It is worthy of note to say that my father is one for great entrance and even more dazzling presentation. Being that he is (in his preferred form of travel) a great in size and powerful in magic Gryphon, I must capture how he descended upon the plateau so that it might be rightly seen within my reader’s mind. The first thing to notice is his beak, curved and pointed, it is ridged with teeth within and adorned with a slimy black tongue, something that is to be seen when he swoops in for landing with a full belly screech escaping his maw. Up from the beak is a harpy’s crest of dusted grey feathers, raising high over eerie blue avian eyes and drawing attention away from the fluffed line of his thick mammalian throat and chest, mantled and maned in a hybrid mix of feather and fur that blended into a thin and coarse patterned fur down his back. His forelegs sported scale plates over the articulated digits, ended in great raptor talons that scraped the stone ground of the plateau when he landed. The landing was afforded by a great and powerful flapping of his expansive wings in combination with the slide of his velveted feline hindpaws, talons extended from them as his body turned into the momentum of his landing, tail curling and lashing behind him with the feather tuft at the end fluffed full out while he crouched and slid to a stop in front of Michael.
Also of note, for those that think a Gryphon is something roughly the size of a horse or a similar ridable beast, is that my father towered over the Gate, which itself was a full twenty-five feet of mass beside him while he was crouched. It is an aside that Gryphons are creatures that regularly mate with and win fights against dragons, repto-avian beasts within the same weight class. This in comparison, Michael and I stood at roughly six and a half feet each. Michael staring up in awe, I staring up with utter glee to see the creature I respected as a father.
“Good to meet you, Sir…” Michael managed to choke out as my father lowered his head and smoothed his crest, his great eye upon the angel I stood beside. It was far more amusing to me than it ought to have been to watch, and in recognition of mentioned fact I stepped around Michael to beam at my father and bodily leap upon him, arms around what I could grasp of his throat and laughter bubbling out of my mouth. For a moment I thought that father would hold his feral form for our hunt, while he lifted his head with me rather attached and curled his wing up that I would be supported while I grasped.the girth of his neck. I could feel his purr rumbling through his mane, the coarse feathers scraping against the smooth fabric of my shift. Then, in the way of his family (and the way I too had learned and enjoyed) he transformed. It was mesmerizing, his body seeming to turn into precious liquid crystal as the coloring of him seeped into the depths of his chest, obsured from view was the compacting of his mass into a humanoid figure, ligaments and bones and organs coming to form in a new shape as the liquid of his previous form began to drip away, surrounding in a sudden whirl when I leapt from his embrace, a moment passed before the water was brought to cease, coming to a full translucent still as the figure of a bulky man with greying hair and beard stood in tanned leather pants and a long blackened duster, his face shaded by the brim of a full leather hat, flat of the top and wide brimmed. His shirt shimmered quite alike my shift, and it fit loose under his coat.
In the manner of a sorcerer, he extended his arm and struck full posture with his back, a twist of his wrist and a gesture of his fingers commanding the water to gather around him, condensing itself into a flask strapped at his belt in a fine display of his flair and control. He lowered his hand and twisted the cap on the flask as he began his stepping toward Michael and I, a massive grin in his scruffy silvering beard and a definite swagger to his step. For a moment when he stopped he only looked at me, giving my chosen form a thorough look over and an affirming nod before he spoke.
“The Golden Heart! I thought this one was all kind of busy in Heaven now kid!” He laughed, a fine finish to his decidedly american southern accent. “And an angel? You wanted this one to be REAL interestin’ huh?”
