The night had not been easy, once the sun had finished to vanish completely under the horizon, Myo had started to feel the fatigue wearing down the effects of the exhilaration she had felt at becoming one with the sky, and had to start looking for a place to land. Fortunately, she seemed to have flown far enough to be flying over some fields and away from any houses. She then landed on one of the branches of a solitary apple tree in the middle of a meadow and dissipated her flames. (She was not to be seen.) She remained curled up against the trunk all night, her wings wrapping around her to protect her from the cold, rain and wind. But even though her feathers were warm and soft, the cold and wet soon overcame what little comfort they could provide. Myo had finally fallen asleep, feverishly, shivering with the chill, the water beginning to seep through her feathers.
She had woken up several times with a start. When a gust of wind nearly blew her away or when a dog barked somewhere in the distance. Myo had never seen a dog. Whenever a certain Mrs. Marge came to the Dursleys' house she was locked in the cupboard with orders not to make any noise, and then locked in the shed. But she would always remember with terror all the times the monster, which she could not give a shape to, having never seen it, would stop in front of the cupboard and growl and bark. Most of the time someone would take the dog, the monster, and drag it away to silence it, but one afternoon the Dursleys went off with Mrs. Marge somewhere, leaving the monster inside. The dog then stood outside the cupboard door for hours, barking and barking. Myo had spent all that time cowering against the back of the cupboard shaking with terror, her mind imagining what form a monster capable of such abominable screams could have.
Every waking moment she was dying to let her flames reappear to warm her, to evaporate the icy water soaking her feathers, but she couldn't do it, not here, not at night where the light of her flames would be seen from afar. (She must not be seen.)
So it was with infinite joy that she welcomed the first rays of sunlight over the horizon, touching her poor, exhausted, trembling form with their gentle morning warmth. At one point during the night it had stopped raining and winding, Myo had not realised it in her feverish sleep. Now the sky was clear, only a few white and orange clouds, lit by the rising sun, adorned the sky. Myo looked around, the darkness of the falling night had not allowed her to properly see where she was going to land, only that there were no lights in the area and a tree in the middle of a meadow. She could now see with relief that she was in no danger of being seen. The meadow was vast and the grass high, a smooth dark grey road bordered it and wound between the surrounding hills. In the distance she could see buildings. She squinted. Houses... but not like the Dursleys'. The colour was not the same. She was too far away to see more, fortunately. If they were closer she might have been seen.
Now that the light of day was strong enough to eclipse that of her flames she released them. They burst out from under her skin like a wild beast that had its cage opened. Immediately she felt the soft warmth enveloping her, the icy water that had been hurting her all night evaporated in an instant. Her feathers, inflated with warm air, were fluffy again to the touch. Her soft blue flames did not disappear once they had done their job, their warmth slightly too strong and enveloping, as if they were ... resentful? A strange notion to ascribe to flames, as if they resented her for not letting them out tonight to protect her from the elements. And now that they were out, they didn't want to disappear. Myo chuckled softly as she watched her blue flames dance against her chest and cling to her skin. What did it say about her if the only thing that seemed to really love her was her own flames?
Finally, a good half hour was the time it took for her flames to decide that they had clung to her enough to make up for their absence that night. The sun was now fully above the horizon and flooding the fields and meadows with its golden light, the air after the rain crystal clear, washed of all the dust that had accumulated during the few days of good weather before Myo left.
Now straddling her branch with her back against the trunk, Myo watched the sky. She was going to need to leave again, to look for a place to live away from the Vernons, Petunias and Dudleys that populated the world. Myo didn't know much about the outside world. Just that there were other people like Vernon and Petunia. All living in large settlements called cities or villages depending on their size. Myo shuddered as she thought of Vernon, of the other Vernons in the world. She couldn't be seen by any of them, otherwise... There would be no mystery of the house to protect her from their fury. And if one Vernon was so horrible... Then several... She didn't dare imagine it. A civilization completely composed of Vernon and Petunia, with nothing to stop them from doing their worst... This world was a nightmare. She had to stay away from them at all costs and not be seen.
She spread her wings gently and jumped from the branch, gliding slowly, before touching the ground she flapped her wings with force, climbing as high as possible as quickly as possible. The higher she got the harder it would be to see her from the ground. Soon the tree in the meadow was a tiny dot as a thin aura of flame appeared of its own accord to protect her from the cold of the altitude. From here, above the few scattered clouds, Myo had a remarkable view of the countryside below, and what she saw did not please her. Fields of trees, fields of cereals, meadows where tiny white dots were moving in the middle of a large canvas of grey and black lines, often at their crossroads, these lines were surrounded by small dark rectangles, surely houses, she thought. Nowhere were the vast forests, the wild plains, or the grey shores of lakes that she had seen in her picture book of the world. Everything was framed, purposely ordered, boxed, enslaved, enclosed. The Vernons had locked up nature as they had locked her up in a cupboard and then in a shed.
