In a normal story, I would begin with once upon a time then describe a beautiful princess and her handsome prince. However, this is not your average story, for once upon a time cannot do this little girl justice.
For this little girl had a grave secret. On the outside, she was a beautiful child adored by all and was thought to grow into a stunning maiden. On the inside, she was spikes and fangs with tentacles that could make a grown man cry. So my story brings like this, once upon a time, there was a girl who was a monster.
She lived a normal life though, with normal parents and a normal castle. For a while, she started to believe she was a normal princess. Her parents clouded her mind with endless stories of prince and princesses, all with happy, monster-less endings. And they were happy and she knew because they always said “and they lived happily ever after.” The stories would float around her mind for hours every day until she figured out the secret. The secret that her parents tried so hard to keep. The fact that she would never be happy. For happiness could not exist within the darkness of her spiked and monstrous heart.
She began to fall into a slump. Desperate to find a cure, she searched to the end of the earth for anything that could help. She hunted down the best doctors, the best witches and warlocks, all for nothing. All she found were cheap tricks to hide her true self. She was taught how to file down her horns, tuck her tentacles behind skin, and given a magic potion to stop her from devouring everyone in sight.
But as she grew, keeping the more monstrous parts of her away became increasingly difficult. Her horns would just grow back, bigger and tougher than before, her skin would start to rash and sting, her tentacles dying to break free. Scales would show up in random places of her body and no glamour spell was strong enough to hide them for long. But the far worst was the potion, it gave her terrible headaches and became much less effective as she grew and grew. However there was nothing to do about any of it. If she showed her true colors, some handsome knight would come and slay her.
And then came her 18th name day. The day where she would be asked to pick a prince from a neighboring kingdom to become her husband. At first she was completely against it, but then she remember those stories, the stories of love and happiness, two things she had completely given up on. So with her heart on her sleeve, she met the princes one by one. Every time she saw their metal armor and sharp swords, fear would crawl all over her, but she knew how to be strong. She took her fear and locked it away, so she could find her prince.
And then one day the fear was gone. Well most of it. She had picked the least intimidating prince and she learned to ignore the way her mouth would salivate every time he stopped by to plan their wedding. She figured by now that happiness for her wasn’t find her prince or becoming human, it was finding the least amount of terror and learning to live with it. It was finding the most bearable amount of fright.
And she had finally hid herself.
Until she met him.
He unraveled her very being and turned her world inside out in the best way possible. He made her un-intimidating fiancée look like a peasant trying to understand a queen. For this man was the only person to understand her. For he also had a great secret. Deep down, behind his human form, his heart beat to the same tune as hers. He too had to hid his ears and pluck his feathers. He too had to hide in the shadows, pretending to be something he was not.
Together they decided to come out into daylight. To throw away their potions, to stop hiding once and for all and let their monstrous desires take over. They found out parts of them they barely recognized as they kept them in for so long. So they rampaged around the kingdom until there was no one left, but the two of them. And they lived happily ever after.