One of the Wo-men / Part I Redemption

[Caira Ayryn]

While the story of Magus’s bounty spread throughout Camelot, more and more wizards were claiming names for themselves. Many wizards, weren’t wizards at all, but warriors of their craft and some sold their services on the Dataverse. A few Primes, such as Doomguy or Guu, Caira read, had stories of their own posted on the Twitter feeds. Caira missed TBG, and deliberated sending her a message, as the woman at the library had shown the outdated monk how to use the technology that this world harnessed. Caira composed an “E-MAIL” as it was called, and sent it to her favorite bounty hunter and Prime.

Then, Caira took to the skies, on her newest conquest. Recently, she had mastered the majestic skill that was, riding a griffin.

When the girl had first arrived in Camelot, she had trodden through the scape of the land on horseback, then, when it was demanded she go to Dalaran -the floating island in the sky- she was forced to go by Pegasus. Now, riding a Pegasus may not have been considered a feat in this world, but there were no flying horses where she came from, and flying was a fantasy only seized by the birds in the air. For this reason, Caira was afraid of both flying and falling to her death.

For this reason, on her first day in griffin practice -yes, with an actual griffin- which apparently had some sort of battle advantage over Pegasi, and one reason they were more rare than pegasi was because they were harder find or produce. A rare and mythic golden egg is where they come from. And these are laid once every ten years.

On her first day of that week, she had landed flat on her face approximately sixty times. On her second, only forty. Caira considered that progress and continued during her allotted hour with the beast, to attempt to ride it. She watched everyone else’s attempts, they weren’t far from her own failures. No one had gotten the lion-like bird into the air. Not even Kobi, whose parents had been lucky enough to find a golden egg when he was very young.

The creature represented an impossible challenge. Every time she would mount the beast, it would shake her off within the time she could wrap her hands around the beast’s mane. The second day she had tried a ‘running start’ and the third, she finally resolved that the very active way she was going about it just wasn’t working.

So the monk sat in front of the beast, who finally -in all the time he had been hounded and touched in obscure places- had relaxed. However the lion’s face still remained composed with the utmost respectful pride that Caira couldn’t help but to admire.

“C’mon, if you aren’t gonna ride it, give your time slot to someone else!” A few soldiers protested, others had wandered off, researching the matter and trying to find bait that would make the creature do their bidding.

It was tempting to resort to baiting the creature with steak, however, the sense of entitlement she got from the creature was that it wouldn’t be convinced by such mere things. In the lion’s golden, hardened gaze, she could see everything anyone had to offer needed to be earned.

She sat about four feet away from the mighty beast until her hour was up. Both had been mutually motionless, which was easy for Caira to imitate because of her monk-ly backround. The next day, Caira did the same thing, and she did the same in the days to follow. After two maddening weeks, the beast began to grow weary of everyone poking, prodding, and digging sticks into its feathery hide. A roar carried over their camp and Caira could only guess what had disturbed the beast this time.

She hurried to the clearing where the Griffin was kept, only to see a bloody mess of mangled human, and a rampaging beast who had broken free of it’s chain. Another roar of pain howled through the air, while the beast continued to thrash its wings and create gusts of wind that knocked Caira from her feet. She crouched low to evade the brunt of it, however the force still tumbled over her like the thick frothing waves of a storm-troubled ocean.

The mighty beast’s maw dripped with crimson blood, and she looked below its feet to mark that at least one casualty had been claimed by whatever had happened. A charred mark on its side showed that someone had probably coaxed the creature into its current rampaging state with a branded stick of hot iron, and prodded the molten metal into its side. That someone had been slain at the mighty beast’s claws, and a tangled sense of justice had been served. Now however, it was going after innocent people, blinded by rage, the creature had set its sights on Kobi.

The secondary cowered in fear below the magnificent creature’s extended gait. In this moment, Caira could see the extension of the beast’s glory, as the folds of its wings grew in size and threatened to buck down on the harmless human. An enormous wing threw Kobi against a tree, where his head slammed hard into the wood and brought darkness with the close of his eyelids. Soon he would be stomped, Caira assumed from the trajectory of the beast’s open march. In a sprint, the Prime could get there in time, but the real trivial question was what could she do if she made it?

As she rushed past the beast, she noted the broken chain. If worst came to worst, she could seize the chain like a leash, however she assumed that she’d be knocked off in an instant, for she hadn’t the power, nor the brawn, to hold onto a swaying metal chain while the Griffin took to the air. It wasn’t like the motionless boulder, which could only fall, a Griffin was powerful and alive.