The Dragoso Series 1: Discovery in Hardship

Chapter 6

After a hard morning of learning typical school things, Trevor and his siblings finally sat down for lunch. Aya and David laughed about their Potions class while munching on nachos. Trevor watched them as he sipped at his water.

"You know, I've noticed something," Brenda piped up. Trevor looked at her, lowering his water bottle.

"What's that?" he asked.

"The food. They're not health obsessed at all. Breakfast, they gave us any kind we wanted, even chocolate chip. These nachos...you can taste the grease in the meat."

"We're dragons now. With all the exercise we get, no doubt we burn all the calories."

"Learn to live a little you four," A voice piped up behind them. Trevor looked over his shoulder to see the other man that had been sitting with Sylark and Zoymey. "This stuff is all natural, that's better than the crap they put in human school lunches. Drake is great for that. You four are with me in the stable after lunch, I checked my list. You're all in for a treat." With that said, he walked off. Trevor looked at Brenda with a raised eyebrow. Brenda shrugged and looked over at Aya and David. Aya sat with a chip in her mouth and David in mid chew. They looked at each other before Aya pulled the chip from her mouth.

"What do we all have next?" she asked. Trevor pulled his schedule from his pocket and opened it.

"Care of griffins...?" Trevor looked up at his siblings. "Clearly something we're not exactly used to so um...what do you guys think?"

"We don't really know much about griffins..." Brenda mumbled.

"Harry Potter had hippogryphs though," Aya suggested.

"I hope not...that one in the movie wasn't very nice to that one guy," David added.

"Yeah, cause the guy insulted the hippogryph, you can't blame Buckbeak for lashing out in anger!" Aya exclaimed.

"Hey, hey, settle down. Let's just agree to give them respect and not do anything till uh...that guy tells us," Trevor hushed. David crossed his arms and pouted while Aya continued to nibble her chips.

The rest of lunch was filled with awkward silence between the four siblings. As soon as it was done, they headed out to the back of the school where a lone stable stood. The yard outside of it was empty of any griffins, so no doubt they were all inside the stable. Trevor led his siblings into the stable and were greeted by many cooing creatures and colorful bird heads the size of horses reached out over stall doors. All eyes were on the newcomers as they entered.

"Wow...they seem...curious," Brenda observed. A black griffin near the entrance reached its head towards Aya, as she was standing closest.

"W-what do I do?" Aya asked. She coward away slightly.

"You can pet her, just be gentle. Forgot to tell you four my name. Call me Malice." Trevor looked towards the said man who sat on a few bales of straw nearby. "That's Midnight, scratch her behind the feather tufts, she loves it." Aya reached up and stroked the griffin's beak. Trevor turned his attention to Malice.

"You really don't live up to your name," Trevor noted and Malice shrugged.

"I get that a lot. My parents named me that because I hated my caretakers apparently. Always full of malice so they used to claim," Malice explained.

"Used to?" Trevor wondered.

"They're dead now. Killed by something years ago. Around the time I discovered I was a Compass Dragon."

"Sorry to hear that..." Trevor rubbed the back of his neck.

"It was like...a hundred years ago, I'm not too beat up about it."