Short Eno-story

[Enoki]

The Short Story

I felt like writing a short story in the middle of writing the actual novel of this series. Do enjoy yourselves. I also apologize for any typos or grammatical errors such as punctuation. I really didn't nitpick at it like I usually do. If you do see anything incorrect, feel free to let me know. ;3

     The forest was green, lush and abundant. I had been walking down one of the many trails of my home land. The rocky pebbles were smooth underneath my feet. I inhaled a wonderful breeze, smelling a scent from a candle that had drifted its wonderful incense towards my nostrils. I soon passed by the actual candle, hanging on a branch of a tree near one of my neighbors homes. I waved to them as I passed by, my neighbors, who in turned greeted me with a smile.
      My name is Enoki. Yes, you may be thinking it is a strange name, but it is my name, and I like it. No, I am not human, as you may have already implied since you are so used to the familiar. I am a Dryphon. You probably have never heard of such a thing, but that is what I am. It is a cross-breed of three species: dragon, gryphon, and kirin.

      I live in a realm of wonder and amazement, but it isn't the only realm out there. There are many, but three remain the most well known. They are also easy to remember for they are called, the First Realm, the Second Realm, and the Third Realm. Easy enough, yes? Well, all the realms together are known as Yugure. Each realm holds a new environment and with a new environment comes new species. I live in the First Realm, the gryphon realm. And this is where our story takes.
      
