I wake with a start, gasping. I feel fear, shock, and I don't know why.
“Somethin the matter?”
I look and see the big blueish minotaur, the brother of Steel, staring at me.
“Heard you gasp.”
“…Nothing.” I tell him. “It was nothing.”
“…Hmph.”
He moves closer, and then kneels so his face is far closer to my own. I see… conflict in his eyes. He is angry, but holding himself back.
“Then I want to known somethin.”
“Why’d you go an call Emmy that name?”
“Who’s Emmy?” I asked him, watching.
“Emmy’s my wife.” he told me. “She’s the one you called cattle. I want to know why.”
Ah. Perhaps getting the female upset was shortsighted. How to disarm this…
“…I… The recent time has been very hard on me.” I said. “And… Emmy reminded me of a few things, so I… lashed out.”
That was perfect, but his eyes only change slightly.
“She says that you were demandin to know what we wanted.”
...Stupid cow, telling everything to everyone like that. Why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut?
“…” What can I say to that?
“I can tell you if you want to know.” he says after a moment of silence.
“…Alright. What do you want?” I ask. Maybe minotaur are stupid? Or is this some kind of complex plot?
I need to learn faster, and act subtly. And not upset them; they obviously talk with each other, and have relationships not immediately apparent.
He sighs, thinking. “First, my name’s Falls. Waterfalls if you want the full name, but I go by Falls.”
“Bout three days ago, one o yours slammed into our front door. And we found more nearby. So we went to collect them; dead things encourage predators and bad things. Best to bury them.”
“That’s when Nugget and his father, my brother, Steel, found you.”
“Now, you said it yourself. All the others are your children. All… sixty or so of them.”
He looks pained for a moment. And then shook his head and continued.
“I don’t know what happened, but… Emmy knows what that’s like.”
“What?” I ask. How would she… oh.
“We lost a couple ourselves.” Falls says, seeming old and tired for a moment before shaking it off.
“And even if grandmother says that you are… what she says you are, you think, you speak, and you cried. You defended your child to the very end.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that makes you a person, a minotaur. And…”
“You don’t leave minotaurs to die in the woods.”
“…Why not?” I ask. And why not? Strangers in a strange place. Why give them anything if you didn’t want something in return?
He seems stunned slightly. “It’s called empathy. The feeling,”
“When you can feel what others feel.” I finish for him. “Celestia, minotaurs are just…”
“The world spits on kindness.” I say.
“What?”
“Give an inch, and others will tear you apart. The world is not kind, nothing is kind. Take, because nothing will be given, and guard, lest you be taken from. That is reality.”
“That ain’t,”
“I’m not finished. Look at your actions.”
“You take in a changeling queen, even when your grandmother tells you what I am. What I can do.”
“And if… if my children hadn’t died because of my choices, and I hadn’t realized my faults and hadn’t been so hurt when you found me… I would already…” I stop, and close my eyes. Thinking about it is making me teary.
“You would curse every second of your choice to help me.”
I take a few deep breaths, and hear Falls do the same.
“But it worked out.” he says, and I open my eyes to see him staring at me. He is… determined.
“And despite bein… being such a…” he struggles to find the words for a moment before an idea hits him, and he smirks a little. “Grandmother tells lots of tales. Want to hear my favorite?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” he says, sitting down to lean against the bed. He is still taller than me like that.
“It’s called the Scarred Minotaur.”
“I don’t want to,”
He puts one giant hand over my mouth and silences me, continuing to speak as if nothing happened. I try to move and he grips and I stop. That strength is terrifying, and I have no wish for him to do something rash.
“Anyway. So, one day, this little minotaur was born in a… bad spot. It wasn’t a safe place; predators attacked often, and the bulls weren’t there to teach the children. So the children taught themselves, and in a place with little food and where the children were made to do the work of the bulls, it became bad.”
“They fought over food, and fought over dominance. They fought to determine who would lead a happy life, and who’s backs they had to stand on to do that. They taught the lesson of ‘the strongest wins, and the weakest suffers’.”
“Scar wasn’t very big or strong, and became a target for the rest. He ‘learned’ the lesson fast, and he became the nastiest piece of slate you can imagine. He bit, he gored, and he had no compassion, no mercy. When he fought, he fought to the very end, even when his opponent had given up, to get the rest to back off by making an example of one.”
“He even had a kinda… thought thing, grandmother has a better word for that, but he ‘knew’ how life worked. He thought like this: Life stinks, and everything and everyone is horrible. You need to fight and steal to have anything, and guard it, lest it be taken from you.”
“Scar grew up like that, and when it was his turn to defend the town, he knew what to do.”
“He got his enemies killed by the beasts. And for that, the rest chased him away, and he ran and hid in the mountains nearby.”
“And for decades after, he knew that he was right. That everything was out to hurt and harm him, and take what was his. And he did the same thing to anything and anyone who he found.”
“He lived until he was an old bull, and do you know how the story ends?”
