Of Monsters and Men

Adelia hadn't expected her morning to start with a thud and horrible, snarling screech loud enough that she was awake and moving between one moment and the next, throwing herself out of bed in startled fright. Dizzy nausea from waking in a flash and getting up so quickly swept over her for a second, her heart pounding hard and fast.

Peering past her bed, thick, down-stuffed blankets in disarray and spilled half onto the floor, she saw a dark shape slumped on her balcony. A shape far too large and bulky to belong to a mere human.

A monster had crash-landed on her balcony, and she saw massive, leathery wings arch against the early dawn sky as the monster shifted from its sideways sprawl onto its front. One of those wings was easily twice her size and its huge body was hidden beneath a big, formless cloth so thoroughly she couldn't even guess at what kind of creature it might be.

It tried to move, only to collapse. She heard it wheezing even through her closed balcony doors and saw blood spilling forth between folds of the cloth as it used its wings to push itself up, leaning onto them much like a bat would. The blood poured onto the ground so thickly and quickly it looked as though someone was upending a wine bottle.

She caught the glint of silver between the folds of blood-soaked cloth and knew this monster must have escaped a hunting party by the skin of its teeth. It was unable to get up, she realized as she watched it writhe, trying to rise only for its wings to buckle again. It just barely kept from falling onto the silver thing protruding from its chest.

Adelia had to admit that she wasn’t as well-versed when it came to the monsters of this world as she would have liked to be. Her father considered such interests beneath the concern of nobility since they had hunters for such things and he especially thought that no womenfolk should get involved, either.

What little bits of knowledge she had, she had scraped together through eavesdropped conversations and from people she spoke with on market day. The latter, as much as she loved the people of their town, weren’t entirely reliable either, for their information revolved heavily around rumors and the retellings of stories no one knew the origin of anymore.

There was one creature in particular, however, that the people in her hometown knew a bit more about: werewolves. Their town had had a problem with those when she had been a babe and people still spoke about it to this day, especially since monsters hadn’t really been an issue before or since then. At least, she could rule out werewolves, because no one had mentioned them having wings in any of the stories she had heard.

Monsters were the most frightening, unnatural things that people had to face outside of war, so any happenstance burned itself quite firmly into the memories of the townsfolk.

There were, of course, plenty of fairytales, as well, though Adelia had to admit that she didn't know how much truth there was to them. To golden geese and strange little men fulfilling wishes and shapeshifters luring young maidens to their doom.

There were, most likely, plenty of big, winged creatures in the world, so without further information and seeing more of the monster unveiled, it would be impossible for her to even start guessing what kind was currently bleeding out on her balcony.

A raven suddenly tumbled down atop the creature, looking half dead on its feet, one wing limp as it tried to stumble-hop across the beasts back, which had stilled at the raven’s arrival.

The raven cawed and weakly plucked at a fold of cloth with its beak, only for the monster to hiss. It slowly sank down onto the stone floor of the balcony, wings shivering strangely as it tried to use the claw-hook at the top wing joint to get at the silver deeply imbedded in its flesh. It was still losing a lot of blood at a startlingly fast rate.

Adelia knew she should run. She ought to go and get the guards so they could finish the job. With how hurt the monster was, there was a good chance that they'd succeed. A normal duke’s daughter might have promptly fainted or at the very least screamed properly, scrabbling around helplessly while waiting for aid to arrive.

Adelia felt frozen in place, heart thundering in her chest like a herd of horses, her eyes wide. She should do something. Monsters were scourges on humankind, an evil left over from times when the world had been wild and chaos had reigned. Before magic had been tamed and humanity grew past the confines of small villages and little hovels.

She finally forced herself to move, opening her mouth to shout for the guards while cautiously inching towards the door, when she saw the monster catch the raven as it overbalanced and fell, its massive, leathery wing cushioning the bird gently.

The monster let the raven slide down to the ground with the utmost care and seemed to inspect the limb wing, the softest of noises rumbling forth from the creature's big chest, barely audible through the balcony doors.

