Chapter Text
The sun was actually almost fully risen by the time Ulysses reached his home. He had walked for the better part of two days as he was too scared to sleep with no one looking out for him. That, and he has never had to sleep alone in a forest before. The lack of chatter around a warm campfire unsettled him, but imagining his ex-friends there only hurt him more. The imaginary conversations were no longer about monsters and odd hypotheticals. No, even in his imagination, they were snapping at him with their words.
The little one-bedroom apartment above his shop where he spent his full adult life in was a welcome sight after everything he had gone through. Even after all this time, and through his grief and exhaustion, it was familiar. At the window, Ginger was pawing the glass, asking to be let in. Ulysses quickly set down his pack an unlatched the window. Swift as the wind, Ginger, Mint, and Poppy all slipped into his room. The three cats meowed and brushed their bodies against his boots. He could barely walk over to his bed without tripping over one of them, and when he finally sat down, they all jumped up to join him.
This was… He didn’t realize how badly he just needed some comfort after that confrontation. Ulysses had to pull the mask off himself so that his tears could fall properly. They got caught on some of the misshapen parts of his face, so he wanted to be able to wipe them off with his hands. As if they could sense his pain, the three cats around him only got closer, only purred louder, only loved him more.
“There is nothing I can say, nothing I can ever do,” Ulysses cried, burying his face into the fur of one of the cats. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t ask to be born like this.”
Ginger, the most vocal of the cats meowed at him, and he shook his head. Then, with whatever strength he had left, he cast his animal speech spell. Ginger’s meowing suddenly took on new meaning. In fact, so did all the purring around him.
“Welcome back.”
“Don’t cry.”
“I missed you.”
“It was cold outside.”
“Will you feed us?”
Ulysses laughed at the last one. He said, “Yes. We could all use a nice meal. Then I need to rest.”
The three cats backed off to let him walk without issues to the small kitchen where a fresh bag of cat food, likely provided by Anica while he was away, sat on the bottom shelf of the pantry. He softened up some of his rations to mix in some meat with the cat food before separating them into three small bowls for them. How many times had he done this? Years of him preparing and serving these three cats flashed in his mind. In all that time, they were the only ones who ever saw his true form. Unlike his party members, these cats didn’t think twice. After all, he smelled the same, and his actions were still caring. That wasn’t enough to settle humans down though.
“Food! Food!”
The little chorus of their chants helped him smile despite how tired his cheeks were. As they ate, Ulysses took small bites of the remaining bits of rations — dried berries and hard tack. The bright side was that he could eat real food again, he reminded himself. Then, as his mind drifted to the thought of cooking, he remembered nights where he was allowed to be in charge and he put people to work, foraging, preparing ingredients, and cooking around the campfire. Jasper always went silent while he stuffed his mouth. Bellthorne would actually talk more, complimenting everything about Ulysses that night. Coral liked to tease him that he was the perfect housewife. Even Faera smiled on those nights.
But that was over now, wasn’t it? If he ran into them again, Ulysses couldn’t guarantee that he’d walk away from the encounter. It didn’t matter who he was or who he wanted to be. He was born as a monster, and that’s what he would always be.
The cats finished up their meals, and Ulysses cleaned up after them all before walking back to the bedroom where he found clothes packed neatly away in his wardrobe to change into. The bed was delightful, and if there was anything he could count on, it was the emptiness of sleep that could take away his worries. As he lost consciousness, he felt the cats snuggling up to him on his feet, under his arm, even one on his chest. He would be ok, and just like there was nothing he could do, there was nothing that wouldn’t pass with time.
He woke up to someone shaking him. All at once, his nerves came alight and he lurched up, reaching for the knife under his pillow only to realize two things: one, this was Anica, a long-time friend and not some intruder, and two, he didn’t keep a knife under his pillow while at home.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” she quickly apologized. When he nodded, she threw her arms around him and held him tightly.
Even when the hug was over, she still kept her hands on him, running one through his thin hair while the other rested on his cheek. She was taking in every part of him, even the healing cut on his jaw, but without his mask, he could feel his heart pounding. Normally, he was ok if she saw his face, but old fears were compounding with new ones it seemed.
“Anica…” Ulysses said. Just like that, she knew what he wanted. She went to his closet and picked out one of his daily use masks to hand to him.
Ulysses slipped it on before hugging her back. Anica always smelled like the forest. In fact, she likely just came back given the basket of carefully wrapped greens sitting on his bedside table. The cats were gently padding around them, trying to join in, yet not willing to get between them.
Finally, they let go of each other and Anica smiled at him, as bright as she always did. He should’ve leaned against her and thanked her for keeping his place in order while he was away. He could’ve offered to help her prepare the potions they needed for today or to catch up on the orders she must’ve been struggling with alone. However, all he could think about was how his party members all smiled at him like this, and yet they turned away just as easily. It put a pit in his stomach, just like when he heard people accuse his parents of setting the fire of which they were victims right before they turned and smiled at him.
