She loved the vines of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree. They way they swayed to the pounding rhythm of the wind enchanted her. The movement of the vines sounded like heartbeats to her ear slits. But, most of all, she loved to soar through the trembling ropes, while feeling a somewhat tingly sensation in her gizzard.
She flew through them, every day in the light, while no one was watching, for she was known to be a stern ryb of the tree, and obviously she doubted her colleagues would think this of her nature. They might think she was yoicks. Queer, perhaps. But the first time she had arrived (on a day during the golden rain), when she had set her eyes upon this tree for the first time in her life, she knew that there was a powerful aura of…of goodness. It was this goodness that she drew her forward, this goodness, which seemed to emanate off these very vines. It was extremely unnerving that no one else felt this pull towards it. Maybe Strix Emerilla, the renowned weathertrix of the last century (whom she was distantly related to) had these skills too. One can always wonder…
Perhaps I am like Bubo, she had thought. For, indeed, the blacksmith of the great tree seemed to feel this same attraction towards the deep metals that he forged.
Perhaps this was also the reason why she had never found a mate. She was too connected to the vines of the tree to feel ever a connection to another owl. Though (in her earlier years) she had flivved with a few other Spotted Owls, she had never felt a connection as powerful to them as to this tree.
She, indeed, was infatuated.
He was also infatuated. Not with the vines, though. But with an owl. An owl unlike any other. And along with this infatuation there came pain. For he knew (it was quite plain to see) that it was wishful thinking. For Otulissa never mated. She hadn't flivved in about two years.
So he was obviously surprised that such a prim and proper owl was found flying through the vines and shrieking with glee at this time in the morning. She was flying like he had never seen her fly. Like a shooting star that whipped softly through the air as if it were on fire (though she obviously wasn't), like a slight breeze that had flown bravely with the katabats, like a beautiful gossamer shadow that surrounded the evening sky…
He turned back from his window and fell asleep.