On The Wings of a Griffon, Gabrielle Danielle Burnett [books to read for 12 year olds .txt] 📗

that wasn’t human.
He said nothing in reply, but started walking in a way that clearly said he was growing used to walking on his legs, which I found odd. Surely griffons didn’t spend all their time in the air.
As I followed him, I became shocked at how long I’d walked to find the source of the strange loneliness. Oddly, it hadn’t seemed that long when I had been walking to the clearing. It soon became apparent that I was tiring; even if I could walk much farther than my sisters, I still lacked the ability to be able to go on for hours.
Allásso̱n stopped when the noise of my footsteps fell silent, and turned to face me. “You walked longer than I thought you would be able to.” He told me, as if he’d had experience with nobles and royals before. “I will carry you for the rest of the journey.” His last statement surprised me, although he said it as if it were nothing.
I knew that I was small for my age, but I was not hollow-boned or ridiculously tiny. As if reading my mind, or maybe reading the doubtful expression on my face, he continued, “Griffons are stronger than other creatures.” As if that cleared anything up.
I decided to humor him since he seemed to believe that he could carry me. His back only went up to about mid-thigh, and his head reached a little above my waist, and it was easy to swing my leg over his back and settle myself. His fur felt like velvet, and his feathers were silky.
I had to wrap my slim arms around his neck to keep from sliding right off of him when he moved. My legs ached from walking and I realized that the land was rough and steep, and that I had walked from the palace to what must be two miles into the wood. It seemed impossibly far, especially from someone who’d never walked far in her life.
Thi̱río walked with a smooth grace that seemed to radiate off of the young griffon cub. And he hadn’t been exaggerating, I realized, when he’d said that griffons were stronger than regular beasts. He seemed to draw energy out of the air around him, out of nothingness.
While he walked, we talked. He didn’t really have a lot to tell me, but, and it was probably because I couldn’t think straight because I was so tired, I told him a lot about me. I was surprised and relieved when, when we had to be a lot closer to the edge of the wood, we found ourselves face-to-horse with a search team of guardsmen.
“Princess!” The man at the head of the group cried out in relief. I recognized him as a friend, Allan, who was a guardsman just below the age of the middle years.
I was too tired to respond, and let them gasp away when they saw that I rode a griffon cub. I was too tired to care. Thi̱río approached with caution, and I remembered that the guardsman would have been taught that griffons were ‘highly disagreeable’ and ‘prone to violent tendencies’, as my teacher had told me.
That was when I heard the sound of a guardsman pulling out an arrow. “Wait!” I cried with a sudden burst of strength. The man ignored me and a knot of anger curled up in my stomach. “I am your princess! You will do as I say! Hold your fire!” I could see the mutinous look cross the guardsman’s face and I knew that he was thinking about the financial reward for killing a griffon cub. I guess that he didn’t know that if he killed the cub—a friend—that I would have much worse be done to him.
“Yes, Princess.” The guard finally said, although he kept an arrow ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
Allan stepped forwards. “You’d better explain this to us, Princess.” He said in a way that was neither an order nor a suggestion.

 

