"I don't see any, wouldn't there be alarms or something?"

"I guesss." Skan makes a humphh sound and sits down, resting his foreclaws on the railing and staring out. 

"Is that what your parents do, do they fight enemies? Who even are the enemies?"

"They do not tell me about work. They play fighting gamess with uss. Teach uss how to fight. Gryphonss are good at fighting becausse we have natural weaponss." He proudly shows her his claws again. 

"I guess that'd help! Are claws better than having a sword? Or magic?"

"Magic iss alsso good! Some gryphonss have it. A ssword can be taken away by your enemiess, sso I think it iss not ass good." 

"Sometimes my mama has to cut my nails. If somebody's your enemy maybe they would cut your claws. Just like taking away your sword."

Skan hisses and recoils! "I had not thought of that!" He looks horrified. "Would they?" 

"Well, the point of enemies is that they want to do bad things, right, and not have you get in the way? And that would do both things, so probably."

Skan spends a while bouncing around in agitation. 

"That would not be fun at all," he concludes finally. 

"It doesn't sound it!" she agrees.

Skan stares morosely out the window, fidgeting, like he's suddenly unsure what to do with his claws. 

"- Do you ssee any bridgess?" he says finally, hopeful. 

"- yes! See, over there, a little one over that stream. My house is near there."

Skan cheers up. He's very excited when he manages to spot her house, and he tries to find bridges he can point to as well, and then other sorts of buildings. 

Eventually the sun sets. Skan admits he should go home too, but eagerly suggests they could play outside in the courtyard tomorrow? Maybe after he tries to learn a few more letters. Learning letters is really hard but being able to read books on his own is an appealing prospect. 

"Sure! Tomorrow you can learn some more and some more the next day till you have them all."

Skan plays with Azabel most days after that. And diligently tries to learn his letters, and then puzzle through sounding out sentences, and eventually makes enough progress to join her mother's class, though he often can't make it through the whole class session because he's incredibly hyperactive and terrible at sitting still, which distracts the other students. 

He likes his new friend a lot! He reads books about bridges and dams, and tries to get her to build sandcastles with him in the gardens. And sometimes to coax her into roughhousing, but eventually it sinks in that she's never ever interested. 

Gryphons grow fast, and by the end of that year he's able to fly all the way to the top of the Tower spire and do aerial acrobatics. Within a couple of years he'll be strong enough to carry Azabel too. 

She likes building sandcastles! She imagines people to live in sand cities and rules over them as their benevolent Queen. She does not want to roughhouse but she'll throw balls for him, or invent tasks for him - can he burrow, can he fly from there to there before the sun dips behind the Tower, can he catch the light that bounces off this shiny pail while she tilts it all over the courtyard? Can he carry heavy things in the air so that he'll be strong enough sooner?

Skan loves all her challenges! He's very competitive. He will ABSOLUTELY try to show off how good he is at carrying heavy things in the air! 

This only leads to a couple of incidents of tiring himself out and tumbling down into the gardens in a semi-controlled landing, and only one of these ends up a broken bone and a lecture from an exasperated Healer. Skan is slightly cowed by this, and more nervous about the challenges for a few weeks even once his leg is healed, but after that he's back to his old self. 

He grows more. He can pick Azabel up and fly short distances now, although only if she holds onto his forelegs, he can't manage with her riding on his back yet. 

She will get some rope and loop it around him and her and also hold on, to be extra sure, but then: WHEEEEEEE!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! This is AMAAAAAZING!!! He's so proud of himself! 

Flying is VERY GOOD. The first time they land after he flies her around she hugs him around the neck and faceplants in his feathers with delight.

This is how Azabel discovers that very happy gryphons purr like cats! 

Awwwwwww. Scritch scritch.

Skan likes scritches a lot! 

By the time another year has passed, he's big enough to carry her properly; he's nearly full-sized, now, though he still has the general maturity level of a kid Azabel's age. He's big enough to join the other young gryphons in flying lessons, now, and is bursting with pride about this, especially because he seems to already be ahead of the others, maybe all his aerial challenges with Azabel are helping. 

She certainly thinks she helped.

She learns to do arithmetic and reads longer and more complicated books and tutors the kids in her mother's class if they fall behind.