#minotaur retelling

[monstersandmaw]

A Star in the Dark - A retelling of the Minotaur of Crete story (m. minotaur x f. character, 3rd person, Chpt. 1, sfw)

Since there was some interest on Discord in seeing this WIP, here is chapter one in its entirety for Patreon supports of all tiers. 

Content: A young woman is given by her parents to be sacrificed to the monster in the labyrinth, and finds that maybe there's more to the Minotaur than she'd been led to believe. Passing mention of the death of a close friend in the past, and the practice of human sacrifice to the gods. 

Wordcount: 4161

Looking forward to your thoughts on this one! I'll probably put the whole story up on Tumblr at some point in the future, and so far I've got two and a half chapters, plus a few snippets, written. 

A salt-fresh wind swept in off the sea and set the flames of a hundred bronze braziers dancing across the flagstones in the fading light.

Those small fires guttered and roared in the gusting wind, and the young woman’s grim pretence at courage wavered. Ahead of her on a wide, half-moon platform that stretched like a stage devoid of all its players, seven shallow steps led down into the earth.

The walls of the narrowing staircase were faced in smooth, pale masonry, and the downward path seemingly ended at a sheer, vertical wall facing the steps, with no door or entryway onwards. Instead, the end of her journey would begin at the square of utter darkness that waited in the floor where an eighth step would have been, gaping and blank like the maw of a newly dug grave.

Barefoot, the grit beneath the soft soles of her feet dug into her skin, and the same wind that made the flames dance pulled at the folds of her undyed, linen peplos to send undulating ripples through the thin fabric. Goosebumps prickled along her arms and legs. The gold bracelets that adorned wrist and ankle did nothing to warm her and the wind snuck its fingers into the elaborate coils of her long, dark hair, unwinding them and freeing them from the golden net that had held them all in place.

She’d been made up to look like a bride, but instead of a wedding, she walked through the pageantry of her own funeral. She wished bitterly that those coils of hair atop her head would turn to snakes and strike at the two men walking three, silent paces behind her with their bronze spear tips levelled at the small of her spine.

Overhead, a line of ochre-red smeared across the sunset sky like a bloody finger painting, and the copper disc of the sun stained the sea a dark, murex purple as dusk gathered around the cliff-top palace, and her last moments in the light of Helios drew to a close.

The monumental limestone masonry of the royal palace shone out of the dusk like pale bone, and a woman with a kithara wailed shrilly to the insistent beat of seven great drums, their rhythm a second heartbeat in her ears.

Incense, thick and cloying, twisted through the air from the braziers and it burned her throat and lungs and made her eyes water as she passed them. She blinked away the tears that formed; they were not for these people, and she would not let them see her afraid. Behind the incense, the faint scent of jasmine and honeysuckle floated past her from a distant palace garden that she would never see.

Upon the top step of seven, she faltered to a halt, shaking despite her desire to be brave; to bear the humiliation with stoic dignity. Hurt and grief curdled inside her with the last of her sputtering courage, and on impulse, she turned sharply to look back over the gathered folds of material at her shoulder, dark eyes wide and glassy with terror. The searing lance of betrayal that had been broken off somewhere in her ribs was now lodged there forever.

There, among the onlookers, she could see her stoop-shouldered father, with his wildly curly hair blowing around his head, and his tanned skin like leather after so many years under the fierce Cretan sun, his hands rough and strong and always gentle. He’d shown her how to hold a chisel and a mallet, how to split seasoned timber with wedge, mallet, and axe, how to pull the draw-knife across its surface, how to use a lathe to turn wood, and how to cut the joints in a chair so they would fit together perfectly. He’d even shown her how to carve winged sirens into the prows of the new ships and how to tease the shape of a spoon out of a section of wood without slicing her own thumb off.

She’d played in the shipwrights’ yard since she’d been old enough to toddle away from her mother and bring her father his midday meal. She’d laughed and learned along with the apprentices, outshining some and learning from others, until the day she’d nearly lost her index finger to the careless stroke of a chisel, and her mother had called her back to the house to spin and weave instead. In the wavering light of the braziers that lined the short path to her own personal Tartarus, she glanced down at the pale scar in her sun-bronzed skin and ran the pad of her left thumb over the silver line at the knuckle of her index finger where sensation existed only in her memory.

