by Kelsey Hutton
Water droplets still glistened on each of the griffin’s feathers, catching light on dark brown wings and tossing it about like they were old friends. Each stroke of the wing beat back gusts of air forceful enough to talk their way into any closed-door affair; enough crows had been caught in their turbulence to know to stay away, although a few young’uns liked to surf the griffin’s currents, on a particularly daring day. Wind whistled a jaunty tune as it streamed by, while the sun nestled deep into the griffin’s satiny lion haunches. She kept her powerful back legs pulled in tight, for better aerodynamics, but let her long tufted tail swish about.
Lady Griffith didn’t hold back. It felt deliciously good to pump her wings — as wide across as a ten-year-old ash tree, its sapling days long gone — and luxuriate in the smell of a fresh kill — meaty and tangy, like all good tropical fowl — still hooked in her beak. A clear runway of sky, a few picturesque snow-topped mountains in the distance, her eaglet safe in his nest atop the spear-like Douglas fir just over the next ridge — what else could a griffin want?
It had been a long incubation period with the eggs. Over a month. Even with nest exchanges, allowing Sir Griffith to occasionally take his turn perching on two agate eggs the size of good-sized gourds, her powerful front talons still craved something to crush in their grip.
One would think the fluffy ball of orange feathers currently in her powerful clutch would be a good contender. Its parents had made an excellent meal a few days before, hot and smokey like a well-charred flamingo, the meat still warm after a long flight home. Although, their long tail plumage was a little annoying to eat around. More than a few feathers had gotten caught in her throat, and she’d coughed up flame-colored pellets for hours. Still — Sir Griffith had said it was the best meal he’d had in months.
She’d gone back for the fiery little chick, since it’d be the perfect size for the eaglet. And since eating the little Firebird’s parents, Lady Griffith had already been lucky enough to catch several lazy trout swimming too close to the surface of the lake, and spotted a dozen nuggets of gold gleaming in a riverbed nearby to line the edges of her nest. Firebirds were said to bring good fortune, and she intended to share this consumable bit of luck with her oldest progeny — whether he appreciated it or not!
Really, she could have killed the little juvenile at any time as she flew it home. It was even getting uncomfortably hot to carry; though, immature and untrained as it was, it was not likely burning her on purpose. But the eaglet liked a bit of chase to his food. A bit of pep. At least, he used to… he’d been getting pickier and pickier lately.
Despite this, she would have squeezed down harder on the gleaming gold and mandarin-peel orange bundle of feathers, so bright it was as if it were lit from within, if only it would stop talking.
“… dark and shadowy over there, our nest had fallen in, you know, until you just swooshed it aside, like BAM, it was SO COOL! Did you have to train to get so big? Like, I dunno, lift rocks or something? Sometimes I try to crush things in my mouth just to strengthen the ol’ jaw muscles, you know, keep my bill ridges clean, too, but I do, like, lizards and stuff, not like whole BRANCHES like you did! I bet you were born super strong. If I was born super strong, I’d crunch through…”
It didn’t seem the least bit frightened. Which was fine with her — she and her family had to eat, but it wasn’t like she relished terrifying other creatures before gulping them down, and always tried for a clean kill — but this seemed to be taking things a little too far. To show a little temerity, at least, would have been appropriate?
“… but I’m so bright my eyes never really adjust to nighttime, it’s hard to really get to know any of the nocturnal bugs, ‘nocturnal’ means they sleep during the day, but yeah, they scuttle and hide when I come ’round ’cause the whole forest floor is suddenly like, noon! Light! So I figured out I could dim my downy feathers a bit, like this….”
The juvenile did, in fact, seem to dim a little in brightness, although it hardly mattered in the middle of a clear day. But its body, though not as burning hot as its parents’ had been, noticeably cooled. Lady Griffith relaxed a tiny bit and loosened her talons a fraction of an inch. This let a little wind in to soothe the lightly-cooking skin of her feet, just as she caught sight of her own eyrie at last.
