Part I: Owl Meets World
It was the year 322, OT (Owl Time). At the southern bend of River of Alba, in the southern corner of the forest in which the tall, looming fir trees grew, there was a family of whiskered screech owls celebrating the hatching of an owlet.
"I hope it's a female," Marcus Cunicularia, the owl of the family, hooted. He twiddled with his snowy white whiskers and fidgeted around the nest in anticipation. Flecks of ginger white down fluttered everywhere, "And I hope she realizes that her da is the best father of Caelestis!"
"How narcissistic," Nocta, Marcus' mate said softly. She churred happily and her voice grew stronger to match the tones of the baby owlet's arrogant father, "and, I, of course, wish for a flamboyant male. It would do to have some more hunting done around the nest. Vole season is coming, and I can already feel the brush of soft vole fur against my gizzard."
Ella, the soon-to-be big sister, licked her beaks in fervor. She was nestled in fluffy cranny in the corner of the large mass of sticks that made up the families hollow in a giant fir tree, and was currently crunching on a hard, wriggly centipede. It squirmed down her gullet; making the soft, brown breast feathers that inhabited her front heave in delight.
And amid the gentle bicker and soft churrs, the white egg, placed in the center of the hollow, became luminescent as the moon's glow hardened and struck its smooth surface.
And, as if the moon itself had become a blade, the smooth, unblemished covering of the egg shuddered, and then a slight, inky crack emerged among glowing white. A young baby owl's egg tooth peeped out of the tiny crevice. It shimmered in the silver light around it, and it wriggled around, as if blindly trying to grope for its mother.
Then a wave of wriggling overcame the egg, and it cracked open, revealing the badly proportioned head of a baby owlet, damp with birthing juices of its mother.
A collective gasp overtook the nest of whiskered screech owls. The birthing of an owl lifted a heavy weight and dropped it upon their shoulders. There, before them, nestled among the collection of dried leaves and soft animal furs, was a newborn owl, an owl not prepared for the world, an owl that possessed an extremely pure conscience.
Marcus was the first to break the silence.
"Oh, racdrops," he uttered a curse, glaring at the little ball of down beside his talons, "it's a male."
"Marcus, don't you ever swear in front of…of," Nocta, gleeful of the birthing of a male owl, rifled through her mind in search of a new name.
"Of?" Ella murmured softly, eyes open wide and peering at her new baby brother with interest.
"…of…of, Leo."
The thought Leo? simultaneously crossed all three of the owls' mind.
One day Leo will hate me for giving him that name, Nocta thought sadly.
That's a terrible name, Marcus thought bitterly.
Leo? Ella was appalled at her mum's bad taste.
"Leo," said Leo. He clacked his beak approvingly.
And thus was Leo's first word.
The four occupants of the fir tree hollow were thoroughly enraptured.
So thoroughly enraptured, in fact, that they did not immediately realize the sudden silence that had stolen over their clump of fir trees. A silence that seemed to muffle the running water of the distant Alba River, and capture the twittering of every bird and the scampering sounds of every creature on the ground. A deathly silence.
And, all too quickly, the family began to hear the swift sound of pattering footfalls against the thick trunk of their fir tree, the ragged breathing and putrid stink of a predator, and the pounding of a fast-paced heart.
Time seemed to speed up. And as Ella would reflect, upon the later years to come, no matter how she thought of it, this scene would still be a leaf out of a daymare.
A masked furry outline of a shaggy raccoon emerged over the rim of the hollow. The huge, sunken eyes of the creature seemed to radiate hatred, dislike, and venom. An enormous red berry stain blossomed out into the fur between its ears. A member, no doubt, of the dreaded raccoon clan. The sworn enemies of the owls.
The vendetta between the owls and raccoons began about seventy-some years earlier, when Augustus Raco was heavily insulted by Drakonis Tyto in a leaf wine barroom brawl. The two had been best of friends for the most of their lives, but had now turned against each other to set the record for the longest known grudge-turned-war of the country. Thus was how the cataclysmic war of Caelestis had begun.
And as their (unwelcome) furry guest arrived upon the families rejoice, Marcus knew that this would not turn out pretty. Far from that.
And soon a scene of bloody terror unfolded. The cries of "NO! NOT LEO!" echoed across the forest's vegetation and the sound of wings desperately flapping against the night carried across the wind.
And as the night air came whooshing back from the silence and the regular chatter of critters resumed, witnesses can confirmed the fact that, after the disaster, only a scampering of paws, lumbering across the rooted landscape of the forest with something clamped firmly within its mouth, could be heard.
But, if one had asked the cricket that lived beside the river, he would try all his might to convince you that he had heard, though vaguely, the timid flapping of wings from a young owl leave the scene of crime.
Incidentally, the elderly cricket would have been right. Those wing beats were from none other than Ella Cunicularia's feathers.
If you don't like it so far, DO comment and flame. I've got a helluva headache.