As soon as the lesson was ended the following morning, Leslyn again hurried back to the kitchen to tend to his keet. For almost a week, since waking at a very early hour, he’d been dosing the limp lump of matted yellow fluff with dribbles of meat juice whenever it showed enough interest. For the last day or so, it would only take and hold down a little bit of water at a time, though he continued to try with the meat, just in case.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak to it, lest it hear and try to look at him with those dead-looking, pale blue eyes. He hated even touching it—the sickly-sweet scent of decomposing albumen still clung to it with a mighty stench, occasionally giving him the urge to gag as well as inevitably getting on his clothes when he held it close. It was embarrassing to show his face anywhere else in the Aerie, bringing the reek with him everywhere he went. How much longer before the Aeriemaster felt it was safe to bathe it?

One of the Aerie hands showed up to announce that breakfast was nearly over. “Gunu asked me to watch your keet so you could take a meal with everyone else. Does it need feeding or anything?”

“No, I’ve already done it. Thanks.” He hadn’t thought about manling food at all that morning, but the brief conversation was already reminding his stomach just how empty it was.

As he started to leave, the worker cleared his throat. “And sorry. Y’know… about the keet.”

“It’s fine,” he lied. “I’ll be right back.”

He headed out into the corridor, trying to think about something other than the wind-egger. Absolutely nothing came to mind until he was seated in the mess hall, absently spooning sausage slices and flatcakes, and even that single topic of contemplation was supplied by someone else.

Nearby, some of the other new griffin caretakers were animatedly gossiping about that Captain Arrex from one of the morning lessons, their keets napping contentedly under their table. “I still can’t believe that traitor lived here in Nilvar. Here! He actually walked through the halls of this Aerie and led part of our Guard!”

“Disgusting. He might have sat at this very table!”

“Did you know he had a son? Arren or Rexen or something—I heard he disappeared about the same time as his father was banished, probably jumped from the harbor out of pure shame, like his mother did. He’d be in his twenties now, if he were still alive.”

“I doubt he is. If he didn’t jump, you can bet he was either murdered or kidnapped by his father.”

“Or maybe he was a villain himself, and went willingly.”

“Good point. Like father, like son.”

“Arrex doesn’t deserve your concern beyond what was said in that single lesson,” Aeriemaster Gunu interrupted as he passed between the tables, carrying a wooden box under his arm. “I’ll advise you to change the subject of your conversation to a much more productive one—such as a discussion of how you might raise your own keets the proper way.”

“Yes, Aeriemaster…”

Kaleit was with him, bearing a similar box while his keet skittered along behind. He turned a sharp look from the gossiping duo to Leslyn, briefly checking the floor for a yellow keet that was definitely not there.

Gunu turned and took the box from Kaleit, hoisting it opposite his own box under the other arm. “Take your meal, Kal, then free time for bonding until fourteenth hour. After that, report to the flight cage.”

“I’ll be there,” the youth promised, then waited in place and watched the Aeriemaster walk away.

When the older man left the room, Leslyn heard, rather than saw Kaleit slide the nearest chair out from his table and sit next to him. He kept his eyes on his food, pretending not to notice and trying not to sigh for the immediate exasperation he felt.

“You’re not even a citizen,” Kaleit said without fanfare. “You shouldn’t have been allowed to show your face anywhere near that assigning.”

It was enunciated precisely, and at a volume greater than was strictly necessary to hear over the scattered mealtime conversations in the room. Leslyn was certain that he’d purposely made sure the two nearby gossipers heard it loud and clear. That probably explained the source of the rumors about Wrath’s motivations for assigning him the wind-egger.

A lot of instant retorts came to mind, but he took a moment to actually think about what he was going to say, hoping to prevent as much further damage as possible. “Prince Koben believed I was fit to throw my lot in. Take it up with him.”

“You deserve what you got.”

Leslyn carefully refrained from snorting as he considered the violent nature of the black keet who weaved about the legs of Kaleit’s chair, hissing and growling with kitten-like squeaks at its siblings under the neighboring table. Certainly that wouldn’t cause any problems further down the line. “I’m sure you do, too.”

“What I got isn’t two shallow breaths away from becoming nothing at all. Anyway, have you even named it yet?” He barely gave any time at all to answer. “If not, don’t bother. It’d just be a waste of time.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“What about yours?” Leslyn asked his flatcakes, refusing to rise to the bait. “Did you name it?”

“I’ve named him Zabor. What, don’t you know how to tell the difference between male and female griffins?”

“I’ve been a little too busy to worry about that.”

“Again, if you haven’t already figured it out, don’t bother. Everyone knows it’ll be hog bait before too much longer.”

Leslyn stubbornly continued his meal without another word. Finally, Kaleit got up and left.

After making sure the other was well out of hearing range, he released that massive sigh he’d been wrestling back since Kaleit first sat down. It felt amazing.

As he made his way back to the kitchen, their verbal spar replayed in his head over and over. What I got isn’t two shallow breaths away from becoming nothing at all, Kaleit’s voice taunted. By the time he reached his keet, his face was stony enough that the hand who’d been looking after it edged away with a nervous grimace.

“Thanks.” Leslyn tried to soften it, but it came out more like a sharp dismissal than anything resembling graciousness. The hand left quickly.

