Like the smoldering, ashen embers in Eric's fire dish, so was the appearance of the sun setting the next day. A crimson red orb half buried behind a gray rocky outcropping hung sickly in the sky, throwing long shadows across the world. Flint's parents' deaths hoovered central in his mind much like the weaning star in the sky, and to him, it seemed to mirror his broken gizzard.

He was watching Amelia and Felic mutually preen near the den's entrance. It was strange at best for Pure Ones to mutually preen, being taboo in the unspoken social structure; forbidden because it shows vulnerability, shows weakness. The goal of a Pure One was to be strong, and to follow orders. Whether training, patrol, recruitment, or any other of the literal hundreds of orders, assigned tasks are the life of a Pure one. This is the knowledge that Flint had already learned in his short time with them. Flint did not know if he liked the idea of this hard lifestyle, though the adult owls seemed to be completely fine with it. But right now, he simply wanted to feel loved, he wanted something to fill the void left by his parents.

Mindlessly, Flint wandered over to the two preening owls, wanting some affection.

With one last feather of Felic's combed with her beak, Amelia said a goodby and sent Felic on his way. Meanwhile, Flint bumped up against Amelia and struck her with the loving look that he always gave his mother when he wanted a preening.

Staring coldly at him for several seconds, she backed away, leaving Flint simply standing there looking foolish.

He was indescribably lonely.

She turned towards Eric who was perched in the back cataloging many of the owls that were taken into the Union yesterday and marking their position in the ranks. Without a trace of sympathy or care that Flint was present to hear her rant, Amelia angerly complained to her mate. "I thought I told you I will have nothing to do with him. And the more that I have thought about it, the more I have realized the trouble we will be in if your 'hunch' is correct."

Eric looked up at her, "I assure you that I do know what I am doing. That is precisely why shortly I will be addressing Stryker about Flint."

Being spoken of in the third person in such a fashion only lowered Flint's spirits further.

Eric's gaze drifted over to the upset and emotionally battered youth, "I am almost certain I am correct. As such, I know that he will be departing my custody. Still, I can hope that I will be able to teach him many of the skills that I have learned. Surely I need not be the only Pure One with a functional understanding of fire and who truly grasps what flecks are."

"Make sure that you get this all worked out. Because I wholly intend not to be killed as punishment for keeping him here." She glared at Flint. "I doubt that you will be allowed to keep him as your apprentice anyway."

The look that she gave Flint was a strange look it was. In his short life, he had seen many looks, some directed at him, most towards his sister. But either way, those were easy to read, but this one is beyond anything he knew. Though, it certainly was similar to the worried looks that his parents would on occasion cast at his sister.

Amelia left the den and flew away without a word, leaving Flint with Eric.

He was going to say something to the old owl concerning why Amelia was acting in such a manner, but he opted out, not knowing what to expect of Eric's reaction. And after seeing his reaction yesterday over him and Stellaris being attacked, he held a new, fearful respect for the owl.

Instead Flint walked over to the fire dish and caught himself staring at one of the few ash covered embers. It was so small that he could most likely hold several of them in at once. Fire was so strange, but yet so equally beautiful and enrapturing to Flint. He was yet to actually get to observe a large fire for any period of time, but the few embers that were visible warmed him in their radiant glow and enlivened his mind. The soft red hue, the warmth, those two attributes were two desirable traits that Flint liked, but there was a third that Flint wished he could observe when the fire or even the coals were larger.

Unlike nearly every object that Flint had seen, the coals were dynamic to his eyes. Stones, leaves, wood, feathers, all retain their same texture and shape and have no underlying images associated with them. But fire - that was different.

The coals had their characteristic black, red, and orange hues, but to Flint, he could see a slight swirling laying under the normal texture of the object's surface. Morphing and changing like clouds in a turbulent sky, the underlying image beckoned to Flint. He felt that if the fire in the metal holding dish was larger or perhaps if he were closer to the coals, he would see this mystical pattern more clearly.

