“Fuck. Off.”
“No! Remove yourself from my home, you fiend!”
“I’M LITERALLY FIXIN' YOUR DUMPSTER OF A HOME, MOTHERFUCKER!”
Griffons passing by would take a look at the loud argument between Gunter the owl faced griffon and well known snob of the kingdom and the new strange outsider who was on Gunter's roof, boards tucked under his arm, a box of nails in his pocket and hammer in hand. A look of annoyance on his face as he stares down the large hole of the roof to the snob.
“Bah! As expected of some outsider… Can you not see that my home is in perfect condition already!” Gunter says, inside his home one of his shelves break down; the sound of breaking china rings out the hole.
“Ignore that, that... uh happens sometimes.” Gunter looks away and scratches his neck.
Famine narrows his eyes. “Rather than sometimes how about I use my HAMMER and NAILS to… I don’t know…FIX YOUR FUCKIN' SHELF PERMINATELY!” He bangs the hammer against the roof in frustration.
“I refuse! You lack the… Uh… Ingenious creativity required to fix my home to my standards.” Gunter huffs and pushes out his chest.
“Wha-What the fuck does that even mean!? I’m not your fucking interior designer home agent! I’m literally just repairing your fucking roof! Your house is not even special! It's similar to the rest of these damn houses, you stuck up asshole!”
“Exactly! Thus I don’t need your services, begone outsider go make yourself useful to some lower class griffon.” Gunter turns his head and makes a shooing motion with his talons towards Famine.
“YOU'RE FUCKIN' LOWER CLASS!” Famine points out the hole they’re arguing between with circular motions. “You have a FUCKIN' hole in your house! Wouldn’t it be better to have me fix it so when it rains you don’t have your home flooded.”
Famine pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Just let me help you already, dammit.”
“You can help yourself… Off the cliff of course.” Gunter glares at the man.
“Okay that's it.” Famine puts his boards down and hammer in his sash and hops down the hole into the griffon's home.
“Hey! I didn’t let you I-” Famine grabs Gunter by his neck, he squawks in surprise. Not longer after Gunter is flung out the door and hits a nearby wall, sliding down and grunting in pain as Famine wipes some feathers that stuck on his hand. “You’ll get your house back when I’m fucking done FIXIN' it. So go help yourself with finding a new home for a couple hours until I'm done.” Famine give a little bow. “I’m sure your fellow kin will absolutely love to house you with such a noble and wonderful character that you have, my great feathered lord.” Venom leaked out of his sarcasm.
“Y-you can’t kick me out of my own home!”
“Well I just did, m'lord. The fuck are you gonna do about it?” Famine stands back up and opens his arms wide, inviting him to try and take back his home.
“G-gah…” Gunter gets on all fours and glares at him before huffing and flying away. “I’ll be back and when I do I better not see ANY of my Valuables stolen!”
“WHAT FUCKIN' VALUABLES!?” Famine yells at the escaping griffon, arms falling to his side.
He grumbles as he closes the door. Never has Famine felt more regret for anything in his life than for what he said last night. At the moment he thought it would be easy enough to bring this kingdom back to its former glory. Gruff really did believe he could do it and so did he, that was until Gruff’s first task. He made him go around town repairing griffon houses as heavy weather like snow, rain, or hail made living in the town hell. Easy enough task right?
Wrong. So very wrong. The griffons were stuck up assholes about having their homes fixed or even touched, some telling him to fuck off, others threating him. He shrugged it off at first and looked for more willing participants that wanted their homes repaired. He only got a handful that did and that made a problem due Gruff wanting EVERY house in this town repaired. After the twelfth rejection he grew tired of the bullshit and forced himself upon griffon homes.
It did not go well. Griffons who tried to fight him off their house got pummeled, Famine making sure to not give any harsh injuries due to the possibility that there are probably no clinics or hospitals in town or close to here for miles. He couldn’t let his reputation fall down to murderer. It was tempting though.
With the sun already in its afternoon position and only five houses repaired out of thirty, Famine could already hear that old coot yelling at him for half-assing his first task already. He groans and runs a hand down his face.
“Griffonstone fucking sucks.”
“You can say that again.”
A females voice comes from above, he turns around and looks up to see a familiar dice playing Griffon look down at him from the hole with her bored face.
“Griselda…”
“Big guy…”
The two stare at each other in silence, her bored expression never leaving her face as Famine gives her a glare.
“How's the home repairing thing going?”
“Absolutely… Lovely.”
“Really? I can really tell with all the yelling and the amount of bruised griffons I've seen.” She rolls her eyes with a slight smirk on her face.
“Oh piss off. They started it first. They should be lucky that I’m not threatening their lives over it. Unli—”
“Unlike some?”
