Phoenix

Synopsis: Griffins have a unique method of reproduction. Weary of her own people, a lonely griffin turns to a dragon to help her father the next generation.

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SUNFIRE/GRIFFIN

With measured beats of her wings, the griffin dropped out of the air and landed on the hillside. She touched down hard and almost tripped up, but at the last moment she barely managed to skip forward to avoid tumbling to the ground.

The griffin snapped her beak in annoyance. Once she would have been graceful and swift in the air, but no longer. Over the past few months, her strength had been waning and with each passing day she was finding it a greater and greater challenge to fly, but fortunately this was not a frustration that would remain for long. Soon, one way or another, she would be free.

The griffin's name was Sunfire, and she was very far from home.

Sitting down on all fours, Sunfire reached for the flight harness she was wearing and used her beak to open her shoulder pouch. Her flight harness was a grid of leather straps and pouches which helped her to carry objects while airborne. Whereas griffin-made harnesses were usually focused on highlighting their wearer's plumage and conforming to the latest fashions, the harness she was currently wearing had been manufactured by a winged civilization with an entirely different mindset. Her harness had a simple utilitarian design that was rugged yet also lightweight and comfortable—the pouches were sleek and conformed to her outline not to be stylistic, but because an aerodynamic design made for improved flight capability.

"Form follows function, I suppose," Sunfire muttered to herself. Taking out a small bar of dried fruits and nuts slathered with honey, she resealed her shoulder pouch and started pecking at her snack. The bar would give her enough energy to make it through the rest of the day, and hopefully by nightfall she had found her quarry. And if she hadn't—well, then she could always try again in a few decades.

The sun was climbing ever higher in the sky, and the midday heat made the griffin feel lethargic. After finishing her snack bar, Sunfire stood up and walked over towards one of the large trees that bordered the meadow she had landed in. It was essential that she complete her hunt as soon as possible, yet in such blazing weather surely she could be forgiven for waiting until the afternoon heat had died down. Regardless of her name, she was not immune to heat exhaustion. Perhaps a quick nap was in order—nothing excessive, just an hour or so to wait out the scorching heat and allow her strength to recover.

"Eee-yawk!"

However, Sunfire had barely closed her eyes when a loud squawking cry caught her attention, followed by a deep trumpeting roar that was unmistakable as it echoed of the hillside.

"Rraaww!!"

Sunfire's ears snapped up and she raised her head to watch the sky. Griffins could not roar, and regardless of that fact, she was far from the lofty mountain ranges where her people resided. No, what she had just heard were the calls of two different creatures entirely—the latter of which she had been trying to locate over the past few days.

"Oh, but I was just getting comfortable..." grumbled the griffin, and then she unfurled her wings and leapt into the sky.

---

As Sunfire climbed upwards and gained altitude, she quickly spotted the source of the noises she had heard—in the skies far above, a pair of winged creatures were engaged in a deadly battle for air supremacy, swooping and diving at each other and exchanging blows. Neither of them were griffins.

The first creature had leathery skin that was a mottled green-brown, and it had four wings which it was desperately flapping as it tried to outmanoeuvre its combatant. This was a vizriak hunter, and it was a large aerial predator which usually hunted in a pack. Yet this vizriak was alone—perhaps it had strayed too far from its pack while roaming for prey, or perhaps it was a lone hunter searching for new territory to claim. Either way, it was paying dearly in blood.

Instead of feathers or leathery skin, the second creature was covered in scales of bright blue. Sunfire was too far away to see any close-up detail, but she knew that each scale was a smooth, flat, stretched hexagon that formed neat, geometric rows covering the creature's entire hide, even on its wings. This was a dragon, and he was winning.

As Sunfire watched, the dragon closed the distance and used his claws to viciously scratch at the vizriak hunter. The vizriak screeched in pain and tried to retaliate with a bite, but the dragon had already disengaged and pulled away before the counterblow could connect. Again and again the vizriak took hits—the dragon was methodical and persistent, never waiting too long and giving the vizriak the chance to flee, but never getting impatient and attacking when the vizriak might have an opportunity to effectively counterattack.

