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The Egg Festival

It was a clear, warm morning. Lord Rider Engell was sitting back watching the activities in what people called the Big Back Yard. It was more like an overlook or a balcony, but essentially it allowed him to see the small township that sprang up below Alabaster Tower. It appeared that something was happening on the edge of town, on the north side. That was where the roads crossed and entered the town, so Engell was of course a bit concerned.

I will take you, my rider, Tehndarinth said, I think I should.

"It's important?"

It does seem to be, the silvered white dragon said. Shortly the white-haired rider and his snow colored dragon descended to the ground near a group of curious people. They parted as he neared, and very quickly Engell saw what the hubub was about.

"Gryphons bearing gifts?" He muttered to himself. The Aerielady, Tirin, arrived momentarily on the back of her huge golden-feathered gryphon.

"No, Lord Engell, they bear eggs." She said. As leaders went, they weren't much to compliment one another or overlap any duties. Where it concerned Alabaster, his riders, and dragons, it was Engell's look out. Where it concerned any kind of gryphons however, Tirin was in charge. It certainly didn't stop Engell from being curious.

Several different gryphons had come from inland, species as varied as the brilliantly colored cockatoo type and the dramatic bald-headed vulture hyena. Their sizes were never more apparent, than when they all stood together like this. The vulture with battle scars on her neck approached Tirin.

"We bear our eggs to you, we wish to use your nest area," she said. Taken aback, as this was hardly the vulture's territory, Tirin glanced at her mount who gave a call.

Two more gryphons appeared, from the other side of the hill. On the cliff side, the nesting area for the sea-gryphons was a wide shelf more than big enough for several gryphs to nest at once. However this was a bit weird for them - some sea gryphons had never even seen their inland counterparts.

Most of the inhabitants of Alabaster hadn't either. They were rare to begin with, at least those with bonds.

"We wish you to know that our hunting has been poor this season, but last it was better. Our nests overflow and we cannot aid our young." Said one of the cockatoo females. "We would not do this, but our territories are all somewhat lean this year. Perhaps if these bonded they could be nourished by their companions instead of our needy lands."

Engell stepped up, "that sounds fine with me," he looked at Tirin, who was still a bit put off at his presence at all. "It's always your decision, but I would offer them space in the dragon dunes if you won't give them the room."

"You just want eggs everywhere," Tirin muttered. It was hardly untrue, Engell had missed the excitement of hatchings at Alabaster for some time. Their rare sea-dragon hatching and very occasional local dragon clutch were all they had. But Tirin turned to the female gryphons and nodded. "Of course our nests are open to you. How many of you are there?"

"We will not be able to tend these eggs," said a cheetah-falcon, quietly. "We have many nestlings already, as we said."

This provoked a bit of a tizzy in Tirin and her mount. But Engell stepped in, charming as always. Armed with his winning smile, good looks, and a very strong psionic ability to control emotions and thoughts, he cleared Tirin's worries with a few words.

"The dragons can help take care of them, the small ones." He said, and Tirin's eyebrows shot up.

"You're kidding. Dragons tending gryphon eggs?"

"I'm hardly kidding. We have several smaller sized dragons. Hell," he said looking back at the preening silver-white, "Tehndarinth would be happy to do it." The dragon paused, tilted his head, said something inordinately nasty to Engell in private, and then spread his wings in defeat. "It's settled then. We'll manage."

Engell turned to the gryphons. "How many are there?"

"We will bring others," said the cheetah, "the drought has had an impact this year. We would fish, but our lakes are shrunken, and we cannot bear the salty ocean."

"So.... how many are there?" Engell asked again, well aware that his mental powers did not in fact extend to gryphon kind.

"...Many?" Said the cockatoo. Her crest moved up, she looked nervous.

"It's all right," Tirin said. "Gryphons are notoriously poor at math."

"We are not!" her mount bellowed, but was shushed.

"We will find room," Tirin said, and the gryphons began to fly over to the nesting ledge.

***

It was an odd day when the brightly ice-blue Caerlord's dragon came down to the shore. Qalam and his dragon Itzhok visited rarely, since they had their own concerns at the top of the peak.

He approached Engell almost the way Kalkin would when he needed a favor. Engell cleared his head - they weren't related, nope, no way...

"What can I --" Engell started to say but then he saw the dragon pulling open a basket.

