The Minotaur

The castle walls had been built thick in order to withstand any potential attack. It served as a monument to the strength and beauty of the kingdom and its people. But that day the walls weren't thick enough.

The queen's screams echoed throughout the castle, bouncing off obsidian walls and into the ears of all who dared to venture too close to her birthing chamber. This was no ordinary birth, no one who truly knew what caused the queen's sudden pregnancy was delighted at the prospect of it.

Guards stood outside the chamber shifting uncomfortably at the screams, awaiting news of the birth and if the child was to be dealt with. Midwives wrung their hands nervously as they stood at her bedside, mixing medicinal herbs meant to ease the queen's contractions and as they occasionally offered her water. The king stood in a corner looking on with worry at the state of his wife, thinking back on the birth of their previous children and wondering if one had ever looked so... painful.

And lastly, there was the queen, who had remained optimistic about the birth since the moment she found out about her pregnancy. Now she lays in a pool of her own sweat as she attempts to do what many women before her had done in a position near to hers, push. But there was a steady aura of nervousness between those in the room, a fear and anticipation that grew every second they didn't hear the baby's first cries.

All the women in the room knew what they were to do in this scenario but only one had pulled herself together enough to speak the words. "Right then, get me the tools, I'll do it." The women around her move to prepare, one rushes to the queen to get her laid down as the other grabs the tray of previously sterilized tools.

The midwife ties her puffy hair up to ensure it's out of her face as she works, tucking strands of it tightly behind curled horns. She'd done this before and knew that if she could do it for herself she could surely do it for others. She looked to her side and eyed the other midwife as she took the scalpel from the tray.

She placed a steady hand on the queen's stomach in an attempt to calm her while also feeling for any movement. She lowers her hand and drags the scalpel across the queen's skin, just below her belly button. The king stares wide-eyed at the procedure, swallowing the saliva accumulating in his mouth as he watches on in silent horror.

In his mind, he rationalizes that whatever is being cut from his wife is not of his blood, that he shouldn't be expected to stay and watch as the atrocity is brought into the world. But he stays because deep down he knows the creature is, in part, his doing. If he hadn't kept the gods' sacrificial hog for himself his wife wouldn't have... well, perhaps now wasn't the time to think of his blame. Not when the midwife is screaming, her face one of fear and pain as she withdraws her hand from the queen's womb.

When her hand becomes visible so does the creature with its teeth firmly clamped down on her fingers. The creature wiggles and growls, its small body trying desperately to detach the woman's fingers from her hand. She tears her hand from the creature and lets it fall to the floor, losing her middle and ring finger in the process.

The fall, which would have been enough to cave in the skull of any other newborn, seems to only daze the creature. It lays on the ground chewing viciously on the fingers in its mouth as its eyes move to take in its surroundings.

The queen is asking questions, asking what's wrong and if it's alright. The midwife who now held her injured hand to her chest looks from the queen then to the king before letting her eyes rest on the creature rolling around on the floor, trying to force tiny hooved limbs into a standing position. "My queen, I fear you have birthed a monster," She watches as the creature licks the blood from its lips."one with a taste for blood and flesh." Her eyes go between the king and queen as she asks her next question. "What do you wish of it?"