The Care and Feeding of Griffins (33 page)

She could feel herself frowning, and his forbidding look faded into a faint smile. 
“I see thee hunting for a way to apologize,” he said, and shook his head.  “Nay, Taryn, never do.  But take mine, I pray thee.  Take all of mine.” He cupped her chin in his hand and bent.  His mouth came to hers, stopping her automatic protestations, her breath, even the flow of her thoughts.  His kisses were soft and swift, little flutters to coax her lips apart, teasing at her with an expertise that signified plenty of practice as well as a real talent.

In all her life, Taryn had never known such a good kisser.  She was surprised into responding, and he met her with gentle invasion, exploring her and encouraging exploration of his own not-quite-human mouth.  The thought occurred, as he released her lips to travel the curve of her jaw and the slope of her neck, that if John (or any of her other exes, for that matter) could kiss like this, she might actually have gone to bed with him.  Her arms had gone around him at some point, her hands clutching at his broad shoulders, and even though she knew academically that nothing was going to happen here, the only sounds she seemed capable of uttering were little inarticulate ones and he wasn
’t letting them dissuade him.

His hands slipped downward, caressing her neck, her shoulders, her sides, before cupping her waist and lifting her easily to stand her on the table.  She was taller than him suddenly, and she looked around at her new perspective with dazed eyes as his fingers gently slipped beneath her t-shirt and drew it up and off.

The breeze on her bare skin got through to her at last.  “W-wait.”

His lips closed over her nipple, freezing out the rest of her words to a shaky cry.  She leaned into him instinctively
, and his hands swept around to her back and pulled her tight against him, his mouth working at her with greater passion.  She tried again to think of something she could say to stop him, but her brain was shocked and hot and well on its way to surrender.  She tried to step back and instead twined her fingers through his hair, holding him to her as he suckled.  One of his ears kept flicking at her wrist.

“
Taryn,” he breathed, and nuzzled at her bare belly before raising his head to meet her eyes again.  “Be friend of my body.”

“
We can’t,” she stammered.  “We just can’t.”

“
Do you fear me?”

“
No, but—”  She gasped and closed her eyes as he closed at her breast again, fighting for thought with a desperation she had never known through any other heavy-petting session.  Boyfriends she’d had before had nothing on Tonka; his confidence and gentle skill had a way of melting her thoughts and will.  It was hard to remember her name, much less the reason why this was wrong.  “Please, stop,” she whispered.

He released her at once, showing concern but nothing worse.

Taryn ran her hands through her hair, trying to comb serenity back into her trembling mind and body.  She’d never in her life been so ready, but when she listened past the urgent demands of her flesh, she heard the same quiet assurance that she had always heard.  “I can’t,” she said finally.

“
I understand.”

“
No.”  She laughed helplessly.  “No, you think it’s because we’re so different, but it’s not.  Right now, I completely believe we could find a way.”

“
Then what?”

“
I’m waiting.”  She held out her empty hands in mute, apologetic appeal.  “I like you a lot, but…I’m waiting for someone I love.”

He drew back, gazing at her with open wonder. 
“You are virgin?” he asked.

She nodded, blushing, covering her naked breasts with folded arms.  Her skin still tingled where he had touched her and there was a throbbing insistence in certain parts of her that made her wish he
’d just reach out and pull her to him again.  If he did, she doubted she’d fight him off, but knowing that didn’t make it any less true when she said, “I like you, but I’m not waiting for you.”

“
Nay.”  He smiled and lifted her down from the table to the floor.  “Nay, you are not.  And I respect your will in this.  For my kind, there is little separation twixt friendship and desire, but to wait…”  He cupped her cheek and then let his hand move down to rest briefly on her belly, his eyes searching hers with a power that, even now, sent molten little chills from her heart to her womb and back again.  “To share first with him whom you love and to be certain that love is true…this is a precious gift, Taryn.”

She ducked her head, avoiding that wondering and reverent gaze, and found her t-shirt discarded on the floor.  She put it on and when she looked up again, he was re-setting the board.

“These are your armies,” he said evenly, pointing.  “And these, mine.  There are rules to govern movement, thus—”

“
Thank you, Tonka,” she said.  “Boy, if ever I was tempted…”

He swished his tail and pecked at the floor with a forehoof, smiling. 
“Aye, as was I.”  He seemed about to say something more, and then he bent and kissed her again, cupping her head and stroking gently down her hair.  Then he touched his forehead to hers, nuzzling very briefly before straightening.  “You may move however many armies you choose upon your turn,” he continued calmly.  “But you may move each only once, and only one square’s distance…”

44.  H’wathu

T
he morning that the bandages came off was as good as a birthday.  Taryn stood tall and proud as Ven unwrapped her hands, inspected the scars, and pronounced them healed before the breakfast gathering.

“
Yee-haw!” Taryn said, clapping them for practice.  “Right, I’m out of here!  It’s been fun—”

“
You’ll eat before you leave us,” Ven interrupted.

“
No, actually, I’d like to get back before—”

“
Now that I look twice, perhaps your hands are swollen.”

“
Mm, smells good,” Taryn sighed.  “What are we eating?”

