Stephen came in with a low jab. I dodged. After he missed, he flared his wing in my face and held it there. I blindly fought to get out of his melee range, but even as I did, I felt one of his hands grab my neck while his other fist started hammering my side.
In lightning-fast desperation, I grabbed Stephen’s wing and used it as leverage for a spinning kick at his left hind leg. Tripping a griffin only accounted for the four limbs that didn’t matter, and in a real fight, the appropriate response would probably be to take to the air. That wasn’t what we were doing, though, so Stephen stumbled when my foot connected with his.
As he fell, he put his left shoulder into a tackle, trapping me beneath him. I should have seen it coming. I was faster, but he was older and bigger. If he were on top of me, his size and weight gave him complete control of the fight. Sure enough, a few seconds later, I was pinned with my back to the ground. One hand holding my throat, Stephen smiled as he drummed his other hand’s talons against the side of my neck. “So what’s that make the record now, Jerry?”
I scowled. To anyone else, I was Gerard, the name my father had given me. “Jerry” was usually impudent mockery from the two sisters I couldn’t beat some respect into. Unlike them, Stephen had earned the right to call me that—if not because of his strength in combat, then because he was my friend.
Friendship or no, I wouldn’t accept defeat so easily. I grabbed his hands, pushed them away from my neck, and pinned his wings to his back with my hind legs around. Pushing with my own wings, I rolled us over, pinned his arms down above his head, and tapped his neck with my beak. “I think this one is a draw.”
Beneath me, Stephen rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’d have that much strength while bleeding out.”
I smiled down at him. “I would kill you out of spite.”
He chuckled. “Whatever, loser. Let me up.”
“Say it was a draw.”
The rules of our fighting were fairly simple: no flying, no talons, no beaks, and no groin attacks. Matches ended when someone marked a killing blow. Still, a clean victory was different from a fight where neither side won.
Instead of admitting defeat, Stephen turned it into a second fight where he tried to get free from my grip. I held his arms easily enough, but then he started to slowly slide up through my knees’ grip. As I fought to keep my hold on him, his rubbing and squirming between my legs made me very aware of how close together we were, and I quickly started to lose a third battle—one of self-restraint.
By his shocked expression, Stephen noticed it, too. Immediately, I stood up. I didn’t care about the fight anymore. Before I could step away, Stephen’s eyes darted downward in a quick glance. His eyes shot back up to mine, and he threw me a devious smile. Then, he grabbed the base of my wings and rolled us over again.
It was my turn to look up, confused. Stephen only smiled as he pressed his abdomen harder into my groin and began sliding up and down slowly, deliberately. I gasped, but pleasure overcame surprise. I closed my eyes, arching my stomach up into his chest and wrapping my hands around his shoulders.
He shuddered in a chuckle. “You like this, huh?”
There wasn’t a response. There weren’t thoughts. There was only the two of us. My sighs, his deep breaths. A soft warmth that was filling me, giving everything a sort of hazy feeling...
I woke up, spasming, sticky, and unsure where I was. As the last remnants of fatigue drifted away from me, I realized that I had just woken from a dream. It was a disgusting, recurring one, and a symptom of some weakness I held, but that was all it was.
A dream.
Looking around in the near-pitch black darkness, the stone walls reminded me where I was: one of the chambers of a griffin-carved cave. My room. Or... I glared at the fuzzy shadow near the wall opposite me. It used to be just mine. I shook my head; I had gotten over whole thing last year.
One year. It seemed so long ago, back when things were simpler. Back when my only problem was an annoying younger brother. Back before I started having those stupid dreams about Stephen.
Dreams.
At least, that’s all I wanted them to be. Dreams left you when you woke up. What I actually had was a much harsher reality. I was in love with my best friend. It was a haunting, looming, stupid, unnatural love, but I couldn’t stop it. I tried. The part of me that wanted him wouldn’t listen to logic.
The first time I had dreamed about Stephen like that, I had made the mistake of ignoring it and trying to pretend that I was still normal. That only made things worse, and the dreams started happening more and more frequently. That was when I knew something was wrong with me, even if I didn’t know how to fix it. I tried to accept the dreams as a weird mental tic, but when those nighttime desires started to cross my mind while I was awake, I had to admit that it wasn’t going away. I needed to address the problem, somehow.
That had been way back in April. Now, it was early September, and I was still clueless as to how I needed to go about addressing it. If things kept going the way they had been, I was going to stay clueless, too.
With a sigh, I decided to focus on something I could actually take care of: hygiene. That night wasn’t the first time I had woken up like that because of Stephen, so I at least had some sense of routine to it all. Step one: wake up, reminded of my problem. Step two: bathe. The nearest source of bathing water was a river in the forest to the south of my tribe’s ridge, so first, I needed to leave my family’s cave.
Standing up, I tried to ignore the wet spot in the fur on my stomach. I walked out of my—our—sleeping chamber, into my family’s main chamber. In the middle of the night, the rest of my family was asleep, but the glowing remnants of our nightly fire were enough to navigate by. I was grateful for the light; walking beak-first into a rock wall wouldn’t improve my night so far.
The floors in our home were smooth and clean, so I didn’t have to worry too much about loose pebbles. Not only could they hurt to step on, they’d also make a sound if I kicked them; I needed to be quiet in my departure. I wasn’t forbidden to leave our home if I wanted to, but I didn’t feel like waking everyone up to announce why I needed to take a trip to the river, either. Besides, stealth was a good thing to practice.
I turned into the long, sloping hallway that lead outside. It amplified noise, so even even the clicking of talons on rock could be a giveaway. The key thing was to walk with soft, careful steps. Slowly, I made my way to our landing, and as I stepped outside, I felt proud at how quietly I had—
“What’re you two up to?”
I nearly jumped out of my own skin. When I turned, Gilda was hiding in her usual nook to the left of the entrance. She had the nerve to smile at me. Contemptible bitch. She wasn’t worthy of Father’s reverence, not with her constant failures. Yet she thought she was everyone’s superior, choosing to sleep alone with her “equals,” the gods.
Any other night, I would’ve taught her an ounce of respect. That night, I had more important matters to attend to. “Minding my business. You should try it some time.”
“Minding your business? Okay, what are you and Stephen up to?” She stuck her tongue out at me.
I thought about cutting it off. Some other time, I placated myself. For now, I sneered at her, raised two fingers and leaped off the stone ledge.
After a quick glide to the ground, I landed near the rocky, shrubby base of our mountain and collected my thoughts. Traveling through the Jägerwald was potentially dangerous during the day; it was a thick, junglish forest full of predators. At night, that was when the more violent and stranger things prowled about. Additionally, there were also few leaf-eating beasts of considerable size; even though most of them knew better than to come near griffin nesting grounds, those that did had the unfortunate combination of stupidity and strength.
The obvious solution, flying above the forest, had its own difficulties attached to it. Not only did the trees make navigation difficult, it also meant that I would be tracked by any number of creatures that were waiting below. If I were older, I wouldn’t have minded a fight. For the time being, I didn’t mind sneaking along the ground route if it were safer.
The fastest path to the river would be to follow a dirt trail that led straight to it. That was the most popular stretch of river by far, though, so anyone could be there. Despite everything else wrong with her, I took both comfort and warning from what Gilda had said. If she mentioned Stephen, that meant he was probably awake, too—and possibly in a public spot.
With that in mind, I deviated from the path and headed to a more distant clearing. Stephen and I had spent a lot of time exploring our tribe’s territory—as friends. He preferred the mountains, I preferred the forest, but together, there were many secluded places that only we knew about.
I headed toward one of my favorite secret spots. It was a small, grassy clearing that had a tall line of bushes that separated it from the river. It was hidden, private, and there was the river nearby for food and drink; even Stephen liked it more than some of his rock formations.
