The dragon's lithe body cut through the air with astounding speed, the ice in the air stinging Ylvir through his fur like tiny icicles. In almost no time, they arrived at Grey Castle, the place looming darkly in the overcast sky, it's many towers already topped with white snow.

Slowing significantly, the dragon twisted inside the tunneled entryway, landing where the winds whistled past the opening loudly, coldly. She crouched so Ylvir could easily dismount without disturbing his injury.

They regarded each other for a time, the dragon bowing her head to him, where he placed an appreciative paw. This is where we part ways Ylvir. Here, a parting gift.

Ylvir watched the dragon's present him with the same rose he had felled. He took it cautiously, unsure whether to be pleased or not with the gift and all of its reminders.

You need not feel obligated thank me now, or ever, if you deem it unworthy. I wish you the best of fortunes Ylvir. Should our paths cross again, let it be a happier occasion.

"You have done me a great deal of service," Ylvir spoke, gripping the rose more firmly, ignoring the thorns. He didn't really believe in next times enough to mention them anymore. "Your debt has been paid in full."

The dragon studied him, a strange sadness overcoming the magnificent creature before she finally said, Goodbye Ylvir. And then she left.

Ylvir continued to stare at the rose. It was a bittersweet gift. Perhaps he should have thanked the dragon, or maybe it was better he hadn't.

He shuffled to the great doors of the castle, just as intimidating as when he had left, like nothing had changed. But so much had. He clutched at his healing stomach with one hand and opened one of the large doors with the other.

Instantly he knew something was very, very wrong. It was worse than when he had come home. The coppery smell of blood filled the air, tainted further by the creeping stench of rot throughout. As he stepped inside, the darkness of the great hall was lifted by torches suddenly coming alight.

Ylvir's stomach clenched and heaved at the horrific sight before him. Bodies lay strewn about, blood and gore coating the stone floor. The disfigured men were made unrecognizable in the carnage, contorted limbs severed from torn bodies, death still relatively fresh by the sign of their ravaged flesh.

Killed. Massacred. Slaughtered.

The cursed men were no more. Once again, Ylvir arrived at the scene too late. He would have weeped, or maybe even wretched, if he had not already felt so numb. He was completely shocked and devastated.

"Y-Ylvir? That you?"

From out of the wreckage, one of the cursed men he vaguely recognized stepped out, into the light. Apparently they were not completely gone after all.

"It is. Ye've come back," the man exclaimed shakily, tears beginning to shine in his bulging eyes.

"What happened here," Ylvir asked hoarsely.

The tears finally fell from the cursed man's eyes. "They came in the night. We was so soused, we didn't stand a chance. They killed so many," he hiccuped. "There's not much of us left."

Ylvir watched the man sniffle back tears and still his frightened quivering.

"Why," was all he could ask. "Why would they attack?"

The man hung his head, shaking it miserably. "Not sure. Think I heard 'em accusin' us of attacking at some festival or somethin', but I didn't understand. We never went to no festival. We always stay here in the castle, mind our own business until they come in and poke about. Usually they just come fer the treasure, and we're used ter that, but this... this was different. They didn't even bother with no treasure. They just came fer us. Like we were some kind of animals fer 'em to hunt."

Ylvir's blood ran cold. "This is my fault."

"Ye can't blame yerself just bec--"

"No," Ylvir snarled, interrupting him. "This was my fault. I was the monster that attacked at the festival. I was the reason they came here."

The man stuttered and asked him the same question he asked. "Why?"

Ylvir couldn't meet his large eyes. "Because I couldn't control myself."

"Oh."

They stayed silent, each not meeting the other's gaze, their heads hung shamefully.

"I was a coward," the man suddenly said. "I was sober enough ter hide, and I did nothin' as I watched 'em cut me brothers down. I should 'ave died with them."

Ylvir was used to a fiery anger--a sudden rage that boiled and overflowed with emotions that swallowed his reason whole. This anger was different, opposite even. This anger was a cold that had crept ever slowly through his veins from his frozen heart, sharpening his mind with intense focus that stilled his emotion and steeled his thoughts. As he listened to the man blaming himself, Ylvir realised he had done the same, not only this time, but every time before. Even when he knew it was out of his hands.

"I'm sick and tired of blaming myself," he growled. "This is their fault. They are the ones who took the fight to us. I protect one girl from their own savagery, and they slaughter in turn without a second thought. They call us monsters while they commit these heinous acts of violence."

Ylvir realised the dragon was right. Humans were all wolves. Monsters in sheep's skin.

Ylvir turned steely red eyes to the cursed man, who stood stunned. "We may not be without blame in this, but we are far from being the absolute transgressors."

The man straightened himself as best as his twisted body allowed, resolve overcoming his features. "What do ye propose we do about it, then?"

Ylvir shook his head. "I have gone to great lengths not to be a true monster--to not be as barbaric as my adversaries. I refuse to stoop to their level now," he said, briefly flooded by the memories of the many people in his life who all sought his destruction--that were ruthless in getting what they wanted, and ridding themselves of what they didn't.

He then looked to the man once more. "You and your brethren guarded the treasures from being stolen so others would not become cursed as yourselves, yes?"

The twisted man's lumpy head nodded. "Aye."

Ylvir's mind calculated coldly. "No more. I say we let them come. Let them steal. Let the curse take them and show them what monsters they truly are."

The man faltered. "But--"

"But what," Ylvir snapped.