Trying to peer deeper into the heart of the coal, Flint stood on the tips of his talons and leaned forwards letting his belly down rub on the metal rim of the fire dish. Inadvertently, he leaned too far and tumbled in.

The thick ash piled up in front of him as he slid on his stomach towards the center and slowed him down.

Stopping within a down's breadth from the embers, Flint found that he indeed did get a closer look, and not only could he see the ember better, but smell and seemingly taste it as well.

Eric had seen where Flint's actions were going to take him long before he fell into the dish, so he was already halfway there when Flint took his tumble. Within the second afterwards, Eric was at the edge of the large fire dish.

Flint felt a set of strong talons grab him by the leg and pull him backwards out of the ash.

Awkwardly, Flint was assisted out of the fire dish by Eric, throwing much ash into the air.

Once he was out and on his feet, he coughed while shaking his down and fledging feathers. Another plume of ash filled the air while even more dropped onto the already dirt covered floor.

Eric gave a quick, but gentile flap of his wings to blow the ash in the air away, then coughed once as well. "You have to be more careful."

"Sorry Eric. I was just..."

Sternly interrupting Flint, Eric scolded, "You are to refer to me as 'Sir'. Do not believe that because you are my apprentice that that you will be given the luxury of lax discipline." He stopped for a moment to look over Flint who was taken slightly off guard.

He continued on, "Although I no longer fight in the military, I still hold a highly positioned honorary rank under Nyra and the High Tyto for my years of service, and you are to give me the respect my position deserves. Furthermore, always stand perfectly upright when addressing any higher ranking Pure One." Eric tapped Flint on the back as a tactile indication for him to straighten up.

Flint straightened up and replied somewhat nervously, "Yes Sir."

Eric then spoke with less sternness. "It is for your own good that you learn discipline. If you hold true to it, you will go far in our ranks." He stopped for a moment to look Flint over, "Who knows how far you will go. Now, Flint, I have a question for you.."

Flint nodded.

Eric, in response stated his question. "I have seen many owls seen owls fascinated with fire, myself included. However, some have unusual powers. During my service to the Pure Ones, I have always assisted in selecting the smiths who construct our weapons and armor. Some of the best smiths have a certain connection to the fire they harness." Eric's tone lowered. "As long as I have been alive, I have been able to tell which owls have this 'firesight' as it is called. And just now, I thought I may have seen a flicker of it in you."

Eric then sternly asked, "Do you see anything unique in the fire?"

Looking down and kicking a small pile of ash with his talons, Flint sighed, "I don't know."

"Look me in the eye when you speak, Flint." Eric sternly corrected.

Flint quickly tensed himself, his expectations already having been ingrained by his corporal with the fear of physical punishment when an action is not completed correctly. But when he wasn't struck, he looked up at Eric, "It's just I haven't seen fire before. I find it interesting... It's just interesting."

Flint deliberately made his answer ambiguous concerning the mysterious sight he saw held within the dying coals in the fire pit. Knowing Stellaris and her powers, perhaps Flint was more attune to knowing when a sense or sight one owl has is not known by another. This being the case, Flint guessed that whatever the oddities he saw in the fire were unique to him. And with such a unique power, Flint was worried about letting anyone else know about it.

He was still to make up his mind on what he thought about all of these owls. The ones that had saved him had been so kind, but there were so many other reasons to not trust them. They had been responsible for the deaths of his parents, but yet Mercury and Windy themselves had told Flint the grizzly fate many hireclaws deserve. And, as hard as it was for him to accept, they had all but admitted that they were indeed hireclaws when that Pure One officer had been... well.. Flint didn't really know what the officer was doing when he was speaking to Mercury and Windy; Flint didn't understand why really he should have been interested in speaking with them. But he did make valid points about his parents.

In short, the entire situation was confusing, and Flint did not have the confidence in the Pure Ones to tell of anything special about himself.