“
Never cross me, human,” Ven said comfortably, handing her a small loaf of sweetbread.  “Those who heal know best what to hurt.”

“
Your mom is really brutal,” Taryn said to Shard as she took her place at the high table.

The filly giggled, then sobered. 
“Are you really going away?”

“
I really have to,” Taryn replied.  “And believe me, it’s really time.  This isn’t the worst time of the year to try and settle in out of the blue, but it’s right up there.  I can’t afford to spend this much time idle.”

“
Winter with us,” Shard said in a very small voice, her eyes darting to Tonka.  “Live with us.  I will share my blankets.”

Taryn shook her head, smiling. 
“It’d be easy, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t need help, but I can’t make you responsible for me.  I made a choice.  I need to be prepared to stand by that choice and its consequences.”

“
Is that integrity?”

Taryn
’s smile went crooked.  “It’s probably closer to pig-headedness, to tell you the truth,” she said, and Morathi at her side came out laughing.  “But it’s important to me that I at least try.  It’s not really taking care of Aisling if I just let someone else take care of me.”

“
I think I understand,” Shard said heavily.  She picked at her bread, her face a study in the kind of grief only the very young can muster at a moment’s notice.

“
It has no lock, no hinge, nor lid,” Taryn said.  “Yet golden treasure within is hid.”

“
A mountain?” Shard guessed, and then her eyes flashed wide.  “An egg!” she cried.

Taryn nodded, raising her bread in salute.  The filly clapped her hands, then burst into tears and galloped from the lodge.  Taryn took a step after her instinctively, but no one else moved or even looked in Shard
’s direction, so she stayed at the table, feeling ogrish.

“
Easy,” Tonka murmured, not looking at her.  “She is my own and someday must be formidable, but for now, she is still but one year old and has little experience with loss.”

Taryn tried to mask her surprise by eating.  He
’d mentioned the foals being ‘last season’s’, but Shard, like all the rest of them, had the human bodies of a nine or ten-year-old child.  “I’ll come back, I’m sure,” she said instead.  “I’m miserably unprepared, after all.”

“
Aye,” said Tonka and Ven in one voice.

She shot them both an irritated look and Tonka flashed his teeth at her in a rare grin before softening the response with,
“And you will always be welcome, kinswoman.”

Taryn ate her bread and, under Ven
’s watchful eye, ate it all, although the feeling of fullness and the anticipation of a long hike wasn’t a pleasant combination.  She finished as many of the horsemen were beginning to step away from the tables, and it gave her a guilty feeling to think of them heading out to work while she just ate and ran.  A number of them came her way to say, “Well met and well parted,” before they left the lodge, so Taryn was obligated to stand there and let them.  One, a young stallion, hung back until his way to her was clear and then came forward and said, “I would carry, kinswoman, if you wished to ride.”

Stillness dropped like a stone.  Horsemen paused where they stood to look back at them.  Every ear was forward, every eye was watchful.

“Thank you,” said Taryn, “but I could never do that to you.”  She did not have to force the sincerity.  The prospect of riding him like a common horse was, on some broad level, utterly appalling to her.

The stallion did not stand away. 
“My name is H’wathu,” he said, and this time, stillness actually seemed to become stone, with a weight and substance Taryn could feel inside and out.  “My mate and both my foals were lost,” he continued, calm and expressionless, “to human hands.”

Pain lanced her like an arrow. 
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a breath and still overloud in the close air of the silent lodge.

H
’wathu nodded once, accepting this.  He said, “Humans have always come to the Valley, but until you, I never knew they could be good.  We are both people.  I am proud to call you kin.  I would be proud to carry you.”

“
I won’t,” she said.  “We are both people.  I will not ride.”

He nodded, closed his eyes, and nodded again.  When he opened them, he smiled just a little. 
“May I walk with you then?”

“
Yes,” she said, smiling relief back at him.  “That I would welcome.  Thank you.  Now if someone could just locate my pack for me—”

A tap on the shoulder turned her toward Morathi, who held her backpack out to her.  As she took it, he said,
“A thousand years, I think, would not be enough to have the chat that I would desire to share with you, but I am grateful to have met you.  Well parted, my daughter.”   He tipped her his bold old-man’s wink and stood aside so that she could leave.

She was blushing as she walked by him, even as she wondered just exactly what it was that he did to make the shutting of one eye in his smiling face so salacious. 
“I’ll be sure to stop by and chat again,” she said, determined to show him a little dignity on her way to the door.  She slung her backpack on and called Aisling out from under the table.

He came running, pounced on H
’wathu’s hoof, and then permitted himself to be picked up and carried out of the Jiko.  Once he realized that they were heading out of the commons, all his feathers came forward and he twisted around to look up at Taryn.  He peeped questioningly.

“
We’re going home, little man,” she told him.  “Can you say, ‘home’?”

The horseman escorting her grunted and shook his head.

“Home,” Aisling repeated, complete with the questioning tilt at the end.  He flapped his wings, peeping triumph.

“
I knew you could do it!”

“
Tis mimicry,” said H’wathu.  “You know this, of course.”