Famine huffs and puts his hands on his hips. “Yep…”
“That's not surprising, we start fights over the smallest things.”
“Have you also started fights?”
“Yeah. One time I beat this fella so bad over one bit that he didn’t give me.” She smiles.
Famine squints at her. “Really…?”
“Yeah, I take my winnings seriously. Around here you need as many bits as you can get.” Her smile vanishes.
“How much did you make, by the way?”
“Huh?”
“You know since you’re fixing houses and what not.” Famine can see the glimmer of greed in her eye.
'Is she actually going to dice roll me out of my coin...? Fucking greedy assholes...'
“Sorry to disappoint but absolutely none.”
“What.” She frowns.
“I have made nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Nah.”
“You are. There's no way you haven’t made some bits doing this.”
“Yes way. I am doing this absolutely free of charge.”
She looks at him for a while before her brow rises. “Why?”
“Cause Gruff.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you need from that old guy that was so great that he put you up to this?”
“I didn’t really ask anything great… just asked him for the history of Griffonstone.” She looks at him slightly wide eyed.
“What? He didn’t ask you for bits? Just repair houses?”
“Hell no, that was the first thing that motherfucker asked me for!” Famine yells out while raising his arms up. Griselda chuckles at his response.
“Heh! Yeah that's Gruff for ya. Though…” She cups her chin with one claw and thinks.
“He never made his exchanges this harsh…” She looks back at him with a suspicious squint.
'Fucking curious bastard. Need a believable lie now.'
“I guess because I’m staying with him too… I don’t have a house here so he offered me his place in exchange that I help around.”
“Ah… That makes sense.” She nods.
“Yeah. Wait a fucking second... What are you doing here!” Famine points his finger at her.
“Oh? I was bored. Nobody to play dice with. Heard your voicer and decided to watch you.”
“Watch me? Since when?”
“Since you pummeled Gaston this morning. Anyone ever told you that you’re fun to watch?”
“No…” Famine furrows his brow, not sure how to feel about being stalked by a gambling griffon.
“Speaking of fun……” The sound of familiar dice jingling catches his attention, his eyes going over to her clenched shaking hand.
“Wanna ditch work and play dice? You did tell me I could hit you up if I need a partner.”
“Tempting…” Another shelf in the house suddenly breaks down and breaking china rings throughout the house.
“Very…Tempting.” Famine pinches the bridge of his nose as Griselda snickers.
“Oh shut up.” He walks over and starts to fix the shelf as Griselda enters through the hole and lands inside the house.
“Well?”
“No, if I stop doing this then the old fuckers gonna squawk in my goddamn ear till I actually go deaf (If that's possible)." She frowns and pockets her dice within her scarf.
“Okay… How about later then?”
Famine turns his head and looks at her. Even though she didn’t show it she looked a little bit…Dejected.
'Was she lonely?’ He looks at her for a moment with some pity before shakeing his head.
‘You only just met her! You can't just make assumptions off the bat.’
“Maybe. But it is early so you might get some games later on in the evening?” He raises a brow at her.
“Yeah but I want you specifically.”
“W-what…?” Famine tenses up, past flashbacks of an event long ago like this going through his head as he gives his full attention to her.
“I don’t like losing.”
“Oh.” He lets out a sigh of relief.
“You’re the first one in a long time to beat me at dice… I really… Don’t like losing.” She glares at the bipedal creature.
“So I wanna play just so I can beat you.”
“Hah. You’re a sore fucking loser.” Famine smirks as he takes his hammer out and looks over where the shelf used to be held up.
She huffs behind him. “Yeah. So what?”
“Really showing your griffon nature. There is a problem with playing dice with you though.”
She raises both brows at that statement. “Huh? What's the problem?”
“There's nothing I gain from winning or lose from losing.”
“Ah… True…. Mnnnn…” For a while silence enters the house, making Famine look back to see if she really couldn’t just say ‘Let’s play for fun then’ Seeing her really in thought over the simple solution made facepalm.
“How about if one of us wins then we ask a question for the other to answer.”
‘Oh?’ He smirks at her. “Curious about me now?”
“Maybe……” She looks away.
“What if we lie during the answers?”She simply shrugs, making him chuckle in response.
“All right, I’ll bite. When and where?”
She gives a small smile. “Night, I'll just pick you up myself after seeing how easy it is to find and take you there.”
“Okay?” She nods and flies out the hole.
“Wha-Say goodbye or later at least! you rude asshole!” He scoffs.
Famine looks over his work of art. Five uncovered bookshelves next to each other in a small half circle, ground cleaned of papers and destroyed books in a nice pile for burning later.
“Hooh…” He sighs happy to be given this job.