She flew, further away, looking for a place where everything was not bonded and subjugated. To live in a place enslaved to the will of the Vernons who populate this world, was it not to return to a shed? A larger shed but under the same rules and cruelty?
Her blood ran cold in her veins as she flew over the horror. A grey sea, hard and merciless. Dead but swarming. From here she could feel the air vibrate, a low, muffled roar of a thousand engines similar to that of Vernon's car. She could see the tiny dots of colour but often grey-white or black clustered between the stone peaks of this place, below, the noise must have been hellish. Above this purulent canker on the surface of the world the air had a strange smell. A smell of death and flame. Not like her pure, warm flames, full of life. Dead flames, burning death in a mad effort for a vain purpose she could not understand. The heat rising from this place, even at her altitude was dirty, vile, suffocating. She could not imagine the horror of living in this mineral hell of death and coal, suffocated, her beautiful feathers blackened by the vile, greasy dust that seemed to flood the streets of what the Vernons called a city.
Myo flapped her wings with renewed vigour, despite her hunger and thirst and the weight of her restless night and the bag containing her meagre possessions clutched to her chest. She was eager to get away from this cursed place where all the Vernons of the world seemed to have gathered to foment more enslavement of the world through their black roads. She let herself be guided by the air currents, following the purest and least vitiated, moving away from the big city as fast as she could.
Soon she was flying over the countryside again, dominated by roads and fields. Over the next few hours she flew over several other smaller towns, vast stretches of fields and countryside, a few forests, but more fields of trees than real forests, finally, in the middle of the afternoon the landscape finally changed. The meadows and fields were replaced by vast stretches of open grass, the few woods she came across seemed wilder, the roads of the Vernon's infernal web less numerous, the towns rarer and smaller. Perhaps here she would find a place to live. She flew for a long time in this region, one of the only notable facts was her flight over what seemed to be a very large white house, a manor perhaps, surrounded by woods and a large garden, curious, she had gone down closer and had seen in the garden some large strange white birds. She had left quickly after that, feeling an unearthly cold and an unpleasant sensation that made her bones tremble. Whatever that big house was, she wasn't going back there.
Her wings were really starting to hurt. Despite her rigorous training in the weeks before Vernon's return, she wasn't ready for such a long flight. Especially without being able to eat anything and after one of the worst nights she'd ever had, rivaling only the nights after Vernon came home. She had to find something quickly. But she didn't want to give up so quickly and land in a place where she would be in danger again, spending another night in the freezing wind. A sharp pain was felt in her left wing and Myo winced. She hovered for a few minutes to let her muscles relax. Tomorrow she would be terribly sore and would not be able to fly for long. All the more reason not to give up.
So she continued to search, for a long time over the plains, here the terrain was more hilly, the previously flat meadows were now covered with high, steep hills. Myo liked the place more and more, but what really amazed her was when she saw the sea for the first time. The coastline was jagged, hills plunging into the ocean in cliffs, rugged as if a giant's hand had gripped the land and crumpled it, and beyond that, the sea, a blue and grey vastness in the sun descending gently to the horizon. She had never seen it other than in photographs, but the very idea of the sea appealed to Myo, a mirror of the sky, as vast and as pure, as powerful in its anger as it was gentle in its rest. And Myo was not disappointed, the immensity of the water reflecting the sky and the sun was magnificent.
Deciding that if she was going to settle somewhere, it might as well be between the sky and the sea, Myo decided to fly over the coast, looking for a place where she could be sheltered from the wind, rain and cold.
Myo was beginning to despair that her search would be fruitless and that she would be forced to spend the night in the same condition as the previous one when she felt something. A soft warmth, the impression that something was calling her. Not the same as the call of the pressing, devouring sky, not the same warmth as its flames. A new sensation entirely. Of the same nature as the one felt near the strange white bird house, but with such different effects. Curious, Myo let herself be guided, the sensation growing stronger and stronger, reassuring.
Having descended to an altitude of a hundred metres, seeing neither road nor house for miles, she saw the ground and the sea in much greater detail. There were a few small coniferous woods here and there, the hills covered with short grass and heather. Soon she approached a rocky promontory covered with wild grass. It was crowned by ancient ruins of grey stone covered with moss and lichen. In her biggest book, the one on landscapes, there was a small section devoted to this kind of thing. The ruin of what must have been a small castle, a wall of which almost nothing remained, barred access to the promontory from the land. There were a few towers of which only the base remained, in some of which she could see shrubs growing. What must have been a small house of which only the walls remained, the wood not having resisted the passage of time, leaned against a tower. The only tower who seemed untouched.
