Chapter 3: A month later...
It's been a month since I came here. Yes, a month. As I stood by one of the window-holes in the dining hollow waiting for tweener to come and to hear the Evensong, my mind began to wander.
True, a month seemed to be a long time, long enough for me to know a few things. One of those things was that I knew my way around. I mean, who wouldn't after being stuck here for a month already. I knew that if I took a left turn on the third branch from the right leading downwards would lead me to Bubo's forge and if I go straight then a left turn and a right later would take me to one of the hollows.
Another was flying. You see, the night after the time I saved the Snowy, I was sent to power-flight school. Expectedly, I met Digger there since his flying skills needed some improvements when he first came to the Great Tree. I wanted to meet him in person but...let's say I wasn't supposed to. Anyway, since then, my flying skills had improved greatly and my wings were stronger. And ever since I was allowed to fly on my own, sometimes I took to the skies during the daytimes for an hour or two. You could really never get tired of this; the wind brushing against your face, flowing through your wings and then sweeping across your back, making you feel that over-whelming sense of freedom it was usually represented...
Freedom, that word bounced around in the walls of my mind, turning my serene smile into a slight frown. Now that I thought about it, I realized I was never truly free. It's been a month since I became an owl and considering the period of time which I had spent in that horrible place, it's been close to five months since I last saw my family. Every time before I went to sleep, I would look out of my hollow and into the sea, wondering if they missed me or if I'd ever see them again...
Enough looking into the past, I shook my head back to reality. From the other side of the hollow, I heard Matron spoke, "Line up! Line up! Now, please don't rush the dear snakes. Don't crowd the snakes by cramming in too many of you around one snake. Please proceed in an orderly fashion." The nest-snakes then began entering the hollow to serve as tables while owls crowded around them to eat. For me, I went to my assigned snake, Matilda, and as usual as soon as I went to her, she would immediately start to shiver. The surrounding snakes discreetly move slightly further away, trying to avoid her, or me. Sighing, my mind drifted again to when this occurred for the first time...
Back then, when I arrived at the dining hollow for the first time, I went to one of the snakes for some food, but every time I approached one they would either tried to avoid me or at least avoid 'looking' at me. Like they were scared of me for some reason. Boron and Barran naturally knew and came to investigate. When questioning the snakes, they said they did not know, just that something about me made them feel...uncomfortable.
Coming back to the present, when tweener started, the owls began to talk about the chaws(1) and tapping and stuff that revolved about those two. From the corner of my eye, I saw the Band inviting Primrose to join them at Mrs.P's. Recalling that they will talking about the time in the Kuneer desert, I began eating.
"Enough is enough!" I looked up from my meal twenty minutes since the start of tweener(2) only to turn around to see the commotion, so did all the other owls and snakes in the room. "I shall not have this talk at this table." Mrs.P, Soren's ex-nestmaid snake and now table and helper in the Great Tree, shouted. "This is inappropriate on every level!" And she shook the teacups off her back and sent the poor owls to Matron. Knowing what would happen next, I giggled at the ashamed faces of the owls.
"What's so funny about that?" Matilda asked, slightly annoyed. "Oh nothing, just another joke I thought of," I replied. "But I'm sure we don't need another commotion like that, eh." With that, I finished eating and went up to my hollow to sleep.
"You let us die, Martin!" Hoarse voice called out from behind me, urging me to go faster.
"No, please!" I cried, scrambling away from them as fast as I could. "I tried to save all of you, I really do. I'm sorry. Please let me go." I got up and tried to run from them, but my legs felt like lead and I fell. "Please let me go..."
"We trusted you." They jumped on me, pinning me down on all my limbs. "You said that we will all escape, so why did you let us die?" I struggled as much as I could, but I couldn't get out of their grasp. There were too many of them, and even with my enhanced strength I wouldn't want to hurt them again, especially when I let them die during the Escape.
"What's the matter, 5-86?" Hearing that voice made my heart skipped a beat. Looking up slowly, my struggles became wilder as soon as my eyes laid on...him. "Going so soon already? Why, stay for a while. They all missed you."
"Stay back!" My fear-induced panic brought an eerie smile to his face, grinning in sadistic joy to see me struggling wildly in fear and desperation. He stepped closer, his boots making clomping sounds on the hard cement floor, each step raised my panic levels to the max. "Let me go! Please, I'm begging you! Please let me go!" I cried out, my limbs fought to escape the unrelenting clutches of my dead inmates, to get away from him.
