Gilda the Griffin

~Gilda the Griffin~
Chapter Three - A Caged Bird

"MOMMY!" I cried at the top of my lungs as I watched her and dad dragged away in nets that had been shot at us. I tried so hard to reach for my parents, but they were out cold. Our captors were tall, black, bulky diamond dogs, all wearing armor and one having a belt with lots of jars in their holsters. The entire moment was a blur, only to be recalled later in my nightmares. My dad's wing was gone, the stubbed remains of it bleeding.

"NOOOOOO!" I cried, trying to claw my way towards them. All of a sudden, I felt something smash on my head. Then... darkness...

When I woke up, I was in shackles, cowering in the corner of a room, crowded to suffocation with other griffins, some younger than me, others old enough to be my grandparents. I saw no sign of mom and dad. Thoughts swam through my mind, my body shivering from cold and panic.

'W-w-w-where's mommy...' I wanted her to be there, somewhere in the crowd, so so she could hold me and make me feel better, so she could hug me, shield my eyes within her bosom, stroking my feathers so I could fall asleep again, and wake up in my bed again like this was a nightmare that I wanted to escape from.

"MOMMY!!!" I sat there in the corner, my only refuge from the chaos around me, "DADDY!!!" I scoured the faces of the other griffins, looking for the two faces I had known all my life. Tears welled up in my eyes, I curled up in a ball, wanted to wake up like it was just a dream. It had to be a dream, this couldn't be happening to me.

The door to the room everyone resided in opened, and a large, black diamond dog walked in, overextended jaw drooling with saliva. I winced and cowered in fear when he looked at me. He squinted his yellow eyes and pointed at me.

"You, Move now. With me..." I merely sat there, frozen with absolute terror. He pointed his spear at me, "MOVE!" With hesitation I obeyed, the diamond dog leading me to another cavern, wet and damp, moss lining the dirt walls. At the very end was another room, and the most beautiful sight I had seen that day.

"MOMMY!!! DADDY!!!" I ran to them, handcuffed and dirty. I could only lean into them, for they two had been tied up. I looked back at the diamond dog that had lead me to my parents, who now had a look of sadness and pity.

"This best I do..." he said before turning around and closing the rotting wooden door behind him. I started to shiver, curled up next to my parents, wondering what he meant by the best he could do. We huddled up together, hoping to get some sleep and maybe think of a way out of the trouble we were in...

We were forced to struggle in the mines, finding almost no reprieve from the back breaking labor thrust upon us. The crowded work areas were unbearable, griffins and diamond dogs alike were pressed up against each other like fish in a barrel. The stale air clogged our lungs with dust from the digging, causing many of the 'new arrivals' to cough violently, including me. I was hitched with the hauling crew, made to carry gems throughout much of the warren and back again; my paws and talons sore, my breathing heavy and exhausted, my wings aching because of the badly fitting harness.

We were often separated, sent to work in different parts of the warren, beaten and whipped when we disobeyed or complained. I cried every time I was lashed when I fell, exhausted on the dirt floor. After the grueling day, we were left with a piece of bread for each of us. By the end of the month, we were malnourished, fatigued, and strung to our breaking point. The only thing that kept us going was that we still had each other, as well as the other griffins and diamond dogs that sympathized with us.

Each and every day was the same, go in, work until you drop, get out. There was never any news except what the foreman tells you: an occasional cave in, earth quake, rock slide, flooding. No words were said about those that died, no tears save for a few. The pain and misery of working in the mines made us dull to all else. My cries fell on deaf ears when I complained of thirst, exhaustion, or illness. Everyone was in the same boat: the slaves couldn't revolt, or they'd die trying, the diamond dogs couldn't help, otherwise they'd be sent to the hauling crew like the rest of us. Some pockets of griffins actually did revolt with the help of some of the diamond dogs, but they were easily suppressed by the rest of the warren's massive numbers.

I made a friend in the warrens, Her name was Chime, she was a lot younger than me, kept under care until she was old enough to work. She lost her parents in a bushfire, her wings were singed permanently, meaning that her chances of ever flying were shot down before she even got a chance. I stopped by her room at the end of the day so that we could talk together before I went back to our room for the night.

"Chime?" I asked her one day.

"Yeah?"

"You could... live with us too. I mean, if you wanted..." I smiled at her, "I've always wanted a little sister..." Her eyes widened.

"YOU MEAN IT?!"

