You always have to wonder: How did Noctus know all of those stories?
Disclaimer: I don't own The Guardians of Ga'Hoole.
The days for heroic deeds were long since done. The battle claws were put away in a hidden spot to gather dust and rust away. He was no longer a warrior, though he supposed the skills could come back to him if he was in dire enough straits.
Marella didn't know. She thought, as the young'uns did, that the stories were just stories, legends, things that might be true but probably weren't.
It probably helped that Noctus had never gained any scars or come away with missing talons like Lyze of Kiel had.
He would never fight again. Kludd saw battle with starry eyes but he had never really seen it, seen the good owls who fell the stormy seas below or seen red rain flying throughout their midst, smelling so strong that even owls, with their inferior sense of smell, could taste copper in the air for nights afterwards. There was no glory in that, only pain, and death.
Dear Glaux, look at those little ones, growing up on stories of courage and nobility and battle. Noctus had renounced that life himself, but he could not say he didn't regret it sometimes. He regretted it when he heard tell of strange owls flying off with downed owlets, but never regretted it when he stared down into the eyes of Soren and Eglantine and Kludd—yes, even Kludd, however difficult he could be.
Marella laughed softly when the young'uns were off to bed and asked him how he could fill their heads with such stories. There was no mockery in her voice, only soft humor, the way she had always been.
He had needed her so badly when they first met, in Tyto, though Marella would never know how much.
They weren't stories.
They weren't.