The raven made a low noise as the clawed wing joint touched its feathered head very, very gently. Almost... mournfully.

They both appeared utterly exhausted, the monster breathing hard and still losing blood like an upended bottle. The raven was standing in the ever growing puddle of blood, little black feet painted crimson now, an air of helpless desperation surrounding it.

Adelia took a deep breath and shakily gathered her courage as much as she was able. She straightened to her full height, which still made her feel far too small. It drew the attention of first the monster and then the raven. The head of the monster was covered by a part of the cloth, as well, like a makeshift hood, but something shifted beneath that made her think it may have ears like a dog or a horse. Just a whole lot bigger.

The monster, despite its clear pain and injury, shifted protectively to lean over the raven, who squawked in a warning way, the same way crows in town cawed down at cats lying in wait at the bottoms of their trees.

This was foolish, this was not what she was meant to do, but Adelia found herself inching forward anyway. Her heart was still racing, hard and fast, and her hands were cold and trembling a little.

But she had vowed to herself three years ago, as she had watched her father condemn a begging, starving man to having his dominant hand chopped off for having hunted a hare in his forest, that she would not ignore someone in need.

She would be better than the entitled royalty who smiled benignly at their subjects and did nothing to improve lives that weren’t their own. Who would sooner punish the desperate than ease their burdens.

She had no idea if monsters counted as people, but a creature that cared so obviously for something so much smaller and weaker, something it could crush without further thought, couldn’t be entirely evil. At least, she hoped so.

The monster was growl-hissing, low and dark and sharp, when she opened one half of the large balcony wing doors. It was a truly fearsome sound, but Adelia forced herself to slide forward another careful step.

"I want to help," she said, proud when her voice didn’t shake as she stepped out onto the balcony.

This close to the monster, she couldn't help the small, downright instinctive shiver that raced down her spine. A distant part of her wondered if this was what it felt like to come face to face with a bear or a mountain lion or a pack of wolves in the wild.

This feeling that reached deep into her being, into the very weave of her heart and soul, and made her aware of just how mortal she was. How easy to kill. How very weak and helpless she was should the monster decide to attack.

Thick, dark blood was smeared all across the stone like a spilled paint bucket and the monster stilled, the raven falling quiet. She couldn’t see the creature's face, it was hidden far too well beneath the cloth, but the warning tensing of its bulk had stopped.

Wetting her lips nervously, she added, ignoring the faint tremor in her hands and just how painfully hard her heart was still beating, "If you will let me."

There was a small scrabbling sound, and the raven emerged from behind the wing, warbling at her and jerking its head at where the silver was visible. Not just a simple bird then, but something that must've been touched by magic.

Adelia warily glanced at the monster, which looked like a massive, misshapen creature of cloth and wings, and carefully stepped closer. It did nothing to stop her, nor did it lunge at her.

If anything, the moment she was close enough to touch, it lowered itself with a strained groan so she had an easy time reaching its chest. There was fine fur, matted down with blood and the scent was so heavy in the air she could ever so faintly taste it on her tongue.

Three silver bolts were buried deep in the monster's flesh, one right by the joint necessary for flying, which explained why it had crashed on her balcony in the first place. She swallowed, finding her mouth suddenly dry, and took hold of the first bolt.

Getting it out was unexpectedly hard, and while Adelia didn’t shy from lending a hand to help the servants where her parents wouldn’t se and had gone on horseback rides whenever she was allowed until recently, she still wasn’t as strong as the baker or the scullery maids.

If anything, her mother scolded her for any bit of muscle she built, for the current trend was for women to be properly dainty and to at least act faint should anything horrible ever befall them.

After long moments of grunting and straining and the monster enduring her ministrations, she finally got the bolts out one after another, letting each drop onto blood-wet stone with a metallic clang.

She thought her task done when the monster shifted, tipping its head back with great reluctance to reveal an even worse wound, hidden near its head beneath a swath of torn cloth. A large, silver coated blade, broken off at the hilt, was stuck at an angle below its clavicle. As if someone had tried to take its head off.