A tower that should not stand so upright, so stoic, and so well preserved while everything else was in ruins. The tower was round, strangely thin, its stones slightly lighter than the rest of the ruins. At least as far as she could see, as thick ivy ran almost to the top and the rest was as covered in moss and lichen as the other ruins. The top of the building, which was wider and had a blue slate roof, was far too open for a building that looked so old. Many large windows were visible.
The state of the place was really strange as everything seemed to be abandoned. Curiosity got the better of her again and Myo approached further. At about two hundred meters from the place she felt as if she had crossed an invisible barrier. It was like crossing a veil of warm, non-wetting water. She felt... strangely... welcome. Cautiously, Myo went around the tower several times. No movement, nothing suspicious. The ruins were overgrown with tall grass and no trace of people. If the place was really abandoned, it was Myo's lucky day. Besides, she really liked the place. The beauty of the sea, the free nature, as free as she was. In the plain not far away there was no trace of men. Finally there was a strange warmth in the place. A gentle warmth vaguely reminding her of her flames but different, but not only, like a subtle smell of field flowers and freshly cut grass, of sunshine after rain. She felt something inside her singing with the strange power of the place. Like a deep instinct whispering to her that she belonged here.
The stabbing pain in Myo's wings only sped up her decision. She glided slowly to one of the tower's wide windows and perched on the sill. She pushed aside the thick navy blue sheet closing the window, feeling for a moment small sparks at her fingertips, followed by a strange, subtle feeling. As if she was being recognised.
The interior of the top of the tower consisted of one large round room. Against the walls were shelves and bookcases filled with old leather-bound books and strange knick-knacks, often made of metal, glass or stone but all of which would be shiny if not tarnished by the thick layer of dust covering them, disturbing, among them Myo could discern animal skulls, mostly birds, but a skull of what must have been a rather large beast was proudly displayed at the top of a bookcase above the books. In one corner of the room, between two bookcases, right next to one of the large windows, also closed with an opaque blue curtain, large enough to let someone of her height and even taller through, was a pile of cushions and blankets. On the other side of the room was a large desk that hugged the roundness of the wall, also right next to a window, it was covered with various objects, but the layer of dust was thick enough that the only thing Myo could recognize was that there were books among these objects. Next to the desk was a large grey wooden wardrobe, carved in basrelief with floral motifs. The ceiling was directly open to the tower's pointed framework, beams and wooden joists exposed. But what struck her most was the thick layer of dust, at least several inches thick, and the ancient appearance of everything here. As if no one had been here for centuries. It was of course just a wild guess, but it seemed surprisingly likely at the time.
Myo jumped inside the room, it was decided, whoever had lived here had abandoned the place long ago. And as the saying goes, when the dog goes hunting ( whatever the certainly hideous appearance of those dreadful things could be) the cat takes its place. And Myo was a cat person, many times cats had come through the garden and entered her shed through the little cat flap used to bring her meals. They were gentle and mostly silent. Myo liked to have them as companions, running her fingers through their soft fur as she read one of her books. Unfortunately it had been several months since she had seen one of the felines pass by her... her old shed. Maybe Vernon had been Vernon and had definitely scared them off...
She would settle here for a few days, and if no one came to chase her away she would start to make this place her real home. And oh how pleasant the thought was. She had lived in the shed, but it wasn't really her home, she couldn't do what she wanted, couldn't go out when she wanted, she was locked up like a bird in a cage. That said, what could be more appropriate than a cage for a bird thing like her from the point of view of humans, the Vernons. She thought bitterly. But now she was free, hungry, exhausted, wings stretched and aching but free. Free to live, to merge with the sky, without having to fear a sudden outburst of rage from Vernon, or the impromptu ire of Petunia.
She stepped into the large room, leaving the traces of her talons in the thick layer of dust, so long untouched. Here she could spread her wings wide and still have enough room to move freely. She also really appreciated the high ceiling. She had a visceral aversion to the very idea of being confined and this place didn't feel like it at all. The many large windows or passageways closed only by heavy fabric curtains, the high ceiling...
She walked towards each of the large openings, pulling the thick curtains closing them and leaving them wide open. She had to do two things tonight before she collapsed, to make the place viable for sleeping. Step number one, get rid of the dust. To do this, once all the windows were wide open Myo stood in the middle of the room, gritted her teeth and did a few large wingbeats, the pain was almost unbearable at this point but it was worth it as most of the dust had flown out the windows in thick clouds.
Now there was only one thing left to do, mark the place as her own. She still felt like a guest here, a warmly welcomed guest, but a guest nonetheless. If she wanted to feel comfortable here she had to make the place her own. At this point, because of hunger, thirst, exhaustion and the throbbing pain throughout her body, Myo was acting mostly on instinct. This place had to become HER perch so that she could feel comfortable and for that only one solution seemed obvious to her at that moment.
