Thorny

by Lelia Eye

  Not wanting to create an all-out war with people I could not see, I muttered a half-apology, which they seemed to appreciate, as I noticed a few small kindnesses like better food and softer pillows (though the absence of water assaults was also particularly noticeable in itself). I would never have dreamed of apologizing to a servant before my transformation, but the change in my situation had been of such great magnitude that I scarcely felt like myself any longer.

  Even going to the bathroom had become a challenge. It took me some time at the beginning to fight the rather unusual urge to scent-mark my territory. And as for more regular answers to nature’s call, well . . . the sight of my attempt to use a chamber pot was one that I would not have wished on anyone. Furthermore, I realized that for sanitation’s sake, I was much better off going outside.

  I hated my life (I couldn’t even enjoy the pretty chamber pots, for crying out loud, which seemed a travesty in itself), but I adjusted, and I started to find it easier and easier to simply surrender to the beast inside me.

  I was able to take up hunting again, though it was very different from what I was accustomed to. Though I had no gun, I had powerful jaws, and my eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell were all more suited to such a task than when I had been human.

  After a year of such a life, I was hunting in the forest when I caught wind of an unusual scent. I froze for a moment. Then I stepped forward cautiously. There was a streak of brown barely visible through the underbrush. A deer! I thought with glee. I sprang into the air—

  —only to try to change direction mid-jump as I realized it was a horse.

  What happened was a clumsy mess. While I had jerked my head back, my hindquarters had kept moving, and my throat and chest smacked the horse’s body as my legs went beneath it and soon dragged me down into a dazed heap beneath the beast. What was supposed to be a graceful attack had turned into an embarrassing disaster.

  The horse moved a little ways away—thankfully not trampling me in the process—and then looked down at me, its expression conveying both wariness and curiosity despite the fact that it was an animal. I got to my feet and took a step toward it, my eyes staring at the decorated leather headstall, only to nearly leap out of my skin when I heard a female voice cry out: “Luna?” It was the voice of someone searching in desperation for something lost. And it was close.

  Chapter 3: The Dog Prince

  As I stood there, still as a statue, the horse snorted, as if to announce her presence. And then a girl stepped out of the trees toward us, and it was all I could do to keep my jaw from dropping. Labelle, I thought to myself in grateful surprise. Is it really you?

  I witnessed her joy as she saw her horse . . . and then her fear as she saw me.

  I could see in her eyes that she wanted to run. Yet my desperation to keep her with me was great, so I said the first thing I could think of: “Is this your horse?” It was a dumb question—why would she be in the woods searching for someone else’s horse?—but it had the desired effect of keeping her from fleeing.

  The question had made her jump, but she responded to me warily, her eyes darting back and forth between her horse and me, as if she were contemplating whether she could mount the creature quickly enough to escape me. “Yes, Luna is mine. I love her, and I want her back. Please . . . please free her and return her to me.”

  I had not exactly thought of myself as a horse jailor, but I was willing to run with it. “What will you give me in return for your pet?”

  Her face clouded over at that—evidently, I had offended her somehow—but she responded: “I will give you all my jewelry and my coin purse—just please let her go!”

  “All of that is useless to me,” I scoffed. I had fine things aplenty at the castle, and nobody would be interested in selling something to someone with a face like mine.

  Though it was obvious she was trying to remain strong, Labelle was trembling as she asked, “What does a horrendous beast like you want from me then?”

  Her statement rankled. The fact that this felt like a turnaround of what had led to me being transformed into a wolf only made me more annoyed.

  But despite my frustration, I was not too distracted to recognize the golden opportunity that was before me.

  “I want to be your companion,” I said, trying to think fast. “I want to sit by you at your table and . . . ah, eat off your little golden plate and . . . drink out of your cup . . . and sleep in your bed.”

  The look of horror on Labelle’s face told me I might have taken it a little far, but I couldn’t back down now. Fiefdom’s fire, I had no idea whether she even had a golden plate. And I really, really didn’t need to be sleeping in her bed. The idea was repugnant to me—I was a beast!—yet there was a part of me, the teenaged boy part of me, that was very much aware she was the perfect specimen of a human girl. And it was because of that part of me that I should not be anywhere near her bed.

  But I had dug my hole and would stand by it. And so, in order to prevent any misunderstandings, I told her: “And I need you to promise that you’ll do all this.”

  Her lips were pursed tightly. But I knew if she truly cared for her horse, she would pay the price. Even though I had set it far too high.

  “How long?” she asked me.

  “Do you ask a companion to leave your side? Do you thrust a friend out into the cold?” I returned. In truth, I had never had any real friends, but I had read a lot of books on great friendships, and I knew how it worked. The bed part, though, had been the creation of a less intelligent part of my body than my mind.

  She stared at me and said firmly, “I would do anything for Luna, no matter how frightful or disgusting.”

  That left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I stepped away from the horse without argument. As a beast, I was both frightful and disgusting. There was no denying it.

  Labelle rushed forward and started petting her horse’s nose and talking to her like she was a dog instead of a form of transportation. “Naughty girl,” she said. “You need to stop wandering away from home. The woods are dangerous, Luna. You could’ve been killed.”

