Chapter 10-The Rough-Faced Griffon
Long before Britannian colonists and succubus merchants from Europa arrived, the Island of Delpoi was populated by a whole assortment of indigenous human and monster tribes who roamed the land, or settled in remote parts of the continent, from east to west. For the most part, they were isolated from the rest of the world, and thus only knew what they could explain about the world around them. Here, humans and monsters lived in harmony with nature...for the most part.
Our tale begins in a large village situated on the border of a lake. The village consisted of humans and griffons, who integrated into the tribe through a marriage between the chief and the nest mother centuries before, and the two races were inseparable since then. The men would go out and hunt, while the powerful griffons stayed and defended the tribe, for they were among the strongest monsters of the land. They were the Golden Eagle tribe, and they were one with the sky.
Within this village, there was a widower and his three daughters, all griffons born from their mother who was a protector of the village, who had died fighting a group of dragons laying waste to the land from the south. The youngest of which was Hula, who was an unfortunate girl in her family.
Like the other griffons of her tribe, Hula trained from birth to become a strong monster and a lovely woman for the humans to look up to and the men to court. She trained hard, and though she was small, she strong and her determination was something few could match. It wasn't until her seventeenth birthday that tragedy had befallen her and her family.
The Golden Eagle tribe was suddenly attacked one day by a powerful thunderbird, who lived in the nearby mountains. She lost her husband and daughter in an earthquake and caused untold amounts of destruction in her grief. Her thunderbolts tore apart the earth, split trees in half and set them aflame, soon enough engulfing half the forest in the inferno and threatened the tribe.
Hula, her sisters, and the rest of the able bodied griffons rushed to defeat the thunderbird before she destroyed the village. Maddened with grief and seeking only to cause destruction and pain, the thunderbird violently lashed out like a thunderstorm, striking down anyone who got near. Over a dozen griffons were killed in the battle, and all that were left were a handful of veterans and new warriors who were no match for the thunderbird.
Hula, who knew they could defeat the thunderbird alone, acted as a distraction while her aunt would deal the killing blow. She slammed into the thunderbird from behind and blinded her, which led to the thunderbird lashing out and severely wounding Hula. Her aunt dived in and ran her spear through the thunderbird's heart, ending the threat and giving the monster peace at last as she was reunited with her family in the world beyond.
It took hours for the tribal mages to put out the fires with water magic, even with the help of the undine that inhabited the lake, but soon the inferno was put out and the tribe was victorious...but not without a cost.
Poor Hula, who acted as a distraction to bring the wrath of the thunderbird only onto her, was affected the most. She paid the ultimate price, struck by thunder, riddled with ugly scars and painful burns, and unable to fly for the rest of her life.
Hula was seen as a hero by her fellow villagers for her sacrifice, but she didn't feel like a hero. She felt useless.
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"By the spirits, she looks worse than I thought."
"I know. The stories of her injuries were graver than I expected."
"Can she even fly with that wing?"
"Forget her wing, what about her arm? And her face! Spirits, what did that thunderbird do to her?"
Every year there would be a massive gathering of tribes to celebrate the coming of the seasons. With it being Fall, the need for meat and fur grew as the weather turned colder and the plants started dying. It was a time for relatives to reunite, for friends and rivals to meet up, and stories to be traded. For Hula, it was a time for the women of the other villages to whisper and gossip about her visible injuries.
Hula could hear it all and it only made her wish her sisters hadn't dragged her to this gathering. Everyone stared at her like she was some strange creature to be gawked at, like it was her fault for looking this way. The warriors were, of course, less scathing in their comments, more sympathetic given how she acquired her scars, but it still stung to listen to even other monsters snicker about her lack of ability to gain a husband and a family.
"Don't listen to them, Hula." Her eldest sister, Kaya, whispered to her. She was the strongest of the three sisters, tall and muscular with large powerful wings and talons sharp enough to cut through stone. Next to her, Hula felt even uglier, though she didn't make this feeling known.
"That's not too difficult, considering that I can barely hear out of my left ear." Hula muttered.
In order to hide her facial scars, Hula wore a red mask that completely covered her face. Her right hand was devoid of feathers, also burned away by the monster's lightning. Scars marred her leonine legs and the most crippling injury was her left wing, which had taken a thunderbolt directly to it and was bare and crooked, the nerves shot so badly that she couldn't even move it all the way. Bandages ran along her chest, stomach and legs to hide the scars there too. One would mistake her for a mummy with how much bandages and wrappings she wore to cover herself.
She walked with a limp and was slightly bent over like an old woman. The children wondered if she was actually an old woman behind that mask, a hag disguised as a crippled griffon. Hula became numb to these senseless labels, but that didn't mean they didn't leave their own scars.
"Can we just go back to the hut? All this is doing is drawing more attention to me." Hula pleaded.
"You need to walk around, little sister. Staying inside that stuffy hut is harmful to your health. Even father agrees with me." Kaya said. "And no one would dare tease or mock you with me close by."
"Not as long as you're looking at them." She muttered.
Suddenly the gossiping women went quiet and the sisters looked up to see who made them hush up so. It didn't take long to understand why, for they saw a very beautiful woman step into the village square.
Her name was Keemeone, Rain, and she came from a small tribe who lived on the far side of the island, where the dense forests gave way to wide open plains where buffalo grazed and wild horses galloped endlessly without care. She was a tall, slender human woman with raven black hair and smooth skin. Her eyes were her most startling feature; they were a bright silver, like starlight, that seemed to glow even in the daytime.
She was the only one from her tribe capable of making the journey to the gathering, as the rest of her tribe relied on the protection of a neighboring clan of centaurs to protect them from bandits and monsters. But her beauty wasn't why she was so well-know, however.
Hula could feel the gazes of every woman in the area focus on her as Keemeone walked over to her and her sister. The kind woman's gaze wasn't judging or disgusted, only polite, for she focused on Hula, who froze like a deer in a predator's gaze.
