The Owl.

***

At long last, the Owl heard the baleful wail that marked the coveted time echo across the forest. Thus the Owl screeched in kind, requesting a silent wave of crepuscular feathers to befall the Grove of ignoramuses, celebrating in ignorance behind their veil of bloodied wings.

Those raptors of dusk and dawn snatched their prey from their nests with deadly accuracy, unnoticed in the night as they weaved through the trees to snare birds and humans alike, pinning them against rocks, branches, the ground, and their very nests to wait for the Owl to give the Dour Druid her reward.

So similar, that reward was, to that of the Tech Goddess. Only, Reina was not to be blessed machine on her side, but the bounty of accursed Arbor and FleshTech- biology rule and genetic tailoring. Thus giving rise to the Mother of Flesh.

And so, with the deed done, the Owl perched to intimidate and wait; for there were shadows to raise, and an Emperor of Umbra to crown.

***

Reina Featherfall.

***

A gust of wind pushed my eyes apart and soon, edged me to my feet, giving rise to the most grand of sights. I had forever been above. But never below. Never so far down from the Groves of Redagh that the silver rays of the Second Sun glanced across the clouds, casting long shadows that danced across the sleeping lands, broken apart only by the giant spires of darkness before and behind me, covered in bands of black and white like the legends of the ancient lion turtles.

I must have sat there for an hour before a sudden realization pulled my attention to my immediate surroundings. I was on the ground, though the rope my… father used to kill me was tied around my neck still, leaving a frayed end hanging down my back. And up above, so far it was out of sight, was where I fell from.

I heard a strange creak as I stood up, almost like old wood. But I felt nothing. And so, I walked weirdly along the cliffside, feeling as if something was not quite right inside as I searched for a place to climb. Then, something caught hold of my arms and pulled me from the ground.

I let out a scream of joy once I looked up and saw the petrified bones of a raptor. But my mirth was temporarily stolen when I was dropped at the foot of the cliff and came to witness the parliament standing about with druids clutched in their talons. Shock came to me. If only for a second before I looked down and felt it replaced by endless joy. "Dearest father!" I knelt beside his head, smiling brightly. "I assure you, this is only the beginning of your torment."

I took my time in bringing my bone talon across his neck, savoring how the black keratin sank beneath his ear, enjoying each gurgle and gasp to befall his bloodied lips until there was no more to give. I stood over him then, watching the life leave his eyes before I walked away with a spit of disgust, hardly noticing the pool of darkness spreading beneath his corpse.

I moved to the nearest druid after that, saw that they too were alive, and happily opened their throat. This time, however, I noticed a tendril of flesh remained attached to the ring when I lifted my hand. But I paid it no mind. I went from body to body. Man, woman, child, or elder, I showed them no mercy. I answered no questions. I listened to no pleas. I gave them no pity, just as they had given me. I noticed not the skeletal owl that carried me until I entered the Head Druid's nest and made note of nothing more than the dense flesh and sleek feathers that had grown on him. Only his eyes were vacant still, and they gazed upon the Head Druid's relics hungrily.

Only after I slit her throat did I notice her corpse withering and decaying and falling into a pit of darkness as the tendril of flesh connected to my ring pulsed with a golden light, transferring her vital essence into the ring until a ray of sea-green energy shot out toward the owl, filling its vacant orbits with the comically grumpy eyes of a great horned owl. With a hoot, he lazily blinked and looked down at the sacred items gathered at its talons, then took flight toward me as I stepped to them. Only to drift past my ear and fall atop the Head Druid's corpse.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Assuming he was eating, I took my new things and skipped through the Grove toward my final destination.

Home.

Unlike everyone else, no owl pinned her to the ground. She was pinned in place of her own volition; frozen in fear from The Owl towering two meters over her, staring its starry eyes into her soul.

I offered my mother no words as I stepped past the Owl. I only grasped her by the face and squeezed and then squeezed harder once an addicting sensation began to ebb and flow between us. I felt myself bursting at the seams with energy while she grew more fragile, more sickly. More… dense. Then I threw her from the nest and waited for the satisfying thud to ring true before I departed the grove once and for all, taking candles and torches to the nests along the way.

The flames had consumed all by the time I reached the Feathered Grove's borders. So warm, it was, that I found myself squatting and laughing as if I were at a campfire, being told a fantastical story from the dancing darkness around me. It swirled around the grove like flame dancers, turning the embers from orange to violet-blue; shifting the air from blistering hot to a menacing cold; darkening the white smoke to inky darkness that condensed around the items I claimed from the Head Druid.

Soon after, my laughing turned to chanting and the umbral smoke's fervor grew tenfold before pouring into my new things, corrupting them inside and out.

Smothered in a gilded hide and black, gold-limned feathers was now her Cowl of Aves Rex. Corrupted into a crystal-hilted wand, was her Staff of Aves Rex. Haunted with arcane jewels of holy wickedness, was the fabled Featherfall Bow. I felt complete as the cowl tightened around my frame, making me one with all the birds that had once forsaken me. I felt strengthened as I fitted the bow over my body, knowing I could control my arrows like a bird in mid-flight. I knew purpose when I grasped that staff in my hands, knowing my grasp over nature and the druidic arts would be amplified by its primal magic.

That purpose manifested as a wave of darkness that gushed from the staff. It swept across the violet flames like a tidal wave, smothering them instantly; dispersing the clouds of umbral smoke instantly, revealing to my eyes, an expansion of the blighted woods that crept to the edge of the late Feathered Grove. It looked neither like it did during those special times of dusk and dawn, nor any other time, however. The trees were alive with fleshy warts and pestilential cysts that burst from the tendrils growing within. Like parasitic roots or like my ring, those tendrils wound their way to the corpses, scattered, bone, and rent flesh of my dead grove, withering and rotting their origins with each step gained for the sake of spawning fleshy growths of wood and stone and crystallized blood at their destinations.

First randomly, then in pairs, the trees fell to more and more fleshy seed crystals until every trace of bodies, birds, or the grove itself had been replaced with the strange sight. Then they began to signal one another. First one. Then three. Then twelve. The veiny vines growing along the crystals glowed a bright yellow before they began absorbing the red gems around them, shrinking them down to a slime of yellow veins that began cascading towards the staff, now reduced to an eldritch wand; collapsing first into a blood-red crystal at the base before the wood displaced downward, elongating into a staff of crystallized flesh and petrified wood.

When I took hold of that staff, I knew of consequences; for what remained of the once vibrant forest was not even blighted. Only an arid expanse of dusty hills stood before me, howling its lamentations to the empty winds. Wailing in defiance of its destiny like I had. Like I experienced, though, those wails did not last long. Something heard them and responded with a breath of life from above. Into rocks, the dirt, and the air itself, the breath flowed, sprouting streams and spreading fields of silvery-blue moss or grass or flowers or trees across those lands once barren.

It was suddenly so peaceful, if not bright. But I wanted to stay all the same. Only… I could not. The Feathered Grove of Redagh was no more, thus there was no reason for me to stay. And… something was telling me to cross the ravine. And so, with a creak of my neck, I began making my way up the mountain, paying little mind to the cold somethings crawling around at my feet. I only smiled at the giant great horned owl spreading its wings in preparation for a long flight and tapped my chin in contemplation before climbing onto his back.

"I suppose I'll call you Percival." I giggled. "Happy Fledging."