She willed that numbness to bloom out across her body, but her pain burned too brightly and too hot to be doused, and she ground her teeth. Her father couldn’t meet his daughter’s dark eyes across the empty stretch of gritty ground between them, but her mother held her gaze, unflinching.

The music seemed to fade as mother and daughter stood locked in distant, grim, resentful silence.

King Minos and Queen Pasiphaë stood on a raised dais somewhere off to her right, wreathed in embroidered, purple silks and dripping with gold, but she had no eyes nor time for them. It was because of the conceit and hubris of King Minos that she was being sacrificed to the monster below the palace, and because her mother had refused to take a ship and sail away with her that she was standing there now.

Cold, hard eyes spoke only of the desire for her daughter not to shame her. To go with dignity to a death that was, after all, to honour Poseidon. Of course, her parents would be well compensated by the king for their ‘gift’, but as all the misty possibilities along the path of her life were snuffed out like so many tiny candles, she couldn’t muster anything but contempt for her parents.

“I’m your daughter!” she yelled at her mother, her voice cracking as she fought the urge to double over against the pain. The agony of their betrayal clutched and clawed at her insides, the imaginary blade twisting deeper. “How could you? I’m your daughter!”

She hardly recognised her mild-mannered father as he just lowered his gaze to stare at the stones beneath his sandals. Beside him, her mother just kept on staring, her face like a statue at a shrine to discipline.

“I’m your daughter,” she whispered, the words inaudible to all but the two guards who began to steer and poke her down the steps like a cow to slaughter. “That’s all I am to you people,” she said, the words lost. “I’m not even human.”

The men exchanged a look as they neared the end of the stairs, but she couldn’t read it; couldn’t think.

She was about to die, to be torn to bloody shreds by teeth and monstrous hands, perhaps impaled on the horns of the bull-headed monster that rampaged below the palace, foaming and furious in his own imprisonment, and all while they held their stately banquet above and congratulated themselves on their own cleverness for appeasing Poseidon with a little virgin’s blood. And all for an insult dealt to the god almost three decades ago.

Well, at least she wasn’t a virgin.

Would the monster know? Would Poseidon care? Would the god even notice when the thread of her life was cut?

At an impatient flick of the king’s fingers, the two guards stepped forward as one. Their glinting, bronze spear points finally made contact and jabbed through the fabric at her hips, pricking two bloody points in the skin that bloomed like red eyes in the pale linen. She felt nothing. Her heel missed the lip of the opening into the earth, and she toppled backwards with a wordless shriek. Her arms and limbs flailed, and the shadows of the labyrinth reached up and consumed her.

She had promised herself she wouldn’t scream.

When she’d sat in the painted chamber in the royal palace, its walls adorned with lurid frescoes of figures leaping bulls and topless women emptying black amphorae into channels in the earth that had made her think of the runnels of blood in a butcher’s shop; when her hair had been combed and oiled and placed in its glinting net; when she’d had perfumed oil dabbed at the hollow of her throat, the inside of her wrists, onto her nipples, and, especially repulsive to her racing imagination, down between her legs; when she’d been told it was an honour to be deemed a worthy sacrifice to the monster stalking in his unending paths of dark nightmare: she had made an oath to herself that she would not scream. She would shame them with her silence. One last act of defiance.

Yet as she plunged backwards through the rush of foetid black emptiness, she screamed long and loud.

The sound tore itself free from her throat, raw and ringing in her ears as she plummeted down and down and down through the darkness that filled the shaft. The sky became a square of distant starlight that diminished as she fell.

You can read the whole 4k word chapter on Patreon right now for just $3, or for $5 you can have access to everything pre-2020, plus an additional, exclusive monthly story and lifetime membership to our chill Discord server.

[greekmythcomix]

Me: dislikes Theseus, likes minotaur, likes papercraft

Me: makes entire Labyrinth and Knossos Palace paper Playset so can kill Theseus at hands of minotaur

They also interlock to make one big Playset:

And by the way the Labyrinth walls move 👀 (and you can use it as a game board - game instructions included)

And also it’s also available in colour:

You can get your own here (https://greekmythcomixshop.Wordpress.com) if you fancy it. (These things are how I keep the rest of my main educational site free and free from ads)

[mistakes-have-been-made]

I love it when even Greek mythology also affects my music taste because what is this-

I- look man it's just good idk what to say

If you happen to know any other Greek mythology musicals please let me know I would love to add more to the collection :3

[lalalalupia]

no children of the labyrinth escaped out alive.