  I watched with amusement that soon turned to amazement when Labelle—who was not wearing a riding habit as was proper for a lady intending to ride—mounted the horse bareback (and astride!) and took off through the woods.

  I stood there in shock for a few moments before coming to my senses. “Hey, wait! I can’t run as fast as a witch-spawned horse!”

  Letting out a low growl in anger, I muttered a few choice curses. It seemed as if all that women wanted to do was cause me trouble. Apparently, they didn’t have better things to do with their time.

  Setting my shoulders back, I bounded forward and took off after her.

  * * *

  It was some time later that I finally arrived at the merchant’s manor, tired and annoyed and ready to kill something if it weren’t for the fact that I was so tired. Even after a year, I was still learning about my new form, and I had just learned something else—wolves were definitely not horses.

  Apparently, paw pads weren’t anything like a good pair of leather boots—or well-shod hooves, for that matter. Run over enough sticks and stones in a wolf’s body, and it might not break your bones, but it sure could do a good job of breaking through any protective padding. Especially when stepping on every single sharp rock and pointy stick possible on the way to your destination.

  I expected to feel triumphant after finally making it to the merchant’s estate house. I didn’t. Instead, I stood there staring upward and wondering how humans were so fortunate as to be able to stand upright and look down at other creatures, much less open doors without it becoming some sort of puzzle to solve.

  The house was impressive. I had to give it that. Though not even half as big as Silverthorn, the merchant’s home was huge, with turrets and a plethora of vines growing up its tan stone sides. The building had a number of windows spanning both stories, and the well-manicured hedges in front of it were just further testimony to
the wealth that was being expressed. For someone who was not a noble, Labelle’s father obviously did pretty well for himself.

  With some effort—my back muscles aching from my run—I managed to lift my front legs to touch the door. I half-heartedly tried to work the knob before giving up. In the enchanted castle, the Invis always opened doors for me. I wasn’t going to have the luxury of doors magically opening here. I had never realized how much I relied on such assistance.

  I thumped my right paw against the wood a few times in some sort of lame attempt to knock. I then gazed hopefully at the golden knocker as a solution, but I knew my giant snout would prevent success with that route. I thought about throwing myself against the door to create a nice thump, but that would probably hurt . . . and I already hurt.

  Finally, I gave in to time-honored canine tradition. I scratched at the door.

  I could hear shouting. It sounded like someone was trying to get a “Fernmal” to answer the door. But evidently Fernmal was somewhere slacking off, as it was Labelle who finally came.

  “Shoo, dog—” she began to say, only to cut off wide-eyed when she saw me. “You!” she gasped. Then she slammed the door.

  “No, ‘hello, nice to see you again’?” I muttered. “Don’t they teach manners anymore?”

  Placing my legs on the door, I started scratching frantically, throwing in a nice long howl for good measure. “Open up, or I’ll huff and puff and blow this door down!” I declared. All right, so my breath was not actually strong enough to demolish any doors. They didn’t know that.

  After a few minutes of this, Labelle returned, a sour look on her face. “My father told me not to forsake a promise made to a magical creature,” she explained unhappily as she gestured for me to enter. Evidently, she had taken the time to explain her situation to her father, and she was less than satisfied with the results.

  I stared at her for a moment, uncertain whether she was planning to shut my tail in the door, but I finally stepped forward with what I hoped seemed like confidence.

  She recoiled as I brushed past her, and with a noise of disgust, she slammed the door shut. “Come on.”

  She took me to the dinner table, where her father, stepmother, and stepsisters were eating. Well, where they had been eating. Since Labelle had talked to them about me, they had apparently stopped to await my dramatic entrance with bated breath. I posed in the doorway, letting them get a good look at me. Then I stepped forward, leading to a break in the stunned silence.

  “Ew!” said one of the stepsisters. “What an ugly beast!”

  “You aren’t exactly a rose in full bloom yourself,” I returned. Truthfully, she was an attractive girl—in fact, both she and her sister were incredibly beautiful—but I would bite my foot before I would admit that. Especially since they had looked so horrified when I entered. Even if I was ugly, there was no call for rudeness.

  Stepsister Number Two laughed at my comment despite herself, only to stop at a glare from Stepsister Number One.

  “I won’t eat with such a hideous creature,” declared Stepsister Number One as she stood. “I am going to my room. Are you coming with me, Poppy?”

  The other sister looked from her mother to her stepfather and then nodded shakily. “Y-yes, Nettle.” Then the two sisters fled. Well, Poppy fled; Nettle simply sashayed out of the room as if the present company were beneath her, flipping her hair behind her and letting out a dignified sniff.

  Labelle’s stepmother—a remarkably beautiful woman who spoiled what nature had given her by never smiling—gave me an annoyed look and then went off after them. No, maybe “annoyed” wasn’t the right word. It seemed more malicious, like she was going to charm me into a frog when nobody was looking. She was one to watch out for. I was just fortunate she was easy to spot in her ridiculously bright yellow dress. When combined with that pinched look she wore on her face and her hooked nose, her clothes made her look like a starved canary.

