Deny thy father and renounce thy name...
...And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
- Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II
I cannot change my name. I cannot change my likeness. I cannot change my being.
My name has been whispered in far lands. The rumours spread, and many that have once spoken to me with a kind word now recoil in horror at my visage, fears intensified by the many tales people tell of me.
I am Monos. I am the Ancient, the Predecessor.
I am the Winged, the One with Claws, the Stone-face and the Anguished Stranger.
They call me Creature. They call me Monster. How true it is. I have done terrible acts, unspeakable ones. I crave for flesh, and only a gentle hand restrains me. They tear me from my home, even if I have only just settled down for a while, and the rage grows within me, but it cannot escape, and so I vent it by wandering.
Long have I walked these lands, so fertile and green with the glory of Nature.
Men have gazed upon on me with different emotions, whether sadness, anger or a fear, born from the unknown. The most apt description I have had of myself came from an old man in Greece, whose store of years had been spent and was ready to die.
"Monos, Archaios, you have not grown old since I was but a babe. Even then, I have always wondered at your eyes, for they shine in the night and in the day like two rubies. Yet your body holds more. You are winged, like an angel, but for all the beauty they hold, people fear more your stone face and your hands that are clawed, tipped with the finest of edges. What are you Monos?"
"I am the silence that creeps in after your death. I am the comforting hand that touches the grieving lover. I am the hand that stopped good men from killing themselves. I am the knife that cut the throats of the evils that would ruin this Earth. I am the Guardian."
Long ago, I was cursed. By whom, I have forgotten. They said I used my face to dazzle all that beheld it, and so turned my face to stone, leaving it one of extreme anguish, that would cause all but a select few to hate and fear this unsightly visage. They said that I acted like a beast, so I would have clawed paws that scratch all but the tenderest hands. But they left me one memento of my former existence. My wings.
I was thrust from my home, the only place I had ever known, and made a beast of me. I hunted all that came near, and gave in to my lust, my hunger for the flesh and the blood, and exacted everything on my victims.
But soon, one came by that caught my attention. She was beautiful. She was supposed to be my salvation, my cure.
But it was not to be.
I was thrown into a rage by one of my victims that, as a final defiant act, spoke in tongues of flame to me, insulting, blasphemed me, which resulted in her death.
I am a monster, a Creature, as all have described me to be so.
I have long since then tried to atone for all I have done, buried in my regret and melancholia, by saving all that I could, by giving faith to some I have met. Yet I am scorned by most.
I walk alone this path, and no other creature, be they normal or not, can follow me.
It is a narrow one.
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