As I walked, I kept low, almost prowling. The moon was waxing and I wasn’t in the thick, dense part of the jungle, so I had more than enough light to see my surroundings. Just like at home, I was silent. Unlike home, there was more than pride to lose if something found me. All it took was one broken twig to announce my presence. I also had to check my surroundings to make sure that nothing was sneaking up on me. All the stealth in the world would be useless if I got blindsided by another predator.
Even considering all that, I still made good time. I didn’t run into anything, either, which was mixed fortune. I didn’t have to fight for my life, but the silence and solitude crept into my mind and repeated everything that was wrong with me:
I was a freak.
Nothing could change that.
I was alone.
I let myself slow down and sigh. The worst part was how I had to keep it all bottled up inside. I thought the best thing to do would be to tell someone. My mind blanked when I tried to figure out who, though. I couldn’t tell Stephen; he was my best friend, but I couldn’t tell him that I loved him, that I was... was...
I didn’t even know if there was a word for what I was. I did know there was a law against it, though. Back in March, to convince myself not to love Stephen, I had looked at my tribe’s laws to see how bad the punishment for “us” would be. After all, if infertility was grounds for death, what punishment would lay in store for a male like me who wanted a male romantic partner?
The answer was a scary, intricate process that would ultimately lead to one of our deaths.
So no, I couldn’t tell him. It was too heavy of a secret to burden him with, and he was better off not knowing. After Stephen, my list of “griffins I could confide in” was nonexistent—not with something so important. I wasn’t really friends with any other griffins in our tribe. My younger brother was six. My sisters were all full of themselves, and I didn’t want to let them know any of my secret weaknesses.
Perhaps if Mother spoke, she could’ve taught me something about living with weakness, but I didn’t want to let her know that I was just as pathetic as she was. Father, also, was not approachable with weakness.
I started walking again, still focusing on being unseen and unheard. It didn’t distract me from contemplating why I had to be in the forest to get clean in the first place. The rest of the journey only took twenty minutes, but by the time I could hear the river’s gurgling water, I thoroughly hated myself.
I reached the edge of the clearing, and at first, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Above me, the trees grew thick, but there was a large enough gap in their branches to let the moon’s light glimmer down and give everything a soft, silvery glow. On the ground around the clearing, bushes grew in a loose ring to define a large, round meadow.
Then I noticed him.
On the other side of the clearing, Stephen sat with his back against his tree. His wings were splayed out around him, his legs were spread out in front of him, and he was pleasuring himself. Moonlight gave me the luck to see the entire display in vivid detail: His eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell in deep breaths as his right hand made slow, rhythmic strokes.
By his smile, I knew he was enjoying it. By the stiffening I felt, I knew I did too.
My heart sped up, and I wanted to go over and join in. I shook that desire out of my head. It was wrong and stupid. I shouldn’t be there. It was wrong.
Still, I couldn’t stop watching.
Part of me—my rational mind—told me that it was wrong to be spying on him like that, and that I needed to leave and give him privacy. There was a reasonthat he was in a secluded spot to be alone, and I was violating that. At the very least, I needed to hide; there were trees on either side of me, but I was right in front of him. If he opened his eyes, he’d see me.
My weakness turned my feet to lead, though, and I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Even as I hated myself for it, my eyes stayed locked on Stephen as he increased his pace.
Finally, he took a deep breath and held his chest out; with one last, slow stroke and a soft moan, it was over.
I kept watching as he opened his eyes to look down at his chest and stomach. Apparently satisfied, he closed his eyes again and stretched: first his arms, then his chest, and then his legs. As they spread out, I took one last glance—
The stretch stopped. My eyes shot up to his, and he was staring right at me.
I went limp in fear.
We stared at each other for what felt like hours. From Stephen’s face, all that I could gather was that he was angry, annoyed, or confused. Probably all three.
Finally, he broke the silence with an agitated “What?”
“I...” I couldn’t think of what to say. Everything I had enjoyed about spying on him left me as I realized that he was as dangerous as he was beautiful, and right now, he was pissed. “H... uh... hi?”
Using his wings, he pushed off from the tree and stood up on all fours. With what was either a long blink or a short cringe, he replied, “Hi.” He gave me a strained grin before shaking his head and asking, “What are you doing here?”
Fear ate at my stomach, and I wanted to run away. That wouldn’t fix anything, so I started stammering before I realized I couldn’t even tell him the truth. “I... I came here—”
“That makes two of us,” Stephen interrupted, drumming his talons on the forest floor. His strained grin turned up at the edge a little, but I still tried to hide my laughter in a cough. The relief I felt at his joke—even so stupid and tense of one—let me put together a decent cover story. “I wanted a drink, and my sister told me you were up, so I thought I would come see what you were, uh, up to.” My palms were sweating, and I still felt a massive weight in my stomach, but after telling him, that seemed to loosen.
Stephen’s frown dissolved as he chuckled. Walking over to me, he chided, “You know, next time, if I want to do something with you at night, I’ll come get you.” I nodded back, even as the weight of his rebuke hit me. As he drew closer, he continued, “I mean, no offense. Just, you know, I travel out here away from everything for privacy...”
“Right,” I nodded again, trying to hide my cringe. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
He came to a stop right in front of me. He was taller, which gave him a looming presence. Looking down, he asked, “So, in the future, you won’t try to come find me or sneak up on me when I’m in the middle of... things?”
“Yeah. Yes. Sorry.” I kept nodding.
Stephen smiled and tousled the feathers on top of my head with his right hand. “Don’t worry too much about it, then. First time’s a mistake.” His smile left him as he glared down at me again. “But seriously. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
That time, I glared back up at him. “Well, now that I think about it for a third time...” I knocked his hand away and smoothed down my head feathers. They were slick and wet. I cringed, hissing before I could vocalize, “Really?”
He laughed before saying, “You were staring at my balls so hard, I thought I’d give you a souvenir.” I gagged a little, which made him laugh even harder before he assured me, “Don’t worry, it’s mostly mud.”
That makes it better. I clamped my eyes shut and shook my head in disgust, which only drew more laughter from Stephen. His accusation hit deep, though, so I didn’t say anything else. Or maybe I was shocked into silence by what he had done. Either way, if he was going to pass off the situation with a dirty joke, I didn’t mind.
In fact, on some level, I kind of liked it.
When I opened my eyes, Stephen pointed in the direction of the river. “Come on, then,” he said as his laughter died down. “Let’s go wash up.” He turned around, making a point to tuck the base of his tail firmly between his legs, leaving the tip free to pat me on the cheek. I batted it away, but that only made him laugh again as he walked away.
Still, he had the right idea, so walked quickly to catch up—on his left side. The river was close by, so after climbing through the bushes, we were there. We waded into the water together, but I let the current take me away from Stephen. I had definitely just crossed one personal line; I didn’t want to tempt fate a second time by crowding him while we were bathing.
Getting clean was a quick matter, even if I had to wash my head a few times to be sure I got all of Stephen off me. I made sure to wash my stomach, too—if he hadn’t noticed anything before, then I definitely didn’t want to have to explain that. In case he was watching, I also took care of my wings and arms.
When I was done, I climbed out of the river. Stephen joined me, and we sat in awkward, dripping silence for a few moments. I watched the current, which was pretty boring; bathing tended to scare off any potential fish.
Finally, Stephen broke the silence: “So, did you have something in mind, or what?”
I turned to him. “Huh?”
“After your drink, you said you wanted to hang out.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at the sand with a shrug. “Not really. I mean, I definitely did not plan on finding you...” I glanced up at him. “Like that.”
He flared his eyebrows. “Every two weeks. Mark your calendar.”