Maybe Gruff realized that trying to repair all the houses in one day seemed impossible or he noticed the library was a complete dump. Literally. Destroyed books, papers everywhere, bookshelves crooked into the ground and covered in the straw from the destroyed library. Honestly he was surprised how one of the more so important buildings for the town was destroyed. Even the condition of some books were shocking, some perfectly readable despite being out in the open for who knows how long, impressive.
“When I have time I should read some of thes—”
Cut off mid sentence by the loudest ‘SQUAWK’ penetrating his ears. He quickly turns his head, anger already slipping onto his face. Gruff comes down from the sky in lands right next to him, he takes a moment to look around and gives a small smile.
“Good job, fledgling. Could be better but it’s okay… i guess.” Gruff rolls his good eye and frowns.
“Ah yes, in the short amount of time you set this fucking task on me I DEFINITELY could do so much better, Gruff.” Famine turns around to see the old griffon look around the remains of the library.
“Maybe I could done better if you didn’t SQUAWK SO FUCKIN' LOUD EVERYTIME YOU ARRIVE! Can’t you fucking act like a normal fucking person!?”
“...........Hm?” Gruff is snapped out of his observation of the library and onto Famine.
“You say something, fledgling?”
“Oh my fucking god.” Famine puts his face in both hands. If this old coot wasn’t giving him a place to stay he would’ve snapped his neck and thrown him off the cliff already.
“Anyway! Fledgling, I have a new task for you.”
“What!? I haven’t even finished this yet!”
“Bah! That can be done anytime on any day, this task is far more important and oughta even bigger change to our great kingdom.” Famine squints his eyes and frowns, his brain having already pressed X to doubt the griffon's statement.
“What this “important” task you want to give me, old coot…”
“Help my Granddaughter sell our family’s scones.”
Famine buries his face in his hands again. ‘God fucking damnit, i knew it was going to be fucking stupid.’
“Why.”
“Because I let you stay at my house for free and the scones will help feed the town.”
“Not fo—”
“Not for free of course.” Gruff grins and snickers. Famine moves his hands away from his face and looks down at the griffon, a tired look on his face.
“Really…?"
Gruff nods. “Mn-hmm. You’ll find my granddaughter near the big statue of King Grover.”
“...You realize that all the statues here are big… (at least compared to you)” Famine points to the statue between them with his thumb.
“Hmm… Right…Then look for a griffon pulling griffon scone cart.”
"Fine..."
He barely seen any griffons pull carts around here, most of them are just loitering around town, chilling in their dumb houses, or flying to fuck all. Surely finding a griffon with a cart of scones surely couldn’t be hard.
‘Scones eh? There was no way they would be okay. After all they require baking powder and various other ingredients to be even remotely decent, and this place seems to be in the Middle Ages. The chance of them even finding a substitute for cooking scones is low unless they’re not the desert version.’
Famine couldn’t help but be curious over what the scones here might be, it was a different world after all. Maybe they looked entirely different, maybe they just called pancakes ‘Scones’ here. Hell, scones could be an entirely different dish altogether. He smiles at the thought of learning a new dish and bringing back to hell to act as if he made it.
He gives a small devilish grin that soon fades when something sweet and… acorns? Acorns. Wait acorns? Famine freezes in place as the cogwheels start to turn in his brain.
‘Scones are a desert, acorns are in the nut category in food. So this would be nut scones, the town is poor as shit. Forest below, acorns can be gathered. 1 + 2 = 3. Acorn Scones.’
He snaps out of his calculations and goes after the smell. Never had Famine thought of hearing acorns and scones being mixed together but well… budget food works. Turning around a corner he spots the supposed scone cart, the shittest cart he’s ever seen. Made from loose boards from broken down houses but not properly cut down, literal sticks holding up the roof of the car and wheels, a shitty made image of a scone on the roof of the cart. The only noteworthy thing of the entire cart was the fact that it had shelves and a furnace attached to the back, it was smaller than average but it’s quality was abnormal compared to the rest of the cart.
Glancing over the shelves he sees the sources of the nutty smell, freshly baked scones laid in rows on the shelves with a single large acorn on the top of them. The sights, the smell, these scones were… Decent. Which being able to reach that status shocked him, he didn’t know the griffons could actually make decent things. Moving his attention from the scones and towards the baker behind the goods he finds Grampa gruffs granddaughter, an adult female griffon from one what he could tell that.
She had a brown lower half, white feathers with purple edges, feathers significantly hanging over the front of her head as if it was a hairstyle, purple marking around her eyes. Honestly she almost like normal depictions of griffons were portrayed on earth, except for the purple. She was in the middle putting green mittens over her talons and pulling scones out of the furnace.
The way she looked at them, the uncaring yet focused look. Like a true baker. She was more useful and perhaps more competent than her asshole of a grandfather. He sighs and prepares for whatever assholeish attitude is about to come from her beak.