Adelia had to use her entire weight and all her strength to yank the broken blade out without losing any fingers in the process and she would have fallen backwards onto bloody stone if a large wing hadn’t caught her, carefully righting her.

Looking at the monster, she noticed that the strained, wheezing breaths had slowed down to something more normal. The pouring blood flow had slowed to nothing as well. The creature exhaled softly with something that sounded like relief.

The raven made chirping, warbling noises and seemed glad as well. The monster appeared exhausted, but it turned its head towards the sky, clearly gauging if it could still fly.

Adelia glanced up as well and noticed that the sun had risen far enough to start peeking over the horizon, deepening the shadows across the balcony. There were a few minutes left, at most, before even the balcony would be bathed in pale light.

The monster stared until one long sigh escaped it. It sounded unexpectedly grim, the raven shifting on its bloody feet and warbling in a distinctively distressed and worried manner, staring pointedly between the monster and the rising sun.

The monster made a low noise at the bird before it shuffled a bit to the side to squeeze into the most protected corner of the balcony, tucking to hide beneath its gigantic cloth until it was nothing but a big, misshapen thing. Even the wings weren't visible anymore.

There was no way for the monster to just fly off without being seen, not with how large it was. Looking at its injured state, she doubted it could fly well, anyway. If the monster hunters were still nearby, it would most likely die.

It was clear neither the monster nor the raven were able to leave, but staying out on the balcony wasn’t an option either. Someone would spot them once the sun rose far enough to illuminate everything.

Adelia eyed them, then the balcony doors. The monster could fit through if she opened both doors wide, but then what? She could hardly squeeze it partially into her closet and request that her maid ignore the black cloth mass hanging out like it was merely a misplaced, ugly cloak.

She could ask that everyone stay out of her rooms, she had built a good enough rapport with the servants that they were quietly loyal to her, they would respect such a request. So long as her father never found anything out, never suspected anything and never gave opposing orders, no one would tell on her.

Even then, the closet was hardly the right place for the creature.

The monster couldn’t fit beneath her bed, either, like some sort of storybook specter, but she could squeeze it into her bathing chamber. It was honestly the best place for it, quiet and dark. It was also the best hiding spot she had, on the off chance that someone did peek into her bedroom.

The window in the bathing chamber was barely big enough to toss bathing water out of and could be covered entirely so the creature could rest in complete darkness to recover its strength.

"Can you move?" she asked, the cloth around its head shifting in her direction, and the raven, who had nestled close, stared at her as well. She gestured at the balcony doors. "You may hide in there until you can leave unseen, so long as you hurt no one in this castle or the surrounding town."

The monster seemed to stare at her for a long moment, since Adelia certainly felt a piercing gaze on her, then dipped its head in unexpectedly graceful acceptance.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to help the monster move, since she was sure she’d sooner buckle beneath its sheer bulk than ever manage to move it a single inch. The monster dragged itself into her bedroom after the raven clambered up to sit securely on its hunched back.

The monster just barely managed to squeeze through the door to her bathing chamber, smearing the doorframe with more of its blood.

Adelia covered the slim window of her bathing room with a wooden slat, something she had requested made after realizing that people could peer through the window from the tower across the small courtyard. Not that she had noticed anyone staring so far, but the thought was discomfiting regardless.

The moment all sources of light aside from the open door were cut off, the monster slumped with a long, heavy sigh and stayed still and unmoving. Adelia had no idea what else to do and stepped back outside, quietly closing the door.

Then she stared at the blood that pooled on the balcony and had gotten smeared onto the floor all the way to the door of her bathing chamber. Her nightgown was as good as ruined, sleeves soaked in blood and the hem and bodice splattered. Her feet were nearly entirely covered in red.

She took a deep breath and began to figure out how to deal with this. She dipped back into the bathing chamber to grab a bucket and filled it with water from the jug by the washbasin.

