Letter 2

7th Day of the Rainy Season

6th Year of Reign of Amaranth,

The 17th Gryphon Keeper

To Whom It May Concern,

Looking back on how all these events came to pass, it was clear that it would have turned out like this. Although, it is a lot easier to look back and point out all the oddities and declare that it was preventable. No one notices all the signs or bothers to put them together till the very end once the dust has settled and the mind became a barren nothingness.

I never knew the fourth son of the fifty-second king of Kalajhan, but most say that he had always desired to have the most. During the course of his life, many people talked of his infinite capacity for evil. It was one of those rare moments  in history where all the pieces were put together before the premier event and it was obvious that something bad was going to occur, the magnitude of the evil remain undetermined till the very end. Because we never knew each other, save for the reports given to use by our allies, it is a wonder that the prince became my nemesis and I his. How can it be that two people who have never met have the unfortunate fate of destroying one another? 

Fate is something that I believe in, destiny is not. One once said that fate is a force where certain events in life are preset, however you have the ability to choose the outcome of said events. Unlike fate, destiny is the predestination of your entire life and leaves no room for choice. Everyone has the ability of choose which path to take and at any point in time they can simply turn around and choose the other path. It will always be more difficult to take the path of good and it will be ten times as difficult to turn to it after having already chosen the path of evil. However, it can be done, just as someone who was once good can turn bad.

There is something inherently calming about simply watching life. The desert sun would set and the sky would grow bloodied, only to be devoured minutes later by the shadows that swept over the shanty towns and sandstone houses in the capital city of Kalajhan. During that transition from day to night, often I would find my way onto the roof of one of the two sandstone buildings that created my dark alley.

On the roof, I would kneel at the edge and watch the small little figures below leave the crowded marketplace to go home to their families. Every now and then I would zone into one person, often for the possibility of robbing them but at times I watched someone just to see what kind of person they were. You can tell a lot from a person just by watching them, at least that's what I believed then. There is much more to a person than simply what their body does.

The first gryphon I ever met, I made a terrible impression. As a rule, screaming in terror and flinging a bronze mirror at a gryphon is not the proper way to greet one. Not only was it a gryphon, but the Queen of Gryphons that took a mirror to the face and still invited me into her kingdom. It was that same gryphon that told me that people are like coins, there are two sides and you can't view both sides at the same time...at least not in their entirety. Most certainly you will read my letters and see a very different person than those in my life do. 

I'm certain that you must view me as someone who is confident, decisive, in charge and maybe even someone who is wise. However, I assure you that I'm  very clumsy, fearful, socially awkward and I would love to hand over my responsibilities to anyone else. I am as flawed an individual as anyone could be and I refuse to deny that. To wear a mask every single day is tiresome. The time I spent as a penniless thief was worth everything. I would want to change anything about my life because it was there, dressed in muddied rags, that I learned that as long as you're alive it doesn't really matter what you look like or what others think of you.

And that is what I shall end on, since my fingers are beginning to ache and my head grows heavy with the promise of a warm bed. My dearest little gryphon cares little for my sleep, but plenty for trouble. That demon chose to wake me while the sun still hid by dumping a bag of flour over my head because he wanted to play in "snow". Took me nearly two hours to clean up that mess and by the time I finished it was time for me to wake up. 

Let not your eyes deceive you

Amaranth, the 17th Gryphon Keeper

Author's Note

Not sure I like this nearly as much as my first one and I probably ought to go back and rewrite some of it, but I thought I should at least post it until I do since a few people were interested in reading more. I actually wrote this quite a few months ago, shortly after my first letter.

Reviews

[Charlie]

This I found better than the first chapter. The first sentence in the second paragraph needs to be changed as it doesn't make sense. But a good expansion on the intro. Both chapters could use expansion.

[Gretchen Clarke]

This was good too! I like the way you described the gryphon. That made it seem as if he had taken in a baby gryphon that enjoys making all sorts of trouble for him. I look forward to more!