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01-03-2017, 09:33 PM
There is a screech—high and keening and full of hunger— that rips through the bright Frostfall day. It cuts through the air just as it cuts through the King’s chest with fear—there is nothing good about that call. And then a flap of wings shatters the light mist into oblivion, just as talons’ glint cuts through his retinas.
At first it seems to happen in slow motion—the outward stretch of talons, the malicious hover of feathers as the female griffin reaches—and then pandemonium breaks as screams fill the air and sharp claws rake through flesh. More descend from the sky; a young one getting ensnared in the lilac cloth, coming down so close to his son.
A ferocious, but fearful, father’s (and stallion’s) scream ripped through the air. In that moment he was both King and Father; father because Kiada’s fear was heard just as her lithe gold body disappeared into the mists; King because so many other foals were being injured, and he must be strong to protect them.
So, with surprising speed, he shifted into an elephantine form. His trunk reached out, raising on his hind legs, trying to bash and grab and pull these feathered bodies onto his tusks.
But he did not have the size of the elephants on the Plains. He was his own size. Powerful and large, but not as large as those giants. Mentally, he cursed; aloud he bellowed in a terrible, warrior’s shout, “Foals, to me!” The griffins may be able to pick up foals. But not an elephant.
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