Father had wanted to get a plumbing system installed by a mage, but he hadn’t been able to afford the fees any of the independent ones who took contracts from anyone with enough coin. So their family made do by keeping some water in their chambers, and otherwise had servants carry water up for bathing.

Snatching one of the rags she usually used for her monthly bleeding, she started mopping up the mess. She threw the bloody water onto the balcony once she was done, washing some of the pooled blood away.

She hid the silver weaponry and her bloody nightgown and rag beneath her bed. A glance at the rising sun told her she only had a handful of minutes left before a maid would appear to help her prepare for the day.

Adelia quickly cleaned up with the small washbasin in the corner of her bedroom, an extra bit of luxury Mother had insisted on, and she was glad for it now. She got dressed in one of her favorite dresses that she could lace up herself and stepped out just in time to meet Julie, the maid tasked with looking after her, with a smile and a polite incline of her head.

"My Lady," Julie dipped into a curtsey, and the smile she offered was honest and friendly. Julie was one of the youngest maids in the castle and one Adelia's mother had let her interview herself so she could practice handling her own household.

Her parents had insisted on this in preparation for her upcoming marriage to ensure she wouldn't shame the family by hiring incompetent servants. They hadn't let her hire a maid of her own yet, her father citing that she was not going to spend any of his money needlessly. She could do that once she had a husband and someone else would be responsible for her finances.

While Father gave her an allowance, it wasn't enough to pay people for their services, and so Adelia had used most of it for personal projects. In the future, her money would come from Tirn, her fiancé and Baron Warren’s firstborn son.

Adelia had been engaged to Tirn since they had been five years old, and over the years they had worked out a satisfying agreement for their future marriage together. Nobles very rarely married for love, and they both wanted to make the best of the fate their parents had handed to them.

Besides, there were far, far worse people to marry than Tirn, who was kind, if forgetful, and despite his bouts of laziness, he did largely care about the people around him.

She and Tirn had decided one evening, should either of them want to take lovers once they were married, they were welcome to as long as they wouldn’t cause a scandal. Adelia doubted she would look for someone to warm her bed, but Tirn had offered her the option anyway.

He had done so a little awkwardly, after admitting that he enjoyed a woman’s touch too much to deny himself the pleasure, and he was a good enough person to not force his attentions on her should she not want it.

As long as they produced an heir or two to appease their parents, their necessary bedroom duties to each other would be fulfilled.

They had grown thick as thieves over the years, helping each other get out of trouble and covering for each other. Adelia had helped him sneak off with a chamber-maid who had been enamored with him and in return, Tirn had snuck books into gifts he had sent her so her father didn't notice. Which had been one of two things that had allowed Adelia to further learn the art of clockwork inventions.

Adelia, therefore, could have had far less luck with her future husband. Tirn would never actively, willingly mistreat or ignore her or otherwise belittle her; if anything, he'd be a great friend and ally.

There were some horrible men out there, walking freely among the gentry, like Lord Emmertal, and she was very glad he had never been considered as an option for her.

Lord Emmertal had been married thrice already and each wife had ended up dead some time after the wedding. He was still treated like a respected member of society, for he was rich and powerful and knew how to make allies, and last Adelia had heard, another girl had been offered to him as a potential wife.

She hoped the poor girl managed to convince her parents to not marry her off after all. She hoped the girl was not to Lord Emmertal's taste and he’d decline.

"You’re up early, My Lady," Julie said. "I hope you slept well?"

Adelia had, until a monster had decided it could fly no further and had crashed so violently and loudly it had startled her straight out of bed.

"Of course, will you accompany me to the kitchen?" Adelia asked, and Julie was quick to join her. "And if you could tell the others to spare my rooms their attention today, I would be grateful."

Julie blinked in confusion and nodded, though she seemingly couldn’t resist whispering, "May I ask why, My Lady?"

This was thankfully something she could lie convincingly about. "I dedicated some time to my hobby before going to sleep and I haven’t managed to hide everything away yet," Adelia whispered back.

She liked to make things no proper young lady was supposed to, especially with her father's very narrow-minded views. Adelia loved to build clockwork designs; she loved the intricate details and fine little tools she worked with.

