Morning Song [HOLD]

d i s t r e e

To feel the familiar firm grip of talons around his waist made Kokai feel strangely comfortable. Knowing that his griffon friend had returned made him feel even safer, however. Kokai found himself staring off in the direction the wyvern had flown, wondering what had made them so scared, and why. Was it the griffon? Kokai didn't know. As the griffon's large paws hit the cavern floor, Kokai became homesick again. It was promised that he'd go home. And he didn't seem to be there yet. Instead, he felt like he'd been signed up to go to some sort of war between wyverns and gargoyles over who should go to Whiteash and who should stay in Stonefield. He felt like he had no say in the matter. Even if he did go home, who was to say the wyvern wouldn't find him. A pang of guilt struck the faun at that moment. Thinking about them made him realize something; he'd neglected to ask for their name. Unlike the griffon, who had a legitimate excuse for not formally introducing himself, the wyvern just seemed to ignore every little bit of formality. Kokai couldn't recall stating his own name either. He assumed it was because he was too terrified to do anything in the way he normally would. Thinking about his fear reminded him of Dea, and he wondered if he'd see her again. "...oi, um, when exactly are we gonna go home?" Kokai asked, homesickness striking him again, "you said we would today, didn't you?"

"I did," the griffon gently placed the faun onto the rocky ground, "and we will. We will when I'm sure that... thing is gone."

"Thing? It was pretty friendly for a 'thing'..." Kokai murmured.

"I'm sure it seemed friendly in order to entice you, Koka. What was it, some lizard beast? Dragon. They eat whatever meat they can get, collect whatever treasures they can find. Hey, maybe it noticed that little charm of yours. I saw the smoke; the thing was probably roasting you alive without you even noticing."

"Most likely steaming," Kokai muttered, rolling his eyes. He didn't take anything the griffon said seriously.

"Whatever! The point is, dragons or whatever, they're violent, hateful, bloodthirsty, gluttonous, greedy. The gargoyles did one good thing in warding them off."

"...it wanted to come home."

"...Kokai. Listen to me. This is not its home. Whiteash is. Whiteash is where all lizard beasts belong. I know you want to go home too, but this is not its home."

"...were they some sort of threat to your livelihood? Did they do something to you, the, uh, 'lizard beasts', I mean?"

"Not necessarily to me, but I've seen it happen to others. I'm glad they're gone. I didn't want to be the next statistic, and I don't want the two of us going down because we're bound to be some roast dinner."

Kokai again rolled his eyes. "We're going home, aren't we? I don't think I can stay another night here. I don't want to be as stiff and as sore as I was this morning."

"...we'll go home, little faun. We'll go home just as the sun sets, alright? It'll be a nice flight, and you can admire the view, provided you don't faint first," the griffon flopped down onto the ground and chuckled softly. They crossed their front legs and looked out the mouth of the cave. Kokai couldn't help but to laugh along, as much as he despised their comment. He trotted to the back of the cave and sat himself among the golden treasures and stared at the necklace wrapped around his wrist. Was that the reason the wyvern had flown down to talk to him? Or maybe they just saw someone stranded and took them to be an easy meal. Kokai wondered how he survived if that was the case. How did they get on the topic of gargoyles anyway? Why was that a discussion they had?

Kokai fiddled with the ruby charm on the necklace for a while, occasionally looking up in the hopes that he'd see the sky's color changing from the bright blues to the admirable oranges and pinks and purples that signified the end of the day. Kokai's favorite pastime was looking at the sky of an evening, and he wondered what flying through the soft colors would be like. He also wondered how the people back in the forest would react to his return. Given how many people had survived a siren attack, Kokai was sure that the forest was in for a shock. The first survivor of a siren... how important would that have been for them? Kokai began thinking back to one of his first discussions with the griffon. "It just didn't feel like home," they had said, and for a while, Kokai had wondered what they'd meant. They weren't originally from Stonefield, the faun had assumed, but... why would they have even come here? The only place he considered worse than Stonefield were the dead forests of Whiteash, and he'd never heard of a griffon coming from such a place. Which prompted the question of how they'd ended up in the mountains. Obviously they'd flown there, but considering the fact that they had stated that they were feeling homesick made Kokai wonder if they'd fled. He didn't want to ask. The idea of asking scared him. He felt like he'd be met with a lack of answer; the griffon's lack of memory about even their own name was enough for him to believe that. Were they from Kokai's forest, though? They knew of April and Kokai at least. Kokai could not recall a griffon being in his life, however.