Hey all! This is my half of a trade with Virmir. It's a little late, but hopefully it's good enough to make it worth it. Please enjoy!
(Vir's half is here:
http://art.by.virmir.com/art/bird_seed ... and has been for 3 months)
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Virmir was busy. This fact is not meant to come as a surprise to my readers but is instead intended to rob any of you of the misinformed idea that the grey fox mage might ever allow himself to not be busy. At present he was hard at work examining a magic wand that he had managed to pick up for a bargain on eBay. Like anything he purchased in such a risky fashion, however, it had to be inspected, and that was the task of the moment. It was set on a stand in the middle of a work table, waiting for the grey fox’s first move.
Tail flicking, Virmir suspiciously prodded the wand with a long, thin stick that he had procured for just this purpose. It rolled on the stand, turning where it was to let the fox inspect the wood grain of the old fashioned wand’s design. His eyes roved the surface as he continued to spin it in place, narrowing as he noticed a chip showing conspicuously lighter wood within the enchanted artifact.
“Fake wood grain on a magic wand?” he observed triumphantly. “Just as I expected. No one would dare sell a wand for so cheap, no one but…” He turned it more, grinning victoriously as the expected mark came into view, reading: Made in – “China! You again think you can turn me into something unpleasant by cheaply selling your mass-produced magic! Well, not today!”
He picked up a pair of magic-insulating mitts he had set on the table – which for no particular reason looked a lot like oven mitts – and carefully picked up the low-quality wand. “In with the rest of them you go!”
He was about to follow through on his threat, dumping the wand in with a full container of other low quality or defective magic items, when there was a sudden, insistent knocking at the door. Already on edge because he expected the wand to somehow come alive and curse him at any moment, Virmir momentarily panicked as he flinched and sent the wand flying. Trapped between wanting to try to catch it before something went wrong and not wanting to touch it in case it randomly discharged, Virmir froze and watched as the wand spun through the air and clattered on top of the table. It bounced and wobbled right on the edge of the table for a moment, but finally came to rest in what barely qualified as a safe position.
The grey fox mage glared at it for a moment, daring it to make a move. He flinched again when the knocking repeated, but the wand remained stationary. Virmir briefly considered taking a moment to put it away, but he knew that trying to do so while the sound of knocking was distracting him was probably a bad idea. He stared at it for a few moments to let it know just how much he trusted it, but finally whirled, flicking his cape, and stalked to the door of his tower’s top floor.
“All right! Trees, I’m coming!”
As he turned, however, his cape caught the tip of the wand and set it spinning, rolling closer to the edge of the table as it went, until it finally stalled, the magical gemstone – though it was likely a glass replica – pointed right at the door as Virmir stood in the doorway to answer the knock. Virmir did not notice as he removed the mitts and opened the door to glare at the person beyond.
“What is it?”
The canine mailman who was standing outside was already panting heavily from the hike from the base of the tower, and he gave a nervous shift of his eyes at the greeting. He gestured to the large box he held in his hands. “Delivery for Mr. Virmir?”
“You found me. What sort of delivery?”
The dog sighed in relief and set the box down on the doorstep before he replied. “I’m not in the business of reading other people’s mail,” he replied. “It’s heavy, though.” Pulling out a clipboard with a delivery slip, he handed them to Virmir. “I’ll need you to sign for it.”
The fox mage took the clipboard and glanced at the dog in confusion. He tapped his paw impatiently, but the dog merely scratched the back of his neck nervously.
“Well?” Virmir demanded.
“What?”
“I need a pen to sign!”
“Oh! Sorry, sir, the postal service just voted to close the pen budget. It’s now company policy for the customer to provide their own.”
The grey fox sighed in exasperation and stalked away from the door, muttering about cheap companies’ cheap policies and a few other “cheaps” for good measure. He had several dozen pens within a few steps of the door, of course (some of them repossessed from the cheap postal service, in fact), but the fact that he was being forced to use them annoyed him on principle. He took a pen from a bin full of them and, sticking it in his muzzle, he signed effortlessly, leaving the dog blinking in surprise.
“Whu? Never surned yur nem wid yur mout?”
The dog shook his head and traded the fox mage the box for the signed delivery slip. Virmir removed the pen from his muzzle and leaned down to pick up the package. He grunted as he gave it his best effort and frowned at it darkly.
“Would you like a hand, sir?” the dog asked.
Virmir growled. “You’ve done your job; I can handle this.”
