“How did they recruit me? That’s ... not wholly correct. Our first meeting was chance, our second meeting was almost inconceivable, and our third meeting was solely due to effort on my part.”
“...?”
“I was the first to join willingly, now that you brought it up. It was a surprise reunion, and a somewhat overzealous chick cornering her confused uncle. Of a determined chick wanting to lend a talon to someone who looked so lost. So, the story of how Gladas Falcowolf all started? Wally practically fell on my lap.”
Night had fallen on the Falcowolf mansion. The clan was still fairly well regarded, with several guards and outposts regularly watching the ground, even this late at night. Semi-random patterns deterred the casual trespasser from being able to easily slip by.
Unfortunately, this did little against someone who once lived within those walls, and watched said patterns for years on end. A glance at the date and the current pattern told the Lich all he needed to know.
He knew from experience which shadows were the blackest, not even able to be penetrated from the sharpest night vision without concentrating. He remembered the brief moments where no eyes covered the moonlight paths, decades of soft pads and modified flight feathers carrying him silently through the air.
Still, what would be a twenty second stroll now took him over an hour to traverse, a mark for the excellent patrol patterns.
And then, he reached the walls, and shot up onto a worn patch of shingles.
Night had fallen on the Falcowolf mansion. I, Gladas, daughter of House Falcowolf, shut the door to my room behind mr. Then, my coat had a grey-white luster, inherited from my grandmother. I stepped to the wall spanning birdcage, where a crow perched, glancing at mr quizzically. “Sorry, Blackbird,” I said, scratching the bird’s head. “Mom had relatives to entertain. I’ll find time for you tomorrow, alright--?”
I paused, tasting something metallic buzzing through my beak. An invisible weight, a whisper of feathers, a creaking of roof tiles. Gladas turned around and poked her head out her room and into the hallway. There were a few maids making the rounds, but none of them led to the strange mental pressure. I jerked, looking up. Stars spread out above me, then curving gently, like the sparks from a popping torch, or the descent of hundreds of fireflies.
I blinked, and the lights disappeared, but I could still feel their distant pinpricks of heat tickling my skin in all directions. But the weight. That weight sunk into a spot, my spot, on the roof, like a sandbag.
I went back into my room and stepped over to the window, and seeing nothing, pushed it open. The mental pressure made me turn and look up.
A misshapen lump flopped on the mansion roof, two points of red light staring off into the distance. It shifted down to focus on me, posture straightening.
I tilted my head. “... Do I know you?”
“Didn’t your parents teach you not to talk to dustballs?” He grumbled. “Or whatever that phrase was.”
“Preeee-ty sure you’re one of the dustballs that merely rolled out from an old cabinet, if we’re going with this analogy,” I said brightly. “You are sitting in the most well worn perching spots on this mansion after all.”
The griffon glanced down at his perch, and made to move.
"No no, its fine," I said, waving my talons. "It was yours first."
He settled awkwardly. "...Yeah--"
"So you do know this place!” I interrupted, brightening. “Did you forget the time of the reunion? I can help you tomorrow--"
"First moon after the Solar Solstice, lasting a week and ending today," the griffon cut in flatly. "Once every two years..." He palmed his face. "What am I doing? How did you even find me, chick? This building is still well built, and sealed," he asked, glaring through his claws.
“Well, it wasn’t sound,” I placated, fluffing her wings. “You were very quiet. Great job with that!”
“...Thanks?”
“It was more of a ...” I tapped my chin. “A taste? No, a buzz? Whatever it was, it felt like a ticklish wind blowing down on my beak from above.”
His arms slowly dropped, staring at my wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
I snapped my claws, pointing a claw at the griffon. “Oh, I know!”
There was a pounding of feet below them. The window was pushed wide open, and a grey feathered griffoness nearly flew out. “Glady!? Where are you?” She looked up. “Gla--”
“Uncle Wallace!” I said, smiling.
With shaking limbs, Wally Falcowolf asked, “W-Windlass?”
I was finally able to see my storied uncle when he was led into my room’s lamp light. Beneath his cloak, he wore worn armor, covered in scrapes and patches of rust. His fur and feathers were thin, and he seemed to be perpetually carrying a heavy weight. Red, partially open wounds seemed to peek out from the sides of his armor, whenever he forgot to shrink inside it.
“Come on,” Windlass said, Gladas’s mother having to pull the lich away from the window.
Standing side by side, the two siblings could almost be seen as separate strangers from how different they ended up.
One aged like ale, dancing forwards into the lamplight. Her fur and feathers had greyed, but it did nothing to hide her blinding grin on her large, potoo derived beak.
The other had rotted away. The color and vibrancy of his coat were unable to hide a chronic lack of spoons reserved for personal hygiene. Something he dearly remembered as he desperately tried to hide from the revealing light.