“I’d need a...” I shook my head. Stephen didn’t have the same opinions as I did on trivial things like possessions and time-keeping. I didn’t want to start that argument tonight, so I resigned. “I’ll leave you alone, I already told you.” Still, the precision of his schedule made me curious: in our tribe, there were three females around his age. It wasn’t like he had to fight off any competition if he wanted sex. “But why...”
I didn’t know how to phrase the rest of my question properly, so I let it taper off into the night. Silence fell, and I started drawing a few meaningless shapes in the sand. A few moments later, Stephen grunted in confusion, so I looked back up at him. He shrugged. “Uh... what do you mean, ‘why?’ You mean, why come out here where it’s private and the river’s right there? Probably because it’s private, and the river’s right there.”
“Ha, ha,” I faked a laugh with an equally forced smile. I straightened my face into a glare before asking, “I mean, ‘why alone?’”
He looked back at me, flatly. “Well, contrary to what your father might tell you, usually you have to get a female’s permission first...” I bristled at the accusation, but Stephen continued before I could retort. “And plus... I mean, yeesh.” He opened and closed his right hand a few times next to his head. “All that talking, nagging, thinking it means something, wanting to start a family...” He shook his head and put his hand in front of him, palm-up. “Sex is fun...” He opened his left hand and stared into it. “But not with all of the strings attached.” Looking back up at me, he shrugged. “And plus, with all the girls about to start their ‘fortnight of fun,’ this time of year’s pretty risky anyway.”
Those were all pretty good reasons. With a nod, I admitted, “Okay, I didn’t think that all the way through.”
He put his hands back down into a more traditional sitting pose, then he shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Jeez. I mean, you’re what, twelve?”
“Thirteen!”
“Same difference.” He rolled his eyes. “You’ve got a few heats left before they start taking an interest in you. But then, you’ve got to think things through. You’re too smart to end up trapped like that, if you don’t want to, you know...” He made a fist with his right hand and smashed it into his left palm, letting his right fist open as he pulled it away, fingers wiggling in a flowing motion.
I cringed at the image, but I still nodded in agreement. It was good advice, even if it came from dark places. With the female birth rate being so high, it was clear that Stephen’s father didn’t only have two sons. His obvious lack of sisters wasn’t something we just spoke openly about, though, so the sound of flowing water washed back between us. I tried rekindling the conversation with the first thing that came to mind. “So, uh, you don’t want kids?”
He shook his head and sat up, raising his palms submissively. “I mean, eventually, sure. Despite how miserable everything is here, I think having a son and a couple of daughters would be kinda fun.” He shrugged. “Though it’s not like the ridge is overflowing with potential mother candidates. But maybe in a couple of years...” He trailed off, looking at me. Jealousy and disgust bubbled up in me as I knew what he was thinking about—just not which sister.
Stephen shrugged again. “Maybe I’ll see how the females in the other tribes are.”
“Snooty and scary,” I replied.
He chuckled before changing the subject. “But enough about my sex life, what about yours?” I glared at him, drawing a grin in reply. “I mean, I remember that age. Crazy days. But surely there’s someone who’s caught your attention?”
Suddenly, we were treading dangerous waters. I wanted a new topic, so I brushed his question off: “I have to put up with nine sisters on a daily basis. Nine. And that’s not counting Mother or the ones that are always chirping around her feet. If you do, then there’s thirteen females in our cave right now.” Stephen’s eyes widened slightly, so I drove my point home, “I get my fill of that headache every day, thank you very much.”
He laughed again, raising a fist to his chest before letting it fall. “Oh, come on. Family’s one thing, but you can at least choose a girlfriend.”
I hope you’re right, I thought with a sigh. I didn’t like talking about romance with Stephen. It was too risky of a topic. Part of me wanted to confess everything, even though I knew it would only end poorly. At best—at best—he wouldn’t say anything. With the punishment being what it was, if he valued his life, the best thing for him to do would be to turn me in.
If he did, I couldn’t blame him.
I couldn’t say anything, though, not about me. In response to his question, I couldn’t just say, “No, I don’t like females yet.” I was too old for that now. I wrestled with myself, trying to find the best way out of this conversation. Finally, I admitted, “I mean, there is someone...” As soon as the words left my beak, I regretted them: now Stephen was going to ask “who,” and I’d have to lie.
His eyes lit up. “Aww, see? You should ask her out sometime; courting’s fun.”
I shook my head, well aware that we were now playing with fire. Keep it vague, I told myself. “I mean, I guess.” That was good. Then, like an idiot, I kept talking. “But it’s not that simple where I can just—”
He shook his head and interrupted. “What do you mean ‘not simple?’ You think too much. Just go up and ask her, dude. It’s not doing any good to admire from afar.” He punctuated the last three words by gesturing off into the distance, following the motion with his eyes.
I glanced over at where he was pointing; it was just empty trees. “Yeah, but then what? You said it yourself: talking, nagging, clinging...”
“Well, yeah,” he scoffed, reeling his gaze back in to roll his eyes. “But you were talking about casual sex, not courting. There’s a bit of a difference there; it’s more just getting to know her.” He flashed me a quick grin. “I mean, at your age, it’s probably doomed to end in failure anyway, but it’s still decent practice for the real thing.”
I sighed, shrugging. I wanted this conversation to end. Actually, I wanted this entire night to be over. Everything was getting weird.
Still, Stephen was giving me some good advice. It was just advice that I didn’t want to follow. I didn’t want some female who I was going to have to take care of, or provide for, or defend. I wanted someone to be there for me, to caress me, to make me feel less hollow inside.
I wanted Stephen.
Yet here we were, him telling me about how to date females, and me unable to tell him what I actually wanted. It was all getting to be too much to think about, so I just shook my head. Realizing that he had just finished saying something, I replied blindly with, “I dunno...”
He shook his head back at me with a smile. “You’re just chicken.”
His words hit like a punch. I wasn’t a coward. There was just something wrong with me, something that made me impossibly different, something I couldn’t tell anyone. It wasn’t like I asked to be like I was, to have all of my waking and sleeping moments filled with wanting something I couldn’t have! I was alone, and I didn’t even know why.
It was scary.
Stephen must have seen some of my inner turmoil, because he added a quick, “I mean, if you’re that worried about it, don’t force yourself.” He smiled warmly. “I’m just saying, better sooner than later, right?”
I closed my eyes and grinned. I could vent a little under disguise, if nothing else. “That’s good advice. But still, it’s... tough, I guess, to put yourself out there, bare, like that.” I opened my eyes to look him straight-on. “I guess you’re right, I am chicken.”
He nodded and shrugged. “Eh, it’s normal to worry about rejection. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask.”
“But what if you say no?”
For almost five whole seconds, I didn’t notice my mistake. It was Stephen’s wide-eyed, fearful expression that finally made me realize what I had just said. As soon as I did, I tried to cover with, “S-she. What if she says no?”
It was too late. I could tell by his face that he didn’t believe it. He shook his head and tried to say something, but it just came out as a choking sound.
For the second time that night, I wanted to run away. For the second time that night, fear locked my legs into place, so I just stood there staring into Stephen’s eyes and trying to think of what to say. Every second that I didn’t say something, the truth just got louder and louder, until there was no point in denying it anymore. I looked down and admitted, “Fine. It’s... it’s you. I love you. I’m sorry.”
Stephen found his voice enough to rasp, “H-how... since when?”
“April. Maybe a little before that, I don’t know.” I shook my head, aware of the burning that was forming at the corners of my eyes.
The following silence was heavy, like there was something pressing down on my shoulders. I couldn’t look back up at Stephen. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking, or how much he must’ve hated me right then.
Hell, I hated me. I shouldn’t have gone looking for him, or stuck around when I did. I shouldn’t have needed to clean myself in the first place.
It was all my fault.