“
Maybe that’s how he’s supposed to learn.”  Taryn shrugged and bumped Aisling a little further up onto her shoulder, trying to flip her hair back out of preening range at the same time.  It was a delicate juggling act.  She spoke on without thinking, “My book says that most griffins don’t really do any talking for a few years, but maybe that’s just how it looks to outsiders.  Maybe they’re talking up a storm, but they’re just doing it in griffin.  Heck, for all I know, Aisling’s peeps are a real language and I’m the one that can’t speak.”

“
Book?”

Taryn
felt her breath catch in her chest.  She kept walking, facing straight ahead, and even managed a few nonchalant waves to the horsemen who had come to the kraal’s borders to see them off, but she could feel H’wathu’s stare burning into her cheek.

“
Book?” the horseman said again, injecting a subtle tone into the single word that said clearly that he would not be ignored.

“
Um.  Yes.”  She scratched unnecessarily at her hair.  It felt tangled and thick with smoke.  Time for another blisteringly-cold bath.  “A book.  There aren’t any griffins in my world, remember?  I found a book that explained a little about them so I’d know how to take care of Aisling.”

Silence for a time.  The road beneath their feet faded gradually into the open plains, but Taryn picked out the swinging branch she
’d tied to her home-pointing tree easily enough.  It swayed in the autumn wind, skeletal and black.  Must be just about coming up on Halloween back home, come to think of it.  How appropriate.

“
And this,” H’wathu remarked.  He, too, was watching the branch twist on its cord noose, but his expression had gone quietly grave.  “Is this also your doing?”

“
Yeah, I marked some of the trees out here so I could find my way back.”  She shrugged uncomfortably.  “I suppose it seems silly to you, but I’m used to having a lot more landmarks around.”

The look he gave her then had thankfully lost its distrust
, but was now openly baffled.  Still, he made no comment until they had crossed to the next tree with its straw bundle tied to it.  There, he finally said, “One would think the trees themselves adequate enough to plot a course by.”

“
I hate to admit it, but the trees still all look alike to me.”

He stared at her. 
“This one is tieneedle.  The last, white fig.  How can you possibly not see that?”

Taryn sighed. 
“Maybe it’s just my problem, but ever since I came here…it’s like I can only take in so many new things before I just stop seeing them.  Yes, I can see that this is a different kind of tree from the last one, but when I look around, I don’t see this particular tree and that particular tree, I just see…tree.”  She swept her eyes over the surrounding plains and its numerous trees, and shook her head.  “I have this horrible fear about getting turned around and being lost forever out here.”

H
’wathu gazed out at the range of mountains that ran across the entire northern line of the valley.  He slid a pointed sidelong glance down at her.

“
Yeah, I know.  It seems so obvious.  Maybe this stuff—”  She reached out and tapped the straw bundle marking the next tree, setting it widely swinging.  “—is nothing but a tangible representation of my peace of mind, but I’ll be honest with you, H’wathu, my peace of mind has started to get more and more precious to me lately.  You’ll forgive me if I coddle it a little.”

He thought about it. 
“Aye, all right,” he said at last.  “Forgiven.”

Taryn sent herself a bemused mental note never to wax figurative around a Farasai.

“I understand, I think, better than most of the high cost of an easy mind,” he continued.  “They were bitter coins that I paid out during those first days that I was severed of my mate and young, bitter purchases of sleep and bitter swallows of bread.  You humans seem to think there can be no fate worse than a hard death, but the cruelest irony has been than I was hurt a thousand times worse then ever my beloved was, and that only by living on in peace.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, which somehow made the meaning of his words cut much deeper, but before Taryn could even try to think of something to say, H
’wathu stirred and looked down at her.  “Forgive me,” he said, “that I did include you in that telling.  You are not among the count of those humans, but are my kinswoman.”

“
It’s all right,” she said, but the words had a hollow sound.

They walked.  She didn
’t remember the trip out here taking quite so long to go from tree to tree.  Aisling, perhaps lulled by her steady gait and the rhythmic clop of hooves, began to doze off.  His curved beak perfectly fit over her shoulder.  His chirring breaths tickled at her ear.

“
May I ask you something?” Taryn said suddenly.  She snuck a wary glance his way and found him watching her without expression from the corner of his eye.  When he nodded, she said, “Why did you tell me your name?”

“
Why did you give yours?” he countered.  “As you say, trust must start with someone.”

Taryn bit at her lips, unsure how far she really wanted to pursue her point of curiosity. 
“I’m not sure it’s really the same,” she said.  “Names seem to mean a lot more to you than they do to me.  I don’t really feel like I’m taking such a big risk.”

“
Nay?”  H’wathu stopped abruptly and stared at her.  “Though I have told you plainly that humans, those you share your shape if not your kind, did slay my beloved mate and the lives we made between us, yet you followed me unhesitant into the open plains, alone, unarmed, and I so heeled?”  He drew his runka in one fluid arc, letting light splash along its head.  It had one braid, with four knots tied into it.  “And you do not think you take a risk?” he asked incredulously.

She met his eyes over the steel that lay between them. 
“No.”

“
Nay?  And how not?”

“
Tonka trusts you.”