Home. Home, there it is. Now the world before her stretched out like a timeline. Her red egg buried to its tip in the snow. A little drake bounding down, kicking up tuffs and playfully rolling around, then he saw it, and indeed he was right, it did look like a blood drop on the glacier. She hatched later. Tumbling out with wide eyes. But she never wailed, the Griffon was silent and curious.

But there was time before that.

When she had been laid. There she was. A red egg nestled in amongst others, hay and cloth wrapped around them like a snake. There were pale, creamy eggs, some small and some larger, some lopsided and some thin. But hers was red. The air was smoky and low, and the scent of spicy incense wafted in her beak

Then the image flashed.

Most eggs were gone. There were discarded shells, gooey with a viscose substance sticking to them. The air wasn't smoky, but clear. There, a figure stood over her egg, he was caressing it. His face was shrouded and so was his body, he was just out of focus like a fish swimming at the bottom of a murky lake, its form visible but its features obscured. It didn't matter. He was dad.

Her mind screamed. For him. His head snapped back, she thought he saw her. He looked at the egg once last time, contemplating something terrible, that no parent should ever contemplate. Then he leant down and pecked it with a tiny kiss and galloped away out of the image. Gone.

The flash.

Only her egg remained. It was dark. Long shadows crept along the floor and the cloth and hay were gone; the rookery was bare like a disused storeroom. A thick aroma of dust clung to the air. She could taste its dirty particles on her tongue. She wretched. A coat of dust crowned the tip of her egg like a snowy peak on a mountaintop. There were faint wails beyond the walls. Something dark had happened. She could feel it. In the air here, pinching her senses with crooked nails. A door slammed opened. A wraith floated in. It was a tall, crooked griffon, but this one was visible, and it would be the only griffon she would ever see beside herself. It was ghostly, the feathers bony and parched and the fur chalk white, she could hear the wind bellowing beneath it. Its eyes were silver coins in two black sockets.

It clasped her egg with crooning, claws; blunt and cracked. She shuddered and felt the freezing palms of death prickle her skin. It weaved its claws between her fur. It made her feathers stand stiff on end like chinks in chainmail armor. She was hypnotized, finally witnessing her mysterious fate. Played back. The deathly grip seemed to happen far away. The wraith carried her away slowly, handling her egg like it was a bomb. It crossed the room in an eternity. It may well have been.

Purgatory is timeless. Eons pass by spirits like trains by passengers. The book had said.

What are? T-rains?

Myths. She sighed, no information about home. Her mood sullen.

Now she knew it all. And more than anything she wanted to be in that evening again. Sitting next to Lusik, with orange juice dripping off her beak. She was always messy.

Then it was darkness. Black. She had become accustomed to it. There was a force leading her through this, a drake holding a torch lighting a dark tunnel. As they continue forward, more and more bones are revealed littered on the ground like bits of trash. Discarded, left. Forgotten. That's what it felt like. A maw of black opening beyond. Permanent and final. There was always something about how final darkness is. Just black. Black forever. Then the blackness became something. Her.

She was disheveled. Her feathers were poking out and her eyes were black with exhaustion. The cheeks were still wet. It was a mirror. There were mirrors everywhere. An octagon of glass, the Griffon looked up and her reflection looked down. The roof was glass and so was the floor. There were ten Griffons all staring. Disheveled and droopy eyed. None of them had tails. A tribunal. She wanted to sink down into nothing. To shut her eyes and forget. Forget poor Lusik, forget her hut. Just, fade away. There's no pain out there in the black.

She wanted to weep but found no tears to command. So, the Griffon sat on her haunches with her head hung down, and so did her sisters in the glass. Time went on, running its finite race. You're a little caged canary, right where you belong. It was her thought, but then it also wasn't, a foreign body in her mind that cooed to her. Like the loss of control when one feels rage. Real rage. That hazy mist where your forelegs take control of your brain and then your pummeling something. Then it clears and it was as if you were drunk. No memory. The drunken forgetfulness crept over her. Subtle like an intravenous drip.

You're safe in here, and you'll be alright.

I'll be alright.

You're feeling good.

I feel very ok now.

You're not alone.

Am I liked?

We love you, canary.

Thank you for love.

You're polite, canary.

I think I will stay awhile.

I think that is good.

I think I'm staying.

I'm going to sleep now, goodnight.

Forever.

Bye.

Canary fell into a drowsy coma. The mirrors grew taller, and every shape of every reflection distorted in different ways. Shadows lumbered over them, spreading like little pots of small pox. Their eyes changed. Their faces shrouded under a darkness and they wrapped and distorted into a nightmarish visage. Stretched faces and swirled bodies loomed around like a stained, sepia photograph. Canary was going somewhere. Somewhere where she wouldn't be able to leave. A tiny piece of her struggled. Infinitesimal, but atomic. A blaring heat that sizzled inside her mind. It was one word. And it was making the mirror-world writhe in agony.