Myosotis summoned her flames, soft blue flames dancing happily on her skin and feathers, on her hair and in her eyes, on her nails, on her fingertips, eager to please. In one thought her flames grew, encompassing her whole body in a great fire vibrating with a powerful fierce joy, casting great ominous shadows across the room. Myo's eyes were an abyss of violent blue flames, loving, protecting, fierce, healing, destroying. For the first time she let them take control, she had to tell the world, the powers, that this place was hers now. And what better way to do that than to put her own mark on it. These thoughts were not conscious, Myo was simply carried away by her desire to have found a place that would truly be hers. The inferno grew again, now encompassing the whole room in its beautiful blue hell. Smoldering, consuming, but never destroying anything, enjoying, encompassing. The flames grew again. Spouting out of the windows, the tower now looking like a great torch carrying blue flame illuminating the evening shadows, as the creatures of the twilight watched and passed on the message, the heiress had arrived at the old tower.
Suddenly, like the flame of a candle blown out by a mystical wind, the blaze went out, leaving Myosotis alone, motionless, in the middle of a dust-free room, with shiny knick-knacks, glossy books, and a wall glowing with a soft blue light. In a strangely mechanical way Myo walked towards the pile of cushions, finally completely at ease in the place. If anyone ever came to challenge her claim to the tower, their mark would have to surpass her own. The thought was strange, unfamiliar, but Myo paid it little heed and dropped heavily onto the pile of cushions, grabbing a blanket and wrapping herself in it, sleep seizing her the moment her eyelids closed over her green eyes, still glowing from the inferno they'd contained a few minutes before.
Once again, the dawn was not kind to Myosotis. Her wing muscles ached, she was thirsty and hungry. But unlike the previous day her mind was clear and rested. She vaguely remembered choosing to enter an old abandoned tower in the middle of what must have been a small fortress before the ravages of time had left only ruins. She remembered blowing all the dust out of the windows in a few wingbeats, that her flames had done... something... she couldn't say what, just that it had been pleasant and then she had collapsed on the pile of cushions, without even taking the time to remove the bag that was still clinging to her chest.
How could she have been so careless? Entering like that in an unknown ruin, in a room obviously in too good a state to be completely abandoned. Not visited for ages, of course, but completely abandoned... it was unlikely. Why had she decided it was a good idea to go in like that, to do a quick clean-up before falling asleep and helpless in a place she knew nothing about? She blamed it on fatigue, exhaustion and the strange feeling of warmth and belonging that she had felt and that still lingered in the back of her mind. But now it was too late to ask herself such questions. This place would be her new home and the previous owner could go to hell. Besides, given the state she'd found the place in, it was unlikely that anyone who'd lived here would come back now after not having passed through for what must have been decades. (Myo had never seen such a thick layer of dust.)
Now that the layer of dust was gone she could see a trap door on the floor with a large metal ring for a handle. This must have been the normal access. She finally took off her bag and put it in a corner of the room between the desk and one of the bookcases before heading for the trapdoor. She had to find something to eat and drink, she was used to not eating much and irregularly, (Petunia often didn't remember to bring her meals) but now with the effort of yesterday and the day before the thirst was giving her a headache and her throat was sore and dry while hunger was starting to make her dizzy.
She lifted the trap door to go down, (luckily it was not locked) but stopped in surprise to see that there was no ladder or stairs, just a void opening onto the darkness of the tower's interior. Myo closed the hatch, it would just be easier to glide to the ground through one of the windows. She stopped dead in her tracks at this thought and looked around the room again. The high ceiling, the large windows, enough room for her wings, no bed but a big pile of cushions with blankets, the desk seat, a simple wooden stool with a padded top, no backrest to get in the way of her tail feathers. The ceiling beams perfect for perching on. One realization struck her. The owner of the tower, was there any other bird thing like her? New details struck her, the fine claw marks all over the floor, so similar to what her own talons might produce if she were taller or older, the feather on the desk, dark blue with a metallic sheen, so similar to the feathers of her own wings...
She had just claimed the abandoned nest of another bird thing... If she had seen right she was not alone! She was not a unique monster! There were other bird things like her! The world was not populated only by Vernons and Petunias. The sky had other inhabitants like her. All her doubts about making the place her own were swept away in an instant, she didn't just want to stay here, she had to. If the place had been inhabited by someone like her, maybe they would come back! And then Myo would finally meet another bird thing. Myo had always been alone, had never wanted contact, after all what good was a world populated by Vernons like, but the idea that another bird thing could exist was as appealing as it was fascinating. Myo would stay here until it returned.
