Author's Note

now, I know your kind hung up on why the grammar of the first chapter is a little choppy, well the reason why is because that was just a memory. A scetchy memory.

Death must be having a hoot with this one

Consciousness was something I knew would be impossible due to the fact that I had been tackled off a cliff by a dead bear. It was something I grew to accept as the darkness prevailed throughout my sight. I just didn't think that death would leave me in the dark like this either. The asshole probably thought it was funny to see us mortals squirm before punting us into the afterlife. I had been drifting in the darkness for what seemed like a few years when I felt someone poke me. It was annoying.

It sounded like rain pattered around me. There is no rain in death. 'Why do I hear rain?' and that was when it hit me. Not a soft one either, an avalanche of feeling cascaded, every nerve live and firing. Oh, it hurt like no other thing could, cause what could hurt more than being forced back to life? Coming back to life while conscious hurts due to the fact that you mind is trying to reboot and make things work properly, normally people are not conscious enough to feel every nerve ending fire all at the same time. Normally. Now imagine doing so while in a foreign body.

The first thing I did was to suck in as much air as I could physically could, and react.

"RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!" I arched my back, flexed muscles and popped bones viciously into place while the rest of my sensory equipment decided to flip on. Light blasted my retinas, strange smells assaulted my nose, and sound blasted in my ears. I flopped around on the ground as my rib cage snapped back into place one rib at a time. My fractured and broken limbs began playing 'who sets first' as I writhed in pain. For some reason, I knew that I was going to be fine after this all stopped.

Like watching the reverse timelapse of seeing a wound open up, I watched in abject horror as the foreign limb that was a claw where my arm was supposed to be, slowly stitch together. Slowly, like the tide, the pain ebbed away, followed by voices. I could barely make out the bear next to me in what appeared to be the remains of a broken table. Light faded and brightened like I was slowly about to loose conciouseness again, the pain already duller than a scrapped knee.

What sounded like a pureed voice of a lion and an eagle screeching in my ears scared me awake and caused me to tug at restraints that I could feel straining against my ankles and wrists, along with a few belts trying to restrain my chest and hips. Leather bit deep into my skin around my feet and hip, the ones around my wrist felt like they were beginning to fray. The light momentarily blinded me as I foolishly look to a window.

My eyes resolved the world around me faster than I had anticipated. What I saw was disturbing, it looked like I was surrounded by eagles and other large birds of prey. My head was throbbing with each heart beat, the slight murmur of voices resounded quietly around me as I fell back to the bed. It seemed to be a rather hospital like setting, I couldn't for the life of me see anyone around. I began to try and get out of the restraints, rousing the attention of the birds.

"He's awake! Quick, get the doctor! And get me Freda, she was the one who found him!"

I was utterly surprised as I watched one of them speak, the whole thing seemed surreal. The griffons (as I now saw what they were) began to orderly go about their tasks and continue working. Except the one coming towards me. With a set of scrubs on looking like a nurse. He walked over on his hind feet, allowing him to hold onto the clipboard in his claws. He was slowly going through the list on the papers, mumbling and striking things off with a quill. The glasses that were on his beak kept sliding down and annoying him, making him push them back up.

He stopped next to my bed. "Now its' going to be OK, the Ursa that you fought died when it hit the ground. How did an Ursa even get up there? You are quite lucky to survive one of the last, most dangerous tribe of beings on Equis." He sat down and patted my knee and smiled. "Your going to have one of the best parties thrown just for you, Wrens will be lining up to get their claws on you, and you will be granted one of the first newly built houses. Lucky you." He seemed pissed.

"Steady Claw, the doctor and Freda are here, they want to talk to him." A female voice came from the opposite direction. "You can take his restraints off now that he's awake and compliant."

"Rraaat." I squaked As I tried to speak. "Rra rraat!"

They look at me like I grew a second head. The female talked first. "Aw shit, a feral. Now we have to let him go." She threw her foreclaws up in mock defeat.

"Well, at least we don't have to hold him for that much longer." Steady smile softened.

"RRaat!" I shook my arms, and pointed int he general direction of my head. "RRaa raat!"

That confused them, the female looked between Steady and I. "Do you think he understands us?" Steady gave her an incredulous look.

"Are you daft? He's obviously a feral and just using hand signals to try and communicate with us! don't try to read too much into it." He waved a dismissive claw in her direction. He reached over and undid a few of my straps, letting my neck and right arm free.

I slapped his claws away as I undid the rest of the straps myself. "Holy crap, how did he figure out how to do that by himself after only seeing you do it a few times? He couldn't possibly have figured it out that fast!"

I sat on the edge of the bed and patted my throat, trying to tell them there was something wrong with it. After a few seconds of confused looks, I grabbed the clipboard from Steadies' claws along with the quill, making him flinch. I wrote 'can't talk, throat not working right!!' and turned it to them.

As they tried to decipher the words they grew even more confused. "What did he write? do you know that language Steel Feather?" Steady looked over to Steel.

"I have no idea, I've never seen anything even remotely close to that other than Minish, and that is as close to that as I could guess." They looked back and forth between me and the paper. Steady froze up and slowly turned towards Steel.

"How do you know what Minish looks like? They never let outsiders look upon their holy transcrips, only their priests get to read them."

Steel smiled nervously and rubbed her arm. "Weeeeeell, you remember when I said I was going on vacation a few moons ago? I kinda snuck in one of their temples and maaaaybe stole a few tombs."

I facep-clawed and snatched the board back, and quickly wrote out the alphabet in the lower half of the paper. "RRaat."

"Hey dweeb, I hope you like knuckle sandwiches, cause your about to-what in the name of the first king are you all looking at? gimme that." A new female surprised us and quickly snatched the board from Steadies' claws. "What in Tartarus is this gibberish? Is he illiterate or something?" She made an attempt to study the paper. With a dismissive fling and a roll of her eyes, she flipped the board back to Steady. "Well, since he's my charge due to the fact that he fell through my roof, I guess I have to take him with me. Come on dweeb, we need to get going." She grabbed my arm, lifted me up and began dragging me behind her.

I though to my self, 'Death must be laughing her ass of right now.'