Chapter 3: the lizard and the bird
It had been a solid week since ember first started living with armen and more renovations had been made to better accommodate her such as a heated bed and her own personal hot spring bath installed in her bathroom, she had also started to help him around the house and become more social with armen( namely playing video games and watching movies). All in all things were going rather swimmingly for the duo, but today, things were about to take quite the turn.
"Aww damnit! That's the fifth time ember!" Armen groans, beaten by ember again in a round of naruto ultimate ninja storm 3
"Hey, can't deny these skeelz!" She adds with emphasis, armen just rolls his eyes, ember giggles and wiggles happily ,wagging her tail like a dog
"Alright best five out of eight"
An abrupt knock on the door interrupted they're next game and armen got up to answer revealing jones standings at the door with another set of forms
"Hey jones!"
"How've you been armen?"
"Great! Things are going pretty steady with ember"
"Good to hear, seeing as you have another homestay arriving".
"Oh cool, another dragon?"
"Erm, not exactly"
"Whaddya mean?"
"Alright boys you can let her out!"
The men driving the large truck that just recently pulled up held a pen in the back of it possibly holding his new homestay inside, the lowered the drawbridge and opened it up, but as soon as it cracked the creature inside flew out with such speed it was like a blur, it landed to the ground with great force which shook it considerably, small fissures making themselves visible. It was a griffin! armen had only heard stories about them and saw paintings of them at mythology museums. She had enormous angel-like eagle wings with white tips, her hair was platinum blonde with two catlike ears sticking out. Her face was set just like ember's, cute with delicate features, her eyes were yellow like that of an eagle's but had hints of light blue within the irises , she wore a grey hoodie with a green undershirt and black jeans, her hands were that of a human's but with long contracted claws like a lion's, her feet were also exposed and in the shape of a human female with 5 toes covered in a thin layer of fur with tiny claws sticking out. And to top it all of she had a long tail that was covered in a mixture of lion fur and bird feathers, but the tip jutted out with prominent feathers. She turned her attention toward jones and armen and smiled, she slowly strutted toward them proudly with two large bags in tow
"Armen this is you're new homestay; Astraea the legendary pure griffin" jones proclaims
"Hiya Astraea, the names armen" the boy holds out his hand, but instead of returning his handshake, Astraea leans down and looks him up and down as if she was inspecting him, she then stands back up and takes his hand
"So you're armen huh? I've heard about you, a pleasure to make your acquaintance" she proclaims pleasantly
"Likewise"
"Armen what's all the racket abo-" ember stops abruptly as her eyes go wide and stare blankly at the griffin
"Oh ember, this is Astraea, she's going to be living with us from now on" armen says, but ember responds with a furious growl and glowing eyes, Astraea looks none too fazed by the display but utters her own growl at the dragoness
"Uh what's going on?" Armen asks nervously
"Oh dear, I forgot to mention" jones says with a sigh
"Forgot to mention what?"
"Dragons and Griffins have a centuries long rivalry with each other over who is the true lord of the skies, and so if ever the two meet they battle viciously for dominance and for status" jones explains, just as she finishes Astraea and ember rush each other taking off into the sky exchanging blow after blow, ember aims for Astraea's face but she ducks and goes for ember's gut landing a solid hit, ember is stunned for a short time but shakes it off before the griffin can land a second blow and counters with a good one on the lower jaw, Astraea punches ember hard enough to knock her out of the air and slam to the ground bursting through it pushing up spikes of concrete and asphalt, but ember shook it off and launched back into the air whipping her tail around and lashing Astraea hard across the face sending her flying through the air and directly into the nearby van that brought her here.
"Oh not this again" jones groans agitated, she then reaches into her pocket and brings out a silver whistle which she blows, but no sound comes out. But it seems to work because both girls started to groan and scream, falling out of the sky and landing hard on the ground writhing around with covered ears, tails thumping and wings quivering, must be some kind of liminal whistle, that must come in handy sometimes.
"Just blow this when they get too rowdy, works every time" jones says, handing armen the whistle "girls, I understand you're instincts to combat each other is deeply engraved, but you two are better than this! You are both acting like immature children! Show some goddamn restraint!" Jones reprimands, which was actually quite effective seeing as both girls hung they're heads, ears drooping with fear and shame
"Wow, I'll never understand how you and smith have such an influence on these liminals, but remind me not to get on you're bad side" armen says astonished, he'd really hate to be on the receiving end of this woman's anger,she and smith have to be some kind of devil subspecies, because every time she gets angry, this dark, menacing, demonic aura surrounds her that is so intimidating it would make even a dragon shit bricks, oh wait...
"Now what do you two have to say?" Jones inquires, as if she is speaking to two children
"We're sorry" the girls groan simultaneously
"That's better, now you both better behave yourselves" jones' face then darkens and the aura envelopes her again" because if armen calls me and tells me you two are still causing trouble, I won't go as easy on you like I did today, understand?" She finishes with an uncharacteristic grimace grin plastered on her lips
"Y-yes ma'am!" the chastised, shaking liminals shout obediently, clinging to each other
"Yeah, definitely don't want to be on her bad side" armen mumbles to himself
20 minutes later
"So guys, what would you like to eat?"
"I'll take what I always have armen" ember says, smugly showing off her trust and bond with Armen, much to Astraea's annoyance
"Leg of lamb it is! Astraea what would you like?"