The sound of her rumbling belly drew her out of her thoughts, she had to find something to survive on if she was going to wait for another bird thing to return. First the water, there was plenty of water, close at hand! The sea was right there! Myo jumped out of one of the windows and hovered above the ruins, skirting the cliff of the rocky promontory on which her tower stood before heading for one of the large rocks emerging from the water at the bottom of the cliff. She landed gently on it and winced as the spray whipped across her face and a wave of icy water wet the scales of one of her talons. She crouched down, however, and formed a bowl with her two hands, scooping a little water into their hollows. She brought the water to her mouth, preparing to quench her thirst, but the moment the water touched her tongue she spat it out. Salty! The water was salty! Normally water is not salty! She looked at the sea, she couldn't drink that water. She would have to find something else.
Grimacing and forcing the aching muscles of her wings to work she flew away, letting the powerful seawind lift her up, and take her high above the cliffs and moors. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink... she would have to find a nearby stream or river for water, and for food she would have to hunt, but she had no idea how to do that and didn't have enough energy to try. A solution appeared to her, obvious, Petunia always went to look for her food in the house. All she had to do was find a Vernons like house nearby, wait for the Vernons inside to go out before going in, take the food and water and leave, all obviously without being seen. She knew she had no right to just take things like that, Petunia had told her enough times, but it was enough for Myo not to be seen and nobody would say anything.
She quickly went to the tower to retrieve her bag, emptied it, putting her books on the desk and the old blanket with the others among the cushions, then tied the bag to her chest before heading inland. Flying high so as not to be seen, it was only an hour before Myo found a small group of grey-roofed white houses scattered around a road in the meadows.
Cautiously, Myo landed far from the houses in the tall grass and watched quietly. No movement, no people in sight. She approached one of the houses, climbed over the garden fence and flattened herself against one of the walls before moving to one of the windows to look in. She looked in and saw a room that was very different from the interior of the Dursley house. Much less ... colourful, softer to the eye. In a large armchair sat a tall, thin man, dressed in a thick woollen dressing gown, he had a large moustache and his steely blue eyes were hidden behind small glasses. His attention was focused on a book in his lap.
Myosotis was surprised, she had expected that there would be people in certain houses and that she would not have any luck the first time around but she had expected that everyone would look like Vernon. Vernon was the only male human she'd ever seen, Petunia the only female human, she'd always thought the small piggy eyes, the evil look, the huge belly and the big pudgy arms were normal features of all male humans. And what Dudley was becoming had only corroborated her theory. But now? The man sitting in the room looked nothing like Vernon. He was thin, his eyes were large and piercing, his jaw well defined. Strange as it was to her that her view of the world had been proven wrong a certain relief came over her. So far she had imagined the human world as cities and villages crammed with Vernons and Petunia, all as violent as they were hateful. Perhaps she was also wrong in her belief that all humans were as violent and vicious as Vernon, or as inconsistent and hateful as Petunia. As much as she liked the idea, Myo had no desire to risk going to talk to a human, risk her being wrong and having his expression twisted in anger, and risk him pulling out the belt. Then she could surely run away... but... anyway she was not to be seen.
She walked away from this house and approached the next one. No lights were on inside. Unlike the previous one, there was no car parked in front. Myo looked out the window again. No one was there. She smiled, with luck she would find food here. Now she had to get in. She tried to push open the window, but it was obviously closed. On the other hand, a window on the first floor had been left open, probably to air out, the temperature being still mild at the end of summer. With a flick of the wing she was perched on the windowsill and she crept apprehensively into the house. It was a large room, a large double bed in the middle, a bedside table on either side and a large wardrobe at the foot of the bed. Nothing out of the ordinary. Myo had once or twice seen the inside of Vernon and Petunia's room, and the similarities were there.
Without further ado she opened the bedroom door. It led into a corridor, on one side were several doors and on the other a staircase leading down to the ground floor. Hunger on her heels, and guided by the smell of fruit and bread, Myo went down the stairs, past the small entrance hall and into a kitchen. A table was in the centre of it, on top of which was a basket filled with various fruits, apples, pears, as it was the beginning of the season. A fridge stood in one corner and the walls were covered with cupboards. A worktop and a sink stood below a window. A sink. Myo ran to it, turned on the tap and without thinking began to drink greedily directly from the stream. She drank her fill, unable to stop as her poor, parched throat made her feel the need to quench her thirst.
When she had satisfied her need, she grabbed an apple and began to eat it. It may not have been the smartest thing to do, to linger in a stranger's house to eat their food, but Myo didn't care, she was too hungry to think about such things. After eating an apple and two pears, she began to rummage through the shelves, stuffing anything of interest into her bag, bread, dry biscuits, more fruit, cans of food, sausage... she was even lucky enough to find an empty plastic bottle which she filled from the tap.
She was just stuffing a can of tuna into the bag when she heard the kitchen door open and a voice say. "Mum? You're home already..." The voice suddenly went off the rails, silenced. Startled, Myo turned around. At the kitchen door stood a young boy, much taller than her but nowhere near as tall as Vernon, in slippers, trousers and a plain shirt. He was staring at her, his mouth half-open in surprise, his big grey eyes wide, his hand still on the door handle.
