The cold mountain wind brushed Griffin's feathers as he stepped outside of the cave. He grinned, trying to curl his beak up the way the dragons did it. This was where he belonged, not with a bunch of SeaWings under the ocean. He turned back towards Schist. "C'mon!" he shouted. "It's great out here!"

Schist slowly stepped under the cold sun, the brisk wind chilling and numbing the spaces between his fused scales. He shivered and winced. It was better than in the cave in some ways, but it was much too frigid. Too frigid for a MudWing to breath fire, not that he wanted to anyways. "It's cold," he muttered to Griffin.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it," Griffin replied, not knowing if Schist actually would. "Try moving around, it helps me." He didn't bother telling Schist about the enchantment Orca had placed on him to keep him warm at the bottom of the ocean floor when Torrent hadn't been looking, it wouldn't make things better.

"It hurts when I move around quickly," Schist grumbled. "Remember? I've told you about ten times now."

"Oh yeah, sorry about that," Griffin responded with a hint of embarrassment. "Let's get moving, it'll help you ignore the cold." He hesitated for a moment. "But slow," he added, trying to be conscious of Schist's injuries. "We'll walk at your pace."

The two slowly walked across the plateau, the golden grasses furiously swaying in the cold winds. Down the gentle slope, the herd of yaks was grazing, being tended to by scavengers. They saw Schist and Griffin, and watched them warily, but didn't try to run. A small scavenger dragonet pointed to the two and shouted something, but one of the older scavengers pulled her away.

"Even the scavengers are staring at me," Schist muttered under his breath.
"What?" Griffin asked in concern.

"Nothing," Schist grumbled.

"No," Griffin said with a frown, "it's not nothing. Look, it's alright if dragons stare at you, just cause you've got a few more scars than most. Sure, you look a little different, but it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Schist snorted in contempt, and Griffin glanced at the MudWing. "Well?"

"Fine," Schist sighed, "I'm just worried about what my sister will say. Now that I'm like . . . this."

"Don't worry!" Griffin quickly said. "I saw how much she wanted to get you back; there's no way a few weird scales is going to ever change that!"

Schist nodded with a grim smile, then turned back to the scavengers. "If we need food, we could take one of their yaks," he suggested.

Griffin stared skeptically. There were quite a number of them, all carefully watching Griffin and Schist. Most of them seemed to have weapons of some sort. "Probably not a good idea," he explained, "you're still not in fighting condition, and the largest ones are as tall as I am."

Griffin glanced up at Schist. He was almost a full-grown MudWing, three times as tall as any scavenger. Griffin, on the other talon, was tiny compared to him, and while he was certainly larger than a scavenger, that many posed a threat. Griffin was barely larger than even the yaks. The contrast was even more apparent with Torrent, who had gotten his father's size.

"Let's go," Griffin said. He started walking away from the scavengers, towards the north-east, and Schist followed.

The two continued walking like this for a while, looking around for any unfortunate yaks who had gotten separated from their herd, but to no luck. It was getting close to nightfall, and the two were about ready to turn back and give up hope, when Griffin heard something rustling in a nearby bush.

"Did you hear something?" Griffin whispered to Schist. Schist shook his head. "Just a minute, I'm going to check it out."
He walked closer to the bush. It was large, and it was definitely possible that there was a yak behind it, or maybe a deer at least, just something Torrent and Schist could eat. He took a step closer, when suddenly, he heard Schist yell something out.

Griffin turned around to see Schist with a frightened expression on his snout, along with four SkyWings behind him, curiously staring at Schist. A large rustling came from behind Griffin, and a fifth SkyWing rose out from the bush, looking closely at Griffin.

Griffin took a step back and gulped. "We don't mean any trouble!" he explained. "Just looking for food!"

A few of the SkyWings gave gasps of amazement. "It can talk?" one asked quietly. Griffin winced, having momentarily forgotten that a talking gryphon wasn't exactly considered normal in Pyrrhia.

The fifth SkyWing stepped closer to Griffin, a dragon a few years older than Torrent, with red and orange scales covering her body. She took a curious look at him while he stood as still as the statue he was enchanted from. When she was finally done sniffing him up and down, she took a step back. "We'll take them back to Bobcat, and have her decide what to do with them," she ordered the others.

Griffin shuddered, and folded his wings inwards, drawing another gasp of amazement from the SkyWings. Was this a guard patrol for Queen Scarlet? They didn't look like guards, but he hadn't ever seen SkyWing guards before. He glanced over at Schist, but the MudWing looked just as confused and frightened as he was.

The SkyWings marched the two to wherever their destination was. Griffin didn't even think about trying to resist. The two together couldn't take on five scavengers in this state, much less five fully-grown dragons. When they finally reached their destination, the sun had set, and the moons (only two of which were visible at the moment) lit up the sky.

The SkyWings looked like they had taken them to a small village on the side of a mountain. Small houses of wood and stone littered the gentle slope they rested on, as if they had been dropped from above and landed at whatever place and angle they pleased. Further up the slope were fields of tilled crops, and herds of grazing yaks and mountain goats. Terraces had been built into the sides, where stalks of corn grew up.

Griffin looked further up. A couple of SkyWings were flying in the airspace above, traveling to and from the village to the farms surrounding it. The mountain itself raised high above the village, capped by snow at the top. More mountains flanked either side of it, forming the northernmost tip of the Claws of the Clouds.

