"Right wing up! Right wing down! Left wing up! Left wing down! Wings fold! Wings spread! Right wing up!..."
The new addition to the daily routine of walking through the snow feeling cold, hungry and lost, was the wing gymnastics. The griffin in the skies shook Vsevolod's views of the world more than sudden Great Winter. He knew his physics, he knew his biology. He wasn't some kind of big scientist, but his knowledge was quite enough to understand that his current body can't possibly fly unless thrown. Yet, the unknown griffin did just that, and with no visible strain, like flapping the wings at fifty times per second. He believed in science, but he believed his eyes more. After all, scientifically, it was Thursday, May, 28. Monday of the next week was supposed to be the first day of summer, and he was human. His tail flickered into his field of vision, as a cruel reminder of a place he sent science that morning. Those were his first words aloud since he first dug himself out of the snow that shouldn't be, and some of them weren't expletives.
He had wings. He could fly. That was important, more important in his head than the immediate concern of slowly starving to death. So he pulled all the strength he had to spare - not that much at that - and had put it into learning how to properly move his wings. He already knew the basics - felt the way to move them on his second night, trying to curl tighter, but his movements were still very slow and sluggish. His brain was slowly adapting to the idea that he had two new limbs, but every time the wing sent some new sensation, it went into a halt to process it and understand what it was. His walk that day was slower than the previous one, and carefully avoided most of the trees and bushes the wing can suddenly touch. Instead, he spent a part of the night touching things with the feathers and learning the sensations it caused. It wasn't the worst way to forget about his empty stomach.
Next morning met him with the world that had only snow in it. The sky was presumably covered by low, heavy clouds. Vsevolod had to guess that, since there was no way to see - the snowfall was dense enough to hide everything more than a few meters away. He probably overslept the sunrise, too, since the snow had covered the tiny hole he always left in his lair while he slept. With so much fresh snow there was no way he could continue with his wing training, walking alone took all he had got. There was also no way to ensure that he still walked southward. He probably had some kind of innate sense of direction, being half-bird, but he didn't know for sure. So, he simply walked into the blizzard, hoping he's not backtracking his progress of yesterday.
The forest clearing gave way to some more dense forest, and then, suddenly, to the field of strange hills, bigger than he ever encountered before. The snowfall had thinned out a bit, so from the top of one of the higher ones, he could see rows and rows of them up to the horizon. There was some kind of system to them, too. There were many smaller clusters divided by the forest lines, almost like a city of hills with the forest "roads". It wasn't easy to notice, but the forest lines seemed to converge to some invisible central point. Since it was in the general direction of where he was going anyway, Vsevolod decided to adjust his course a bit. It wasn't like he had anything to lose. At least, he could sate his curiosity, if not his belly. Looking at himself, he noticed distinct signs of malnourishment. His ribs were visible, his fur lost its former sheen, and the feathers looked matted and unhealthy. He had not too much time left to find food. So he went on until the night fell again. In his dreams, he raided the "Animal husbandry" exhibit of VDNKh for chickens the size of an ostrich. His assault was thwarted by the large bipedal cows.
The new morning came, and on he went, walking around larger hills and over the smaller ones, until he was about to jump down a low cliff. There, he saw it. It was beautiful. It was glorious. It was everything he dreamed of, and more. Most importantly, it was the first hare he met that wasn't looking at him while running away. The hare sat at the bottom of the cliff Vsevolod was about to jump from. It was digging in the snow, probably looking for food, and even when it raised its head, it still only looked around, not up. It was, probably, not the smartest hare in existence, but it's not like Vsevolod needed it for a chat.
His body seemed to know what to do better than he thought. The moment he saw the hare, his legs crouched on their own volition, his wings spreading a bit while his tail started to shiver in anticipation. His eyes locked on the prey, he shifted closer to the edge, careful not to drop any snow down alerting the hare of his presence. At this point he didn't need to think about what he needed to do, everything went smoothly, like he'd done it many times. He could hear the loud thumps of his own heart, seemingly slowing down to a halt while his muscles coiled into loaded springs. The hare bent down again, digging at the snow and, for a moment, ignoring the world around it.
He fell on the hapless rodent like an avalanche - heavy, swift and deadly. The hare had no chance to peep in fright before his sharp talons ripped it apart, spewing blood everywhere around. Vsevolod was never a bloodthirsty man, he was pretty certain that if there will be a choice for him between killing a rabbit or dying from hunger, the rabbit will get to live, but at that moment he felt like he was doing the only right thing, the only possible thing to do in the situation. A week of constant cold and hunger have broken something inside of him, some hidden set of restraints, something that makes civilized people think there's "good" or "bad" ways to do things, with "bad" being the ones you shouldn't do no matter what. Before this week, he thought that eating something not quite dead yet is bad. Now he knew that this way he had food, other way he was hungry and cold. He had no desire to be hungry and cold anymore.
He also had no more hare left. It seemed like only seconds had passed, but the only thing reminding of the Lunch existence were several splotches of blood on the snow and the pleasant weight in his stomach. Even his claws and feathers were licked clean. The air ringed with the sound of the eagle call he heard the day before - but this time, it was his own. He wanted more, and he knew that from now he'll seek more, but for now... for now his body decided that it was content with what it got and needed some peace and quiet for proper digestion. The spruce tree nearby offered its blue branches to him, promising some relaxing time with little cold and no hunger. He was almost under it when the oddity clicked in his mind relaxed by the food. The spruce was blue. Turning around, he looked at the brick wall he just jumped off. It was red. The row of strange hills on the other side of a large clearing... looking at them he could easily remember the old walls of GUM standing there, covering the streets full of small and grossly overpriced shops within it. The hill to the left should've been Historical Museum, and the large one at the far end of the field was right on the spot where Saint Basil's Cathedral should stand.
Vsevolod thought he'll need to find a way to get home. He was home all along.