He set about preparing yet another cup of juice, using a cleaver to cleanly slice a chunk from a fresh side of mutton. How many more of these will I have to make before…?

The meat slapped wetly as he threw it forcefully into the grinder. Dwelling on that wouldn’t help at all. He clenched the handle of the crank and set to grinding.

Zabor is probably horking down coin-sized chunks of solid meat, while this thing… The wind-egger would barely open its mouth wide enough for the tiniest swallow of liquid.

At the preparation step of putting the processed meat into a cheesecloth, Leslyn caught himself thinking about it again and took out some of his frustration in squeezing the cloth as hard as he could to extract the juices into the feeding cup.

That done and half-full cup in hand, he stood over the prone keet and wondered: Why won’t it even TRY?

He went back to the day of the hatch, remembering the crack that spanned the dark brown egg from top to bottom. The crack that let in the dirt that stunted the keet’s growth, so badly that it couldn’t even break out of its own shell without help.

It’s been fighting in there for hours, Arlis had said, after risking his own life to give that help.

He marveled again at the boy’s compassion, so strong that even Wrath respected it. No. She rewarded it. She went to unprecedented lengths to give him a special keet, on whom Arlis immediately poured out his love.

The Aeriemaster’s lesson came back to him in a sudden flash. They need acknowledgment, encouragement, and regular social interaction just as much as we do.

It hit Leslyn like running into a solid wall.

Arlis was wrong.

The keet had been fighting for its life longer than than just a few hours.

It had been fighting much longer, maybe even from the very beginning, trying to survive the crack. It’d been trying from the moment it could try, against impossible odds.

And Leslyn had done absolutely nothing for it. He’d shown it nothing but the most clinical attention he could muster. The exact opposite of what Arlis had done, and of what he’d desired so badly for himself upon witnessing that beautiful moment.

He knelt down, carefully setting the juice aside before cupping the keet’s face in both hands, as Arlis had with his red keet. Ears limply hanging down either side of its head, it blinked its ugly eyes as if it had just stepped into bright sunlight. Leslyn resolutely looked into those eyes, gritting his teeth as he came close enough to inhale the brunt of the griffin’s sickening odor.

“Hey,” he said softly, “I don’t know if you can understand anything I’m saying, but if you do… don’t give up. You have to live, and show everyone… including me… that they were wrong about you. Please try.”

It focused on him for a few seconds, but as soon as he stopped speaking, it closed its eyes again. He frowned, stroking a thumb up and down the little creature’s forehead like he used to do with the family cat back home when it came to nudge his hand for attention. It came naturally, almost absently, since the stunted keet was about the same size as the cat.

Nothing happened, but he continued to do it anyway, moved to try and comfort the valiant griffin infant in any way he could. It had been so determined to live that it had made it this far. If there was still any chance… Let it live. Please. I want it to live, after all.

The admission shook Leslyn with a cold realization. Yes, that was the truth. In his heart, he’d wanted it to… to die. To release him to leave the Aerie behind and do something else. Anything else. Even if he had to beg Koben to let him take another job. Being trapped, bound to this… thing… it was the exact opposite of the freedom he’d dreamt of, what he came all this way to Nilvar for.

He was ashamed of himself, though no one else could possibly know what he’d done. He hung his head in silence, continuing to hold the keet’s ugly little face in his hands.

After a time, he laid the keet’s head back on the floor and took up the cup to attempt a feeding. To his surprise, the griffin’s eyes opened and it looked around, searching. He started to say something, and it looked right up at him and let out a faint sound. Not the same peep it had used for food. It was lower, longer, and wavered in a series of weak, broken notes.

It was trying to purr.

He put the cup down and reached to continue the petting it seemed to have enjoyed, and before his fingers even touched it, it lifted its head with a jerk, trembling with the effort to hold it there long enough to meet the boy’s hand just a little bit faster. He stroked the griffin’s forehead a few times, then, just this once, he picked it up and cradled it on its side in the crook of his elbow, clasping wings in one hand and both feet in the other. It was more alert than he’d ever seen it, gazing back at his face as if it had only just seen it for the first time and wanted to be sure it remembered what it was looking at.

Liren… was he right? Is this it?

For once, he barely noticed its smell, even though its body was pressed against his chest. The off-key purring could still be heard, if he listened hard.

“You have to make it,” he told it. “Don’t give me hope just to dash it, like your mother—” he cut himself off, realizing that he still had that very same hope. It was looking right at him.

To free his hands for feeding, he grabbed a few towels and put them between himself and the keet, using one of them to wrap around its torso and pin the griffin’s wings safely down. At the sight of the cup he brought near its face, the keet peeped, its ears briefly lifting by a few degrees. It still needed help getting the juice in, but Leslyn was encouraged to see that it managed to take just a little more than it did during the last couple of feedings.

When it had eaten all it could, he took the keet and rushed out into the corridor to find the Aeriemaster.

He rounded a corner and came nose to chest with Kaleit, who stepped back in disgust at the rotting-egg stench of the yellow keet, stumbling over the trailing black Zabor in his haste to avoid it.

Taking this perfect opportunity to do so, Leslyn lifted his keet just long enough to glance at the necessary area, then looked up at the other boy, locking eyes with him.

“His name,” he said in pointed beats, “is Valiant.”