Phoebe had grown quite a bit since her hatch day, a little less than two months ago. Erin couldn’t believe how time had flown.

Strutting alongside her bonded human on her hind legs like a massive eagle chick as they walked through the Aerie corridors, her head was now about level with the girl’s hips, rather than her knees, not counting her long, plumed ears.

Deep blue-violet feathers tipped those ears, and she sported a collar of half-grown mane feathers just above her shoulders and a fan of slightly longer rudder feathers growing from the base of her otherwise lion-looking tail. Short, velvety fur formed “brows” above her bright orange eyes and also trailed down her spine.

Her wings appeared fully-feathered at first glance, but when she spread them, it became obvious that she only had the long flight feathers around the edges, plus a thin growth of shorter feathers over the outer sides. The undersides of her wings were almost completely naked, even sparse of the soft fuzz that covered the rest of her body. Her bare skin beneath the fuzz was a gray tone a shade or two darker than her baby fluff, except for a pink area that spread back from the tip of her beak to encompass her nostrils, and another splotch on one of her toes.

The pair made a quick stop in Sythe’s apartment, Erin quickly checking for observers before slipping her tablet out of her messenger bag and holding it up with the camera facing the Aeriemaster’s white griffin.

Sythe jerked backward and growled at the sudden flash as she took the photo, but he forgot the offense immediately when he saw Phoebe, bending down to sniff her. Erin took the opportunity to look more closely at him as he curiously nosed the keet, snuffling her fuzz as if she held all the worthwhile mysteries in the world.

His beak and talons were white and his nostrils were pink, as well as the skin around his yellow eyes. A quick ruffle of the feathers on his chest proved the skin on the rest of his body was probably all pink, too. Looking at his feathers up close also let her see that there seemed to be some kind of faint spotting pattern on some of them, mostly hidden by the white.

Fee seemed to think Sythe was grooming her and had closed her eyes and started to purr contentedly, until his beak accidentally went under her wing and into the sensitive, fluff-free zone. With a shriek, she rose onto her toes, spreading her wings while holding herself as tall and upright as possible, then hopped at the white griffin and treated him to a clap in the face with both wings. It wasn’t very effective, for her wings could barely embrace his beak at this point, much less do any harm.

Sythe shook his head and snarled at her, but it was, thankfully, just a vocal show to put her in her place. The little keet cowered and scurried to hide behind Erin’s legs.

“Sorry,” Erin told him, then took a look at her tablet. The wiki update notification was just arriving, and she tapped into the white griffin’s profile.

Immediately, she sighed in disappointment. White was indeed a rare color, but it was just a blanket over a griffin’s base coat color. According to the wiki, Sythe was a relatively boring brown underneath that flashy paint job. That meant there would be a grand total of zero blue babies in those twelve eggs that Wrath was currently sitting on.

As for his markings… Raindrops, undercolor, collar, roan, and dipped-minor.

She recognized roan as something from horses, where their bodies faded toward white as they aged, while their face and legs stayed their original color. Raindrops, though? That was a new one. She tapped the marking and read the entry.

Raindrops: Rare marking. A series of small spots or smudges of a slightly darker shade of the griffin’s base color that can appear along the head, back, wings and tail, giving the impression that they have been rained on.

Ah, that accounted for the barely-visible spots.

There was nothing else particularly interesting for Erin in the white griffin’s genetics, so with a quick goodbye and thank-you to Sythe, she and Phoebe headed off to Wrath’s apartment.

The big blue griffin was laying over her nest when they walked in, her attention focused toward the door of her cage. She let out a warning caw at the boy standing in front of it, his hands poised to slide the door open.

Arlis flinched. “Come on!” he yelped, his voice taking on a distinctly whiny tone. “You’re still mad at me?”

Wrath laid her ears back, a grumbling rumble coming from deep in her throat.

“She still hasn’t forgiven you for misunderstanding her when she was trying to fight the wyverns?” Erin asked as she went over to join him. “That’s so ridiculous. You’re not a mind reader.”

Phoebe scurried over to her brother, Arlis’ red Larx, wings wide open and ready to playfully buffet him as they ran into each other, bumping chests.

“She was trying to tell me what she was doing, I just didn’t recognize it. I would have figured it out, but I got too scared,” he confessed, his doe-like brown eyes sad as he looked longingly at the nest.

“What are you doing in here, anyway?”

“I just wanted to feel the keets moving inside the eggs,” he said, lower lip pouting. “They should be very active by now.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. Gunu sometimes uses a curved glass to shine sunlight through very light-colored eggs to see if there’s anyone inside. If it’s done right, you can see the keet’s shadow. They look like they’re bouncing gently inside their shells. It reminds me of when I was small, and my father used to dip me in the shallows during the Dry. It was fun.”

"I'll bet you miss him a lot," Erin said, thinking of her own parents.

He shrugged, looking back toward Wrath. "Not really. I was only a few years old when he died. I've always had Koben and Gunu to look after me. I'd miss them a lot more."

"Did you really have to say it that way?"

Arlis blinked at her suddenly tense tone. “What way? How was I supposed to say it?”

