章 15: A New Friend?
{Seizing Aerial Drop}
{Establishing Secondary Spatial Manipulation Resistance}
This system is broken. What is this ability thinking? At least steal me a straightforward flying ability. I'm never going to have the opportunity to "aerial drop" someone. And what is with that naming. I want a refund. This lousy ability for my almost death. Screw you all.
And this resistance? How does that even match? Yeah, I get the poison resistance with poison bite – it would be awkward if I poisoned myself, but this thing? Spatial what now? Do they have spaceships in this world? Was it actually sci-fi all along?
Muttering sourly, I carefully swung myself over and around so that I was straddling the branch. As soon as I was settled, Maxine landed in front of me. And if I was annoyed about the lame ability, she was clearly one hundred times more annoyed about my almost death.
"If your head gets separated from your body," she started, her fists clenched at her sides, "we're DEAD. Do you understand? I can't resurrect you! Do you think that every time you'll be able to just barely die with enough life for me to heal your physical body? Do you think healing is easy? A sword in the wrong place, a poison that is quicker than I am, if I'm too far away from you – we're DEAD!"
This was probably not the right time to point out that I was unlikely to be killed by poison in the future.
"What were you thinking?! You should have waited until the gryphon had landed. Why would you risk our lives?!"
"I thought it was attacking the kids."
"Are our lives less important??" Tears were running down her face. I used the tip of my pinky to wipe them away.
"Of course not. But we're stronger than them. I knew we had a chance, because I have you with me." I smiled at her. I was feeling a little sentimental myself now. "I'm sorry."
She smacked at my finger, sniffling, and rubbed her sleeve over her face. "I'm tired." She mumbled. She plopped down, knees to her chest with both autumn-clad arms over her head. "I'm so tired."
"Rest up while I figure out how to get out of this."
"Don't jump," she muttered.
I chuckled while I surveyed the branches near us. We were truly stuck. Even if I had wanted to climb down, the branches were too far from each other for my stubby legs. We might have to wait for the adults to come get us, but they probably wouldn't be able to see us. So, we might have to wait until we could hear them shouting and then shout back. But then the gryphon would hear us… Could my super cool killer parents defeat a gryphon? If this were a TV show, I would want to see that. In real life not so much.
I didn't have time to start the next cycle of contemplation before I heard a loud rustling coming from below. Careful to keep my balance, I peeked down. I didn't have to wait long before that terrifyingly large, sharp-beaked gryphon head appeared in a furious explosion of leaves and broken branches. I guess it couldn't be bothered to avoid some of the smaller branches.
It was climbing up the tree like a cat. When its head was level with us, it stopped and turned its head so that one of its eyes (which was almost as big as me) faced us.
"What," the gryphon said, "did you do?"
That was unexpected. And very anticlimactic. Before I talked to Lamlan, he had bitten me once more (terrifying Maxine in the process, who had been ready to dive into healing again), and I had a huge confrontation with my parents and a magic spell.
"You can talk?" I asked.
"Obviously. What did you do?"
"No, no, no! You CAN TALK?!"
The gryphon paused, his head feathers ruffling up in offense. "You hominids are not the only speakers."
"Of COURSE not! But YOU can talk! Why did you attack me?!"
The gryphon shrugged. "You disturbed my nap. I thought to play a prank."
"That was a prank?!" I was half-screaming at the elephant-sized gryphon who could swallow me whole without chewing. Maxine peered out from between her arms, but she didn't try to stop me; I think she was just as upset.
"It was a prank! I didn't hurt you, did I? Instead you got to experience flying, something that none of you land-dwellers can ever experience in your entire lives. Forget that. What did you do?"
I gave up my line of inquiry and turned to his.
"What are you talking about?"
He clacked his beak angrily. "I can't fly!"
Uh-oh.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Does that happen often?" Innocence and ignorance are the best defenses.
"No! Never! Which is why you are very suspicious!"
"Me?" Look at me with my cute puppy-dog eyes and tiny constitution. Do I seem suspicious? Not at all. I'm the epitome of harmlessness.
"Right after I dropped you, I suddenly couldn't fly. My wings are fine, there was no magic, I just can't remember how to! So," the eye came closer, as if the pupil would devour me in place of the beak, "what did you do?"
"Tell him," Maxine said. She flew to my shoulder and leaned against my neck. "Say sorry and then ask him to carry us down."
Tell him that I stole his ability to fly (see, system, you already stole the right ability, so why did you have to ruin it?) and then ask him for a favor. I couldn't see this working out well. On the other hand, we're stuck.
"Take me down first, and then I'll tell you."
"Tell me first and then I'll take you down."
"No! Me first."
The gryphon glared at me. "This is why I hate kids."
"I don't like gryphons either." I retorted.
He stopped, and then chuckled sourly. "I guess not." He moved his head under my branch. "Get on my head and hold tight."