As she stocks the scones on the shelves he approaches her from behind, crossing his arms he lets out a cough that gets her attention. Slowly she turns around and her eyes go wide as she sees the biped before her, staring down at her.
“Hey.”
“H-hey.” She puts up a uncaring look but the nervousness in her voice betrays her look.
“..........................”
“..........................”
They look at each other for a bit before she looks away and claws at the ground for a bit.
"So… You’re that outsider I uh… heard of…”
“Yeah… Gruff sent me to help you out.”
“A-ah okay…”
“Yeah…”
“............”
“..............”
`What the fuck is this…? All the other griffons couldn’t give less than two shits about what I was, what the hell is she so nervous?`
Famine squints at her, she was different. She wasn't afraid but rather nervous, the fact that she is looking around as if to find something to talk about was already different. Now that he thought about it, why was he not talking? If she won’t take the lead then he should.
“Hey w—”
“Want to try a scone?” She interrupts him. Turning around and quickly grabbing a scone to offer to him. Nervousness and uncertainty on her face, reminding him of someone doing something new for the first time and showing it to their master.
“...Sure.” He uncrosses his arms and takes the scone from her talon. Looking over the scone he sees it has a nice soft texture and was cooked a little bit over the limit but not enough to start the blackening of bread, she most likely didn’t know the exact temperature, or the height of the fire is supposed to be. It smelled nice but the fact it was just a scone with an acorn on top was kind of a… Beginners first bake.
Opening his mouth and plopping the scone into his mouth, it was as he expected, decent taste with a nice surprise of nuts within the breading itself but he knows it can be better. Much better than this. After swallowing the scone down and licking crumbs off his lips, he nods in approval to her and prepares to compliment her decent baking when a realization hits him. Something that made him go wide eyed.
‘Wait… Did she just give me something… For free?’
He looks back to her and puts his hands on his hips. “It was… Okay. How much do you want for it?”
‘Nah. There is no way that a griffon would give something away for free. If there was one thing I know; it's that griffons are greedy assholes.’
“Nah, its on the house.” She gives a small smile.
“What!?” Moves his hands from his waist and looks at her with shock, she raises her wings slightly and leans back at his sudden outburst.
“H-huh? What is it!?”
Famine looks at her before turning around quickly and putting a hand over his mouth, cold sweat starts to form and eyes narrowed.
‘What!? What the fuck!? She gave me something for FREE!? I knew she was different from the rest but not THIS different!’
He turns his head to look at her who was still staring at him with surprise. The fact that she genuinely acted nonchalant about giving that scone for free was so off putting, he actually felt that he was looking at a different creature rather than a griffon.
‘She’s that assholes grandkid too!? She should be twice the asshole than him! Instead she was actually nicer and more useful than him already!’
He looks away again, a perplexed expression donning over his face. He thought he could do his casual thing and force his assistance onto her but now… he was so sure as to what to do.
"Are you… y' know okay?"
"Uh… yeah just… fine." He turns around and gives his usual expression despite the nervous sweat wearing on him.
"You sure, uh… dude."
"I'm pretty damn sure. Anyway I'm here to help."
"Okay, yeah. Uh." She scratches the back of her head and looks at him.
"I'm Gilda."
He nods. "Im-"
He pauses, realizing that he hadn't given anyone his name or an alias to go by he quickly comes up with one.
"Famis. Last name Venturae."
"Cool."
"Yeah. Cool."
A moment of silence enters the area once again. Famine scratches the back of his head.
"So what specifically do you need help with?"
"Well, honestly I don't need help with anything… I'm doing pretty okay." She looks away again, talons scratching her feathers. Famine squints, was she hiding something?
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I'm pretty sure.”
“If you’re doing fine then why did gruff send me over to help you then…?”
She shrugs. “He’s a worry bird.”
“Is that so..?” He crosses his arms. She was definitely hiding something from him, maybe something related to why Gruff sent him over to help her but what is it? She seemed to be doing pretty good but something is off about this whole schitck...
“Okay, what are yo—” Right next to him a female griffon comes from above and lands right next to the cart, making Famine and Gilda jump. The first thing he sees is a scarf, he gets ready to yell at Griselda when he take in her other feathers, a dark brown lower half, white feathers with green tips, the green markings around her eyes were much bigger than Gilda and Griselda combined, her scarf was thinner and teal with a crescent moon brooch.
“Hey, Gilda. Scone me.”
“Greta!” Gilda casually grabs a scone on the shelf and gives it to Greta. She takes a bite out of it and nods to Gilda.
“Thanks, Gils.” With that Greta flies away as Gilda gives a small smile and waves goodbye.
