It was at least two hours before the sunrise, Vsevolod was well-fed, warm and rested. He also felt violated. It turned out that the regular care for the stupid griffin youth had made Teplovoz quite adept in it. He knew what was proper to do with a young cub just recovered from the frozen forest, either from his own observation, or from angry parents of the younglings. The list included warm bed, lots of food and plenty of rest.
It also included a bath. A bath that, like any other point of the list, was not exactly voluntary. In fact, the pony was so caught up in the routine, that he hadn't even asked Vsevolod to take it, he just dumped the startled catbird in the large bucket of hot water and placed it into the oven. When he was either tired of the stream of death threats from the bucket, or was sure that griffin within is soaked enough, he took it out and, with all his unfair strength advantage, attacked Vsevolod's fur and feathers with soap. How he managed to do it with hooves was another mystery in the growing collection. At the end of the humiliating procedure, the griffin was clean and furious. He thought nothing can get him any more mad, but then Teplovoz went and mentioned preening.
It took the most part of the rest of the day to get it right. It was humiliating. It was demeaning. It also was to be done twice a day for the rest of his life, if he wanted to keep the ability to fly. Thankfully, according to Teplovoz, it was also considered rather private activity.
All the hustle with the bath was humiliating in yet another way. It made Vsevolod realize just how small he really was. The elk, the minotaur, the pony, everyone in the world were much larger and stronger than him. For everyone he was just a child. Even Teplovoz looked skeptical when he told him his real age. For another griffin he'll be just an orphan cub, nothing more. Of course, it also meant twenty-five more years of possible life, if the griffins lived at least as long as humans. But to get to that point he had to survive the walk to Tula first. When the pony had learned that Vsevolod is yet to figure out how to fly, his expression had shown that he holds no illusion about the success chance of this travel. He still insisted that staying is out of the question, though.
For a creature as proper and honest as he looked, the stallion had shown a lot of talent for subterfuge. Since this was the day of the 'donation drive', no other resident of the village had expected him to leave the house. It was nearly a tradition to sulk for a day, lamenting the loss after such an event. Most of the village did the same. He already had a bag suitable for a small griffin, packed with some food for the road. He knew the best time to leave so that no one will notice, and he knew the way to Tula around the territories claimed by the elk. It was like he was sending young flightless griffin on such a death walk daily. His explanation, though, somehow connected that with a vivid picture of a campfire he had on the both of his flanks.
"Now, little... sorry, Vsevolod, you go. I wish I could help more." Teplovoz's eyes were sad, as he put his hoof on the griffin's shoulder. "It will be hard. But you griffins sturdy. You can do it. Remember, one day east, then south. May the Archive's light bless you, little one." With that, large stallion stepped away and disappeared into the bushes. Vsevolod was alone in the forest once again. He sighed. He started to become good at walking.
The first light of the morning met Vsevolod quite far from the small village. He had no idea how far, but for Teplovoz distance and time it took to travel it were the same thing. With no other way to measure distance, so it become for the griffin. When the sun poked above the horizon, he spread his wings and felt the stream on his feathers. After the bath and the preening, the feeling was much stronger, and it felt like it was responding to his will a bit better. Careful experiments brought unexpected fruits. While he was still unable to take off, his control was strong enough to make the simple gliding possible. It slowed his progress quite a bit, since he immediately felt like he should try it more, then even more, and finally he was going out of his way if he had a glimpse of a slope high enough to try. Of course, gliding was one thing, landing was the other, so every attempt graced a pile of snow, a bush or even a tree with his presence. Still, it was fun enough. A griffin whose entire life was destroyed by something he hadn't even understood, was in need of as much fun as it was possible. It made him hungry, too, so when he thought it was almost noon, he opened the bag with the food.