Chapter 2

I crept silently out of bed, for my room sat in the middle of the corridor designated to the royal children, and my sisters were light sleepers, although they hated to be woken. I slipped on a silk nightdress that wouldn’t be appropriate for anything but walking around in my personal chambers before I went into the next room.
Thi̱río’s head rose as I walked into the chamber that I’d designated to him when he moved in with me at the palace. The griffon now lived in one of my chambers, fully furnished, but with sturdier furniture than in the other rooms. The griffon himself, no longer a cub, slept in a bed much larger than my own, for obvious reasons, and I went and sat next to him.
Although Thi̱río was often missing, probably going out in search of a female griffon, I never could get used to not seeing my best friend for a long period of time. Thi̱río had never been far from me, despite what my mother thought of it.
Ever since Thi̱río had walked me back to the palace, rescuing me before the guardsmen had even come close to where I was, mother had disliked the griffon. Now, as a fully matured beast, she really detested what she thought of as my ‘pet’.
“Having trouble sleeping, Bain?” Thi̱río asked with a knowing cry. He never seemed to mind when I woke him early in the morning because I couldn’t sleep.
“Yes.” I replied simply wrapping an arm around my friend’s feathered neck. He put his paw, the claws that could easily cut me pulled in, on my leg like a human would have put a hand. Thi̱río acted more like a human than a beast, despite his form.
His feathers had stayed the same silky, soft texture, although his fur had lengthened slightly and was just barely rougher than when he had been a cub and had rescued me. I hadn’t ridden him since, both of us silently understanding that I didn’t want him to appear as a simple-minded pack animal, basically a horse with wings. It would be too degrading and a strain on our friendship, which had grown immensely since the first time I met him.
He never had a harsh word for me, and I’d never yelled at him, although I’d raised my voice a few times, regretted later. Thi̱río now sighed knowingly at my predicament.
“When I can’t sleep I always fly.” He told me, before scowling as much as he could with a beak, “I’m sorry, Bain, I forget, sometimes, that you can’t fly.” I smiled at him forgivingly, not wanting him to see how much I just wanted to fly away like he so easily could.
“That’s alright, I know what you mean.” I told him honestly. Thi̱río, I knew, would never purposely hurt me, and probably not anyone else unless they were a threat. He got along great with Allan, the one guardsman who wanted to hear our story.
“Well, we could always go out on the balcony and watch the sunrise.” He suggested with a hint of disdain at the idea of watching something he could so easily fly around in. I knew the sacrifices he made so that I could feel better. The griffon was there for me more than my own sisters were.
“You know you don’t like watching the sunrise, Thi̱río.” I told him jestingly, grinning wickedly. A huge yawn ruined the grin and Thi̱río’s sharp, whispered cry sounded vaguely like a chuckle.
“Looks like you need that sleep after all,” He told me with as much fun in his voice as ever. I was forced to agree with him; I did need more sleep.
Like so many times, instead of going back to my own chamber, I curled up beside the griffon and slept, completely trusting him. Thi̱río was a griffon, after all, so there really wasn’t anything I’d have to worry about if a steward entered and saw me. It wouldn’t be considered as impure and wrong as sleeping next to a human man.
When I woke it must have been around noon. Thi̱río was gazing at me with is strange moonlight-eyes, full of amusement. I swallowed the urge to laugh and grumbled, “What? Do I snore?” We both had to laugh at this.
Thi̱río’s laugh, of course, was a cry that was translated to me somehow. I’d long since realized that my sisters couldn’t understand him, and I figured that it was because he didn’t want them to. “No, you just looked happy.” I knew that he meant ‘happy’ compared to what I usually looked like around the palace, pressured and occupied, always having to be on my best behavior and not let anyone see me doing something that mother would disapprove of, better yet, not doing anything she might disapprove of.
Of course she couldn’t make me abandon Thi̱río, a friend that she’d rather I didn’t have. But I wasn’t the first born, rather, I was the last born, so I had more wiggle room than my sisters. That, and I was smart enough to argue back. I was now known as the ‘Griffon Princess’ by anyone who wasn’t speaking to my face. I didn’t mind being associated with Thi̱río or griffons, even. They weren’t horrible beasts as legends might have people believe.
“Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment.” I replied, feeling oddly light and giggly today. Thi̱río made a face equivalent to a griffon’s grin, and I smiled back at him. I pressed my hand against the side of his velvety coat, careful not to tug on any of the lower feathers, and used him to boost myself up into a sitting position. Thi̱río, being a griffon, was near indestructible it seemed, and I knew that a light pressure barely affected him.
I was still small and lithe anyway, and would almost appear younger than I was if it wasn’t for my graceful features that no child possesses. I was almost fifteen and was by far the shortest of my sisters, not that it bothered me. I knew for a fact, though, that they couldn’t stand it when people complimented my white-blond, shimmery veil of hair. My sisters, like most girls in the city, had sandy or dirty blonde hair, only one of them, the oldest, actually had a pure golden tone to her hair.
Personally, I thought that my hair went well with Thi̱río’s glossy white feathers and bronze lion hide. That was all I really cared about making of my hair, mostly because it bugged me to always have that shimmery color at the edge of my vision; my hair seemed to almost let off its own luminescent light.
“You’re getting up already?” Thi̱río teased lightly, “Its only noon!” We’d been through this quite a few times before. I’d wake up at dawn and fall back asleep with the griffon at my side, comforting me from something that I couldn’t see or sense in any way, before waking up at noon to his big moony eyes.
“I think that it’s breakfast time.” I replied, knowing that Thi̱río was probably hungry too. I slid easily off of the bed, and went into my own room to change. Despite the fact that he wasn’t human, he was still a thinking, talking creature, and a male one at that.
I wore plainer robes today, a rich russet color rather than the usual white or winter green. I did my hair up in a simple, if tight braid, with nimble fingers, that my sisters lacked due to lack of experience in having to do their own