The doctor then sat on my chest, his weight preventing me from moving too much. A hand grabbed my neck and begun squeezing it while the other was in his pocket. "You hurt us, 5-86," His grin became more manic, savouring my wheezing chokes. "It ain't polite, you know, and you have to be punished for running away." His pocketed hand then fished out a modified taser and switched it on, electricity zapping to and forth its probes. " So why don't you stay with us? Why don't you stay...forever." With that, he plunged it into my chest...
"Aaaaahhhhhh!" I woke up, shivering all over. It was that nightmare again. I looked around to see the other three owls in my hollow only twisted in their sleep and slept on. For the past month I have had that same nightmare six times now and it had made my hollow-mates worried. They had tried over and over again to tell me to open up to them, to share those horrible nightmares to them.
But I couldn't. I was too afraid to tell them. No one must know what I had been through. No one would understand. Even right now, as I recalled the time when I was incarcerated in that horrible place, I had to shove my beak into my wing to muffle my sobs. So all they could do was to offer sad looks whenever I woke up abruptly in the day. By now they had gotten used to it and kept on sleeping.
For me, it's impossible to go back to sleep now. Still shivering from that nightmare, I stepped out of the hollow and took to the skies. Somehow, this was the only thing that could alleviate my fear. Whenever there was something that troubled me, flying would be my outlet, a way to shove these thoughts aside until I could face them bit by bit. Alighting on a branch, I looked up into the skies and closed my eyes, savouring the feeling of the wind as it stroked my back.
"...I think it has to do with your sister, Eglantine." At this, I opened my eyes and looked up. Thinking back to the stories, I guessed this was when Soren was confessing all of his worries and fears to Mrs P, before the Night Flight. As I heard him spilling his heart out, my eyes began to become blurry. I tried to wipe away the tears that were threatening to fall, but they kept on coming. It was then I realized that I too had a desire to share what I'd locked inside my heart as well. My daymares, my fears, my mission, my past... everything, but to whom? Who could understand the pain, the loss and the darkness in my heart? Who could understand the grief I'd been through? And who would still comfort me and hug me for all the things I'd done back then?
Then Mrs P said, "...We can hope." Hope, the word bounced inside my mind. Hope, a word sounded so simple, yet it carried so much weight. Hoole, I thought, was I meant to hear this as well?
"Hope is never a foolish thing," Mrs P continued. "Although others will tell you it I don't need to tell you that, Soren - look at yourself. You were snatched and you taught yourself to fly and you escaped from that awful St. Aggie's. you flew straight out of those deep stone canyons and right into the Yonder. Anyone who flies out of a stone hole into the Yonder knows about hope."
Hope, I wondered sadly. Will there ever be enough for me? I flew back to my hollow, where I waited for the day to end.
"Finally, it's over." I mumbled as I flew to the library. It was an unanimous agreement that Ga'Hoolology was truly the most boring of all the chaws of the Great Tree. Some said it was because the teacher, or ryb, leading the class was Dewlap, one of the most boring owls to ever exist on earth. Others thought that it's because all we need to do was to do bury your pellets at the roots of the Tree. Personally, I'll go with the former. I agreed that taking care of the Tree was important, but she really didn't have to keep on reminding us about it. Sometimes I wished that I could just yarp a pellet and toss it right in her face...
Enough, I thought when I reached the library. Looking around, I walked around the rows of shelves, wondering which book I should read this time. "Why don't you start with this one instead." A low gruff voice answered the question in my head. Turning around, I saw the owner of the voice pointing with his mangled foot towards one of the books on the stack beside him. Shrugging, I went over and took the book.
"Navigating through the Stars, by Strix Emerilla." I read. Smilling, I was about to thank Ezylryb when I caught sight of his disfigured claw. I couldn't help but to stare at it, completely oblivious to his piercing glare. As I gazed at it, my mind again wandered back, to the time I read what happened to that claw. I remembered now; it was when he used to be called Lyze of Kiel. At that time, his brother, Ifghar, had became a turnfeather, which meant traitor in the owl tongue, to the Kielian League and joined the enemy. He led a team to ambush him and his team. However, the plan went wrong and Lil, Lyze's mate, was slain and Lyze went yeep. He was saved, however, when he was caught by his talons by an eagle, causing great pain. So he bit off the injured talon and flew away with Octavia, to find solitude and peace in the Glauxian Brothers. After that, with his vast knowledge, he came here to teach. Since then, he was known as Ezylryb.
