Chapter Text
On an ordinary night, three nights before the lunar eclipse, a chick was hatched. If he had waited until the eclipse, his eager parents would have forcibly cracked open his egg and plucked the helpless hatchling out, for as all birds know, when hatched on the night of a lunar eclipse, the chick would have been bestowed great power. But this was not the case for this young chick. His parents cursed at him the moment he poked his egg tooth through the black shell that had encased him for only a week. He was already covered in feathers which were slimy and wet, and his eyes were already opened, for he was not simply an owl. Neither were his parents. They were something much more, something of great evil among the owl world. Unbeknownst to the owl kingdoms, a small grouping of hagsfiends had emerged.
Hagsfiends were known to mature much quicker than any owl. Among the species of hagsfiends, the smaller would practically burst out of their eggs as fully fledged adults, whereas the larger owls could take up to several weeks, but they never grew as slow as a normal owl. This made multiplying much easier, allowing them to quickly begin their society. And in this society, the hagsfiends obsessed over hatching their chicks on the night of lunar eclipses. So to their utter dismay, their chick who was supposed to hatch in three days, hatched early.
The female hagsfiend, Sneer, was sobbing, but her cries more resembled painful screeches than sorrowful weeping. It sounded as if she had lost a chick, and indeed, their neighbors were beginning to worry. Her mate, Mildred, did nothing to comfort her, but merely stared at the plump little chick that was now beginning to stumble around, pecking at everything he encountered.
“Calm yourself! I reckon we eat the little splat. Nobody has to know he even existed.” he grumbled out, without an ounce of sympathy in his voice. His mate said nothing, only continuing to flail herself about dramatically. Sneer was simply devastated. All of her hatchlings thus far had been hatched on lunar eclipses; she had a reputation for being quite a lucky hagsfiend.
Sneer’s mate, after watching her wailing and squawking, decided he wanted nothing more to do with the situation, and took off on a contemplative flight. He knew the only way to calm his mate is for her to wear herself out. And so she did. It only took 15 minutes before she was in a heap of feathers heaving on the floor. Sneer slowly rose and composed herself, then glanced at the chick, who seemed to be trying to manually hatch the other two eggs. Alarm shot through her body, and she quickly retrieved the chick.
“I can deal with one dud chick, but you’re not going to ruin the other hatchlings!” she squawked as she plopped the chick down onto a pile of scruffy, grey down feathers. “I am Sneer. You will not call me mum. Even though we will care for you, we are not your family until you prove to be anything more than a waste of an egg.”
This was truly frustrating. It felt as if her life had never been so ruined. But she would tell no one, of that she was certain. The pair of hagsfiends were to pretend their chick had never hatched on this day. She was to act as if this chick was enchanted, just as the others. Despite her efforts to conceal the truth of this hatchling, there was no mistaking that this creature was not enchanted in the way that any hagsfiend would hope for, but he was enchanted nonetheless. Not by the moon, but by a dormant spark of ga deep within his gizzard.