He stepped backwards easily from her wild swing. “Control, Judith. You’ll never hit me with those wild swings.”
Judith growled, throwing the weighted wooden practice sword to the ground, raising a small cloud of dust from the dry ground, “I’ve been doing this for a month! You’d think that I’d have gotten better by now!”
Her trainer sighed, “Judith, nobody gets great with only a month of practice. Even humans have to train. Their mages have to practice for years before they get their first spell, and their greatest warriors spend years swinging practice swords at each other before they’re allowed to move to real weapons.”
She stared at him for a second, narrowing her eyes. “So you’re saying that I’m just a human, huh? That I’m not really a griffon? Thanks for reminding me.” She crouched and spread her wings, before taking off, a small cloud of dust forming from her takeoff.
“Judith!” he shouted after her retreating form. He spread his wings to take off after her, when a hand on his shoulder held him down.
“Let her cool off, Peter,” a sweet voice said. “My daughter does not like being reminded that she’s half human. You know this.”
He shook his head, causing the feathers that composed his hair to shake with him, “We can’t just let her storm off whenever she wants to. It’s not good for—” He was interrupted as his head snapped back. His hand came up to the sudden pain in his forehead, and when he pulled it down, it was covered in red.
“Judith!” her mother shouted at her. “You know it’s not polite to throw rocks!”
A hundred feet away and twenty feet in the air, Judith stuck her tongue out at her mother.
“She threw a rock from over there, and it hit me?” Peter asked, looking between the floating youth and his bloody hand.
“I’m so sorry! She’s always been good at throwing things, but she’s never thrown anything at another griffon before!” Judith’s mother exclaimed, face flushing red.
“Steph, I don’t think you understand!” He smiled. “She’s a natural! She’s better than anyone else I’ve seen, and so young with no training, even!” He turned to where Judith was still floating. “Judith, come back! I want you to try something!”
She hovered for a second, rightly hesitant, before slowly gliding back to her trainer and mother. She alighted on the ground softly, taking a tentative step forward. Each step she took towards her trainer was filled with more confidence as she wasn’t smacked over the head. When she was finally level with her teacher, he just patted her on the head.
He walked over to the training rack, grabbing a device she had never seen before. It was a strange device, with a curved handle leading to a curved sliver of wood held in shape by what looked like a piece of string. “Now this is unusual. I’m not supposed to give you one of these until you’ve learned how to fight with a sword. This doesn’t leave this training area, okay?”
She looked at her mother, who nodded reassuringly. She looked back at the older man and nodded with hesitance. He smiled as he handed her the device. “This is called a crossbow. Now, you hold the curved handle. Yes, just like that. No, with one hand.”
When he was satisfied that she was holding it correctly, he went back to the rack. He grabbed a strange looking stick. It was straight with a whittled tip on one end and three feather spaced equally across the other end. “This is a bolt. The crossbow throws these at long distances with fairly good accuracy. You load it like this.” He loaded the crossbow in her hand. “Now point it at that rock there and pull the trigger with your finger.”
With a nervous pull, the bent bow snapped forward back into place, propelling the bolt forward with great force. The bolt flew off the front end of the crossbow with a flash, before burying itself fractions of an inch in front of the rock she was aiming at.
Peter gave off a low whistle of appreciation, “Nice shot.”
“I missed,” Judith pouted, crossing her arms. “How is that a nice shot?”
He laughed, “Judith, all crossbows kick down. You didn’t know that and still almost got a direct hit your first time.” He brought his hand down to rustle the hair of the micro protégé. “I see the trappings of a great marksman in you.”
She beamed up at him, “Really?”
“Of course.” He grinned back. He grabbed a quiver of bolts from the rack. “Try again.”
Judith eagerly grabbed another bolt, fumbling a bit loading her crossbow in her haste to shoot again. Her next shot skipped off the very top of the rock, leaving a scratch on its surface.
“Too high. Again.”
