by Reggie Kwok
Ice Cream Salad, a crystal-feathered griffin, sat at the foot of Shri’s bed occupying the spot where she would rest her feet like he always did before their nighttime ritual.
First, there was the long wait for Shri to get ready to sleep. Then, Shri would give him a brushing and a back rub. After the pampering, they would sleep.
This time, Shri took longer than usual. Ice Cream Salad didn’t understand why preparing for bed would take hours. Without that backrub, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
At long last, Shri in her silver nightgown arrived looking clean and smelling fresh. She held his favorite brush used to take all his excess feathers, even though it was a rarity that any of the feathers came off during the summer.
Ice Cream Salad thought of the moon.
Shri saw the idea in her mind. “I know it’s late, but now we can do what we always like to do.”
He smiled.
Shri sat on the bed with her swiping his back with a brush the way he loved. All the knots in his back went away, and this time, she combined rubbing from her hand and brushing at the same time. He loved that she cared for him this much.
“Oh, a feather fell out.” Shri picked it up and placed it on the night table.
Before he slept, he thought about why she kept his feathers.
Thunder woke him up from sleep. Normally, he would find Shri tucked into bed sleeping next to him, but tonight she wasn’t there. The feather on the night table was missing.
Ice Cream Salad kept his thoughts blank, so Shri wouldn’t notice he was up. He left the bedroom. While he was in the shadows, Shri left the study for the bathroom. He snuck into the office.
Inside, one desk lamp brightened the room. His feather and a magnifying glass lay on a desk by some books. Several crates lay in the back of the room, and one of them was open. Inside, he discovered a stash of his feathers.
Ice Cream Salad would have thought about the possibilities, but he had to keep his ideas quiet to avoid alerting Shri.
A light flashed outside. Thunder roared and the house shook.
His first instinct was to check downstairs. Since the stairs creaked, he tiptoed his way down without making noise. Clunking noises came from the living room, but Shri was upstairs.
A stranger intruded the cottage.
Ice Cream Salad spotted the burglar. Even though darkness disguised the face of the burglar, the lightning vibrating from his hands gave away his black cloak. The burglar took down the entry door to the cottage that had sparks emanating from it.
The griffin thought of the living room and reached out to Shri’s mind, but Shri didn’t react right away.
“Well,” the burglar said, “this is going to be easier than I thought. It’s right here.”
Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s shoe, but that did nothing. In response, the burglar grabbed the griffin by the neck’s paralyzing spot and applied shackles to his four ankles. While the burglar applied the pressure point, Ice Cream Salad couldn’t move.
He thought of an exclamation mark. Shri entered the same room. The burglar turned around and spotted her.
“That’s my griffin,” she said.
The burglar zapped Shri with his magic lightning, and she fell.
Ice Cream Salad reached out, but the burglar applied the pressure point harder. The burglar left the cottage. To block the griffin’s vision, the burglar stuffed the griffin in the trunk of a black car.
* * *
The burglar tossed Ice Cream Salad into an outdoor pen. Ice Cream Salad had no idea where he was. The greenery reminded him of a forest, but he couldn’t see much above the walls. He couldn’t fly due to his lack of wings. The ground was bare.
In the pen, three other griffins sat in a corner and huddled together away from Ice Cream Salad. A griffin without feathers tried to stick his head into the dirt with little success. An emerald griffin thrust his head into a sapphire griffin’s chest. Only the sapphire one had the courage to speak.
“You are rare. What is your name?”
He thought of an ice cream salad but then again, they couldn’t read his thoughts. Instead, he wrote his name in the dirt with his talon. The sapphire griffin shoved the two other griffins aside and read the printed writing.
“Ah, so you are mute, right? The crystal griffins always have some type of disability. Our master is going to have a tough time with you. Anyways, I am Seafood’s Hole. The emerald griffin is A Forest Away while the naked one that is supposed to have ruby feathers is Anger’s Sacrifice.”
Anger’s Sacrifice held his head. “Tell me if he’s safe. I hate silent types.”
Seafood’s Hole raised his voice. “He’s mute. How many times do I have to say that?”
Ice Cream Salad wrote the word ‘home’ in the dirt.
A Forest Away asked, “What is he writing now?”
“Don’t worry, honey. He wants to see his owner.” Seafood’s Hole patted Ice Cream Salad on the back. “It’s okay. We all want to go home.”
Anger’s Sacrifice shivered. “Is he coming back? I don’t want that bastard to come back to grow feathers on me.”
Ice Cream Salad wiped the letters away, so that the burglar wouldn’t see it.
“I think that bastard is after Ice Cream Salad’s feathers,” Seafood’s Hole said.
Ice Cream Salad pointed at himself.
Since he knew about the crates filled with crystal feathers back at home, what could humans do with feathers in the first place? Shri wouldn’t do anything to harm him, yet the burglar had the guts to steal him. What did the burglar do to Anger’s Sacrifice? Maybe he could ask the others using the dirt.
Ice Cream Salad was about ready to write, but Seafood’s Hole grabbed Ice Cream Salad’s writing talon.
“Don’t you know about the price for our feathers?” Seafood’s Hole asked.
