The old monk did not relish having to train another apprentice. What to do about the boy now, given what he’d witnessed? That loss would hurt. He would have to be punished for this terrible lapse in concentration and go without his evening meal. When he was sure the image was settled on the page, the old monk crouched to retrieve his quill. Something will have to be done, the monk thought. Glancing behind him, the old monk spotted the bare feet of his young apprentice poking out from under the wooden frame that held the drying skins to make parchment. The monk shook off his exhaustion and focused his mind, and in a rush of color and light the griffin was once again gripping the G at the top of the page. The griffin snorted angrily and scratched its talons deep into the thin vellum of the page. In an instant, he thumped his gnarled fist onto the griffin’s slashing tail, pinning the beast to the page. In its haste to flee, the beast brushed its coarse wings across the old monk’s fingers. As the old monk nodded off, the griffin leaped from its place at the corner of the page and darted across the parchment. He was working on one of the book’s later pages, a miniature of a majestic griffin with talons clutching an imposing capital G. The quill dropped from his fingers, leaving a trail of ink like tiny teardrops across the folio. The old monk yawned, his chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes fluttered shut. The book the old monk was illuminating began with these words:
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