The war began twenty years ago.

He had never planned on attacking them. He didn't want revenge; he didn't want war... That is until they bought the war to him; their swords wielded high, their teeth bared.

Monsters, they had called his people, fiends of the forest. Creatures who should have never crawled down from the trees, trees that now grew around his broken kingdom, their knarled bark stained red

with blood.

The beast, once a king, now without his crown hunched, nestled into the curve of his throne—the moss cushion that once comforted him now wilted and brown, the yew wood back that once supported him now brittle and dull.

The beast curled his weary hand around the old scroll, and with a warm smile towards the young woman who had given everything and lost so much—his daughter Mirn—he recited the words before him.

A light blossomed beneath his ragged armour; a red so pure, so glorious, a rose which grew in the royal garden would droop and wither with shame.

Tangling his fingers in the glow, he plucked the light from his chest, pulling at it gently as one would to a delicate flower for a lover.

A tendril of light extended from the beast's body, a rosy string swaying like an established vine of ivy. The cord then dropped, tumbling into the beast’s palm, where it twisted then hardened, forming a solid red gemstone.

“You coward!” His daughter’s voice roared, breaking through the air, shattering splinters of spiteful words as she cut at his skin, his clothes, at anything she could.

The beast accepted Mirn’s anger, understanding her pain, her distress; he would have expected no less from one who cared so much.

He waited for her to calm before he spoke.

“Come with me,” He implored, the gemstones glow washing over his daughter’s green skin.

Mirn’s yellow eyes flashed orange. “I will not! I will not abandon them!”

“We won't be,” The beast said calmly, “we will avenge them without the bloodshed, without this endless war.”

“You will be erasing everyone! You will be erasing everything as it is now.” She took a breath, the tips of her pointed ears twitching. “You will erase me.”

“Daughter—”

“No! This is wrong, father! You can’t! All these lives—”

“Will be better,” The beast said, “We can all live the lives we were destined to. You can live the life you were destined to. No more fighting, only peace.”

Mirn’s tail quivered behind her, wrapping around her leg—a comfort—a slight break in the strong barrier she held around herself. “But she won't be me.”

The gemstone felt heavy, sharp against the beast skin, the ruby glow slowly fading, its powers depleting. “I will tell her stories.” The beast said, and his chest ached, for he knew what was coming. “Of you, of the warrior princess who never backed down, who never gave up. A warrior princess who will forever be fierce and wondrously kind,” The beast extended his arm, reaching out desperately for his child's hand, to hold it—to hold her as she was—one last time, but she flinched away, concealing her hand behind her back.

A thorn of hurt pierced his chest as he gripped the gem tightly. “I love you, my daughter.” The beast spoke, “My Mirn.”

An intense cold, like a hard frost at midnight, spiralled up the beast's arm, the red glow changing, brightening to a blush of pink, then to a piercing, blinding, crystal white.

The beast squinted his yellow eyes as the light consumed his surroundings—his daughter—washing away all the noise, all feeling until all that remained was him.

He would go back, travel back, twenty-one years before the war, reason with them, talk to them, stop the conflict before it ever began.

Maybe then he could be a beast no more, but a king his people deserved. Maybe he could be the father his daughter deserved. Perhaps then, he could give the people of the forest the lives they were supposed to have, without pain, or hurt or bloodshed.