Far, Far in the Distance..
An elderly male gryphon made his way across the banks of a devoid river.
Although he could easily distinguish the rather familiar sound of rippling waters,
Kempp could sense that the Emerald Waters were now...entirely different.
He could easily pick up the sensitive sounds of the land, but found no voice emitting from it's corners.
The blind gryphon continued to walk, despite his sore legs that were now filled with arthritis,
and crippled wings that have become nothing but a heavy burden on his back.
He could feel the dry grass with cracked pawpads as he made his way up a rather steep cliff,
gathering as much energy as he could to reach it's zenith.
There, he depicted a rather empty, yet familiar ground.
Memories flashed through Kempp's head.
His home, his home that he left to find others of his kind..
where he left behind a rather fuzzy, yet somehow important figure...
But these memories were dashed by a heavy rasp, followed by a loud wheeze.
Kempp only continued to move his stiff, old legs foward, despite the aching pain.
His white eyes blinked several times. His paws suddenly buckled foward, sliding down into a soft, yet deep ditch.
He felt the sandy grain within his light brown pelt and orange mane. It's stench filled his nostrils.
This was one of the dens.
More memories then. He was younger, long before he was plagued to see nothing but white.
There he remembered playing with other cubs, a white one with a short, gray tuft,
Another with a gray-themed pelt, along with a cinder underbelly,
and a slightly clearer figure, who seemed to bare a white pelt and black mane.
The vagabond gryphon shook his orange mane, freeing the sand from within it,
before slowly gathering his balance back together to stand.
After a rather painful struggle, Kempp managed to climb his way from the abandoned den.
As he continued his way foward, Kempp found once again, another ditch.
However, this one was much softer and not as deep as the one before.
The blind creature waved his paw around, his senses once again failing.
Finally, his light-brown paw met a slightly higher slope.
This was the gathering place of the clan...
Kempp sneezed from the itch of pollen, when another memory slipped into his mind.
"Why aren't you treating Tsura fairly?! She's not hurting anyone!"
The voice of his younger self crept into his mind.
Tsura..that was her name...right? Kempp shook his matted head, now frustrated.
His legs grew more and more unstable...now it was time to depart from this abandoned ground, before it got to him.
The blind gryphon dragged himself down the cliff once more, memories flashing to and fro, to his sorrow and annoyance.
Chiro. Kumi. Boe. Tsura.
All those names continuously flashed into his mind.
Rust. Nightpelt. Sui. Abby.
Again and again. Despite aching paws and heavy wings,
Kempp drove himself to step forth faster and faster.
His body began to sweat, and his body began to seathe with pain.
"Mama...?"
Another voice now echoed through his racing mind as his heartbeat increased.
"Mama..? Wake up...Wake up, We're okay!"
The gryphon collapsed amongst sandy shores,
tears shedding down from capped eyes.
The faint sound of water echoed through his ears, followed by the beating of soft ocean waves.
He had made it to the edge of the land, where the earth met the sea.
Kempp struggled to his feet, but now, he could not get up.
The elderly male only shut his eyes,
letting tears continue to stream down his fur and mane.
It all flashed through him now..
Kempp opened his eyes now, realizing what he had missed.
And now here he was, meeting his fate.
The shipwreck. He remembered it all.
Nearly three evenings following his birth,
curling waves swept in upon the chamber,
inwhich his family had been inside.
He remembered the human boy who had unchained the gryphon's mother,
free from her clutches, in desperate for her escape.
Kempp remembered the hurdling body of water, that swept away his siblings,
their lives over before they could even start it.
He remembered his soaking wet downyfeathers,
as he felt his scruft being clutched tightly in the beak of his swimming mother.
Then, that first taste of land, after hours and hours of nothing but blue sea.
How happy was Kempp to have escaped.
But only to discover that his mother died the moment she met the sand.
The blind gryphon's tears now exploded into heavy sobs,
his claws scratching the earth in sorrow.
He remembered first joining the clan,
and growing up beside Chiro, Kumi, Boe..
And Tsura..
Tsura, who he stood by even in dark times.
But left behind in search for others of the same pelt and feathers.
Tsura, who he discovered dead upon his return to his clan.
The Emeraldclan, that once lived in this now empty ground.
Ran by Rust and Abby.
Where Kempp despised his own enemies, Nukpana, Antipas, Jazmine,
One who would seal Tsura's fate.
Kempp shut his eyes for the final time.
He accepted his fate. He felt the great pain against his old body,
aswell as the terrible burden of sorrow.
How wrong he was to abandon his home, his friends..the one he loved.
"I'm...so sorry..for what..I've.."
Kempp could no longer speak.
He felt fire choke his lungs and burn his throat.
His body had failed him now,
but before the gryphon could feel like his body was being incinerated with fire..
It all lifted.
The pain.
The blindness.
All of it.
The gryphon flashed open his once capped eyes.
He was in an open field, covered with grass,
which blew softly in an welcoming breeze that ruffled Kempp's thick mane.
He took a step further, and his senses seemed to disappear for a short second.
"done.."
He swore he could see the familiar forms of those he knew.
Chiro, Rust, Abby, Sui, Kumi, Tsura..
They were all there.
He then saw a familiar figure.
The golden pelt and peach mane of his mother, Nectar.
The brown pelted gryphon stood in awe.
"Mom..."
A final breathe.
A final wheeze.
And no more pain.
Only a return to his home,
before his life had began.