The SkyWings led Schist and Griffin into the village. The two walked through narrow pathways, the houses on either side of them, as SkyWings looked on. Various dragons of warm hues poked their heads out from the houses, staring as the two visitors trudged past. Most of these dragons had never seen a MudWing in their lives, except for the few who had visited Queen Scarlet's infamous arena, and certainly none of them had ever seen a gryphon before.

The seven continued through the village until they reached a large building at the village's very edge, pushed up against the mountain-side as if the mountain was slowly pulling the building into itself. This building was much different than the rest of the village: although it retained the distinctive cubical shapes of the houses around it, it had multiple distinct stories, and roofs were curved instead of flat. It looked extremely old, and chunks of rubble or shingles that had fallen from it littered the ground, forcing Griffin to step around them. A narrow stone staircase was visible in the back of the building, carved around the mountain. It wrapped around the stone until it reached a small landing pad half cut into the stone. A golden-orange SkyWing took off from the platform, glancing curiously at the visitors before quickly flying off to do whatever his business was.

"This way," the SkyWing in change said to Schist and Griffin, looking at them warily. "Don't try anything funny." She didn't seem to perceive either of them as too much of a threat, though Griffin didn't blame her. Schist was limping visibly, and it was very evident he was still injured. Griffin was just too small to pose a threat to a full-grown SkyWing, although if he was quick, he might be able to escape.

The SkyWing opened up one of the doors to the building, and beckoned the two in before following after them. None of the others followed. The doors opened up to a narrow hallway, barely large enough for Schist to walk through. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath underneath them as they walked, definitely a fire hazard, especially around SkyWings. Griffin was surprised the building had lasted so long with all this wood throughout it, although so deep into the Sky Kingdom the village would be nowhere near the vicious battles that plagued much of the rest of Pyrrhia.

"Turn left here," the SkyWing ordered the two. Schist complied, and turned left to see a old wooden door. He opened it, and walked into the room it led into. Griffin and the SkyWing followed.

The room appeared to be a quaint study of some sort. Scrollshelves lined the walls, and in the center of the room there was a large desk with neatly placed scrolls on its surface. An elderly SkyWing sat behind the desk, using the light from a singular candle to read the scrolls. She looked up, and frowned. "Kite, who are these?" she asked, in a long, rasping voice. Her fragile wings were folded in, huddled around her body.

"We found them out while on a patrol," Kate explained, her voice stiff and emotionless. "I'm pretty sure the brown one is a MudWing. I don't know what the other one is, but it can talk. Some type of sorcery, I presume."

The SkyWing stood up, and slowly staggered over to the two. She scanned Schist up and down as he nervously squirmed. She looked at his scorched and fused scales with a frown, then turned to Griffin, lowering her head down to Griffin's level. A hint of surprised crossed over her face. "Are you a gryphon?" she said curiously.

"Yes," Griffin replied with a slight air of annoyance. He didn't particularly want to explain it again.

The SkyWing nodded, then took a step back and smiled. "I am Bobcat. This dragon here," she pointed to the younger SkyWing, "is Kite, my granddaughter."
"Great-granddaughter," Kite corrected. Bobcat nodded in response, then looked at Schist and Griffin expectantly.

It took a moment before Schist realized what she wanted. "I'm Schist," he introduced himself, "and that's Griffin. His name."

Bobcat nodded. "We haven't had a MudWing up here in a very, very long time," she commented, "and barring the statue not too far from here, I don't think we've ever had a gryphon." She looked at Schist again, this time craning her neck to see his scarred scales. "I take it you had an encounter with Magma?" she said sadly.

"Magma?" Schist wondered. "Does she have scales which can burn on touch?"

"Yes," Bobcat answered. "Her sister lives in the village. We attempted to do the . . . normal thing with her when she was born, but a SandWing traveler convinced us to let her take the dragonet instead. She came back around fifteen years ago, and after killing a few unfortunate SkyWings, has lived in a cave to the southwest since. I wasn't even sure she was still alive."

"Not anymore," Griffin explained. "We, er, stopped her."

Both Bobcat and Kite looked at Griffin and Schist in amazement. "How?" Kite asked with a hint of skepticism.

"It was Griffin," Schist responded. "He used an enchanted dagger to turn her to stone."
Griffin nodded. "We still have the statue of her if you . . . want it back." Neither Torrent nor Schist had wanted to keep the statue around (Torrent thought it was an extremely creepy reminder of Orca's statues), but Griffin had convinced them to store it a side-cave where it wouldn't be seen, just in case it ever came in handy.

Bobcat though for a moment, closing her eyes. "Then why are you here? It can't be pleasant for a MudWing; this cold out here."

"No," Schist replied, "but I don't know how well I can fly anymore, and we have a friend who's in a coma. She's being taken care of by another one of our friends, back in the SkyWi — Magma's cave. We need food and water, and it would really help us out if you could spare some."

The elderly SkyWing pondered Schist's request for a moment. She looked over towards Griffin, her eyes staring uncomfortably into his. "Yes," she finally answered, "but in return, I would like it if you helped out on the fields every so often until you're ready to leave. If you're worried you can't fly, it should help you get back up to strength."

Schist frowned. Hadn't they already done enough, getting rid of the dragon who had murdered some of the SkyWings here? "I mean — "

"Of course!" Griffin interrupted in relief. "I'm sure Torrent can take care of Crystal on his own, and it's not like we have anything else to do."

Bobcat smiled gently. "Then it's settled. I'm sure some of the other SkyWings will be interested to meet you. I'll have Kite help bring your supplies back to your other friends."