Video - OPEN to both Courts

[bondedgryphon]

There is nothing visible from the locket's facing initially, but there is plenty enough to hear to make up for it. There is a horrific sounding snap, followed immediately by a shrill inhuman shriek. The shriek cuts through the blackness of the image, filled with unmistakable pain and fear.

Worse still is the laughter that follows; cruel and amused.

There is the sound of something being dragged in the darkness, heavy and unwieldy; and breathing. There is muffled breathing from within the closed off space, fast and panicked.

"Remove its cover... I want it to see."

The darkness slides away as the rough material is pulled away, leaving Zhaneel where she has been left trussed and unable to move. Her breaths came fast and panicked through her nares, her beak tied securely shut and unable to open. There was scarce enough room for her to properly breathe, let alone move, and her bindings cut into the fragile bone and tendons of her wings. She had tried to struggle, but had only succeeded in digging them in deeper, blood caking around the open wounds.

It was not her own injuries that held the gryphon terrified and transfixed, though. It was the sight that greeted her upon her sight being returned to her. The locket broadcasts the images as her own mind tries to sort them out.

There is a gryphon laying before her, bound similarly but with its wings outstretched at its sides. No... its wing. While one remained secured and stretched at the poor creatures' side, the other lay shattered and crumpled on the ground. The gryphon appears to be barely breathing and young... painfully and horrifyingly young. Zhaneel keens, the sound clamped off and caught in her throat as she scrabbled uselessly against the stone ground, but it awarded her nothing but a sound kick to the side.

"You'll deliver a message to your Father."

The voice sneers down at her and her golden eyes roll up toward it. His face is indistinguishable, save for the grin that plays across his lips. There is movement before her as the gryphon kit begins to struggle, and there are people around it again. She tries to reach out with her mind to its mind, to offer it at least a swift death, but she can't seem to reach. Without the mind speech, she cannot engage the death spell. She heaves against her restraints, but they hold firmly and she can only watch as another faceless figure approaches the fledgling with a large blade in hand.

While Zhaneel is forced to watch, the kit shrieks and struggles as both of its wings are hefted upright. Broken bone grates and cracks, blood flowing freely from the severed arteries, but they continue hefting the wings until they are held aloft. The human with the sword steps in and looks toward the bound Zhaneel, and she struggles for breath through her closed beak, sides rising and falling as she begins to hyperventilate in her panic.

"Tell him he has no hope of victory."

And with that, the figure gathers his blade and swings, cleaving the fledgling's wings from its body. The poor creatures emits a series of nearly unbroken shrieks, flailing and jerking in its bonds as blood sprays all around. One wing was taken off entirely, but the other lays half removed at the gryphon's side. Its eyes roll in mindless horror and pain, until as if finally granted some reprieve, the poor gryphon falls silent and still...dead.

"Burn it."

Zhaneel watches in terror as they set flame to the gryphon, the feathers catching all too easily. The scent of burning fur and flesh fills the area.

"Will you pass out message, little one?"

Zhaneel's pupils contract to mere pinholes as she darts her gaze up to the faceless figure. She is trembling hard enough that her beak would be clacking were it not tied shut and the figure smiles at her again.

"Excellent... Set her free."

Zhaneel experiences a moment of hope within the fear, but it's not long lived.

"But cripple her first. I wish there to be no misunderstandings."

She struggles against her bonds again, eyes darting from the burning gryphon corpse before her to the man approaching with his sword to the faceless figure and back again. She tries to hold her wings in against her body, but they overcome her and extend them forcefully. She shrieks within her beak, the sound that of pure terror as the sword begins its downstroke.

As she thrashes, her locket flies free and clicks shut, but within her shriek could be heard the echoing bay of a hound.


**OOC: Feel free to hear her anywhere within or around Caer Glaem... as that has been where she's been calling home. Zhaneel was caught unaware but a fear dog and is dealing with the results.**