I woke up and got ready for the day. A quick, preen, nice breakfast was only needed and I headed off to my destination: the Human Hunt Judge's home. For the past few days, I've been researching and searching the human orphanages' kids, looking for the perfect one. Obviously it has to be one that walks around Griffonstone on a regular basis. Someone near in age to Mika's little guy, just as playful, and of course, not too scared of griffons. I found the one; She's about eight, brown hair, blue eyes, about one point two inches tall, loves to play games, no surviving relatives (as sad as it is), and her name is Marie. I near the home and knock on the door. The judge answers and ushers me inside.
"All right." She starts. "So, you've been screened and judged worthy to hunt, and your allowed time is today, between the start of the next hour until dusk. Do you have the required profile of the human you are going to hunt?"
"Yes, it's all right here." I hand her the manila folder containing Marie's profile and she looks it over.
"According to the profile, she has no remaining relatives and no guardians besides the orphanage's operators. You do understand what it will mean when you catch her and the responsibilities you'll be taking on?"
"Yes." I reply. According to the rules of the hunt, now a part of griffon law, that when a griffon hunts a human, if they have any relatives or guardians in Griffonstone, then the griffon involved must inform them of their relatives location, swallow them if so desired by said relatives or guardians, and, of course, return all swallowed humans to their dwelling within a seventy two hour period. However, the rules are quite different for any humans without relatives or guardians if they are under the age of sixteen. The rules in their case require the hunting griffon to become the child's guardian, in essence, a forced adoption. The rules are designed this way to help those children get adopted into a loving family, as the hunting griffon will not target them unless, like myself, they've done their research and are looking to adopt. It also helps, in a way, to strengthen the bond between griffons and human kind, it a weird sort of anyway. Sure it's not the greatest introduction for an adoptive parent, but at the same time, the griffon becomes responsible for said child.
"As is typical of the hunt, the preyed human will not be informed, and must rely on their survival instincts to realize, and attempt to escape the hunting griffon. The hunt will be monitored by myself to make sure the prey in question is not harmed during the hunt and reserve the right to call off the hunt if any serious mental or physical damage is dealt to the prey as a direct result of your actions. You will remain by my side until the start of the hunt, this is done as a reminder of the days of our ancestors, when a village elders would give the upcoming fledglings their final hunting test, before they could join the adults in hunting food for the village. You will follow me to the balcony where we shall roost, allowing you the chance to search for your prey before the hunt as all hunters do." She waves for me to follow and we walk up to the second floor of her home and exit onto the balcony. "May your prey be challenging."
She stands overlooking the village and signals for me to begin spotting. I look over the village, specifically in the areas that Marie is known to frequent. I see her, and my muscles tense, waiting for the signal. The seconds become hours as I wait. Any fouls and I will forfeit the hunt. Then it will become all the harder to adopt her. Though the orphanages are fair in their allowance of adoption, it still takes a while for all that paper work to go through, fees to be paid, and so on. This is why I'm doing it this way, so I can go around all that, especially since via the rules of the hunt, the judge will pay the orphanage.
I here the ticking of the judges pocket watch as she checks it. Then she signals the hunts beginning with a soft chirp, a chirp originally intended for the ascension test and hunts in general. It was a very specific chirp; soft enough so that even prey with excellent hearing couldn't detect it, yet loud enough so that the griffons involved knew the hunt was starting.
I take off, quickly bridging the gap between my prey and I. I dive and land softly nearby. I don't want to frighten her too much, and having observed her daily routine, I know exactly how to do it. I watch as she heads directly where I want her too, a small tunnel only she seems to know of. She uses it to quickly get from one portion of Griffonstone to another. Why, I'm not sure, but the exit is large enough for me to stick my head into, fairly far, and it's dark inside, pitch black in fact. I guess it's a reason she's the only one who takes it.
I get there and set up the trap, I lie down on my side, push my head in and open wide. The top of my beak touches one wall and the bottom the other. This way she won't have a chance to tell to much of a difference in the floor before I trap her inside. I hear her as she giggles and walks along the tunnel, looking down, a dull light illuminates her in the cave, though, much to my relief, it isn't a very good light. I watch as she walks into my mouth and as soon as she takes her third step I softly close my beak so as not to alert her too quickly.