It was like stepping onto a carpeted platform. I sank up to my knees into his feathers, which were soft enough that I wanted to try sleeping in them. After I gave him the o-kay, he began to back carefully down the tree. He held his head steady, so I wasn't worried about falling off. I was surprised, on the other hand, that the tree didn't rip under his weight. Either he was all hollow bones, or these trees were made out of steel and concrete.
Once we were on the ground, he lay his head down so that I could get off. He didn't move from that position, instead he lay the rest of his body down as well as he turned to watch me.
"Now tell me."
"Don't tell anyone, okay?"
I could see his lion tail, with its tuft of red fur at the end, cutting arcs through the air.
"I won't. Now tell me."
"I have an ability that steals other people's abilities."
The tail halted abruptly. His lids slid halfway closed. "An ability?"
"Yeah. Um… a permanent spell. It works when I'm in danger." No way was I telling him that I had almost died. "I didn't mean to steal your ability to fly. I'm sorry." Or not, because you almost killed me, you chimeric lunatic.
"Flying is a skill, not an ability. Or perhaps…" The gryphon hummed to himself for a bit. "Can you fly now?"
"No," I said. "I don't think so."
"Hmmm." He sounded skeptical. "You steal without retaining?"
"No, but I didn't learn the ability to fly, just the ability to drop things."
"Explain."
"I learned an ability called 'Aerial Drop', so I can drop things, but I can't fly."
"How old are you?"
Is this relevant? "Three-years-old."
"That must be why you're so stupid." He remarked, satisfaction lacing his voice.
Excuse me? First Lamlan, now this gryphon – are all non-hominids in this world rude?
"What are you talking about?" I did my best to repress the irritation from leaking into my own voice. My own adorable, sweet, VERY intelligent voice.
"The name says it all. You have to fly in order to drop something from the air. Therefore, you can, in fact, fly."
Well…yeah, damn. I can see what he's saying.
"But only to drop things…"
He huffed. "Do you always take names at face value? Nothing is stopping you from not completing the spell."
I blinked. "You can do that?"
"Of course!" His eye rolled as he looked me up and down. "Ah, I see. Humans don't teach their children until their older, so you must not know much. And you're keeping this from your parents?"
"I'm not human."
He lifted his head and sniffed in my direction. "You're at least half human. Still human by most standards. I'm not sure what the other half is, though. Seems familiar…"
"I don't know what you're smelling, but you're wrong. I'm half demon and half elf."
He cocked his head. "You're definitely neither of those."
"How's that possible? My dad is a demon, and my mom is an elf. They gave birth to me." From an egg, but it was close enough. And also, humans aren't born from eggs. Or maybe they are in this world. "EW! What are you doing?"
His tongue left a trail of slime all over my face and in my hair. He clacked his beak and hummed like one of those professional food connoisseurs.
He hummed again, but there was a hint of hesitation.
"Were you adopted?"
"No! I just told you!"
"Then, I'm sorry to say, your parents are lying to you." He did actually sound a little sorry. That was the only reason why I didn't bite him.
"They wouldn't lie to me. Also, I remember being born! They were there!"
"You remember being born? What—"
My ears twitched. I could hear voices, and two of them were my parents'. The gryphon had been watching me, and when he saw my distraction he stopped talking as well. He sighed.
"We will finish this later." He said. "Come see me tomorrow in the same meadow."
"No way." I replied quickly. "My parents won't allow that." And I don't want to come. Denial? Sure, call it that. But I didn't want to hear about possible family secrets from a stranger.
"Tell your parents to come with you, then." He grinned. Oh yeah, he had definitely been grinning before he first kidnapped me. I hadn't been hallucinating at all. Stupid cat-bird had a twisted sense of humor. "And if you don't come, I'll come for you."
I imagined the houses being crushed and my parents being told to pay for it. Then the looks of condemnation from the owners of the houses, and then having to leave the town. My parents' looks of disappointment. My lovely room being given to some other kid. My dad stopping our sword lessons as a punishment. This could not happen.
"Fine. Just don't tell them about my ability or about what you just said."
"You like keeping secrets, don't you? I look forward to digging them out." His eyes gleamed. "Every single one of them." He rose and turned, his tail barely missing my face. "See you tomorrow, little thief." Without a sound, he disappeared between the trees.
I stared after him.
"Maxine?" I asked tentatively. "Did that go well?"
When she didn't answer, I glanced over. She was asleep. The healing magic must take more energy than I had realized.
I had forgotten to clean off the saliva, so it had mostly dried. I used the edge of my shirt to rub at it. I wanted a bath. A bath, food, and bed.
"Molly!" I was suddenly swept into the air again, this time in my dad's arms. "Are you all right? What happened?"
"I'm fine, Daddy." I hugged him back and then smiled at my mom. "Hi, Mom. Sorry for straying."
"Are you hurt?" Her hand travelled over my body looking for the broken bones already healed by Maxine.
"I'm fine, Mommy. The gryphon was just playing a joke. He put me down after."
"That's a horrible joke." I couldn't agree more, Dad. "Where is he?"
