Skan was in good shape—much better than even this morning, he mused—and in little pain, thanks to one of Lady Cinnabar’s clever abilities, a trick with shunting pain away. She was a delight to know, even peripherally, and seemed to have the sort of personality he’d like to find in a gryphon mate one day.
Skan counted himself fortunate that he’d lived this long. Ah, but taking a mate? Seriously considering the possibility of fathering young had been reduced to a worn pastime over his years of service, one that at some times felt like his only reason for persevering, and at others like an impossible fantasy from a laugh-singer’s tale. The concern was not one of merely finding sex. He had no lack of lovers; there were few gryphons who wouldn’t be ecstatic to raise their tails to him, but, still, they were at best casual friends, and none of them fertile. Mmm, but there were those that had been so sweet, so warm. . . .
He shifted the way he was lying; thinking about lovers was causing his belly to tighten with longing. He’d never been embarrassed about his virility before and felt no pangs about such now, but his healing state kept poking reminders at him about how limited his movement really was.
Gesten didn’t miss a stroke while grooming Skan’s flank and tail, although he surely noticed the outward signs of Skan’s line of thought. There seemed to be very little the little hertasi missed; but, as with other topics that came up around him daily, Gesten’s best comment was not to comment at all.
Tchah, by now little Zhaneel is settled in warm and comfortable with Amberdrake. Amberdrake knows how to make everything right. He’s such a good kestra’chern; so clever, so graceful, so intelligent. I’m proud to know him; I’m glad I sent her to him.
I’m going to kill Skandranon for this, Amberdrake fumed as he faced away from Zhaneel. Surely that mindless, oversexed, bug-bitten, arrogant mass of black feathers had given Zhaneel the impression that Amberdrake was going to make love to her somehow. This was an unforgivably cruel joke on Skan’s part! After this situation was handled, Amberdrake resolved to go over and give Skan a verbal flaying—asleep, injured, or in whatever condition he happened to be.
Zhaneel had disentangled herself from him only a moment before and was now watching his every move for some cue to resume, her head bobbing up and down and hind-claws clenching.
Amberdrake wiped a palm across his face and turned back to speak to her pointedly. “Zhaneel, I can’t be the kind of lover you want. You and I aren’t physically compatible. I just can’t—”
A moment passed.
An unmistakable, inexplicable look of horror transformed Zhaneel’s entire demeanor from one of desperate desire to one of emotional devastation. She let out a gurgling cry and suddenly bolted through the opened tent flap and into the darker and more private inner room.
Skandranon finished the annotated chapter on social organization among the southeastern tribes, and luxuriated in the attention Gesten was giving his recently-battered crest.
By now she must feel like the most beautiful and capable gryphon in the entire world! Amberdrake always knows how to say exactly the right thing to make someone feel good. He’s given me so many compliments, and he’s hardly ever wrong. Maybe once I’m recovered, he can give me a tryst-grooming, and we can talk about how much good my suggestion did Zhaneel.
The Black Gryphon sighed and settled down for a nap, smug in the knowledge that all was right with the world as far as Zhaneel and Amberdrake were concerned.
Amberdrake found Zhaneel curled into a ball in the farthest corner of the tent, shivering, her head tucked under her wings. It was a saddening, unnerving thing for Drake to see; this was the gryphon equivalent of racking sobs, as bad as any he’d seen in mourning or after nightmares. Surging, palpable waves of shame pounded at him; feelings of self-blame hissed in his mental “ears” the closer he got to her. He braced himself to receive a backlash and reached out to touch her quivering body.
Instead of the expected strike, she didn’t acknowledge his presence at all. Nothing. Yet, with the touch, a staggering rush of sickening emotions blinded Amberdrake for the span of a heartbeat.
She hates herself. She genuinely hates herself. Self-doubt, self-pity, an overwhelming sense of worthlessness, of loss. From a gryphon! This I could expect from a human, but from a gryphon? They’re all convinced that Urtho created them as an improvement on all other races! Who or whatever made her this way was long in building. If it can be stopped, it has to stop now. If I can change her—it has to start now.
He spoke quietly, soothingly. “Zhaneel?”
She whimpered, the barest whisper of sound.
“Shh, little one, I am here for you. Please listen. Please listen. I’ll make you feel better, I promise it. I am here for you.” He moved in closer and folded his robed body across hers, to comfort her as he had other distressed gryphons with the sensation of protective, caring wings wrapped over them. He could feel her underneath him, body temperature high, breathing fast, and there, yes, her eyes tightly shut. Her delicate ear-tufts folded back tight to her head. Drake stroked her neck feathers and spoke more reassuring words, keeping his voice steady and deep, speaking “into” her, and held her as her shuddering subsided.
The sexual anticipation earlier can help some, at least. . . . Amberdrake swam through Zhaneel’s nerves with his Healing powers, found her pleasure-centers, and gently stimulated them while he soothed her with his words. Gryphons’ bodies held stores of specialized fluids, elements, in various glands and repositories, and the delicate touch of an experienced Healer could release them at the right time. A careful nudge there and a feather-light stimulation so, and the “rewarding” sensation following a mating coursed through her veins; in a small amount, by no means as great as the euphoria following a real mating, but definitely there. It had the desired effect; she slowly went from quivering to a state of relaxation—physically, at least—and uncurled from her ball after what felt like a harrowing eternity. All the while, Amberdrake reassured her and spoke encouragements. It didn’t cure any of her problems, no, that could come later, but her gradual relaxation at least opened a doorway toward a cure.
A candlemark must have passed since her arrival before she spoke again. It was a time in which her kestra’chern held her and scratched her ear-tufts, all the while carefully touching her mind and soaking in the feelings she unknowingly projected into him. He could not help thinking that it was a good thing she had chosen him, rather than a kestra’chern with no Empathic or Healing abilities. Anyone else would have had to send for her Trondi’irn—and an apprentice would have been as terrified and traumatized as she.