Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (19 page)

In sheer and utter excitement, Leyoht joined
his mother as he also buried his beak into the rich, rodent meat.
With each swoop of his beak making its way into the meat, Leyoht’s
face would come back with streaks of blood painted around his beak
and some of the newly-acquired feathers on his face.

As he inhaled the meat that he had been
given, a storm of questions blazed through his mind.
Does the
world outside this tree feel different? Is it different at all?
The stories his mother had told him through the past few days had
suggested to him the outside world would have had a
great
difference as a whole when compared to his hollow tree.

Once he had finished eating, Leyoht made his
way over to the entrance of the hollow and peered down to the
ground. A great sense of giddiness entered his head when he
realized how high he was.
How am I going to get all the way down
there?

As ideas to bring himself down began to flood
his head, Leyoht flinched when he heard his father ask, “Do you
want me to take you down there?”

Without taking so much as a single glimpse
toward his father, the owlet asked, “You can do that?”

“It’ll be slightly hard—but I will be able to
do it.”

Twisting his flexible neck until his gaze
turned directly behind his own back, Leyoht replied with a small
moan to his voice, “Yes. Thank you!”

“I’ll need you to step aside,” Ulpheir
explained as he gently pulled Leyoht away with his leg. Without
another word, his wings gave a great flap as he shot himself off
into the air. Once in the air, Ulpheir’s talons were flexing for a
reason which found Leyoht slightly perplexed.

Within heartbeats did Leyoht take sight of
his father flying towards him. In confusion, he fought the urge to
run away from his father when he felt talons wrapping around his
chest. Feeling Ulpheir’s talons wrapping around his chest, a shock
of surprise spread into his spine when Ulpheir explained, “I’m just
going to safely drop you off.”

With a few more flaps of his wings did
Ulpheir gradually float down to the white ground. As so was done,
he continued, “When you’re ready to come back inside, just yell for
us at this spot. Either your mother or I will come to bring you
back inside.”

As he gave a nod of sympathy, Leyoht noticed
his father shooting himself into the air once again. Instead of
flying directly into the hollow, Ulpheir made his way through the
sky and pushed himself into a journey with the clouds.

As the sight of his father slowly faded away,
Leyoht noticed his feet growing numb. It was then when he realized
the ground beneath him was much colder than the ground on the
inside of the hollow tree.
Why is the ground so cold?
he
silently asked himself as he waddled through the white ground.

Leyoht felt discomfort scratch at his feet
with every step he took. Through the numbness he carried, he
noticed a peculiarity about the ground he had been walking through.
Stopping in his tracks, Leyoht turned himself around to take sight
of a small series of markings in the white ground—each one
identical. He peered down at these markings to notice something
familiar in the shape that they possessed.

“Did I do that?” he murmured in question to
the marks. If so was the case, why did the marks show here and not
in the hollow tree? The fact that the hard ground inside the hollow
tree never showed any familiar markings while the white ground
had
done so hadn’t caused a great sense of confusion to
flare up in Leyoht’s mind.

After taking a short time to stare at these
strange markings, Leyoht lifted his chilled feet from the ground.
His own two feet sank into the icy, white crystals—which caused his
ears to vibrate with the sound of a small crunch slipping between
his toes.

With four more steps did he find himself
stopping in his tracks; it was the minimum amount of steps he
needed to take. Once so was done, Leyoht twisted his head backwards
to see even more indentations marked into the ground. The sight
flashing in his eyes, he thought triumphantly,
So I
was
doing it!

His moment of triumph soon came to an end
when his sharp ears took hearing of a strange, faint noise. A short
pause of silence was broken when the sound of footsteps pounded
through the ground. Curious to know what was going on, Leyoht
strode off into the direction from where these noises were
emanating

A short series of footsteps brought Leyoht to
find a nest in the middle of a small crater in the ground. Sitting
in the nest was sighted an old male snowy owl—the likes of which
gave off an austere appearance. “Hello!” the old snowy greeted with
a smile on his face. “You must be Ulpheir’s son—Leyoht—right?”

