and ran off screaming before her brain could process the idea that humans and animals spoke the same language all along, but always came another day to try again, and had fallen in love with the side of nature I had shown her from my disastrous attempt at a greeting the other time. Every day she ran through the buzzing fields, gossiping with bees, talking to the bugs, and even talking slander with the pesky little rodents I could never manage to get my hands on. All this time, however, she had been trying to find me.

Her smile, her voice, her face. She was the same girl I had fallen in love with that day. “We better get you out before the chef finds out I’m here. “He’d kill me,” She mumbled under her breath, but my sharp senses picked it up, “Not literally, I picked up a couple facts on barn owls from the bees. They really love their sweet, sweet gossip. Honestly, I’d love for them to sometimes shut their buzzing bottoms,” Opening the gate to a stingy place, we covered our noses and got in.

“What is this dastardly smelling place?”

“Oh, this is the sewer, I thought you’d like this place after all I always see a big furry rodent running past every time I’m in here.” That piqued my interest, and it felt like my ears physically flew up.

“Yummy! Lovely! Exquisite! A meal is in order” I said, exuberance and joy, filling my voice with warmth. My eyes darted around the filthy narrow pipe; the stench had now turned into an aroma. Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught a scurry, a flash of brown. With my precision and speed, I zoomed straight to the rodents and “Woah!” No more hunting for dinner. “This is perfect, way better for hunting than the garden and fields. “Eugh! It’s so difficult to see any mice let alone catch one in the garden, they’ve become tiny little experts, crawling into the tiniest of gaps and many itsy-bitsy tunnels to evade capture from a flying feral beast like me.”

“I wouldn’t say you were a flying feral beast. That title isn’t worthy of a barn owl, who’s crying to me about the tiniest of things. Flying feral beast is the title a griffin would be proud of. You aren’t a griffin, are you?” She questioned, a hint of sarcasm coating her voice, a wondrous smile curving up her face.

“I hope I’m not, that big with this poor excuse of a face, or should I say half a face. It’s easier to stay concealed like this. Honestly, I wished I was just a carefree bee, living the normal life, among the pollen, among the flowers. Sometimes, I wonder why I was born like this at all,” I questioned, rambling on into the distance, she nodded along. We had reached the garden and I talked on and on, “It felt like I was taking my first breath ever and a huge load had just been taken off my chest. I just needed someone to lend me an ear all this time. Continuing to spout out my fears, she listened to me, ears wide open. No judgement on anything I said or believed. Nodding along, she listened, as the setting sun, turned into the night sky, stars, twinkling till the horizon.”

“Well, I’d better get a move on before they send guards to stomp through the garden to look for me. Wouldn’t want to impose on the bees and the trees, would I now?” She stumbled for words before rushing to leave after saying goodbye.

“See you tomorrow?” I asked, hope, fuelling the raging fire in my heart. However, she did not turn around. Maybe she heard me, maybe she did not but a tiny part of the ever-burning flame doused a bit then and there.

“The night passed, but my mind kept thinking about her. The way she listened, the way she talked, the way she looked, everything about her. I tried to shake my mind off, but it was persistent and always made a beeline straight back to her, just her, her cheeks, her. Just stop thinking about her for a moment. It felt like I was in a war with myself, however, only one side could ever win. This war was futile. My mind only thought of her,” Finally, the sun rose. Going to bed, I dreamt of her too, her face, her voice and not long after, I slept soundly, waking up to her voice.

“Wake up, wake up,” Her voice called. Was it my mind or was it her in the flesh? Opening, my eyes to her face, I was startled, however, calmed down soon enough. “Today, my turn, I’ll talk.” So, talk she did, hours passed, the warm hue of the sunset, transformed into a mesmerising night sky, as the sun dipped below the horizon, revealing a bright moon, climbing up a ladder to its zenith. I did not care about any of that, not the moon, not the sun, not even the couple of rodents scurrying about. My whole focus was on her, my attention could not be swayed. Not one way or the other. I listened as the she told me her story. How she was treated like a nobody in her family since she was a kind, sweet, loving girl unlike the rest of the family who loved wars, fame, and money. Selfish brats, how could they do this to their own daughter. Their own kin. I could not understand the logic of humans.

“I love you,” I blurted out, not even thinking about the implications of what I had just said, “I should have waited for longer, for more time, before trying to break it. It had been my shot after centuries and centuries of waiting, and it all came down to this moment. How would she reply? What would she say? Would she reciprocate my phrase? I hoped she would. Alas, fate was not a friend, and she ran off back into her humble abode. My curse remained, and my only friend gone from my mistake. I lay back down and chided myself for being a fool. After all, what would a princess like her want from an ugly little barn owl like me? It felt like I’d just poked my heart out. I couldn’t even sleep that day, my mind wandered to the look on her face as she ran away. I tossed and turned the entire afternoon, I could even swear that the sun had a condescending expression on his face once, even mother nature didn’t believe I’d ever break the curse.”

Soon enough, evening came around. “Honestly, I didn’t think she would come at all, after last night, after all I did give her quite the shock with those three words. So, I went back to sleep,”

“I love you too,” Her melodious voice sounded, and the change began.

“It felt like I was being stabbed while being burned at the stake at the same time. First, the legs changed, then the hands, the head, and one by one the rest of the body changed, from barn owl to human. I looked down and thanked the lord, that I wasn’t bare in front of a lady as magnificent and wonderful as she was. I was wearing a dazzling set of clothes at least from ten centuries ago. Ah! Time flies, doesn’t it?” I hugged her dear and tight, before she told me why she came back, despite her yesterday, we sat and talked for hours on end.

“Boom! Bam! Boom!” Thunderous stomps sounded in the distance out of nowhere, I grabbed her hand, and we hid among the trees. The guards passed us, faces stoic and unmoving. “Search for her, she shouldn’t be far off! Oh, the king will be fuming!” He bellowed, commanding his guards to patrol for her.

However, I had lived here for quite a while, and knew my way around here pretty well, at least that’s what I thought.

“Crack!” I’d stepped on a tree branch.

All the heads snapped towards us instantaneously, and they bolted towards the trees trying to locate us. Frozen in fear, she had to drag me towards the gate. We were going to die because of me. As I collected my senses, I realised what we were doing and bolted as fast as I could in a different direction from where she was going, “Go! Run! I’ll hold them off,” I bellowed. Most of the guards chased after me as I grasped the sword from outside the barn and the teachings from my previous life kicked in, I slashed my sword dismembering a guard, stopping the rest right in their tracks. Then, a couple dropped their weapons and bolted back, terrified of me. I killed the rest. I felt like a charging bull, nothing could stop me, not today.

“Stop right there!” I shrieked,” Both of you against me, fight to the death, winner takes the princess,”

“We agree!” They replied in unison almost instantly, eager to claim the spoils of my head.

Taking our spots on the field, we started the battle. The princess disapproved of this openly and showed it immensely in her actions and words. But a battle was a battle. They tried every tactic they could, but I knew them all, every way you could think to try and slice my head, or impale my heart, all were futile. Alas, fate was a friend, and not long after, their heads rolled down the hill.

I was free, after so long, “My flying feral beast, we’re free.”