"Griffin´s bride" by Natalie Touretsky (Gerie Aren)

Griffin's Bride

From the journey-books of Maundervo Rollingstone, the great traveler and collector of stories, legends and tales.

From all the stories I collected, this one is most dear to me. Not only, because it was one of the first to be written down, and reminds me of my young days. The conclusion of this story is a tale of itself. It's amazing, how the two halves of it found each other, across the years...

I heard this story on my first great journey, from the capital to the Gray Stones, little mining town, by the foot of Griffin's Mountains. A novice in the team of Royal investigator, I traveled along with my teacher. In those first journeys I discovered my taste for wanderer's life. Everything fascinated me: the great skies of the steppe, it's many-colored sunsets, wild storms, and mostly it's people - semi-wild, so very simple, compared to the capital citizens, but, wise in their own way. And mostly the stories they told around the fire, tales of gods, spirits and heroes, all the history and mythology of the land unfolded over it's dull hills like a colorful tapestry, tall tales of old times and events of last few days mixed together. This is how I encountered the art of storytelling for the first time, and surrendered to it.
Gray Stones was just one of those little mining towns, where gemstones were mostly collected from the riverbeds, or digged out in the shallow mines. Along with miners and traders it was also forpost of civilization for trappers, who spent most of the time in the mountain woods, hunting. Lack of entertainments put the good storytellers into the high position in society. I spent my free time exploring the storytelling lore of the town. All those mining towns share more-or-less the same lore, but Gray Stones had it's own unique feature - the Griffins. It's nearest to the border of Griffin territory, so Griffins appear again and again in the stories. And not only in the stories. Every hunter, wandering in the woods will meet signs of their presence, now and then, huge scratchmarks on trees and rocks, prints of great bird-like paws in the mud by the river, or even feathers, arm-long, golden-white, copper-red or silvery black. And everybody have seen them in the sky, dark dots over mountain peaks, very far away, and still, too big to be just birds...

...Perhaps, it all happened because of curiosity. Or because of greed. Or because in towns like Gray Stones good husbands, who come home every evening, and won't get killed one day are rare. It's not a case of low morals, but occupational risk. Most of men either spent weeks in the mountain woods, hunting and looking for gemstones, or work at the rather unsafe mines. As a result there were more women than men in town. And that created a vicious competition between unmarried girls.
Kess never stood a chance in such competition, partly because she wasn't so very good-looking, but mostly because she was different. She grew up without mother. Her mother, the traveling herbalist, died, when Kess was very young, and her father never married again. The only things, left from her mother were some bottles and jars with potions, Kess didn't knew how to use, several old dresses and the book. The book was very old, collection of odd tales and legends about unusual animals, plants and people of faraway lands. When Kess was little, she learned to read just to read her mother's book. And was disappointed to find it was collection of stories and not something useful. Later, however, she became quite fond of it, because the tales from the book feed her imagination. And Kess was a dreamy type from the beginning. Not only her head filled with strange tales from the book, set her aside. She wasn't prone to follow town's fashion, cut her hair short, because it was very curly, and she didn't want to put efforts into working it into proper arrangement every morning. Even her name "Kess" actually was mispronounced version of her real name "Cath", short for "Catherine". She preferred to stick to it rather than being Cath, or Kate, or Kathy. In many other respects she was an ordinary girl, taking care of her father, cooking, doing all the house chores, just like everyone else. But in the small towns, where everybody know everything, even little one step out of line may make you undesirable, and Kess did more than one step.
On the other side of the street, just across from Kess, lived two very different girls. Martha and Vilhelmina were popular. But, somehow, they also were on the friendly terms with Kess. So they were the only ones to notice the subtle changes that occurred to Kess one summer. The changes that meant that Kess have found herself a man. Their curiosity running wild, sisters started to follow Kess around the town, sometimes openly, but mostly secretly. But Kess didn't do something unusual, just went to do her shopping, visited tea-shop to hear last news, or, sometimes went downtown to enjoy storyteller's art in one of the taverns. They almost abandoned their watch, when griffin appeared near the town.
Hunters spotted his pawprints right on the outskirts of the town time after time. Sometimes the pawprints mingled with human footprints, but the concept of griffin and human walking together was so unthinkable, that trackers never came to this conclusion. They rather assumed, that human footprints were made before or after griffin's.
The presence of griffin threw town into state of siege. Well, griffins not just wild animals, they have intelligence, some say, even greater than human's, capable of speech and magic, but still, they are also predators and the savage fighters. So evening entertainment was canceled and people were rather reluctant to come out after nightfall, and even if they went somewhere, they went in twos or threes. That gave to Martha and Vilhelmina chance to watch Kess in the evening too, and before long they learned, that she often goes out at night alone, quite unafraid of meeting the griffin.
And one day Martha took her brother's gun, Vilhelmina took one of big kitchen knives and they stalked into the night after Kess. Following was easy, Kess was not hiding and she wasn't aware of being followed. But, to the great surprise of the sisters, she went right out of town, toward the mountains and the woods. Yet sisters followed, driven by curiosity.
Halfway between the town and the woods They lost Kess in the patch of trees, and when they found her again, in the meadow, sitting on the rock by the stream, she was not alone. Next to her stood a man. He wasn't one of the townsfolk, they knew it for sure, even without seeing his face, hidden in shadow. No man in Grey Stones had such a long hair. Some hunters grew a wild mane, while they were out of town, but coming back they always got rid of it. But stranger's hair was waist-long, slick and shone in moonlight like polished metal. He was fascinating enough, but there was something more: in his hands was a long string of stone beads. Some stones on the string shone with the light of their own. Legendary Fallen Star gems - Martha recognized them at once, although she never saw one before. The price of those gems was so high, that one of them could buy Grey Stones along with all the citizens and their property three times. And what the stranger did with those priceless stones?
He rolled the necklace into tight ball and threw it high into the air. The string was rather springy, so it unfolded, curving and twisting as it fell. All this made a wonderful display, much like fireworks.
Marthe watched the scene in silent awe. Vilhelmina, who was more concerned with the stranger, not glowing stones, was first to react. She rose from their hiding place in the bushes and run toward Kess, calling her. And then the stranger just wasn't there any more, replaced by great griffin, unfolding his wing, trying to shield Kess from whoever was coming with his body. The string of Fallen Stars, forgotten, fell on the ground and disappeared in the grass. Martha took aim and shot. But looking too much on the glowing gems made her vision blurry, and instead of griffin she shot the first bullet into her sister. Gunfire alarmed the griffin even more, he grabbed Kess, and rose into the sky. He was quick, but Martha still managed two more shots. Then griffin rose even higher and disappeared in from sight, flying toward the mountains.
Gunfire drew attention of townsfolk. Soon bunch of armed people arrived to the spot. They found dead Vilhelmina (sister's shot killed her on the spot) and Martha, unharmed, but quite insane. She forgot of her sister, Kess and most of the night's events. Only thing that interested her were Fallen Star gems. She was searching through the grass, collecting shiny dewdrops and casting them away. But gems mysteriously disappeared, proving one more legend - Fallen Stars darken in presence of crime or violence. On the other side of the stream they found some blood marks and black griffin feathers.
Kess and the griffin were never seen again. Martha didn't recover. If left alone she would go to the meadow and look for Fallen Stars in the grass. In th end she run away from home and died somewhere in the woods. Some people say, that when the moon is bright, her still ghost may be seen in the same meadow, searching in the grass, collecting shiny dewdrops and casting them away.
And sometimes children find dark, colorless stone beads in the stream or in the meadow. This is considered a bad omen.