“I see now.” Famine speaks up making Gilda whip her head around, nervousness returning to her.
“What?”
Famine smirks. “You’re giving scones away for free aren’t you?”
“..........” For a while she stays silent, looking around for answers but in the end she sighs and turns away.
“Yeah… That old man wanted you to help me, he thinks I'm not attracting any customers and just eating the scones before I turn the cart back to him. She looks back at him with a guilty gaze.
“I would tell him the truth but well. You should've been around enough long enough to know how he is…” She rolls her eyes and takes a scone from the shelf to eat.
“Yeah…Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why? Most of the griffons I’ve met so far are greedy, selfish, unbearable pricks. Why are you different?”
Gilda lets out a chuckle, standing up on her hind legs she turns to face him while leaning against the cart. “Simple, I learned friendship is more important than any amount of go- What’s with that face!?”
Gilda gives a glare at his scowl. “Don’t bullshit me, griffon. What's the real fucking reason.”
“That is the real reason!”
“Ugh, how cliché…” Famine rolls his eyes and looks away, as Gilda frowns at him.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Friendship means more to me now…”
“So why the hell are you giving scones away for free?”
“Because my friends believe that I can spread friendship to uh... Restore Griffonstone.”
Famine pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “With fucking scones…?”
“No! Maybe! Yeah…” Gilda faintly blushes as she starts to realize how dumb this method was. Famine continues to shake his head before letting out a frustrated groan.
“It seems your "friends" told you to do something but didn't show you how to do it." He groans. "You have a good goal… But making friendship through scones? Free scones?! That is literally asking someone to take advantage of you. Hell, the chances of someo- somegriffon starting to understand the concept of giving things for free is so low that I doubt you can even accomplish it within your life.”
Moving his hand from his nose to crossing his arms again he continues. “Griffonstone isn’t going to revive itself off the concept of friendship, that's idealism at best… You need leadership, economic trade, supporters/investors, chains of command, a lot of political bullshit. Friendship is just going to make you corporate together.”
“Griffonstone fell because it’s sole foundation was the fact that a single piece of junk united you all because of how “beautiful” it looked until it got stolen and griffons lost respect for themselves, and from other creatures. You’re way of doing it is stupid and your reasoning is cliché as shit… but it is… a good foundation… (better than what I was going to do anyway honestly.)”
Gilda looks at him with wide eyes and mouth opened. “W-woah that's uh…. A lot to take in… How do you know all of this?”
“We only just met. Don’t fucking ask me personal questions.” Gilda rolls her eyes and frowns.
“Well with the way you were explaining things it seems you’re looking into Griffonstone aren’t you?”
“.........................Maybe” He looks to the side.
Gilda gets back on all fours. “Well you’re right… It’ll take more than scones to spread friendship. I wouldn’t mind if you know…” She looks away and plays with her feathered bangs, trying to find the words. “Gave me some advice… you know.”
“...............”
He cups his chin and closes his eyes in thought.
‘Hnn… I can do it by myself but it’ll take way too long and could go... very wrong… The most I can do is make a foundation but if I work with her, it might speed up and when I leave then she can take care of it.'
He nods and opens his eyes. “Fine, I’ll help you spread-" He does air quotes with his fingers "-“friendship” to restore Griffonstone to a better state than it currently is.”
Gilda gives a small smile and offers her talon out to him. Famine hesitates but wraps his larger hand around hers and the two shake.
“I look forward to our partnership, Gilda.”
“I look forward to our...mnn “Friendship”, Famis.”
Famine scowls while Gilda gives a smirk, both breaking the hand shake and turning away from each other. Famine gives a glance to the griffon only to be met in return with her own glance, both turning their heads again and grunting in unison. This was going to be an excellent partnership indeed.
“Let’s get to business. Scones. We got to sell some. You can give some away for free but we need at least some coin to please the old bastard.”
“I can agree to that but there is a problem though.”
“What.”
“I don’t really get that many customers, Greta and some passersby are my usual's buts that's pretty much it.”
“Hm.” Famine looks back over to the cart, three shelves with scones on them. Shitty sign, shitty design. Decent scones. The business was the definition of a food cart from the slums.
He points to the cart, making her look at it with a brow raised. “Cart needs to be revamped, it looks like shit. Scones need to be better, and a more open or populated location oughta increase the amount of customers.”
“Hold up, first off all, the griffon scones are good. They’re made from Grampa Gruffs secret recipe.
Second, if I could get better materials then I would've gotten some by now."
"I'll find a way, for now we focus on the product we're selling. Griff's secret recipe is just nutty scones, that's it. We need something that will make it one of a kind and turn customers to addicts."
"If you think you can make gramps scones better, then I'm all ears."
