Aquila came through the portal and landed on the nearest old tree with the controlled, precise weight it always used, the golden eyes finding him immediately.
Damien looked at the cores in his hand.
Then at Aquila.
"These are for you," he said.
He held them out.
Aquila regarded them from its branch for a moment, the assessment quick and complete the way the griffin's assessments always were, and then descended to the clearing floor and approached.
It took them carefully.
Not with the urgency of something starving or the indifference of something that considered the offering beneath it. With the specific attentiveness of a creature that understood what was being given and why, processing each core with a thoroughness that suggested it was doing more than eating.
Damien watched.
