Empire of Heaven

Through the snow covered pines a wheezing breath was heard as snow crunched beneath rapidly approaching steps. Suddenly and without warning a plume of snow erupted from one of the trees as Leona scrambled into view, quickly plummeting into a snow mound. From behind the treeline skittering noise could be heard, accompanied by hissing as it drew ever closer.

With but moments to spare, Leona looked around, trying to spot an opening in the treeline for her to extend her wings and take flight. Frantically searching for just the slightest breath, she finally found one to her left. Pushing herself up on her legs, she began wadding the snow covered ground whilst gradually picking up speed. Whilst she did so, the sound of branches breaking could be picked up from behind her. She dared not look back as the form of a giant frost spider broke through the pine trees she just came from. The pine needles along with its branches froze upon contact with the beast, shattering at the mere touch of the weeping tissue that adorned the spider's exoskeleton. It's soulless eyes quickly picked up on the movement of the retreating griffon and with soulless abandon began charging after her, with a screech filled with demonic bloodlust.

Leona extended her huge wings, the wingspan being so large that she had to weave through the tees to be able to fully extend. Flapping as hard as she could, over and over whilst running on pure adrenaline, she managed to get herself off the ground. Bit by bit she gained altitude, rising high above the ground. Normally forests like these would be more appropriate for the wolves, with their near falcon like maneuverability. However Leona had the distinct advantage of eyesight, spotting every branch and every trunk that came in her way and swiftly moving out of their way. Coming halfway up the treeline she began feeling a bit more at ease as the sound of the frost spider grew a bit more fainter. Yet, in this small moment of ease, something snapped at her from above, making her scream in pain as her right wing was nearly broken.

With her right wing incapacitated she quickly began falling towards the ground, leaving a trail of feathers in her wake as she sped down. Crashing against branches and passing by trunks, she had her eyes closed, only allowing them to open slightly in the interim between the barrages of pain. However as she opened them once the third time, she was met with a trunk coming directly in her path. Forcing her body to face it, she braced herself and lunged against the tree with her talons and paws. Her fall still forced her downwards however, so as she gripped the tree for all her worth, she quickly slid down its length.

Bark flew and branches broke as the griffon made her way down, the sound of the ordeal echoing throughout the forest. Leaving a long trail of talon shaped marks running across the length of the tree, she eventually slowed down just in time for her to hit the ground without any damage as the snow cushioned her backside. An audible crunch of snow was let out and a near silence followed, the only sound in the forest for a couple seconds was Leona's haggard breath. The breathing paused for a moment however as the griffon regained her bearing and relaxed her grip of the tree trunk. After she calmed herself, she turned herself around and laid down with her back against the tree whilst clutching her injured wing, checking the damage done. As she did so, to her relief she saw that it was in fact not broken, however drops of blood dripped onto the snow, crimson stains adorning the glossy ground.

Leona finally let out a sigh, a tired one, a hurt one as she let her wing slowly rest and tuck in against her once more, being careful to not let it get between her back and the tree. Closing her eyes, she calmed her breathing as her adrenaline has finally ran dry, pain coursing through her once more. Yet, as she opened her eyes the calm breath turned into a sob, tears escaping her eyes as she saw what lay but a dozen meters in front of her. From the crown of a pine came a thread of pure ice, glistening in the sun as it extended further and further down. Adorning it's end however was no thing of beauty, but a beast of frost and hate, another frost spider. However, as tears started to fall from the lone griffon's face, it got even worse as the frost spider from the previous pursuit stepped forth from the pines, standing next to its demonic brethren as it landed with a crunch on the snowy ground.

Sobs began to morph into open weeping as they began their approach, the spiders seemingly reveling in the overwhelming fear of their chosen victim. Choking through her sobs, Leona spoke with a shuddering breath and closed eyes.

"Please, someone, please, help me…" Her voice broke as she heard the breaking of a branch under one of the beasts. Sniffing as teats fell she realized they were but a few meters away now, she yelled out as she opened her eyes. "I DON'T WANNA DIE!"

The beasts lunged forward upon her call of pure terror, their fangs and eyes as black as the darkest void amongst the roiling white and blue mass of ice. Yet, as if the heavens themselves heard her, the sun opened up above her, clouds clearing away as rays of sunlight bathed the area. Upon that sunlight, Leona saw a flight of white wings flying down as if riding the very rays of that life giving celestial body. Those wings, so pure of color, so perfect in form and large in mass soon came crashing down like a tide of feathers upon the snowy shore, flinging the frozen mass up in a plume of snow. Before it even had time to settle however, two hands shot out of the storm, grasping the pedipalps of the frontmost beast before a knee came crashing against the face of the newcomer's foe. A screech and the shattering of ice sounded forth as the pedipalps broke and the beast was thrown back against a pine, disoriented from the sudden attack.