Finally, Stephen said something. I still couldn’t look up. “Don’t... tell anyone else that. But no, dude, that’s...”
He didn’t say what “that” was. I just heard a strong flapping, and when I looked up, Stephen was gone. The burning in my eyes traveled to the back of my throat. He ran away. Because of me. As I felt a tight, choking sensation in my chest, I knew that I didn’t blame him, either.
What business did I have, telling him that? It was my disgusting secret; he didn’t need to hear it. But he left, and he probably wasn’t ever coming back.
That realization hit hard, and I choked back a sob when I realized that I hadn’t just let slip a huge secret.
I had ended our friendship.
As tempting as it was, I didn’t break down crying. I had enough weakness in me without letting myself cry. I wiped my eyes dry of the tears that had formed and, still feeling like something was strangling me, I turned to head back home.
Earlier that night, my walk to the river had been filled with misery and shame. My trip home was even worse. Not only was I alone; not only did I have to force myself to keep a vigilant, blurry eye on everything; not only did I still have the problem of being so messed up in the first place; not only had I ruined everything by telling Stephen...
Now, I was alone.
Late in September, someone alighted behind me, to the left. With a chuckle, he asked, “So... Stephen. This’s where you’ve been hiding for the past week?”
Slowly, trying to hide my surprise, I turned to face my older brother, Markus. From what I knew, the ledge that I hung out on was one of the more hidden places on the mountain face of Sharfkral-Grat, so I hadn’t exactly expected company. I shot him a bemused half-grin and asked, “Where’d you come from?”
Markus looked out to the east, to the rising sun. “If you’re worried about secrecy, then it doesn’t do you well to leave home when others are awake and watching.” It wasn’t against our tribe’s laws to hide, but still, being discovered for a mistake I hadn’t consciously made gave me a knot in my stomach.
“So,” Markus pressed, “what’s with the secret roosting?”
The ledge we were sitting on was mostly flat, and it was just the right size: big enough to fit two, maybe three griffins; small enough to be inconspicuous from below. The best part, though, was that there was a natural crevasse in the middle that, if one were so inclined, one could look through and see the entire village below.
I stared through it, waiting for the answer to my brother’s question to pass by. Then I could get breakfast. This early in the morning, the whole tribe was either sleeping or lazing around in their caves doing nothing. It made our communal plaza look dead.
With a sigh, I tried to answer Markus. “I’m...” I’m hiding because my best friend is in love with me. I almost laughed at how terrible of an answer that would be. What Gerard told me in the Jägerwald wasn’t the sort of thing you told someone.
Yet he told me. Why did he tell me?
I shook my head. “I just want to be alone, I guess.”
Markus let out a soft hiss, almost a sigh. “Your little buddy came by the other day looking for you. You’re not telling me what’s wrong...” I turned to catch his amused gaze. He shrugged and asked, “Whatever it is, are you holding out for Wodan, or what?”
At that, my shock at being found mostly went away. In its place, a fire of guilt lit up: Markus was worried about me. For the first time ever, I couldn’t tell him what was bothering me. At best, Markus saw Gerard as a harmless nuisance; my brother wouldn’t keep such a dangerous secret. It didn’t even have anything to do with the law against such a romance. True, some of our rules were violent, but the worst punishments only came for those who were caught in the middle of things.
Still, with our friendship being what it was, and the fact that I had already shown that it bothered me, Markus might see Gerard’s confession as a threat and kill him, for my sake. Honor killings were legal enough, if rare, so if the choice for death was between me or “that annoying runt,” I knew who Markus would choose. So I couldn’t tell my brother about my friend. I cared about Gerard too much. Not the same way he apparently cared about me, granted, but that didn’t mean I wanted to sign his death sentence, either.
What that left, then, was a murky dilemma of how I needed to handle Gerard’s affection for me. He wasn’t lying; he was stupid sometimes, and naïve, but he wasn’t a liar. Not about something so important. He had mentioned April, which was five months ago. It wasn’t just a spur-of-the-season whim. Still, it didn’t really affect me if I didn’t feel the same way. It couldn’t.
A thousand feet below us, Maddalyn took off flying away from the mountain toward the Jägerwald, getting breakfast for her husband and three daughters. Like every morning, she flew at such a slow pace that it made me wonder if she really cared.
“And why should she?” I whispered. Whether it was some god that held a grudge against us or an accident of hundreds of years of inbreeding, there was one simple fact of life for our species: we were dying. A one-fourth male population wasn’t going to survive for more than a few more centuries unless something changed.
Markus and I were separated by four years; our father had been extremely lucky to not have four daughters in those years. Or maybe he made his own luck. Out of the corner of my eye, I glared at the desert to the north. On my other side, Markus sighed, so I turned to face him as he spoke in a grave tone, “Don’t fall victim to despair.”
It took me a moment to get what he said, and when he did, I chuckled. “Don’t worry, Mark. I’m not going to take our race’s impending demise into my own talons.”
His eyebrow arched, but he shrugged before patting me on the shoulder. “Okay, I guess. If you decide you want to talk about whatever it is you’re bothering you, you know where to find me.”
I nodded. “Don’t tell anyone I’m here?” Markus returned the nod, smiling, then stood up and flared his wings. He was leaving, but probably wasn’t headed straight home. He’d probably visit his long-term girlfriend first. “Say hi to Claudia for me.”
He went completely still, then turned to glare at me. “Home, Stephen. You can find me at home. Not where I’m...” His tone and expression went flat. “Busy.”
I nodded back, and he shook his head with a chuckle. Then, he jumped off the ledge, leaving me alone with my thoughts again. Alone with Gerard.
I wished that he hadn’t said anything, or at least kept his secret for a little while longer. I had always planned on leaving Sharfkral-Grat as soon as I was of age—in three months, though I thought maybe I’d wait for spring. I hadn’t exactly told anyone about that, especially Gerard, but over the past few months, I had been trying to get him more and more used to hanging out with some of the other griffins in our tribe.
Ironically enough, that whole, weird conversation had been me seizing a rare opportunity. I didn’t usually bug Gerard about sex stuff. Still, it had been on-topic, so I had been trying to encourage him to get started on courtship. Female courtship. It would have made it easier for him to cope with my eventual departure. Now that it was the ninth day straight of me avoiding all contact with him, I guessed that I was teaching him how to cope anyway. Huzzah for small victories.
I shook the sarcasm out of my head. I knew enough about Gerard where I knew what would happen during the next time we spoke. Even if we ignored the events of that night and never spoke of it again, it’d still be hanging over us. Hell, if Gerard had felt like that for five months, it had already been torture on the kid, silently painting a backdrop for every conversation, interaction, and activity.
Below me, Gerard flew to the Jägerwald like he had every morning for the past eight days. I couldn’t see his face from where I was, but I knew he was looking for me. He thought I was in the forest, which was as good a guess as any: I needed to eat eventually. Still, I knew my way around Sharfkral-Grat; if I wanted to keep hidden, I could.
As Gerard walked into the forest and disappeared into the tree trunks, I felt sorry for him. I didn’t know what our next conversation was going to bring, but I had no qualms with putting that off for as long as possible. It was for his own good. He’d have time to cope with the massive bombshell that had been dropped in the forest. He’d have time to come to terms with how he couldn’t look at his friend the same way anymore. He’d eventually forget the tiny seed of an idea of loving his best friend, and then he’d get on with his life. Elsewhere. For his own good.
Something caught at the back of my throat, and it got harder to breathe. I blinked away tears; I hated the uncertainty Gerard had given me. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to hide. It was for my own good.
* * *
Markus alighted on a branch near the one I was harvesting. The hatchet I had was a small, hammer-sized thing, but it was sharp, and its size made it easier to swing in tight spots. Chopping trees was easy enough work; my brother’s presence, on the other hand, caused me to mentally sigh as I got ready for a new barage of questions.