These thoughts tumbled through Flint's head in the time it took Eric the time to say, "Flint, tell me a yes or no response. Is there something special about what you see in the fire? Tell the truth."

"No. And I am telling the truth." Flint stated mildly. "I was just looking at the fire because I have never seen it much before now."

"That is 'No, Sir." Eric corrected. "Or should I say that it should be 'Yes, Sir.' because I believe you are lying."

Flint had feared that he did not disguise his lie well enough, partially because he had never blatantly lied before.

"No, Sir." Flint replied trying to convince Eric that he was telling the truth.

Several seconds passed as the two carried out a long, unblinking stare. Finally, Eric finally broke it after coldly saying, "I see." and turned away from Flint.

At the side of the room next to a stack of books was a small pile of dry sticks. Eric walked over there and got a talon full, walked back, and threw them on the fire once he had gotten to the fire dish. He then lofted back over to his writing perch and grabbed the piece of parchment he had been writing on. Additionally, he grabbed a rucksack.

"I'm going to go deliver this reassignment notice to one of my colleagues and harvest a little more wood. Stay here." Eric gave Flint yet another long, unreadable stare.

Flint ignored the looks and posed a question, "Sir? Can you find out how my sister is doing? I want to know she is okay, especially since yesterday." Flint had been truly concerned for his sister since the incident with the yearlings.

"At least I see you have remembered to show proper military respect." Once again, his tone was flat, but showed a small degree of pleasure resulting from Flint's following of military code by addressing him as 'Sir'. "I will find out how she is; however, do not expect this to be a normal routine."

"Thank you." Flint replied.

Silently, though, Eric noted that he must find a way to 'remove' the bond between Flint and Stellaris, lest he risk a dangerous liability.

Seeing that Flint had nothing more to say, he exited the den and lofted away. However, he discretely doubled back once he was well out of sight of the den's entrance. His hopes were that he would be able to secretly observe Flint and his interaction with the fire.

Meanwhile, Flint waited a few moments after Eric left before turning to look at the ever growing fire.

Now that there was much more volume to the coals and flames, Flint could definitely say that there was something quite peculiar to the phenomenon.

The individual licks of flames were just that - licks of fire; however, the flames were divided into several types that Flint could see right away. First were the normal ones that simply provided a backdrop to the other images. Flint saw these as any normal creature would perceive them.

Next were flames that were like the normal ones in shape and color, however their surfaces held images of a strange nature. It was as if the images were overlayed onto the three dimentional structure of the flames much in the same way as if one were to draw a detailed image onto a leaf or piece of parchment and then bend and contort the flat surface into complex shapes. The end result is a highly distorted image that is extremely difficult read.

But these imaged, though appearing to reside on the surfaces of the flames, were independent of them. As the flame moved, the image would remain stationary and be distorted and deformed as if the flame was not so much a holder of the image to be seen, but rather a fissure in the world where the image could bleed through. A close analogy to the distortion effect on the image would be like the surface of a shallow stream. The water, in a sense, is a portal for the image of the underlying stones and ground to bleed through, and, being such, is open to distort those images as pleased. The way that the ripples, disturbances, and inconsistencies in the surface of the water affect and contort how the bottom of the stream is perceived is quite similar to how the flames were manipulating the images seeping through them.

And finally, there were flames that morphed and shifted in Flint's perception much in the same way that a cloud might morph. These flames were the most complex because they were structured from the previous two aforementioned types. They actively take shapes of objects or even owls and periodically through their life time change their volume and configurations into different objects.

All of this gave Flint a headache as he stared into the growing flames for the first minute or so. However, up until that point, all that he saw was just a random assembly of a sparse number of images. A tree, a rock, and once even the face of an owl, but that was it until this point. Slowly, though, this began to alter.

It first began as Flint's vision slowly blurred and darkened around the edges of his perception, providing a greater focus on the manifestations in the fire. Simultaneously, there was a slow but noticeable unifying of images into one greater image. Suddenly, something just 'clicked' and the entire scene was splayed out in front of Flint.

