Chapter Text
“Once upon a time, in the days of ever-raging wars, there was an owl born in the country of the North Waters, and his name was Hoole. In a wood of straight tall trees was he hatched, that glimmering time when the seconds slow between the last minute of the old year and the first of the new, while all the world around was sheathed in ice. Some say there was-”
“Booooring! You’ve told that one so many times already!” yawned a Barn Owl chick, huddled in a nest with his two siblings.
“Hush! Uncle Tyll’s about to get to the good part!” chided an older, nearly fledging Great Horned Owlet.
“Can we listen to the one about Boudica instead? I wanna hear the one about Boudica!” peeped the youngest chick, a Tawny who had just barely had her First Seeing not three nights before.
“Boudica *and* Hoole are lame! I wanna hear about when Uncle Tyll went beyond the beyond and wrestled with a sabertooth!”
“Now, now, settle down please!” scolded their caretaker. On the opposite end of the hollow, standing but a feather taller than the disparate species of chicks before him, sat a Little Owl rustling through the pages of a storybook. “If you refuse to behave yourselves, I’ll just tell Ash that he can stuff the tasty sugar gliders he’s caught just for you right down his gullet, and send the lot of you to bed without supper! For Glaux’s sake, you’re supposed to be winding down this time of night…”
Lyra, the eldest Great Horned chick, ruffled her fledging feathers and put on a remorseful look. “I’m sorry, Uncle Tylluan, for my raucous siblings’ behavior, especially since you flew all this way to-”
“I WANT BOUDICAAA!!” wailed Elm, the baby Tawny, sending the nest into a tussle once again, sending downy feathers and twigs flying throughout the hollow!
Tylluan sighed and raised a wing to his head. Glaux, I hope Ash gets back soon! He thought to himself, glancing out of the hollow to see if he could glimpse the Great Grey returning with dinner. These chicks are a talonful even on the best of nights, and with the spring air coming in they’re like bats out of hagsmire! “Fine! Fine! Boudica it is, then. Besides, I haven’t finished transcribing my sabertooth adventure yet, it’s not even ready! Now will you PLEASE bed down and be a good chick if I tell you Boudica’s story?” the exasperated Little Owl looked with a stern, yet desperate look in his amber eyes. Between his pleading, and Lyra’s sisterly scolding, the other two chicks relented and quieted enough that he could begin.
“The Guardians of Ga’hoole had their share of mighty heroes, owls who flew proudly into the jaws of danger and seized victory and hope for a happier night. They all, however, wilfed in comparison to Boudica, The Oncoming Storm, the heroine of the War of the Ice Talons! The Guardian of all Guardians, her sheer size and strength placed her in a league apart from any other owl you’d have ever seen, though none of that held a candle to the nobility, bravery, and sheer gallgrot nested in this Eagle Owl’s gizzard…” And so, Tylluan began recounting the tales of Boudica; how she valiantly broke through enemy lines to strike down the evil Ice Talon prince once and for all, how she charged head-on into a murder of crows at the Battle of Old Hill, and her brave duel with the golden eagle Alfwyn from which she arose victorious. One by one, the owlets assembled before him began to blink, nod, droop, and finally the last of them was lulled to sleep just as the first rays of dawn began to stream into the hollow.
Tylluan smiled at the children nestled up with one another. Though he had no mate to call his own, much less a family, the owls of Silverveil had taken him in and shown him kindness, warmth, acceptance, and love. Indeed, though no bonds of blood tied them together, the chicks he lovingly read to dawn after dawn were as dear to his heart as though they were his own nieces and nephews. He sighed and softly closed his book, tucking it away into the hempen strap upon his back that he used to carry his stories wherever he flew, when he heard the soft rustle of an owl’s wings alighting on the branch outside.
The Little Owl quietly hopped up to the hollow’s ledge, and peeked outside to see a Great Grey Owl perched on a branch above, silhouetted by the breaking dawn. To say that Ash dwarfed Tylluan in size would be an understatement; indeed, many of their neighbors had often mistaken Tylluan for another of Ash’s adopted chicks. Tylluan smiled and hooted softly as Ash clambered down onto the entryway branch, “Careful now! I just finally managed to lull the little ones to sleep!”
Ash’s eyes widened. Setting the fat grey squirrel in his beak down into his talons so that he could speak, he softly hooted in a deep, earthy voice, “Good! Good. Means I can save this for later, and have less work to do for tweener tomorrow.” Tweener, dear owl, was the word that owls of this land commonly used to refer to their evening meal that came just at “tween time”, the ephemeral moments between the dusk and the fall of night where twilight descended across the skies.