“He was your dad.” She spread her palms in a frustrated gesture. “You should at least pretend you miss him.”

Like I miss mine.

“But I don’t.”

A flame of outrage sparking under her collar, Erin opened her mouth to say something ugly, but something about the way Arlis was peering at her with those big eyes of his suddenly struck her as so naive that she almost laughed. He really had no clue at all when it came to social graces. Still, she was too exasperated at the moment, unable to find it in herself to open that wound any further and risk having to deal with him still not getting her point.

She took a deep, calming breath. “Look, why don’t you give Wrath a break for a few days? Maybe she’ll be more willing to forgive you if you aren’t constantly trying to bang down her door.”

“I—yeah, maybe. I guess I’ll just take Larx to the flight cage for a while.” With that, he waved his red keet to follow and made his trudging way out of the room. “Everyone’s mad at me,” he muttered in a faraway voice, just as he passed into the corridor.

Erin’s brows furrowed as she watched him go. She almost went after him to apologize, but there was something she needed to do now, while she still had the chance. She would definitely go looking for him at the flight cage right afterward, though.

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Still nowhere near comfortable entering Wrath’s cage unless she absolutely had to, Erin poked her arms and tablet through the bars to take the photo of the blue griffin.

Wrath looked at the rectangular shiny thing with wary curiosity, then flinched and closed her eyes against the bright camera flash, stubbornly refusing to move from her nest. Tilting her beak toward the floor, she seemed to stare pointedly at Erin afterward, moving the girl to giving a nervous little laugh before taking her own advice to Arlis and retreating away from the cage.

Grinning in anticipation, Erin huddled in a corner like a little packrat and pulled up Wrath’s wiki profile.

As she already knew, the griffin’s color was rare, but the markings were nothing special. She had the common markings of points, tips, and overcolor, and two uncommon, van and lacing. Most griffins had some or all of those. What was odd was her fertility score: 90% (originally: 100%)

So it had gone down at some point. The next line had the answer as to why.

Note: Fertility in decline due to age! (40+)

“What?” Erin quickly scanned the next few lines. Wrath was fifty-two years old. She turned her stunned gaze on the griffin. “Are you really that old? That’s more than twice as old as me!”

Wrath looked like she was trying to bore a hole through the girl with her wide-open green eyes. Not out of surprise or anything. More likely because she wished Erin would just leave already.

However, Erin was too absorbed in devouring this new information to notice, or to care very much if she had noticed.

Wingspan: 62 ft

BONUS: Due to size, this griffin has +3% chance of producing hemoth keets.

A hemoth was a griffin even larger than Wrath, with a wingspan of sixty-five feet or more. The thought of a keet like that coming out of the clutch was exciting, until Erin read further and saw that they were sometimes incapable of flight due to the weight of their own bodies, even if they weren’t carrying a rider.

At the bottom of Wrath’s profile stats were two more bonuses.

BONUS: Due to age, this griffin has +3% chance of producing aberrant keets.

BONUS: Due to age, this griffin has +1% chance of producing trait mutations.

According to the wiki, an aberrant was any keet with a build that was outside the norm, which included wind-eggers and hemoths. A trait mutation was just what it sounded like, for example, a mutation of lacing was double lacing, and a mutation of double was triple lacing. Other mutations increased the range on a griffin’s body where a marking could show, or modified a griffin’s base color, like Phoebe being a more violet-toned royal blue, instead of just blue like her mother.

With a furtive glance at Wrath, firmly clamped down on her nest, Erin decided to get sneaky. After a quick jaunt to the kitchen, she slipped back into the blue griffin’s apartment with a leg of mutton, taken with permission from one of the butchers.

She pushed it between the bars as far away from Wrath as was possible, and was delighted to see that the big blue wasn’t about to pass up a free snack. Wrath heaved herself up, wings and tail still draping over the nest as best as she could, but only moved juuuust far enough to stretch out her neck and pluck up the hunk of meat.

It was enough for Erin to snap quick pictures of a couple of the eggs. The first one wasn’t clear enough for the wiki to pick up, but the second, colored like a sugar-dusted chocolate brownie, made it through.

“Time to see what flavor of awesome you’re going to be,” she said with no small amount of glee, and tapped the update notification.

Name: N/A

Species: Griffin

Sire: Sythe

Dam: Wrath

“…That’s it?” Erin stared at the screen. “That’s all I get?”

Apparently, at least when it came to griffin babies, there were no spoilers allowed.

Both massively excited and terribly disappointed by her discoveries about the precious little biscuits Wrath was baking, Erin kept to her plan to head down to the flight cage and look for Arlis.

Once they were close enough for her to realize where they were going, Phoebe squeaked and ran ahead, eager to go play in the large outdoor space with grass and trees and big rocks to climb on. All of the keets seemed to love being outside, even though they were still months from flying for the first time. Erin laughed at her excitement and hurried after the keet.

Arlis and Larx were inside the cage when Erin and Fee arrived. Just as they had in Wrath’s apartment, the two siblings ran for each other, wings open wide as if they were going to hug, then hopped at each other as best as they could through the bars of the cage.