Famine walks past Gilda and grabs a scone, looking over it in thought, hand on his chin as he turns it around, viewing the sides, bottom and top of it. He huffs and turns around back to Gilda.
"Glaze."
"Huh?"
"Glaze, Gilda."
"What's glaze?" Gilda tilts her head at him while rising a brow.
"It's basically a sweet coating that's better than icing. It can bring out the sweetness on desserts but the issue is… it requires a specific sugar, a syrup of any flavor, extract, and other stuff depending on what flavor we want the glaze to be."
He huffs. "But I doubt you creatures even have the crap though… Maybe the icing will just do…"
"I don't know half of the squawk you just said but it might be in our general store."
"Bullshit. Where the fuck is a general store around here?" He spreads his arms. "What the hell could you possibly even have to sell?"
Gilda rolls her eyes and walks past him while smacking his leg with her tail. "Oh shut it. Just follow me. Take the cart with you too."
Famine rolls his eyes, grabbing the cart by a stick handles he follows after the griffon.
"Told you."
"Shut up."
"Just shut the fuck up." Famine closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face. Around him was the existence of a general store. It was small and within the tree, saloon doors at the entrance though one was on the ground after Famine had accidentally broken it off the hinge. Inside it was what he imagined a Griffonstone general store to look like, shelves with cans on them, boxes placed down at random places with its contents opened in lazy fashion. In the corner there were barrels, some filled with nuts or vegetables, bags of whatever were scattered throughout the store.
In front of the two was a wooden counter with a glass display showing everyday tools and some candies and a cash register on top, behind the counter was a shelf with holding news articles, books, rope, and some tools. Besides the counter was the staircase going up with a sign next to it saying "discounted and lightly used items upstairs” which gave him the feeling of being a pawn shop upstairs.
“Haah… Lets see if this store has this shit.” Famine sighs and starts checking the goods with Gilda following behind. Checking out the goods he can't help but show some surprise at the modernity of some goods, canned corn, fruits, and meats. Low quality but that's to be expected. Checking the bags his eyes widen slightly upon the discovery of a bag of powdered sugar.
“Well fuck me I guess…” He picks up the bag of sugar, while Gilda snickers.
“You realize if we didn’t have a store I wouldn’t be able to make scones right?” Gilda looks at him with a smirk.
“I don’t fucking know… You have wings so you can just fly over to another town and buy shit…”
“There’s no town close to hear for miles, the closest non-griffon store is across the sea.”
“What!? Are you fucking joking?!” He whips his head to look down at her, his face hardened as she nods.
“Dammit…” He looks away while grimacing, the griffon kingdom really was a shithole. Looking further around he doesn't find extract nor syrup of any type.
“Shit.” Famine says while looking through the boxes on the floor. He looked around the store to double check if he missed it but his eyes were correct; no sweet helpers. Just as he was about to tell Gilda the bad news his eyes fell onto the glass display, behind the glass he saw maple candies. Walking over to display to examine further he can tell its a sucker type of candy. Which meant it was…
‘Meltable…!’
“All right, where’s the shopkeeper?” Famine looks around on the counter for any bells or ways to summon the shopkeeper of the store only to be stopped by Gilda’s coughing, slowly he turns back and sees her inhaling.
“What the fuck are y—”
“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!” Gilda roars, her voice spreading through every nook and cranny of the store, some items shake under the power of her roar, Famine drops the bag of powdered sugar and stares at her with a blanked out expression.
“I’M COMIN’!” A female voice from above roars back in response making Famine wince, seconds later a female griffon with amaranth lower body, light grey feathers with vermillion tips with a light blue griffon stylized vest around her torso. On her face she bore a stoic look on her face that combined awfully well with her light blue newsie cap coming down the stairs. Making it to the ground floor she comes to the counter and stands on her hinds legs to put both of her arms on the counter, looking over the two she eyes the bag Famine dropped,
Famine meanwhile bears a heavy scowl, he picks the bag up and puts it on the counter and points at the box of maple candies in the display. She looks at the bag then at the box he pointed to and moves over to the cash register to add up the sales.
Getting the total sum of the purchases she looks up at him and speaks up. “Gimme fifty bits.”
Gilda goes up and digging into her chest fluff takes out a small pouch and tosses it to the shopkeeper who immediately opens and starts counting. After seeing the correct amount she opens the display and puts the box of maple candies on the counter.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” Famine says tonelessly as he collects the bag and box. The shopkeeper just gives a nod in response.
“I hope your idea didn’t just make me waste fifty bits.” Gilda says instantly the moment they exited the store.
Famine lets out a chuckle and looks down at Gilda. “Even if this goes wrong it should go swell. It oughta have some better taste than your Grampas scones”
“It's better or else you’re going into debt.”
