Both Struck By Lightning

   It's been a while since I lost my wings. Since then, my life has changed forever. I've been put under the "special needs" list at my school. Everyone feels sorry for me. I always get stared at, talked about, scrutinized, every single thing that would happen to an outcast. And I have no choice but to get used to it.

   And, surprisingly, I already am.

   My cello is my primary outlet, as it's always been. Whenever I need to vent or feel like I'm about to break, it's always a complete relief to pick up a bow and play a melody. I have to play much more often than I used to, though. I want to keep myself in check and avoid snapping like I did at the hospital.

   The hospital... I shudder. I'd said the most horrible things to my parents that day. What was I thinking? I was the one who'd made the foolish decision to look for some random noise. I was the one who let my wings get mangled beyond repair. I was the one who nearly let the the Diamond Dog kill me. It was all my fault.

   For a moment, I'm in a state of dread. I don't want what happened at the hospital to happen ever again. That spiteful, enraged griffin wasn't me. I don't want it to be me. I've always kept myself away from everything teenagers start to fall for. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't start fights, and I don't get into gangs. If I let myself become bitter like I did that day, it could be the first step to me falling into one of those traps and watching my entire life fall apart around me. Not even the loss of my wings could cause so much irreparable damage.

   I suddenly can't breathe. The thought alone of losing almost any chance I have at getting anywhere twists my innards and tightens my throat. I feel like I'm falling into a black pit, a nightmare I just can't wake up from. Every single bad thing in the world that could happen to me plays over in my head. Losing my friends, losing my family... Losing my life.

   I snap back into reality as the floorboard beneath me creaks. I'm in my room, one claw gripping my bow and the other on the neck of my cello. I was right in the middle of playing a seranade. I'm standing in front of my blue bed, sepia walls on all four sides. My nightstand sits with a lit lamp above it. A desk sits with a chair on the opposite side of the room, cluttered with paper and colored pencils.

   I shake my head furiously. Get it together! I admonish myself, You lost your wings! Of course you were going to be angry! It's not going to happen again anytime soon. Just play your cello and get it off your mind.

   Steadying myself, I take a few deep breaths and bring my bow to the cello strings. The instrument hums an E note as I slide the bow very slowly across one string. The E note continues for twelve whole seconds, and then I cut into a series of quick strokes across the strings, bringing the notes down a step every verse. The song is something I dimly remember. The title is I'll Fly Higher from the Equestrian acoustic band "Mango Pony."

   "I will," I mumble. "I will fly higher. Even without my wings." My claws move faster and faster across the neck of the cello as the song progresses, building like some sort of rock-style solo. The next thing I know, my entire body is music, all sorts of notes on all sorts of octaves, pulling me into it and deafening me with noise. I get lost in the sound of the cello and the feeling of playing it. It's captured me within its jaws and have nowhere to go. The music inside of me turns into light, and the harshness of reality is gone. Anything that I fear, I can brave. Anything that I hate, I can get rid of. Anything that I love, I can have more of. And I love this cello.

   For the third time in five minutes, I'm no longer in the real world. I only exist in the plane of my own playing, drowning in the feeling of the instrument. I feel as if I'm facing my problems down one by one, and for every line I play, I defeat those problems.  I'm alone with just my cello, exactly what I want. I have all the time in the world to play this instrument, to do something I love. I'm doing it. I'm living the dream. I'm better than I am. I'm—

   "Duez, come here." My mother's voice. I'm in my room again. I stop playing my cello and sit the bow down, leaning my instrument against the wall. Poking my head out from the doorway, I see my mom across the hall. She's smiling.

Well, that's a good sign, at least, I think as I exit my room. I trot across the hall towards my mother. I'm curious as to what she's going to say. I stop in front of her and tilt my head, like some sort of dog. "What do you need?" I ask.

   "Did you pass your math test with an A plus?" My mom asks.

   I nod. "Yeah. Teacher said I didn't get any questions wrong." I give her a confused look. "What's the big—?"

   I don't get to finish before my mom wraps me in a hug. "That's the first time you've gotten one all week!" she exclaims. "Congratulations!"

What the Hell? I force myself out of Mom's embrace before she ends up crushing my ribs. That split second alone left me with an aching barrel. "What's the big deal?" I wheeze.

   My mom straightens. "Well, you see," she began. "After you, err... Lost your wings, you continuously received D's and F's on your grades after. I was hoping it was just a phase and would clear up soon. And luckily, I was correct!" She smiles again. "I'm proud of you, Duez!"