Staring at the claw and knowing the truth, I realized that I was never really scared of him at all. Instead, I pitied him, knowing that that was a sad reminder of what he had lost. "Ahem!" Jumping at the sudden noise, I blushed in embarrassment.
"Sorry, Ezylryb. I didn't mean to...I just want to thank you for the book, that's all!" I said hurriedly, trying to hide my embarrassment with a guilty grin. Inwardly I cursed myself for being caught staring at his foot, or even staring at his foot in the first place. Ezylryb gave a noncommittal grunt, dismissing the whole thing with a flip of a wing. However, I wasn't done yet. Looking at him in the eye, I continued. "And thank you for saving me back then."
"Don't need to; it's what we do." The Whiskered Screech replied. Smiling, I walked away to take a spot across him. Again, I didn't notice him giving me another piercing glare. The gears in his mind spinning wildly, piecing together theories and observations relating to the strange owl, starting with the awkward staring of his three-taloned foot.
Opening the book, I began to read about the stars and constellations of the skies. It was about twenty minutes later when I was disturbed by some noises and glanced up. Seeing that Soren and Gylfie holding a book but not looking at it, I followed their line of sight only to realize that they were actually staring fearfully at the deformed claw pointing at a shelf. Smiling sadly, I went back to reading. Yet, my thoughts were focused on that claw instead. Just like him, I had been "marked", a permanent scar. A past that I wanted to run away from...Shaking away those thoughts, I forced myself to continue reading, ignoring the lingering thoughts.
A few hours later, just after Ezylryb left, I returned the finished book and went back to sleep, waiting for the Night Flight to come.
3rd person POV
"So, who's next?" Boron asked. It was in the middle of a session in the Parliament Hollow and the owls present were discussing which of the new owls were to be placed in which chaw. Obviously, the rybs of each chaw were in the sessions, like Ezylryb the ryb for Weather Interpretation, Strix Struma for Navigation and others.
"It's Soren, my dear." Barran replied. They had seen him in action (some had even talked to him) and now discussing where to put him in.
"I'll take him, Boron." A voice spoke up in midst of the noise. Everyone turned towards the speaker.
"I suggest we put him in both Coiliering and Weather Interpretation." Ezylryb spoke up again. Boron looked at him questioningly, like every other owl in the hollow. "This is the first time you had ever chose an owl without any discussion first, Ezylryb. Why did you pick him?"
Ezylryb gave a smile. A smile that said that he'd chosen him ever since he laid eyes on him, a smile that held many reasons. "He's a special kid, I know. I felt it in my gizzard!" He declared. "You have all heard of what he had done before coming here." The owls present nodded at that fact. Yes, what that owl had done was truly amazing for one as young as he, as well as the rest of the group. They, as a group, had done great things together; surviving a crows' mobbing, overcoming the poisonous spells of vanity of the Mirror Lakes and even fighting a bobcat.
However what amazed them the most was when Soren retold his tale of the time he and Gylfie escaped the dreaded St Aegolius owls and their dreaded caves. By itself that was no mean feat, but that was only just the beginning. In that horrible place, not only had they learnt how to escape being moon-blinked (repeating their numbers in place of their names and telling the stories of Ga'Hoole, everyone, even Ezylryb, were impressed), the two had also learned how to fly in there and uncovered an egg-stealing scheme. By all records, they had done marvelously.
Daring, observant and clever in his own rights, they knew that he was special. There was no doubt about that. He would grow up to be a fine Guardian, they all thought.
"But he had done something else," Ezylryb added, the smile this time showed that he knew something that they didn't. "He had flown with an ember before."
"What?!" Everyone leapt up. He hadn't been taught in the ways of coals and embers yet, so how was he able to..."He has a mark on him." Ezylryb explained. "It was not very clear, but it was there. I can see it."
"Very well, Ezylryb. He shall be double-chawed." Boron announced. They then went through a few more names until finally Barran said, "Next would be Matthias." When the name was spoken, the Parliament immediately fell into an uncomfortable silence. Most of them looked around, hoping for someone to break it. The truth was, yes they had seen what the Boreal can do. He was a quick learner, even excelling at some subjects such as counting and reading. In fact he was so good at them that he had already graduated from the advanced classes. Sure his vocabulary could be improved and he sometimes acted as if he was new to being an owl, but those could be improved at his own pace. And those who had talked to him knew that he was a mature and confident owl.
