The Griffin Sanctuary Volume 1

Chapter 3-2

Not feeling confident that I should be filling that out, I returned to Nissan. To my surprise, Felicity and Aaron were still observing their unicorns so either I’d missed something or they weren’t as skilled as they made out to be.

With a smile, I leaned against the railing, relishing in the opportunity to look at the unicorns more. They seemed perfectly happy to have Nissan walk around their midst, eager to get the carrots from his bucket. I couldn’t wait until the herd was so familiar with me that I could do that too.

After he finished, he returned to the stable to see how we did.

I handed him my sheet for Candle and looked it over, making me wait in tense silence.

This was even worse than being graded in school.

After an excruciating minute, he nodded. “Looks good, I agree with your observations. Well done, Charlotte. Oh wait, you didn’t sign it.”

I accepted the sheet back from him, overcome with a nervous jitter. It was one thing to note down my observations but signing it meant I suddenly became responsible for Candle’s care. Terrifying.

I patted my pockets for a pen and was about to dig into my bag when Nissan held one out to me. Gratefully, I accepted it and as I jotted my name down, I saw a golden griffin with midnight wings on the end of the pen.

“I love the Sanctuary’s logo,” I noted, twirling the pen to make the blue wings shimmer.

Nissan smiled. “The founder herself designed it.”

“I know, back when the Sanctuary was exclusively for griffins. That was over twenty years ago and now, there are almost fifty different species of mythical animals here.”

An impressed look crossed my mentor’s face. “You know your stuff.”

“I love this place,” I admitted. “I visited it all the time when I was a child.”

“Then I have no doubt you’ll have no trouble fitting in,” Nissan supplied warmly. He gestured to the pen as I tried to hand it back. “You can keep it. From one Griffin Sanctuary fan to another.”

I beamed. “Thank you.”

He walked away to check with the other two interns, seeming happy with their work too. After he gathered our sheets, he made his way back into the work area to open it up so the herd could go out into the meadow. Sunshine gathered the herd while The Sergeant encouraged them forward, out of the sandy grove and towards the grassy plains. I wished I could’ve spent more time with them but my desires were irrelevant to the rhythm of the group. There was a fine balance between taking good care of the animals and letting nature do its thing. Too much interference would modify how they behaved and render any discoveries about the species useless. The more we learned about their instincts and natural way of things, the more the research would be able to help protect their wild cousins. In the case of the silver blush unicorns, there weren’t that many left so anything we discovered could help change that.

With a deep breath, I centred myself as the herd disappeared behind some bushes. I knew this wasn’t the last time I would see them but I still felt sad that my first encounter with the unicorns was over. Hopefully, I’d see them again soon.

Nissan dusted off his hands as he finished with his notes. “That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed your first taste of being a keeper.”

“Loved it!” Felicity chimed as she fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“You all did a good job. That’s the fun part of the day. Now who is ready to get their hands dirty?”

Eagerly, all three of us agreed.

A little taken aback by our enthusiasm, the bearded keeper chuckled. “Alright, follow me.” He led us towards the right side and pushed the sliding barn door to the side, giving us access to the communal stall. The straw was all trampled from the sleeping horses and big heaps of poop were scattered throughout.

“I think this is pretty self-explanatory,” Nissan grinned, looking pretty pleased with himself. “There are pitchforks and shovels over here and you’ll find fresh straw and hay in the shed. I have to log the notes and check something with Gwen, can I leave you to it?”

Another collective nod from the three of us reassured him and he went on his merry way, probably under the impression that we got along and made an excellent team. He’d barely closed the door or Aaron had something to say.

He gestured to the shed and the wheelbarrow parked outside. “It takes a pretty strong person to move those so I’ll do that while you little ladies shovel shit.”

My mouth fell slightly aghast. What an arrogant prick. From all my years as a student, I’d met plenty of types like him. People who thought they were God’s gift and it looked like nice-guy Aaron was one of them. Great…

“a*s,” Felicity muttered under her breath.

First thing we agreed on.

With a big smile, I grabbed one of the shovels and threw it towards him. “Don’t you worry about us little ladies, we’re all perfectly qualified,” I said with my sweetest smile.

Felicity laughed and it took her a mere second to catch up with me. “Airhead over here is right. Why don’t you step into modern times and educate yourself on gender equality? We can all take turns shovelling shit.”

If I was the type to snap my fingers sassily, this would have been the moment. Except that wasn’t me at all, so I just kept smiling while Aaron’s head turned red. Looked like he wasn’t used to being called out on his s****m.

Triumphantly, I grabbed the pitchfork and made my way into the stable to shovel poop with as much dignity as I could muster. Felicity made her way to the shed and to my surprise, Aaron put his shovel to good use. Despite the initial hick-up, we worked in relative silence and cleaned out the unicorn enclosure without any complaining or bickering. I supposed we were all too proud for that. For three people as different as night and day, we sure had some annoying similarities.

Besides, we always knew this was part of the job so what was one more day of s**t-duty?

The inside of my hands were burning from the repeated shovelling but I kept smiling through the discomfort. My palms would harden soon enough and I’d get used to the smell.

I glanced at the other two, trying to figure out if they were suffering as much as I did. To my annoyance, Aaron’s bulging muscles suggested otherwise and Felicity looked strangely comfortable pushing the wheelbarrow around.

Stubbornly, I focused my attention back on the task at hand. The unicorn poop was quite different from horse droppings. Rounder and not quite as… splatty. I had to guess that was a result of the multiple stomachs they had.

“Looks like we’re almost done,” Felicity announced from the full wheelbarrow.

She had surprised me. She looked all girly and delicate, but there was a hard worker underneath the stuck-up shell that wasn’t above little jobs like this.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “That didn’t take us that long.”

“Yeah, we did a banging job,” Aaron added, resting his foot on the shovel.

Felicity clicked her tongue. “Not bad for two little ladies, huh?”

I released a full belly laugh and the other two stared at me for a second before joining in. Our laughter filled the stable as we wheeled the waste away and finished up the job. Strange how different people could bond so easily over menial labour.

In a much more amicable mood than how we came here, we let Nissan know we were done and his appraising nod after he checked the stables had me soaring the whole walk back to the wishing fountain.

“Guess we should get going,” Felicity remarked, albeit reluctantly.

“At least it’s an early start tomorrow,” I said, looking forward to being here. I didn’t even mind waking up before dawn.

Aaron shrugged. “We’ll get used to it. Which campus are you on?”

“B,” Felicity replied.

“Same,” he said, turning to me. “You?”

Stunned, I blinked slowly. “What campus?”

“The off-site campus with dormitories for the interns and workers,” Felicity clarified. “Did your school not arrange for you to stay there?”

I frowned. “No.”

“Shame,” she commented, not sounding like she meant it. “Oh, well. See you tomorrow then.”

She and Aaron made their way to the exit, leaving me annoyed and blindsided. If there was accommodation available for students like us, why had nobody informed me about that?