The fight lasted no more than a minute, by which time Sunfire had climbed to the duellers' altitude and was quickly approaching. She was hardly a fighter, especially in her weakened state, but perhaps she might provide some assistance in chasing off the vizriak. Dangerous pack hunters had no place roaming in the airspace of civilized creatures. Even though the nearby land was largely uninhabited, dragons were famously known for being territorial.

However, just as the griffin got close to the duelling pair, the blue-scaled dragon suddenly dove towards the vizriak again and smashed into its back. Instead of merely using his claws, the drake used his jaws to snap down hard on the vizriak's neck and make a violent wrenching motion. There was a single screeching cry, and then silence. "Yewrk...!"

Sunfire saw the vizriak hunter flap its four wings uncoordinatedly, as if it had suddenly lost all will to continue the fight. Then it dropped away, its wings going still as it descended and crashed into the forest. The impact was enough to knock aside a couple of trees—there would be no chance that the beast had survived. Sunfire banked to circle around and get a closer look at the crash site, but then she glanced up again and realized that she had lost track of the dragon. Where had he gone? She should have been paying attention.

"RAAWWRRR!" Suddenly Sunfire heard that deep, trumpeting roar again and she saw the dragon approaching her from above, in a combat dive with claws extended.

"Eee! Hey! Hey! No, wait! Ahhhhh!" The griffin let out a panicked chirp and twisted her wings as fast as she could. Her whole body was briefly inverted as she spun around and whiffled, trading away her altitude to make a desperate evasive manoeuvre. The blue-scaled dragon shot past so fast that she could hear the air whizzing from his speed, but he did not hit her.

Sunfire had only a brief second to breathe a sigh of relief that the collision had been narrowly avoided, and then the wake turbulence from the dragon's dive swept over her wings and made her stall.

"AHHhhhh!" The griffin tumbled through the air as she hurriedly attempted to stabilize her flight. She hadn't been at a very high altitude to begin with, and now she had mere seconds before she crashed into the forest. Her wings flailed about as she flapped with as much strength as she could possibly muster. It was a close thing, but she barely managed to recover from the stall before she hit the treetops.

"Ahhh! Why did you...? Ah! Ahhhhh!" Now that she was back in level (albeit low altitude) flight, Sunfire screamed a few more times just to get the terror out of her system. She raised her head to throw a furious glare at the dragon, who was flying leisurely a moderate distance above her and watching with what she strongly suspected was a contemptuous expression. "Hello?" yelled Sunfire, "Listen, I just need to talk—ah! Oww!"

Sunfire found herself cut off as she crashed into the canopy of an extra tall tree which was protruding up from the forest. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!" screeched the griffin. She immediately got tangled up into the tree branches and tumbled from branch to branch as she plummeted the short distance to the forest floor. "Please-don't-hurt-please-don't-hurt-please-don't...!" she screamed as the ground rapidly approached, or maybe that was just in her head.

She hit the ground, and it hurt.

Today really was not her day.

---

"Aggrahh..." groaned the griffin as she lay on the forest floor. "I wish...I was...dead..." she gasped. Leaves were slowly falling through the air to land on and around her prone body, as if she was being mocked by the tree she had crashed into. Unfortunately, Sunfire realized, the impact hadn't been rough enough to kill her. In fact, she didn't even seem to have any broken bones or serious injuries—the pain wasn't excruciating enough to knock her unconscious, it was just extremely painful. She would have a few excellent bruises from this crash, not that it would matter.

Suddenly there was the sound of flapping wings, and then Sunfire heard the crunch of dried leaves as someone landed beside her. "Oh...ohh...arghhhh..." The griffin let out one last groan of pain, and then she raised her head and tried to push herself into a sitting position.

It was the blue-scaled drake, and seeing him up close allowed Sunfire to confirm her suspicion that he had been watching her contemptuously. Sunfire was used to seeing griffins with their feathered plumages of brown, black, or white, but this dragon was something else entirely. Although he shared the same basic, four-legged, two-winged body plan as she did, the drake had a narrow, triangular muzzle instead of a beak, and his whole body was more slender and far thinner than hers. His neck and tail were longer than any griffins', but he stood upright with a proud, elegant grace. His wings were still held open, looking like two huge sails of blue, but then he furled them neatly onto his back. Just like Sunfire, the drake was also wearing a flight harness, except that his harness was more weathered and clearly had been patched up and repaired several times.

