Chapter 4: To reach for a broken man's dreams

Paul swooped down between the trees, me riding on his back, and with a mighty push of his wings landed on all fours. Immediately I jumped off of him and started hugging the ground.

The gryphons and I had been searching for my brother for seven days. And on the seventh day, we had officially searched through the whole forest.  On the seventh day, the search had stopped.

Each of those passing days had torn some part of me apart; each day knowing that my brother was out there crushed my heart. I became apathetic to any reason, all I did was search. In that time, that was my only purpose.

The thought of him brought me to my knees, tears welling up in my eyes as I remembered the moment when I wasn’t fast enough, when I let him fall. And I couldn’t help but think about how my parents would have reacted. You failed us and your brother, I imagined them saying, scowls on their faces. And with the pain, sadness, and rage mixed in, I flexed my hands into fists and beat them against the ground until blood ran freely from my knuckles. The physical pain helped me forget. And, for the first time in my life, I learned that the really powerful emotions do exist, that it’s not something authors make up. It’s as real as the wounds on my hands.

On the seventh night I had cried myself to sleep.

After that, the gryphon family was the only light shining in this foreign darkness. They took me in, a completely unknown creature. They helped me. And the worst thing? I would never know why they decided to keep me around them. Why they decided to help me. Kindness of strangers? A hidden motive? Guilt? Understanding?

In those few days I learned that I wasn’t quite home anymore if the gryphons were any clue. No, I had seen a few maps of some of the regions of this world that I managed to get a glimpse at when the gryphons were organizing search parties, and it looked nothing like Earth. Especially when a lot of those maps were marking a lot of territories as unknown. That we weren’t on Earth didn’t terrify me as much as the prospect of a whole new world filled with the impossible, and thus eroding most of what I had been taught on Earth.

Soon I became the novelty of their little mountain village. Everyone would come to look at me, to touch me, to speak to me even though we couldn’t really talk through our language barriers. It really looked like humans weren't an often occurance. We managed to understand each other through gestures, though. Somewhat. And while the kids seemed to like me to some extent, the adults never stopped being suspicious of me.

When the search started, Paul had immediately volunteered himself to fly me around. I, out of my fear of heights, politely refused by shaking my head frantically.

He had none of it.

When I wasn’t looking, he swept down and caught me under my arms. And before I knew it, I was airborne.

“No! Put me down!” I screeched through the howling wind. I flailed my hand and my legs around in a vain attempt to make him let go of me. Not the cleverest thing when one was airborne. But panic was taking over every bit of common sense I had.

I accidently hit him in a rather sensitive area at the base of one of his wings. Needless to say, I wasn’t a feather-weight to begin with, so he had already been slightly struggling to hold me the entire time before I hit him. Thus, when it happened, he let go of me. While still being high above the ground.

I screamed profanities as the air whizzed around me in a much more intensive manner, the ground nearing closer and closer. I thought that was the end of me, when something caught me under my leg. It was no one other than Paul, who had the goofiest smile on his face.

When we landed, he immediately went into a fit of laughter and started rolling on the ground. I was rolling on the ground, too, but due to very different reasons.

That was the first day of our searching. The next six days, whenever we left at the morning, he demanded that he would carry me by wildly gesturing at his back. I didn’t object after that one horrifying flight, still didn't mean I liked it.

That was how the next seven days went. During the day we would search, and during the night I would be outside, looking at the forest until the cold wind would lull me to sleep. And even then I would always wake up in the warm, cozy bed I had woken up in the first time. I didn’t question it, but the old gryphon would always give me a knowing look.

And now, on the eighth day, I arrived at the place where it all began. The meadow.

One last look; that was all I asked, all I begged for. One last search to confirm that indeed my brother hadn’t been here.

And even though Paul and I had been searching for many hours, we never found anything. Not a trace.

The forest lay silent, and so did my heart.

A kingdom of stars stretched out above me to every corner of horizon, the throne of moon illuminating my every sorrow as I had gazed upon it, and seen nothing but beauty and the beauty of the world below me. I was clothed, and yet I felt so naked in its cold light.

I hummed a quiet song to calm me down, left unheard by anyone but me and the joyful wind, ignorant to my pleas for help, sweeping over the mountain tops, dancing over the plains with the eternal green guardians joining in with a dance of their own. Indeed, such untainted and unknown magnificence hid within my sight. And it was all within my reach. All I had to do was pluck it from the tree of life and it would be mine. But one thing, one fruit hanging way above had eluded my grasp, one life that meant everything to me.

Was it so cruel, so unimaginable to be offered the infinite yet longing for but one thing and one thing only? Was I foolish in my humility that but one thing was all I asked for?

It seemed to be, as the one thing I wanted the most stayed well out of my reach.

“Why?” was all I asked. The eternal question that would hold the answers. Why was I here? That was the obvious one. But was I in the right place? I remembered the vortex, the purple void. My brother fell down, while I went up. For all I knew, the vortex could have been the universe, and now I was somewhere completely else, somewhere far away.

Was I even in the right world?