It was also a well-known fact that that owl could fly well, extremely well for a rookie, and there's even a rumor about him saving an owlet JUST when he was branching for the first time. An extremely exaggerated rumor, indeed, a very far-fetched tale. And not only that, he could fight well. In fact in the whole Advanced Combat class, he was one of the best fighters. Yet only a few had realized something strange; how is it possible that an owl like him, one who had just began flying, could fight so well?
Those who had witnessed the Boreal fighting would comment on his unorthodox fighting style. Instead of just using his battle claws or swords, he would use his wings as well to bash at his opponents or he would do a backflip and kick with his claw. Other times he would swoop at them only to sidestep and strike at them from the back.
But only Strix Struma knew something else. She was the one leading the fighting exercises and she would know if one had fought for his life before, and that owl was one of them. Just like the four owls who came with the snake from the Ice Narrows a few days ago, he had been in a life-and-death situation before. Something that no owlet should face. Still, she wouldn't dare to say it out loud, instead chose to turn to one side, not wanting anyone to see that tear falling from that revelation she made days ago.
Then, Barran decided to give her input. "I vote that we put him in Search and Rescue." Every owl then looked at her. Emboldened by her idea, she continued. "I know you would say that due to his size, he wouldn't be capable of lifting most owls. But I tell you that the rumors of him saving an owlet were true." Most of them then gasped. Impossible, they all thought. "Yes they are all true, for an owl that size it is amazing that he could perform such a feat. I have a few plans on how he might assist in some of the rescues in one way or another. And I am sure some of you have heard of his fighting skills?" Here, every owl nodded at that fact. "If there is anything that could endanger innocent lives, I am sure he would be able to hold them off until the injured is safely taken away.
"But most important of all, Boron and I had talked to him a few times before. For one so young, he is quite well-learned and matured, not to mention quick-thinking, as some of you might know." The assembly nodded once more. "An owl who is matured and clear-headed is what the Search and Rescue chaw needed, hence I suggest we place him there." The owls nodded for the third time, save for one.
"Even so," This time, it was Ezylryb again. "There's something about him that needs...observing."
"Then please do explain, Ezylryb." Boron inquired.
"Ever since he came to the Tree, I noticed something...strange about him." The grizzled owl explained. "He may had done amazing things, but he's always alone. Even his hollow mates couldn't get close to him." The other owls were nodding at that statement. "But then the snakes seemed to be avoiding him, saying that there was something...wrong and strange about him. They couldn't explain it, so that was why they avoid him." Then, he lowered his voice, forcing the rest of them to lean forward to catch his words. "Yet there are only two snakes who weren't trying to avoid him."
"Octavia and Mrs Pilthiver," Boron stated. "But we had also questioned them about it. They said that for some reason they felt sad for him, that he had went through something terrible, but they didn't know anything about it."
"That's not all, Boron." Ezylryb seemed to be addressing his thoughts, but in truth he was thinking, gathering all he could to figure out what made the owl in question so...mysterious. "I met him in the library just now and something strange happened."
"What is it then?" All of them leaned further.
"When he picked up a book in my stack, he was not scared of my foot, not one bit."
Then, Bubo guffawed. "Isn't that a good thing?" Suddenly, most of the owls in the room joined in and soon the air was filled with the churring of owls. Well, all but four owls did not laugh, for they all knew what it meant.
"I suggest that we also double-chawed him as well." Ezylryb stated.
The laughing stopped and they turned to him again with looks of confusion. "I thought we had decided to put him into Search-and-Rescue?" Bubo asked.
"Well, I am afraid that both the rescuer and rescuee would both plunge down to their death if he was to be put into that chaw." Ezylryb answered offhandedly. Yet, the other three owls knew the real reason behind it.
"Alright," Boron interjected quickly before further discussion about this matter came up. "Who is the next owl?"
A/N
Finally, it was over. I thought I'd never get this over with.
Thanks, Nashog, for reviewing.
Thanks for reading.
(19 Feb 2016) Updated. Sorry for taking a long time. I got internship, major projects and a vacation trip to push me back.
(1): Chaw- a specialized group/class that teaches a special set of skills, like smithing, healing, navigating etc
(2): Tweener- evening meal, their breakfast, our dinner
