The Blue-Eyed Beast

The first four moons of the month had gone by with the same estranged feeling of dusk and twilight lingering behind them with a feeling of temping enthrallment and with the pit feeling of anxiety as if something was not right or as if something was changing. But that was of nights past, and this night began with the sinking of the sun, the jewels of the sky shining against a darkened atmosphere, and the feeling of an unknown omen. A collection of eight moons exposed themselves in the cold winter air. Some were full or on their way whilst others were hidden by the darkness as they budded a crescent appearance or began a new cycle, only to become full on the following moon week. Regardless of their different sets and progress, all of them loomed over the village of Anamesa with a brooding threat. The threat of the blue-eyed beast.

Most villagers laughed at such fables of the blue-gazed monster. Who would believe such a tall tale told by farmers daughters and sons? Who could believe any such creature even existed? A young boy by the name of Raoul Bond, that's who.

Raoul was one of those red red-headed boys that were few and far between. One that had bird-voiced even after having just turned fourteen. He lived with his father, with whom he got his copper locks, in the town of Anamesa. His father was from a nearby village called Lykos, just a days journey east on foot, half a day on horseback, but moved west for better quality land to farm on. Or at least, that's what he said. Raoul could always sense a tension whenever his uncle, came over to visit. Perhaps it was because of the stories he told, but he loved his uncle. Sometimes he loved him more than his father. The two of them would spend the day exchanging stories, speculating on the moon-week to come, and the many fables that spoke of young boys becoming beasts on the fourth moon of a second moon-week after they started 'becoming a man'. They were things he never spoke of with his father, especially when there was work to be done in the fields. His father didn't believe in such things, but his uncle was different.

His uncle listened to him when he spoke of the blue eyes in the night. He had a keen and attentive ear, and he always took him seriously. Nevertheless, he too would bend to his father’s rules. He had to go with his father when work was to be done, he had to leave Raoul alone when they went to the farmer's market during moon-weeks. And of course, it was during those weeks that he would see them.

Strange glowing eyes that peered back at him from the Desert Willow Woods. Always lurking and always there. Tonight was one of those nights. The night of the second moon on the second moon-week. His father and his uncle had left for the monthly market two days ago, and he was alone once again.

The wind whistled like an older man taking out the rubbish and the stars shined alongside the moons. One was full, and three others soon would be, whilst the other four started a new. Raoul couldn't help but stare at the full moon. It was the closest of them all and had a sort of tint to it. The reflection of a pale grey-white light coming from the sun.

He kept staring at it as he crept into the evening in order to barn the goats for the night. Though the hairs, as few as they were, on his body stood up. He heard the crunch of his feet stepping upon the snow, and the swaying of wind-filled winter-weed, or as his father called it, ryegrass. He heard the low hum of a distant breath alongside the clobbering cloven hooves as the goats reached dry floorboards and sandy ground. As he locked the latch with a cold and metallic click, the faint wind seemed to whisper in his ear with fading growls and howls.

Quickly, Raoul turned around to find the source of these low hums and vibrato groans, of a roar and a howl alongside each other. At that moment he turned to see a pair of big blue eyes lurching forth from the darkness and right into his soul. Their eyes met and he couldn't find any words, none at all. He was mute. Silent. Fearful. With his head screaming in confirmation and his heart beating a kilometre a minute he did the one thing he knew how to do. He ran.

He ran to his front cottage as if he were a thief and the beast a knight. Without turning back he popped open the latch and scrambled inside to lock the door. For a moment he pressed himself against it, waiting for a large bump or something, but, moments passed, then minutes, until finally, he felt that he could not hold back his curiosity any longer. He waited still for something, anything to happen, but alas nothing did. He stood at the door till he felt he was dumb for doing so. Until he heard the small chime of a grandmother clock in a far corner of the cottage. It chimed the first two sections of its song, marking the pass of half the hour, though he could not remember what hour it was half-past.

With a long and dreaded sigh, Raoul checked himself over as he made a cup of tea. Winter-Ryegrass tea. Usually one would have to be daft to drink such a thing without turning it into Whiskey, but both oil, time, and various other things seemed to always be hard to come by. At the very least he could taste the same grass as his goats and sweeten it with their creamy milk. He made his tea and sat in his hay-mattress bed, still not daring to stare out the window or into the moonlight anymore. But before he knew it, the tea had been drunk, and his bed had been slept in. The night had passed so seamlessly into dawn that he didn't remember it.