He knew I was hiding something, but he didn’t know what. Instead of backing off, he took it upon himself to interrogate me every few days to see if I’d break. So far, I hadn’t. I knew where Markus’ concern was coming from, but as much as he cared about me, it didn’t make it any less frustrating to have to deny the same line of questioning a... fifteenth time, now, was it? I had lost track somewhere near the end of September, and that had been at least two weeks ago.
So, as he sat on a branch, trying to make eye contact with me, I fought to act like I hadn’t noticed him. We’d gone through this little act at least a dozen times already. Just like every other time, I hated to treat my brother like that, but it was the lesser of two evils.
About five minutes into the charade, I heard a chuckle. “If you chop any harder, you’re going to break that ax.”
I looked down at the branch where, apparently, I had been venting my frustrations over my brother’s presence. Several deep chop marks were now spread out over the branch that I was supposed to be cutting off. Given how little I had been paying attention to that, I felt a little queasy over how close some ax blows had landed to my hand that was holding the branch.
With a sigh that turned into a grunt, I sheathed the hatchet back in its little holster on the belt that I wore around my waist. After a long blink, I glared over at Markus and asked, “What’re you doing here?”
He frowned a little, one of his shoulders sagged. “Hi to you, too. I came to see how you were doing.”
I closed my eyes and shrugged, holding my arms out to either side. “Sorry. And about the same as every other day this month.”
“And how’s that?”
With a small effort, I bit back an acidic retort. Instead, I thought about his question. The first word that came to mind was “conflicted.” I didn’t know how I felt about Gerard anymore, not after his confession—not after I had been thinking about it, nonstop, for a little over a month. Part of me wanted to laugh it off and move on with my life: of course I didn’t like him like that.
Ironically, Gerard’s end of our last conversation had pointed out that I didn’t exactly like any of the females in Sharfkral-Gratlike that, either. The ones around my age were annoying bitches, the older ones were creepy, and the younger ones... well, even without Gerard’s confession, the fact that we were friends would’ve made it awkward to date one of his sisters. Plus, there was the age difference; I’d probably have to wait a few years before they were old enough for me to seriously consider them as partners.
Yet with Gerard, I had already been his friend since I met him at the Festersjagfive years ago. I already knew a lot about his personality, likes, dislikes, and—because I was somewhat of a confidant—his secrets. In that sense, I had accidentally been “courting” him for years—if I looked at things from a romantic standpoint. I wasn’t sure if I should or shouldn’t, though.
I opened my eyes and turned back to Markus. A heavy wave of exhaustion pushed down on me, and I admitted, “If I knew how to tell you what was wrong, I would.”
He cocked his head to the side a little, wearing a distant grin. “You’re worried about leaving, aren’t you?”
A choking sound caught in my throat: I hadn’t remembered ever telling Markus about my old plans to leave our tribe. Finally, I managed a rushed, “How?”
Markus chuckled with a victorious grin. “For someone as broody as you are, you sure don’t think a lot about how others see you. You’ve never really made it secret that you look down on everyone here, so it’s pretty obvious that you think it’s going to be better somewhere else.”
I glared back at him. “What, and you’re telling me there’s something here worth staying for?” He winced, and I realized my mistake. After a moment, I tried to soften my gaze and offered, “Sorry. But you know what I mean. Why can’tlife be more than just ‘family?’” I felt the pleading in my voice, “Why can’t things be like they used to be?”
In reply, Markus sighed and patted the branch he was sitting on. Dejectedly, I flapped my wings in a different direction so I could fly over and land next to him. When I sat down, my brother put a wing around from me, which made me flinch: griffins were predators, so we didn’t usually touch one another.
Markus must’ve felt it, because he answered, “That’s why.” I turned to face him, and he stared into my eyes. “You’re different than our ancestors were. Just like everyone else. But back then, they had a responsibility to their culture, to act honorably. We’ve got a responsibility, now, to our race, to try and survive.” He sighed. “It’s not fair, but that’s just how it is.”
I looked out into the forest, mulling over the phrase “responsibility to survive.” I resented how that was what all of our lives all boiled down to, anymore. I told Markus, “I at least want to travel, to see what life’s like outside our borders.”
He shrugged, causing his wing to slide up and down my arm. “Then travel. Our parents aren’t going to stop you now, let alone in a few months. Just talk to the Records-Keeper, or even Gerald’s father before you go.”
I glared a little at his passing mockery of Gerard, but I bit back a retort. Instead, I sighed and shook my head. “I’m not going to leave now. We need supplies for winter. I’m not going going anywhere until spring at the earliest. It’s just...” I sighed again and tried to find the right words. “I’ll miss some individuals here. Like you.”
“And Gerald?” Markus added in a scoff.
Something snapped, at least enough where I shot back, “Gerard!”
My brother raised his hands, folding his wing back behind him. “Fine, Gerard.” Markus shrugged before putting his hands back on the branch. “Why do you even care when you’ve been hiding from him for a few weeks now?”
I cringed at the accusation. Markus was right. I hadn’t spoken to Gerard since his confession. Thatmade me feel terrible: he had told me a huge secret, and my only real course of action was to avoid him. No matter how hard things were for me, Gerard must’ve had it worse; he didn’t really have any friends or family members that would try to comfort him—or at least, any that he respected. Which was his own fault, I supposed, but I still felt guilt over my part in his entire situation.
Worse than the guilt was the overwhelming sense of helplessness. I didn’t know what I could do to fix things between us. Part of me wanted to simply go to him, tell him I didn’t care how he felt, and that we could be friends. That didn’t feel right, and it would mean his silent affection would always hang over our friendship.
Of course, then there was the scary idea: What if I just loved him back? It was stupid, I could think of a million reasons why it wouldn’t work out, but at the same time, I couldn’t deny that part of me wanted to just forgo all of that and go to Jerry, try to comfort him, and tell him that everything was going to be okay. Was that love? I wasn’t sure.
It definitely felt weird, but loving another guy like that would be weird anyway. Then again, so was forcing myself into a relationship with a female I didn’t love, all for some “responsibility to survive” that ultimately didn’t matter. Griffins were going to be extinct in a few generations, anyway.
At any rate, Markus apologized, “Sorry. Just... don’t throw your hopes and dreams away over some kid’s hurt feelings. He’ll grow up, and by the time he does, hewon’t get a second childhood, either.”
The words hung on the air for a while. I thought about what they meant, and as I did, Markus sat silently next to me. Eventually, he jumped off the branch, flying, and turned around to face me. “But anyway, we should probably get back to harvesting.” He pointed to the hatchet that hung from a belt on his waist, similar to mine.
I nodded. “See you at home.”
Once he was gone, I thought some more about my brother’s words. Maybe, accidentally, he was right: Gerard was young, so confessing love might just be a weird little phase he was going through. It didn’t mean he was lying, just that he was confused, but he’d get back to normal soon enough. For some reason, that just felt disappointing.
In a brief moment of clarity and with a chuckle of disbelief, I finally admitted that I knew why, too. All of my misgivings, all of my conflict over the idea, all of my hopes that Gerard was wrong, that Markus was right; despite all of my not wanting to, there was an underlying truth that I couldn’t deny:
Part of me loved Gerard back in the same way he loved me.
It was a simple enough concept, in theory. My friend had a crush on me and, more or less, I felt the same way back. I let the idea seep into my mind, and as I did, I relaxed, letting out my breath in a long, soft exhale. Being conflicted about Gerard had been rough, so I was glad to finally be able to rigidly define how I felt about him. At least, now that I knew where I was starting out from, it would be easier to figure out where to go.
I thought about it for a moment, and a weight dropped in my stomach when I realized that knowing how Ifelt didn’t change anything. Now, instead of dealing with “Gerard loving me,” an even bigger problem presented itself.
