The Monster Ygraine by G. Gormley
In a land where dark woods twisted below cities of shining white marble, the Queen ruled from the highest steeple of the highest palace. It was in this palace that the Queen had her only child: not a girl, but the monster Ygraine.
Ygraine was meant to be born a princess with golden hair and a pink smile. This is what the soothsayers saw when they traced the lines of the Queen’s palms. Ygraine was meant to be born healthy and strong. This is what the physicians assured as they listened to the tiny heartbeat.
When the time came, the birth was easy, and at first the Queen thought that the promises had come true. That is, until she saw the fear in her physician’s eyes as he gave the swaddled child to her offered arms.
Ygraine had eyes like big summer moons and feathers which sprouted wild from the skin. Their hands were not small and soft but strange, angular and with ends as hard as bone. From one look, the Queen knew that they would grow to be talons.
When the baby opened their mouth to coo, a click—hiss rattling noise came snaking out from teeth which were sharp as pearl-white blades. The Queen held them close to the warmth of her chest, yet they writhed like the kindness was hated.
The Queen did not realize she was weeping until the monster hissed with displeasure, and her physician bowed low with apologies tumbling over each other from his lips.
“How can my daughter ever be happy?” The Queen asked, and the excuses died. “How can she ever be happy when she is something so hideous as a monster? I was promised a healthy child.”
She reached as though to stroke the pale wisps of her child’s hair, and her fingers met the snow-spun feathers which framed the babe’s great terrible eyes. The Queen’s hands twisted, and Ygraine wailed.
The Queen blinked at the soft feathers come loose under her touch, only small droplets of ruby upon the skin to hint that anything had been taken.
The Queen reached again, taking another of the pale feathers between her fingers and pulling it loose from tender flesh. And she saw that her daughter could be saved.
“Quickly, help me,” she urged the physician. “Open the windows!” She instructed her handmaiden. And as her handmaiden threw open the windows to the tower, the physician knelt beside the Queen and followed her gestures. Delicate and frantic, the two of them tore the monster’s feathers away to reveal the beautiful princess underneath. The white feathers caught on the breeze and were pulled from the tower, a flurry like to snow.
When it was done, the baby was squirming and hissing. Oversensitive where the feathers had been flayed, blood bloomed like small spring flowers. But the physician tended the wounds with an ointment, and soon the distress was cleaned away to leave the babe’s skin soft and pink and human.
The Queen gazed upon her baby. Touched fingers to soft hair. This was the child she had been promised, the one she loved more than the breath in her lungs. Almost. Almost.
The baby pulled their lips back, and those pearl-daggers caught the light.
“Call for the royal beautician,” the Queen ordered her handmaiden with a snap of her fingers. “Tell him to bring a file as to correct these teeth. And physician, you must take a look at these fingers. We will ensure these talons never grow.”
The nail beds of the fingers were made into small red hollows as the place the talons would come in was made barren. And small Ygraine tried to bite and snap at the beautician, but their mother shushed their cries and held them firmly as the work was done. And when Ygraine next tried to bite, their teeth were harmless and pretty and aching. Ygraine finally looked like a beautiful little princess.
The Queen wept now with joy as she kissed the lovely face of her child.
Indeed, the Queen was so happy that every blessing was showered upon Ygraine. Before Ygraine could stand, the Queen had called for a thousand yards of silk, all to be crafted into the finest dresses the kingdom had ever seen. Before Ygraine could walk, the princess had been gifted so many dancing slippers that they could wear a new pair every day and throw them out come morning. By the time the child could babble their first words, they wore a crown of braided gold and sat in their mother’s lap as she held her court.
The Queen was happy. At first. But as Ygraine grew, it was clear that monstrosity was not so easily plucked away as a few feathers.
Ygraine looked like a lovely little princess, but they often acted like the monster they were at heart. Their skin stayed tender where their feathers had been flayed. Their tongue rattled click—hiss when another child might have giggled with delight. And these were the least of their monstrosities.
Human children are happy to look up at their mothers. But monsters do not like to look people in the eye. To a monster, this makes the heart race in a surge of danger. At first, Ygraine was called a shy and bashful princess. But as they grew and people saw that they did not even look at their own mother, people grew uneasy. The Queen most of all.
“You will look at me properly when I speak,” the Queen taught them. And when Ygraine’s eyes stuck just below hers, she would lift their chin with a hand to make them act correctly. And Ygraine would do their best to stare into their mother’s eyes the whole time she was speaking.
“Now that is just as rude!” The Queen chided, for humans find it uncanny both when a person does not look into their eyes and when a person looks for too long. And so Ygraine did their best to learn to look just the right amount—but just the right amount was impossible to determine.
Once whispers of the shy princess vanished, new ones emerged of the ill-tempered princess. For monsters do not make human faces, and they do not understand them. Ygraine could sit amongst the smiling nobles of their mother’s palace, but their own mouth did not curl up unless they reminded it. Their mouth only curled up by itself when they were terribly cross. And while they tried to remind themself to move their mouth the way their mother taught them, it was doubly hard to remember the thousand faces worn by the humans around them.
