Prologue
"Hermy, would you be so kind enough to finish off these feather raiders for me?" Synnk snapped at her apprentice, jostling the fitfully dosing younger snake with a sharp prod of her rosy-scaled tail. Being an unemployed nest maid snake in Tyto was not just incredibly embarrassing but also quite dangerous, and Synnk usually kept to herself (she was a very rebellious snake, and had tried to serve but was constantly being kicked out of the nest on accounts for being rude and extremely annoying).
But, just recently, she had come upon Hermy and rescued her from some very queer circumstances. Synnk had found Hermy coiled tightly around the brim of a rotting tree trunk, shivering and covered head to tail in dark, black bruises, deep bloody gashes around her neck and deep dents in her tail bones. The young snake had mumbled vaguely about some sort of attack by an incredibly large, moonfaced female barn owl (Synnk had came to realize that the young snake had some sort of speech problem and could not describe things clearly), and she had left it at that, caring for all of Hermy's wounds and scars. And now, after two full moons had passed (and owl mating season had come), Hermy was fully healed and ready to be trained to work for a traditional owl family (Synnk wasn't just teaching Hermy because she had nothing to do, but because young nest maid snakes had to learn their position in the forest ecosystem, and Hermy obviously had never studied the art before).
"Do you hear me, you splat-brained idiot?" (Using this swear in front of the owlets was how she got thrown out of the Multipunctata's hollow) Synnk coiled her tail around Hermy's head and gave the latter a rather hard whack on her head (this trick had caused a concussion in one of the Nebulosa's owlets), "Eat these feather raiders! My stomach is as full as a bucket!"
Not that she knew what a bucket was. She had learnt it from one of the few barn owl families (the Occidentalis', to be exact) who had books. Books were fairly rare in Tyto, and Synnk couldn't read for racdrops.
Hermy began to stir from her cozy nook in the cramped hollow, and stretched her supply-built body to its full extent. Her scales glimmered as they caught the soft mellow glow of the setting sun. Hermy gave a huge yawn, and looked at Synnk. Immediately, the younger snake stiffened into full alertness, seeing the venomous glare in Synnk's eyes, "Wuhsat?" She managed to stutter.
"I said –"
Synnk's sentence was stopped firmly when a resounding SNAP! crashed into both snakes' ear holes.
And Synnk never got to finish her sentence, as a pair of sharp, pincer-like talons sliced to the air above them, groped around a bit, and snatched up a terrified Hermy.
Synnk suddenly became de-paralyzed as she saw Hermy, struggling limply through the air. This was not about to happen without me doing something about it! She though grimly, and then opened her mouth and bit down hard (though she had no teeth) on the base of that treacherous talon.
Hermy was suddenly thrown out of the talons and launched mightily into the back of the hollow wall. Her head connected with the wall with a vibrating CRACK.
And now, although she didn't know how this happened (it was too quick for a blind snake's eye); Synnk was grasped firmly within the claws of the attacker. She watched in silent horror as the beautiful head of a young female barn owl emerges inside the hollow. The owl looks at her victim with a hard, icy glare before she bites Synnk's head clean off.
And then, grasping the dead body tightly, the owl spreads her wings wide and catches the swift, late autumn air as she floats off into the darkness.
And when Hermy does wake up from her huge headache, all she sees is the lone, dull head of her former mentor. It stares back, the inanimate-once-animate head stares back, in utter disbelief.
And, just as unbelievably, a single word that she had never heard before pops out of Hermy's head and into her mouth, bubbling up like the first strong currents of a river.
"Pella."