  The merchant appeared uncomfortable, shifting in place. “You . . . you don’t plan to eat my daughter, do you?”

  “Not today.” Then, at a fearful look from Labelle, I amended with a sigh: “I have no plans at all to eat your daughter, so you can relax. I have more of a taste for fatter prey.”

  He didn’t relax. “Tell me, beast, what is it you want from Labelle?”

  “I want her to keep the promise she made to me.”

  He hesitated a moment before speaking. “To . . . be your companion?”

  “Yes.” If I had been human, I would have sat back and crossed my arms. As it was, all I could do was tilt my head and try to look stern. It was a little hard to keep from drooling as the scent of meat wafted over into my overeager nostrils, but I stood firm nonetheless.

  The merchant sighed (he missed my stern look), and then he made a waving gesture. “Labelle, pull out a chair for him.” When she delayed, staring at the floor, he prompted with fatherly sternness, “Now, Labelle.”

  After making certain her reluctance was obvious, she did as she was told, scraping the chair backwards as loudly on the floor as she could, and then she sat down at the table in a huff, crossing both her arms with a petulant expression.

  I hopped up to the chair beside her, and she flinched. Her face was so sour I wanted to laugh. I considered licking her, just to see what she would do, but I figured I was already pushing my luck enough as it was.

  “Bring your plate closer to me so we can share,” I told her.

  Stony-faced, she reached out and pushed her plate toward me with a finger.

  The great thing about being a wolf—maybe the only great thing—was that I didn’t have to try to keep a straight face. “And I need to reach your cup.”

  Two fingers came out this time, shoving the cup toward me so hard that water sloshed over the rim. Fortunately, none of it hit me.

  “Thank you,” I said facetiously. “That was very kind.”

  She turned a suffering look on her father that became an expression of disgust when I started lapping up water out of her goblet. It was not easy—my snout made it hard for me to find the right position for proper water extraction—but I managed.

  Labelle sat there, immobile and looking pointedly at nothing, while her father watched me eat the chicken off her plate. I didn’t touch the vegetables, but I noticed she didn’t either. No matter what class of society you were in, parents never seemed to understand that you had to be at the geriatric stage before you actually liked eating green leafy stuff.

  When I finished the meat and bread, I asked for more. Fernmal had appeared at some point—presumably to gawk at me with several other members of the household staff, who were finding things to do nearby from a safe distance—and at a gesture from the merchant, he snapped out of his bewilderment to fetch me food. Evidently, talking wolves weren’t common household guests here. They needed to start adding some variety to their invites if I made this much of a stir. And they needed to go over manners with the servants. It was not polite to stare.

  Fernmal started to set down a new plate for me, but I told him, “No, put it on her plate,” and he obliged, his hands shaking and rattling the two plates together as he clumsily dumped food from one to the other. The plates weren’t gold, and neither were the goblets, but they were obviously valuable. Still, the soft-hearted merchant didn’t deliver an admonishment for the fumbling actions, though he seriously needed to consider replacing Fernmal with a younger man who wasn’t so decrepit as to constantly spill food all over the table.

  When I noticed father and daughter staring at me while I ate plateful after plateful, I said: “Look, I’m hungry after chasing that pixie-bit horse halfway across the kingdom. Push your jaws back up; they’ll fall off if you drop them much lower.” Neither of them said anything in reply, so I kept eating.

  When I was finally satisfied, I declared, “I’m done. In a few hours, I’ll be ready to go sleep in your bed, Labelle.”

  The girl looked close to tears, and she turned to Beauregard. “Father, please
don’t make me let this dirty creature in my bed.”

  “I’m only dirty because I had to chase you halfway across the kingdom,” I muttered.

  Beauregard seemed alarmed, and he asked me: “Was this part of her promise?”

  “Yes,” I said. I tried not to feel guilty about that part of the promise, but I did anyway. Sometimes, I needed to think before I spoke.

  Visibly swallowing—maybe he had a frog stuck in his throat—he muttered to himself, “Hawthorn help us,” and then he told Labelle, “You must do it, child. But I will—I will have Fernmal leave a bell for you in case . . . in case you need anything.” He was shaking, too. Maybe it was something in the water. I probably shouldn’t have had so much to drink.

  Labelle’s hair-bearer came forward, and we went out to the stable for Labelle to fuss over her horse (who was pampered more than a monarch’s favorite cat) until it was time for bed. When we finally got to Labelle’s room, she stood in the doorway and said, “You can sleep on the floor.”

  “And you can sleep in the washtub. But since we’re living in the Reality Kingdom instead of Makebelieveland, you’re going to let me sleep in the bed, or I’m going to tell your father exactly why my back aches.” There I was again, not thinking with my head. She was so soft and female, and I was going to put myself in her bed?

  She stared at me, ready to argue, but she finally conceded, “Fine. You may sleep at the foot of the bed.”

  “I’ve half a mind to tell you where you can stick your foot and your bed’s,” I grumbled. “But I’d rather sleep there than listen to you whine all night.” I didn’t need to be sleeping beside her or in her bed at all, really. But maybe resting at the foot of her bed would make me feel like the beast I was and keep me in check.