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FINALLY GOT IT ALL TYPED!!! enjoy!

Almost every old story begins like this: “Once upon a time, in a very far place, there was a monster, of whom no one could defeat. Many had tried, and failed.” The story then usually moves on to a recount of the hero’s past- how he tragically lost his parents, and why he must go and slay the beast. Then his story ends, and one is left with the dried-up pages of a read story.
It makes one ponder, then. What of the countless dozens who came before the hero? After one reads that line, the poor souls have more than likely been forgotten. Everyone has a story, and perhaps I sympathize with the nameless many, for I am one of them.
One could call me ______. That was before the great brute came and put a claw through my chest.
I have been wandering around, looking for my master, to tell him of my deeds after he had departed form the world in a great blazing inferno before me.
My master and I had fought and died to the same beast. He was not the tragic hero; his parents had not died suddenly when he was a boy. In fact, he used to visit his mother (who claimed to be 104. He said that she lied, that she was really 200), every third of the week, and broke his fast with her.
Neither was he looking for love-he was happily married, a caring and loving father with no suspicious courtiers behind him. He had three little girls, the oldest was twelve winters, and didn’t even come up to collar bone before I perished. She was a happy little child- Tanwen was her name. We may have been wed, had I not…. But anyway, my master, he and his wife ran their farm together, she on her own when he had to leave.
He was a knight, but barely held up to the status quo. He only left home when he absolutely had to, and came back as fast as possible. Of course, when charged with a task, he reluctantly oblige. Maybe, if he had listened to his wife instead of his king, we could both be with our respective families.
He was like a father to me, as a young lad, my mother often sent me to the knight’s household on the hill. To work, or maybe become one less mouth for her to feed amidst the great tide of brothers and sisters I had. A day stay would turn into an overnight, to a week, to a month, and when I eventually get home, my mother would send me back the moment I got through the doorframe.
I worked as a goose boy in his field, herding the geese about, while his daughters would toddle about and stop to watch me with big wondering eyes, then turn around to waddle back to their mother to go home.
I became his page, after his was injured in a jousting accident, that did not kill him, but when I went and asked what was wrong, as he sat looking sourly from the chair, and immediately threw the book nearest to him at my head.
As I was sitting outside the door, very frightened, my soon-to-be-Master, Bern, came. He asked what I was doing. I told him my story, and he laughed. He said that the page in there had not a lick of sense, and that it would be difficult for him to have children in the near future. Since he would be out of work, Bern would need a page to travel with him to help suit him up, or whatever he require. Their first born, a girl called Tanwen, was no old enough to watch the geese, and I knew I was soon to be out of a job, and sent back to my mother’s. I suppose that the page’s misfortune was my gain, at that time.
Little Tanwen. My every though was drawn back to her, even while looking for her father in this afterlife.
It was extremely hard looking for Bern, even though he was a big man of stature, everything here had changed everything. And also the fact that everyone who had ever died since the dawn of time was here did not help either. But nonetheless, I’m certain I will find him. After all, I have eternity to look for him.
He was never a big stratetegist- he would charge in headlong, taking whatever he was attacking by surprise, and to let everything else work out afterward. He had great strength- even though he was not the hero who slew the monster, he was not unqualified in the least.
He had run in, charging on his horse, into the creature’s lair. Spear in hand, he made powerful stab for under the jaw bone. The creature moved, and blocked the attack with it’s forearm. The element of surprise was gone.
He had told me to stay outside, and to wait until he emerged, victorious, with the terrible head of his enemy. I was so stupid, I had only seen thirteen winters, and I wandered into the cave to watch the great battle ensue. I saw Bern move his feet (his horse lay slain in a corner) as lightly as he could, but with all the armor, and the great heavy spear, he was anything but agile. The beast turned and sniffed, and headed straight towards me. I quaked, I failed him, Bern. I stayed, I didn’t move, didn’t obey, and now I was to be eaten. Bern saw the sudden change of tactics in the creatures movements, and tried to distract the monster and his shuffling.
