The king was a fearful man, a coward, and a liar. Leon already knew that, but it became even more real once he met the monster. He was sent on a mission, to go into the distant forest and kill the beast, and then gift its head to the king. Leon did part of it, crossed the kingdom, through small towns, until he was at the edge of the forest. Then he explored on his own for long, trying to find the beast, and once he did, he trailed and tracked the other. Leon polished his knives, he prepared himself to fight, because if this monster was so feared, it must be difficult to fight.

Spoiler, long story short, whatever, it wasn’t. The second Leon had the monster pinned, it didn’t fight back, it froze and stared up at him with eyes too human. Confused, Leon had hesitated, and in that moment, the beast fled.

Leon couldn’t go home empty handed, though, so despite his first failure, he persisted. But then he failed again, and again, and at some point it just became purposeful. The “monster” didn’t look like it’d ever hurt a person in its life, and it didn’t fight like it either. So one day he just paused to listen.

He was right. The monster had never done anything, only so much as existed for it to be shunned and thrown away by those it was supposed to trust. Leon wasn’t helping, he was threatening and trying to kill it—so he vowed to do the opposite.

He panted softly, sitting by the pond, bandaging himself. Blood was trickling from wounds all over his body. He’d take all the wounds the beast would get, he’d take the fights and shocked looks, the hatred of his betrayal, as long as it meant the other would be safe. When he didn’t return, the kingdom assumed him dead, and thought the monster was so much more deadly than thought before, even if the opposite was true. It was only so long until there would be soldiers sent for him too.

Leon wrapped his arm tight in gauze, but stopped once he heard a rustling. He recognized it, though. The monster. "You can come down, if you’d like," he called out, voice soft.