"Yeah, as soon as mom and dad find a way out of here, we could take you with us and you could live with us in our old nest." She beamed at me with excitement. "If we can get a few gems to take with us, we could probably make it to Cloudsdale to see the Wonderbolts!"

"What are Wonderbolts?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"The BEST fliers in Equestria, well next to mom and dad of course..."

We kept on thinking of ways to escape, but nothing seemed to work, security was just to tight. If it wasn't the guards, it was trying to get through the warrens without getting lost, and even then, there would be a chance of getting caught in the condemned part of the warrens. By the 6th month, it seemed hopeless to the point where I thought that I would be spending my entire life like this, never to see the sun, the moon, the sky, or the clouds that I longed to fly through again. Chime shared my feelings, wondering if she'd ever get to see grass again. It made me feel how much I took the beautiful things I saw everyday for granted. Now, all I saw was dirt and stone...

...that is, until the night before my ninth birthday. My parents had dug a tunnel secretly for the past year, until they finally managed to connect it to a tunnel that led straight to the surface. They told me that tonight, we were finally leaving, and that we could finally be free again. We had planned to steal some of the gems that they had dug up, sell them to get to Equestria, then move to Cloudsdale, just Mom, Dad, Chime, and me. It would be the best birthday present I could ask for, to finally be free again, to fly high up in the sky with my family.

Except everything went wrong. The night before, my parents could only find the key to my shackles, I wanted to stay with them so bad, I couldn't leave them, they were everything to me.

"Why aren't you coming with?" I asked, tears flowing into my eyes.

"We'll be out soon, I promise, Goldie." my dad said, reassuring me in our room as he turned the key to my shackles, my wrists finally free of the iron chains that weighed me down.

"We'll be fine Gilda, just go, hurry." Mom said, her voice trembling.

"What about Chime?" I asked them, my thought racing to my friend, who had now become like a sister to me.

"We'll take care of her as best we can, now go, before they find you." My mom commanded, "Go, live, and..." She choked on the words as tears trickled down her sad face, "...Happy Birthday, Gilda." she wished, handing my a piece of paper before pushing me into the tunnel before sealing it behind me with a boulder. I crawled for what seemed like hours, through the dark, damp tunnel to freedom.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard something right above my head, a small hole being my window to the room above. What I saw horrified me, my dad, beaten, bloody, feathers torn from his skin, revealing it raw and tattered. I hear growling above my head.

"WHERE IS THE DAUGHTER!!!" I heard a gruff voice say right above my head.

"I Don't KNOW!" He said, putting on a brave face, when he was clearly weak and weary.

"WHERE IS HER!" The other voice said. "One Chance..." I crept backwards, seeing one of the voices come into view, a jet black diamond dog, carrying a large sword.

"FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T KNOW!" The sword came down, slicing his wing off with a wretched squelch. I nearly threw up when I saw him, writhing in pain. I was frozen stiff out of fear. I watched from my lonely peephole as he was dragged away, passed out from the pain. After a few moments, silently sobbing to myself, I continued to crawl forward, blindingly into whatever horrors awaited me next. I kept crawling and crawling, fighting back the tears and the sight of dad bleeding, just wanting it to finally end, half expecting to find myself bound in chains again.

But what I found instead was the calm, blue light of the moon, showing through a small hole in the cavern ceiling, just beneath the surface. Unknowingly, I had passed into an abandoned branch of the mine, one long since harvested of all its gems.

I was happy and sad all at once. I had made it to the surface, to freedom at last. I crawled to the spot where the moon shown and curled up under it, basking in its caressing glow. I looked down at my matted feathers, rubbing them to remove the months of caked on dirt, preening them at last in the fresh cool air of the moon. I curled up into a little ball, finding warmth and comfort in the moonlight. I started to scratch the soft dirt with my small claws, making a rough picture of a cake on it, complete with lines for candles. I sniffled and rubbed away my tears, pretending that mom, dad, and chime were there with me.

"Make a wish, Gilda..."
I said to my self, choking on my tears, smiling. I blew on the picture of the cake, the design fading away, dust in the wind. I continued to cry, my tears making the ground a soft bed for me to sleep.

"Happy Birthday, Gilda," I said to myself, pretending that it was the soft, angelic voice of my mother. I look at the piece of pare mom gave me. It was a photograph: me, mom, and dad, all together again...

"Happy Birthday... to... me...."