The grey fox leaned over again to try to lift the package. As he did, the precariously balanced magic rod on the table finally overbalanced itself and dropped to the floor, spinning a full revolution so that it hit the ground with the magic orb pointed directly for the door. Of course it discharged, as cheaply made wands always do in such situations, and the beam shot straight and true, just over Virmir’s left ear to hit the dog in the chest. He had just long enough to look dazed and confused before he magically disappeared in a shower of flying fur. Virmir looked up, ear twitching, to see that the dog had been replaced by a small white rabbit, his uniform retailored into a tiny vest like a rich owner might buy for their pet. The rabbit stayed where he was only long enough to make eye contact with Virmir, and then he bolted, the sight of a potential predator too much for his newly reformed instincts.
Virmir watched him run down the stairs in a flash, and then glanced accusingly back at the wand, which now rested peacefully on the floor, a thin trail of smoke the only indication that it had just doomed the poor postman to at least an hour of carrot-themed torment. Virmir kept his glare fixed on it as he began to slowly slide the package outside of the arc of his door so that he could close it. While the temptation to do so with himself on the far side of the door was strong, he had never let hazardous magic keep him down, and he didn’t mean to start now.
As soon as he managed to slide the door closed around the package, the grey fox put his mitts back on and again carefully lifted the wand towards the bin of potentially hazardous objects. To his relief it went quietly, and he slammed the bin closed hurriedly and closed every one of the many dozens of latches that surrounded the rim. Sighing in relief, he placed the mitts on top of the bin as well, satisfied that they had done their job for now.
His newest dangerous artifact so contained, Virmir went back to where the package was waiting, scratching his muzzle. He didn’t recall having ordered anything nearly so heavy; there were a few odds and ends of the artistic or magical sort on their way, but nothing that would require such a weighty box. Now that he had time to consider it, he realized that the brown paper that the box was wrapped in did not have any return address. Virmir scowled and backed away to retrieve his antimagic prod and safety mitts. If experience had taught him anything at all, someone had found something transformative that they thought would look amusing in grey and white. Likely though sabotage was, however, he was not about to let it make a mockery of him. He would discover the secrets of the box and prove that he was smarter than whatever prankster was trying to set him up.
Taking a breath and clearing his mind, Virmir tore away the paper in a swift motion. He frowned as it revealed a thick wooden crate. It took a quick application of an inexplicable nearby crowbar to pop it open, and Virmir was left to cock his head in confusion at what he found inside. A rather large egg sat inside, kept safe by a nest of dried grass, twigs, downy feathers, and what appeared to be fur. It didn’t look like any sort of egg he had ever seen before, which immediately made him suspicious. Not only did he not know what sort of egg it was, but he couldn’t think of a good reason why anyone would send him an unmarked box containing a mysterious nest without any sort of note or reason why. He poked around the materials in the nest with his prod, looking to see if some note had gotten lost in the tangled materials. There was nothing visible, however, leaving him to wonder what sort of joke he was missing this time.
Tapping the end of his muzzle, he walked over to his shelf full of magical books and pulled one from its place, flipping it open to look for a specific spell that he wanted. If the people who had sent him the package weren’t polite enough to provide a return address, he would have to figure it out on his own, the old fashioned way. He traced a claw along the spell, making special note not to leave out or exchange any ingredients. The egg itself concerned him enough without having to worry about potentially miscasting a spell to identify the location of the last person to touch it.
Before he could even gather everything he needed, however, he began to feel a dull pain right around his shoulder blades. At first he was able to convince himself that the effort of sliding the heavy crate into his tower was the cause, but when he ended up having to lean over and put his paws on his knees to relieve the ache, he knew something was wrong. He glared at the egg sharply.
“Whatever you’re doing, cut it out now!” he ordered, hoping that whatever magic the egg was working on him could somehow understand him and could be intimidated into leaving him alone. No such luck; almost as soon as he had spoken, the pain in his shoulder blades grew worse, only relieving itself once a pair of wings erupted behind him, sending his cape flying high enough to brush the ceiling before it settled back down on top of them.
“GAH! Trees, what was that?” Virmir turned and looked back at the wings, flexing them slightly to bring them out from under his cape. The main section of each wing was covered in small, white feathers, while the long flight feathers were striped with a mix of white, black, and luminescent red-orange. He extended them behind him, marveling that they already responded easily to his mental commands, and that the tips of each nearly touched the opposite walls when they were fully extended.