LISTEN, LISTEN TO ME, I WILL MAKE ICARUS AND MINOTAUR TO BE FRIEND….AND ALSO Apollo 🔥🔥

[neptunesize]

𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓾𝓷𝓭𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓭𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓮

a dionysus and ariadne playlist

✦ Bedroom Hymns - Florence and the Machine

✦ Glitter & Gloss - Skott

✦ Fool - Børns

✦ Is Everybody Going Crazy - Nothing but Thieves

and more! listen here!

[jojotier]

the one thing that pisses me off about House of Leaves is that that play where the Minotaur is actually a disabled and disfigured son locked up in the labyrinth, as sweet and intelligent as he is despairing, focusing on King Minos slowly realizing his son has never been the problem and that this child he scorned as a beast is the most human a being can be, and just as he was on the verge of figuring out how to undo his own lies and bring his son into the sunlight, he doomed his son to death at the hands of a drunken thug proclaiming to look for glory, isn't real. it's not a real play! wha tthe fuck!!!!

[thelonelylemonsquare]

The Bull of Minos, the Minotaur.

“the starry one” Asterion, Prince of Crete

[rs-hawk]

More minotaur asterion pleeeeeease! They are so cute together istg

They're engaged aren't they 😈 their parents just arranged it I'm guessing

You would think, wouldn’t you? 🤭

Nobleman Minotaur Part Four

You leave Asterion’s dwelling in a haze, glancing over your shoulder to see the immoral talking to her son before the door shuts behind you. She said to go talk to your father, so you obey. Your head is too full of thoughts of Astreion’s lips being so close to yours for there to be thoughts of much else.

In almost a haze, you make your way through the garden towards the palace. In the sitting room, your father is sitting, obviously waiting for you. “Y/N. I’m glad you’re here,” he smiled at you as he shut the book he had been reading.

“Pasiphae told me to come see you,” you managed to say, eyes drawn to the large amount of wrapped presents on the table beside your father. You knew what they were. Gifts to butter you up so noblemen across the land could request your hand. You’d never bothered to open a single one. “She said I would want to hear what the two of you discussed.”

Your father chuckled, setting the book to the side and gesturing for you to sit beside him. You do so, leaning your head against his shoulder. It’s comforting. It reminds you of being a child.

“She had told me that she had a vision of you getting married by next year’s end,” your father said, making you still.

“Next year’s end?” you repeated, drawing away from him. “So soon?”

“I know that it’s soon, but a Goddess’ visions are rarely wrong,” your father said as he patted your back.

Your heart skipped a beat as you pulled away from him, your eyes hesitantly raising to meet his. “Did she… see who it was?”

Your father shook his head, a frown steeping his face. “No. Why? Did you have someone in mind?” You shrugged, face flushing brightly. “It seems like you might be holding something back.”

“Well, I’m not sure if you’d approve,” you hesitantly say, tugging at your skirt.

“It’s no matter. Lady Pasiphae told me she saw how the suitor would win your heart and your hand,” your father said almost smugly, like it was a game and he was winning.

This time, it was you who had a frown steeped into your face. “ ‘Win’?”

“Yes, child. Acts of bravery and strength, so that way you might have the protection of both the Gods and man.”

You nodded, a lump forming in your throat. You knew that you didn’t have a choice. Not really. Not only were you his eldest child, but the only daughter. You were not just an heir to the throne, but the one chance he might get at combining territories, or making alliances. You felt foolish. Of course you couldn’t have just blurted out who you wanted to be with. Even your father, kind as he was, wasn’t blind nor stupid. He knew how a kingdom with a monster as the king would look.

“Okay,” you whispered, your voice tight and strained, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll get everything put together. The tournaments will start by next month’s end.” Your father sounded so proud when he announced this, as if this was something you should want. Something you should be excited for. “Every eligible man in the Kingdom will come to compete for your man.”