The man shivered in fear and the iciness of his tone. "I--I remember what it was like, bein' cursed, at first. It's awful. My brothers--it was our whole cause not to let others--"

"Look around you," Ylvir roared. "They are dead! Killed by they very people they thought they were protecting! And from what? Letting them see themselves for what they really are? I say it's the least they deserve. It's not as though people with good intent and pure heart ever come here. Not even myself."

The man gulped at the brutal honesty of the words, then hesitantly nodded his agreement. "What about attackers? What if they come for only us again?"

Ylvir gritted his sharp fangs. "It's not really you they're coming for, now is it," he growled, looking at his clawed paws for hands he had once so desperately wished to be human, now seeing opportunity in them, glad they were not the same as those bloodthirsty people. Before he had blamed himself for what was out of his hands, and though he would no longer do that, he recognized the need to use them properly and take real control of what he could. "Don't worry. Just like the treasure, if it's me they want, it's me they'll get."

Ylvir turned about the room, taking in the horrendous sight once more, the scent of it invading his senses powerfully.

"What's your name," he asked the man shortly, his voice taking command for the first time. He found it oddly suited him.

"Erdim," he responded, then added, "sir."

Sir... Ylvir remembered being called sir only once before. It had been strange then, but it felt fitting now.

"Erdim," he tested the name, continuing, "you said there were other survivors?"

"Yes, sir. Some like meself, who hid. Others badly injured, but alive."

Ylvir nodded. "Gather the ones still fit enough to work. Bring them here and start taking the bodies outside and broken furniture."

"Aye, sir," Erdim said. Before leaving he cast a curious glance at the winged back of Ylvir. "If ye don't me askin', what do ye plan on doin' with 'em?"

Ylvir sighed, his feathery shoulders sagging briefly before stiffening again. "We'll have to burn them. Now go."

"Yessir."

Tuning out his keen senses and the pain of his own injuries, Ylvir began the work, keeping his mind blank as he carried and dragged the many bodies outside to the tunnel entrance, hardly aware when Erdim returned, a small handful of others with him. His only hiccup was when he came across a body familiar enough to recognize despite the many disfiguring wounds strewn across his already-deformed body--Igleck. When he looked into those familiar eyes to see them glassy, the only emotion left in them being the faint horror frozen in his last moments before death, Ylvir felt despair creep in.

It choked him only for a moment, but it was an intense one, its numbing fingers grasping his neck, weighing heavily on his chest, constricting his breath. It was a deathly embrace that he could not shake even if he wanted to, so instead he hardened himself further, strengthening his resolve. He would not forget nor would he forgive this tragedy.

Ylvir carried his friend's body to the others, finding the small group of men left already standing there beside the sizable pile. He gently placed it amongst the other dead and bits of broken wood, the last one to be removed from their home, then turned to the men.

"Bring out the torches."

"Aye," they all affirmed, hobbling away to do just that.

They returned one by one, each dropping their torch reverently to the broken bodies of their brethren, the fire steadily growing and consuming them whole, slowly turning them to no more than ash.

"We can't stay out here with the smoke," Ylvir said, turning about to go back down the tunnel. The men dutifully followed, closing the castle's doors behind them and shutting out the smoke of the fire.

They were surprised to find that in their time gone, the castle had worked its magic. The torches and furnishings replaced, the remaining blood and gore gone without a trace. It was as though the violent actions that took place there had never happened. But it had, and it left a deep, unseen scar on all of them.

"Lookit that," one of the men said. "A rose."

Ylvir had nearly forgotten it, silently hoping he would never see it again, but there it lay on one of the tables, as fresh as the moment it was cut down. It was a terrible reminder--one he would not let rule him. He loathed that rose. He was about to walk forward, to take it up and destroy it for good, but the men raced to it before him. They held it in awe, each gushing at it, wondering at its meaning. Ylvir knew it's meaning all too well. That was why he wanted it gone. But clearly the men felt otherwise.

"We should keep it," one said. "Y'know. Put it in one a them vases or somethin'."

"No, no, no," another spoke. "If we do that, it's just gonna die."

"It will?"

"Of course it will! Ye think if I put you in a vase, ye'd stay alive?"

"Well then what do ye propose we do instead, eh?"

"We could plant it. Then it could grow even more of 'em."

"I think for that, ye need seeds."

"I don' see any seeds on it."

"What do rose seeds even look like?"

"How'm I supposed ter know?"

"Ylvir, what do ye think?"

"Do whatever you like," he growled, turning away to leave. "Just don't let me catch sight of that thing again."

The men stayed silent as they watched Ylvir lumber away, down the same hall Igleck had once taken him to sleep. When they thought he was out of hearing range, they spoke again.

"What happened to 'im?"

"Dunno. Nothin' good, I'm guessin'."

"He used ter be... I dunno, different."

"People change."

They all murmured their agreements to the simple statement, repeating it.

"People change."

Ylvir listened to the exchange as he continued to walk, finding that he didn't completely agree. He hadn't so much changed as he had simply stopped pretending to be something he wasn't. People didn't really change. They either pretended or stopped, just like himself.

Growing tired of their conversation, he turned to a room at random, pleased to find a small one nearly completely empty of everything, save for a small straw pallet and a blazing fire the warmed the otherwise cool stones of the castle. He curled up on the palette, glad to finally have reached a point where he could simply sleep. He didn't know what tomorrow would hold for him, nor did he really care. He needed rest. He needed a break from the world. He needed to finally come to terms that he was and always would be alone, as it should have always been.