Virmir panted a few breaths as he gathered himself. Once the wings had grown the pain had stopped, but it was still quite the distracting surprise. Looking down at his paws, he nodded to reassure himself. “All right, I still have arms and fingers, so probably not a harpy.” Virmir recalled the time that he had been forced to turn himself into a harpy to avoid the end of a particularly long fall. He might not have been in danger of death as a toon, but hitting the ground at high speeds was still unpleasant – as was his experience of being without arms for longer than usual after that particular episode. His talon-feet had been serviceable for art for a while, but casting a counterspell had proven more difficult without true paws and fingers. It might prove even more problematic to undo this unknown spell if he didn’t act quickly.
With the luxury of paws still given to him for now, at least, he decided that it was time to hurry. He gathered the last of the supplies and tossed them in a pile by the crate. Working quickly, he tied a string around a specially crafted round gemstone and held it in the pad of one paw. He reached towards the egg in the crate, hesitating for a moment as his new wings fluttered briefly behind him. Touching it was likely a bad idea, yes, but it was pretty clear that he didn’t have to be touching the blasted thing for its magic to have an effect on his body, and at the moment he really had little choice.
He took a deep breath and readied himself, giving his paw an aside glance before he reached out. “It’s been nice knowing you,” he commented sarcastically. Bracing himself, he reached into the crate and touched the egg, establishing the necessary magical link to the stone as swiftly as he could manage. He knew he had succeeded when the gemstone began to hover above his paw and pull the string along towards one of the walls of his tower. He backed away quickly, looking at his paw for any signs of change. The longer he stared, the more certain he was that the magic was just messing with him, but slowly some doubt crept in.
“Maybe it’s going to leave my arms alo – GAH!”
While the fox proved correct about his arms, at least for the moment, the magic decided to accelerate its influence elsewhere, which resulted in a high pitched yelp from Virmir as his chest suddenly developed into a modest pair of breasts, a change which rippled down his body, thinning his waist, widening his hips, giving the formerly male grey fox distinctive female curves. For a few moments she looked herself over in shock, and then she threw her arms down in a huff.
“Really?” she demanded.
Now that they had her attention, the changes were ready to begin in earnest. Virmir felt something tickling her neck and thought that the change had perhaps decided to include the hair that she sometimes sported while female, but reaching back she could feel that whatever it was felt all wrong for this to be the case. Giving a sharp tug, she plucked one of the feathers that was now rapidly growing over her neck, head, and chest and looked at it, realizing as she did that it looked a lot like one of the feathers on her wings, even down to the strange, faintly smoldering tip. In fact, as the feathers grew around her chest and down along her arms, the changes finally did decide to make do something about her paws. Familiar digits and pads were rapidly replaced by strange, scaly texture and claws not so suited for grasping as they had been before.
“Talons? Well, at least my claws are still where they should be…” She gasped, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably as something else changed. “I’m not going to be on two legs much longer, am I?” she muttered. Indeed, even as she spoke, her feathered chest barreled out into a more feral configuration, and her hips shifted, refusing to let her remain standing any longer. She squawked indignantly as she dropped her talons to the floor, her wings spreading reflexively to help her balance in her new posture.
A few more small shifts made their changes to her body, until she began to feel something changing at her tail. She turned and watched as feathers began to sprout from the tip. “Oh no!” she angrily focused her willpower on the offending feathers. “Do what you want to the rest of my body, but THIS time, I’M KEEPING MY TAIL!” Surprisingly, her efforts were met with no small amount of success. A smile spread on her muzzle as she watched the feathers disappear back into her perfect grey fox fur.
As though in reply to conceding her tail, however, the changes finally decided to finish her face. The smile was wiped from her muzzle as the muzzle itself suddenly changed into a sharp, black beak. She squawked at this new change, working her jaw in annoyance as she lost her lips. Being a toon gave her beak a remarkable degree of expressiveness, but it was still foreign compared to her muzzle. Concerned by how strange it felt, she tested her voice, and was pleased to at least discover that she could still speak. She waited to see if anything else would happen, but it seemed that the magic had accomplished its purpose.
“So bird up top and fox down below… I’m some strange sort of gryphon?” Indeed, when she found a mirror to check, she did look very much like a gryphon. She still had her ears, at least, but much of her head, including her antenna hair, was now covered in flaming orange feathers, while the rest of her feathers were a mixture of white and black. She admired how the orange feathers glowed with inner power; it seemed that her fire magic had not been forgotten in this process at least. She just managed to catch herself before she started to preen her new plumage, and cast one more glare back at the egg.