"I didn't even know that there were gryphons up in the Caer area," Qalam admitted with a strangely stunned look. "So when she came up to me with these eggs I could hardly believe it."

"Another breed?" Engell said, and Qalam nodded.

"Yes. Built for the snow and high altitude, not like the other Paniyan gryphons. She gave us these." He showed Engell the basket which carried several mottled grey and cream eggs of a medium size.

"Well take them to the ledge, they're still busy laying down whose eggs go where."

***

It was a flood of refugees. The dragons watched from their own perches, as gryphon after gryphon came to the nesting ledge. It was almost impossible to count because there were huge eggs and small ones. Some only the size of a soccer-ball, some as big around as a small dragon egg. Since most of the people here had never seen many inland gryphons, they hardly could tell which eggs might be from what breed.

Then the local gryphons started squawking. Literally. The duck-types yammered at Tirin first. It was their nesting ledge! Then the cormorants added their annoyed 'perches like this don't grow on trees you know'. But it was the wise council of a spoonbill-otter gryphon that solved their problems.

"We will also nest here. If they will come to bond, then let our own eggs benefit from this."

Which added a whole further pile of eggs, eventually. Most of the local gryphons were apt to guard only their own eggs, but soon they too gave up and allowed the dragons to watch over the eggs. One or two of the more adept t-powered Alskyran dragons (though there were few of those here at Alabaster) would warm them with their power, or keep flies away with a gust of wind.

It was a little more than a month later, when Tirin came knocking at Engell's tower door.

"It's time to start collecting bonders for those gryphon eggs you so generously took in."

Engell laughed, "well then let's start spreading the news."

Paniya Egg Festival

Applications taken until June ??? - I'm still coloring the gryphons. Still taking entries, come on kids! Send them in!

No limit to bonders - there will be however many eggs are needed, maybe even more. However I will want to limit the number of duplicated gryphon types (cheetah, owl, cockatoo, etc) per set of characters (so you don't get five of one and none of another, if you send in 5 different characters). There must however BE some form of page available for the Gryphons on your site.

No limit on type of bond, however gryphons will require physical help in their hatchling stages, so a person or dragon/gryphon/other creature will stand a far far better chance than some other inanimate or incorporeal being. These gryphons DO cross-gender bond.

Sponsorships? Of course. Stipulation is TWO per agency, though for every two Bonders sent in addition I will allow one more. Some representitive of the Agency must be available to "take them home", so I know who the hatchlings will look to. They must also have a page specifically for them, or a link-based list (like I have with the Healing Den) showing a description and job duties, and a link to their picture. They cannot just be sponsored to a desktop.

There will only be adult stages from this nesting. I only have one hatchling and it's pretty specific, so I can't make more. Images will then be modified BY YOU if you can, with small doodads like feathers, bangles, bandanas, stones or whatever that seems appropriate to the gryphon and bonder to distinguish them from the others of that picture. These Gryphons will need care after their bonding, so please do write up some kind of story for their post-hatching life.

REQUESTS - I will take requests for characters to bond certain types (shown on the Aeries page), but honestly with their descriptions they should match the bonder somewhat. Sponsors may request all but the Owl/Clouded Leopard one, unless they're sending a buttload of bonders too, in which case I might reward them. I consider that one (while it's not my personal favorite) to be the 'best' of the bunch, because it's more exotic on Paniya. Maybe other places they'd be common, but here they are certainly not.

Images must be up in a timely fashion. They are considered adult the moment they go up, and can clutch wherever you wish that handles gryphons. Images should not be flipped or resized (they're going to be small enough already that shrinking them further would only degrade the image), but as above they can be altered by you to show their 'jewlery' or to add their name. If you can't, I could be persuaded to do that.

Images are (c)Lethe of Droppin the Fork Productions and are not to be sold, transferred, adopted out or in any way made profit from - period.

There must be a link back to the Caer site on the page where the Gryphon lives. This is the only absolutely-must. For each page where the image appears there must be a link. Please link to the main directory and not a sub page. http://www.oocities.org/caerlord_qalam is the link thanks.

That doesn't seem so hard... Please send your email to the Caerlord - caerlord_qalam @ yahoo.com without the spaces. I get enough spam so I'm not going to add an active link. Please make sure that you are in the Kshau Protectorate Cyberpets group for updates on this clutch!!