Hello, I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about your experiences as the Beast. How did you become the Beast?
The woods were not always lovely, though they were always dark and deep. The Unknown is a place where all who wander are lost, or they would not wander at all. It is, as always, a place of endings - stories are always dependent upon the end, I find. The final pieces sliding into place, the lights dimming, the characters moving on to a new chapter or not at all.
But let me return to before.
There were two brothers who wandered, lost, because all are lost and all must end. So they were, and they did. The elder lost his way in the ocean of trees, and ultimately came upon a decision, a temptation, a deal. He took the lantern, in exchange for letting his brother go free. And then, once the younger of the two was safely home, the elder blew it out.
The Unknown began to fade.
No story is complete without its author to pen it, and so the land and all the funny little people in it began to wither. Patches of ground the eye slid across, expanses of Nothing where sound and substance had no meaning, the stars winking out one by one.
So the elder brother, with all the strength he could muster, extracted his own soul to re-light the lantern, as the Beast before him had, and the Beast before him. Eventually, he would then turn into The Beast himself.
As for what it’s like, that’s perhaps a story for another time.
They’re lovely dark, and deep, which is what I want, deep lovely darkness.No one has asked, let alone taken, a promise of me,no one will notice if I choose bed or rug, couch or forest deep.It doesn’t matter where I sleep. It doesn’t matter where I sleep.
- “Not Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Jennifer Michael Hecht