6 YEARS LATER
It was enlistment day at wingflight academy and the air held a sense of waiting. For the last two weeks conscripts for the infantry and healer schools and cadet-hopefuls for Wingflight had been arriving and now tents lined the road and surrounding fields of Ardmore College as far as the eye could see, but inside the walls the staff were feverishly working to prepare the lists and the food for the thousands of cadets that would soon be entering into the hardest four years of their lives.
But as for me, well I was waiting at the cliffs for the griffons to fly by and growing more nervous by the moment.
"Hey I'm Lyra,how are you? I'm good, are you excited? What's your name?"
"I am Elaris, and no i am not excited,in fact i am nervous as all get out"
"Oh, I am sorry to hear that, but my older brother who is a rider gave me a hint to help, wait until there is a large flock of them before jumping"
"Thank you"
At that moment the gates of Ardmore opened and within moments there was a giant crowd of cadet-hopefuls standing on the edge of the cliff preparing to jump. Almost immediately after the crowd arrived the griffons came flying up the river from the south,almost as soon as they came into sight the more daring of the cadet-hopefuls jumped, I however trusted lyra and decided to follow her advice, so after about a quarter of the cadet-hopefuls had jumped,I followed suit.
Almost as soon as I had jumped I Immediately became afraid and frightened of the drop but I repeated my Mantra to myself that had come to define me over the last 6 years: " I will not die today."And of course today like every other day it was true as I fell I saw many Griffins getting out of my way but once I was almost all the way through the pack through sheer luck, or perhaps it's because I was praying to Ayala the goddess of luck and she moved me,I landed on the back of a Griffin and even though by all means I should have fallen off I miraculously didn't, and although the Griffin was supposed to start talking to me at this point it was silent. dumb bird. Now something I should have expected but didn't was the animal trying to blow me off doing all these stupid loops and turns flying upside down
,"Puny human making me carry you around, have y'all ever considered what us griffons want? Because if you had you would not make us carry you, only reason we even pretend to not mind it's because your magic keeps us safe while putting us in more Danger then necessary at the same time"
This was not what I had expected at all from the way my mother talked about her Griffin and while he was still alive my brother did, they had acted like their Griffins loved them and were their best friends, while my Griffin seemed to hate humans and everything they stood for. But, enough about me,because we had been diving and now as we flew under the clouds Wingflight academys campus unrolled before us from the air the layout looked almost like a griffin. Where the griffon's head would be, there was a large field with a fountain in the shape of a griffon's eye in the center. Off to one side where the beak would be were the administrative buildings, down to where the body was were the main classroom buildings, while the claws held the dormitories, and the wings were the flight maneuver field. Suddenly my griffon dived and as we neared the ground I noticed that the other riders griffons seemed to obey them and were descending much more slowly, as well as the fact that the Main group of Griffin's was heading for the dormitory and inprocessing while my griffon was heading towards the flight field on the other side of campus.
Now all this time while I took in The View we had been diving and now only a few hundred feet above the ground continue to dive and going faster and faster just as we were about to hit the ground my boyfriend play out her wings and made a picture of Perfect Landing I side with relief and just as I was dismounting Professor ran across the field towards me already yelling" Cadet where is your uniform where is your squad who you with what are you doing here?" and then as he got closer he realized I was not one of his Cadets in fact I was not even a Cadet I was just a Cadet hopeful and as he realized this his tone changed to a kind of condescending sneer, "Cadet didn't you tell your griffon to go to the dormitory or are you some kind of imbecile who can't control their own griffon?
" for your knowledge," I said, " my Griffin is refusing to talk to me."
" oh I see by sheer luck you managed to land on a griffin but you don't belong here and she knows it you can go get your sorry ass over the Infantry private"
" Sir, Article 2 Sub Section 3 paragraph 4 of the wing Flight Academy code of conduct States,' All Cadets and Cadet hopefuls if they manage to land on a griffin are to be given a period of not less than one week and not more than one month to bind their Griffin"
" very well you have one week to bind your Griffin and if by then you haven't goodbye"