“Try me, bitch.”
“Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd done.” Famine lets out a long exhale as he pulls out a dozen revamped Gruff scones from the tray and onto the shelves that were covered with strands of paper ripped from the library books. Same shape and design but now coated with the nice light brown coating of homemade melted maple candy glaze. Acorn smashed and sprinkled on top of the scones and decorated with the same stylized and recognizable acorn in the very center the Gruffs recipe desired. Famine smirks at work of his scone and looks over to the surprised griffon, she takes a moment to inhale the smell and her feathers nearly puff out as her eyes widen.
“W-woah…” She mumbles under her breath.
“Heh, with the right temperature, care, added acorns, and a coat of glaze your grandpa’s scones have turned into something more… Mnn… edible.” Famine puts his hands on his hips and puffs his chest out in pride.
“Gilda, feel free to try one.” Famine grabs a scone with the paper to make it wrap around the scone and gives it to Gilda. She hesitates but takes the scone, for a moment she stares at the scone, her mouth starting to salivate but she snaps herself out of it. She exhales and takes a bite out of the scone. The sweet taste of breaded maple combined with the nice crunch of the tasty nuts hits her like a cannon, her eyes open wide and a faint blush spreads across her face and her feathers puff up.
For a while she just silently scarfs down the scone, when she starts to accidentally eat paper she snaps out of her daze and immediately looks at Famine with a glare ready to see that cocky smirk plastered on his face she saw him wear during baking. Looking up her glare vanishes as she sees a genuine smile on his face.
“It was good wasn’t it!” He gives a small chuckle as Gilda looks away and fixes her feathers.
“Shut it! How is someone like you good at baking anyway!?” Gilda points a finger at the man who grins at her.
“Let's say I… dabble in the culinary arts from time to time." He answers slowly, rolling his shoulders. Gilda gives a glare knowing there is more to his answer.
"Now stop getting puffed up about it, we need to find a good spot and start selling." He walks past Gilda and grabs the cart's handles while she watches him with narrowed eyes. Sighing she crumples up as the paper tosses it on the ground.
"Fine Whatever. I know a spot."
Gilda walks besides him, taking him to a spot in front of the library. Setting up the cart Famine does some stretches before yelling out advertisements, Gilda puts the metal holder attached to the cart handles onto a rock, turning around she watches the area looking for any griffons.
In the corner of her eye she sees a pair of young griffons, she hesitates and looks around for a moment trying to find a way to coax them to come out. In the end she settles on giving a friendly smile. Much to her surprise it works and the younglings approach the cart.
She smiles and goes to grab two scones, looking over at Famine to check if it was okay with him. He gives her a glance and nods, grabbing the scones and book paper wrappings she gives them to the young griffons. They take the scones, the smell hitting them and causing them the two to take bites out scones immediately. Eyes widening as the taste is processed, they start scarfing down the scones.
Serving their first customers, throughout the afternoon and evening they attract some griffons. Mainly adults who paid for their scones while Gilda gave the younger griffons scones for free. Some tried to haggle the ten bit price down to less which caused Famine to threaten them. Not great for the public image but it did keep order in check.
Over time the sky was filled with the magnificent orange hue of the falling sun and the rising moon. Between Gilda and Famine was their cart empty of scones. Seeing off the last of their customers the two sigh in unison.
"That went well."
"Yeah, we got… sixty bits and sold out on scones."
"More like your old fuck of a grampa got sixty bits…"
Gilda laughs and nudges him with her elbow. "Oh shut. We hit the bigger goal in mind in the end."
"What? Friendship? Sharing is caring? Some other sappy bullshit?"
Gilda laughs again and Famine scoffs but gives a small smile. Despite how sappy her reasoning was, he had to admit that it was kind of fun, doing this again. He smiles seeing some griffons flying away, eating his scones.
"Thanks for the help, Famis. I… probably couldn't get that big of a crowd by myself."
"Shut up, don't thank me. That's weird coming from a griffon."
"Too bad, you've been thanked." She smirks as she turns around. " I'll take the cart back home with me and give Grampa Gruff his share."
Gilda walks over and straps herself to the cart. Mid strap she pauses and looks back to him.
"Wanna hang out after-"
"Found you."
Both Gilda and Famine turn their heads and look up to see the dark, scarf bearing griffon. Looking down at Famine with crossed arms.
"Huh, you really did come to pick me up…"
"You're easy to find, what can I say."
Griselda looks over at Gilda and gives a slight frown. "You hanging out with this loser?" Gilda sends a glare over at her who returns it with her own.
"No. Just finishing up work, Gruff tasked me with helping her for the day."
She narrows her eyes at him which in turn made him narrow his eyes back at her.
"Don't look at me like that bird brain."