In the vision, he saw what looked like pillars of smoke rising from a greater cloud of smoke hanging below. Slowly the smoke cleared in several key places to reveal a canopy level view of a thick evergreen forest consumed with fire.

Flint's vision had now completely blurred at the edges and he felt immersed in the world he was watching. His gizzard suddenly lurched forwards as if he was taking into flight. It felt as if he was leaving his body and was occupying another owl's body as it flew with great terror through burning branches.

It was almost dream like in fact. He had no control of the images as they quickly represented the eye view of an owl as it dropped down to a few inches above the ground and continued weaving through burning brush. A tree consumed by flames off to the side of the flight path gave a tremendous crack as it began to fall. Flint's body physically wilfed as he felt the owl in his vision fold its wings in and scarcely clear the space between the ground and the collapsing tree.

In the series of images, Flint could feel the terror of the owl in his vision as it whipped its head around and checked behind. The sense of the owl physically call something out caressed Flint, but there was no associated sound.

A dark silhouette of a owl clutching something in its talons fearlessly shot through the flames of the now downed tree and a feeling of relief washed over the owl in Flint's vision as it turned its head back forwards and continued flying through the fire.

There was an odd feeling of conclusion, like something was finished. Then like smoke caught in an air eddy, the vision seemed to melt away into thin wisps and swirled spiritedly. There was a brief moment of chaos as the fiery sensation rematerialized in a different place. He felt weightless as he seemingly hoovered through thick flames consuming evergreen branches in the mid-canopy level.

Suddenly he entered into a small clearing with a single, tall pine tree in the middle of it. Owls with battle claws and helmets were fighting around the tree engulfed in fire. Up at the very top was a Barn owl and another, smaller owl, a species Flint had never seen before.

Suddenly, Flint's concentration was diverted away from the fire. The images quickly decomposed as Flint quickly felt worry rush over him and he twisted his head around to look at something he seemed to sense.

It was Eric watching him, standing more or less obstructed by the burrow rim. Flint jumped startled, not thinking that he was being watched. There was feeling of anger that washed over him, followed by the guilt of being caught.

Eric smiled wryly and then flew off. The smile wreaked with the self satisfaction of being able to say "I caught you." This made Flint all the more angry.

Flint waited several minutes before sticking his head outside to make sure Eric was gone. He then turned and looked back into the fire.

Once again, an image slowly materialized. This time, it was a Barn owl, obviously male. He had a large white facial disk that was scared with a diagonal slash and was circling over what appeared to be several mountains. Each had craters in them revealing a boiling red liquid, namely lava. Time passed in a dreamlike fashion as the next moments the owl dove into the crater of one of the mountains and retrieved a coal with an oddly colored core out of the red liquid.

An odd air of familiarity hung around this owl, but Flint could not pinpoint it.

Seeing these images in the fire was quite traumatizing, it disturbed him to the point of being outright scared and he did not want to be marred by them for life. Certainly, he was questioning his sanity because he was seeing things that others could not.

He intensely stared at the fire, trying everything he could think of to quench the images. After a short time, he found that focusing on one particular image and trying to make it vanish did just that.

He stood like this for about a minute and was meeting with some success, though, forcing an image to disappear often resulted in another nearly exactly like it reappearing a few moments later.

How Flint wished that he could make the images stop. But they would not, so he tried harder to bury whatever it was inside of his mind that was creating these apparitions in the fire.

Finally, he found that simply overlooking the images was almost like not seeing them. If you looked into the heart of the fire, not wishing to see anything, then nothing would be shown. It took a few minutes for Flint to hone this 'blindness' to where there were no images shown or feelings conveyed, but he succeeded with surprising effectiveness.

As the images were vanishing, Flint saw a fragment of one that had a set of feelings associated with it. It was distant and vague in form, but the conveyed feelings were clear. The feelings were regret and sorrow over having blinded himself to these images. These emotions were the last bits of information conveyed through the fire as figurative portal of information that Flint could perceive was sealed.

