The Guardian

    She was lonely.

    She was tired.

    She was bored.

    Of course, you’d also be all three of those things and more if you were stuck in a damp, dreary cave for hundreds of very very long years.

    Why did she stay? She had to remind herself sometimes. Well, she had a mission. Her mission sat right in front of her. It was a wooden box that was curled between her claws and talons. It held something important. She didn’t know what it was. But long ago, when she was just a cub, The Man gave her Something Precious. And all griffins love Precious Things and having something to Guard.

    But still, she was tiring. She longed to stretch back her wings in the thick blue sky and sail with her family, but she couldn’t for two painful reasons; one, she had to Guard; two, her family might all be dead by now. Or maybe they also had something to Guard. So they couldn’t even swoop in to visit her. She remembered some of the last times they had visited her. Those were more happy, more exciting times. She had things to fend off. She could use her Power and hear herself roar with defiance. That was when blubbery dragons slithered in her cave to steal a jewel or two. Or the breathtaking moments when a glossy white unicorn stumbled in to hypnotize her to leave her Precious Thing and die. Those were the good times for her.

    When someone gave you something to Guard, they trusted you with their life. Literally. How? Well, as strange as it may sound, they actually give you some of their life. A golden chain with a blue diamond in the middle. It bound you to your Precious Thing. If you abandoned it, you would perish. But she would never leave it. Not under any circumstance. But the Guarding would have to end someday… the treasure wouldn’t stay with her forever. One day she had seen an old, old griffin swoop in with the others. He had announced that he had finished Guarding. He wouldn’t tell anyone how it was possible. The Man was friends with him, too.

    Her long tail twitched. She sniffed the air.

    Food was coming.

    It was a bat.

    It shrieked, it's wings that reminded her of a dragon’s flapping wildly. She opened her beak and ate it. That made her feel a little better.

    But she wanted so many things that only for a small second her longings died down.

    Yes, she slept, yes, she ate, yes, she drank, no, she did not get up.

    Her necessities always came to her, probably part of The Man’s enchantment so she would live. Not that she specifically needed it. Griffins lived a long time.

    But just in case something came to Steal her Precious Thing, The Man cast a spell of Life on her. Sighing, she thought back to that day. The Man had died from that spell, but he thought the treasure being kept safe was more important than him.

    The Man was her friend. It was a sad day.

    Her sisters and brothers also liked The Man and they took his death very seriously.

    “Sister,” they had said. “We did not want The Man to die. You must Guard the treasure with your life. Kill those who try to Steal it. Make The Man’s death have a reason.”

    Sleepily, she put her head down on the cave floor and yawned, putting a protective wing around her Precious Thing.

    I have protected it with my life, she thought, snuffling. So much that my life is already gone.

    So she waited a thousand more years.

Reviews

[Esmae]

This is not my best work so don't judge me as a horrible writer.

[Thalia]

Very good. I like where the plot is going, and the descriptions of the characters. I would suggest on not talking about The Man so much, and introduce the main Griffin more. I really enjoyed it, though!

[David Jae]

Very poignant. A little heavy on exposition, perhaps, but I like the ending.
Good job.