How she could make something out of a pile of metal and gears and little screws. The first time she had successfully made something move, she had pressed her hands over her mouth to muffle her glad, joyful laughter.

Her passion had begun when King Harold had bragged about getting a clock tower built in his crown city when she had been a child, showing it off to everyone upon completion.

She had been utterly fascinated with how the gears worked and had wondered if it was possible to create something like this at a far, far smaller scale as well. What wonders one might create with a bit of ingenuity and skill.

Father had never realized what the clock tower visit had sparked within her or that Tirn had secretly gifted her what few texts existed on the topic. She had found herself caught in a sea of ideas since then.

If he ever saw the sketches of her ideas or found her inventions, most of them little toys, he would have everything destroyed and would ensure she’d never so much as draw anything unseemly ever again.

When Julie nodded with understanding, Adelia changed the subject, "Tell me, how is everyone today?"

Julie distracted her with gossip as they headed down into the kitchen. Adelia was seated and served breakfast as soon as she arrived, listening to the chatter around her, the playful ribbing and joking among the staff.

Adelia honestly enjoyed being here more than she ever enjoyed sitting at the dining table with her parents. She was smiling as she sipped the watered-down wine the scullery maid Sabina had given her with a little wink. In all honesty, after the shock and scramble of this morning's events, she certainly appreciated something to calm her nerves.

All seemed to be well and once she finished eating, Adelia spent some time teaching the people around her their letters and numbers. She had never believed in keeping the common folk ignorant, and everyone kept her lessons quiet from her parents.

Neither Father nor Mother would ever allow this to continue if they found out about it, and they would become quite furious with her. Adelia would find herself grounded, and the kitchen staff would lose their jobs, possibly also getting severely punished beforehand. No one wanted any of that to happen, so it was a dear secret they all shared.

After she wrapped up her little lesson, she went about her day, and in the end, it was surprisingly easy to focus on her duties and activities despite the early morning scare.

Adelia knew she would only grow busier the moment her parents announced the wedding date to Tirn at the next gathering of nobility and was doing her best to prepare accordingly.

She was determined to avoid becoming some doll on a shelf, sitting around prettily while exchanging petty gossip and cutting words with other noble ladies. To avoid having to act as though, outside of running her household and spying on others for her husband, only the latest fashion trends and whose child had been born ugly was important.

Tirn knew a bit about her hopes of living a good, meaningful life, enough that she was sure he’d not stand in her way. It was honestly more than she could have hoped for from other noble sons, considering some of the conversations she had been unfortunate enough to be part of over the years.

She did not look forward to the consummation of said marriage, however, no matter how much she may like Tirn as a friend. It would be a duty she’d bear with as much dignity as she could and hope that once or twice would be enough to produce the necessary heirs.

Though, if she was being honest, she didn't look forward to being a mother either. It was a necessity of her station and demanded by society, her parents, and certainly her noble-born husband-to-be, but personally? She could do without. Children were cute enough when she interacted with them, but she was always glad to hand them back to their parents at the end of the day.

By the time evening rolled around, she had almost forgotten about the monster and its raven she had hidden in her bathing chamber. Almost.

She entered her bedroom as the sun set outside, the sky cast in deep gold and dark pink-orange, a beautiful play of intense colors. When she opened the door to the bathing chamber just enough to peer through the crack, she noticed that the monster was still there, unmoving and silent.

The raven was sleeping on the creature's back, and it didn’t stir, either. Closing the door again, she wondered about what to do.

The creature couldn’t stay here, and there was no way she’d be able to hide it elsewhere in the castle. She’d have to ask it if it could leave once it woke again. If it had nowhere else to go, she knew of a few ruins where it could hunker down for a while. She’d have to figure out what to do with the bloodied nightgown and silver bolts as well.

In the end, she burned the bloodied clothing in the fireplace, since it had dried enough for such an endeavor. Since the approaching night was certainly warm enough to not need the additional heat of the crackling flames, she opened the balcony doors wide to compensate for the stuffy air.