The next day he arose and went about his roundabout chores for the horses, goats, and chickens. Mucking the stalls, feeding them, grooming them, milking, collecting eggs, and so on. With his father gone, he snuck a pinch of rosemary for his morning eggs, which he always had scrambled and mixed with goats milk, alongside a glass of said milk. He had never cared for rosemary in particular, but he knew his father would be far more upset if he used the oregano he managed to grow this far west, and even more upset if he didn't use up the goat’s milk before it spoiled. Though, he didn't mind the use of the milk in his eggs. He had always prefered it that way. It seemed to make them more yellow, light, fluffy, and without all the 'cooked' brown spots. It would make him feel that they were burnt if his eggs were brown and almost unappetizing with the rosemary, but he had to do something to get rid of it. Especially after all the times his father made him smell it as a punishment or to keep him away from his part of the cottage. No matter, he happily ate his meal, proceeded by going through his day, chore after chore.

Selling to the locals, taking care of the few potted plants they could grow, and stuffing more hey or rags into the broken slabs of wood within the barn and chicken coop filled his waking hours. He knew the wood wasn't going to be any better in the kingdom just north, and the kingdom far south, while abundant in lumber, was far too great a distance to travel for a tiny hole or crack or crevice. So he made do with what his father left for him, alongside the, seemingly, never-ending list of work to be done. But as the chores subsided, the sun once again sunk and the stars sparkled like jewels, he could feel that eery suspicion of being watched creep back into his mind. The start of the third moon night. He had already herded the goats away for the night and he sat at his bed with a book of all the herbs and plant seasons one would need to know to be a good farmer in this kingdom of merciful rivers. Once again the chime of the grandmother clock rang out and disturbed what little peace he had left. He tensed at the thought of a blue-eyed beast outside his door. Nevertheless, this time, he gathered up the courage to close his book and take a peek outside the front window of his home, just by the front door.

At first, he saw nothing. And a moment after, still nothing. But from the depths of the darkness, he saw the same blue gaze as before. Only this time, it wasn't looking at him. No, it was looking at something else. He tried to trace its stare, but the dark of night made it too difficult, especially with such dim oil-lamps.

He stared as the eyes became a figure. Once again, having waited for this moment of moon-week, he spotted the beast. A large, red-maned wolf-like creature with eyes the colour of lightning and clear skies. The light of the moon seemed to exude and reflect from its shining fur as it stumbled towards the barn. He stood there, frozen, just waiting for the gruesome horror of watching another goat or chicken being torn apart and dragged away. Though he had to wonder, "Where is the second creature I saw last time?". He stood there, waiting. Before he knew it, the creature glared directly towards the window making him quickly release his fingers from the curtains and rush to turn off every oil lamp in the cottage. Though there were only two that had been lit, he was not willing to take the chance. Without a second thought, he rushed to his bed and shut his eyes with a whimper, hoping that the creature would leave him alone for the night of the third moon and go back to where it came from.

An overwhelming feeling of relief swept over him as the dawn awoke him once again. The rigour of his chores, the smell of his breakfast, and the competitive drive to sell well on the last day of moon-week threw him into a tizzy of work. He sold egg after egg, jar of milk after jar of milk until the darkness of night blanketed the sky and hid the sun from view. Despite his fear, he felt energetic, alive, thrilled to even be outside on a winter's night such as this... but he had no idea why.

Raoul was halfway done with his walk home when that pit fell into his stomach again. It hit, but with less gravity than before. As if by instinct, he glared to his right to see them. Those eyes. That pair of large blue glowing irises surrounded by the navy of night and highlighted by the glow of the moon. He was stunned, and he was shocked, but he did not falter. Instead, he gaped at the beauty before him. For the creature standing before him was not a creature at all. It was his father.

His father stood there with the piercing blue gaze towards his son and his coppery hair loose around his shoulders, aside from the singular braid on where he wore beads from Lykos Village. They were intoxicatingly yellow clay beads that were of a shade so dark and repulsive one couldn't help but wish for them to shatter. His clothes were the same rags he always wore to work, just a regular tweed tunic, but this time they sagged with the weight of dampness and shimmered with the speckles of short copper hairs. He was a mess.

"Father...? Why are you here, what happened to your clothes? What--"

"Silence, Raoul. We don't have much time."