Thutump. Swish. Clank. Thutump. Swish. Clank, clank CLANK! Bern was dropping his armor, I think to help distract the beast, for he must have seen, or figured I was there. Or, perhaps, he was stripping himself of the heavy metal’s burden to make his last move.
With a yell, Bern ran, his feet flying beneath him, the chain mail clinking and sounding like rain, as it fell to the floor. Hi spear out in front, he lunged, and with a sickening noise, like meat being squeezed between the fingers, the spear entered the the flesh of the monster, between the ribs, the spear head was almost totally engulfed in the beast’s mass. Screaming, and the next moment, fire, and two voices screamed the unearthly dirge. The fire burned out, and the lone keening of the beast told me that Bern had been the one set alight. I fled from the cave as the beast skulked back to the inner recesses of its cave.
I was weeping as I never had before. I felt my heart rend from my chest and I knew that the man who I secretly knew as “Father” would never walk on the earth again. Never play with his children, kiss his wife, ride horseback, hunt, serve, breathe, LIVE ever again on this earth, and it was my fault that he took such drastic measures to try and vanquish the monster’s existence from the earth.
Hatred consumed me as it never had before. I wanted to hurt something, anything right then, to share my torment, my anguish. If I had seen Tanwen, she would have been more than likely been a victim of my rage.
I screamed as those horrible things rushed through me, and I hit the forest floor again weeping.
Was that how monsters were mad? That they had loved, and laughed, and when their heart was taken, they tried to fill the void with anger?
I didn’t want to be a monster. I just wanted to have my heart back. I knew that anger would never fill the abyss, and the only way to have a heart back to beat in my chest, it need to re-grow.
I slept deep that night, and all the next day. I awoke disoriented, the great darkness taking all. I looked up at the stars, the great little specklings of light poking through the cover of darkness. I felt a sob rise in my throat but I swallowed it. I don’t think Bern would want to be remembered in sorrow.
I searched my mind for happier memories of Bern, other than his death. It was a painful, difficult task, but I found one, on a sunset hill, after watching the geese, and was heading back to the cook’s quarters where I slept.
He had come to the hill, to watch the sun set with his daughters, who were around his neck, legs, and arms. They fell upon the grass, laughing and shrieking. I watched from the foot of the hill, perplexed. I didn’t understand. My parents had never played with me, or my brothers and sisters. Never. Just yelled, and made certain we were halfway decent.
The girls saw me, and ran off down the hill, away from the wild-eyed goose boy.
“They mean nothing of it!” Bern called. “Come on up!”
I went up the hill, wary, standing unsure of what he was going to do. He spoke some more to me. How his daughters meant nothing of it, that they were shy. Also how they were fascinated by me.
“Maybe you might marry one of ‘em , huh? Which one do you like? Tanwen’s sure a keeper, isn’t she?” he chuckled in his throat.
The little nine-year-old me blushed profusely. I didn’t say anything, vainly trying to save face.
He saw. “Don’t worry about it, lad. You’re young. You’ve plenty of time”
Bern’s laughter would no longer ring through the halls of his home. I had stopped reminiscing, and hesitated behind the sunlit hillock, prevented me from seeing his house, where my pain, and maybe, my salve, lay.
I walked into the stable, untacked my gelding and watered him, then headed to the house.
I met with his lady, and poured my story to her, not crying, just putting a stone mask before my face. Her tears ran bitterly from her eyes, and I wanted to console her, but did not know how. I was just a lost young man, who simply sat there as the woman who had fed me, made certain I was bathed, had cared for me, cried for the lost husband she would never have to hold again. I left quickly, before any of her daughters could come, and melt the stone mask that took all my courage and will to make.
I fled far from there, and trained, trying to fill the angry void the monster had made in me, but to no avail. I spent all my energy on learning to use the tools of combat, of killing. I worked until I dropped, and would somehow tromp back to where ever I was staying, and sleep, so I would have no time to think about anything. I had strength. I felt my greatest desire to kill what had killed me.
The beast would be slain.