At Erin’s call, Fee broke away and scurried for the door as the girl opened it. Once inside the cage, feet sinking into grass and dirt for purchase, she was able to run so fast that she got ahead of herself and tripped, falling flat on her face. Larx closed the distance between them and used the opportunity to claim victory, quickly hopping onto her back to pin her down and give a playful tug on her ear.

It was great fun for a few moments, until Fee decided she didn’t want her ear yanked anymore. Her happy squeaks became piercing squawks quite suddenly, spurring Arlis to rush to the rescue. With a shout of “NO!” he shoved the red keet hard, sending him rolling across the green lawn.

As soon as he came to rest on his belly, Larx looked up at his master with fearful eyes and trilled faintly, pressing himself into the grass with ears pinned flat against his skull. Mid-step toward Larx, Arlis froze, staring at the cowering keet in horror as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He suddenly whirled away and clutched his head with both hands, fingers digging into his dark hair.

Erin had never seen Arlis in such a state before so she froze too, uncertain what to do now. She glanced at the keets. Phoebe was already back to her peppy self, nosing the flattened Larx. The red keet slowly rose at her prodding, but kept a wary eye on Arlis, as if expecting him to turn and yell at him again at any moment.

Still holding his head, Arlis was starting to breathe fast and hard, giving Erin the distinct impression that he was about to detonate.

“H-Hey, it’s okay,” she said, stepping closer and holding her hand toward him, but not quite sure if she should touch him or not. “No harm was done, Fee is fine. It’s fine. Everything’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” Arlis said, his voice taught as a string about to snap.

“I’m not mad at you for earlier,” Erin assured him, “or about Phoebe. In fact, I was coming to apologize to you. I overreacted because of how much I miss my dad—both my parents. They died a little over three years ago.”

That was when he lost it, but instead of exploding, Arlis simply sagged and started shuddering with mostly-silent tears instead, arms hanging limply at his sides.

Men crying was generally not a thing that happened in Erin’s family at any age above five, so she was at a complete loss as to how to deal with it. She settled for patting his shoulder and then leaving her hand there, unable to come up with anything comforting to say.

Larx and Fee both seemed to understand what was going on, and had ceased any semblance of play. The red keet tentatively crept toward Arlis, and when no harm came to him for doing so, he proceeded to lay across the boy’s feet and curled his tail about Arlis’ leg, purring softly.

After a while, Arlis wiped his face with the heel of his hand. “Sorry,” he said in a shaky voice, refusing to face Erin. “I already upset you earlier, and now Larx make it worse. I didn’t teach him right. I can’t do anything right. I try so hard to be like him, and I just can’t.”

“Like Larx?”

“No. Like my father. Mother tells me all the time that I’m just like him, but she’s wrong. He was smart and brave, and he did everything right. He was a captain in the Guard. Everyone liked him.”

“Everyone likes you, too,” Erin said firmly, certain she was right. “You’re smart, and definitely brave. I knew that the first time I saw you, when we brought Wrath home on the wagon. You weren’t scared of her at all.”

Arlis turned, eyes and nose rosy pink, his eyelashes wet and cheeks slick with smeared tears. “But he never said or did stupid things like I do. Everyone always compares me to him. I can't do what he did.” The boy stared miserably at the floor. “I wish he never existed, so everyone would leave me alone. I know that makes me a bad person, but that’s why I don’t miss him.”

“Hey, look. Look at me, Arlis.” Erin ducked her head as she spoke, until she got him to grudgingly lift his big eyes to meet hers. “You’re not a bad person. Unless you think I’m a bad person.”

“You aren’t,” he said quickly.

“Well, I used to feel kind of the same way about my mom. She was the perfect daughter to my grandparents, and there was always that pressure to be just like her.” She chuckled, suddenly fighting the urge to cry herself. “I’m really glad that I got the chance to duke it out with her years ago. After I blew up on her, my mom said that she had no idea I felt so pressured.”

“She didn’t know at all?”

Erin shrugged. “I guess I hid it pretty well. She told me that, at the end of the day, I’m still my own person. I really am a lot like her, but not completely, and I don’t have to be. I’ll bet your dad would tell you the same thing, if he were here.”

As she spoke, Arlis’ gaze was intense, as if he were trying to see right into Erin’s soul. It was a little disconcerting, but the reward was worth it. She was relieved when his face flushed warm and soft with sudden hope.

He glanced down and realized Larx was curled about his legs, then quickly knelt to hug the keet about the neck. “Sorry,” he muttered, pressing his cheek into the griffin’s fluff. Larx just purred louder, having either forgiven or merely forgotten the earlier incident that had frightened him so.

“There you are.” Aeriemaster Gunu came in from the corridor and walked over to the cage bars. His eyes caught Arlis’ pink-tinged face through the gaps and stayed there for a concerned moment, then flicked to Erin. She felt like he might be silently accusing her of something, but he only said, “You’re both to put your keets away and meet us outside.”

“Us? Who’s ‘us?’” Erin didn’t like not knowing what she was about to get into.

“The general and myself.” His look was stern. “Hurry along, now.”

Erin and Arlis turned to each other, the same expression on both of their faces.

What were they in trouble for now?