Doing so at least reminded her of something else important: the glowing gemstone she had created to track the whereabouts of the egg’s owners. While her paws had changed significantly, the string that he had tied around the magic stone had tied itself around one of her talons in a loose knot as her posture had shifted. She glanced at it and, giving a satisfied chirp, tightened the knot intentionally. At least she could still go after whoever it was who thought that turning her into a female gryphon was funny.
She turned to leave, but was stopped by a sudden nagging sensation that she had never felt before. Virmir could not identify the reason for the strange feeling, but it was so strong that she found herself unable to leave the tower while its mysterious influence had ahold of her. She turned slowly, trying to sense if the strange influence had a particular origin, and her heart sank when she quickly realized that the egg was the source of her discomfort.
“What are you doing to me now?” she demanded. “Stop that!”
Despite her demands, however, the sensation did not waver, and only lessened as she approached the crate. Slowly she began to realize what was going on. For whatever reason, the egg was not content to just change her. No, it was also set on compelling her to take care of it as well. The former grey fox growled to herself. Now she was more determined than ever to figure out who had done this to her. Whoever it was knew just how to rub her the wrong way.
Virmir found a nearby satchel and used her beak to empty it of the various magical odds and ends that she packed with her whenever she did go out. She reached a talon into the makeshift nest in the crate and drew out the egg, throwing it another accusing glare before gently placing it in the pouch and finding a somewhat comfortable, though still awkward, way of slinging the pack over her shoulders that would not impede her wings. With the egg safely in tow, she turned to leave… only to be stopped again. Heaving a heavy sigh, she turned back to the crate and removed a few talons full of nesting material to pack into the satchel. She grumbled to herself; this egg was pickier than even her most odious client.
Thankfully, it did not take her long to exit her tower once she had finished, and she had to admit that being able to simply jump from the top floor was far more convenient than having to walk down the stairs or risking a teleportation mishap (she winced as she recalled the last time she had become accidentally merged with Medik). Perhaps if she had wings she could actually get out of her tower more than once or twice a month. Then again, that was precisely the sort of physical activity that eBay was designed to make obsolete. Putting the idea out of her mind, the newly minted gryphon banked to follow the glowing crystal that was tied to her talons and gave a swift stroke of her wings to speed her on her way.
The orb guided her towards distant mountains, and Virmir felt immensely grateful that she was able to fly now. Her tower was already high enough that she could glide most of the way. She also found it helpful that her eyes were evidently sharper in this form. She was able to identify her likely destination before she got halfway, as looking in the direction of the mountains allowed her to see a small, but sharp, image of a large nest on one of the lower plateaus. She could not see many details at first, but the closer she came, the clearer the image of a creature sitting in the nest became. It was a gryphon, very similar in many ways to the one she had become, though lacking the striking splash of fire to its feathers that Virmir herself sported. Virmir cracked her beak in a small smile at that. At least she could take a small amount of pride in the influence her fire magic had on her plumage.
By the time she was close enough to make out the finer details, she could see that the gryphon on the nest was watching her with interest. Its feathers seemed most similar to those of a hawk, and a lion’s tail flicked behind it as it rested on its nest. The fox gryphon was certain that this was the culprit behind her current predicament. Making good use of the instincts that had come with the transformation, Virmir dove down below the level of the plateau’s edge and used her wings to rise up and slow down at the same time so that her landing on the cliff edge was as smooth as possible. She struck a pose as she landed, her cape flicking in the breezy air of the plateau as her wings opened wide in all their glory. She would strike fear into…
“Took you long enough!” the other gryphon commented in a feminine voice
Virmir blinked incredulously. That wasn’t how this worked, the other gryphon was supposed to be intimidated and immediately offer to change her back! Huffing, Virmir tucked her wings in and marched towards the other gryphon. Her flaming feathers increased in intensity, casting an orange glow all around her.
“Reverse this transformation at once!” she insisted. She spread her wings wide again, rising up on her hind legs and willing balls of fiery magic to rise up into her talons. No mortal would dare to cross a creature so fearsome!
The other gryphon, however, merely stood from where it had been lying on the nest and stepped aside. Virmir felt her fiery rage being replaced immediately by concern as she saw several eggs in the nest. Her fire magic died out and she fell back to all fours, surprised and confused by her abrupt, unintended change of mood. She tried to gather her anger again, but her eyes just fell back on the eggs once more, and she found that she could not bear to harm them.
“Thank you for coming. Ah, and for returning my last egg.” Virmir looked down and saw the egg that had transformed her being pulled out of her pouch by some sort of telekinetic magic. A spike of panic surprised her.
