Week 2 Story: The Griffin and his Beauty

Maeve sat staring out the window, the book that she had been reading resting on her lap, open to the page that she had lost interest on. Her two older sisters were bickering over one of the gentleman down the street; the topic of conversation was whether or not the young man, Henry, was genuinely fond of his new fiancee, or whether it was a match of convenience. 

Maeve was leaning more toward the latter, since Henry had tried to court her only months prior, but she certainly was not going to tell her sisters this. Not that they ever cared about her opinion anyway. They oftentimes overlooked her, or told her that her thoughts were not well developed, or just blatantly wrong.

Her eldest sister, Arabella, was just about to give her explanation as to why she believed that Henry is genuinely fond of his beloved when the familiar sound of Maeve’s mother’s horse came through the open window. The three of the sisters shot up – their mother should not have been home from the market for a few more days. She had only left two days prior, in fact.

The three young women raced outside, tripping over their skirts and falling over one another as they found their mother clinging to her horse’s reins. Their mother - who Maeve had always seen as put-together, a woman who never had a hair out of place – looked frantic, and Maeve helped her off the back of her horse.

Her mother clung to her with a tight grip, Maeve’s arms the only support that was seemingly keeping her upright. When she spoke, her voice was desperate, and one of her hands reached upward to point to the saddlebag hanging off her steed. “We do not have long, Maeve. You must leave!”

Three roses hung loosely out of the top of the bag, and Maeve frowned. She had asked her mother for three roses from the market, but despite the fact that her mother had crushed them in her bag, they looked to be in pristine condition.

Maeve turned her head to her mother once more. “What are you talking about, Mama?” She asked, her voice wary.

“The… The Griffin! I took his roses, and there was no way out. I had to get back to you and your sisters, but I had to give one of you up.” Her mother’s eyes traveled to Maeve’s, and she shook her head as if ashamed.

She couldn’t possible mean…

“You. I had to give you up, Maeve.”

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The Griffin mostly kept to himself. He only came out of the West Wing of his castle for meal times, and when Maeve begged him to take a walk around the castle grounds. She was only allowed to leave the confinements of the castle walls with an escort, and since she could rarely find a living soul besides the giant, winged creature prowling around, he was her companion.

There was no doubt that the creature had been lonely before he had forced Maeve to come and stay with him. There was nothing that he required of her except her company; on her first day in the castle, he had commanded her that she was to spend a few hours with him each day, simply talking. Nothing more than that.

It was not for months that she realized she might feel something for the Griffin other than resentment. Maeve started to miss him when he was not around, and at first, she blamed it on the fact that he had locked her up with no one for company but himself. After a while, however, she had to admit to herself that it was because of him that she was not going completely insane with loneliness. In fact, he was the reason she was… happy.

“Tell me something about griffins. Something that no one else would know,” Maeve said one day, as they walked casually through the garden. Maeve’s fingers brushed over the petals of a red rose, and a small smile graced her lips.

“We mate for life.” The Griffin replied, after a few long moments. His giant paws, however big, made soft thuds on the ground as they walked. Maeve found the sound soothing.

“Oh.” Maeve said, surprised, and she blinked down at him. He was staring up at her, bright blue eyes meeting her dark brown irises. “Did you have anyone? You know, before?” The young woman gestured to his large form.

He shook his head. “No.”

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Maeve’s eyes stared widely at the very human, yet very naked, form of the Griffin that now stood before her. Her hands clung tightly to the sword in her hand, her entire body shaking with leftover energy from their encounter.

“Maeve.” He said, his voice so familiar yet not.

She blinked rapidly and tried to meet his eyes, a blush coming to her cheeks at what she found in his face. He was handsome, incredibly so, and she couldn’t help but notice it.

The Griffin – no, his name was Griffin – smiled at her, and he stepped nearer, despite his lack of clothing. “You set me free.” He breathed out, his voice as disbelieving as Maeve was in that moment.

He had asked – more like commanded – that she kill him and set him free from his beastly prison. But the young woman couldn’t do it – she wasn’t going to kill the only being that she had ever loved in her life. And when she had refused, had confessed her love for him, he had changed.

Now he stood before her, beautiful and human, and she couldn’t think to do anything but stare.

“I guess this means that you’re my mate now.” He said, and Maeve let out a tearful laugh as she dropped the sword in her hand and flung her arms around the Griffin’s neck. His own arms wrapped around her, and he pressed his face into her neck.

“And you’re mine.” She whispered back.

Roses Flower Swoosh by GDJ on Pixabay

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Author's Note: So, I started out with the traditional story of the Three Roses, or the Beauty and the Basilisk . In this tale, similarly to mine, the mother of the protagonist  - Mary - comes and tells her daughter that a monster forced her to give up one of her daughters in replacement of her own punishment for stealing his roses. In the original story, the monster is a basilisk, and the creature forces the Mary to nurse him for three hours everyday. I decided to change this because I thought it was creepy and basilisks freak me out (ew, snakes), so I went with a griffin instead. Griffins, according to medieval lore, mate for life, so I used that aspect of the creature's mythology in the story because I thought it would make a good plot point. That, and at the end of the story, the basilisk turned prince basically forced Mary to marry him, so in this, it was Maeve's choice to choose Griffin. So for my retelling, I simply used the outline of the original piece and the idea of the story and wrote my own instead, since I liked the general idea of the Beauty and the Basilisk tale, just not the details that were in it. 

Bibliography: The Three Roses from the Czech fairy tale, The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).