End of a Journey (Kall)

A story by user:p3a about finally hitting level 70. Written 14th August 2008.
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The gryphon regarded the gnome stood before it. The gnome was small and scruffy and its clothing didn't match, but the gryphon had learnt by now that small and scruffy wasn't to be trifled with and that mismatched clothing usually just meant the wearer was going for practical rather than aesthetic. What betrayed the small one's power more than anything was the brightly glowing staff slung across its back.
The gnome regarded the gryphon in return. It ruffled its ebon feathers somewhat indignantly as she swept over it with her gaze - but it settled down when she petted its beak. She'd just been trained to look after its kind, and then had this one picked out for her by the trainer after he saw how she behaved around them - gryphons were different to dragons or demons, so she'd had to learn a few new habits, but she was told this one was closest out of the dwarf's brood to the creatures she was used to. Indeed, she had just spent a thirty-minute training session with it, and they had clicked as much as a slightly ornery gryphon and a stuttering gnome warlock could.
Mrs Pentrarch Kall Sprangler picked the saddle up off the saddle-rack next to the trainer she'd just learnt from. It was very heavy - she stumbled over to the gryphon and lifted it hiiigh above her head, dumping it on its back. She clipped it in place, then put a foot in the styrup and climbed on.
Kall grinned at the trainer, and nudged her foot into the side of the gryphon. It began trotting west, towards Nagrand.
It stopped at the top of the High Path, on a rock just out of view of the Aldor defenders. Kall grinned down at all of Nagrand, then patted the gryphon beneath her.
"Well, here goes..."
She nudged it a little harder, and pulled the reigns up sharply. Its wings spread out instinctively and magestically, and began flapping - sending a cloud of the Nagrand dust into the air as the resultant force slowly began propelling them upwards. The gryphon, eager to spread its wings outside of the training hold for the first time in its conscious memory, quickly picked up the pace of its wingstrokes once it had cleared the ground - then shot off upwards, Kall willing it to do as it pleased.
 It arched the nether-chained sky, its wings leaving trails of turbulant air as it flew - and Kall was lost, as lost as she was the very first time she had flown. But this time, she wasn't lost in terror, the mortal fear of falling which gripped every new adventurer like a vice on their first gryphon flight (and her moreso than most) - but now that she had grown, she had fought for the last year and a half to try to save Azeroth, save Outland, save the timeline, save the Naaru, save the world; and she was stronger. Stronger than she ever had been before, and possibly would ever be, until a new threat presented itself.
And so - she cried out, her voice disappearing into the stream of passing air before she could hear it. Her gryphon passed loop-the-loops and darted with agility between the islands which dotted the Nagrand sky which Kall had for so long gazed upon with awe and jealousy. She did not cry out with fear, or anger, or pain - as she so often did before - but this time, with joy at life and all that it could be, and was.
This was why she fought. This was why she went through everything she had gone through, since she was a stuttering trainee fresh out of Gnomeregan in Dun Morogh to how she was now. This was why she didn't go back home and live 24/7 her happily-ever-after which she had waiting for her.This was what was so important to her.
The sky, the life, and the beauty of it all together.
And it needed defending.
She coaxed her gryphon down out of the sky, then spoke to it.
"Ebb, what do you say we head over to the Skyguard recruitment officer? She told me they'd need a hand as soon as I got a gryphon..."
Category:Story