“… yeah, thanks! Like that! Wasn’t that cool? Want me to do it again?” the little juvenile squawked.
“That’ll do for now,” she surprised herself by responding.
The little Firebird didn’t mind being dropped from ten feet above into the eyrie (“Wheeee!”) even though it was too young to have fledged yet. It deftly rolled in a bright bundle, — long, fiery tail feathers kicking up a small dust bath, before popping up proudly at one edge of the treasure-lined nest.
The eaglet, previously curled up and licking clean his back paw, now stood up hungrily on all fours. It had been a whole day since his last meal, though rejected bits of sea serpent, macaw, even water buffalo — that had been a very long trip to procure — littered the edges of the nest, scattered in with red and blue shards of agate shell from the hatching.
A loud rumble came from the eaglet’s direction. There— Lady Griffith took satisfaction in hearing the undeniable grumble of her eldest’s feline stomach.
“I brought you a special treat for dinner tonight, dear,” she said, landing on one sturdy edge of the nest, which had been twined together out of stringy poplars (for their flexibility), white birch (for their pretty pale color) and spruce (whose scent mingled nicely with the Douglas fir’s).
“Oooh! You did?” said the little Firebird, looking around curiously. “What is it?”
Lady Griffith paused.
The eaglet seemed entranced with the small, perky bird in front of him. He was still a few weeks from fledging himself, so he was only about the size of his favorite foods these days: a deer. (Deer! Which were not only bland and tasteless, but had no special qualities to pass on — unless you counted the ability to bore your predators to death.) His wings were still short and stubby, and his plumage was a mottled brown, as it would be at least a decade before his bright white head plumage would come in. If Lady Griffith were being completely honest, his brown-and-tan coloring did look a little plain against the ever-changing brilliance of the Firebird’s feathers, even if the Firebird was barely half his size. But the eaglet’s hooked beak and diamond-sharp claws should have no problem making a meal out of the smaller bird.
Eventually. When he got hungry enough, at any rate.
The Firebird didn’t seem to notice anything awkward with Lady Griffith’s silence, as she tried to think of something to say (and yet, what did it matter what she said? One didn’t explain oneself to food). It was now nosing around the nest, admiring the treasures Lady and Sir Griffith had collected over the past few years, which went beyond simple gold nuggets to include gleaming pearls, rubies the size of pinecones, and silver coins of all sizes liberated from careless humans abroad.
“Oooh, wow, what a beautiful home you have,” it said. “This where you live, right? It’s got to be. Is this an amethyst necklace? Oh, and CEDAR! I love cedar boughs, they’re so soft, way softer than scratchy twigs and leaves, you know those ones that get red in the fall and make you itch like crazy? Don’t use those! Ever get any voles around here? Mom says I’m too old for baby food like that, but I told her I’m never gonna be too old for voles. You should try them, you’d like them for sure! Hey, can I snack on some of this salmon over here if you’re done with it? I’m FAMISHED!”
Another little stomach growl rumbled through the still air, but this time it wasn’t the eaglet’s. The Firebird stood over a bit of silvery skin and bright pink meat, waiting politely, looking back and forth between the eaglet and Lady Griffith.
The eaglet was blinking rapidly. His beak hung open, then snapped shut. “Sure,” he croaked out finally. Then: “What’s your name?”
This was going too far. “Dear, you know we don’t play with our food like that,” Lady Griffith cut in.
“Don’t have one,” the Firebird said happily, in between noisy gulps of salmon. “I was thinking ‘Alyona.’ It means ‘shining light,’ but maybe that’s a little too on-the-nose. Or maybe ‘Valentin.’ It means ‘strong.’ What do you think?”
“Well,” said the eaglet, sitting back on his legs and swishing his tail in thought. “I guess that depends. Are you a boy or a girl?”