Adelia lit a candle to take care of her personal correspondence while the sun set, answering the letters of her friends, smiling at their stories and responding with tales of her own.

She didn’t have many friends, not true ones at least, and Katrina and Izabel were near and dear to her heart. She sketched flowers onto the corners of the papers, secret little messages they had come up with back when their letters had been proof-read by their parents during their teenage years.

Their parents had wanted to ensure nothing foolish or rebellious would be written, and while they had stopped controlling the letters a while ago, Adelia and her friends had kept doodling flowers, just in case their letters would be read by a third party again one day.

When the time came to retire, she found she was unable to. She had donned another nightgown, braided her hair for bed, and paced, thinking about waking the monster to speak with it.

She was about to go knock when the door opened on its own and the creature squeezed through. It moved as though it had never been harmed in the first place, walking forward on its wings and the raven no longer nursed a limp wing. In fact, the bird seemed very content with its spot nestled into the monster’s cloth-covered neck.

The monster paused, keeping as much distance between them as her room allowed, and dipped its head in what was an unexpected sign of gratitude.

"Safe travels," Adelia found herself saying, and the monster made a low humming noise. It didn't sound threatening, so she offered it a small smile in parting.

It climbed out onto the balcony and paused, glancing back for a moment. Its wings started to unfurl, though the tattered, thick cloth continued hiding the rest of it entirely from view. Adelia had no idea what she had harbored beside her bathing chamber during the day, but the monster was a kind one, at least to her and the raven, and that was what mattered.

It flew away on huge, leathery wings and disappeared with astonishing speed, the raven ducking down to avoid being blown off. Adelia stared after the creature and wondered what had happened for the monster to get attacked by hunters, considering how gentle and quiet it had been. Or maybe it had killed people before and had only spared her because she had saved its life. That was entirely possible.

Now, she had to figure out how to get rid of the weaponry beneath her bed once she had cleaned up any leftover blood in the bathroom. As she scrubbed at the dried stains she wondered if she could melt the silver down into tiny gears and springs and little, decorative plating.

While she usually had her ways to get her hands on things to tinker with, hunter weaponry would draw unwanted attention, for there were no other people who used silver bolts. It was probably unwise to just hand them over to someone else.

For a moment, Adelia wished she could operate a forge herself, before she gave up on that dream with a sigh and a pang of guilt and hurt. Her father would never let her do such a thing, and the blacksmith he had previously employed, who had been so kind as to teach Adelia a few things, had been tossed out and banished from her father's lands for that very transgression.

Adelia had been punished herself: her precious, beloved horse send to slaughter because her father had wanted to make sure she would never do something so unseemly and forbidden ever again. Mostly, though, he had been enraged that she had broken his rules, that she had rebelled against him in his eyes. That she had done something without permission.

She had tried to beg forgiveness, had sunk down to her knees even, but her father had remained hard and unforgiving. Something like genuine hatred had gripped her heart for the first time that day. The hatred hadn't been enough to eclipse the despair and grief over the loss of both her beloved horse and a good friend and mentor, but it... lingered.

She was lucky enough that one of the goldsmiths in town felt indebted to her after she had paid a doctor for his wife’s treatment and was willing to supply her in secret every couple of months in exchange for money. It was the only way she could keep experimenting around with clockwork creations.

Adelia had made sure to keep his involvement secret and leave delivery and payment arrangements to Julie, so Adelia herself never received any packages. Her maid brought her the deliveries hidden among washed clothing and bed sheets. A clever little trick that kept anyone from suspecting anything.

It was probably for the best to hand the silver over to Julie as well and request she dump it somewhere where no one would see her, as much as it pained Adelia to discard valuable material. But this would save Julie from being asked any questions she did not wish to answer and Adelia from subsequently explaining just why she had monster hunter arrows in her possession.

If that happened, her father was sure to have her rooms searched and then all her carefully and meticulously hidden secrets would be uncovered.

She didn't dare to think about what he'd do if that ever happened.