The new morning came about quickly, with Night keeping watch during the night and early morning just to be on the safe side. While Samuel went about his morning business as per the usual. The difference was Sonya being hungover and being annoyed at every little thing which created a bit of morning commotion.
He did nothing about her condition though, feeling that she definitely deserved some backlash from drinking too much, he had recorded a few spells that might help to detoxify your system from all kinds of poison and toxin, indeed alcohol was one of those because why else was the term alcohol poisoning even a thing.
Samuel had realized during the last year that he didn't much enjoy wine or ale, but he absolutely loved mead, especially strong honey mead. He had gotten himself drunk on it only once, thankfully he had Ulma by his side who was able to clean his system off it before he had done something stupid.
"Ok, stop thinking about her you idiot!" He reproached himself as he was making his way out the house, "Let's go Night!" He sighed and started clearing his mind and thinking about the day ahead instead.
His trip down to the city in its regularity with the teleportation circle and then making his way all over to the Gillfall manor, where the guards gave their young lord a salute and the staff all greeted their lord.
He asked where Faleah was and one of the butlers took him outside to the northern part of the huge estate grounds, where several stables and big towers were positioned. Several soldiers wearing the Gillfall emblem of the White Griffin were walking back and forth.
Their nightly blue armor and the emblem of the griffin on their shoulders a few of them noticed Samuel and put fists on their chest to greet him. Although they were loyal household soldiers to house Gillfall, they were also soldiers of Rejuan at the same time.
But they were the type of men whom would follow their lord or in this case lady, into the abyss with few questions asked. The butler continued to show Samuel the way until they reached some of the lower grounds behind the stables.
A familliar figure was walking back and forth inspecting new trainees whom stood tall. Griffins were flying in and out of the towers with riders mounted. The young trainee soldiers often came from minor noble houses or sister houses of house Gillfall.
Samuel made his way down the small hill after thanking the butler, upon arrival he stopped a few meters short and stood with respect to listen. He had gotten all the necessary lessons to act like the future lord of their house, so he always kept a professional facade on whenever he went home to the estate.
Faleah was walking back and forth still, inspecting the young men and women closely, there were twenty four of them in total, most of them were women actually. Samuel had learnt that since men usually weigh more that women were usually the more skilled at aerial combat.
Speed and maneuverability mattered the most when fighting at altitude, and the more weight you added the harder it would be to make such things matter the most. "So who can tell me what to do if you find yourself in a free fall?" Faleah asked the group of trainees and a few of them raised their hands while the most looked confused.
She pointed at one and the elven woman spoke, "You make sure you never end up in a free fall in the first place, but aim for steep slopes or hills and hope for the best. That is to say that there is no chance to recover your companion!"
Faleah nodded slowly, "Sure, a reasonable answer, answers." Faleah corrected herself. "But a truly great rider would make sure to never get separated from their mount, which I understand is kind off what you hinted towards..." Faleah turned her heels around and saw her 'son' standing there patiently waiting.
"What would you do if you ended up in a free fall?" She asked him with a smile. Samuel nodded, "I would obviously use one of my spells, then I could once again reach my mount, unless my companion mount is unfortunately dead and there is nothing to be done. Makes me wonder why there are no safety enchantments on the armor of griffon knights, that they could activate before an impact!"
Faleah scoffed and chuckled, but in her mind she thought about it and realized that it wasn't too terrible of an idea. Mounts were expensive and valuable, but so were skilled riders. Both were of equal value to the republic.
Faleah turned back around to the new recruits. "There are many answers to that question and depending on situation any one of them can be correct. Its up to your individual judgement to make the correct calls."
She clapped her hands, "Now return to your handlers. We will continue this discussion tomorrow morning!" She stood there filled with pride as the recruits gave her a salute before taking their leave. As soon as they got out of sight she walked over to Samuel and gave him a quick hug.
"It is good to see you! I hope you have been doing alright! I read your letter, obviously!" Faleah said and sighed. Samuel took the moment to show her the diploma for passing a specialization and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"Even I understand that it must be quite rare even though I have never trained up there myself. Good job!" She spoke with a genuine smile and took him by the arm, she was dressed up in her private military lord outfit. That bore a striking resemblance to the household soldiers, except hers was more elevated and made her look like a fancy general.