“Every… bachelor?” you asked, eyes lighting up as you thought of how you could tell Aestrion about the tournament. Your heart skipped a beat at the idea of how easy it would be for him to wipe the floor with any other contestant.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” your father laughed, picking his book back up as he went to stand. “Take a look through the gifts. I want to know truly if there’s anyone that you’re interested in. While the Goddess say the tournament winner would win your hand, maybe the acts of bravery and strength weren’t in the tournament. Maybe he’s a soldier, or a General, even.”

You nodded along, contemplating. The Aestrion you knew had never shown strength. He was a soft, gentle man. Of course, you had no knowledge of his past, but still…

“Alright Father. I’ll look at the gifts,” you agree, mind racing. Wondering how you’ll be able to get him to agree to such a thing, or if he even wanted to.

Like this story? Support me on Ko-fi ☕️ ❤️

[kitthew]

i think the reason that kaos is such a successful adaptation, despite being so inaccurate to the myths, it’s that it’s so new, fresh, and entertaining

like, there isn’t one canonical Greek Myth. there are, of course, surviving texts from the era—homer, euripides, aeschlyus, etc. — but those are only what have *survived,* there are countless other myths and ancient retellings that have been lost to time. besides, even between the original myths, there are discrepancies and different interpretations. the myths originated in an oral storytelling tradition, and with each teller, the stories were different. sure, there were some things that stayed consistent throughout the retellings, but almost every myth has elements that varied across sources.

you could always argue that even though that might be true, they could have based the show more on less common myth alternatives that still have sources from the time period, but i personally think the fact that they’re kind of doing their own thing is literally just what the ancient greeks were doing with their myths as well lol

plus, the reason successful greek plays *were* successful was that they told existing stories in a new and interesting light. sure, it was more of a “no one goes to the theatre to find out what happens next, they go to hear how the writer is telling the myth in a new and interesting way” sort of vibe, and kaos *does* have an element of watching bc you don’t know what happens next bc so much has been changed from the original myths, but again, i think this is basically just what the greeks were doing. when something originated in an oral storytelling tradition, there isn’t One Definitive Way to retell it. kaos takes a lot of creative liberties with the source material, but there’s always room for new interpretations and ways of telling these stories

BUT the show is imo so engaging and successful despite all that bc it really gets at the heart of the myths, even though, again, it isn’t at all accurate. zeus is cruel, power-crazed, and incestuous. dionysus is literally just a boy. hera is trying so so hard to be a GirlBoss. hades and persephone are the only ones who seem to have their shit together. poseidon is a douche on a yacht. there’s some incredibly interesting and compelling world building. and at its core, the show is about two things: 1) the gods are human and fallible and 2) you cannot outrun your fate, no matter how hard you try.

and what’s more greek than that?

[jack-o-laa]

Where are my greek myth enjoyers⁉️

[monstersandmaw]

for the word wip asks - monstrous, deadly, or soft? :3

Monstrous, from my retelling of the Minotaur story: (and it’s a monstrously long sentence too…)

She was about to die, to be torn to bloody shreds by teeth and monstrous hands, perhaps impaled on the horns of the bull-headed fiend that rampaged below the palace, foaming and furious in his own imprisonment, and all while they held their stately banquet above and congratulated themselves on their own cleverness for appeasing Poseidon with a little virgin’s blood.

[logandria]

So you’ve found me then, have you? I’m afraid you won’t be making it out of my labyrinth now…

⛓️🫀⛓️

[sarafangirlart]

I get that ppl want to make sympathetic portrayals of monsters but I don’t like it when they make them squeaky clean and pure and having done nothing wrong, like for example portraying the Minotaur as never having eaten Athenian youths, when it’s a lot more interesting that he did eat them but only bc he had no other option bc he was isolated in the labyrinth and robbed of his humanity, he is treated as a bloodthirsty monster and so grew up to be a bloodthirsty monster. I also don’t like how Theseus is demonized for this specific myth when it’s one of the few heroic and selfless things he’s actually done.

Or Medusa, sure we don’t technically get any specific stories about her turning innocent people to stone and it can be argued that the statues around her cave were warriors who came to kill her and she turned them in self defense, however, according to a rationalization by Diodorus Siculus she was a warmongering warrior queen and while this is a rationalization he likely took this from a story were she actually does attack someone, and not in self defense. It also doesn’t help that sympathetic portrayals always depict her as beautiful and/or sexualized, it really says something that male/male coded monsters are allowed to stay ugly and monstrous but their female counterparts don’t get that luxury.

