How to Train Your Griffon

It hadn't really taken any convincing for her to say yes. It wasn't that their new residence in Kirkwall wasn't nice. It most definitely was. But it was still IN Kirkwall. Any errand or request that got her outside the city walls was readily accepted. She was happy that the House of the Salamander was doing well and rising in recognition. But being in one place would probably always bother her at least a little. So she'd be glad for the next big job that took her afield. Until then, she'd help Genthus.

Of course, Ceren knew nothing about griffons beyond the stories told about how the Grey Wardens would ride them into battle. That, she was not ashamed to admit, was something she'd jump at the chance to try. She felt the ghost of a peck at the back of her neck and turned her head skyward. Andor had been flying directly overhead, but suddenly banked left and created distance.

"Quit whining." she thought along the bond they shared that had, in recent weeks, grown ever stronger. "I didn't abandon you when we got Rabbit, did I? I wouldn't abandon you for a griffon either. Not that I'll ever get one."

As she approached the designated meeting place, Ceren slowed Rabbit to a trot. They'd come to where the open grasslands immediately around the city started to give way to patches of trees. She figured that she might help Genthus train his griffon in a similar way her father had helped her train Andor. Griffons were part bird, after all. Surely there would be some overlap in their mannerisms.

Genthus had always been enough of a sight trudging through city streets between his severe height and his stark lack of even rudimentary fashion. Regular shirts and tunics were often abandoned in favor of just armor during jobs or nothing at all in the warm coastal breezes of Kirkwall, meaning qunari skin was never hard for the eye to find. But even with so many years of incurring stares, so many odd reactions and confused expressions, Genthus had grown used to them being direct at him, the levelled fingers centered at his chest, the excited proclamations of kids and the callous commenting on his stature or his appearance or even his horns.

So would a rabble of growing kids trailing along just a few steps ahead of him, tugging on each other’s sleeves, excitedly shrieking and pointing at the spot above his head where his small, increasingly-afraid owlet griffon perched grow more and more intolerable. Hooting in discomfort, pressing down into the space between his horns, digging his talons into his skull, the small creature’s discomfort would become Genthus’s both empathically and practically, his large hands balled into fists.

Luckily for them both, the old tricks of massive stature and foreign strangeness were still more than enough to scare children, and with one aggressive”enough!”, most of them would scatter in a collective jump, the bravest still taking the hint to slink away.

”Accursed runts. You’d think they’d never been surprised before.” Reaching up to softly scratch the griffon’s head, it would remain clung to his skull, now appraising passers-by with suspicion. Exiting the city would prove a balm for them both, Genthus’s shoulders losing their tension as the owlet came to sit up again, scanning the landscape with regained curiosity. As they neared the edge of the forest, Genthus would spot Ceren and wave, hollering as they neared.

”Hail, mighty beastmaster! Teach us your ways!”

@Ceren Brynmor