Mastodawn

"I was told you're a monster," the hero said.

"So they say," said the monster.

"But you're beautiful!"

"Thank you."

"Have you always been a monster?"

"Heh. I was a young maiden. But I did something forbidden."

"And became a monster?"

"Got named a monster."

"What did you do?"

"I hit back."

@MicroSFF The title of that story (in English translation) is 'The Lesser Evil'; you'll find it in Andrej Sapkowski's 'The Last Wish'.

@simon_brooke Or, you could say that another story on that theme is 'The Lesser Evil'.

Unless you are saying I have copied Sapkowski's story word for word? Which is quite rude and also unfounded.

First of all, an idea, concept, or theme, is not a story. The story is how the writer presents that idea.

Secondly, multiple people can have the same idea, independently.

Thirdly, different writers will tell a story centered on any given idea in different ways, which makes it a different story.

@MicroSFF No, no,. not at all. Just that, if you haven't read The Lesser Evil, I strongly recommend it to you.

@simon_brooke Deleted my first reply for being unnecessarily snotty. Sorry about that.

I have the Witcher books on my to-be-read list. Looking forward to reading that story.