The reason why Shrek is so compelling is bc he gets to be a flawed character, sure he’s defending himself from villagers that attack him but sometimes he’s the one who attacks and steals from them unprovoked, not to mention he was a jerk to Donkey and Fiona, but then he grew and changed as a person.

[prolibytherium]

I never touched it but I feel like i only ever hear positive things said about song of achilles.. in (rough strokes at least) what makes it dogshit to you?

Okay it's been a while since I actually read it so some of this might not be spot on accurate. Sorry if at any point I say 'the book never does xyz' and it actually does once or twice but I think my underlying criticisms are accurate

-Patroclus is made into like this soft gentle tender quivering little yaoi boy. In the source text, he's shown as compassionate and moved by the suffering of his own men (and apparently having some medical skill, tending to the wounded in the camp), but very much invested n combat and very, very good at it (pages worth of descriptions of the guys he's killing left and right). In this, the arguably more complex character from this 8th century BC text is flattened into Being A Healer, he doesn't want to go to war he just wants to help people, he only goes because Achilles has to but he doesn't want to fight he's a HEALER he's a gentle lover NOT A FIGHTER who just wants to help he just wants to help everyone around him he HEALS while Achilles is a doomed warrior who is so good at fighting and KILLING its a DICHOTOMY GUYS!!!LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL SUN AND MOON DOOMED LOVERS SO SAD patocluse HEALER . (I Think he's specifically characterized as being BAD at fighting but might be misremembering)

-I don't remember much about Achilles' characterization I think it just makes him less of a jackass while not adding anything of interest and levels out into being mad boring.

-Not getting into the literal millenias old debate whether the mythological characters Achilles and Patroclus were being characterized as some type of lover by the original oral sources of the Iliad or its Homeric writers. We will never know. We don't even know what (if any) culturally accepted conventions of male homosexuality existed in bronze age Greece (we know much more about their descendants). But there are some interesting elements of their characterization in this direction, with how unconventional their relationship is WITHIN the text itself- Patroclus is described as cooking for Achilles and his guests (very specifically a woman/wife's job), Achilles chides Patroclus like a father, but there's also scene where Achilles' mourning of him directly echoes a passage of Hector's wife mourning her husband, Patroclus is explicitly stated to Achilles' elder, and is overall treated as his equal or near-equal, closest confidant and most beloved friend (to the point that pederastic classical Greeks would debate over who was erastes (older authority figure lover) and who was eromenos (adolescent 'beloved')- many took it as a given that this text depicted their present-day cultural norms of homosexual behavior but it existed so Outside of these norms that it had to be debated who was who). Their relationship is non-standard both within the text and to the descendants of the civilization that wrote them.

Basically what I'm saying is this book had opportunities to like, explore the unconventionality of the relationship (being presented here as explicitly lovers), explore the dynamics of why Patroclus wants to do 'women's work' (besides being a tenderhearted softboy), the weird dynamics where they take on paternal roles to each other but also roles of wives, how they feel about being this way, and just kind of Doesn't. Which I guess isn't an intrinsic fault (because it omits much of what I just talked about to begin with). it's just like.... Lame. This book takes jsut abandons everything interesting about the source text in favor of flattening it into bland Doomed Yaoi.

-The conflict that sets off the core story of the Iliad is Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over Briseis, an enslaved Trojan woman taken by Achilles as a war-trophy, Achilles spends most of the story moping because he was dishonored by his 'trophy' being taken. Achilles and Patroclus and everyone else are raping their captives, all the women in the story are either captured Trojans (or in the case of the free women within the walls of Troy, soon to be enslaved, and are slave owners themselves). Slavery as an institution and extreme patriarchal conventions are innate to the text and reflective of the context in which it was developed. You cannot avoid it.

