The Gryphon's Heir Part one The Wild Princess

The Mock Turtle

He was nearly out of breath and his wings stung with pain. Paleamon finally landed and began to breathe in an orderly fashion.
He landed a few yards from a friend's home in an almost discrete section of the wood.
He slowly began to walk off the rising pain in his bloody wounds. The end of the spear had broken off and left behind a blood red stump.
The forest, like many in Underland was once full of his kind. The younger tikes could be seen resting on the caps of large mushrooms on lazy spring days, older gryphon could be seen either teaching hatchlings or fishing from creeks while dragonflies and horseflies buzzed around them.
  Now those days before the inhabitants of Underland saw how 'valuable' and 'intrusive' they were, seemed almost otherworldly.
  As he was walking, he heard the baby coo and burble. She was staring at him again."Ockie ill ertainly ike oo." Paleamon struggled to speak without opening his mouth.
  Finally he came upon a still lake.
It had a small formation of rocks at one end that served as his friend's home, along with several haphazardly built lampposts with jars full of fireflies in them.

The mock Turtle was sitting on the muddy shore with a handmade fishing pole.
He looked up to see Paleamon with leaves and branches and blood on his feather. He only got up and took the newborn into his scaley hands.
"So you went through with it my friend." Mockie admired the baby as he ruffled her crown of jet black hair.
"I wasn't going to leave her."
Paleamon watched as she gripped Mockie's tough fingernails and giggled.
"As much as I don't agree with stealing a baby from its mother, I don't believe that having a bloody big headed, hot tempered monarch for a mother would equal a happy childhood."
The Mock Turtle turned from the princess and to Paleamon's wounds. "Wait by my doorstep while I prepare you some salves."
He and Mockie then made their way to his rocky home. All the while watching the baby doze away.
Mockie went inside and left the girl in the forelegs of the gryphon. Paleamon listened as his friend knocked over jugs and turned pages. He soon came out with a plaster jar and a stitched towel.
"Hold still."
Paleamon clenched his eyes as The Mock Turtle yanked out the stump of a spear and rubbed the numbing salve on the newly bleeding wound. "So..what's the girl's name?"
  His cow-like friend moved about pulling out splinters and plastering the salve onto his feathers.
"Marigold,OW!"
When he was finally done, he held Marigold once more.
"You know what your family and the other gryphons might say about this."
Marigold was looking around,almost as if she were wondering where her mother and castle home went.
"I know..but she's my daughter,I'll raise her to be as kind as The White Queen and as brave as any gryphon should be and I shall defend her even if it kills me."
Paleamon thanked his friend before taking his new baby once more a taking off for his roost.

Just so you know I don't own the Mock Turtle 🐢 I only own the artwork I drew here