"Much...time? What do you mean? What about the beasts--"

"--I am a beast, Son." Raoul took a moment to consider if his father was playing a practical joke of some kind, to punish him for believing in such fables, but his smirk soon shifted to a horrified and shocked expression. He realized that piercing blue gaze was the one he had seen before...but it didn't make sense.

"You? The beast? Please, you never believed me. Besides, there are at least two beasts with blue eyes prowling around this village!" His father let out a sigh, but before he could say a word, the snow just behind Raoul crunched, to which he swerved to catch a glimpse of whatever made the sound. He could have sworn that his vision and hearing were getting better by the second until he turned around to see a man he never would have expected. His uncle. Upon seeing him, he was filled with a sense of betrail. That his uncle had never really believed him and that he and his father were just messing with him. But that still left the question, "Why are they both here a day early?"

"--And I am the second." his uncle interjects. The three of them stood in the cold wind of a winter's night, letting the wind go by as the tenseness grew, shifted, and changed, and the clouds covered up most of the grey-light as the moon began to rise. "You? B-but...why would you do this? Th-this is a joke, it has to be a joke, b-but it's not funny!"

"You're right, it is not.--" His father clarifies. He then points to the sky. "-I had hoped this wouldn't happen, that your mother's side would prevail...but after what I have seen, you are one of us." Fear engulfs his mind.

"One of us?" A silent wind rolled by but he didn't feel its chill. He instead felt of swirling of strength and emptiness from inside him as the moon was revealed by the veil of thin clouds and dense grey-white light. He was speechless.

"Yes--" His uncle starts. "--one of those boys who will change on the fourth moon of the second moon-week after their fourteenth birthday." Raoul's eyes went wide as the realization hit him. But before he could form any words or any thoughts, he felt a shift and a change.

His vision faded and shifted so he could only see two-thirds of what his usual gaze allowed him to see, but the vibrant light of night seemed to illuminate the scene. He saw what was once dark, and he bore what once was cold, even head and smelled what was once unknown to him, but something was off. He had looked around to see that where his father and uncle had stood were now these blue-eyed beasts, and where he had stood, copper-fur paws and the faint glow of light had enshrouded him.

He was flabbergasted, astonished, fearful, and unsure of the unknown. But then he stopped to think about it. His father and his uncle always left during moon-week, and that's when he saw the beasts. They were them, and that meant, "I don't have to be scared of the beasts..." There was a sense of relief, but it didn't last long, given that he was now one of them. He would be the one who was feared, he would be the one who hurt the livestock. All he could wonder was, "Why...?" Why had this happened to him? But he couldn't ask any questions, he couldn't talk. The only thing he wanted to do was run through the snow and howl out his ever-lasting energy.

He ran and ran the night away. He ran until the last glimpses of moonlight faded from the skies and the stars faded as if they were never there in the first place.

The next morning he awoke under a desert willow that was far past its bloom. The pink petals of its flowers had withered long ago and the thin branches had been covered in ice and snow. When he looked at himself he realized that his side was drenched from the melted snow beneath him, there were bits of his copper hair throughout the fibres of his clothes, and his nails seemed longer. when he sat up a roaring pain shot through his whole body, and it forced him back to the snowbank he had forged. His brain was slightly fuzzy, but he could remember it clearly. The moon, the beasts, the running, his father and uncle...then he realized they were not with him.

Raoul looked around for his father and uncle. He looked for any sign of them. When he did so, he saw traces of pawprints dented into the snow. With nervousness and curiosity, he forced his body to work for him and not against him, and he followed them. Though it took him a fair bit of time, at least half the hour, he eventually followed the steps to his cottage. He was still in a dreary state, he opened the door to find that his father and uncle had prepared another breakfast of eggs and goats milk.

The clanging of pots and pans filled his ears yet silence still clouded his mind. His father did not speak, nor did his uncle. But now he knew everything. He had felt everything. He clobbered his steps to make himself known. His father did look to him but only glanced towards his uncle as Raoul sat down. The light of morning seemed to lift some of the tension, but it still lingered in the air. Several moments of silence went by before his father finally spoke to him. "Raoul...what you saw last night. I can't hide it any longer, now that you have become old enough to transform--"

"B-but what are we? How did this happen? I-I've never seen magicia like this before! I--"

"--Let your father talk." His uncle interjected. He seemed to be so good at doing that.

His father cleared his throat. "I have the answers to all your questions, and I will answer them in time, but for right now there is only one thing you need to know." There was another pause of silence as Raoul held his breath.

"This beast will always be apart of you, but it is for you to decide what kind of omen it will be."