Inside, carefully wrapped in dry leaves, were twelve almost identical pies. Each, according to Teplovoz, was enough to feed full-grown pony for a day. With twelve of them, it meant that Vsevolod had no problem with the supplies for at least half of the way to Tula. He hoped he'll figure the hunting by then - or earlier. While pony food was familiar, and he made a significant dent in Teplovoz's supply, there was still something missing from it. Something that his previous crude meals had, despite being uncooked and containing a lot of fur, feathers and bones. It wasn't even the meat, it was something Vsevolod had yet to put his finger on... and pin it with the talon so it won't run away.
He took one pie out, unwrapped it and sniffed the pleasant smell of freshly cooked bread and the stuff the pony put inside. He had no idea what it was, Teplovoz brought the pies from a neighbor while Vsevolod was asleep, but something in it was familiar. And suspicious. Not wanting to risk, he cracked the pie and sniffed the stuffing. His following sneeze was so loud that it was likely heard back in the village. Helpful and proper stallion had equipped him with tasty and filling rowan berry pies.
Quick check had shown him that to his relief half of the pies were safe apple pies. The other half was as edible to him as rocks. Hunger suddenly became a much closer concern. He was still thinking about the reasons of why his life sucks so much, when he was ambushed by a bit worn, but still smug Helga.
The wild griffin had all the signs that the elk was a worthy opponent, and hadn't gave up his antler that easy. Her coat was dotted by several small gashes with spots of dried blood around them. Some feathers from her front were missing, and one of the big feathers in her wing was broken. In her claws she proudly held the antler.
"Sqwee!" Announced Hel, plopping on the ground in front of Vsevolod. "Kreek. Ki-ki-SQAWK!"
Vsevolod sighed and grabbed the startled native into a bone-crushing hug. He was a bit startled by it as well, he wasn't aware just how much he was worried about her until he saw her. Helga squeaked several times, but made no attempt to flee. Instead, she nuzzled Vsevolod with her beak and made a purring sound.
"I was so worried, you stupid griffin! You and your stupid heroics! I know you don't understand me, but promise me never to do it again!" he sniffled and let several tears fall into her feathers. Hel allowed him several more emotional moments, and then effortlessly slipped from his grasp. She sniffed at the rowan pies, made gagging sound and grabbed one of the apple ones. Munching on the pie, she let out content "Kreek!", gave Vsevolod the antler and took off.
"What I'm supposed to do with this one?" mused the flightless catbird, packing the remaining edible pies back into the pack. While he did it, he had noticed that the pies weren't the only contents of it. On the bottom, there was a small length of thin rope made from some sort of hair. It was just enough to fix the antler to the strap of the bag. It made walking a bit easier, since the antler now was balancing the weight of the bag. The rest of the day was boring, and the night was cold again.
The next morning he found that Helga somehow had found his improvised lair once again and was snoring nearby, using his bag and the antler as a pillow. Near him he had found a plump wood grouse, already cold, but still quite edible. Hel woke up while he freed the bird from its feathers, and provided a lot of running commentary on his clumsiness with her screeches. When he offered her half of the grouse, though, she looked at him like he suddenly grew a second head. With startled "SQWAWK!" she bolted out of the lair and disappeared.
"Well, here goes my good manners." blinked Vsevolod, eating the rest of the bird. "Hope she won't bring all her wild family to avenge her maiden honor."
The talking to himself became more of a habit as he turned south. In the next few days he saw Helga several times, but she never came to his lairs anymore, and hid if she noticed him looking. She still dropped occasional bird or a hare near him almost every day, though every next one was more alive than the one before it. At the end of the first week of his travel he ran out of pies, and the hare for the breakfast was almost undamaged. It was a bit dizzy, though, so Vsevolod was able to catch up to it before it ran away. Helga cheered him with a loud screech before disappearing again. From that moment she stopped bringing him food, scaring some hares in his direction instead. That made his meals scarce, since he was still not nearly fast enough to catch one. With a bit of gliding it became easier, and the gliding itself was becoming easier each day. By the end of the second week he was almost content with the winter forest. While still cold and often hungry, it wasn't the place of certain death anymore. Having a friend, even shying away like Hel, was nice, too.