But obviously you can't have your soft yaoi boys doing this, so the author has them capturing women to Protect Them from the other men. Their slaves are UNDER THEIR PROTECTION and VERY SAFE (and they might even Like And Befriend Them but I might be misremembering that. Briseis does though). Our heroes have apparently absorbed none of the ideals of the culture they exist in and the author seems to think "they're gay and aren't sexually attracted to their captives" would translate to them being outright benevolent (also as if wartime sexual violence is just about attraction and not part of a wider spectrum of violent acts to dehumanize and brutalize an accepted 'enemy')

In the source text, Briseis mourns Patroclus as being the kindest to her of her captors, who tried to get her a slightly better outcome by getting her married to Achilles (which probably would be the Least Bad of all possible outcomes for a woman in that situation, becoming a legal wife instead of a slave), and wonders what will happen to her now that he's gone. This is a really really sad, horrible, and compelling dynamic which could be fleshed out in very interesting ways but is instead is tossed entirely aside in favor of them being Besties. Like brother and sister.

All of the above pisses me off so much. If you don't want to engage in the icky parts of ancient/bronze age Greece then don't write a retelling of a story taking place in bronze age Greece. I'm not gonna get mad at children's adaptations of Greek myths or silly fun stories loosely based on them for omitting the rape and slavery but it is SO fundamental to the Iliad. If you're not willing to handle it, either fully omit it or better yet set your Iliad inspired yaoi in an invented swords-and-sandals setting where you can have all your heartbreaking tragic doomed lovers plot beats and not have to clumsily write around the women they're brutalizing.

-The author didn't seem to know what to do with Thetis and she made her just like, Achilles bitch mother who spends most of the story trying to separate our Yaoi Boys (iirc her disguising Achilles as a girl and hiding him on Scyros is made to be more about getting him away from Patroclus than trying to save her son from his prophesied doom in the Trojan War) until she sees how much they loooove each other and I think helps Patroclus' spirit get to the afterlife or something in the end?

-This is more of a personal taste gripe but it has that writing style I loathe where the prose feels less like a story and more like an attempt to string together Deep Beautiful Hard Hitting Poetic Lines that will look great as excerpts on booktok (might predate booktok but same vibe). It's all very Pretty and Haunting and Deep but feels devoid of real substance.

I really like The Iliad and The Odyssey in of themselves. They're fascinating historical texts that give a window into how 8th century BC Greeks told their stories, saw their world, interpreted their ancestors, etc. And genuinely I think these texts have 'good' characters, there's a lot of complexity and humanity to it.

WRT the Iliad- all of the main Achaeans are pretty fascinating, the one singular part where Briseis Gets To Talk and laments her situation is great, Achilles fantasizing that all of the Trojans AND the Achaeans die so he and Patroclus alone can have the glory of conquering Troy (wild), Achilles asking to embrace Patroclus' shade and reaching out for him but it's immaterial (and the shade being sucked back underground with a 'squeak' (the squeak kinda gets me it's disturbing and sad)), Hecuba talking about wanting to tear out Achilles' liver and eat it in a (taboo, exceptioally pointed) expression of rage and grief for his mutilation of her son's corpse, just one tiny line where the enslaved women performing ritual wailing for their dead captors are described as using it as an outlet to 'grieve for their own troubles' is heartrending, etc. A lot of grappling with anger and grief and the inevitability of death, a lot of groundwork laid for characters that could be very interesting when expanded upon in the framework of a conventional novel.

And Song Of Achilles really doesn't do much with all that. I know a lot of my gripes here are kind of just "It's different from the Iliad", I would have thought of it as mostly mediocre and forgettable rather than infuriating if it wasn't a retelling (and I DEFINITELY have strong biases here). But I think the ways in which it is different are less just a product of a retelling (of course there's going to be omissions and differences) and more a complete and utter disinterest in vast majority of its own subject matter, to the book's detriment. I think a retelling has a point when it EXPANDS on the source, or provides a NEW ANGLE to the source. This book doesn't Really do either, it just shaves off the complexity of its source material, renders the characters into a really boring archetype of a gay relationship, and gives very little else. Its content boils down to a middling tragic romance that has been inserted into the hollowed out defleshed skeleton of the Iliad.

Bottom line: I definitely would not be as mad about it if I wasn't familiar with the source material but I think it's fair to expect a retelling to Engage with/expand on its source, and I also think it's weak purely on its own merits. This book was set up to disappoint Me specifically.

[the-fourth-nail]

Minotaur, Alone

The first time you bite, you're just a baby.

