And this is dedicated to slipshod, whose prose and poetry make me think, and so I thought thus:

The room used to be nice. It used to be magnificent. And you can remember that time, oh so long ago, when the fireplace roared with sparks and the chandelier made your eyes water, and the brackets on the walls burned and licked away the shadows that clustered in the corners. You can remember light and heat.

But now you stare at the pale little girl, huddled away in her high-back, stiff-back, nigh-black chair begrimed with age, shivering till her pale little bones clatter.

And you can stare, because the room is darkness and ice now. Her eyes can't see your staring, swathed as you are in your deep, dark shadows – a gleam of teeth and sparkle of claws out the corner of her eye.

Are you trying to frighten the poor thing to death?

You may not be trying to, you may not want to, but you will.

But you will.

Because you know what's coming next, don't you? She's finished her dinner, choked all the crumbs she can down her parched, raw throat, drunk all the wine she dares – enough to blunt the sight and sound and smell of you, but not enough to forget herself and forget that you are a monster who does not constitute good company no matter that you're the only other living thing around. She's finished and fiddling with her dirtied cutlery, working up the strength to beg your pardon and flee, and you know what that means, don't you?

You can feel the words tight against your breastbone, can't you?

How did you fall in love with the pale little girl? Was it the novelty of the stifling silence broken by pattering feet running up and down corridors, desperately, despairingly lost – and you never move to help her because you love the noise of the sound. Or was it the beauty of the fires she lit everywhere she went, to mark her path as well as warm her, and the knowledge that just one flying spark from an untended blaze could burn this pile of stones and shadows to the ground.

And you wonder that she cannot tell your eyes are on her because you can feel them pounding and burning as they stare and stare and stare at the pale little girl, at the poor terrified thing, at her.

The words are rising again, clawing your vocal chords, scouring your palate, forcing their way through jaws that catch and teeth that bite. They are the monster, not you. They are what makes her shudder and turn and run and run and run through the labyrinthine corridors, not your mane and your tusks, nor your padded feet and tail, not you, never you.

You say:

Beauty, will you marry me?

The words are too fast, too quick, too nimble; they're not the game your heavy jaw is used to catching. To her ears, they are too slow, too weighted, too fervent. (The words, they're too vehement for a behemoth.) They terrify and horrify because they pulse and burn with wild animal zeal, with absolute sincerity, and she can't ignore them like your eyes – can't pretend that in the darkness they're not there. Can't see no evil, hear no evil-

Speak no evil, pale little girl:

No.

She flees, as she must, as she always does. And you promise yourself that it isn't you who makes her run. And you promise yourself that it's only the words – they've come too soon, she's not ready, you love her so she must love you, that's how fairy tales go. And you swear you'll never say them again, but you will.

But you will.