Ashley Pride

He doesn't think it's a rude thing to say in front of a monster. There are no rude things to say to monsters, only rude things monsters say.

"Don't worry," she says between bites, "You're one of the good ones."

"But I am still a monster," I do not say. I do not say that I love my claws and teeth, my prehensile shadow and my glowing eyes. That I cannot imagine giving them up even for survival, that to hide my shadow and trim my claws for them makes me feel diminished. In public I cannot say that I do not wish to be human.

They're progressives, this bunch, even if he carries a hero's banner with its proud history and none of them ask him to put it away. They know there are good monsters, monsters who can speak eloquently and hold the fork right, monsters you can be seen with in public. Some of their best friends are monsters.

They do not know the monster who is invited to brunch knows solidarity with the monster who is not. Believes and understands the monster who is not invited more than the human who does the inviting.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" says a third human, and I have not forgotten I am outnumbered. "We have ways of killing monsters without blood now, painlessly. And, of course, a monster should be allowed to live if it never growls."

He has never seen me growl. Yet how loudly and endlessly I will, when I'm out of earshot. He's talking about killing monsters who cannot stoop to civility, about mother and brother and lover who were never able to mute themselves like me, and does he not know how small a child who can only growl is?