"He's gone. But he says he wants to see us tomorrow."
"All of us?" Mom and Dad exchanged a worried glance.
"Yeah." I yawned. "Or he'll come to us."
"Well, we can't have that!" A few other adults had followed after, including the mayor. The others had stayed back, but he had been close enough to overhear. He looked pretty relaxed considering the situation. "We'll prepare a gift for when you visit. I'll have it dropped off at your house in the morning."
"…thank you, Hsoun." My mom didn't sound grateful at all.
We walked back with the other adults, and my parents and I stayed quiet. Hsoun, on the other hand, was very talkative. I learned from him that soon after the gryphon dropped me, the kids had run back to the town screaming about how a huge bird was going to eat me. Hsoun and a few other important figures in the town knew about the gryphon, so they didn't panic. The gryphon was in fact the town protector, albeit indirectly. The gryphon had lived here before the town, and the town founders had made a bet that if they lived near the gryphon, no one would bother them. They were absolutely correct. As long as they stayed peaceful and friendly, the gryphon didn't care that they were there. On the other hand, he didn't like the arrogant armies that occasionally tried to burst in to grab the townspeople.
Gryphons are extremely powerful. Over the top powerful. Human army? Hah. Demon army? Hah. He was the ultimate spell master. The cream of the crop.
This all started a couple hundred years ago, though, so only a few people knew. The town leaders didn't want their citizens to bother him, and the country leaders didn't want their citizens to run away to this very inconveniently guarded town. This was why Belen hadn't known what a gryphon was. With so few around, and the closest one being a secret, it was no surprise that kids weren't taught about them.
This wasn't a horror movie, so the town leaders weren't about to go killing anyone to keep the secret. Hsoun just shrugged when asked about it. For someone who was leading a town of essentially refugees, he was pretty carefree.
The next day, we headed back into the forest. This time Mom was carrying me, and Dad led the way.
When we reached the meadow, we didn't see the huge gryphon. Instead, we saw a slender man shorter than my parents with slate blue hair. He was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the meadow, with two empty chairs in front of him. He smiled and gestured at the empty chairs.
"Welcome. Sit, please."
They didn't hesitate, and Mom didn't let me go so I ended up on her lap. I could feel the anger trembling through her body.
"What were you thinking?" She said. Her arms tightened until it hurt. "Why did you attack our daughter?"
He leaned back, waving a hand as he chuckled.
"It was a misunderstanding. The children bothered my nap and didn't know what I was, so I wanted to play a prank. Your daughter and I already talked about it. It's all good."
"Talked about it?" Dad leaned forward. "All good? Are you crazy?"
"Most people would consider you crazy, Mr. Demon, for talking to me like that." His smile sharpened. "But perhaps you have more to protect than most people."
My parents stiffened.
"Relax. I didn't ask you to come here so that I could threaten you. The opposite, actually." He pointed at me. "I find your daughter very interesting. Perhaps it's because she gets her personality from you two. I want her to visit me. Unfortunately, when I told her that, she said that her parents wouldn't let her. So, parents, will you let your daughter visit me? I can promise that there will be no more sudden flights." His gaze now turned on me and I shivered. "Right, daughter?"
I needed to stop that train of thought.
"My name's Molly."
"Molly. My name is Xipil. And your parents?"
"I am Tunifer, and this is Aldweina." Dad sounded confused, or hesitant. Possibly torn between lingering anger and the strange relaxed atmosphere created by the gryphon in the human body. "Why are you interested in her?"
"I said it was because of her personality. Let's leave it at that." He smiled. "I'm also interested in you two, in fact. But I find that children make for much more enjoyable company. They don't have the same filters as adult hominids."
After he stopped speaking, the meadow was filled with silence and my parents glancing at each other over my head.
He sighed. "I don't converse much with hominids, especially with the people around here. Humans and demons tend to be rather…fanatical. I keep to myself, and I wouldn't be introducing your daughter to anyone. Think of me as a nanny. I am under the impression that your daughter gets into a lot of trouble, after all."
Hit the nail on the head why don't you, you damn cat-bird.
I guess a free nanny was too good an opportunity to pass up, because my parents began to relax. The conversation between the three of them slowly bloomed into chatting about the forest, the town, the forest we used to live next to, and Lamlan. Eventually the gift from the mayor made an appearance; it was a basket of fruit from the fields. As the only kid in the group, I was left out even when they were talking about me.
"It's getting late," Dad said as he glanced to the sky two or so hours later. The shadows stretched along the ground, darkening the bright orange sildio flowers.
Mom stood, adjusting me on her hip instead of putting me down. I was going to forget how to walk at this rate.
Xipil stood as well.
"Thank you for coming," he said. "I will see you again tomorrow, Molly."
My parents didn't even react this time. I think they were being fooled by his height. If they had seen him in all his feather-and-fur glory, they would not have been so easily comforted. Well, that works for me too.
"Yeah. See you tomorrow, Xipil."
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