“What am I going to do about it?” I whispered.
Cursing, I took flight and unsheathed my hatchet, ready to vent some frustration on the forest. All of my reservations rushed back to me, but this time, as practical obstacles to a romance: It was illegal. Biologically difficult. Our ages made it weird. And his father would killme. I chuckled darkly at that last one, but the laughter faded as I went back to work.
Chopping trees was simple enough; my hatchet was still sharp, and it cut through the trees easily. My situation, on the other hand, was just as difficult as it had been before my brother showed up. Despite coming to a tiny bit of truth about myself, I realized that I really didn’t know what I was going to do about Gerard.
* * *
On the third of November, like every year, all of Sharfkral-Grat gathered for a giant feast to celebrate the last good month of hunting before winter set in. For one night, we all set aside petty inter-family differences and shared in a celebration of life, death, and Jäger. A few members of the Sterkergeist tribe showed up, so the few of us who were lucky enough to understand their language got to mingle with them and discuss how things had gone for the past year.
I had no interest in hearing only half of a conversation, but I still had several options: Brunhilda, the Records-Keeper, regaled a good-sized group of all ages with old stories that were equal parts history, legend, and myth. A small drum ensemble played a lively, powerful beat that was as entertaining to watch as it was to listen to. At such a large gathering, I could talk to anyone and not have it be seen as too rude. And of course, there was food; anything I could possibly imagine was there—cooked, instead of raw, like we usually ate.
I was currently sitting with my family at the main table, which was really more of a long, wrist-high platform that kept the plates of food off the ground. I didn’t want to sit and eat with my parents, so I grabbed a boar’s leg and started walking around aimlessly. Gerard was over with his parents, talking to the Sterkergeist, so I didn’t have to worry about accidentally bumping into him. I still didn’t know what I was going to do about us, nor did I think that a massive gathering of all our friends and relatives was the time to start talking about a secret romance—
“What’s going on with you and my brother?”
My stomach turned to ice as I turned to face its source: Gerard’s older sister. I tried to keep a nonchalant face as I greeted, “Hi...” I blanked on her name for a second. Gerard had too many sisters to keep them all straight. “Gretchen.”
She didn’t return the greeting. “Look, you have some sort of problem with him? Tell him.”
I scoffed; I didn’t appreciate her tone or the fact that she had startled me. I was four years older, so it was easy enough to turn the intimidation back on her. Standing up to full height and flaring my wings a little, I brandished my boar’s leg at her and replied: “Well, sounds like you’ve got a lot of interest in stuff that isn’t your business. But no, nothing’s ‘going on’ with Jerry and me, so thanks for the bitch-rant.” I glared at her and waved the boar’s leg. “Now shoo.”
Gretchen scoffed back. As she turned to go do whatever it was females did on their own time; under her breath, she muttered, “Jerkass.”
“Cunt.”
I’d tried to hiss it quietly, but from the turned heads I got from a few griffins at the table, I could tell I failed at being discreet. I didn’t give them anything to keep staring at, though; I just took a bite of boar and kept walking.
However pissy she had been, Gerard’s sister had brought up a point I’d been mulling over for most of the last month: telling him about my side of our situation. I still wasn’t sure about what to do, though; if I didn’t tell him, it’d be better. Safer. We’d have to keep our thoughts secret instead of our actions, which was a lot easier to do.
I looked over to Gerard; he was following the adults’ conversations with his eyes, darting from speaker to speaker, but he wasn’t saying anything himself. I smiled at his bewilderment; he wanted to be a grown-up, but when it actually came to the realm of adults, he had no idea what he was doing.
With a sigh, I turned and kept walking, wondering if he even knew what he was talking about when he said he loved me.
“Enjoying yourself?” Markus accused from behind me.
I jolted and spun around to face him. I felt myself chuckle as I answered, “Maybe if everyone stopped sneaking up on me.”
My brother scoffed back. “The gods gave you ears for a reason; if a little girl can sneak up on you...”
“Bite me,” I shot back with a glare.
Markus looked around at the rest of our tribesmembers, some of whom were noticing our confrontation. He returned my glare with, “Do you really want to do this here, in front of everyone?”
I blew a quick breath out of the side of my mouth, but I planted my back feet firmly on the rock surface of the communal plaza. “You’re the one who came over here to start something.”
His eyes darted to my feet, and I could almost see him measuring up the fight. “I came over here to tell you to watch your damn mouth when you’re bullying pre-teens and Claudia’s in earshot.”
A few seconds passed as I thought about what my retort should be. There were a few things that still needed to be said, but I didn’t want to fight my brother, not here. With a frustrated hiss, I shook my head. “Tell your girlfriend ‘Sorry,’ then.”
Markus tilted his head slightly, squinting. “You can tell her yourself.”
I shook my head. “Yeah... not gonna happen. She wants an apology, she can come get it herself.”
As soon as I said it, the air almost grew thicker between the two of us. At this point, a small circle had gathered around us, either as spectators or peacekeepers. I didn’t want a fight, even a quick skirmish of getting in a few solid hits before we were pulled apart. But if Markus was going to keep adding on to everything I needed to do to appease his girlfriend, there was going to be one. She didn’t control me, at any rate.
With a glance at the crowd around us, my brother shook his head and muttered, “Not worth it.” He moved to turn around, but before he did, he locked his gaze onto me. “One of these days, you’re going to say the wrong thing to someone... I just hope they let you live to learn your lesson.”
He finished turning around, and I thought about yelling something after him, but, in his words, it “wasn’t worth it.” Instead, I turned around, glad to see that no one was blocking my path. I walked forward, all the way to the northern edge of the plateau that formed the communal plaza.
The festival was almost entirely on the opposite side of the plateau, but I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to hear if anyone was walking up behind me. There wasn’t, so I opened my eyes and looked out to the desert to the north: the Waisenwüste, the final resting place of several of my sisters, I supposed. I wasn’t even alive when it happened, so I couldn’t really feel any sort of loss, knowing that they had been systematically left there to die. The only thing I really felt was ashamed of my race, culture, and father. It made me hate the idea of continuing any of those legacies.
As soon as I thought it, I felt a pang of guilt. Was that what this was all about? I turned my head, risking a glance over at Gerard. He was still watching his family’s conversation in bewilderment. With a grin, I thought I knew there was something more to us than petty spite. Or at least, I hoped there was. It wouldn’t be fair to him, otherwise.
Then again, I still didn’t know what I wanted for us. I stared off into the distance past Gerard’s head and realized that, even if I did want to tell him what was going on, there was a whole realm of problems that it would entail. At best, we’d be in for a hard, secret life with each other. Would it be worth it?
While I pondered that, Gerard’s head turned. I focused back on him and our eyes met. My stomach did a little flip, but in the same moment, I wanted to tell him how I felt. Even if I was afraid to. However, I didn’t know where to begin, and it would be tough to put everything out in the open.
His face didn’t even change as he glanced away, back to watching his father speak. I cringed, turning away. He probably resented me, and I didn’t blame him. Intellectually, I knew not to look too far into what happened, but still, it made the idea of him rejecting me more and more real. When I told him, the reality of being together might sink in, and he’d back down, afraid. Or even worse, maybe he was smart enough to realize we probably shouldn’t go around loving each other in the first place.
With a bitter grin, I realized that was exactly where he had been coming from two months ago. I felt a small bond of empathy with him over bearing the same secret. The first few weeks after he told me, I had resented him for it. After living with it, though, I had to give him credit; two months had been rough on me, but he had been going for five before he finally broke down and told me.
At any rate, I didn’t want anyone to come over to me while I was alone, so I decided it was time to head back to the feast. I got up, turned around, and looked over at Gerard one last time. “Secrets,” I scoffed, not even opening my beak. Whether we were together or alone for it, the two of us were in for a hard time in the future.