This disguise, the role of normal human man, was starting to lose its ability to protect him from his paranoia it seemed. For once, he found that he’d rather know what Anica really thought of him rather than buy into this ruse he had kept up for the last twenty years with her.
“Ani?” he said to get her attention. She smiled and nodded at him. “Do you… Can creatures and people be innately evil? Unable to change?”
That took her aback, and she blinked her eyes a few times before attempting to answer. “I think there are people and creatures that are innately evil, but also ones that are innately good.”
She trailed off there, and Ulysses couldn’t help but slouch down a little. She caught that and put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think you’re innately evil, who would think that of you? Did… Did your party…”
Though she didn’t finish the question, Ulysses knew what she was going to ask, and he nodded.
“Why?”
Ulysses’s hand shook as he unbuckled the mask he had just put on. Though it was hard to purposely let it go, and bare his face to Anica, it was even harder to show her what she did not know. Some secrets, such as this one of his, were supposed to stay buried and forgotten. When the people he called friends pulled both masks off him without giving him a say, it seemed as thought they pulled the secret out too far for it to return deep inside of Ulysses mind.
She gasped and leaned back as if she wanted to run away as Ulysses let go of who he was, or perhaps just who he wanted to be. The only parts of him that remained the same were his hair and burn scars. He looked down at the bed, unable to look at Anica’s reaction. The last time he revealed a secret — his mask — she had shied away, and it damaged their chances at anything romantic. Would this be the one that damaged their friendship?
“You… Changeling.” Her voice shook a little, which was uncharacteristic since she was the one that always took over when Ulysses faltered.
He waited for her to call him a monster or hurl some insult. Maybe she would run to get a weapon to fight him off. Instead, he felt her hand under his chin, pulling on his head so he would turn towards her. Ulysses closed his eyes and let her truly see who he was. Her hands still ran through his hair, and cupped his chin, tilting his face this way and that for her to get a better look. Then, she picked up one of his hands, running her palms over this long fingers and thin forearms.
“Ulysses, look at me.”
He opened his eyes, but it still took a moment for him to meet her gaze.
“It’s still you,” she said, with a tint of relief as she exhaled. “Still just Ulysses.”
He smiled at that. “I promise I’ve done nothing but be good.”
“I know that. You don’t have to promise me. You’ve proved it a hundred times over, Ulysses,” she said. “Did they find out?”
The words seemed to fall out of his mouth now that this fear of his had been temporarily assuaged. “I’ve done nothing but help them. I listened to them. I gave them advice and made them potions. But it didn’t matter. I haven’t even taken on this form since I was a child — before the fire, but they forced it out of me. They burned away my form with some spell, which wasn’t fair because they know I’m afraid of fire, and then they even cut my mask.”
“That’s horrible,” Anica said, helping him wipe away the tears that got caught on his stiff scars.
“And even Coral. She went from loving me one day to calling me a monster and letting the others driving me off. I know there’s good reason to be scared of monsters like me—”
“You are not a monster.” Anica said it so suddenly and with so much force that Ulysses flinched. In a softer tone, she continued, “I just mean to say that you are not a monster. I’ve heard the stories too, but you… You’re just Ulysses, some lanky coward, who tries to help people around him.”
She smiled at him before letting it fade. In a more serious tone, she continued, “It’s them that were monsters. There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can do to change that about them, just like there’s nothing that will change who you are now.” Her words echoed his own from when he was just speaking to the cats, and like some magic spell, he felt a weight lift off his chest. He was lighter and didn’t cling onto the fear that had been anchoring him down for so long.
“It’s well known that we’re creatures that are innately evil,” he reminded her softly.
Anica scoffed, “We both studied alchemy. We learned about the men and women who thought their facts were correct. This ‘monster’ fact is not as true as they think it is. I don’t even believe you’ve ever even had a cruel thought.”
Just like that, the tiniest bit of guilt he still held onto seemed to dissolve. Ulysses did not fight when she brought him in for yet another hug. Even for her, this was a lot.
He smiled and said, “Thank you. And I’m sorry for hiding this from you.”
At that, she laughed, “Oh, I am a little hurt that you didn’t show me earlier. When we first met, yes, hiding made sense, but it has been twenty years, Ulysses.”
“Apologies,” he all but whispered.
“You’re forgiven,” she replied. She slid off and walked to her bag before returning with an order form. With a sly smile, she added, “Especially if you start preparing the order of one hundred cough suppressing potions. I promised them that this was your specialty and that I could follow your recipe. Now, I won’t have to right?”
He balked at that number then nodded. This felt good. Especially when he put the mask on and turned back to his human body. It reassured him that there was one relationship he hadn’t read incorrectly.