"You never ssuggested coming over before! I thought you weren't interessted."

"Well, I'll come over tonight after dinner."

"Ssounds good." And Skan will get back to his obstacle course-ing.

After dinner Aza finds him again.

Skan will fly her over to where his parents live! The gryphon eyrie is a big stone-walled section at one end of the Tower, with a cloth-canopy roof that can be folded aside during the day when it's nice out, to let the gryphons fly in and out. They seem to approximately all live intermingled inside it, with nests but not really separate rooms.

"There's not a lot of privacy in here," she remarks.

"It iss not like gryphons can be naked," Skan points out. "I think we care lesss than humanss." He hunts around for his parents, spots them, calls out to them.

Two adult gryphons head their way. Neither of them is black like Skan, interestingly; they're both the much more common patterned dark brown.

"Hi! I'm Aza."

Skan's parents introduce themselves in return; his mother is Helath, his father is Kythtar. They express their pleasure to meet Skan's best friend who they've heard so much about. Skan says she's brilliantly clever!

"Thank you! I actually thought of coming here because of a school thing. We're going to be talking about magically made species in class."

"Oh, really! Sso you wanted to assk uss what it iss like?"

"Yeah! In general but I'm specifically curious about how it works that you have to get permission to have babies."

"Well, Urtho wantss to manage our population, right, ssince we are new," Kythtar explains. They glance at each other fondly and then Helath jumps in with: "We are very lucky. Skan has two younger ssiblings."

"How did you get lucky?"

"She is being modesst," Kythtar says, swiping lightly at her with the edge of his wing. "She got very good gradess and I did well in flying. Urtho likes to pair coupless where one is clever and one is athletic, to get both in the children."

"So that was - arranged, or did he just approve of you having kids because you'd already paired that way?"

"We liked each other already. I asssume the hertassi knew thiss and told Urtho we were well ssuited as parentss."

"Then what happened?"

"There iss a sspell that makess the ladiess fertile. Urtho cast it. And then congratulated uss greatly when our firsst litter was born and Skan was sso healthy."

"Did he have to cast another spell to undo it, or did it wear off on its own?"

"I think it lasstss only a day."

"Skan said you had some friends who weren't ready?"

They share a glance again. "- Oh, yess, he musst have been thinking of Raeshan and Lytha. Hopefully ssoon. I think Urtho is happier to allow more children now that the Healerss know how to treat mosst of their childhood ailmentss."

"Do you know what made them less ready?"