Mama smiles and tells you not to do it again.

You don't know you have a bull's head, not yet.

You know Mama loves you, she nurses you, and she feeds you the best grass.

The second time you bite, it's because you're scared.

You haven't bitten anyone in years. Mama taught you better, but

there's a strange man in the room, and he says he knows Mama.

Nobody has ever looked at you the way he is looking at you.

It scares you. He is holding a ring in his hand.

You are alone with the monster. Nobody is coming to help you.

Nobody listens when, screaming, snorting, you tell them he hurt you.

They carry you away, their hands hurting your arms and your legs.

Mama is crying. The man is smiling. You will never forget his face.

You have never seen Mama cry before. You call out to her, worried, but

she backs away. You bit the man, she screams.

Nobody notices the bloody ring in your nose. It hurts it hurts it hurts

and it's dark in here.

It's so dark in here and you're cold and you miss Mama.

You walk and you walk. You scream and you cry. Nobody comes for you.

You will never get out of this place.

The third time you bite is because you have to.

The rats are biting. You don't want to hurt them, but

they're hurting you, just like the man hurt you. And

you are cold and tired and lonely and hungry and you miss Mama even though she was mean and you're hungry and

you take a bite.

They don't taste like grass.

They taste worse.

Light. Flame. A torch in the darkness. You feel hope again, for the first time.

Maybe Mama isn't mad anymore, but

he's here again. The man with the bandage around his hand and you can still taste his blood and you can't take off the ring in your nose.

The man sneers. Do you understand me, you stupid animal? he says. You will never get out of here, he says. Built by a genius, he says.

You back away. You're scared. Nobody taught you to fight back.

The next time the man comes, you smell him first. You know by now that you are an animal.

He smells like strong drink. He is crying.

My son, my son, my son, he says. Dead, dead, dead.

His eyes blaze. Why are you alive? he says.

You don't know why.

Mama is never going to visit you here,

is she?

This is the last time the man comes, but you don't know it yet.

He is wearing fine clothing, he looks so beautiful. You remember Mama showing you pictures, telling you you could dress that fine one day.

Your father is a king, she said. You wonder if you will ever meet him.

The man brings a torch, and guards. You know of guards. They brought you here.

There are people with them. Seven and seven. They smell like flowers and oils and sweat and fear and piss and shit.

You back away from the jabbing spears.

Come on, the man roars. You're a beast, he says. Bite them, bite them, bite them, he says.

You can't run far enough away. They hurt you and hurt you while the children watch.

A woman steps forward. Stop, she says. Leave him alone, she says.

A blade catches your nose. The pain is red. Everything is red.

Afterwards, you realize you're holding the woman. She is bleeding from so many bites.

You are alone with the monster.

It will never leave.

You think they have forgotten you. You hope. You are wrong.

There are different guards this time. But still seven and seven.

You are quick this time. Dead and dead, while the guards are still running away.

The rats come to gnaw on them, and the grubs, too. You eat those. It is better than eating the dead.

Seven and seven. Again and again.

The only thing that will save you is prayer, but

nobody ever taught you how to pray.

Seven and seven. One smells different. He smells like flowers and love and no fear and no piss and no shit.

You watch him and he watches you. He is fiddling with a ball that smells like your sister.

You forgot you had a sister.

The guards don't wait. They run. Seven and seven all chained together rattle and fall.

The man is quick. He gets back up.

You come close. Nobody ever taught you the word "friend," but

his hands are around your neck. You are scared, but

you don't bite him. You don't bite him you don't bite him you don't bite him. Maybe this is what a friend does.

I am not an animal, you say. Please take this ring out of my nose, you say.

You look into his eyes. He is crying. I have to, he says. I have to, I have to, I have to, he says.

You need air, you need air, you need air.

I know, you say. There is a monster here, you say. I will help you get rid of him, you say.

I was alone with the monster, you say. You are here to rescue me, you say.

[thetudorslovers]

"The gods do not know love, because they cannot imagine an end to anything they enjoy. Their passions do not burn brightly as a mortal's passions do, because they can have whatever they desire for the rest of eternity. How could they cherish or treasure anything? Nothing to them is more than a passing amusement, and when they have done with it, there will be another. " - Jennifer Saint, Ariadne