The Menagerie

[Tattles]

“It is time to wake up.”

The girl said to her slumbering partner, her eternal shadow.

The beast was roused from the stony floor of the cavern they had found themselves in, his large head shifting just lazily enough that one of those dark eyes could crack open in response to her call.

“The dream is ending.”

She said, getting to her own feet.

The girl shuffled over to the entrance to their refuge to look over the valley below,

A valley now bordered by the broken edges of what had been the Menagerie,

The bars and windows that had been their prison.

The beast raised his head, curious as to what she was searching for.

“Where will we go?” he asked.

The girl crossed her arms and continued to survey the forest.

She recalled when they had danced as wolves,

When they had become true monsters of the night.

She held back the mention of memories when she had considered the two of them as valiant as angels,

And another age when they had become hunters feared across the land.

Those dreams were so fond to look back on,

But she knew that they were in the past, never to be felt or collected or written again.

She opened up that ancient book that had caused such fear in her companion, her gaze tracing the forever dancing characters that drove most mad.

“There is only one place to go.” she finally replied.

Her bare feet left a soft sound upon the rocky ground as she made her way toward Belu.

She curled onto the ground so she could lean against him and placed the book there as well.

She rested her head upon its cover,

The blue light in her eyes fading as she closed them.

The beast let out a soft growl, a grumble of uncertainty, but spoke only a simple phrase as she was overtaken by sleep.

“Goodnight, Anabelle.”

And so she slept,

Taken off to a realm of that Nightmare she was always chasing.

When the sun rose again,

That cave was empty,

For both girl and beast had become nothing more

Than ink on blackened pages,

Where they would never be apart.

The End