"No, I adopted him from an aviary trying to repopulate the lesser griffin population in North America," why would anyone ever= wait, no, he's still talking. "The ones not suited to living wild they adopt out. No idea how he ended up here with me- maybe whoever's in charge of these things just knows I need the icebreaker a mythological creature the size of a Maine Coon provides in order to actually talk to people."

Did he say that last part out loud? He did. Ah. Well. He's said it now. At least he didn't confess that he's almost wondering if this creature is really his Crow, or some aspect of his psyche manifesting as an outside entity in a familiar form.