Right then, the worst part was how we couldn’t tell anyone about what we were going through. Love might be hard, but silence was torture.
* * *
I woke up in the middle of a frigid December night, shivering and numb. I was huddled in a ball with Markus and our parents in our cave, and there were still coals glowing in our fire pit, but it didn’t matter. During winter it was always cold.
As the haze of sleep left me, I looked over to the slate that my family used to keep track of what day it was. It was the the night between the twelfth and thirteenth, meaning it had been slightly more than three months since Gerard had confessed his love for me. Three months since life had been “normal.”
I cringed; ever since the Festersjag, I had tried to think about Gerard less and less. However, the arbitrary three-month mark meant that I had been thinking of him more and more for the past few days. It was a tricky problem, and it wasn’t going anywhere, but I had been letting it rule me, and that was doing more harm than it was helping. I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to tell him. I didn’t. It would be worth it. It wouldn’t.
Old conflicts resurfaced in my mind, and I failed to keep them down, so I went over them again. The main issue I was faced with was telling Gerard how I felt, and everything that would entail. If he said “no,” it would be easier for us both in the long run: it’d hurt, but I’d go out to Erntving and find some way to cope. He’d find some girl, too, and we’d both move on with our lives, if separately.
If he said “yes,” we’d be something akin to outcasts, even if we would still be living within our own tribe. We’d have to lie to everyone, and we’d only ever be able to be affectionate with each other in the most seclusive of places. Everywhere else, we’d have to act normally, so as not to rouse suspicion. I shook my head at the practical matter of it all; love meant nothing when you couldn’t actually do it.
With an exasperated grunt, I decided that I wanted some fresh air, so I stood up. My parents and brother were all asleep, lying wing-to-wing for warmth. They wouldn’t die if I left, but I added another log to our fire just to make sure. Winter cold was deadly serious, and it definitely wasn’t something to underestimate. I walked over to my family’s cave’s entrance,
Outside, it was snowing.
Smiling, I looked out over the lands of Sharfkral-Grat. The snowfall was gentle; and soft moonlight pierced the clouds to give everything a purplish glow. No one had set foot or claw on the communal plaza yet, giving the snow on top of that mesa a pure, virginal quality. It was a peaceful scene, and a quiet one. As I drank it all in, I realized that, despite all my misgivings about my dying race’s home, despite all of my confusion over Gerard, despite everything that was wrong in my life... I didn’t care.
In that one perfect moment, it was beautiful.
Even as I watched the snow fall, I knew that its beauty was fleeting; by midday, some kids would probably be out playing in it, and the adults would clear out a patch in the middle so they could light a bonfire to celebrate the first snow of the year. Even if we didn’t do anything to it, spring would eventually come and melt it all.
That didn’t matter, though. Even if it was a fleeting, timid beauty, I was glad to have the chance to see it at least once before winter was over.
With that thought, I snapped awake. It all made sense now. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, when I would do it, and it didn’t matter how difficult it would be. I glanced back at my family; their eyes were still closed. I had secrecy. I felt a gnawing nervousness in my stomach, but that was okay: if anything, fear would keep me warmer out in the snow. And I had some preparations that I needed to make before I did anything...
An hour later, I walked into Gerard’s home, shaking from being down in the Jägerwald for so long. Yeah, winter was beautiful and all, but after being out in it for so long, the warm air of a heated cave was bliss.
I stayed up at the top of the downward-sloping entrance hallway until I got feeling back in my fingers. It was less about comfort and more about utility—his father scared me on the few occasions I had been welcome in that cave. I didn’t want to think about what he’d do to me if he caught me trespassing at night.
On nimble fingers, I crept down to the family’s main chamber. The crackling of their fire did wonders to hide the sound of my talons, but I still took each step deliberately.
With amusement, I noted that they all slept around their fire in three groups. His parents and their newest hatchlings formed one group, the girls all made a circle, and the boys slept in a row, descending by size. It was arbitrary and stupid, but at least it was organized enough so I could find Gerard easily. He was also sleeping closest to his father, so I tried to strike the best balance between speed and silence as I crept over to him.
Once I was by him, I stood over him for a moment, taking nervous glances at his father. I hoped Gerard wouldn’t make any noise when he woke up. To prevent that, I used my wings for balance, made a fist around his beak with one hand, and shook him the other.
As soon as his eyes opened, I saw fear in them. I clamped his beak shut, brought my other hand up to my face, used two fingers to make a sideways V, and quickly shut them together. Gerard blinked, but he didn’t try to make any sound, so I let go of his face. Then, I made a fist, pointed the back finger out, and gestured to the entrance of his cave.
Gerard blinked at me a few more times as he made his decision. It was an important one, I knew, and it would change the outcome of the night, our relationship, and our lives. Part of me wanted him to angrily shake his head “no.” It would’ve been easier. Still, I hoped I would see him nod “yes.”
He did.
It was slow, and his eyes were confused, but it was still a yes. Relief washed over me as I nodded back. Jerry started to get up, and I turned to walk around him. Part of it was to lead the way, but I also didn’t want him to see that my eyes were watering.
I led him outside, and on his family’s landing he whispered, “Stephen? What—” before he fell silent. I looked back at him, and saw that he was looking at our snow-covered lands. He took a step forward, and I put a hand on his chest. He jerked angrily out of his little trance, but I pointed at the line between bare rock and the was snow that he had been about to step in.
“No tracks.” His expression turned confused, so I added, “I want to show you something, but we’ve got to be quiet about it.”
“Whe—what?”
“Follow me.” I jumped off his family’s landing and into a dive, trying to get as low to the ground as I safely could. After I leveled off, I turned to make sure Gerard was following me; he was in the middle of pulling out of a dive. We continued, rounding the southern edge of the mountain; below me, the ground rushed by with nerve-wracking speed. Flying that low wasn’t quite traditional for griffins, but it would at least make it harder for anyone to accidentally see us, which was what we needed.
Jerry stayed silent through the remainder of our ten-minute trip, so every now and then, I had to make sure he was still following me. He was, and it filled me with guilt. The desire to answer all of his questions burned inside me. I felt terrible over how I had treated him for the past few months, but then again, I didn’t really have a choice. I wouldn’t have come to the same decision if we had been together for the whole time. True, I still had doubts about it, but as we got closer to the cave where I was going to apologize and confess, I grew increasingly eager to share everything with him.
Finally, we reached the cleft between two mountains that I was taking us to. I turned and headed toward a frozen pond that an equally-frozen waterfall flowed into. A few seconds later, Jerry alighted next to me. I started to walk over to the waterfall, but he spoke up. “Stephen, what... what the hell is going on?”
It was a fair question, but I didn’t want to explain outside. It was cold, for one thing. “Just a little bit farther.” I turned to see his expression; his eyes were wide, more confused than angry. The weight of how much I had hurt him and our relationship hit me like a stone in my gut, but I blinked away the burning in my eyes. “Please?”
He didn’t respond at first. Then, he rolled his eyes up and shook his head, but he started walking over to me. I led him to the waterfall, or more specifically, to the cave behind it. The water had frozen close to the rocks, but there was still a small opening on the right side. It was a tight fit for me, but Jerry could manage a lot easier.
The entrance to the cave was perfect for what I intended: not only did we have privacy based on our seclusion and distance from Sharfkral-Grat, but we also had security that came from the size of the frozen opening.
Anyone small enough to fit through that entrance would be easy to kill.
It was a brutal safety measure, but at the same time, I knew the laws that we’d be breaking if we carried through with a romance. I didn’t know how far I was willing to go to defend myself, to defend us. If anything, I preferred to be secretly ready and not need the preparations than to romp around without any regard to safety.
