Hot flames lick my face and beak, of course my feathers start to smoke, but other than that, my boss’s show at superiority is pathetic. I calmly sit of my hind claws and wait for Ted to blow off steam. The flames slowly return to their proper orange hue and I stand back up, shaking a few specks of ash off my wings. Ted smirks at me, I glare back at him.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” He gloats, his wings bouncing slightly. I refuse to let him make me look like a fool. He wants me to bow and I won’t give him the satisfaction, I hate this job anyway.
“Oh come now Karl, you knew we were cutting back in your department. It was only a matter of time. There’s no more room in the budget for Griffin Resources.” Ted puffs a ring of smoke at me.
“I’ll be leaving now,” I murmur, staring into Ted’s eyes as I say this. I want him to know how much I don’t care about this job. How much I hated being here, working with him every day. I turn and walk away, stalking passed all of my former coworkers. I see Betty trying to sort mail, but her talons rip through most of the letters.
Chad and Brad click their talon across keyboards, tails swishing anxiously. Chad growls at his computer as Brad rakes his talons down the screen, annihilating the computer. He yowls and breathes fire, melting down the machine into unrecognizable pieces. His metal desk happily glows and puffs a bit of smoke at him.
Chad grimaces at Brad across the aisle as Caroline flies overhead shrieking about company property destruction. Brad flushes as she lands in front of him, her wings unfurled and face a mess of fury. “This is your FIFTH computer of the month Brad!”
“I… know. I’m sorry… The damn things just aren’t compatible with my talons.” He whines, trying to impress Caroline with his cub eyes. Her glare has him looking at the floor in shame.
“Try harder next time! No one else seems to break things as much as you do!” She sighs in disgust and launches herself back into the air, making a small circle she sets herself down in the clearing next to ours. The look on Brad’s face as he watches her leave is pitiful.
Chad notices me then, “Karl! Haven’t seen you around lately dude.”
“And you’ll never see me again, Jackass.” I launched myself into the air.
****
Flying is about the only joy I have left in this world. I haven’t mated and my job had consumed so much of my life that I didn’t have much of a social life. I was okay with that for the most part, my mother was flamed when I told her I didn’t plan on mating. She said that I should have at least one griffin on my side in every situation. When I told her that her and father fought the most out of all the griffins I knew, she tried to bite off my tail.
I shake my mane, trying to clear some of the air tangles. Flying always gave you a head rush and hat hair. I hate hat hair. I circled my clearing, planning on heading straight for my mound and collapsing into the deepest hibernation I could. When I landed, I noticed an odd shape squirming on the ground. I stalked to it, ready to gouge out a throat should the opportunity arise. A gurgle emitted from the creature and a human face stared at me.
I shrieked and stepped back, flapping my wings. The young human thing made a wet spitting noise. What did they call young humans? They weren’t cubs, the thing wasn’t even close to a griffin, first of all it was too tiny and its skin looked like a wind could blow it off. How the hell did this thing get here? I sniffed the air, trying to scent out the mother. There was nothing.
I pondered for a few minutes, the mother wasn’t coming back that was for sure. Quickly, I raked my talons through the tiny human’s soft neck. No use in wasting free food, soon I wouldn’t be able to pay for my own food anyway. Might as well put off starving another week.
Forever In A Story 