Wolves on the other hand, weren't nice at all. It was the middle of the third week. From the forest getting thinner he assumed that he must be closing on his destination, when the pack first appeared. The next day Helga was keeping much closer to him, not attempting to scare the hares. In the night the howling kept him awake. They got closer the next day, still a bit wary, but clearly too hungry to keep the distance for too long. That night Helga got in his lair for the first time since the incident with the grouse. The pack shuffled around the fir tree, but none got bold enough to get to the pair of sleepless griffins trembling under it.
The first wolf attempted to jump Vsevolod when he made only a few steps out of the lair. Its only mistake was that it hadn't accounted for Helga, already up in the air. Despite being a bit smaller than the wolf, the height advantage made it easy for the catbird to claw at the spine of the predator mid-jump, its corpse slamming into Vsevolod, already dead but yet to catch up on that. The rest of the pack took it as a signal. All five remaining wolves jumped at once. Helga was able to avoid one, claw a deep gash on the muzzle of the second one, but the third one grabbed her by the wing and pulled her to the ground. The pair that assaulted Vsevolod was luckier. The first one got its teeth sunk into griffin's, hind leg while the second one grabbed the empty bag and ripped it from his back. He bent and sunk his claws into the eyes of the attacker, his vision going red from the pain and anger. Unfortunately, it only made the wolf sink its teeth even deeper, also giving time for the second one to try to bite him in the foreleg. Vsevolod had managed to dodge that, but it made him release the first wolf, blind, but not dead yet and not relenting its grip. The second one lunged again, successfully biting into the same hind leg as the first one. With both enemies in one place, Vsevolod got a bit of a breather, as much as two wolves trying to shake his leg apart can be counted as such, so he grabbed the first thing his claws found on the ground and crushed it on the skull of one of the wolves. The thing turned out to be the trophy antler, and the desperate blow was strong enough to instantly kill the wolf Vsevolod wasn't aiming at, the grip of its jaws immediately slacking and the body sliding off. The one he was aiming at was the one he blinded. While he lost the grip on the antler, with proper aim his claws had proven to be enough to decapitate the wolf in one swing.
Looking around, he had noticed, that Helga had also defeated her enemies, but her wounds were more severe. It seemed that the wolves wasn't trying to hold her with their teeth, instead producing long and bloody gashes on her sides and chest. Her left wing looked broken, and her beak was covered in blood of her last enemy. She attempted to smile weakly to Vsevolod, but then her eyes closed and she had slumped to the ground unconscious.
==
Podorozhnik woke up to the incessant pounding on his door. He wasn't a happy unicorn in his better days, and this morning, or, as sun in the window hinted, noon, wasn't about to fix it. The pounding on the door had perfectly matched with the pounding inside his head, and the events of previous evening were hazy enough in his memory to easily match the symptoms with the cause. He didn't need to be a doctor to do that. Still, the doctor he was, and the pounding most likely meant that somepony in town was injured enough to wake him up early and risk his delayed wrath. Like the week of calling him by his real name, or having the next tooth removal done with no painkillers. Nothing irritated the good doctor more than false patients. This time, though, the ones he found on the other side of the door, looked like a real deal. The young griffin cub that was pounding on the door was thoroughly soaked in blood, most of it already dried off, and sported a disembodied wolf head clamping its jaws on the cub's rear. On his back he held a slightly older griffin chick, covered in nasty cuts, with broken wing, and unconscious. The smaller griffin held a large Los' ceremonial antler, also covered in blood and something else Podorozhnik decided not to pay too much attention to. He used the antler for pounding on the door. When the door had opened and revealed the unicorn, the small cub looked at him with tired eyes, sighed, muttered "What next, flying cows?" and passed out.