Suddenly, Flint realized that he had made a terrible, life altering mistake. And it was a mistake that was apparently irreversible.

Try as he might, Flint could not see any further images in the fire; he had effectively blinded his firesight.

Eric returned a quarter hour later with several large pieces of wood in his talons. Landing a few feet in front of Flint, he spoke in a serious tone "Flint, I will speak with you for the lies you told me, but first I have some bad news."

His gizzard churned painfully as Eric spoke, "I was delivering a copy of the recruitment roster to a colleague and on my way back, I visited Nasher to asked about your sister."

Eric paused, only increasing the drama felt by Flint. "She was killed in her sleep."

The words 'She was killed' sunk into Flint like fangs piercing into his flesh and made him feel like collapsing. Wings dropping to his sides, Flint went into a yeepish state of disbelief as Eric continued.

"Nasher and I have reasons to believe it was the owl who attacked her yesterday and who ended up with a cracked beak. He was spending his sleeping time through the day at the infirmary, and it was noticed that he left midway through, but we don't know for sure who killed her."

There were several more moments of silence between the two owls as Flint tried to even comprehend what had been said. For some reason, the information refused to be accepted by Flint's mind.

"Now," Eric stood erect in the formal, strict posture of Pure One military, "You, have explaining to do."

The words fell muffled into Flint's ear slits and the world seem to blur into a dark fog around his head. The sudden sharpness of Eric's voice partially brought him out of the emotionally induced daze.

"I asked you to explain your lying to me, Flint. I assure you that you would have been severely punished already if you had lied to any of the commanding officers in our ranks."

"She's dead?" Flint asked, not believing the reality that had been told to him.

"Answer my question Flint. Why did you lie to me?"

"I... I..." Flint was unable to focus on what Eric said as to compose a well planned reply. "I didn't know... I mean I just..."

"Stop Stuttering and Answer!" Eric ordered.

"I did not lie." Flint replied. "I don't see anything in the fire." This time, it was not a lie.

Eric studied Flint and his statement for several tense moments. Inside his mind, Flint squirmed and hoped that Eric would not see through his exaggeration. Finally, with much pause, Eric spoke. "The go ahead and prove that you are not lying. Look into the fire and let me be the judge."

Flint, in his dazed state, complied and looked into the fire. No images still, not that he would have paid any attention to them anyway. He had just gotten to the point that he could perpetually hold back the tears at the thought of his parents, and now his entire self control had been broken down again. There was no fighting it.

It was several long minutes before Eric finally spoke. "That is enough Flint. I was mistaken." He said coldly. Eric just could not believe that he was wrong though; he had never been wrong about this sort of thing before. Then again, he did only see a few seconds of insight into Flint's supposed firesight.

"Yes Sir." Flint replied, though he hardly sounded happy. "But sir... what about my sister?"

"I already told you Flint, she was killed." Surprisingly though, Eric's tone was gentle and sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

Tears were already welling up in Flint's eyes. "I just can't... just can't..." His voice cracked, "It's hard to believe she's dead..."

The world had taken surreal hues for Flint that matched the surreal and confused feelings that were coursing through his mind. These sensations were brought forth by Flint's inability to physically and emotionally accept that his sister had been killed, even though he had mentally accepted her death as truth.

"What happened to her, how did she die? Can I go to her final ceremony?" Flint asked grimly concerning his sister's death and the ritual that follows an owl's end of life.

In usual situations, when an owl dies, there are several varieties of ceremonies to honor the deceased. In the treeless, snow and ice covered Northern Kingdoms, it is commonplace to compose a song. The song details the owl's life and can last up to several hours if he or she was held in high esteem in their society. All that knew the owl would attend the final ceremony and honor the owl's memory with a vow of silence that can last up to several days in honor of of the dead. As the final phrases of the song are being sung, the dead owl's body is enclosed in a formation of ice where thick, semi-triangular shaped sheets of the substance are propped against each other to form a squat, cone-like structure. The structure is then buried in a thick layer of snow and marked with special, dark colored stones placed around the base's circumference. Some members of the royal families will even have pieces of certain metals placed instead of stone, though it is often less desirable because the stones last much longer.