The silence stretched, Myo frozen in terror, the boy motionless, seeming to have difficulty understanding what was before him.
"What, how, what, you..." he stammered.
His voice brought Myo out of her stupor. She closed the bag, placed it as quickly as possible against her chest, opened the window and flew straight away. Hearing the boy shout, "Wait!" But Myo was already far away, high in the sky, pushing her already battered wings far more than she should. Her heart was pounding, cold sweat running down her back. She had broken the ultimate rule, she had been seen. She could feel the dozens of scars that Vernon had left on her skin. A thousand stinging hornets whirring against her, the smell of blood and bleach. She had to get back to the tower and fast!
She flew as fast as she could, hovering when she had the chance. Soon the tower was in sight and she felt the warmth embrace her again. She entered one of the windows, dropped her bag and immediately buried herself under the pile of blankets and cushions, she wanted to be hidden, not to be seen, she had failed, all her scars itched. In the tower, in the warm feeling of being here at home, accepted, protected, safe. For the first time really safe. Not in a cupboard harassed for hours by a dog, not in a shed at the mercy of Vernon and Petunia, not in the branches of a tree exposed to the wind and the rain and the cold and the sight. But in a tower far from men, a tower that had remained unperturbed for she didn't know how long. A place where something told her she was safe, under a pile of pillows and blankets. Her breathing calmed, her heartbeat returned to normal, the panic began to pass. Here in her new home, her only home, she would be safe.
oOOOo
That evening, in the small village of Shegra, in the highlands of northern Scotland, a young teenager lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about the child bird with the shiny black wings that had broken into their house to raid their pantry. Leaving behind a huge mess and a half eaten apple. His friends at the Inverness School of Magic, Dock-Helm would never believe it when he would tell them this story at the beginning of the school year. He would have liked to have received a letter to the prestigious Hogwart's School, but he was neither a muggle born of great enough potential to be recognised by the famous register, nor a nobleman or member of the upper middle class rich enough to afford a place there. Perhaps in their famous great library they had books on the kind of creature that had entered his house today. He sighed Hopefully the library in the magical northern district of Inverness, 'Underness' would have his answer... With luck.
oOOOo
She was on the hunt, she knew she shouldn't abuse burglaries in the nearby villages, she had already been seen three times and it couldn't last any longer. She had to learn to hunt. She had managed to steal a book on the wild edible plants of the Scottish highlands, because apparently she had flown to Scotland on those two fateful days, but she couldn't eat only wild plants and the spoils of her escapades in the villages. Therefore, hunting.
She had been flying over the highlands meadow for three hours now, looking for prey. A rabbit would be perfect. Two had escaped her earlier, if she managed to get one, it would be her first successful hunt ever.
She scanned the tall grass turning slightly yellow as winter approached, she didn't fear the cold, not if its flames were around her. But hunger... She would have to rely heavily on hunting and flying, when all the grasses were under the snow.
Suddenly she saw a movement in her peripheral vision, there in the grass, a hare, it had not seen her. Silently she hovered, lower and lower, closer and closer, she opened her talons, ready. This time the hare saw nothing coming, feeling only a pair of talons closing around his body.
Myo proudly felt her talons sink into the hare's soft, warm fur as she climbed back up to the tower. Tonight it will be rabbit stew with wild herbs and roots, she thought, her mouth watering.
The hare was struggling in her claws. She had to finish it off, she folded her legs under her to be able to touch her prey and put her fingers against its head, invoking her flames directly inside its skull. The hare would not even have time to suffer.
oOOOo
Today was a rainy day, Myo thought, sitting on the small, comfortably padded stool in front of the desk, her eyes glued to the curtains of rain falling on the sea that she could view through one of the tower's large windows. She had closed the other windows with the heavy drapes but had left this one open just to watch the rain. There was something really relaxing about watching the rain fall, listening to the sound of the drops on the roof, while being warm at the top of the tower, lit by a dozen of her little blue flames floating around the room.
It was on afternoons like this that she preferred to stay inside and clean, tidy, explore the tower. She had tried to read the many books here, but they were all written in a language that was unknown to her. She had rummaged inside the large wardrobe to find all sorts of clothes, unfortunately too big for her. They had proved useful, however, in confirming her theory about the nature of the tower's previous owner. All the clothes were cut to accommodate wings and a tail. They were all either dark blue, forest green, black or grey. Whoever they belonged to must not have liked bright colours.