      I had gone to my hollow for some peace and quiet. I had just been at the lake, studying the marine life. It was loud and boisterous there. A few children of different species were swimming and playing in the lake. This also made it difficult for me to take water samples without getting unwanted dirt kicked up from the waves made nearby.
      Finally, I made it to my hollow. Most gryphons, and myself, prefer to sleep up in trees. So we build our houses up there with wood and leaves. It may not seem practical, to use leaves as a roof, but it is all we have. I alighted myself inside and went straight for my bed. The softness of my fur blanket put me in a deep sleep.
      "Enoki, wake up!" A voice called from out of my hollow. My eyelids cracked open to see who beckoned me. The sun peered through the entrance of my hollow and hit my eyesight. Blinking heavlily, I aroused myself to greet the guest. It was the gryphon Shadequill. I have known Shade since I had hatched and we have been good friends since then. Shadequill also happens to be my teacher's assistant.
      "Hrnn?" Was all I could mumble in reply. I still felt a little weak from waking up and part of me was still in the dream realm. I heard her laugh. This made me give a sleepy smile.
      Her hawk-like hands gripped my head and gave it a friendly shake. "Come on, Eno. Blacktalon wants to see you at his laboratory." This made me grumble. I would had liked to go back to sleep and enjoy some quiet time for myself.
I guess it would have to wait, my brain told myself. "Let me get my satchel," my mouth spoke slowly as I meandered to the table where most of my possessions laid. I packed some supplies I may need for the day in my pack and slung it around my waist.
      "Are you ready yet?" Shade called impatiently. I replied with a nod and we took off. We flew the way there instead of taking the pathway, like most grounded creatures do. I enjoyed taking the trail, it was interesting, but we couldn't do so today, Shade told me. It was urgent that we arrived on time.
      Blacktalon's laboratory was also set up high in the trees. It was much larger than the average house, which was smart because he had so much equipment to store. The laboratory sits in one of the most large of our Dragon Oaks, which are already a large species of the oak trees. The building is actually set around the oak's trunk, so you can see the tree when inside the lab.
      We both landed in the lab and looked around for Blacktalon. He wasn't to be seen. "Where in Yugure could he have gone?" I asked searching behind his desk.
      "I'm up here!" A voice called out from above us. It was the jet black gryphon known as Blacktalon, my teacher. As his name implies, he has the talons of an eagle and their color is the darkest of black. He happened to be perched on one of the smaller branches that had grown inside of the lab fiddling with what appeared to be a fungus specimen.
      "You asked for me, sir?" My head lifted itself up as high as it could possibly go. Neckbones strained inside of me, trying to support my heavy cranium.
      He grinned and dropped to the floor, "Oh yes, quite so. I am in need of your two's assistance in retrieving a bauble of sorts." The black gryphon talked as he headed toward one of his writing boards. A drawing was centered on the sheet of slate. A dark talon pointed to the item, "This is what I need you two to retrieve. It's a goblet, a very old one at that. It is a historic piece of gryphon history. It is said that the ancient of ancient gryphons used to drink of this cup, come every new year, in celebration of the new days to come. But when the wars were brought out by the dragons, some creature was awakened and took our treasures, including this goblet."
      "What about the rest of the treasure?" Shade asked curiously.
      "It is of no use to us in a scholarly sense, but if it is also recovered with the goblet, then more power to you," Blacktalon responded. "I am sure if we find the goblet, the treasure wouldn't be too far from it. When you find the goblet, you find the treasure."
      A treasure hunt! How exciting, I exclaimed non-verbally. This would indeed be an interesting day for us.
"Now, you'll need to remember a few things. Such as, where to begin looking. I happened to find an old scroll," he began to dig through a bunch of artifacts he had lying about in the room, "that tells you where the creature took the treasure. Of course, it is just an old coot that wrote it after the event happened. Who knows if he's right about it, but it's a start." The gryphon pulled out an musty and tattered rolled up piece of papyrus and handed it to Shadequill.
      Shade took the scroll and opened it up on an empty table. The writing was an old gryphon dialect and unfortunately a chunk of it was smeared at the bottom left hand corner. "Now, I've been able to decipher most of the riddle. It says 'Where serpents lay in a forever sleep, the creature went and hid our heap. The Goblet of Years to Pass, will forever lay in that terrible impasse.' Well, that's all I got."
      I looked strangely at the scroll. "Why talk in riddles?" I inquired.
      "I don't know. You know the olden days. Gryphons back then thought riddles were safer to pass on to the next generation. Probably because they rhyme. But I don't want to get into a lecture. You two need to get going!" He ushered us out the door. "Make sure you two stick together. Don't get lost now," Blacktalon warned us.
      "We will stay together sir!" Shadequill assured him as we soared off.
It wasn't long before the afternoon started to fade, and we had lost our way. "What was the riddle again Shadequill?" I asked fretfully, hoping that she would have remembered it.
      "Where serpents. . . leap, heap. . . I don't know!" She said in a horrifying screech. "What are we going to do?" Shade nervously looked at me.
      I returned her look with one similar, "We can start of with serpents. We know that is apart of the riddle. What in the First Realm is related to snakes?" I asked.