It isn't too long before she realizes that the tunnel she's in is quite different than usual. I feel as she turns, looking around before realizing just what she is in. Slowly I retract my head from the hole and sit up. She backs up toward my beak when she see's the dark tunnel in front of her rotate and become a vast slide into a dark abyss. Her breathing increasing as her fear rises, her breaths start to produce noise signalling her preparation to scream. I angle myself so that my throat is a gentle slide rather than a cliff face, then I tilt my head upwards causing her to slip, the light source rolling into my throat. Then I let gravity do the rest, as the slick surface of my tongue guides her down into my throat, from there she slides down into my stomach, screaming the entire way.
It's quite an interesting feeling having something go down your throat without you actually swallowing and I shiver in delight. She, however, obviously didn't enjoy the trip and is now struggling in vain to get out. I giggle as I feel her attempts. "Caught you Marie."
"Y-you know me?!" I hear her stutter.
I hum an affirmative. "It's nice to finally meet you Marie, I'm Sasha. I've heard so many good things about you from the orphanage owners."
"Y-You were the one wanting to adopt me!" She exclaims in surprise.
I hum another affirmative. "Don't worry, I'm going to take good care of you too. Even better, I have a friend who's taking care of a human about your age. His name is Kyle and loves to play games too. He's a very shy around me, but I know you two will get along." She seems to calm down a bit. "Okay, I'm going to fly now, don't worry, I'll make sure to stay slow and even so you don't get tossed around in there."
"O-okay. Um, Sasha, um, a-are you my friend too?"
"Of course I am, but I'm also something more too; I'm your new mommy!" I chirp excitedly. A while passes, but I feel as she presses up against the wall of my stomach, clearly attempting to give me a hug. I raise my right talon and gently clutch where she is, in an attempt to hug her back.
"D-do I have brothers and sisters now?"
I giggle a bit. "Not yet, but maybe someday soon." When that little guy finally works up the courage, instead of preening his feathers nervously, you'll get some, and a daddy too, but I'll keep that a secret. "Marie, mommy's gonna handle some business stuff, so feel free to take a nap in there."
"O-okay." As I fly slowly back towards the judge's home, I feel her make her way around in there, she finds a spot, lies down, and drifts off to sleep.
I get to the judge's home and go through the last bits of paper work, finalizing the whole deal. Then I head back home. "I can't wait to show Marie her new room." I giggle softly to myself. Sure it's a part of my room, right near my nest, but still, all the detail I put into making it look like a human room from their Earth. I hope she likes it.
I spot Mika walking home from her job. Yay! Now I can tell her the good news too! Carefully, so as not to disturb my newly adopted daughter, I land slowly and softly, unlike my usual self. "Mika, hey!" I call out.
She looks at me when I land, giggling about my sudden departure from the norm. "What's with the timidity all of a sudden Sasha?"
"Well, you know how you've got Kyle? I decided to adopt a human of my own too." I declare merrily, softly patting my stomach. "I did a lot of looking and digging, and found the perfect one, she's about Kyle's age, maybe slightly older, she's probably eight or nine. No parents, lived in an orphanage on tiny Earth before she ended up on our Earth. Best of all, she's a really sweet little girl." Then I giggle about my pun. "Literally too. Oh but she's just so precious. I mean, sure I may have hunted her, and well, when she found out it was a little too late, and it scared her pretty badly, but she got over it pretty quickly." I continue to gently rub my belly. "When I told her that I was adopting her, it changed her view of me completely, oh she couldn't help but give me a hug. She's asleep now though. Oh it's so precious feeling her in there. You've got to hear her, she's talking in her sleep."
Mika puts her ear up to my stomach and listens. "Aw, she does sound really cute in there." We walk together for a while. I make the strangest friends, nearly all of them are smaller than I am, but Mika and Ami take the cake. I giggle as I think about Ami's size. Aw, if they wanted they could have a sleep over in my tummy, all three of them, though Ami would probably be a little uncomfortable in there. I mean, I'm large in size, but I'm not fat, and I definitely don't eat enough to stretch my stomach walls out enough for it to fit large amounts in it. But they'd still probably fit, and with some room to spare. Ami could probably even stand, but stretching to the right or left would be pretty restricting.
Eventually we part ways and I head to my abode. The girl in my stomach is still fast asleep. "She must be tired. I wonder if this is the first good sleep she's had in a while." I decide to skip dinner, since it wouldn't be very nice to drop food on her. I make my way up to my room and get comfortable in my nest. I curl up and nuzzle my stomach. "Goodnight Marie." I whisper.
She stirs a bit but stays asleep. "Goodnight, mommy." I hear her say in her sleep. My heartstrings plucked as I let out a few tears of joy, curling myself up tighter, placing every defense I could in front of my belly to protect my precious cargo before drifting to sleep. First thing I know I'm going to do in the morning is cough her out, and show her her new home.