Through the entire region, the individual characteristics of these ceremonies vary substantially, but are more or less the same, though there are greater differences in other locations.

In the Southern Kingdoms which are more temperate, the rituals vary slightly more. The same ceremonial songs and reverence exists, but the vow of silence is often truncated in favor of an uplifting, spirituous gathering of friends and family to remember the good times associated with their loved ones. The burial consists of slightly more varied themes, with the owl sometimes placed inside a family burial hollow where other family members and even friends have been laid to rest. This is most common in Ambala, where the trees are of great age and many spare hollows abound.

As for the blood foes of the Pure Ones, the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, they merge the ceremonies of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms as they draw their heritage from both locations, but yet they also have their own unique rituals. Upon death, a special headdress made of the leaves of the tree is placed upon the dead owl's head as a symbol of the life borrowed from the Great Tree. Then, a special song is sung by their chief singer and accompanied by an instrument known as a 'grass harp'. Once the song is finished, the owl's body will honorably be disposed of in a sea burial if the owl was a navigator or weather interpreter for the Great Tree. Otherwise, the body would be buried at the base of the tree to symbolize how through his or her life, he had gained a debt to the Ga'hoole Tree by the shelter and safety it gave, and by being buried at its roots, they were paying their debt by giving live back to the tree. Sometimes, a member of the monastic Glauxian Brothers or the Glauxian Sisters would come to speak final words for the owl during the ceremony and give comforts to those left behind.. The two mentioned groups of owls are two distinct and very exclusive collections of owls who dedicate their lives to the single owl God - Glaux. Their beliefs in life, death, the afterlife, and morality, coincide very closely with those of the Guardians and most owls alive, so their leadership in such a matter during the time of mourning is very comforting.

Concerning the Tytonic Union of Pure Ones, though, their rituals are starkly different. One does not necessarily receive much of a mention at death. There would be a ceremony where the body would be disposed of, but focus on the spiritual things are not their ways. With much weaker family ties than other kingdoms, it is often left to the owl's comrades to mourn an owl's death, and even then, they do not do so for very long. Or at least that is what they are ordered to do. In reality, though not shown on the outside, the death of a comrade can be quite traumatizing to an owl, and often, it is a very long time before the death is well accepted by the other members of whatever squad of owls the death took place in. Often times, a lost friend - a 'brother' or 'sister in valor' as they are referred to - can forever change a soldier and his or her sense of identity.

All but the most basic of this information was unknown to Flint, but he did at least know that a deceased owl should receive some form of honors. But he soon found out how the Pure Ones acted in reference to their dead.

In response to Flint asking about attending Stellaris' final ceremony, Eric replied, "I did not ask about the means of her death, but Nasher did tell me that her body had already been burned in the forge of a rogue smith."

Flint's breath was taken away by the statement. "But.. but... why would you do that? What about her... her ceremony?"

Casting a cold look at Flint, Eric kept a somewhat sympathetic tone, but he chose the most brutal words imaginable. "There was no ceremony to be had. She ceased living, and we were forced to dispose of her body. Besides, her life was much too short for anyone to be able to compose a song as you might be expecting. Though I might add, we would not do that anyway. It just is not our custom."

Stricken dumb with sorrow and pain, Flint did not know what to do other than to stand there crying. Eric, seeing this, walked over to Flint's side and put his wing around the owlet. "It is okay. Things will get better." The old owl told Flint in a tone that was only gentle in comparison to Eric's normal tone.

A few moments passed, and then Flint wrapped his wings around Eric and embraced him, needing someone to hang onto for emotional support.

The old owl smiled because Flint, at some level at least, had accepted him emotionally. Indeed this pleased him, because he could not have expected such a good outcome.