DISCLAIMER: Part of this chapter is quoted from Book One The Capture of the GOG series Chapter One; A nest remembered.
"Noctus could you spare more down, darling? I think our third little one is about to arrive. That egg is beginning to crack."
"Not again!" sighed Kludd.
"What do you mean, Kludd, not again? Don't you want another little brother?" his father said. There was an edge to his voice.
"Or sister?" His mother sighed the low soft whistle barn owls sometimes used.
"I'd like a sister," Soren peeped up.
"You just hatched out two weeks ago." Kludd turned to Soren, his younger brother. "What do you know about sisters?" Soren didn't say anything to this because right when Kludd had said sister, it felt like a wave of nausea fell over him.
Soren was just about to remember something when he heard a crack. The owl family all seemed to freeze. To any other forest creature the sound would have been imperceptible. But barn owls are blessed with extraordinary hearing.
The world seemed to freeze for Soren, and he saw the most wondrous thing he had ever seen before. Or had he...
"What shall we call the little dear?" Soren's father asked.
"Pelli," Soren said as if in some sort of trance.
"Actually Soren, I was thinking more like Eglantine, I've always wanted a little Eggie" Soren shook his head.
"Oh Eglantine what a pretty name," he said slowly repeating it to himself.
"Well then welcome to the forest of Tyto little Eglantine." Noctus said.
That day, Soren had feverish dreams. First there was a rough barn owl that looked alot like his father except he was blackened with soot and had a coal in his beak. Flying on either side of him, was a short owl with strange yellow eyes who seemed to be reading the stars, and a strange owl with long legs who seemed to be searching the ground.Flying in the front was a huge gray owl with large yellow eyes who seemed to be the strongest. But anyone could tell the blackened barn owl was the leader of the group. They all seemed to know each other very well and he could see they were joking around and having a good time. Then the group seemed to be illuminated with a strange golden glow, and another barn owl with a jagged scar across his face joined the group. In his beak he had something which glowed like the sun, only less bright and more containable.
Ember, Soren thought to himself, surprised for knowing the word.(His father had yet to tell him the legend of the Ember of Hoole.)
Then something happened and the scene changed there was a battle with horrid black things fighting with some owls, they seemed to have a strange yellow light that came out of there eyes, and when an owl fell into this light, they went yeep and plummeted to the ground, where giant wolves where waiting. There was one of these black things in particular who was screeching something awful over the unconscious body of an owl. Soren couldn't tell what species it was because it kept changing.
Next it showed an adventurous magpie traveling in an ice-locked land. She flew into a cave where many horrid things were hung on the wall, and in the center of the cave, there lay an open book, it had awful drawings in it and it was written in some unknown language. Yet the magpie still put it in some container, and flew off with it to a tree where there were many festivities. Where an old soldier quickly gave the magpie a rock that looked both silver and gold, and flew away with it.
Finally, there was an old owl with a scar. As a matter of fact, she looked just like the owl that had joined the merry group of owls earlier. Except she looked anything but merry. She was hovering over the book that the magpie had found and was enchanting something Soren guessed was probably horrid.
"NYRA!" Soren screeched in his sleep.
"Wake up Soren dear, it's just a bad dream," Soren's mother said. Soren looked around, not noticing that Kludd had wilfed whenever he had said the word Nyra.
"Now son, do you want to talk about it?" his father asked.
"No," Soren said, now much more alert, "as a matter of fact, I can barely remember what happened." Soren yawned and fell back into a dreamless sleep.