Sunfire sat back on her haunches and tried to look as dignified and regal as possible, although the effect was considerably lessened by her feathers all being in a mess. She inclined her head in a bow, dipping her head lower as was preferred in the drakken custom, instead of her usual greeting to other griffins. "Good afternoon," she began by saying.

"You are clearly not a vizriak," replied the drake in a calm, resonant voice that seemed to come from his chest just as much as his mouth. "Even vizriaks can fly well enough to avoid crashing into trees." And then he turned around and walked off, leaving the griffin sitting alone in the dirt.

---

"I...wha—what? Hey. HEY!" yelled Sunfire. She got to her feet, shook herself quickly to try and dislodge any leaves or branches which had gotten caught in her feathers, and then she scrambled after the drake who was strolling briskly away. "You—you come back here! Wait a second! Hey!"

The drake studiously ignored Sunfire, which greatly irritated her.

"Excuse me? Excuse me! You were the one who dove at me first! You can't just... I wouldn't have crashed into the tree if you hadn't..." sputtered Sunfire, trotting up to the drake's side and trying to get his attention. "Why, I never... This is completely... Gah! Whatever! Whatever! Alright, listen dragon—I've come a long way from home, and I don't want it to be for nothing."

"Good for you," replied the dragon. He carefully stepped around a large boulder and continued walking through the forest.

Sunfire walked around the other side of the boulder and hurried after the drake. "But aren't you curious why I'm here? Don't you want to know why a griffin is flying so far into drakken territory?"

"Not at all," said the blue-scaled drake, weaving his way through a gap between two large bushes. Sunfire followed after him, and then she finally saw where he was headed. They had reached the nearby crash site where the vizriak had impacted the ground. Several trees had been knocked aside or damaged by the force of impact, and the winged predator was lying dead in a small depression in the ground.

The dragon continued to ignore Sunfire completely. He walked over towards the vizriak's broken body and extended his claws to slash its throat, not that there was any doubt left that the beast was slain after his mid-air bite had torn open its neck.

Sunfire stood a short distance away. The sight of the carcass with all its blood and gore made her feel slightly nauseous. "I, uh, okay, maybe we got off on the wrong foot here. Even though you dived at me and made me crash, I'm sure that was just an accident. I imagine you thought I was another vizriak hunter or something like that. Mistakes happen, lessons learned. I accept your apology."

The drake was still ignoring her as he moved around the vizriak carcass. He was moving around the dead body to fold in the vizriak's wings and legs, tying up the whole creature using coils of rope he took from his flight harness. Sunfire felt her feathers fluff up in irritation at being ignored, but she took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "Let's try this again. Hello there, my name is Sunfire, a griffin of the Southern Rasterin Mountains. It's a great pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Finally the dragon made a response, although not quite the one Sunfire had been hoping for. He snorted. "Pfft! You're called Sunfire? Of course you are. What a silly name."

Other than a few crest feathers spiking up, Sunfire didn't let her calm composure slip. "Yes, it's very nice to meet you too. I take it that you are the bounty hunter who has been assisting the nearby villages with chasing off vizriak hunter packs?"

"That is correct! Aren't you a clever little birdcat," muttered the dragon with a sarcastic tone. He walked over the vizriak's mouth and took some sort of metal tool out from his flight harness—either a pair of scissors or forceps—and then he began doing something with the vizriak's teeth.

"Yes, thank you. Now, I don't think I quite got your name...?" Sunfire said.

"Alstrom, a bounty hunter and freelancer of clan Erkotas, of the City of Wings. Neural magic." Alstrom make a sudden yanking gesture with his paws, and suddenly one of the vizriak's teeth came loose.

Sunfire had wanted to keep her conversation focused on her mission, but she couldn't help but get side-tracked at this sudden display of gore. "Oh! Eww! What are you doing with that thing? It's already dead."