Ice Cream Salad shook his head.
He sighed and plucked a sapphire feather from his body. “This, this is currency in the human world. They use our feathers to buy goods from markets. Ruby is the lowest, followed by emerald, sapphire, and the rarest, crystal. That bastard has been using ruby feathers to not arouse suspicion from others, but we’ll be next soon. I know it.”
Ice Cream Salad covered his beak with a talon.
“I know it might shock you, but that’s the truth.”
The bastard burglar approached the pen. While Ice Cream Salad sat in the middle, the other three griffins cowered to the corner. The black robed person carried a crate that matched the size of Ice Cream Salad. To immobilize Ice Cream Salad, the burglar used the pressure point and tossed him into the crate. And it was dark.
* * *
In the darkness, Ice Cream Salad thought about Shri. Was she dead? Did she recover? What happened to her?
All this time, he thought of Shri taking advantage of his feathers that belonged to him. She was making a lot of currency if she had stored a lot of feathers.
At the same time, Ice Cream Salad missed her backrubs. He was used to sleeping in a bed, not in a crate with little ventilation and no view. Her face was all he thought.
Train tracks rattled in Ice Cream Salad’s ears. The griffin heard an announcement but couldn’t make out the message. Determining his surroundings was hard inside a dark crate, so he kept thinking about Shri rescuing him.
Then, he received an image in his mind of Shri hugging him.
She was nearby. Another image came. This time, Shri approached the burglar.
She said, “You thought I was dead, but I’m not. Give me my griffin or else.”
Ice Cream Salad heard static and several gasps.
He received an image of a rock in her pocket, which was actively absorbing the lightning magic.
Light appeared from above, and he squeezed through the large hole above him.
He gained a sense of his surroundings. He was at a subway with no trains. Posters on the wall and on the middle of the track advertised fast food, clothes, and alcohol for ruby feathers.
The burglar said, “Why is my magic doing nothing to you?”
“I wouldn’t reveal my secrets to a bastard like you,” she responded.
The burglar grabbed Ice Cream Salad by the neck, but not by the pressure point. “I’ll kill this thing that you love so dearly. I don’t care about the profit anymore.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s hand that wasn’t holding him. In response, the burglar wagged the bitten hand and punched the griffin with his free hand. The griffin bounced on the yellow warning line and fell to the tracks below.
Lights came from the darkness. Ice Cream Salad had no way out of the train’s path.
Shri said, “Duck!”
At first, Ice Cream Salad thought of the animal but quickly realized what he had to do. He coiled himself into a ball and pressed against the ground between the rails. His tail went in between his hind legs.
The train passed over him and slowed down to a stop with the griffin trembling for his life. His feathers brushed against the bottom of the train, but he survived. As he waited, how would he return to Shri? With the train above him, he could not move. If he weren’t mute, he would cry out to her.
Soon, the subway train moved out. When he saw the lights, Shri jumped toward the tracks and hugged him. They climbed out of the tracks. Police and emergency personnel were already there to assist Shri and Ice Cream Salad and to arrest the burglar.
* * *
At the pen, authorities unlocked the gate using brute force. Ice Cream Salad and Shri entered. The three griffins cowered in the corner, but Seafood’s Hole had the courage to speak up.
“Who are you?”
Shri said, “I am Shri, Ice Cream Salad’s original owner. Would you three like to come home with me?”
“Will you lock us up like this?”
“I have a cottage with a yard that you can roam freely.”
Anger’s Sacrifice said, “Will you regrow my feathers for the use of personal profit?”
“No, I have a job where I earn ruby feathers. Your feathers are safe.”
A Forest Away said, “My last owner abandoned me. Will you do the same?”
Ice Cream Salad shook his head and then nuzzled Shri’s leg.
The three griffins said together, “We’ll come.”
* * *
Waiting for Shri to show up, four griffins reclined on a bed. Ice Cream Salad wanted his backrub before he went to sleep, as he always did. The other three griffins, Anger’s Sacrifice, Seafood’s Hole, and A Forest Away, were already asleep. How Shri managed to sleep with this many griffins was a complete mystery to him.
Ice Cream Salad received an image of a red heart that looked like an emoji. To not wake the others, Shri and Ice Cream Salad communicated in images. Ice Cream Salad immediately thought of the crates of crystal feathers in the study. Shri responded with herself working at a bar and earning ruby feathers, like everyone else. Ice Cream Salad tilted his head.
Shri whispered, “I wouldn’t use your feathers to buy anything. They are too precious to me.”
Ice Cream Salad thought of a masseur rubbing his back and added an image of himself giving a crystal feather. Shri nodded and began the backrub.
Griffins always returned to their rightful owner, no matter how far away they went.
* * *
About the Author
Reggie Kwok (he/him) holds a B.A. in English and a master’s in education. He currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. His Twitter is @KwokReggie. His Bluesky is @reggiekwok.bsky.social. He has published short stories at Samjoko Magazine, Underland Arcana, Scrawl Place, Androids and Dragons, Inner Worlds, Orion’s Beau, and has three forthcoming at Midnight Menagerie, Madam, Don’t Forget Your Sword, and Androids and Dragons.