One True Monster

"What the fuck did I just see?" Cordelia demanded.

"Language, Cordelia," Queen Lavinia scolded instinctively, but there was no heat in it. After all, she had just witnessed a sight gorier than the birth of all her children put together. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, I mean, what the flying fuck did I just see?" Cordelia exclaimed, this time in a louder voice, her eyes bulging as she stared at the bloody trail left behind by King Atticus. "Is that man insane? He just ripped off the griffin's wing as though he was butchering a chicken!" 

"Grief makes people do strange things," Queen Lavinia replied, but there was a note of unease in her voice. King Atticus's brutality had shocked her to her very core. He had spilled blood without caring about his host. What's more, he inflicted such a vicious, cruel wound to someone of his own party.