In my free time I visited the well-known meadow, but saw no ghosts and found no beads.
The ending of this tale found me many years later, when I was traveling on my own, independent collector of stories and legends. I visited a small village on the other side of Griffin's Mountains and met an old Grifonite storyteller, who tried to tell me a local legend. Quite a well of information, but the problem was, that, after some confusion we found, that only language we both can speak is a widespread mountain dialect, but we both lack the proper knowledge of it. So old Grofonite did his best to translate the stories, he told to the dialect, and i did my best to understand, translate to regular trade-speech and write down, almost in the same time. So I didn't recognize the story until I came over my journals much later. This was a legend, explaining the origins of Grifonites, the race of shape-shifters, who take shape of human or griffin, as they wish.

Long time ago lived great Griffin mage, Tilal. He was rather young, when he left Griffin's Mountains on the journey to see the world. Griffins recognized as intelligent race in many lands, so he had plenty chance to see places and to learn about humans and other races. His magical abilities allowed him to wear the shapes of other creatures, humans included , so he went, unrecognized, among humans in the places, where Griffins are but not welcomed. On his way back he stopped near small human mining town, right on the border of Griffin territory. He went into the town, wearing human form, and there he met human girl, who was unlike everybody else, at least in his eyes. He fell in love. And his love was answered. He revealed to his beloved his true nature, but she accepted him the way he is, unafraid. Night after night he met his beloved secretly, trying to convince her to leave the town with him. But she was reluctant, she never saw life other than in her town, and the change terrified her.
One day the townsfolk discovered their relationship and there was fight. Girl tried to protect him and got wounded. Fearing for girl's life, Tilal dropped his guise, grabbed her and flew off. Her wound never heal properly, not even with Tilal's magical skills. She was lame for the rest of her life, and walked with the cane.
Her Griffin name was "Kaesh-neral-tii" - " the one who walks uneven path". This was a hint on her lame leg, but in Griffin culture, names, pointing on injuries, are mostly the names of respect, given to warriors, to mark that their scars are ones of honor. She said, that first part of her new name sounds just like her old name.
Shocked with her folks behavior she refused to meet other people, that came into griffin lands. She became Tilal's wife and lived her life among the Griffins. Their children were born with the new ability - to wear griffin or human shape and change the shapes easily. From those children's children a new race came forth, Grifonites, shape-shifters and mages, sometimes also named Griflings, Griffinkin of Half-Griffins.

Interesting what old Grifonite could say, if I told him the human part of the story?