"The fangs are the most important part of the vizriak—they're the proof that I've done my job. I can only collect my bounty by handing over the fangs. Getting the leather and the claws and everything else can wait till I get back to my camp," Alstrom explained. He yanked out the vizriak's other fang and placed both of the large, bloodstained teeth in a pouch of his flight harness, then he grabbed the ropes he had tied around the vizriak's body and swung the whole carcass onto his back between his wings. "Goodbye now." Then Alstrom turned around and left the crash site.

---

Sunfire took a deep breath and let it out a slow, prolonged sigh. For a few seconds she entertained the thought of abandoning about her mission—it would be so easy to just drop dead right now and forget about this whole thing, but she had come so far already! "Persevere! You can't give up now. Remember why you wanted to do this in the first place," the griffin thought to herself.

Dragons were notorious isolationists; as a whole, their civilization shunned any and all contact from the other sapient species. Most of their territory was bordered by insurmountable mountainous terrain or stormy ocean cliffs. Flying through lofty mountain passes was the only way to access drakken territory, but dragons would never allow another creature to ride on their backs and enter their homeland. Griffins were the only other species which they tolerated, partially out of respect for a fellow people who understood the majesty of flight, but mostly out of the (completely accurate) assessment that the fluffy birdcats posed no threat whatsoever to drakken high technology and their devastating mastery of magic. The two civilizations weren't close enough to be allies, but griffins were allowed to fly into drakken territory and even visit the famed City of Wings...if they could find it.

Sunfire had set out on her quest several weeks ago, leaving her home eyrie with her flight harness laden with food and other equipment for travel. Unfortunately she had grossly underestimated how much time it would take to make her way through the winding mountain passes to enter drakken territory. But now she had made it with just enough time to spare and even found the exact sort of dragon she was looking for, only to risk failure at the last moment because an antisocial drake was giving her attitude. No, she decided, it was going to take more than some unfriendliness to dissuade her. Sunfire determinedly trotted after Alstrom, who was already some distance away from her.

"You're following me," muttered the blue-scaled drake as the griffin came up beside him and matched his pace.

Sunfire immediately spotted an opportunity and took it. "That is correct!" she chirped, putting in all her effort into imitating Alstrom's highly sarcastic tone. "Aren't you just a clever little dragon?"

Surprisingly, Alstrom seemed amused by this remark rather than insulted. He actually chuckled—the first gesture he'd made towards Sunfire which could be considered even remotely friendly. "Ha."

"Do you need any help carrying that?" Sunfire asked, referring to the vizriak carcass which Alstrom was carrying on his back.

Flying creatures such as griffins, vizriaks, and dragons did not weigh as much as creatures which were confined to the ground. Yet even with its legs and wings bound up by rope, the vizriak hunter was still slightly larger than the dragon, but this added weight didn't seem to bother him at all. It certainly did not hinder him from strolling through the forest, presumably headed back towards his camp. "Do I look like I need help?" replied Alstrom.

"Not really, but I was just being polite," Sunfire admitted. She didn't want to get her feathers dirty carrying a carcass anyway. "Now as I was just saying: My name is Sunfire, and I need some help."

"Help? Are you lost?" Alstrom used the tip of his tail to point towards the right. "The Rasterin Mountain Range is in that direction. If you keep flying for about...four or five hundred leagues, you'll make it home before next month. Have a safe trip. Goodbye."

"No, no, I'm not lost," Sunfire said. "You see, I on a special mission—an experiment, I like to call it. I've been searching around for a dragon with a very specific skillset. So if what the drakken living in the nearby villages told me is correct, I believe you can help me out."

Alstrom shrugged his shoulders, bouncing the vizriak carcass on his shoulders. "If you're looking to become a bounty hunter like me, I regret to inform you that I'm not currently accepting internships. And after seeing your flight performance earlier, I highly recommend you reconsider your choice of career. If you can be shot down by a tree, you don't stand a chance against a vizriak hunter pack."

"Akkkgghhh..." Sunfire made a choked noise in the back of her throat, but she otherwise managed to ignore the implied insult to her flight ability. Griffins didn't place quite as much cultural and societal value on flight as the drakken did, but still she didn't like being told she was bad at such a basic skill. "I don't want to be a bounty hunter! I need your magic—I've been searching for a dragon who can use neural magic, but all the dragons in the nearby mining towns use stone magic. They told me to come find you, so here I am."