This story is now up for adoption! Please go to the last chapter for more details. You will probably want to read most of it, too, but check that out as soon as you can.

Hello readers! Still reading? This is my first Guardians fic. It is set after The Shattering while the Pure Ones are still at large.

Prologue: The Owlet

The little owlet shivered. It had been a while since she'd seen her parents. She had opened her eyes only a few nights before, but she was already looking forward to her first meat ceremony.

The sky was becoming a deep shade of gray and violet, night was coming to an end! Where are my mum and da? she wondered.

Suddenly a terrible shrieking filled the air.

"We won't give her to you!" shreed her mum outside, it was the first time the young owl had heard the scream of her species, and she didn't like it one bit.

Mum, she wanted to ask, What's going on? Where's da?

Brown feathers flashed outside the hollow. She whimpered as she recognized her mother's back. It was stained with blood. Another barn owl was fighting her mum. His talons were long, sharp, and glistening, they had to be made of metal.

The little owlet pressed herself against the soft feathers she slept in, terror in her dark eyes. There was a final shriek, and her mother fell in a heap of blood and feathers.

The barn owl with talons of metal flew into her hollow.

The Owlet trembled, "P-p-please..."

The barn owl smiled at her, but the expression on his beak was little more than a cruel sneer. "I see there are some of pure blood here, unlike those frinking traitors you call your parents."

"T-th-their not..."

"I'll bring you to Metalbeak and Nyra," he said, "Come and meet the Pure Ones."

The owlet wilfed, this was the owl that had killed her mum and da!

"Who are you?" she squeaked.

"I'm a soldier of the Pure Ones, we're tyto albas the most superior of all owl species."

"W-what? But you're a barn owl too," she said.

"No," he corrected her, "You are too. That means you are better than them. Come and meet the high tyto, we can purify all owls!"

He killed mum...he killed my parents...the little owlet stopped shaking, Pure Ones...purifying all owls! I can do that!

"O-okay," she said shakily, "Bring me to the high tyto!"