A crow? Please! Ravens are so much cooler. -Cinder

Everything about the last few minutes had been strange, even by my standards. I don't think I'd ever seen regular birds that had dared to attack griffins. Never before had a Goddess personally shown up to speak to me. I'd seen Gods from afar on very few occasions. The closest I'd ever come to one before today had been a week ago, standing in the same room as Dionysus at Camp Half Blood. The power emanating from the being in front of us- this Morrígan was, while not as strong and potent as that I had felt from the Greek Gods, undeniably divine.

"Your griffin?" I asked, assuming that she must have misspoken. I had never met this Goddess before- I don't even think I'd heard of her before. And besides, nobody owned me but myself.

The goddess did not respond, apparently not having heard me. "I owe you my thanks for aiding him in New York. I would have myself, but… well, my power is not what it used to be." She laughed nervously as she spoke to Alyx, pushing a few strands of dark hair behind ears pierced with intricately woven bands of metal.

"No, um, problem?" Alyx replied, "What do you mean by your griffin though?" She asked again for me. She still held her sword, and luckily for the both of us the goddess didn't seem to notice.

The Morrígan was taken aback by the question at first, as though the thought hadn't occurred to her. "I mean this one," she said, turning toward me. "I believe he goes by Cinder?" I didn't like how close she was getting, or how she looked at me with a familiarity I did not share behind her dark irises. I opened my mouth to protest when a gentle hand caught my arm and she turned her full attention on me. "I found him centuries ago- millennia, even. Of course he didn't look like this back then-"

Excruciating pain spread through my body in an instant, and I became aware of my wings and tail again, of the ground beneath my hind paws and the stone my talons gouged into in front of me. My vision darkened as I shifted, the world swimming in black fog for a moment before it cleared and sound seemed to return to the world.

"-little fluffball, in that ugly baby-bird way," the goddess finished, and I found myself staring at her blankly, my beak cradled in her hands as she watched me intently. Her fingers were cold, and the angle she held my head at was uncomfortable.

I was frozen in place, my limbs locked up and rigid, too stunned to speak. My thoughts were sluggish, my mind still reeling from the ebbing pain. It had been like nothing I had felt before, as though my own body had tried to tear itself limb from limb. I knew I had not wanted to be in this shape. Not right now, at least. I hadn't wanted to shift, did not want to be this close to a God.

I felt a gentle tug on my ear, reflexively flicking them as the Morrígan traced the feathers at their tips. She looked at me as a human would regard a prize cow, her hand running through the feathers at my neck and shoulders. She unfolded my wing, seeming to count each feather before she released it, satisfied. She continued to circle me, her steps measured as she scrutinised me, talking absently to Alyx as she moved.

"He was insurance- my own little mark on the Greek Pantheon. A tool I could call upon if the need ever arose-"

Now, it was never a good idea to anger a God. This was something I had learnt over my many, many years of life through second-hand experience for the most part. Beings with so much power and such a distant, disconnected experience rarely took kindly to having some insignificant creature with barely a speck of the power they had telling them, for example, no. Or suggesting that something said God had said was incorrect.

Unfortunately, I was a hair's breadth from reaching the end of my tether, and the nuances of the interaction were starting to matter very little to me.

My tail lashed as I became aware of her behind me, and in that moment I felt control return to my limbs. I leaped forward, immediately putting distance between myself and the goddess, shifting shapes mid-step and whipping around, glaring. I flexed my fingers, assuring myself that I had shifted on purpose this time. Alyx, reflexively, brandished her sword at the potential danger, taking a moment to process that the blade was now pointed at me, and quickly adjusting to instead point it toward the Morrígan.

"Stay away from me." I snapped, starting to wish I had a sword of my own to point at her. My claws were, of course, the better weapon, but they wouldn't quite convey the emotions I was experiencing right now.

The goddess hadn't moved. There was no alarm in her expression, only what looked like a deep sadness. She watched us, her dark eyes but one pair of the hundreds that watched from the trees and buildings surrounding us. She folded her hands together in front of her, taking a moment to recollect herself. Her demeanour changed in that moment, the curiosity and awkwardness dropping away, replaced with a cool serenity. She felt far closer now to the Gods I had encountered before.

"But, of course, you do not remember me. I am sorry for acting so familiar," she said, stating the words as fact. She sounded disappointed.

"I've never met you-"

"You have," she interrupted, "You were only a day or two out of your egg, but you have met me, and I have met you."

I wasn't sure whether her words were meant to cool my temper or endear her to me, but they did neither. I remembered much of my life- the important stuff, at least- I remembered the faces of the griffins who raised me, the ones who taught me to walk, run, to soar and to hunt. My first memories were of a nest, bowl-shaped and woven from scraps of cloth and feathers and wool and branches. I remembered the others from my clutch- the ones that had survived, and the ones that had died. I felt certain I would have remembered a visit from a God- or, if I truly had been too young, my flock would have noticed.

"In truth, I chose you by chance. I was just a passerby, looking for answers. I'd had visions, seen images of what could be and what would be. The eventual fate of those I held dear was a terribly sad one, and I needed something that would endure when my power waned. That I stumbled upon a lone griffin chick was pure happenstance- that said griffin resembled my crows-" at the word, a bird glided down from a branch to perch upon her outstretched hand, wiping its beak affectionately across her fingers, "-so vividly told me it was fate. Granted, you are more raven than crow, but I welcome corvids wherever I find them. This little griffin- you- were so young, so vulnerable, left out alone in the cold. I don't know how you got there, but I knew if I did not intervene you would starve or freeze."

None of this correlated with what I remembered. I had never been lost, had never wandered from the nest. But to my growing dismay, none of her words had the sound of a lie to them.

"You may know gods to be… reluctant to interfere in mortal affairs. Often, this extends to monsters and animals. It was on a whim that I saved you from that bitter cold. It was an opportunity that I had decided to seize, and so I gave you my blessings and saw that you would survive. I became your patron, in a sense."

This did not sit well with me. I did not ask for a patron, nor blessings. I knew better than to say this out loud, despite how much I wanted to- I knew enough about gods to keep my mouth shut. Until it clicked exactly what she meant by blessings. "You-" I started, words failing me for a moment- "You're why-?"

"I gave you a human form," she confirmed, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "And the ability to shift between it and your natural shape."

I could only imagine what my face looked like in that moment. I felt sick. I had spent centuries pondering why I was different to my fellows. It was something I was used to- the ability to change into a human, and it was something I had done for as long as I could remember. I found it strange that the others could not shift, not that I could. It had been a point of tension in my relations with my flock, at times, or a point of aggression for our relations with other flocks. It was something I usually hid from others of my kind, and used only sparingly. Eris- arguably the griffin I knew best outside of my own- hadn't even known about it. This shape- I glanced down at myself, my fists clenched and white with the pressure- was one that felt comfortable and familiar, something important to my very being. It felt personal, as natural as my other shape. I was more comfortable in the latter only because I had spent more time in it- not because it was strange to me.

To find out it was something given to me and not from my own power was disconcerting. I blinked, trying to force the thoughts out of my mind. Now was not the time to be having an internal crisis- and Alyx's concerned nudge only confirmed it.

The Morrígan's brow had creased, her lips a fraction down-turned. The disappointment had returned, and I got the distinct impression that this meeting was not living up to her expectations- that I was unsatisfactory. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, discomfort settling on my shoulders.

"Why are you here?" Alyx asked, and I was glad of it. I was tired, and I wanted the entire confrontation to be over, but I did not think I had the heart to ask any more.

She studied me intently for a few moments, tension growing in the air, and then averted her gaze to look at Alyx instead. "I need your help."