The Griffins
Posted May 25th, 2023 by ElizieAngelina
in The Deepsea Metro (jk, it's Texas.)
May 25th, 2023
As I walk to the woods, fireflies chirp, anticipating my arrival. The pond is alive-it splashes and smiles at my warm expression. The trees shake in protest, and my hair swipes at my back. Despite the wind, my blazer refuses to keep me warm, and the cold rings through, reaching my polo and shaking my legs. My hands begin to turn blue, somehow.
I want to go back, but why leave?
Somehow, the pond calls to me. Out of all alive things in these woods, the lapping of the water shrieks through the damp night.
And then, it starts to sprinkle. Just what I needed. Ugh.
I reach for the pond, water lapping around my hands.
And then the water sucks me in.
For a few moments, everything is confusing, I don’t know whether I'm upside down or rightside up. I'm spinning and falling. I get dizzy.
Suddenly I'm close to the top. The water seems warm now. My hand breaks the surface and grabs the edge. I pull myself up…and come beak-to-nose with a griffin.
I scream and jump backwards, splashing back into the pool. The griffin hops around the pool and looks at me.
“Go away!” I yell.
Then I catch a glance of the world around me and gasp.
There are no trees and the sun shines on an almost impossibly green field. Huge mushrooms with fairies flitting around them dot the landscape.
The griffin hops away and joins a rather dangerous-looking group of mythical creatures that consists of two griffins, one dark crimson and missing an eye and one golden-brown with matted fur, a gray dragon the size of a horse with a jagged scar across his snout and a black winged unicorn with tangled gray mane and a sharp, shiny black horn.
I have dismissed fairies and stuff like that as silly girly things but my heart quails at the thought of walking over to the group. But to maintain my dignity I throw my wet waist-length black hair over my shoulder and prepare to walk over.
“You don’t want to do that,” said a voice at my feet.
I look down.
There is a little dwarf leaning on a pickaxe and looking up at me.
He gestures to the field.
“This is the land of the mythical creatures.”
I look at the dwarf for a beat before bursting into laughter. Almost as if I've lost my mind, I burst into hysterical snickers. As the dwarf looks confused, frightened, and even somewhat worried, I roll on the flower fields, now howling. This is stupid. This isn't meant to exist. This has to be a dream, considering I'd have a dream about fairies, of all things.
When I'm finished, I look up at the dwarf's face.
"Too much?" I ask.
The dwarf screams and runs away.
I scoff. "Well, then don't come back at all!"
The fields go silent, interrupted by the sounds of the chittering of the fairies.
Somehow, it's mine, but more high-pitched.
Are the fairies...imitating me?!
Squaring my shoulders, I walk over to the group.
“Beat it, kid,” growls the red griffin, fixing his one eye on me.
The scarred dragon walk right up to me and says in my face,
“If you don’t have anything better to do, then do what Phlume says and buzz off”
“I see that you also don’t have anything better to do either if you won’t allow a puny human to walk by you.” I have been taught amazing comebacks by my brothers and the words poured out without me even thinking.
The golden griffin chuckles. “Looks like it got you there, Deluthe.”
The dragon, Deluthe, walks right up to me and sticks his snout in my face.
“Don’t you dare do that again,” he growls.
I guess the fairies made me angry, but I punch him square on the jaw.
He sits up, rubbing his snout while Phlume pounds me on the back.
“You’re in!” yells Phlume.
Deluthe arches his neck in an angle, sending me across the field.
I grit my teeth, looking up and diving for his legs as Deluthe frantically tries to bite me. Meanwhile, Phlume bites my wrist and ankle, growling. I scream, causing me to lose grip of Deluthe.
I place my fists together and throw my blazer into the fields. "So, that's the way it's going to be, huh?"
Deluthe and Phlume look at me with rage and anger.
"Fine, then," I reply. "Let's do this."
I don’t know how I do it, but somehow I back up, sending Deluthe off my back and onto Phlume, who is standing in front of me. I throw my whole weight backwards while pushing forwards on Deluthe. Somehow both Deluthe and Phlume tumble forwards but they are on their feet almost as they fall. To make matters worse, the other griffin has joined the fight and I am forced to turn and kick him in the face.
“Back off, Beaky,” I mutter.
But facing three creatures, each the size of a horse and incredibly strong, is too much, even with my burst of energy and strength. All three jump on me at once. The world is a mess of flying feathers, beaks and claws, and there is no way out.
Suddenly I feel the creatures being pulled off of me. I look up to see the unicorn kicking Deluthe away from me with one front hoof. I get up, brushing the grass off my clothes and rubbing my scratched arms. I throw back my mussed hair and try to ignore the stinging of my scratches.
The unicorn looks at me.
“Kid, I think you’re a great fighter,” he says.
“Really,” I mutter, absorbed in finger-combing my tangled hair.
Phlume speaks up.
“You’re still one of those chicken-hearted, rainbow maned little unicorns, aren’t you, Vantablack, to tell this little weakling it’s good at fighting” he taunts
In return Vantablack jabs and flicks his horn and Phlume flies into the air and lands on his back.
“I told you twenty years ago to call me a cerapter, not a unicorn,” says Vantablack.
He turns back to me.
“Wanna join our group?”
Sure,” I say. Better than playing with pixies and fairies.
“What's your name?”
“Ava.”
The beige griffin breaks in.
“No, no, no. It's all wrong.”
“Huh?” I ask.
“No sort of thing, even a human, is going to have such a name as Ava,” he says
“Well what’s wrong with it?” I bristle. “Seems like a perfectly good name to me”
Vantablack says, “We’re not going to have an Ava on our team. It's a human name.”
“So what? I’m a human,” I growl, on the point of punching Vantablack on the nose.
“Your name is Tilyine from now on. You are no longer Ava, Tilyine.”
I shrug. “Oh well.”
The gold-colored griffin pounds me on the back so hard that I almost fall over.
“Welcome to the gang, Tilyine!” he yells.
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