“Well, you were out far later than usual, I was running out of material to keep them entertained!” Tylluan softly complained, stepping out onto the limb with his friend so as not to wake the chicks. “What took so long? Has the hunting truly been so bad?”
Ash grimaced, shaking his head. “It’s still rough out there, but with the spring breaking and the prey coming from hibernation it’s definitely easier than last moon.” He turned his gaze out towards the valley beneath them, the rising sun catching the light upon the sprouting leaves and blooming greenery of the soon-to-be lush Silverveil forest below them. “No, I got…waylaid and trapped in conversation with that new Barn Owl couple up the ridge…” he trailed off, a somber expression falling across his facial disc.
“...what’s wrong, Ash?” Tylluan asked, creeping closer to the larger owl.
Ash sighed. “You’ve heard those rumors…” his voice dropping to an even more hushed tone, “about chicks going missing all over the valley? Seems that there’s truth to them. They lost their oldest just nights before he was about to have his First Flight.”
“No…” Tylluan gasped.
“Aye. I’m…incredibly worried about the chickys, Tyll.”
“Should I take up hunting duties instead? Leave you at the nest to protect them?”
Ash shook his head. “You know I never learned to read that book of yours. They’d tear me to shreds begging for another of your tall tales. Besides, I doubt you’d be able-” he began, then stopped himself as the Little Owl’s feathers ruffled in annoyance.
“Be able to what?”
“N-nothing.”
“To bring in as many filling kills as you? Because I’m too small and you’re oh-so big and mighty?”
“I said nothing of the sort!” Ash hooted, a trace of a smile dancing across his expression.
“But you were thinking it!” Tylluan puffed up in a mock rage. His friend clearly needed cheering up at the moment, and a playful tussle always seemed to do the trick. The two bickered for a moment until the mood had lightened somewhat, and Tylluan was sure Ash wouldn’t spiral himself down into a wheel of anxious thought again.
“Thank you, Tylluan. For being here, I mean.” Ash stammered, placing a comforting wing around the Little Owl as they watched the sunrise from their perch. “Chicks are..hard enough when you’ve got a mate to brood them. I can’t imagine how I’d handle all this without knowing there was someone there to keep them safe.”
Tylluan smiled. “It’s the least I can do to repay your kindness. You know they’re just as much family to me as you are, at this point.” he paused, watching the sun rays dance across the dew-dappled woods. “If things really are as bad as you say, maybe the Guardians of Ga’hoole will come step in?”
Ash churred, letting out a small owlish laugh. “You know, your fairytales may fill up the heads of the youngun’s, but not mine right?”
“They’re not fairytales!” Tylluan whined, dropping the playful act a bit in a show of sincerity. “I’ve been there! The great tree, the noble guardians, they’re all real, Ash!” A hollow note crept into Tylluan’s voice as he lied. It’s not that Tylluan didn’t believe in the Guardians of Ga’hoole, dear owl, but that his bravado often exceeded his own experience, and the tall tales contained within his book of legends often stretched, if not entirely fabricated, the truth for the sake of a good story, a fact of which Ash was all too suspicious.
“Sure, sure. Well, on the morrow, why don’t you write a letter to King Hoole himself and ask him for help?” Ash sarcastically conceded. “As for me, I think I’ll be needing a bit of shuteye. It’s been a long night.”
“Fine, then! Maybe I will, and you’ll be eating your pellets when they all come flying in with their silver helmets and battle claws gleaming in the moonlight! Soaring in on noblest wings, they’ll- “
“Good light, Tylluan.” Ash smiled, turning away from the sunlight and cocking his head in a sleeping position. Even in slumber, he kept a close watch over the hollow’s entrance and his beloved children.
“Good..good light, Ash.” Tylluan grumbled, stepping up to a higher branch with a bit more shade to rest easier. It frustrated him to no end that no other owls seemed to believe in the old legends as he did. For in his gizzard, he truly did believe the Great Ga’hoole Tree was real. As real as the needles on their Cedar Tree hollow, as real as the babbling brook below, as real as the first sparks of forest fire beginning to catch just over the nearby ridge, and as real as the other young owls, far away across the Hoolemere sea, who had just finished undergoing a far more scrutinizing test of faith than this little owl could have dreamed….