Jerking his eyeshot over to the old owl’s
gaze, Leyoht asked, “You know my father?”

With a nod of his head, he replied, “He and I
were friends back when Ulpheir was only a bit older than you are
now. You should ask him sometime about an owl named Mikto; that’s
me.”

Changing the subject slightly, Leyoht asked
“Do you know what this white stuff is on the ground? It’s so cold
and weird!”

“That’s snow,” Mikto explained. “You’ll see a
whole lot of it in your life. It comes from cold, frozen water
flakes that come from the clouds. Once millions of them fall from
the sky, they’ll pile up on the ground. Once it gets too warm,
they’ll all melt away.”

“I hope it gets warm sometime soon. I can
barely even feel my feet!”

A hint of sorrow going pushing against his
chest, Mikto sighed, “I hope so, too—but I wouldn’t count on it.
The snow just came here not too long ago. Once it comes here, it
usually stays around for a while. But as you get older, you’ll
want
there to be snow on the ground. There are times of the
year where it becomes way too hot.”

As he let out a sigh of slight
disappointment, the sound of a screech sounded through Leyoht’s
ears. In complete awe, he began to hop around Mikto’s nest when he
asked, “What was that?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds like somebody’s
in trouble.”

Taking a moment of thought, Leyoht’s
shoulders gave a shrug when he bravely stated, “I’m going to see
what’s going on.” Without another word, he left Mikto behind as he
made his way toward where the screech had released itself.

His freezing feet running through the myriad
number of snowflakes on the ground, Leyoht peeked his way over a
hill of snow to see something tall perching off in the distance.
Crouching below the hill was a group of owlets—each of whom seemed
to be cringing away from the tall object.

Making his way down the icy hill, Leyoht felt
confusion form in his head when he asked, “What’s going on?”

“Over there,” a girl pointed with her beak.
“My mother’s told me about those things! I’ve heard that some of
them are very nice, but most of them are very
bad
!”

As Leyoht exchanged quick glances between
both the tall creature and the frightened owl in front of her, he
suggested, “Maybe it’s a nice one.”

“But what if it’s not?” asked a male owlet,
suspicion drawing from his voice.

The thought of this creature being a
pessimist struck fear into Leyoht’s blood. The images in his head
would have shown more clarity if he could have seen the full
picture of this creature’s outside details. The only thing he could
have made out of this figure was a tall, lean figure.

“What are we supposed to do if it’s so
dangerous?” Leyoht challenged the frightened owlets.

Not finding the any sense of the disdain he
held in his voice, the same female owl beside him whispered, “My
mother’s told me that if I see one of them, we’re supposed to
slowly back away from them.”

Turning her head gaze toward her other
friends, she whispered, “Once I start moving away, I want you all
to slowly follow me. Make sure you’re not spotted!” In response to
her whispers, each owlet—except for Leyoht—gave their heads many
quick nods as they kept their focus on the owl’s body. Once the
other owlets took sight of the girl’s body move around the hill of
snow, they slowly crept their way around the hill of snow.

As the others slipped away from his sight,
Leyoht took a look over at the creature in front of him. Although
the words the other young owlets had spoken to him hadn’t caused
any spark of horror to flare up in his mind, a rush of worry
suddenly stopped him from making his way toward the creature.

A hole buried itself into Leyoht’s
chest—growing larger by every second.

…
most of them are very bad!

But what if it’s not?

As he kept these words in a silent
repetition, Leyoht began to wonder if these owlets spoke the truth.
Is that—whatever it is—really as bad as they say?

He could faintly remember hearing what his
own mother had told him about creatures with much individuality—who
could use their surroundings to their own advantage. The question
now was whether or not this creature he had been staring at was the
same creature his mother had been talking about all those days ago
in the hollow tree.