Once we were inside the cave, I led Jerry to the chamber I had built a fire in about twenty minutes ago. By now, the fire was blazing, filling the entire room with warmth. Next to it was a pile of branches which wouldn’t last for more than a few hours, but one way or another, we couldn’t stay there for long.
I looked at Jerry as I waved around at the chamber; it was small, but the ceiling was high enough that it didn’t feel cramped. The rock walls had glittery little lines of quartz or some other crystal running down them, but there weren’t any sharp stalactites or stalagmites.
Jerry laughed. “A cave?” I fought not to frown as he continued, “This... this is just so... stupid! I mean, it’s one thing to be completely ignored by your... by someone for a few months, but then, after that, you wake me up in the middle of the night for...” He gestured around him at the cave. “Whatever this is supposed to be. A secret cave? Woo-hoo.” He brought his hand back near his head to make a small circle in the air with one finger; he completed the motion with a sneer.
Without thinking, I shot back, “Well, sor-ry it’s not up to your standards!” I caught myself before I kept going, but I had already escalated things.
“Well, I guess that’s my fault, too!” he shouted back. The words echoed around us for a few seconds before he drew in a sharp breath. “I told you something private and you just... abandoned me over it.” His voice cracked, but his eyes narrowed before he could let sorrow get the better of him. “That’s a pretty shitty way to treat anyone, let alone a friend!”
“I’m...”
“And don’t even waste time apologizing.” His tone was hollow and cold. “I’m finished wasting my time on you.”
His words cut deep, so much that, even being a head taller than him, I turned away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to leave. I sat there in numb disbelief for a few moments; after everything I had been through for the past few months... No, it wasn’t going to end like that. I hoped I didn’t sound desperate as I asked, “Then why did you even follow me?”
Jerry’s shoulders slumped, and I could barely hear him whisper over the fire. “You know why.”
Pity welled up in me over that. I took a deep breath and continued, “So that’s how you’d end it, then?”
He turned back around to face me, which I thought was a small success, given the circumstances. “What choice is there? I mean, even you would rather just end our friendship.”
I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry for... the past few months.” I let the apology hang in the air for a while as I walked over to the fire and sat down. I looked over my shoulder and met Jerry’s gaze before continuing, “I really am. You just... kind of freaked me out that night.”
He turned away, saying, “I know.” I saw his folded wings rise and fall in a deep sigh before he continued, “But then you just vanished and...” His voice cracked a little, but this time, he turned away with a small cough.
“I missed you, too,” I said back. In a calm voice, I repeated, “And I’m sorry it took a while for me to get my head on straight, but I guess... now’s where we actually get a chance to talk about it.”
Jerry turned back to me; I could still see anger in his eyes, but even that was quickly losing out to sorrow. I smiled and patted the floor on my right. After a moment’s consideration, he walked over and sat next to me. We spent a few moments staring into the fire before he broke the silence, “Thanks, I suppose. For not telling anyone.”
I turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “Who is there to tell? I... you told me, but I wasn’t going to go around announcing it, dude.”
He turned away, slightly, before shaking his head and meeting my eyes. “I was still worried.” He frowned a little and his voice got harsher, “And it’s not like you were there—”
“Okay.” I bowed and raised a hand. Guilt ran through me for a moment as I realized that I didn’t completely understand how alone I had left Jerry over the past month, but I didn’t want to start a second round for the fight. “I ran off. I feel bad about it, but I’m here now, so we can figure this out.”
Jerry shrugged and turned back to the fire. “What is there to ‘figure out?’” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his talons make little air quotes against the stone floor.
I paused, trying to figure out where to start. I didn’t want to be abrupt with my own confession, so I needed to build into it. Finally, I settled on, “Well, what do you want?”
He kept staring at the fire before he took a deep breath. “Look, I know what I said was wrong, so if we can just... go back to how things were, I guess?”
I cocked my head, curious. “Can we?”
He bowed his head. “I mean, it’ll be awkward for you, I guess, after what I said... but it beats not being friends at all.”
Now was the moment of truth. I asked, “Do you still feel the same way about me?”
Jerry glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I told you...” He sighed. “Yes.” After a pause, he shook his head. “I don’t know why, and trust me, part of me doesn’t want to, but... I tried to stop. I keep trying to stop. It doesn’t work.”
I smiled at him and ignored the nervousness in the pit of my stomach. Now it was time to start telling how I felt. With a quick inhale, I took the plunge: “Yeah, I know that feeling.”
It took a few moments before it clicked, but Jerry’s eyes widened in confusion. “Wait, what?”
“Trust me, I can think of a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t. But at the same time, what’s life without love?” I shrugged. “It took a while to come to the conclusion but...” I took a deep breath. “I love you, too.” The words felt strange in my mouth, and all of my self-resentment came back to me as soon as I said it, but there was power in having said them. I knew they were the truth.
There was danger in the truth, though, because I had just changed the situation from “Jerry asking my acceptance” to the reverse. Now, there was the chance that he could reject me, and the fear in his eyes caused a weight in my stomach to start growing in mass.
His fear turned to a wide-eyed hopefulness, but all he vocalized was, “R... really?”
Nope, I’m lying. I bit the joke back. It wasn’t the right time to kid around. Instead, I responded. “It’ll be weird, and there’s a ton of preventative measures we’ll have to take... but if there’s anyone I’d want to be in a secret romance with, it’s you, Jerry.”
He didn’t say anything in response; instead, he just sat there, staring at me. His eyes started watering and I saw a few tears form, but before anything else happened, he leaped at me, clamping my right arm and wings to my torso in a hug. I twitched a little, but Jerry either didn’t feel it or didn’t care.
It was a pretty awkward position, but at the same time, once I got over the shock, it was actually kind of nice. Jerry wasn’t straddling my left arm, so I brought it up and patted his arm. He responded by nestling his head into my chin, and I bowed my head down on his and asked, “So, you really want this?”
He nodded a few times, which I felt as rotations on my neck instead of actually seeing it. I grinned at the fire and decided that my reservations could go to Hell. Whichever way this ended, Jerry would be worth it.
Something brushed against my right wrist, and quickly, Jerry broke out of the hug. He sat back, hunched down a little, and he had an awkward, almost shameful look on his face. “So, uh... what now?”
It was a pretty big question. Based on what time it was, sunrise was still pretty far off. Still, we did have to get back soon: in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world for us to both be missing in the middle of a winter night. One time, we could explain easily enough, but in the future, we probably didn’t want to make a habit out of it.
An ounce of frustration came into my mind; we’d probably never get to be safely alone more than once a month. Any sort of pattern was dangerous. We’d have to change locations and times consistently, and even then, there would always be the risk that someone would come looking for us and find us. There was nothing traditional about how we were going to love each other.
None of that mattered to me. Sure, the future might be rough, but tonight, we had a little time to ourselves. On that note, I raised my eyebrows at Jerry. A puzzled expression crossed his face, but before he could think too hard about my intentions, I used my wings for leverage and lunged forward, wrapping my legs around him. Then, in one movement, I grabbed his arms and laid back, pulling him to the ground with me. When my back hit the floor, Jerry was on top of me, with his hind legs on either side of my stomach.
I looked up into his eyes and slid my hands under his wings, around his back in a hug. Jerry responded by gripping my shoulders and snuggling back into my neck. Physical contact still felt a little weird, but as we lay there like that, the warmth I felt told me it would be easy to get over. And as I felt a firmness growing up into the top of my abdomen, I knew I could get used to that, too.
All I could think about in that moment was how happy I was, even as I remembered why we needed to stay hidden. Sure, the future was going to be tough, but it would be our future. We’d face it together. And that was what would make it all worth it.
In Jerry’s ear, I answered his question: “I guess we’ll see what happens.”