The Firebird laughed, a light musical trill. “Oh, gosh!” it said. “I haven’t even picked my name! It’s going to be a while before I get to gender. It’s probably hard to tell, cross-species and all, but I’ve still got a lot of growing to do.” The little bird blinked its enormous black eyes, which glowed welcomingly like gently crackling embers. “I know you’re not little little, but do you still have a lot of growing to do, too? I mean, I’m assuming—” The Firebird cocked its head toward Lady Griffith, almost conspiratorially. “With a mom as big and strong as that, you’ve gotta grow up to be the biggest, strongest thing around, hands down, right? I mean, what other option is there even?”
The eaglet puffed out his chest proudly, but Lady Griffith’s stomach suddenly clenched, as if swiped by one of her own talons. She couldn’t help but glance at the biggest pile of agate shell pieces, their second-laid egg, still kept carefully to one side of the nest. An unlucky, unfortunate jumble of semi-precious stone, which never quite hatched on its own.
Enough.
“He won’t grow up to be big and strong unless he learns to eat his dinner,” Lady Griffith cut in, just as the eaglet lay down on his belly and put his chin on his folded front talons, as if settling in for a good chat. She took two steps forward and reached the little fluffy bird, a mere snack for her, but a potential source of magical, life-saving good fortune for her remaining offspring. She lifted one taloned foot, still slightly hot and tender, but ready nonetheless to squash the fiery bundle of feathers with one stomp.
“Did you forget how to eat? Let me show you,” the Firebird said, still talking to the eaglet. It turned and looked straight up at the bottom of Lady Griffith’s poised foot, the taloned back hallux ready to steady while three front claws prepared to shred the little chatterbox to pieces. “Like this!”
The Firebird tilted its head back and exposed its throat to her with no hesitation whatsoever. It opened its short golden beak, its cute little gullet begging for food.
“Cak-cak-cak!” it called out, a high-pitched guttural squeak. Then it closed its beak and turned back to the eaglet again. “See? Like that, you see? Cak-cak-cak!”
The eaglet was far past needing Lady Griffith to beak-feed him his food, one torn morsel at a time. But he laughed — his first real laugh, ever — and in doing so, opened his beak to the sky.
“That’s it!” said the little Firebird. “You’ve got it!”
Lady Griffith put her foot down gently. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it. Now both of you, can you caw like that at the same time?”
The eaglet looked at her quickly, a little thrown off by her using such a gentle tone with “the food.” But he went along with it. Both the nestlings — her slightly fuzzy, picky eater eaglet who had maybe missed having a nestmate more than she realized, and the brilliant tangle of light and warmth in front of her — cak-cak-cak-ed at her in unison. What started as a food call quickly turned into giggles, but not before she quickly nipped a stray shred of leftover rainbow eel into both their beaks.
“Mmm-mmh,” said the little Firebird, its head fringe popping up in excitement. “Was that the special meal you brought us? It was so good! Fishy and kind of sweet and the scales just add the right crunch!”
The eaglet looked expectantly at Lady Griffith, flapping his wings with an eagerness that had nothing to do with days-old eel. The Firebird’s light glinted handsomely off the eaglet’s dark feathers, while a gentle warmth settled over the eyrie.
At the same time, a steady breeze swung to life. The great fir that was their home swayed contentedly in place, like human lovers dancing. Lady Griffith hadn’t even noticed, but the clear blue sky was now deepening into a velvety dusk. Very far off, too far for the nestlings to hear, Sir Griffith piped a call to let them know he was on his way home. And even lower, a faint purr — perhaps coming from her own chest?
“Yes, it was,” Lady Griffith said to the little Firebird. Good fortune, after all, came in more ways than one. “Now go get settled in while I go catch us all some more.”
* * *
About the Author
Kelsey Hutton is a Métis author from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation, also known as Winnipeg, Canada. Kelsey was born in an even snowier city than she lives in now (“up north,” as they say in Winnipeg). She also used to live in Brazil as a kid. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy Magazine, and Analog Science Fiction & Fact. When she’s not beading or cooking, you can find her at KelseyHutton.com, on Instagram at @KelseyHuttonAuthor, or on Twitter at @KelHuttonAuthor.