The Griffin Who Was Afraid of Heights

High in the Celestial Mountains, where the peaks poke up through the clouds like the backs of great sleeping giants, there lived a young griffin named Talon. He had the golden feathers of an eagle at the front and the strong tawny body of a lion behind, and a fine sharp beak and a proud tufted tail, and by every measure in the world he should have been a magnificent flier. There was only one problem — one small, secret, enormous problem. Talon was afraid of heights.

It seems the strangest thing for a creature born to fly, but there it was, and Talon could not help it. Whenever he spread his great wings and crept to the edge and looked down at the dizzying drop below, his stomach flipped right over, his head went swimmy, and his claws locked themselves tight around the rock and simply would not let go. "I'll fly tomorrow," he always told himself, backing away from the edge. "When the wind is a little calmer. When I've had a good breakfast. When I feel braver." But tomorrow came, and tomorrow went, and still Talon stayed on the ground, hopping and scrambling from ledge to ledge like a very large and very embarrassed cat, while all the other young griffins wheeled and soared and played high in the bright air above him.

Then one grey afternoon, without much warning, dark clouds came rolling in fast and heavy over the mountains. The wind climbed and climbed until it rose to a full howl, whipping the trees and flinging cold rain across the rocks. And through all that howling, Talon suddenly heard a small, frightened, desperate little cry.

He looked up, blinking against the rain. There — far out on a thin spike of bare rock, on the very far side of the deepest ravine in all the mountains — a tiny eaglet clung on with all its might. The storm had torn it clean out of its nest and flung it there, and now it was trapped, far too young to fly, its little wings soaked and useless, while the wind did its best to peel it off the stone and hurl it into the drop below.

"Help! Somebody help me!" cried the eaglet. "I can't — I can't hold on much longer!"

Talon's heart began to hammer against his ribs. He understood in an instant what saving the eaglet would mean. To reach it, he would have to fly — really and truly fly — straight out over the deepest ravine in all the mountains, into the teeth of a roaring storm. Every single part of him wanted to press himself flat against the rock, squeeze his eyes tight shut, and wait for the wind to stop.

But the eaglet cried out again, thinner and more frightened now, and Talon saw its little claws beginning to slip on the wet stone. And he knew, with a cold and certain knowing, that if he waited for tomorrow — if he waited even one more minute to feel brave — there would be no eaglet left to save at all.

So Talon did not wait to feel brave. He spread his great wings wide while he was still shaking with fear, he took one enormous breath, and he threw himself off the edge into the storm.

The wind caught him at once, wild and cold and screaming, and his stomach lurched so horribly he nearly cried out. But then something very surprising happened. The moment Talon stopped thinking about the terrible drop below him, and started thinking only about the frightened little eaglet ahead of him, the fear grew smaller and quieter. He was simply far too busy now to be terrified. He beat his powerful wings hard against the gale, he tilted and banked against the storm exactly the way his body somehow knew was right, and he flew — clumsily at first, wobbling and lurching, then steadier, then truer, and then at last as though he had been born to do nothing else. Because, of course, he had.

He swept down low over the thin spike of rock, reached out, opened his front claws as gently as he possibly could, and scooped the shivering, soaking eaglet up safe against his warm chest. "I've got you," he said, close to its ear, over the roar of the wind. "I've got you. Hold on to me now, and don't you worry — I will not let you go."

And he carried the little eaglet, safe and sheltered against the storm, all the way back across the ravine, and set it down ever so gently on the solid, safe ledge of its own family's nest, where its mother folded it up in her wings and wept with relief.

And only then, standing safe on firm rock once more with the rain streaming off his feathers, did Talon truly realise what he had just done. He had flown. Through a howling storm. Straight out over the deepest ravine in all the mountains. And he had not fallen, and he had not frozen. He had done the one thing he was most afraid of in the whole world — because someone small had needed him to.

"You flew!" the little eaglet chirped up at him, its eyes shining with wonder. "You really, really flew!"

"I did," said Talon, and a slow, astonished grin spread right across his golden beak. "And do you know — I was frightened the entire time. But it turns out you don't ever have to wait until you're not scared anymore. You only have to care about something a little more than you're afraid."

And from that day on, Talon flew every single day — sometimes still with a flip and a flutter in his stomach, it is true, but always with his great wings thrown wide open, soaring and wheeling high over the Celestial Mountains, exactly as a griffin was always meant to do.