The rest of the training day went like that. Peter would point out targets for her to shoot at, pointing out what she did wrong until she could hit it. He would then point out another target and the cycle would continue. At one point, he had her switch to shooting with her left hand, and found a negligible decrease in accuracy.
Eventually he looked up at the sky, sighing. “Late low sun. Time for you to go home, Judith.”
The child in question frowned, “Aww, really? I wanted to shoot some more!”
He chuckled at her reaction, ruffling her hair with his hand. “It’s late and you’re young yet. There will be time to shoot again tomorrow.”
“Alright,” she sighed, spreading her wings to fly home. A hand on her shoulder stopped her. She traced the hand to an arm, and the arm to her mother.
Steph smiled at her daughter, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Judith’s face lit up. She turned to her teacher and gave him a big hug. “Thank you!”
He chuckled, “You’re welcome, but I don’t think that’s what your mother was talking about.”
Judith looked up at him with a cocked eyebrow, releasing the hug. He tapped her left arm softly, and she smacked her face with her other hand. She handed back the crossbow with a sheepish smile, before waving and taking off back to her home.
“Is she as good as you said she was?” Steph asked as soon as her daughter was out of earshot.
“Better,” Peter said without hesitation. “She shoots like she has years of experience, and she just started today. She will be a name known across the Empire, I would bet my life on it.”
“Even if she can’t—” she started, before he cut her off.
“She will. It would be a waste of this much talent if she couldn’t.”
She sighed, “I hope you’re right.”
—*~*~*—
“Mom, I’m eighteen!” Judith exclaimed, bracing her head at the temples with both of her hands. “I should be able to change by now!”
“Gabrielle, you have to be patient,” Steph said diplomatically.
Judith scoffed at the use of her clutch-name, dropping her hands back to the table. “I’m not a child, mother!”
“By our laws, yes you are!” her younger half-sister shouted from the next room.
“Shut the hell up, Dorothy!” the half-breed shouted over her shoulder.
“Girls, both of you, be quiet!” their mother scolded. “I expect better from you, Renee.”
From next door, the full-blooded griffon scoffed. “Maybe if Gabby could use my clutch-name, like she’s supposed to—”
“Maybe if you stopped calling me Gabby, I would!” Judith exclaimed, slamming her clenched fist onto the table she was sitting at.
“Gabrielle, come with me.” Steph’s voice left no room for argument.
So of course, Judith had to argue. “Why?”
“Because this is a conversation your sister doesn’t need to hear.”
Judith sighed, following her mother to the other side of the house. They sat down on the ground. Her mother took a deep breath, holding it for a minute, before letting it go. Judith didn’t try to rush her, knowing that she was bracing herself for something.
“You’re half human, you know this,” Steph began.
“Is this going to be another one of these talks?” Judith asked, standing up. “I’ve had enough of these already.”
Her mother’s eye twitched, “Gabrielle Judith Dash, sit down!”
Judith instantly was on the ground. Her mother never used her full name unless she was being incredibly serious.
“Thank you,” the older woman sighed. “I don’t like having these conversations any more than you do, but this one is unavoidable.” Her eyes lost focus as she looked at something over her daughter’s shoulder. Judith looked back, but saw nothing but a wall. Her mother continued, “I’m just going to be frank. No sense dragging it out. There have been no more than one half griffon in each generation, you know this. What you don’t know, and this was as much the Clanfather as it was me, is that they’ve never been quite normal. As much as it pains me to say it, you may never be able to change. Even if you do, it won’t be complete.”
Judith stared at her mother in shock. This was the last thing she expected to hear. Her voice shook as she asked, “Y-you’re joking, right? This is all some c-cruel joke, isn’t it? I-I can’t be a-a freak!”
“I’m sorry, Gabrielle,” her mother said, lowering her eyes.
“No, no! This can’t be true! Who put you up to this? Was it Frank? Eugene? It was Eugene, wasn’t it?” Judith was hysterical, voice rising as she stood up. “Why are you saying these things, mother?”