Lusik.

She was sinking. Fast. Canary didn't want to sink. She had to save someone, and someone's family. Someone dear. Who was it? It was so far away. Her memories trickled away into the abyss below. There was one word.

Lusik.

Lusik.

Lusik.

Lusik.

Lusik, help.

He looked at her. Then Canary knew she could tell him anything, any secret, any worry. And he would care. He would care so much.

What is it?

Promise. To help me find my name. I want my name. It's out there. I was named and I've. I never learnt it. Maybe. If I had a name. They wouldn't hate me. Maybe, they wouldn't hate me. Lusik. I don't want to be hated. I don't want to. No more. Please, no more.

She felt his talons around her as she sobbed.

I promise.

Her name was Canary. And she woke up.

The roof splintered and cracked. A shard of glass burst free and clanged down before her. Through the hole was black, mingled with cloudy grey. She could hear faint voices. Crying out. Deep and granite. The voices of drakes. She called out – again and again through the hole. The cage had splintered, a bar had bent out of shape, but Canary was still trapped. The shape of her reflections was gaping and muddled, scarcely appearing griffon but masses of feathers and cloth and beaks, all writhing and swirling. Pain. That's what she was seeing. It was in pain.

Then the voices of the drakes made her wounds tingle. Wounds inflicted by claws. She imagined the two brothers that had hurt her, lying back in the village, warm but wretched with their own claw marks running down their bodies. They nearly died. Any wound inflicted on her, was inflicted back ten times as severe.

Canary took the shard. It was thinner than a feather and smoother than anything she had felt. It wasn't cold to touch, but lukewarm. It felt alive. Its shape was jutted into a mean spike, so sharp that a piece of fur dropped onto its blade would sunder. She could see it. In the reflections, amongst all the distortion they still copied her. She thought of Lusik, with his belly split open, and his blood pooling into a wave. The thought gave her resolve. Resolve to end this. She had it, she found her name. Lusik kept his promise.

The spike hovered over her wrist. Her talon shook. She inhaled, trying to steady it. She thought about that night. Wind whistled through the hole in the roof. The drake's voices were drowned out by a steady scream that grew higher and higher until it was unrecognisable and deafening. It was fear.

Canary cut her wrist. It was swift. A little blood whipped up from the end of the slice and splashed onto the mirror. The blood ruptured out in a spurting tide, swirling around her wrist and pooling onto the floor, as if it had always been waiting to be released. That initial moment was a purgatory itself. It was numb. Then it wasn't. The pain was sharp and excruciating, her beak clenched, and she groaned. It was vaguely familiar. It felt like fire, the sizzling burning. The worst death possible. Burned alive. Had she felt Lusik cauterise her?

Cracks spiderwebbed around the mirrors. The place, the Old Place, was suffering. She felt its pain, compounded on hers. The reflections jittered and contorted until they were grotesque abominations of feathers and fur. Tiny shards of glass rained from above and clattered onto the floor. Some plopped into the blood pool.

She took the glass shard with her blooded talon and found its grip slippery and weak. Slice. There was no pain with this. Blood flowed from dual waterfalls and frothed on the edges of her glass cage. The walls wailed and the glass splintered. It sounded like a snapping spine, the one she heard a drake inflict on a captured pheasant. A zipping sound. Soon the pain altogether went away like a ship sailing into mist. Eventually, gone from sight, only the dull glow of its lanterns left. All it was now was a draining feeling.

The ground tilted and she lost balance. She fell to her knees; her robe and feathers were wet and clung to her body. The blood was warm. A red bath. The world was distant and vague, shapes were unfocused and fuzzy, her eagle eyes became lidded, so she looked like a drunkard falling asleep; the distance between her head and her forelegs became the longest she'd ever seen. Canary wanted sleep. Canary wanted to be in a deep coma forever. But Canary also thought of Lusik. So, she struggled against the onslaught of drowsiness.

If her eyes closed, they would never open. That she knew.

The cage leaned forward. There were webs of deep cracks and chunks of glass missing. The pieces still plummeted into the depths, till they were no more than little pricks of glinting light. Canary had a sense that she was suspended. But sight was so difficult now. And balance. The wall before her had collapsed into the ice.

Canary thought it was queer. As if part of a painting had burst forth from its frame into the real world. That's what it looked like. Shattered miasmic glass leading up into the frozen desert of the real.

She moved. Or lumbered. Scrambled. Slugged. Wobbled. The wails of the wind and the drakes were clear now. The air was fresh, icy and prickling. The glass lost its edge as she climbed up, out into the real world. The blood poured from her cuts into stained the glass velvet.