"Hm. Whatever, let's get going I'm aching to beat you already."
"Hah! Sure whatever." Griselda gives a small smirk and motions him to follow as she flies away rather quickly.
"What th-god fucking dammit! I'll see you later, Gilda."
Famine quickly runs after Griselda while Gilda watches him go. She lets out a sigh and starts moving.
"Out of all the griffons here, he befriended her…?"
The moonlight from Luna’s moon shines down on the sleeping kingdom of the griffons, most griffons asleep within their homes but the homeless roam the alley’s in the dark looking for the poor souls who come across their way to lose their coin. Within this lovely night in a corner of the kingdom, a broken down house fills with a faint orange glow as two voices within ring out.
“Oh look, I win again.”
“Uggggggggggh!” Griselda groans and rolls her eyes.
In the small broken down house, with a single lantern attached to a broken down wooden beam. Sitting across each other with a small wooden bowl with two dice.
“I swear you’re cheating!” She points an accusatory finger at him.
“How? I told you before we started, I can't use magic.” Famine huffs as he changes his position to lay down on his side with his left arm keeping his head up.
“You could’ve lied about it…” She squints her eyes.
“True… Could’ve found out if you won and didn’t give the option to lie if you lose, dumbass.”
She scowls. “Shut up!”
He snickers. “Now then, what to ask…”
He ponders for a moment, eyes looking over her. “What's with the scarf?”
She looks down and touches her scarf with a raised brow. “Huh, this old thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh... it’s just something I got from a thrift shop years ago.” She looks away briefly.
“Really?”
“Yeah, thought it looked nice. Stole it and kept it since then.” She looks back at him with her usual look.
“What did you expect some sob story about it?”
“Kind of yeah.”
“Ha. Not sorry to disappoint you then, nice roll.” She quickly takes the dice and starts shaking.
“Three and six.”
“Two and four.”
Watching her shake the dice more furiously than the last three rounds he sighs. ‘I’ll let her win some.’
Running a hand through his crimson hair the glowing red symbol on the palm of his hand is unseen by her. When she throws the dice they spin around in the bowl for a bit, both of their eyes watching the dice spin with focus until the dice stop their movement showing ⚂ and ⚅.
“Ha! Got you!” Griselda nearly flies up in excitement. His eyes widen at the sudden change in attitude of her victory.
“Aw Fuck.”
She grins and taps her beak. “What to ask, to ask…”
“You seem awfully happy to ask me something…”
“No I'm awfully happy to beat you.” She quickly deadpanned. After a minute passes she seems to know what to ask.
“What's up with the knives?” She points to his waist, making him look down at the sash that holds seven specialized knives used in the culinary arts, each one with cleaned stainless steel with a smoothed redwood handle. He adjusts his sash and pulls out his chef's knife and examines it, throwing it up in the air a couple of times and catching it with ease. His eyes watch the knife with focus and some thought, when he catches the knife the third time he looks back at her.
“I’m a cook.”
Silence fills the room as Griselda stares at him blankly before speaking up. “Huh?”
“Mn-hmm.” He nods.
“I've known you only for a little bit but I know you couldn’t possibly be a cook, that was really a bad lie.”
He shrugs and pockets the knife back into his sash.
“Why do you carry them around anyway?” She raises a brow.
“Ugh you're making me answer two questions…?"
"I'm not makin—"
"Fine... I'll answer your second question I guessssss..." He lets out a long sigh and sits up and scratches the back of his neck.
“Where I came from its similar to this place but… let’s say twenty times worse. You couldn’t go by a day without hearing or getting mugged, beaten, stabbed, or killed. Where I came from it was survival for the fittest, if you didn’t adapt you would be devoured by the strong or the desperate and have your body be found in an alley dumpster. I learned at an early age to always carry some type of weapon on me to protect myself.”
He looks down at the bowl with a forced smile. “It was miserable. Everyday I lived there I lived paranoid and afraid for my life.”
Griselda looks at him with wide eyes, her break opens then closes. Looking back at his sash her mouth quivers a bit, a question she wanted to ask but didn’t want to know the answer to. Shaking her head she puts her poker face on and looks him dead in his yellow eyes.
“Did you.. Ever kill somecreature..?”
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…..” He rolls onto his back and rubs his face.
“That's the third question you asked without rolling dice, Griselda…”
She looks at him with her poker face and sighs, picking up the dice again and starting to shake her hand again.
“Yeah, I've killed before.”
Griselda freezes and looks at him with eyes widened. Cold silence enters the room as Famine looks up the ceiling with a quiet gaze. Through one of the holes in the roof he could see the night sky and the stars, it was a lovely night to confess to murder. The small joke made him smile a bit.
“I've killed since I was seven years old.”