“Wait, that’s my…” The fox gryphon stopped herself, but felt immediately appalled that she had nearly said that the egg was hers. It wasn’t hers, blast it! It was an insidious, cursed object that had absolutely wrecked her weekend schedule!
The other gryphon chuckled at Virmir’s predicament, telekinetically delivering the egg from Virmir’s satchel to the nest where the other eggs waited. “Yes, you do get attached to them quite quickly, don’t you? A mother’s instinct is extraordinarily strong, is it not?”
Virmir hissed through her beak. “I am not a mother, blast it!”
The other gryphon just shrugged her wings. “Not really, perhaps, but that won’t stop your instincts from making you behave as though you are. Deny it all you like; I can tell that your body disagrees with you.”
Indeed, before the second gryphon had even finished speaking, Virmir was compelled to approach the nest, and she was unable to resist as she jumped up into the woven mass of sticks and straw, walked a circle around the eggs, and curled up gently around them.
“Trees! What is this black magic?” she cried in panic.
The gryphon gave an infuriating, twittering laugh. “It is exactly as I told you; merely a mother’s instinct to protect her eggs. I needed someone to babysit for a while, and your tower was nearby. Nesting is hard work, and I could really use a break…”
“Wait! What about your motherly instinct?” Virmir was desperate to find a loophole of some sort now.
The other gryphon shook her head, and Virmir watched as she subtly changed. At first Virmir could not identify exactly what had happened, but the male voice that emerged when the other gryphon spoke told her exactly what she had just done. “I just happen to be a gryphon witch. I can easily change a few things to get away for a little while. I know you won’t mind.”
Virmir yelled after the gryphon as he dove off of the cliffside, but it was no use. She tried to prepare a fireball, but by the time he saw the other gryphon again he was well beyond her range. She released it anyway, but she could only watch helplessly as it spiraled off into the air well off target, eventually striking a pigeon and causing it to ignite in a feathery explosion.
Helpless to stop her captor, Virmir drooped. She had been in cages before, trapped in dungeons, turned into every manner of horrifying creature and forced to cooperate with those that changed her as she looked for an escape, but this was the first time that someone had used a trick this sinister to rope her into such a situation. She could only hope to puzzle out a solution before the gryphon with decided to take an entire tropical vacation at her expense.
* * *
A very annoyed fox gryphon sat on the nest a few hours later, continually grumbling to herself. She wasn’t the sort of creature to sit around and do nothing for hours on end, yet this blasted “motherly instinct” business was making her do just that, and all that wasted time continued to add up, making her more and more restless. Still, for all of her restlessness, she could not break the strange power that kept her on the nest, keeping watch over someone else’s eggs.
She had already tried to copy what her captor had done and shift back to her male form – or any male form for that matter. She was able to make some progress, but not enough to make a difference before the same magic that had changed her originally returned to force her back into her female gryphon shape. She hoped that what little progress she made would be enough to break the influence that her current shape had over her instincts, but moving more than a few steps away from the eggs was the best she could do before they drew her right back. She had even tried to hard boil the egg that had originally changed her in a fit of rage, but the same instinct that kept her here also kept her fire magic from doing any damage. Disgusted, she had spent the last few minutes staring far into the distance, hoping that some solution would appear out of nowhere. It was a foolish, useless hope… Or so she thought.
Something began to drift across her field of vision, and she sat up and stared to once again see the magical bauble she had created to track the source of the egg. Its glow had dimmed as had its magic, but it was still tracking the position of the gryphon that had shanghaied her into this situation. Virmir stared at it for a few moments before realization hit her, and she quickly grasped it and recharged the quickly decaying spell. The wheels began to turn in her head; she could just use this to send a revenge spell to the gryphon, but with Virmir currently unable to leave it would be easy for him to return the favor and leave her with no chance to reply. No, she needed to find a way to escape from here while at the same time taking her revenge. She began to think through her options, and finally settled on one that might actually work. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but then again, neither was sitting alone doing nothing for hours on end. She crafted a spell on the stone, taking her time to be sure there would be no misfires this time, and crafted another spell to keep with her in the nest. Once preparations had finished, she gave the gemstone one final charge of magic and untied it from the string.
She tracked its progress across the sky, hoping that her tormentor had not gone far. The sooner her spell found its mark, the sooner she would be able to escape from this nest. Finally, the glimmering stone was too far for even her improved eyes to see, and she settled in close to the eggs. She hoped that it would not be long now. The longer she waited, the harder she would have to work to catch up on the work she was missing.
