I grumble to myself, flapping my wings to keep up with my companion and away from those… those xenophobic pricks! “-I mean, I wouldn’t mind it so much if they treated me like trash because of something I did, but those fucking asshats took one look at me, saw that I was a ‘half breed’ and treated me like I wasn’t worth the air I breathed!” I screech through my black beak.
“Who,” my winged companion replied in a tired trill, no doubt resigned to listening to my nonstop rant.
“Ugh, I don’t care that I got out of it. It’s the principle of the matter that’s important!”
“Whowho. Who. Whowho.”
“Well how would you like it if they threw you in a cage for days?!”
“Whowho.”
I grind my beak and grab the black feathers covering the top of my head to keep myself from strangling the green owl right then and there before freezing as what he says hits me.
“Wait, how do you know what a griffin is?”
“Whowhohoho.”
“There are griffins here?”
“Whoho.”
“Well where in blazes are they?!”
“Whowho.”
“...”
“...”
“Well fuck you too,” I tell my companion in a flat tone before flying ahead.
“Who!” the owl replies in an insulted voice, before catching up and hissing in my face.
“Well I am sooooooo sorry that having one of the worst weeks in my existence has made me a little bit stressed out! I mean, it’s not like I unraveled everything I have ever worked for in the past several eons to make your universe! It’s not like my mistress finally pushed me to the point where erasing myself seemed like a better alternative than existing for one more galaxy cycle! It’s not like I need to learn how my body works! I mean… Fuck! I’m a bloody Griffin right now! First I wake up as some sort of… Frankenstein monster, then I go to sleep and wake up as a winged unicorn, and now I’m one of the most recognizable chimeras known to the universe?!? What’s next? Waking up as a minotaur? Or, or maybe something insane, like an insect horse hybrid?” I look up at the star filled sky with a frown, “Are you spinning a roulette wheel up there Murphy? Huh?! Well you #$%&!# I hope you’re having fun because as soon as I get my talons on you I am going to #$%^&* you!”
I let out a long screech that destroyed several drifting clouds around us and end panting for breath.
“...Who?”
I feel my left eye twitch rapidly and know that if I don’t do something right now that I am going to blow up in the worst way possible… probably ending with me talking with Lucifer over tea, even with him not existing anymore.
The problem, is that I don’t know what to do. It has been so long since I have had to deal with my own emotions that I - I…
I grab my head and shut my eyes tight, focusing on my breathing, as my skull suddenly feels like someone is splitting it open with a jackhammer. My talons shake as the pain continues relentlessly and my heart pounds away in my chest.
My breathing quickens and the world around me fades out of focus. I am dimly aware of hitting something but the pain is minor compared to what I feel in my skull.
My magic is running wild but the pain is reaching the point that it is getting difficult to think.
“Come on Eris, just fall already.”
My body spasms and I try to cry out, but I don’t have the energy to even lift my head. Cracking my eyes open the last thing I see is the world twisting and warping around me.
…
………..
……………………………
My eyes shoot open and I jolt forward which proves to be the wrong thing to do when my legs cry out in protest. My body has changed again, considering the scales I feel when I wrap my arms around my body...
I never thought it was possible to feel fire in my veins and ice in my stomach at the same time, but this form has done it.
I can feel my ears swerve as I hear something approach. Gathering my strength I lift myself into a sitting position and take note of my surroundings.
The place I landed is no longer natural in any sense of the word. There are venus flytraps the size of houses in the clearing my magic created and bunnies with teeth sharper than any blade I have seen. There are creatures that look like a cross between a canary and a human with muscles so huge they would put the best bodybuilders to shame having a flex off. Mice and keyboards are dancing around the perimeter doing the conga and pigs are flying with miniature rockets glued to their hooves!
“Ahem.”
I look down and see a frog in a butler outfit, complete with the white cloth they always seem to carry, looking up at me.
“I am sorry to wake you, my lady, when you obviously need some rest, but several guests will be arriving soon, and considering they are not listening when I ask them to turn around, I suggest that you leave posthaste.”
I stare at the frog whose voice sounded more at home in a barbershop quartet for several moments before nodding dumbly and pushing myself off the bluish purple altar I was sleeping on. Clutching my stomach as I hit the diamond floor, I slowly shamble to the edge of the clearing and watch in silence as the purple and gold trees uproot themselves to let me pass into the forest.
I don’t know how long I stumble through the trees on my three blue limbs before collapsing under one of countless trees.
“Ugh…”
What I wouldn’t give for some Pepto Bismol right now…
I turn my head.
‘...Oh hey…’ I think before reaching out with a blue claw and grabbing a familiar pharmaceutical bottle, ‘Pepto Bismol…’ I pause with a claw on the top of the bottle, the strangeness of the simple bottle somehow breaking through the haze clouding my mind.
I blink and look at my surroundings.
‘When did I climb a mountain?’
An icy wind blows around me as I frown down at the landscape below. Climbing to my feet I unsteadily make my way down the path I had apparently taken judging by the footsteps… or would it be clawsteps?
Shaking the random thought away I continue my trek down the mountain. The pain in my leg had lessened considerably, only to return after what I can only assume has been hours of walking on uneven terrain. The snow is getting lighter the farther I go, and I am eventually lucky enough to stumble across a cave. Stumbling inside the temporary shelter, I am greeted by an… unpleasant sight.
There are four of them lying together with heavy cloth on their backs. Three equine shapes, along with a minotaur, huddled up for warmth. The sizes of the equines suggest a small family… a new family considering how small the third bundle is.
They aren’t moving…
...
The family is dead…
...
But the foal is still here.