Their mother taught them that a mouth moved up for joy and a brow curled down for sorrow. But the mouth also moved up sometimes when tears came from the eyes, and so often they did not know what faces were meant to say. A brow also moved down for anger and focus and a hundred other things. Try as they might, Ygraine could never tell when a human was happy or sad unless they said it outright. But then, a human often lies.
“Come my darling,” the Queen beckoned to her child one day in court. “Come meet the duchess, she’s travelled so far just to see us. It was her who sent you that lovely dress. Say thank you.”
Ygraine knew to take their mother’s hand when she reached it out to them. To hold hands together was unnatural to them, strange angles that did not collide correctly. But it was not quite so terrible as being wrapped in arms, and Ygraine would not complain so long as they were spared that fate.
“Thank you,” said Ygraine to the duchess. She was as tall as their mother, with dark hair in many curls. They looked up into her eyes, and made their mouth rise at the edges. The duchess’ mouth rose up also. This was good.
“Oh, you look beautiful!” Said the duchess in a loud voice. A loud voice sometimes meant that a person was angry, but the words did not sound angry. And then she asked “Do you like it?”
A human often lies. A monster does not.
“No,” said Ygraine. “It itches my skin.”
And it did itch their skin terribly. A monster’s skin is sensitive where feathers are meant to lay soft, and the laces and seams of a dress are horrible things. Often, Ygraine would try to get away with wearing sleep clothes inside out just to avoid the misery.
Nevertheless, humans do not like when monsters forget to lie.
“Terrible, rude child!” The Queen scolded them after she had made them apologize. “I don’t understand why you do this to me! I give you everything, I love you with my whole heart, and you flinch when I hold you! You behave like a—”
Ygraine was made to stay in their tower bedroom for many days after being so awful, alone apart from the servants who brought meals.
Beyond the white walls of the palace, beyond the white walls of the city, the wood was a deep dark tangle, and out there was where the monsters lived. When Ygraine threw open the window of the tower, breath bated and ears keen—there it was.
Click—hiss.
Clicking, rattling, overlapping all around and far away in the wood. The sound of monsters at play.
One day, Ygraine awoke in the night to softness, to many-layered texture along their skin instead of rawness. They startled and crawled from their bed, thrown off-kilter by the weight of something behind their shoulder blades. There was the feeling of stretching a limb where no limb had been before.
They threw open the drapes to see by the light of the moon, turning this way and that to see that pale feathers had sprouted along their back and through their hair. When they raised their hands, they saw that small black protrusions had begun to grow in place of the hollows that had always caused them pain.
“Mother!” Ygraine called out, “Mother, come quickly!”
And through the palace tore the Queen, up the tower steps towards her child’s cry. When she burst through the doors, it was not the feathers that startled her—It was the fact that Ygraine was dancing.
Hands flinging wildly, glory of sensation, Ygraine hissed and clicked and rattled as they leapt and spun before the great window of their bedroom.
“Mother!” said Ygraine when they saw her standing in the door. “Look at this! I am a monster!” And they danced in a circle as though they had never been happier.
The Queen rushed across the room and wrapped her arms around them, even though a monster doesn’t like to be held. “My darling,” she said. “Don’t say such an awful thing. Never call yourself something so ugly. You will stop those dreadful noises, and we will have the physician come to pull all of these out, and then everything will be well again.”
Ygraine pulled away from the arms that would hold them close. “Mother, don’t you understand? You do not need to be angry when I hiss, or sad that I do not like to be held, because this is what a monster does.”
The Queen reached to stroke Ygraine’s hair, plucking a white feather which had framed their face. “You will never have to be a monster, because I have made you into a beautiful princess. I have filed down your teeth and taken out your claws. Now, promise me you will do better not to hiss.”
The little white feather was caught by the air and pulled out into the night. Ygraine looked at their mother and saw that she loved her princess very much. So they looked behind their mother and towards the window, where the moon was wide and welcoming over the woods.
The Queen shrieked as they ran, but her hands could not catch them in time to keep them from throwing themself out into the night air.
Ygraine vanished into the darkness, and the Queen dropped to her knees in mourning, because princesses cannot fly.
Princesses cannot fly, but monsters can.
Past the palace and past the city, the forest was a tangle of shadow and wild. The moon washed the whole world in silver, and Ygraine’s feathers unfolded into wings to carry them over the wilderness.
Down in the trees, Ygraine could see the shadows of other monsters moving and dancing. Ygraine clicked and rattled and hissed as they landed, and the other monsters came to celebrate with them. They did not look into Ygraine’s eyes and Ygraine did not look into theirs. There were no embraces, because monsters do not like to be held. When the other monsters spoke, they did so without the riddles that humans were fond of.
Ygraine’s talons grew back strong and sharp, and they never saw their mother again.