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Chapter One

The circle of golden sunlight crawled along the floor, making the dancing dust motes glimmer. As the temperature in the eyrie warmed, the large body in the straw moved, lavender feathers rustling. One eye opened, blinking slowly. A low growl sounded from the barrel chest as the proud head rose. A metallic grey beak, hooked and vicious, clacked once as the fierce amber eye surveyed the room. The beast rose onto all fours, the front legs scaled and taloned in the same silver-grey as the beak, the back half covered in periwinkle fur, the tail tufted with lavender . She looked dangerous in that instant.

And then that instant passed. The mighty beast sagged a little, favoring her right side. Her right eye was missing, and the left one was clouded over. The color in the feathers was faded and they were slightly rumpled. The fur was patchy and thinning. As her wings stretched, one could hear the sound of joints popping softly. She then stretched her back, and a low crackling sound could be heard as her vertebrae popped.

The gryphon, to her credit, just stretched harder and moaned softly through the pain. She was old and wasn't sure she was feeling up to telling her tale to yet another round of younglings. But she knew the ever-cheery Keeper of the Younglings, Recari, would be up to see her shortly, trailed by a motley assortment of young from all of the Allied Kin. She knew that they would arrive expecting to see a proud warrior, spitting fire from her beak and lightning from her eyes. Than they would actually see her, and feel a glimmer of disappointment. When she had been moved out to her eyrie for retirement she had known what was happening; they were putting her on a shelf, leaving her here like the relic she was. She was to tell the tale of the start of the Guardians to any batch of younglings willing to listen, in the hopes that anyone signing up for the duty would arrive with a glimmer of understanding of just what they were signing up for. She was shown to them as a best-case scenario, a war hero. But she knew how she felt. She was the worst case scenario, a soldier who had outlived her ability to fight and now sat, telling her story and waiting for death to come claim her.

She shook her head, blowing a breath out of her beak. There was no time for such maudlin thoughts, not if she was to be in some sort of presentable shape in time. She limped across the dirt floor, wincing slightly at first but pulling her head back up as her muscles warmed to the movement. She knew that Recari would come with a pitcher of her favorite juice, mixed with some sweetsleep to take the edge off of the pain caused by sitting for hours in one position.

On her way out her eye fell upon a table, and although she couldn't quite make out the shapes of the items that rested there she knew them by heart. They were medals awarded to her, set up in the order they were given. Her first were her proudest, while the few on the right she could barely stand to look at for the bile that rose up in the back of her throat. She shook her head again, realizing that she had almost fallen prey to her memories. At her age, she had plenty that could reach up and snag her, pulling her into losing the time she needed to get ready, to make herself look regal. She picked up the last few that were on chains, they certainly were the biggest and grandest looking, and then the smallest one on the left, because it made her smile softly. Gathering them up into her mostly useless right claw, she limped her way out of her eyrie.

The sun was up high in the sky, and the songbirds sang all around her, filling the bright day with happy music. She slowly made her way to the wallow that hid behind her eyrie, and laid the medals down on a nearby rock. She sighed as she headed over to the wallow, and then sighed again as she flopped down on her side into it. Sparkle sand. I used to make fun of all of the old biddies who would sparkle their feathers with this stuff, and now look at me. Reduced to doing the same thing. She growled softly under her breath, but rolled and made sure to work a light dusting of the sparkly powder all over her body. As she stood up and gave a gentle shake, even she had to own that the soft sparkle lent to her coat and feathers did make her look a little less like the aged mess she was. She walked over and grabbed up the medals, slipping them over her head, giving them a final adjustment so that they hung there on display for maximum effect. Then, with great care, she moved over to the sun-warmed rock up in front of her eyrie, settling down.

The warmth seeped up into her bones and she sighed softly, allowing her eyelid to droop slightly. It seemed like right after she had set her head down for a quick nap, the sound of rustling leaves woke her back up so that she could raise her head, just in time to see Recari's smiling face as the slender elfarin pushed aside the overgrowth that surrounded her eyrie. Long mint-green hair framed a sweet, pale face with laughing turquoise eyes. The gryphon managed a weak smile in response.

"Saelorennr! Are we welcome in your eyrie?" The words were formula, meant to instill on the younglings behind that Renn was deserving of their respect, but Renn thought they were rather stupid, especially given how flea-bitten she felt these days. She nodded solemnly.

"Yes-" she paused, the words coming out a hoarse squawk. She harrumphed loudly and tried again. "Yes, all who wish to hear the Guardian's tale may enter." There, that at least sounded somewhat impressive.

And then they came. Elfarin, humans, gryphons and dragons alike, even one or two human-elfarin hybrids, all young and innocent still. They would see her, and raise an eyebrow, or shoot her a cocky grin and shuffle to their place. All the same.

All except the last one. She stopped, her beak falling open in shock. That last one... No! It can't be! They told me it couldn't be done! There, at the back of the line, was a creature with a feathered, beaked front and a scaled back. A dragon-gryphon hybrid. The feathers were a bright crimson hue, the scales a pearly white. The fierce, proud emerald eyes met her amber one, and she clacked her beak shut as she tried not to stare, trying to convince herself that that abomination had to be a product of her weak eyesight, or overly active imagination, or something...

And then she stopped, realizing just what she had been thinking. In that one instant, she knew that she was far more a thing of the past than the future. That "abomination" was here to listen to her tale, to see if being a Guardian was the life she truly sought. And Saelorennr sat, casting judgment on this youngling based on naught but her looks. What a fool I am. An old, doddering fool, mouldering away in some rusty backwater...

_ _ She shook her head, and reached one talon down to snag the jug of drink that Recari had deposited near her boulder. There was no more time for that nonsense, she did have a job to do, even if it seemed pointless. She looked at the assembled children, all seated now and staring at her, and began.

"You are all here to listen to my tale, to see if the life of a Guardian is for you. It will be a long one, so settle yourself in. I'm not going to make the choice for you, but hopefully what I have to say will enlighten you to the realities of life on a battlefield.

"It began, many years ago now, in an eyrie not far from here called Greenfall. I was fifteen years old, waiting for my turn to be judged, to see if I was fit enough to join the Great Hunt that year..."