Looking to Belong: Griz

Chapter 9

The Creature turned and poked Griz. "Milorme iha Stralanja."

"What? Cquas?"

"Milorme iha Stralanja."

"Bhi ftal cquas Milorme iha Stralanja cu." No know what Milorme and Stralanja is. She knew her grammar wasn't right, but it should get the message across.

"Tlassar, gla tlassar." 

"Ul gla tlassar?" I very powerful?

"Beq." Yes.

"Wow. Fplit." Help. 

The creature nodded, bringing its hands up to its hood of the cloak, it slowly pulled it back, revealing a wrinkled grey head that was bold, the eyes were sliver and gold in one, black and white in the other, the cheeks were hollow, a large scar cut across diagonally from one side of the face to the other.

"Jli onhal moi?" How understand you?

"Hli mnal." Dug deep. "Namola Birthday." Fifteenth Birthday.

Griz nodded, she understood. 

"Hlo mnal." Dig deep. "Jhal cquas moi hlal io oa." Find what you want to do. "Aliman ek." Imagine it. 

Griz nodded and closed her eyes, wings would be cool, she imagined herself with a pair of black wings with grey streaks in it, she imagined how they would feel on her back. She imagined hard, then she felt an instinct, to pull the imagination to real life, her brain sorted the fine details of the wings out, then she fell over onto her knees, pain running through her body. 

  The pain stopped, she felt really heavy, Griz looked over her shoulder to see a pair of wings, exactly how she imagined them to be, but real, she looked up at her mentor, whose lips widened horizontally, it's version of a smile. Griz stood, grabbing onto a branch, and tried to do something with her wings, it was hard, very hard, but she spread her wings out, filling the small gap. This was not something to happen in real life. This should be in a book, and definitely not about her, this was not real, but so real, as it was real. 

The creature turned towards the fense and looked out, and shook its head, it came over to Griz and grabbed her arm before everything went black once again.

The world spun into light and dark, then the colours began to seep back into the world, slowly. Griz stood up, she had ended up kneeling on the dirt, her wings half lying on the ground. She looked up, then around, the sky was still cloudy, a street of new build houses met her gaze. She closed her eyes, hoping that the little headache would end, and it did. She kept her eyes closed as she tried to find where they were, still south Cumbria, in a village near the town of Kendal, I wonder if we can get some Kendal mint cake whilst we are here...

 She looked around, looking for her mentor, it was getting up a couple of meters away, a little sunken in the mud. She walked out of the mud onto the dark grey block paving, it had recently rained and looked like it would rain again soon. The house opposite had bluey-green doors and two cars parked on the drive way, the other closest house was also rendered, a red car on the driveway, the lawn neatly cut, dark grey doors, and a teenage girl with browny-blond hair and blue eyes looking at her, her eyes were wide as the teen took in the other winged teen.

 The teen looked at her phone before looking at Griz, rubbed her eyes and blinked before looking again. The teen was sat on her window sill, and opened her window before asking, just loud enough for Griz to hear, "Is this real, a dream, or am I making you up?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I can, and I do every day."

"This is real, anyone can see me. Is there a safe place where I can go?"

"There's a deer park that way," the teen pointed to the other way to where Griz was facing, "and if you go west, you will reach a river, cross it, and you'll be in the Lake District, then go to wherever you think is best."

"Thank you ever so much."

"You're welcome! Give me a minute." The teen disappeared. She reappeared a minute later, "I know it isn't much, but I can't take anything else, or my parents will find out that I've taken food." She threw a handful of cereal bars down, followed by a water bottle and two cartons of fruit juice.

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome!" The teen turned away.

 Griz picked up the food and drink and carried them over to her mentor, she said, in its language, "Come on, we have a long walk ahead of us."