“Gabrielle, you need to calm down!” the older woman said, standing and putting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
A hand that was promptly slapped away. “Calm down? You want me to calm down after you tell me that I’m a freak? An outcast?” Tears were streaming down her face.
“I said no such things! You are my daughter! I would never be that cruel!” Steph gasped.
“Oh, yeah, you’d just imply it. If you don’t say it outright, then it can’t be your fault that you said it,” Judith snarled.
“You need to calm down, look at this with a rational mind—” her mother tried to say.
“This is your fault!” her daughter snapped at her. “If you’d never fucked that man, I’d be normal! I’d not be some freak!”
“Gabrielle Judith Dash, that is no way to talk to your mother!” Steph snapped.
“I don’t give a damn!” Judith snapped, spinning and storming out the door. She kept walking, through the room they were in before this talk and into the room her half-sister was in. She stopped long enough to slap Dorothy across the face hard enough to knock her off the chair she was sitting in, before walking out the front door and flying off.
Dorothy put a hand to her red cheek, staring out the door in shock. She turned as her mother walked through the other door, “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
Steph sighed, shaking her head. “She doesn’t either, I’m afraid, and that’s the problem.”
—*~*~*—
Judith looked down at the village she had spent her whole life living in. She had mixed feelings for both the village and its inhabitants. This was the place where she was born. It was dry, dusty, and on the side of a mountain, but it was home. It didn’t matter that the houses were carved into the side of the mountain, they were cozy and cool in the hot weather. It didn’t matter to her that she was always being made fun of for being a half-breed since she had her family. She just focused at being as good as she could to make them proud.
And now she was just told that she would never be considered an adult.
Griffons had the natural ability to shapeshift into an actual griffon, half bird of prey, half hunting cat, all deadly. This ability manifested at the end of puberty, marking the moment when a griffon was a full adult.
And she would never be able to change.
She would never have a family of her own. Never have children. Always be considered a child by all.
She would just be a freak, living at home with her family until they died, then she would be an old woman living in the orphanage in the capital until she died. That was not a life, or if it was, it wasn’t one she wanted to live.
She didn’t even look normal. Instead of having the tri-clawed feet normal of a griffon, she had useless five-toed human feet. Her hair was all wrong. Even being able to call it hair was wrong, it was supposed to be feathers, like what was on her wings, not long and flowing hair. Even her face looked wrong, lacking most of the angular features griffons were known for. Her wings were normal, at least, even if they were oddly colored.
She sighed as she looked at what she had just stolen. Two brand-new hand crossbows sat in holsters attached to her legs right next to quivers filled with bolts. A belt wrapped itself around her bare chest, lined with sheathed knives. A pouch filled with smoked meat sat on her hip.
She traced a hand around the edge of her leather vambraces. Her mother spent months crafting these and the matching pair of leather breeches for her. It felt wrong to just take them without thanking her, but Judith was in a hurry.
But her biggest crime was stealing the necklace around her neck. It had belonged to her father, and was the only thing their family had from the southern human lands. It consisted of a red lightning bolt-shaped gem surrounded by pure gold. She didn’t know what prompted her to take it, but it felt more wrong leaving it
She turned around, facing the south. That was where the humans lived, surrounded with their magic and luxury. That was where she had to go.
“I need a name,” she mused out loud. It wouldn’t be right to use her clutch-name or her hatchling-name. Those are reserved for clutch and family, and clan, respectively. But she wasn’t an adult, so she couldn’t take a name of her own.
But she would never be an adult, would she? Did it really matter? Where she was going, she’d be seen as an adult by nature of being physically mature, and she really did need a name.
She sat down to think, running a hand through her rainbow-hued hair. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Rainbow. Rainbow Dash.”
She smiled, standing up and brushing the dust off her breeches. She had a new name, and a new land to learn. Spreading her wings, she launched herself into the air, ready for a new life.