"What a gentleman, accepting me into you're home and now offering me food, ummm would you by any chance have fish?" Astraea inquires
"Actually yeah, tons!"
"I will take that"
"Alright, I guess I'll have some to!"
"M-me too!" Ember interjected, catching armen in mid stride
"I thought you said you wanted lamb-"
"I-I changed my mind!" She stutters, turning away
"Oh, ok then" armen concedes
While armen went into the kitchen, the girls glared at each other once again
"Let's get one thing straight griffin, this is my turf, and that human is mine as well so back off!" ember proclaims, Astraea chuckles and returns to glaring at ember with her deadpan expression
"Your turf? Humph! firstly, I can do anything I want, when I want dragon, you hold no dominion over me! secondly I have just as much claim over him as you,
so loose the fury or loose you're fangs!"
"Don't test me feathers!"
"What are you gonna do?! Bring it fire spitter!"
"Oh that's it!-"
"Girls? Is something up?" Armen interjects
"O-oh no Armen!, just a little girl talk" ember chirps pulling a fake smile over her lips
"Indeed, just a friendly chat" Astraea confirms
"Oh, ok, well you're meals will be ready momentarily, just be patient for a few more minutes"
"Ok!" They both chirp, then armen smiles and leaves the room
The girls then turn back to eachother and
glare hard
"I'm watching you griffin, this ain't over!" Ember warns
"Likewise dragon, I'm not letting you out of my sight" Astraea replies with similar malice
After lunch the most awkward tv session transpired, both girls sat on ether sides of the boy, clinging to each arm, and armen sat helplessly in the middle, Astraea tugged on him and pulled him into her soft chest with a smug grin aimed at ember, to which armen's face flushed bright red, ember scoffed disgustedly and pulled him back toward her chest, clinging to his head like a toy, sticking her forked tongue out, Astraea just growled and pulled him back to her, but ember pulled back which locked the two in a tug of war with armen suffering in the middle, the strength of the girls nearly wrenching his arms out of they're sockets.
"Girls enough!" Armen shouts which causes both girls to pause and look down at him" .down!"
They release him and he stands up and brushes himself off, he takes a deep breath and turns to address the girls with a scowl on his face"girls this is ridiculous! You two are better than this!, you may be mythological foes, but here you are reasonable girls and yet instead you're acting like children! Ember I expected better from you! I thought we helped you curb your anger, and Astraea, I thought having you around would help ember readjust, but all you two are doing is being antisocial and combative! So either you two suck it up and cast aside this stupid ass rivalry, or you two will be out on your asses!"
The girls were at a loss for words, staring blankly at the furious human who had trumped they're rage and power in a way they never thought was possible, still fuming armen grunted angrily and stomped up to his room and slammed the door shut, making the two cringe at the sound
Ember and Astraea both felt ashamed of themselves, they had made armen angry, the one person ember never wanted to make angry again, and Astraea hadn't exactly made the best first impression herself
"Oh man I really screwed up this time, I never wanted to piss him off that bad" ember sighs
"Indeed, perhaps you and I got off on the wrong foot dragon" Astraea says
"Yeah no kidding...(huff)...I'm sorry griff...I guess I just got caught up in our ancestral rivalry too much, I had no control over my better judgement"
"As did I, I guess we are both victims of tradition and happenstance eh?"
The girls share a chuckle then a smile"yeah I guess we are griff, what do you say we start over?"
Astraea beams a smile at the dragoness and responds"why not? My name is Astraea" she introduces and holds out a firm fist
Ember smiled and rose her fist to bump Astraea's" I'm ember"
"What are we going to do about master Armen?" Astraea asks
Ember smiles and responds"let me talk to him, I think it's time the diplomat got reasoned with"
Armen was still slightly angry but had calmed down a bit while reading a manga, he didn't want to explode on the girls like he did, especially not toward his newest guest, but something had to be done about their petty squabble, it was just something he couldn't tolerate, and if more girls showed up later on he wouldn't know what to do about it if it continued
He heard a soft knock on his door that startled him "come in"
"Hey there champ, you still mad?" Ember asks softly and expectantly
He sighs and responds "yeah a little"
"I kinda expected that, I don't blame you, it's ok if you hate us"
"I don't hate you two, I just hate the fact you two are fighting each other so early on in your relationship, seriously you two have only known eachother for two hours! And already it's like you are two countries raging war!"
"Well that's to be expected Armen. Sometimes some of us mon girls just don't get along with each other, it's bad, but it's just the way it is, Astraea and I have our differences and opinions but we just made up though so you won't have to worry much about us" ember says walking over and sitting on his bed, wrapping Armen into a hug which makes him pull a faint smile
"Ya know, I didn't really want to smile right now" Armen admits
"Well too bad! Cause I'm not having that" ember concludes, squeezing tighter snuggling into his chest
Armen just concedes and begins to laugh with ember joining him soon after
On a branch outside of armen's house as the moon began to peek over the horizon, lie a shadowed figure spreading her large bat like wings, her crimson red eyes glowing and her pearly white fangs glistening
"Hmm, interesting, so he's won over a dragon" she then sniffs the air and her slitted pupils turn faint"mmm...gotta say, he's cute and smells good, well Armen, I believe you're going to make this quite fun for me...my new object of affection"