“One day, a lost and terrified child, story doesn’t say if they were girl or boy, found him. And despite everything, old Scar couldn’t harm a child.”
“He took the child in, and fed them, and then told them to leave. He told them that while he had shown kindness, nothing else would, and he wasn’t going to continue doing so.”
“’The world is a horrible place.’ The old bull told the child. ‘I know that. I learned that. Leave me. I won’t be so kind anymore. I am nothing but an old, scarred bull’.”
“But the old bull wished that the child might stay. Something in him was changing, and he wanted it to change, but he couldn’t do it himself. His scars and hates were too deep for him to heal alone.”
“The child had a chance, and they knew it. A chance to save Scar from his scars, and maybe even bring the old bull back to the clan. It was Scar’s last chance, and he put it in the hands of a child.”
“The child left, turning their back on Scar.”
“Scar watched them go, and knew that he was right.”
“Nothing would ever be given, and everything must be taken. The world, and everyone in it, was truly horrible.”
“Scar went back to his home, and he died there a year later, an old, scarred, hateful bull that no one cared about.”
“And no one ever saw that child again.”
“Grandmother says that fate hates those who are given a chance and turn their backs on it. She says fate took them for their failure.”
“Story is… striking, huh? Sometimes I want to be that child, and make the right choice instead of the wrong one, and you know what?
“I have a chance, and you might be changing.”
“And I ain’t about to turn my back on a crusty old changeling queen when I have the chance to save you from your own scars.”
He finally releases me, but I can’t find words. Minotaur are not supposed to be so… wise.
Is he right?
… Am I changing? I… I am different now than I was a week ago. I can feel the change deeper yet, but it hurts, it is slow, and I don’t want to…
I don’t…
…
For my children, I wish to change. I thought I could, and in a way I have. But I was blind.
Alone, I would only become an old queen, living alone with my regrets. I… I would know that I would only repeat my mistakes if I ever laid another egg, and deny myself.
I would become the old scarred queen. Living alone only to die alone, hating everything around me and being hated by everything around me. Hating myself more than anything else.
The minotaur found me in my weakness. At just the right time; when I was at my weakest, when I couldn’t resist them.
I can’t change alone. I… I knew that, I was just in denial of that fact. My pride, shattered into pieces, is still too strong for me to change so much on my own.
But with help?
Can I become the queen my children deserve?
Can I… can my scars heal, and the mistakes of the past be remedied?
Can… with their help, can…
Could I be a mother again? Could I deserve to be a mother again?
I make my choice, and find my vision blurred with tears again. It hurts to accept that I am scarred, but I will.
I must.
“I… I…”
“Take your time.” Falls says, wiping at my tears. I focus and try again.
“I’m… I’m not going to be nice. I…”
“I’m a horrible person who will hurt you. I’ll take from you, and never give anything. I’ll upset you, and make you mad, and enjoy doing so, but…” What to say, how to say it…
… I know.
“Leave me. I won’t be so kind anymore.” I say. "I'm nothing but an old, scarred queen."
He actually chuckles. “I told you. I ain’t turning my back on you.”
“And you ain’t about to bite through my skin. If you need help, I’ll help, if you want to hurt, you can try, but I’m too tough for you.”
“I’ll stop you when you need stopping and push when you need pushing. Until you can stand on your own, and forget the old scars.”
“So you can be the best… queen you can be.”
I laugh. It really hurts to laugh, but I can’t prevent myself.
I can’t decide if he is more naive than a newborn, more arrogant than myself, or if he actually means all that.
Maybe a bit of all three. I slowly stop, and look at him again.
“You’re going to hate me.” I tell him.
“You’re going to hate me.” he tells me right back. We go back and forth with each other, almost like a game.
“I’m a horrible person, and the worst minotaur you can imagine.”
“I’m the stubbernest bull around, and nothin you can do will stop me.”
“Just watch.”
“Just watch.”
“You’ll throw me out by next week.”
“By next week, I’ll have taught you manners.”
“You’ll scream.”
“You’ll cry.”
“You might lock me in a room to be rid of my voice.”
“I might give you a room, and laugh at your voice.”
I shake my head. “Alright, enough. But I mean it; this mood won’t last. I’ll be back to who I am fairly soon.”
“I know. But I’m not going to let that stick. But for now, how about a promise?”
“I promise not to turn my back on you. Will you promise me that you truly want to change?”
“I do. With all of my mind, I do.”
“Good.” he rumbles, and then he stands back up, groaning a little. “Get some rest, and get better; you have to move again before you get stuck like that.”
“Maybe you can just carry me around.”
He laughs as he leaves. “Or maybe I can tie a rope to you and drag you around!”
He is insufferable, and yet…
I think I need him to be like that. Be the rock that I can slam my head into over and over without it breaking apart or harming me more than I harm it.
I don’t know if I can change. But I won’t give up.
For my children. For the old, and maybe, possibly, one day… the new.
I relax on the bed once more. I need my strength.
It was going to be painful and hard and slow, but…
Waterfalls had a chance.
And I was changing.