She had polished all the metallic and shiny trinkets, some were just pieces of metal or pretty stones, but others were small mechanisms that she couldn't imagine the use of. One of the new things she started to do was adding the skulls of the animals she had hunted to the already impressive collection. She didn't really know why she was doing this, but she felt that in this way she was somehow honouring the animal whose life she had taken for food. Doing this felt... right. As if not doing it was like not recognising the value of the life she had taken. Therefore, whenever she had finished butchering one of her prey, she would retrieve its head and let her flames consume all flesh and cartilage, leaving only the pure white skull, then put it on top of a shelf, hang it on a wall, or display it somewhere, prominently in the ruins surrounding the tower, on the walls around the old gate, or sometimes even hanging on thick ropes beyond the cliff. Anything she couldn't eat from the carcass she let her flames devour until even the hardest bones were reduced to ash, before letting these soak the ground of the rocky promontory.
Perhaps she was sentimental, but she had decided to wear the skull of the hare she had caught on her first hunt around her neck like a necklace. It was nice to have it here, a reminder of her freedom and capacity to survive.
Whenever she found something nice or shiny enough on her outings she would take it back to the tower and add it to the others. Since her arrival she had added a particularly beautiful old broken pocket watch, a small bronze bell, and a strange transparent crystal whose light changed colour inexplicably as it passed through it. She always liked shiny tings, was it a traits specific to the birds things, she didn't know. But nevertheless, new shiny things couldn't be bad.
She had also been exploring what lay beneath the trapdoor, lighting the darkness of the tower's interior with her flames, always eager to help. The entire interior of the tower's body was hollow, but once below ground level, the hole widened to give access to a large cave. And to Myo's delight, the bottom of the cave contained some sort of strange hot springs. What they were doing there and how it was possible Myo didn't know, but she wasn't going to complain about it. The cave also had other rooms, behind a heavy wooden door was what appeared to be a mad scientist's laboratory, filled with cauldrons, flasks, stills, retorts and other test tubes, Myo had opened the door to look inside and just closed the door, preferring to stay away from the experiments of whoever had lived here before her. Her curiosity was naging her to take a look but she didn't want to risk it, perhaps later when she would be stronger and more experienced in her own right. Finally, to her delight, there was a well at the very bottom of the cave, a well that gave access to drinkable water, not like the foul salt water of the sea.
Another great discovery was a still intact chest in the ruins of the house leaning against the base of the tower. It contained a whole array of knives, swords, spears, javelins, axes and other tools and weapons. Myo was pleased with this discovery because although her talons were sharp enough to slice through the skin of her prey without difficulty, doing so with a knife was much easier. Finding weapons in an old fort that had been completely ruined and untouched for ages was not surprising, what intrigued Myo was their quality and lack of rust or signs of decay. But she wouldn't complain about that either. Surely the same mystery that allowed the tower to remain in such good condition for so long.
At the moment Myo was sitting at the desk in her room at the top of the tower facing a page of blank paper. For some weeks now she had been practising her writing. She had a quill and ink at her disposal, as well as many sheets of blank parchment scrolls that she had found in one of the desk drawers. And since finding this, Myo regularly practiced writing by copying the contents of the books in the tower library. She didn't understand the content, but she preferred to imitate the handwritten letters of these books, than the printed letters of the books she had brought with her. And especially the beautiful curved and slightly slanted letters of the tower books were so much prettier. At first it was really difficult, but now Myo was beginning to get the hang of it. Her own words were nowhere near as pretty as the ones in the books, but she knew that if she kept trying she would get there in the end.
Another thing Myo had taken an interest in was drawing, at first she had just drawn the tower and the surrounding landscape, then the animals, but more recently, and she thought this was really weird, she liked to go up to the humans' houses and draw the people she saw inside. This new interest had almost made her be seen more than once (and she felt like she had actualy been seen on one of those occasions) but she found it hard to stop. Drawing people who weren't Vernon was really special to her. She couldn't really explain it.
She sighed and turned away from the sight of the rain falling on the sea, she wanted to get the curvature of her L's right by the end of the downpour.
oOOOo
Every week since her arrival in the tower, Myo had subjected herself to a ritual that was as strange and painful as it was pleasant and enjoyable. She would sit in the centre of the pile of ashes she had made for herself in a corner of the top of the tower, behind the desk, opposite the pile of cushions and blankets that served as her bed, and relax completely. She emptied her mind, concentrating only on her breathing and her flames. Calling out to them, until she was completely covered. Then she patiently smoothed out feather after feather, plucking out each twisted or damaged feather with a sharp pull, depositing them on the floor, letting them burn in a green and purple flame. Each time her mind was already far away, lost in the pain of each new sacrificed feather and the few drops of blood falling into the ash before evaporating into a violet light. Her voice rising, not constricted and oppressed as in the shed, but free and wild, beautiful and uplifting. Singing a song that in her trance she could not hear. As empty skulls of all the animals on display were bursting with blue flames, as if alive.