The second beast however, continued on its trajectory, too lost in bloodlust to notice the fate of its brethren. Yet, because of this carelessness the beast did not hear the gallop, the heavy falls of hooves on snow as antlers cut through thick pine branches like a hot knife through butter. The muffled nature of the gallop and the breaking of branches was however removed as a titan of a creature burst forth from the treeline and thundered towards the demonic horror. With tremendous force and strength the titan slammed into the beast, mere inches away from Leona's face. A screech resounded from the beast as it was pierced by the antlers before being thrown off of them as the titan let out a snort of irritation, as if the beast was but a pest needing to be put down. Crashing into a tree, Leona finally got a look at the titan and saw that it was in fact not another mindless beast of bloodlust but instead something resembling a great elk, yet somehow even bigger! And there resting upon it's back sat the outline of someone, Leona blinked a couple times to remove the snow from her eyes and to adjust to the bright sunlight that now filled the area.

Looking up once more she saw one of the strangest creatures she had ever gazed upon. There, standing where the storm of wings and snow once reigned like a wrathful tempest was now a bipedal creature sporting a pair of golden eyes that seemed to pierce through Leona as he stared at her. She shrunk and let out a whimper as she slowly turned to her right and saw a likewise strange creature sitting upon the great elk, looking down upon her. This one though did not bear the piercing gaze of the other smaller one, but warm eyes that spoke of great kindness as it leapt from its steed before giving a sympathetic smile.

"Care for some help, lioness?" It spoke with a baritone voice as it pointed over its shoulder at the beasts struggling to get up from their injuries. All the while the other creature stood with hands on his hips and an unimpressed look adorning his face as he looked upon the humbled beasts.

Leona could only gawk at the smiling creature as she opened and closed her mouth several times before blinking repeatedly and finally spoke a hushed "yes" under her breath.

The creature leant down and gently rested its strange appendage upon her wither in a show of reassurance as it nodded. "Don't worry, this'll all be over in no time." It said before standing up and giving off a single clap. "Now!" It began as it turned around and walked off to where its companion and steed stood. "Let's see how many seconds these frost covered shelob look alikes last!"

Leona watched on with a mix of emotion as the three of them began to literally pulverise the beasts, tearing off their limbs, bashing them against the ground with might stomps before, much to the griffon's surprise, they summoned forth what looked like liquid fire and threw it upon the eviscerated remains of the beasts.

Finishing off their work the smaller of the two creatures gave off a chuckle as it patted off its wet appendage on its legs. "Well! That was certainly easier than expected." It said before turning to its larger companion. "By the way, nice moves father, doing well for an old man!"

That was his father?! Leona thought as she looked on, not expecting such a brash attitude from the child of what seemed like a gentlegriff in all regards. The father turned to his child with what seemed to be an annoyed expression, yet as silence reigned, his eye twitched and his grimace turned into a smile before breaking into laughter. "Oh yeah?! Who was the one who nearly got a makeshift prostate exam from one of those legs?" He said through his laughter as the son's face turned a bright red before falling back first into snow from his father tripping him whilst he was distracted. "Should get to work on that feetwork of yours, hm?"

Looking on, Leona let out a small snicker at the ridiculousness of the situation as the son blew a cloud of snow up from his own laughter on the ground. "Jackass!" She heard a muffled call from the bipedal shaped hole in the ground. The father upon hearing her calmed his own laughter and turned to face her before wiping his own hands on his coat. "Now, let's get you back to your kids, yeah?" He said with a warm smile as Leona's heart nearly burst from her chest.

"You have th-?!" She shouted as she shot up, though it only resulted in her plummeting into the snow from her wounds. Looking down, she saw that her paws had been quite torn up from the trip down the tree as the bark thrashed her. Wincing, she tried standing up but was stopped as the father wrapped his arms around her. "Shhh," he spoke with a reassuring, calming tone, "they're safe, we found them just this morning. You're wounded, we need to get you back to camp to clean these out."

Leona hitched her breath as a few tears escaped her eyes. They're safe! They're safe. They're safe... fuck... it hurts so much. Her thoughts were nearly broken by one of the creatures appendages petting her down her back but as she calmed herself, she found that it actually felt nice. Letting out a shuddering breath, she looked up at the father with conviction in her eyes as she spoke. "Take me to them."