Welcome to Gaia! ::

Once upon a time a crippled mother labored over a wheel spinning yarn from wool in the corner of that tiny boarding room. She bruised her fingers threading needles, sewing blankets and cheap clothes while her son worked during the day, even when sickness had taken nearly all her strength. Now dust collected on her spinning wheel. Her son, Kalvin, with the eyes of a brooding dreamer, hugged the pillow upon his mother’s bed and watched the shadows fight the light while a single candle fed a dull flame. His clothes lay in piles beside his bed, some clean some dirty. The room contained a single window at a poor angle for light and one closet, still holding his mother’s possessions. They were exactly as they had been on the day she died. That was more than two months ago.

But Kalvin had spent too many tears, exhausted too many sighs on grief to surrender to fitful memories. Her dresses, her spinning wheel, all her possessions would be sold as soon as he could find the strength. He left them be out of respect, though he felt no connection to things of wood and cloth. Thinking about the money made him wonder if he might be a bad person, but deep down he knew that the mere memory of his mother was dearer to his heart than holding onto her meager possessions.

He wondered what Lucas was doing right now. Had Leolin allowed her to get close to the chicks yet? Perhaps he could walk to Lucas’s stable, to see how the new family was doing. A faint warmth rose in his chest, brightening his mood.

Kalvin’s head jerked around. He sat up quickly, holding the pillow limply in his arms for a moment before discarding it and going to the window. The floorboards moaned under his bare feet. He tilted his head, peering through a hole in the dust covered glass. Obviously confused, he still smiled and managed a slight wave. Maybe they wanted to take him somewhere. “Hi Lucas. What are you doing here?”

“Okay…” Kalvin glanced at the clothes on his floor. He picked a shirt out of the pile he thought was cleanest and pushed the rest under the bed, then took a quick survey of his room. Having people over always put him in a state of distress; they seemed uncomfortable with his surroundings, like he was abnormal. As a final thought he pulled the blanket over his bed, spreading it down neatly, then put on his shoes and went to the door.

Kalvin could plainly hear something rustling inside the basket. His eyes widened and he watched the basket closely. When he saw it at the window he thought Lucas was bringing him something to eat.

Kalvin’s heart leapt out of his chest like a bat on fire. He stared at Lucas, then Leolin, and finally the basket again. Surely they weren’t going to fly there. Although he felt slightly weak in the knees, he approached Leolin and, with only slight hesitation, climbed onto his back. He sat farther back on Leolin than before, assuming Lucas would take the reins.

“Err…” Kalvin glanced at his hands clumsily. Would he be alright if he let go? He uncurled the ends of his fingers first, opened his hands a bit and waited for balance to kick in. While he was reaching for the basket, and concentrating on keeping himself steady, the flap facing Kalvin popped up and a little brown face chirped at him. Kalvin let out a startled laugh, taking the basket into his lap protectively and lifting the flap. “There’s two of them! Hello.” He grinned at the chicks.

Seeing Bree starting to cry, Kalvin attempted to sooth her with a gentle scratch behind the ears. “They’re so soft. I’ve never felt anything this soft before.”

The brown chick ducked back into the basket as Kalvin reached in. After a few seconds he placed a foreleg on Kalvin’s hand and gently nibbled at the end of his finger. His dark green eyes focused on Kalvin, unaware that his position was crowding his sister.

Kalvin tasted not-quite-like-mommy. Sort of like mommy, not quite like mommy. Not quite like daddy either, or his brothers and sisters. It was sort of the way Laura tasted after she had spent a long day tending to Leolin in the stables. Maybe he was some sort of featherless gryphon. Awfully silly looking for a gryphon, especially with all that matty fur on his head. The little gryphon thought Kalvin could use a good preening.

The chick’s pricking claws didn’t bother Kalvin, who seemed to have forgotten his fear of riding Leolin. He lifted his hand out of the basket and stroked the brown chick, who seemed to be craving attention as well.

Noticing the clutch mates getting testy, Kalvin pulled his arm from the basket. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of those awfully sharp claws.

The brown chick wriggled off his sister and squeaked. Head poking out of the basket, he glanced at Bree tentatively incase she wanted to start something then went back to staring at Kalvin.

Kalvin wondered what it was like to have siblings. It must be a pain having someone on your back all the time. Kalvin never got along with anyone his age, so he was glad to be an only child. “The brown one has green eyes. They look like jewels.”

The little brown gryphon pawed at Kalvin’s hand as he stroked the gryphon’s fuzzy head until he got a good grip on Kalvin's bony pink finger. With a quick jerk he slipped out from under Kalvin's hand and started nibbling on the end of his finger. So dirty under there! Kalvin must have been the kind of person who liked rolling in the mud. Whenever the little gryphon went rolling in the dirt his mommy or daddy would pick him right up and give him a good preening, which he liked. Getting dirty was the fun part, of course.

“I guess,” Kalvin giggled. This was the first time he’d felt a gryphon licking the underside of his fingernail. “I think this little brown one—Jade might be hungry. Did you bring them any snacks?”