I had gotten the latest armor-light but sturdy, and chain mail, with little tight links. The leather clothes that went under to prevent the harsh metal from tearing my skin. A fast mare from the desert to carry me swiftly to my quarry.
I found the cave, and made my camp about a mile away. I tethered the horse to a fir tree, and she made soft whickering noises as I unloaded everything from her back. She would make small jumps at every noise, and twice I was certain she would flip onto her back. But we both made it through the night, and as dawn arose, I began to dress myself in the metal. It was cold, but my skin warmed it soon enough.
I mounted the tall mare, and rode to fulfill my destiny. She shied at the entrance of the monster’s cave, throwing me from her back, causing me to flip like an acrobat. I landed face down. My body was a flame of pain, but I didn’t think anything was broken, and I saw my sward, lying halfway out of the scabbard, about twenty feet off. I hobbled over, legs, arms, chest, all one big bruise. I felt my skin turn into a molten, massive purple splodge.
Damn that rotten piece of horsemeat. I ached, and was always told, When you fall off your horse, get back on, but the brute wasn’t even there to climb back on to!
I swung my arms around, gritting my teeth against the initial tingling pin-pain, and walked in circles to keep my legs from aching. I couldn’t bear it. The yearning, so close, I was so close, to my end, I could feel it. This would be judgment day, the day to end my hollowness. No waive thought passed through my head, I would kill it. The beast that induced this great insatiable abyss under my ribs. I tried to grow my heart back, but all I did was bring more pain unto myself. My heart would only grow back if I could stop up the nothingness within me.
My fury killed my pain. I ran as fast as I could with armor weighing me down. Beast! I screamed into the cave Beast! Come here! Stop my numbness! BEAST!
I heard the trundling thundersteps, just like the last time. But now I was stronger, and my strength made me unafraid. Thutump swish. Thutump, swish. My blood raced, my heart soared- this was a bloodlust I had never experienced before. This was how the monster must have felt before he killed my master before me.
I charged, screaming as my turbulent ichor fed and energized everything. My lungs were bursting with air, my head exploding with thoughts, but thinking nothing but to kill, to satisfy my belligerent spirit. I ran and charged him, taking a wild swing, aiming to lob his head off, but to no avail. I only hit his ear. A scream of frustration burst from my lungs. Inhale, swing, stab. I was missing, and yelling at my stupidity. I ran back out of grasp, and took a deep breath. I gripped my sword tighter, and took two running leaps, and thrusted my sword into his core, his deepest essence, which is where the stopper of my emptiness was certainly to be stored. I let out a laughing bark of triumph, and felt a wave of heat wash over me.
I breathed in and felt a great gushing. I felt like I was drowning. Red, gush, river, life, flood, blood, gone. I gasped, and felt a mighty pull at my innards. The beast had killed me, left me, filled my emptiness with my own lifeblood.
The redness had a certain purity to it, the life leaving me, the beast leaving, the horse left, all alone, as Bern had been before me, whiteness clouding my vision, along.
I crawled to the wall, somehow, to lean against the wall. How did he do it? This armor, the mail beneath, was just about indestructible. I looked down at my mail shirt. His huge claws shouldn’t have been able to get through.
There I saw where the beast’s claws had entered, missing links, and dinged up ones from when I had fallen off my mare’s back.
Damn that horse.
I heard footsteps. Too fast for the monster, and I was certain it was the mare returned to me, to laugh at my cruel ending.
“D-D-Da-“ I spluttered.
“Poor soul,” I heard a man’s voice. So it couldn’t be my horse it spite me- the wretched animal was female. “Get him to my fire. I will fight the Monstrosity alone.” I heard him say.
Then I died.
And came up to the netherworld, looking for Bern. I eventually saw him, looking intently at the ground. Bern! I shouted.
He looked up, and motioned me over
I looked where he had been. It was the cave, the monster’s cave. My monster’s cave.
We watched for….a long while. Finally the beast died, stepping on the same fire pit that Bern had so many years ago.
Hmph. Bern grunted distastefully.
What? I asked him
That young man only killed our monster because we tired it out first! He said with a laugh.