Griffins Don’t Grow on Trees. Usually.

The Keys To Elyndor – Naira’s Journey

“Um… Caelen? You’ve got a baby griffin on your head.”

“I know, Tarric,” the Templar replied with obvious irritation.

For some reason, I took that as an invitation to tease him a little more.

“Is that the latest fashion? I thought you two were out gathering firewood.”

“We were. The problem was that I brought Naira with me,” Caelen grumbled.

Behind him, Naira dropped her bundle of sticks and crossed her arms in exaggerated indignation.

Miriana laughed out loud and began arranging the sticks into a campfire while Lucryss tossed over a few logs and asked, clearly amused, what his little sister had done this time.

“She tripped over a tree root,” Caelen explained.

We all nodded knowingly.

“Let me guess,” I said. “She was distracted by an apple.”

“Tarric! I am not always distracted by apples. You make it sound as though I’m incapable of functioning whenever one happens to be nearby,” Naira called back before sitting down beside the campfire, which was finally beginning to crackle.

Then she smiled and added,

“I was eating a pear.”

We all laughed.

Even Caelen.

Being the gentleman that I am, I naturally apologized at once.

“My sincerest apologies. How foolish of me to assume only apples possess such extraordinary powers. Clearly all fruit shares this remarkable ability. I only hope that one day both you and the fruit will forgive me.”

Naturally, I accompanied my apology with a respectful bow.

Naira drew a dramatic breath and placed a hand over her heart.

“The wound runs deep. Naturally. But you have become a good friend, so I forgive you. Whether the fruit does… only time will tell.”

I nodded solemnly.

“Understandable.”

Seralya finally interrupted our little performance.

“I already know I’m going to regret asking this,” she sighed, “but how exactly do you get from a pear and a tree root to a baby griffin? Even for Naira, that seems rather far-fetched.”

Naira folded her arms once more and puffed out her cheeks in protest.

Whether she was offended because Seralya doubted her ability to somehow get from a pear to a griffin…

…or because everyone had once again assumed the entire griffin incident was her fault…

…will probably remain one of her many secrets.

Personally, I’d put my money on the first one.

Caelen let out a long sigh and began explaining what had happened.

At great length.

Allow me to summarize.

Caelen and Naira had gone into the forest to gather firewood for the campfire. Why Caelen thought bringing Naira along was a good idea, he could no longer remember.

At some point, Naira tripped over a tree root and crashed straight into Caelen. Together they stumbled into a nearby tree.

Since this is not one of my romance novels, they did not gaze deeply into each other’s eyes.

Instead, they both flinched as a baby griffin tumbled out of the branches and landed squarely on Caelen’s head.

Where, apparently, it decided to move in.

This is roughly how I imagine the rest of it.

Naira stares at Caelen with wide eyes and exclaims, “Oh, by the Creator… you’re adorable!”

Caelen tries to lift the little griffin off his head, but it stubbornly refuses to let go, fighting back with claws and flapping wings. Naira laughs, gently strokes the tiny creature and feeds it the rest of her pear while Caelen complains that she is only encouraging it.

Moments later, Naira decides that Caelen has officially adopted the baby griffin because its mother is nowhere to be found.

“And now,” Caelen concluded, “I’m stuck with a baby griffin that refuses to leave.”

Which, naturally, was nowhere near as entertaining as my version.

“The poor little thing doesn’t have a mother anymore. We can’t leave her alone out here. She wouldn’t survive. The forest isn’t a place for griffins. Especially not baby griffins.”

Naira gently took Caelen’s hand and looked at him with what I have come to recognise as the Naira Look.

Caelen quietly slipped his hand free, tore off a small piece of dried meat and fed it to the griffin.

“How do you know all that?” I asked.

As a half-dwarf, I found the entire situation thoroughly confusing.

“I read it,” Naira answered, as though that explained everything.

“…You read it?”

“Oh! I never told you, did I? It’s still fairly new. Whenever I touch a living creature, I can sometimes read part of its story. I suppose it’s another aspect of my nature magic.”

She gently stroked the little griffin again before continuing.

“When I touched her, I saw her flying over the forest with her mother and her siblings. But she wasn’t strong enough yet and fell. Her family was fleeing from something and never realised what had happened. She cried and called for them, but no one heard her. Eventually she fell asleep… alone and abandoned… until she landed on Caelen’s head.”

“Oh no… the poor little thing.”

Seralya looked genuinely heartbroken.

“Caelen… you have to keep her. You have to take care of her.”

I have no shame admitting that I may have wiped away a small tear myself.

“But we’re hardly a safe place for a baby griffin,” Caelen protested. “What if we’re attacked? Or worse… what if Naira starts doing Naira things again?”

As he spoke, he waved his arms through the air in panic, as though he were trying to chase away a swarm of flies.

Or performing some sort of elaborate mating dance.

Difficult to say.

“Hey!” Naira interrupted indignantly, bringing Caelen’s… performance… to an abrupt end.

“But Naira is right,” Lucryss said, joining Team Baby Griffin without the slightest hesitation. “We can’t simply abandon this little one to her fate. Just look at the way she’s looking at you.”

As well as one can with a baby griffin sitting on one’s head, Caelen looked up.

The little griffin looked back down at him.

It was, I have to admit, unbearably adorable.

My heart melted on the spot.

For a long moment, absolute silence settled over the camp. Only the crackling of the fire could be heard as we all watched Caelen and the little griffin.

At last, Caelen let out a defeated sigh and relieved us of the unbearable tension.

“Very well.”

“You can stay with us.”

The baby griffin flapped her wings excitedly before hopping down into Caelen’s lap. He rested a hand gently on her back and, for the briefest of moments, smiled.

Then the Commander of the Templars returned.

He looked at Naira with that expression.

He truly had perfected it.

Naira immediately straightened up and swallowed audibly.

Normally, that look was reserved for new recruits who had somehow managed to hold a sword the wrong way around.

Which, apparently, happens far more often than one might expect.

“You,” Caelen said in the unmistakable tone of a commander, “are going to help take care of this baby. Understood, Naira?”

Surprisingly enough…

…it worked.

The “But…” that had already reached Naira’s lips never actually escaped.

He really was the Commander of the Templars.

Sometimes we forgot that.

And by we, I mostly mean Naira and myself.

“How adorable,” Lucryss teased with a grin. “You’ve become parents surprisingly quickly. Most people at least go on a few dates first.”

At once, both Naira and Caelen stared very intently into the campfire.

I’m fairly certain none of us missed the tiny moment before that…

…when both of them blushed.

For the time being, however, nobody said a word.

With that, the conversation came to an end, and only one important matter remained before we could finally get some well-earned sleep.

The baby griffin needed a name.

After all, we couldn’t keep calling her the baby griffin forever.

It’s rather tedious to write over and over again.

“Yuki,” Miriana said after what was, frankly, far too short a silence.

“Yes,” Naira agreed at once. “Because she’s such a beautiful little white griffin.”

She gently stroked Yuki’s head.

Since nobody objected—or suggested anything better—the matter was considered settled. One by one, we crawled into our sleeping bags.

Well…

…everyone except Seralya.

She climbed back into a tree.

Honestly, I would love to know how she manages to sleep up there without falling out.

Then again, finding out would require climbing a tree myself.

And dwarves are considerably worse climbers than they are swimmers.

So I stayed exactly where I was.

Sitting beside the dying campfire, I wrote a few final lines into my journal before lying down myself to gather what little strength I could for whatever absurd adventure awaited us next.

Have I mentioned that I’m getting far too old for all of this?