Gryphon's Escape

By Raina Nightingale

Sisel is a Gryphon of the Valor Hall, bonded to the Valor Knight Meir. She does not understand human society or why Meir and she have to do most of what they do, but she loves Meir and she accepts that humans are different. She does not need to understand them. Just as even Meir does not understand her.

 

Until Sisel is asked to pluck information out of the mind of an uncooperative tortured prisoner. She does not understand what she is being asked to do, but when she touches the prisoner's feelings, she knows that, whatever else is going on, this is insane. Beyond even normal human insanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raina Nightingale
• Release date: Feb 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215764442

Raina Nightingale

Raina Nightingale has been writing fantasy since she could write stories with the words she could read (the same time that she started devouring books, too). Now she writes “slice of life” and epic dawndark fantasy, for fiction lovers interested in rich world-building, characters who feel like real people, and spiritual experiences. Raina thinks giant balls floating in space can have the same magic that fairytales teach us to look for in oak trees and stars. However, she has a lot of universes and while not all of them have giant balls floating in space, most of them have dragons of one sort or another!

Book preview

Areaer Novels

Return of the Dragonriders

DragonBirth

DragonWing

DragonSword

(Also available as omnibus)

LEGEND OF THE SINGER

Children of the Dryads

Sorceress of the Dryads

DRAGON-MAGE

Heart of Fire*

Scars of Fire*

NOVELLAS AND STANDALONES

The Gifts of Faeri

Kindred of the Sea

Gryphon's Escape

KAARATHLON NOVELS

EPOCH OF THE PROMISE: Dawn Unseen

EPOCH OF THE PROMISE: Vision's Light

EPOCH OF THE PROMISE: Wings of Healing

EPOCH OF THE PROMISE: Darkness Bright*

OTHER

Kingdom of Light

*NOT YET AVAILABLE.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination.

GRYPON'S ESCAPE

Written by Raina Nightingale

COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY Raina Nightingale

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

SUMMARY: WHEN THE GRYPHON, Sisel, is asked to take information from the mind of a tortured prisoner, she realizes her humans are crazy and sides with the prisoner, who she must rescue, and then find a way to heal.

COVER ART AND DESIGN by Raina Nightingale.

Published by Raina Nightingale

www.enthralledbylove.com

Preface

What happens when you try to write from the point of view of an animal?

What is an animal, exactly?

Behold Gryphon's Escape, a short story written from the perspective of Sisel, a telepathic/empathic animal. I strove to maintain the perspective of Sisel throughout, a creature who sees different things and asks different questions from those which occur to most humans, and who does not see time the way most people do, either. Is she like a real animal? Probably not. Then again, 'animal' is a very broad category, and if it is not certain that there are vast differences in the ways different species of animals think – and even in the ways individuals within a species think, comparable to the differences in the way human minds work – I do not what is. And if you find that you think like Sisel, or you suspect the way Sisel thinks is more natural to you than the way you've learned to think to deal with other humans – I am not one to tell you that isn't human or that you are any less human than the next person.

But then again, humans might be smarter than animals in some ways, but who is not to say that many animals are not smarter than humans in other ways?

Anyway, I'm not trying to solve any disputes or come up with a solution to the problems of the human race or the issues that afflict our world right now. I just wanted to imagine what the world might look like from the point of view of an animal, or something that's at least a little like one, and what choice and love might look like for such a creature. You don't have to believe animals are really like Sisel to enjoy this story; you just have to be willing to believe that Areaeran gryphons are, or can be, like Sisel, whether or not you would call them animals ....

And on the other side of things, this is just a story about a gryphon and a few humans. None of the names in this novella will be remembered through Areaeran history – except perhaps Meir's, as a cautionary tale in the elite circles of the Valor Hall, that you might want