After taking a glance at the creature in
front of him, he looked back over his shoulder and decided to make
his way toward the frightened owlets. When he poked his head around
the hill of snow, each of them presented expressions of relief
washing over their faces.

Without hesitation and without showing so
much as a single fraction of any remaining fear on his face, Leyoht
informed the other owlets, “The creature didn’t do anything to
me!”

The sound of these words vibrating through
their ears, almost every one of the owlets turned their gazes
toward the objective nestling. Leyoht heard a shallow male owlet
whisper, “Are any of them bad, Roseti?”

In response to this whispered question, the
owlet named Roseti snapped, “Of course they are! My mother has
always told me how much the humans have hurt us.”

At the sound of the word
humans
, a
flash of familiarity spread through Leyoht’s mind.
I
knew
that’s what that thing was!
he silently assured himself as
Roseti continued to argue with the others.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Roseti asked as
she walked up to Leyoht.

His train of thought came to a crash when he
responded, “Leyoht.”

A short pause occurred before Roseti broke
the silence by explaining, “The three boys are Jsaleor, Ramil, and
Plenot. The other girl’s name is Behinlo.” She pointed to each of
her friends with her beak as she introduced them to Leyoht.

“Are you new here?” Roseti asked somewhat
suspiciously.

Hesitating, Leyoht confusedly responded,
“Well—it’s my first day being outside from my home.”

“It’s my fifth day being outside of my home,”
Roseti remarked with a slightly loosened look on her face.

Their conversation was obstructed when a
bigger owl—who appeared to have already learned how to fly—crept up
to them. Almost every spot on his body was covered in fluffy, white
clouds of feather. His large appearance frightened nearly half of
the owlets he stood over.

“What are you all doing here?” the older owl
sneered. Starting himself on a slow pace, he gave a temporary orbit
around the younger owlets.

“We were—just talking,” Roseti replied as she
took a nervous look toward Leyoht.

“I have a question for you all,” the older
owl continued. “If we’re all the same age, how come I can fly and
you can’t?”

This question sent a blaze of many more
questions to form in Leyoht’s mind. When he took a look at the owl
in front of him, he noticed that there were great differences
between the amounts of feathers their bodies contained.

While most of the feathers on Leyoht’s body
sat upon small patches of white on his face, the larger owl in
front of him was almost entirely covered in feathers. Simply by
taking quick examinations on his wings could Leyoht tell their
wingspans must have held a great difference.

Before he could make any objections, Leyoht
took notice of the larger owl lifting his wings into the air—much
like his own parents had done. As he gave a great flap, the larger
owl quickly found himself floating through the sky as he made a
random pattern in flight.

Having understood true reason, the younger
owlets below this antagonist were well-aware of his shameful lies.
From the moment they had laid their eyes upon his body, they were
able to discover no owlet their age could have grown the kinds of
feathers covering this larger owl.

As a thirst to rectify their flying opponent
landed upon their tongues, the young owlets patiently waited for
the larger owl to come back down to the ground.

Once the boastful owl finally made his way
down to the ground, he took a scornful look toward the younger
owlets. “Mouse-tails,” he remarked with a smirk surpassing his
face. At the sound of his taunt, each of the owlets gave a great
chorus of gasps.

For an owl, to be called a mouse-tail meant
they were unable to survive in the harsh world surrounding them. It
was a great insult for any owl who knew or thought they could grow
up to thrive against the world’s challenges. The idea of being
called a mouse-tail ebbing through their minds, each of the young
owlets felt remorse enclose their minds.

As the large owl made his way toward the
young owlets, each of the young ones cringed away, shrinking all
the while. Fear pulsated through their minds with thoughts of their
powerful enemy turning his emotional taunts into physical
torture.

While Leyoht backed away from the larger owl,
he took notice of the other owlets surrounding him. Each of them
held looks of emotional pain upon their faces; some of them were
even sighted with tears streaming from their eyes. This sight
caused a knife of sorrow to pierce through Leyoht’s startled
heart.