An inkling of unease.
That's what ripples just beneath my feverish skin, wavers and twists behind my closed eyelids.
It's nothing substantial; certainly nothing to tell the others about. But it worries me all the same.
It's the same feeling that wakes me in a frozen sweat from my recent nightmares. And, being a demigod, I know dreams are never really just dreams. We can't pass them off like mortals can on something bad we ate the night before.
They're as much prophecies as anything that Rachel spits out.
But the sensation is pushed to the back of my dusty mind as the reality of my situations sets in. And when Jasper shoves me aside so that I'm not bitten in two by one of the gryphons prancing in front of us.
Yes. Gryphons.
I've never actually seen one before now (my only experience with flying creatures being with our very own Pegasi back at the camp stables) and I have to say, they're not at all like how I used to picture them. Sleek, lithe, sporting the black body of a panther along with the face and feet of a raven, they're a far cry from the majestic critters with a lion-eagle combo I'd been promised in my bedtime fairy tales. But they're every bit as ferocious, and it takes the considerable skill of a Hunting Goddess to keep them under control with so much fresh meat around.
"Uh.." is the most articulate thing I can muster, given the circumstances. Artemis sends me a wry smile over her shoulder.
"Be at ease, young archer," she says calmly, bravely reaching out to stroke her long fingers over the offending gryphon's beak; it shivers in delight, nudging against her hand, demanding more.
Alright... that man-eating thing is acting like a tiny kitten with her... that doesn't mean it isn't thinking about taking my arm off for a nifty little sample.
So you can see why I might be a bit hesitant about letting Andrena (the lovely gryphon's charming name) carry me from sea to shining sea.
"She's pretty~!" My jaw drops as Isaiah hops forward and scratches just behind the gryphon's tufted ear, earning high-pitched squawks of pleasure that are more frightening than any howl, shriek or screech I've heard in all my fifteen years, demigod or not. "I didn't know demigods did things like this! I am so freaking happy my mom turned out to be Iris!"
I bit my tongue, restraining myself from pointing out that no, we don't normally do things like this because really, there's no point to dampening this kid's spirits. Two seconds'll pass and he'll be back on his feet, chirping about the fluffy white clouds or the dewdrops on the grass swamping over our feet.
Even so, I'm regretting telling Jasper to forget about our plane tickets. I would rather have taken my chances twenty-thousand feet in the air in a shiny metal contraption, but Artemis vehemently refuses to use such human inventions, so she called down her (partially trained) flock of gryphons to be our rides.
Jasper's near-silent sniggering is not helping my mood. At all.
"C'mon, Lyra," Thalia huffs, shoving against my shoulder and sending me tumbling into Andrena's sleek hide with quite the undignified squeak on my part. "It's not so bad! And you know I can't stand heights!"
The gryphon dips slightly, shaking me off with the barest of bucks, and I fall gracelessly onto my ass in the dew-stained grass.
I am having so much fun right now, you quite literally have no idea.
I can't even put it into words.
Well, at least she didn't eat my hand. That's something.
Jasper and Isaiah mount their somewhat-trusty steeds with relative ease, which prompts Jasper to smirk mockingly at me when he notices I've yet to pick myself up from the ground and am currently staring deep into the soul of my soon-to-be murderer.