   "For keeping myself in check?" I raise in eyebrow in mock confusion. My mother laughs.

   "Yes, actually," she replies. "Don't be modest, son. The surgeons removed your wings. Very few griffins can go through that and continue through life so well this soon afterwards."

   "Yeah, well, not many griffins can vent their life problems through a cello," I joke in reply. "Thank it."

  Mom hugs—well, crushes—me again. "You're such a good little griffin," she says with a bit of a squee.

   "You're acting like a little girl, mom," I say. "Chill, for the sake of my ribcage." My ribs do, in fact, feel like cracking.

   "My father would always say that when I grew up, I'd be a girl in a woman's body," my mom replies. "Maybe he was right."

   I grin to myself, then hug her back. It feels good to be happy. Sure, I've relieved my tension playing cello, but I haven't been in a truly uplifting mood since I lost my wings. I'd felt certain, powerful, determined... but never positive.

   We stay like that for a while, but as always, we have to let go some time or another. So we do. My mom sweeps her forelocks out of her eyes, then looks at me.

   "Also, your father and I got a letter from your History teacher saying that you were absent on the day he sent out permission slips for a field trip."

   My eyes widen a bit. "Field trip? Why didn't he tell me?"

   "He claimed he was too busy. Anyway, the field trip is to a local station where Griffinian Guards train. He says that he wants to take his classes there to give them an insight on the country's guard system. Your father and I talked it over for a bit, and we decided that it wouldn't do any harm for you to go—if you want to, that is. You'd have to have your escort fly you there." She adds the last part a bit tentatively.

   I blink. A Griffinian Guard station? Interesting. I've never been to one before.

   I nod. "Sure, why not?"

   It's the day of the field trip. I'm pretty excited about it. History class is just beginning, and the teacher isn't here yet. To busy myself, I look at all the things in the classroom I've seen a million times before. A timeline of how the Republic of Griffinia came to be. A red board covered in cheesy motivational phrases. The teacher's name, Mr. Archeos, up on the blackboard. I give up entertainment and just sit at my desk, rapping my talons against the top. The rest of the class is a mess of noise, students chatting about the trip and asking one another questions about it. It's getting fairly annoying, and I grow impatient as I wait for Mr. Archeos to come through the door and shut them up.

   Luckily, it doesn't take much longer before he does.

   I see him walk through the door, a white head on a brown body and a very yellow beak. He's old and grizzled, like a rusty barbecue grill. He plops a wad of folders and papers on his desk and looks up at the class.

   "Quiet," he says calmly, but loudly. The class calms down some and turns his attention to him. Once he has their undivided attention, he pulls out a small stack of notebook paper, then walks around the room, handing out the blank pages.

   "All who have their permission slips signed, bring them to me," he says once the final student gets a paper. The entire class stands up to give their slips to him, including me. We fall into a single file line and bring our little pieces of paper up to him. He takes them and heads back to the front of the room. He grabs a piece of chalk and starts writing down a typical set of rules for the field trip: The class will be flying to our destination, no talking when an adult is talking, stay with the group, yadda yadda yadda. I try to stay alert and keep focused should there be some small rule that's crucial to something, but before long I find myself fidgeting in my seat, unable to pay attention.

   After what feels like eons, Mr. Archeos finishes listing the rules, then turns towards me. I see him out of my peripherals and snap my head towards the teacher, trying to make it look like I was paying attention the whole time.

   "Duez," he says, "Your escort will be at the departure area when we arrive."

   I nod as some kids turn to look at me, probably not used to the fact that I'm flightless. My cheeks grow warm under their stares, and I feel like shrinking, until Mr. Archeos calls their attention back. He drones over some last-second rules, then we get ready to leave.

   I can feel my stomach twisting in excitement as the class slowly heads for where we take off. The school building seems much more massive, and the class feels like it's merely inching forwards. I tap the kid in front of me on the shoulder, a griffin with yellow head feathers and a black body. He turns to me. "What?" he asks, somewhat irritably.

   "How long will the flight to the station be?" I ask.

   "About an hour," he replies, then turns away.

   I groan. An hour?! My stomach sinks.

   This is going to be a long trip.

   "Duez, correct?" The enormous griffin asks.

    I nod, skeptical. How's he know my name?

   "I'm here to escort you to the military station," the griffin says. Oh, that's how. I nod, then climb onto his back. He flaps his wings, then shoots into the sky, racing to catch up with my classmates. I dig in with my hind legs when I feel myself begin to slip, wrapping my forelegs around my escort's chest. I manage to steady myself out and hold on tightly as the griffin rockets through the sky.