"So I read your letter as well!" Samuel said with a nod as they slowly started walking towards one of the towers, "I was hoping you would tell me the important reason you mentioned several times in the letter as to why I was summoned... Not that I don't mind coming here to visit, but I... yeah!"
Faleah chuckled at his exhasperated look. "Don't worry, I know! I certainly have my hands full down here. Now that I have taken full control of the house once more, our house is no longer at a standstill, our assets and numbers are growing rapidly again!"
"We are soon going to stand among the richest and most powerful houses again at this pace. So I need to prepare you as best I can, while also preparing our sister households. I intend to expand quite a lot, the state is in an ever strong need of more winged knights. So it is all about finding the right candidates and their respective mount!"
"Every griffin and rider share a bond, a very strong bond that lasts for life. Griffins are proud creatures, and they have every right to be, masters of the sky very few creatures can challenge them in the air." They finally arrived at the furthermost tower that also happened to be the largest one.
She opened the door for them and on the inside were several stablehands and caretakers. Not regular stablehands of course, to handle a griffin one needed to be quite tough and carefully trained.
The personell inside all saluted or bowed to Faleah as she passed them by. "So what are we doing here?" Samuel asked as they started climbing the stairs. "Griffins are creatures of choice, some give birth while others lay eggs. It depends on the season of mating and time of year." Faleah continued as they got close to the top.
She quickly walked over to a pen and Samuel noticed that most pens up at the highest floor were actually empty. One of the open spaces to fly in and out was a floor below them. Faleah quickly opened the pen, "Hey there old girl!" She spoke as if she was greeting an old friend and Samuel saw a griffon with white and brown feathers step out.
It quickly put its head towards Faleah, careful not to hurt her with its long beak. Talons at the back and claws at the front, two large wings that were folded. This was truly a breathtaking creature, a beautiful creature, intelligent and proud.
Samuel started putting one and one together as Faleah turned around, "Every member of house Gillfall or a sister house is gifted one of the finest griffons that we ever breed. You are here today to choose one to train with, one that will become your loyal steed."
At those words Night started laughing and spoke, "I guess I can share, I am not too good of a steed myself anyway. At least not yet." Meanwhile Samuel had started nodding, "Yeah I was anticipating it was something like this. I would argue that I don't need it when I can already fly better by myself with magic. But I won't dishonor my own house by disregarding our primary symbol."
Faleah seemed surprised at his words before nodding. "I was expecting you to say the first half but not the second, you have truly grown into the role of lord. Although I intend to give you at least a few more years before giving away the reigns!" She said with a laugh.
"Alright! Come!" Faleah waved for him to follow and to his surprise her griffon also followed. "Brightfeather is her name, if you were wondering!" She mistook his surprise for him wondering about her griffin.
"Nice name!" Samuel said and the griffin made a noise of approval as she followed them. They walked to the opposite side of the top. Where three pens with large bars stood, they were more of viewing pens than living pens.
Samuel saw all three of the pens had griffins in them. The first had a brown regular but strong and proud looking griffon, that seemed to stand there proud as if it knew it would be chosen. While the second pen had one with more blonde colored feathers, it looked at Samuel as if it was trying to discern him from prey or predator.
He raised an eyebrow in disappointment, and realized that in the third pen there was one huddled in a corner looking extremely annoyed and angry. It was a completely pitch black griffon. With powerful yellow eagle eyes, it looked at everything with anger and an almost challenging look.
Samuel walked over to the pen and looked at it closer, it squinted it's eyes at him and hissed. Faleah sighed, "I wouldn't reccomend that one, its hurt a lot of handlers and recruits. It was an accidental breeding that brought it into this world, some idiot had forgotten pens open."
"An entirely black griffin is extremely rare, so we wanted to give it a few chances, but it will probably end up being put down at this rate or if deemed safe and wild enough we can release it." She sighed again, sometimes the job was demeaning rather than rewarding.
"No thats okay! I want this one!" Samuel said and pointed at the Black Feathered Griffin.