It was still quite a while before she could feel the spell under her in the nest begin to activate. It had taken so long that she had almost fallen asleep, but she had made certain that she would have time to react. Standing up, Virmir braced for the magic she knew would hit her any moment.
Despite her preparation, the dizzying warping of the teleportation spell still nauseated her as it seemed to twist, turn, and smash her at every opportunity. They were sensations she was used to, being a toon, but they weren’t exactly feelings that she tried to experience, and the rough teleportation reminded her exactly why she avoided them. As she tumbled through space, she could feel the compulsion to return to the eggs grow greater and greater. If the teleportation spell just dropped her off, she knew that she would immediately fly off towards the plateau again.
That’s why she had made sure that it wouldn’t drop her just anywhere.
The process finally finished with the rough jerk of a sudden stop, and Virmir found herself at the far end of the teleportation. She tried to move, but tripped over her own talons as another consciousness tried to go somewhere else. They landed roughly on their beak, flopping and flailing on their side as the two of them struggled for control. The body that Virmir now occupied was a mishmash of her own gryphon form and that of the villain that had been forcing her to watch her eggs. Hawk feathers were lit by a dim glow, and a grey fox tail with a touch of golden fur running through it thrashed behind.
“What have you done?” Her captor desperately tried to right their body as she screamed at Virmir in their strange, shared mind. Virmir continued to struggle, keeping their body unable to do anything as she tried to make a few adjustments. A horrible feeling settled in her gut, the knowledge that she had left her – no, that she had left the gryphon witch’s – eggs far behind. It made her task that much more difficult as she tried to keep her presence of mind, but she had planned plenty long enough now, and knew exactly what she needed to do.
“Get out of my body!” The gryphon wasn’t fighting so hard physically anymore, but Virmir could feel her power beginning to push him out of her body.
“No,” he replied mentally. <Not yet,> he thought privately. He still had a few things that he had to do.
The enraged gryphon pushed harder and harder. It was getting harder for Virmir to work on his task with her constantly trying to push him out, but he was almost there. Just a few more adjustments, and…
His task done, Virmir stopped resisting. The witch’s powerful magic succeeded in throwing him free from their shared body, reclaiming her body for herself, only to realize that neither of them were as they had been when the grey fox mage had unexpectedly merged with her. Virmir stood up victoriously, once again in his familiar grey fox form. He flicked his cape back over his shoulder, posing once again, now sure of his victory.
“Enjoy your long hike,” he said.
“What…?”
Things were beginning to come to the gryphon in a rush – the former gryphon, that is, as she now found herself not only female again, but now a grey fox like the mage that stood across from her. She looked at Virmir, not understanding, until a horrified expression crossed her face.
“Oh my – my eggs!” She immediately turned and began to run back towards the now-distant plateau. Virmir gave a victorious laugh. Granting her the fine form of a fox would not have been his first choice, but it was easier to change them both into the same creature, and it accomplished his intended purpose of making her trip home unpleasant. She should be able to get back in time to save her eggs from any real harm, but she would hopefully also be so exhausted that she would never try anything like this again. He was sure that she would have no trouble changing back into a gryphon if she focused on it, but he expected that such focus would be difficult to come by while the instinct to return to her nest was so strong.
“Well, quite the interesting show.”
Virmir froze, realizing in a sudden epiphany that he had not checked where exactly he was. He turned slowly, and was confronted by a bubbling cauldron that was almost as tall as he was. Around it were several more gryphons, each with their predatory eyes staring him down.
“I knew that several of our coven’s members had likely left the care of the eyries to someone else in order to join us, but I did not expect any of them to be called back so suddenly.”
The gryphons waiting around the bubbling cauldron laughed together, and Virmir chuckled nervously. The gryphon who had spoken stood, proving that even on all fours she was more than Virmir’s match in height. She lowered her beak until her golden eyes stared right over the grey fox’s muzzle and deep into his eyes. He was frozen in place.
“It’s not nice to interrupt a gryphon coven’s annual meeting,” she said. Virmir suddenly felt very small.
“Heh… Sorry?”
The gryphon chuckled darkly. “Oh, don’t worry. I think you will be able to make amends. Sisters, what shall we do with this unfortunate interloper?”
Virmir was on the run before any of the other gryphons could reply. The large gryphon did not follow, but the shadows of gryphons flying over him told Virmir that they weren’t just going to let him go. He could only hope that he would make it to his tower before…
A crash of lightning magic struck the ground behind him, just missing his tail.
“Blast. Blast! BLAST!”