Such a dangerous question. A few words that held all the answers. Was it futile to even hope to reunite with my brother in this place? Was he somewhere out there, gazing upon the stars as I was gazing now? Or was he here, looking at everything that I could see, yet not seeing each other? Was I to blame myself?

It wasn’t your fault. The wind whispered, barely noticeable, something at the edge of my mind and consciousness.

“I know.” Indeed I knew. But I had to ask, what would have happened if I had been standing just a little closer to him, just so I could reach his hands in time, to grab him and prevent his fall into the darkness, to prevent his fall from grace. Would we still be separated?

What was matters not. What could have been matters not.

“Will I ever find him? Is it even possible to find him?”

What shall be matters not.

The future is written by winners, while the losers stood small. The future was shaped by our hands. We were the masters of our destiny, were we not? For if everything had been written, what purpose was there to life?

What is now…

“That matters,” I finished. I clenched my fist, my gaze hardened. It would help me not; to gaze into the past, to dwell in it. And to gaze into the future, and ask what will be, would be fruitless. Only the presence mattered. Only my present actions would bear the fruits of my labor.

I was in a world unlike Earth. It was an impossible place. And yet here I was. Something impossible had brought me here. And something impossible could reunite us.

Was my brother here? I knew not. But if he was, I would find him. I will find him. And I will find him alive. But I needed to learn more about this world if I were to even have that chance. I had to prepare for a journey without an end.

The forest lay silent, but my heart; my heart would beat once more.

It was dawn, and with it a new hope had arisen. If I were to venture into the great unknown, I would need to be able to understand at least on some basic level one of their languages. Something that was used in a lot of places, like English in our world. Or I would need someone to express themselves for me. But I didn’t want to drag anyone into my problems anymore, unless they explicitly offered to help. However, I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to leave this village with me. None of them really trusted me in full, what were the chances they would abandon their lives here just for some risky quest to search for something, or in my case, for someone?

I would also need to know what the geography of this world was, what were the different countries, what different species were sapient beside the gryphons (if there were other sapient species), if there were even humans in this world beside me and, hopefully, my brother; what were the “specialties” of this world. As this looked like a completely different world from Earth, I couldn’t take anything that was certain on Earth for granted here. And I really do mean anything. I could swear I had seen some of the gryphons moving the clouds around, but I never once questioned it out loud beside in my mind, since I was so focused on doing the one thing I could.

And that was just the general knowledge. The equipment I would need to be able to permanently stay on the road boggled my mind, because I wasn’t certain what I would need. I mean beside the obvious.

I also needed some new clothing. Badly.

There was no rooster to announce the beginning of a day, there was no light to enter the room I had slept in to indicate that a new day was dawning. There was only the intuition. And the noise beside my bed. I learned soon enough that I was actually sleeping in the “kitchen” portion of the house. My guess why there was a bed in the kitchen? Besides the living room, it must have been the warmest place in the house since there was constantly something boiling, cooking, and brewing.

Mama gryphon was always the first one to wake up so she could prepare a breakfast for the whole family and me. The breakfast itself consisted mostly of meat, some dried fruit, and a whole tankard of water. There wasn’t even bread, just the dried or cooked, unsalted meat and the occasional fruit.

And while they were eating and talking, I would always sit there silently, deep in thought. But not today. They didn’t seem uncivilized and they weren’t illiterate, as I had seen Jack a few times counting and writing something. Either they were home-schooled, or there was a school nearby. I intended to find out and perhaps attend a lesson or two. Yeah, I was already able to see it, me sitting in a room full of kids.

With a small cough I got the attention I required. Without even having to ask, Jack handed me some blank scrolls, a quill, and some ink, all of which he was keeping around if I needed something. While I wasn’t the best at drawing, I could still get the point across through simplistic caricatures and childish drawings.

I drew what I hoped looked like a school. I also drew a lot of small gryphons around it and one large gryphon with glasses, a book, and a top hat. I didn’t count on them knowing what those things, except of the book, meant, but it was still something I chuckled a little about.

They stayed silent for quite some time. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to figure out what the hell was I trying to “tell” them, or if they were contemplating what the hell I wanted to do in a school. I hadn’t really “told” them about my plans of leaving their peaceful little village and going on a grand search beyond the boundaries of what the eye could see. I hadn’t really told them anything since the search was canceled.

Jack said something out loud, blinking a few times. The others nodded in what looked like surprise. The small kid looked ecstatic, saying something repeatedly over and over again. So I tried to say it too, hopefully hinting them that I tried to learn something at least on a basic level. After all, I didn’t know how long I was going to stay in this world; if I would ever leave, that is.

I wasn’t quite successful, the whole chirping and clicking of the beak not so easily replicated with only mouth. While to them it came naturally as a part of opening and closing their beaks, I had to do it manually with my teeth. Plus it didn’t sound quite right.

They laughed a little at my try. Then Jack shrugged, turned to me and said something.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” I replied. He just smiled that creepy smile of theirs and nodded. Oh yeah, it was learning time. God dammit, I know I’ll hate myself for this. But what must be done…

Must be done.