   Before long, we've caught up to my class, and the griffin I'm on slows down to a travel speed. I soften my grip on him and pull myself up into a sitting position. The winds are smooth and the class has settled into an easy flight. I look out over my escort's head, watching clouds roll by just above us. The air feels crisp in my feathers, and it's a nice, sunny day. It feels good to be in the sky, even if I'm not the one who's flying. I go into a kind of autopilot mode, oblivious and just enjoying myself, much like how I do when playing my cello.

   The time is slowly ticking by, and I can't wait to get to the military station. For now, though, I relish the feeling of flight. All this time, I'd taken it for granted, but now, with it being a rare opportunity, I feel at peace with the world, jovial that I can be in the sky for just a bit longer. It feels so good to just close my eyes. Nothing can bother me. I shut myself off from the world and let the amity take over.

   I could get used to this.

"We're here!" Mr. Archeos calls.

   I snap awake from my half-conscious state and look ahead. In front of us is a huge bundle of structures made from some sort of metal. The metal is painted various streaks of brown, and there are watchtowers sticking above the crowd of buildings.

   A Griffinian military station.

   I hop off of my escort's back and gaze up at the thing. It's enormous. Even the watchtowers are twenty-foot squares. The entrance building is about the size of an average house. I can only guess what the rest must be like. I walk along in slight awe with the rest of the class as Mr. Archeos verifies our coming here. He shows the guards at the front of the station some sort of letter, then all the permission slips we gave him. The guards ignore the slips but grab the letter. One reads it for a bit, then nods and lets us through.

   The inside is chaos, noisier than my school's cafeteria. I see soldiers, young and old, in brown uniforms, doing all sorts of exercise. Sparring, wing-ups, laps... you name it, they were doing it. The place smells like the boys' locker room at our school's gym but ten times as overpowering. The ground is made of concrete and feels very cold beneath my talons. Almost everyone in the building we're in is focused on something; the only ones who notice us are the ones standing idly by. I feel uncomfortable under their stares. Some are scrutinizing, some are curious, and others are eerily expressionless. I'm stuck at the outermost edge of the group, so I feel the looks the most out of the whole class. My little stumps where wings used to be must make me look like an outcast to them, maybe even a freak. I try to ignore the stares, concentrating on the back of my teacher's head, but even without looking I can feel eyes boring into me like drills.

   Over the din of training Guards, I hear Mr. Archeos say something about "the youth section." He leads us into a slightly smaller building that's just as noisy, but all of the griffins here are younger than the ones we'd passed before.

   "This is where griffins train in preparation for enlistment if they are not yet eighteen," Mr. Archeos says. "The youth section consists of multiple exercises including combat, sprinting, flying, and climbing. On rare occassions, the mentors of the youth students may take them into a country that neighbors the Griffin Empire to show them what to do when in enemy territory. Once the students turn eighteen—"

   "Excuse me!" I hear a call from my right. I turn my head and see a very exotic-looking griffin heading our way. He has blue eyes and a blue beak, wth a black mask of feathers covering his face and shoulders. The rest of his body is white and the tip of his tail is the same blue as his eyes. Various barely-healed bruises and cuts litter his body. He looks about seventeen.

   "What is it?" Mr. Archeos asks.

   The griffin walks around the gruop of kids, pushes past the griffin who carried me here—who, for some reason, isn't outside—and places a claw on my shoulder. "Can I talk to your student for a minute?" he asks my teacher.

   I look up at him in surprise. Why me? What did I do?

   "Why?" Mr. Archeos asks. He looks skeptical, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. I understand his distrust; what does that griffin want with me? Did something happen between us?

   "Because we saved each other's lives," the griffin replies.

   "What?" I look up at him in disbelief. "I don't even know you!"

   The griffin rolls his eyes at me as Mr. Archeos' forehead creases. "I'll explain if your teacher lets me talk to you—if he's even your teacher," he says to me.

   "He is," I say slowly.

   Eventually, Mr. Archeos gives his answer. "Okay, but be quick," he says. "And don't try anything funny!"

   The griffin nods and walks away, pulling me with him. I follow along hesitantly as he turns around a corner. The second he does, he pulls me down behind a pile of sandbags. What the hell does this guy want to say to me? I feel nervous, apprehensive, and for some reason, irritated.

   The second we're crouched, I glare at him. "What are you doing?!" I yell. He puts a talon to my lips to silence me and then fixes me with a solemn stare.

   "I'm that griffin you saved from the Diamond Dog," he says.