I followed behind, too curious to care about bedtime now. The pair ahead were too distracted to care about me following along, so I decided it wasn't my fault.
They passed by several house maids making the rounds. The older ones gasped when they saw the one beneath the cloak. Windlass waved one down, calling, “Get my mother alerted! She’s going to want to see him.”
Wally cringed. “Really, Windy? I’m still wanted by the state.”
“Yeah, and Mom quit the day after.” Windlass bonked her brother on his head.”So did the rest of us. She’s been waiting for you to return home ever since.”
“....oh. I’m sorr--”
“Shut up,” Windlass said, sharply, glaring down at her brother. “It was our decision. Not your responsibility.” In a quieter voice, she added, “And our apology.”
Wally looked down and said nothing.
In short order they reached the door of Evangeles Falcowolf’s door.
“...”
“Wally? Is it really you?”
I ran my beak into the back of Wally’s legs with a bonk. Wally had seemed to have practically deflated, shuffling backwards in mild panic.
“Oh no you don’t,” Windlass grumbled, grabbing Wally’s arm and hauling him over, me vaguely contributing by shoving at Wally’s leg. “I waited too long for you to come back, I’m not letting you go without a good talk.”
The elder matriarch shuffled over to cup Wally’s face, even as he tried to shrink back. “Why ...”
“Sorry!” he squeaked. “I know they still have a bounty on me, its standard to keep one active for a century after last sighting. I’m sorry for endangering your family, I just can’t stop--”
“You WILL stop denigrating my son!”
Wally’s beak clamped shut.
“You are, and always will be a Falcowolf. You will always have a place in this home,” she said firmly. “I have already spent four decades spouting your death and dearly hoping they were lies. Do not make them come true.”
“Yeah!” I said, happily hugging his leg. “You seem cool.”
“Tell that to my victims,” he grumbled.
Windlass put a talon on Wally’s shoulder. “Brother, please stop hurting yourself. We want you back, of ... any form that’s left. You are worth more to us than that.”
Eva settled back into her bed. “Please, sit with us. Tell us what you’ve been up to?”
“... So, remember that Seer that got exiled half a century ago?”
And so, Wally’s dry, halting voice slowly returned to haunt the Falcowolf mansion, tension slowly bleeding off him and sinking through the floors.
And I, little Gladas? Well, I only became more enamored with this mythical figure returned to my life.
Wally was still on the roof when I woke up the next morning. I noticed the ticklish weight and his constellation of magic as I polished my beak, so I climbed out the window to join him.
“So ...” I began. “You staying long?”
“Sorry,” Wally said. “I came here on a mission. It would be ... unwise for me to stay in these territories for too long, no matter what my mother wishes.”
“Awww.” I pouted. A few moments of silence followed. “...What if I visited you?”
Wally made a noise that sounded like a dry bag deflating. “You what?”
“Well, from the sounds of things, your place is way away from the King’s reach, so,” I shrugged.
Wally gaped helplessly. “Why?”
I shrugged again. “Seems cool? Wanted to be a medic, but being a magic doctor seems like a fascinating research field.”
Wally opened his beak to protest, but paused in thought. “... You may have a talent for it,” he admittedly sourly. “Your sense of magic is far greater than what I had at my age before being forced open through necromancy.”
“See! I can help.”
“Nrgggh. Fine,” He shot a glare at me. “Live at least a good, normal looking life here. I will not have any more stress put on my mother.”
“Sure!” I chirped. “An apprenticeship is probably going to take forever anyways.”
“Good,” he muttered. “Go back inside, my sister is going to be looking for you soon.” He tipped off the edge of the roof and soared below the trees. In seconds he vanished into the shadows.
“Coool,” I said, giggling as I slipped back into my room.
And so it went. As far as I could tell, Uncle Wally ran missions on information retrieval, for both the buried scrolls and on neighboring settlements, until his body started deteriorating too badly to hide from casual glances. From then on, it was Barnabee or Dimi, then you.
Meanwhile, I went to a medical apprenticeship. I spent the ten years after as well-regarded, both positively and with suspicion.
When I was just past my fortieth year, I was caught in an avalanche while on the way to send supplies to an outpost. Most of the party managed to get out of the way, but one little griffon, desperate to keep the supplies, was swept away. Her body was never recovered.
Windlass never had another child, and a cousin was signed to inherit the mansion. In a few decades, the Falcowolf line would be no more .... unless.
A few weeks later, Dimi escorted in a bedraggled dove griffon into Plan P, beaming. “Uncle!” I shouted.
Said Wally coughed out a tongue. “Pwahh!?”
I dropped my slightly waterlogged bags to the floor. “I, Gladas Falcowolf, have arrived, as promised!”
The Falcowolfs disappeared from the world, but you and I, we know the truth.