      Her face lightened up with a smile, "Why of course! The Sea Serpent's Tomb! Where sperpents lay in a forever sleep. The only eternal sleep I can think of is death! The creature must have went to the Sea Serpent's Tomb, which is hidden by a waterfall."
      "And that cavern leads to the Ancient Catacombs, where the creature must have lived! Shade that's brilliant!" I exclaimed with a hoot. My excitement made me do a loop-de-loop before I could calm myself down. "So that's where we must go."
      "To the catacombs!" We said at once.
      "It stinks in here," Shadequill mumbled after an hour or so of exploring the many tunnels that the catacombs had to spare. Although named the Ancient Catacombs, these tunnel systems were never used for burial. Instead, they are used as an underground highway for the many creatures that live in Yugure. The Ancient Catacombs can take you to many of the known realms.
      "Yes, it does," I replied. It didn't really bother me that much. With a rafflesia flower in one of my many scientific gardens, smells tend not to get to me.
      We had found some clues as to what tunnels to check. A series of hieroglyphics lead us to a long tunnel, that seemed to go on forever. We thought we were getting somewhere, but we were dead wrong. "A dead end??!" Shadequill moaned, staring at the wall that stood in front of us.
      "It would seem that way," I retorted, also feeling let down. We had been walking down that pathway for nearly forty-five minutes, only to have to turn around. "What a waste of time," sighing, I flicked a pebble at the wall.
      "Yeah," was all Shade could muster. She turned to me, about to say something, when we both heard a cracking sound coming from the rocks.
      "You heard that, yes?" I said shaking.
      "Why, yes. I di-Gyaaaaaaaah!" She and I screamed. We were falling. Falling through the floor! The air left me as we plummeted to whatever would meet us at the bottom. Shadequill snapped open her wings to slow her descent.
Brilliant, I should have thought of that, my brain scolded me for being simple minded. But at the time being, falling to my death, I wasn't quite all there. My wings began to reach outward when I felt a pang on my right wing. It was a sharp prick, then no feeling at all.
      "Enoki, your wing!" My gryphon friend gasped at the sight. I dared not look, but something made me. I turned to see it broken and on an odd angle.
      "Oh, I think I'm going to be sick," my words slurred as I began to pass out.
      "Stay with me Eno!" Shadequill called out to me. I felt a hand grab me and then another. My body felt a bit lighter as I slowed down.
      I slowly came back to my senses and looked down to see the floor. "Oh, thank goodness!" I cheered. We were back on the ground and I nearly kissed it, but Shade stopped me from doing so.
      "Enoki, look," she whispered. My head lifted to see what we had been here for. The goblet. "Eno, we found it!" She pranced around the large room that we had fell into. It looked like an undiscovered cavern. The cavern was bare, only rock could be seen. But the details didn't matter at that point, we had finally completed our mission.
I carefully took the goblet from the rock it sat on and wrapped it in cloth for protection. The rest of the journey was fun. We both traveled into another cavern, this one was full of the treasures the Blacktalon had told us about. "He was right," I said in awe of the sight of all the precious stones, sculptures, and other priceless artifacts.
      "When isn't he?" Shade teased. I laughed, it was true. "Now all we have to do is find a wa-" she was interrupted. A mountain of gold began to shift. Dark in color, a fur hand emerged from the heap and slapped the ground with anger. The pile burst open to show a giant creature. The creature. It was some sort of ape? I'm not sure. It could also look like an old species of werewolf, but I didn't stay long enough to ask it.
      "RUN!" I yelled to Shadequill, who stood in pure shock. My tail wrapped around her arm and I tugged her loose of the daze she was in. I began to search for somewhere to escape, but I could not find any route.
      "We're trapped?!" She wailed, somewhat out of breath, as we were running.
      "Kyyyeeaarrr!" The ape-like creature screamed. It hurled a golden statue at us, which missed and hit the wall ahead of us. The wall cracked.
      "I have an idea," I said to Shadequill as we made a hard left at the wall. "Just trust me," assuring her, I made a 180 degree turn and ran back to the crack in the wall. "Here, here! Over here!" My calls beckoned the beast toward us. Shade nearly fainted, but I placed a green, scaly on her shoulder to keep her steady.
     The monster looked at us stupidly. Mindlessly, it raged toward us, crying agonizing screeches. "Move!" I yelled at Shade, shoving her and I out of the beast's way. A crash and snapping sound comes from behind us as we ran and covered our heads. More noise followed with a tumbling of rocks. Sunlight peers in to the cavern and I lifted myself up from the ground where I hid.
      "Are you alright?" She asks, looking at me sympathetically. My wing, still broken and flopping around freely, hung at my side.
      "I think he will be just fine. Did you know that all of the First Realm could hear you in here?" Blacktalon stepped into the gaping hole and into the cavern. He appeared a bit speechless at the sight of us, the treasure, and the limp beast-which was now dead. "Well, from the sight of you two and all of, this," he motioned at the cavern and the dead creature, "I'd say the mission was successful."
      Shade and I both look at each other and give a faint smile. "I suppose so," she sighed.
      "Indeed," nodding, I agreed.
      Blacktalon also nodded in approval. "How about we, call it a day. Scones at my hollow?" He asked looking at us.
     "Sure, why not. Nearly dying at least twice in one day really builds up an appetite," I said sarcastically. We all laugh and follow Blacktalon out of the cavern.

Scones anyone?