After each of her evenings Myo would collapse unconscious in the middle of the ashes completely exhausted, sleep taking her instantly. (Unbeknownst to her, the area around the tower was beginning to see the effects of what she didn't know was a real ritual, repeated so often. A few months of this treatment was enough to make the grass fatter, the sea fuller of fish and the men stronger and more valiant. Few noticed the very subtle change, and of the few who did, those who made the connection between the strange winged child they saw flying around the area recently could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But no matter how few, one talkative mouth after a whisky in a bar was enough to start a rumour, a rumour becoming a legend, a legend becoming a tale, a thousand and one versions of a story running through the region, which few of those who heard it took seriously.
oOOOo
During a particularly bold escapade dozens of kilometres from the tower, Myo discovered a piece of happiness in a town a little larger than the villages she was used to visiting. What the humans called a book box. A box placed in the street for everyone to use, where people could put books they no longer read and where those who could not afford to buy books or those who simply wanted to discover new things could pick up what they wanted.
But for Myo it was a treasure box! She found 'Twenty Thousand Miles Under the Sea' and 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' by Jule Verne! But also a fascinating book about wild mushrooms, but also 'Montain of Madness' by H.P Lovecraft. (it was a name she thought was strangely cute compared to the content of his book). Wonders of books she could get without stealing from people! That day Myo had trouble flying to the tower because her bag was too heavy from the books.
oOOOo
The winter was coming to an end, the snow was starting to melt, the day Myo discovered something strange in one of the small villages where she used to go. She had stopped robbing houses to steal food, having become a good enough hunter and fisherman that she could not depend on plunder, but she continued to go to the villages to observe and draw the inhabitants. She found the humans more and more fascinating. Most of them were not like Vernon or Petunia. They were not fickle, they were not always unfair or cruel, some were, but not all. All of them were different... And that was what Myo found fascinating. Some were kind and gentle, some stupid and naughty, some intelligent, all dressed differently, none liked the same things. Before her escape she had always imagined humanity as armies of Vernons screaming their hatred and beating everything that was different. But now she was discovering how wrong she had been.
Yes, they were enslaving nature in their fields and on their roads. But they weren't doing it out of pure malice as she had imagined. They were producing food in an easy way and en masse so they could do other things on the side. Myo still thought it was stupid and a bit silly because she was hunting and finding food and still had plenty of time to do what she wanted. But maybe it was harder for the humans. They had no wings, no sharp talons, no flames.
But today, what intrigued her was a small building of stone and wood vaguely resembling a house with three walls and a roof but wide open at the front, behind the garden of the boy's house who had first seen her. It was decorated with feathers and pretty pebbles and on it lay food, fruit and dry biscuits packed in a strange waterproof material. It was just... weird. Myo checked once more to make sure no one was watching her before taking the food and stuffing it into the small bag she now always took with her when she travelled. If people started dropping food on nice stone and wood buildings, good for them. She was puzzled, humans could be really weird sometimes. She stuffed the food into her bag and flew back to the tower.
oOOOo
Myo stood in the middle of her room at the top of the tower, watching her work. She had cut some of the clothes in the large wardrobe to fit her. It must be said that she didn't have much choice. The rags she used to wear were really starting to fall apart.
She wasn't really satisfied with her work, but it would do for now. She would find a way to get real clothes in her size later on. Or maybe she wouldn't even need them because she'd become big enough to put the clothes in the wardrobe directly. After all she had hope, she was eating much better since she had arrived here and had grown a little.
She put on the dress. It was much too large in the waist but the fabric was infinitely more comfortable than the rough canvas of her old clothes, much warmer too. She spun around and smiled, watching the dress rise with the movement, appreciating the special cut-out for her wings that fit more comfortably through the holes in the fabric at her back.
At this moment she wished she had a mirror...
oOOOo
Spring was here, and Myo was happy that the warmer weather was back and that she didn't have to constantly keep her flames present to keep her warm. Keeping her flames present for too long had proven to be very tiring.
But despite the warmer weather, one worry remained in the back of her mind. For a few days a father and daughter had been pitching their tent in the Meadow too close to the tower for Myo to be comfortable with it. Moreover, the little girl, about her age, had a habit of wandering alone in the wilderness, dressed eccentrically and equipped with her big binoculars, observing everything and anything. Looking for something Myo didn't know what it was. Several times Myo had approached her discreetly to observe her, and several times the big blue-grey eyes of the little blonde had almost landed on her.
Myo didn't know what to do, should she make them leave, make them run away, talk to them? But she must not be seen... For the moment the question remained.
oOOOo
Somewhere in a village in the south-east, three middle-aged men were listening to a drunkard's ramblings about an angel blessing their land and taking the offerings. Was it just the man's imagination, or a real opportunity to make a lot of galleons in a short time? In any case, the trio quickly agreed that they needed to know for sure. It would be stupid to pass up such an opportunity if the story proved to be true. It wouldn't cost them anything to take a closer look.