Stars
PT: Because Phillip's awesome---don't deny it...and Nyra must burn in hagsmire for killing him.
Disclaimer: My sense of logic's completely off.
The valley is silent in the night, untouched by owls. It lies, silent---morbid---hiding its shadows and its bloody past. Untouched. Dim.
The valley is dead.
Dead---and a place said to be haunted.
It's evil, the owls at night say. It's evil, damned by Glaux Almighty. Don't go near it, they add, or you'll end up slain by the essence of the oldest inhabitants, and the owls that once battled there.
Essence? someone may ask.
Essence, they would reply. Once there was an orphanage there---that is, a band of owls that planned to brainwash young owlets and turn them into an army for their own wants. At night, they would kidnap young owlets, and moonblink them. Otherwise, when they were desperate, they had them moonscalded. There was also a practice they dared not use, called shattering.
Shattering? Moonscalding?
You're too young to know.
Once, someone would add, these owls clashed with the Pure Ones, and almost became wiped out. Eventually the Pure Ones took over it. Kludd was the leader before he was killed by one of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole. His mate Nyra took over it afterward, and had a son.
Kludd. A shudder would run down the young ones' spines. For Kludd was what they were frightened of---a myth to scare the disobediant. Kludd, who was killed by Twilight, the best friend of the current King.
And the son was Coryn, the young King? someone would add.
Yes, the reply came as, and he died fighting his mother. Soren is our King now.
The Pure Ones and evil owls before them are long gone now---but legend says that Kludd's ghost still roams those canyons. Do well to avoid it.
Oh, we will, the young ones would crow in unison, we will. We promise.
The valley is dead.
That's what everyone says.
But Soren knows better---he knows, better than anyone. Because that is where he is closest to his nephew, the friend of the one who haunts it.
Because no one lies when they say it is haunted---
They are merely ignorant, and believe that it's haunted by Kludd---or anything that does harm.
Only Soren knows.
He is the only one who understands, when he steps into the valley; feels the chill sweep down along his back; feels the stare of someone---something---watching from the shadows. And he is the only one who feels the tranquility, knows that no harm will come to him when he goes down the forbidden canyon....
When he looks behind him and sees nothing, he knows who it is, and he and the watcher begin speaking of their dead, dear friend Coryn, Glaux bless him.
He sneaks into the valley when he can, finds the ghost of his nephew's first friend; and they talk, fondly, of their dear Coryn; and hope that someday---someday---they may both join him in glaumora.
And they will wait---and wait and wait and wait until the day when they are finally free, walk their last---when their strength is labored---
The day they cast aside their weary lives and are able to fly forward, among the stars, and see Coryn, their friend Coryn...
Phillip was my first friend.
My mother called him Dustytuft, but his name is Phillip---Phillip, and he died for me; and I never even got to retrieve his bones---
Someday, I believe I will see Phillip again, among the stars, and I'll be with my first friend again.