Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

to their own hollow. She was bustling about, plucking down from her own breast and tucking it in around an owl. “Now, now, dear, we know you did your best.”
    “But what will Mum and Da think?” For a moment Soren’s gizzard gave a lurch. Could this little owl be Eglantine?
    “They will think that you were a brave little Pygmy Owl,” Matron replied.
    Soren sighed.
    “What are you doing out there? Just don’t stand around, come in and make yourself useful,” Matron called. Soren came slowly into the hollow. The little owl was nearly as small as Gylfie; she was very fluffy, although she smelled of soot and some of her feathers were singed. “Now what did you say your name was, dear?” Matron bent over the Pygmy Owl.
    “Primrose.”
    “Yes. Primrose here lost her nest.”
    “The whole tree,” gulped the little owl.
    “Yes, indeed. See, her parents had gone off to fight in the borderlands skirmishes, and they had left her all safe and sound.”
    “I was supposed to be sitting the two new eggs. Mum was really only off hunting, not fighting. She was going to be right back.”
    “What happened?” Soren asked.
    “A fire—forest fire. I didn’t think it would reach our tree and when it did, well, I tried to save one of the eggs. But you know, I haven’t been flying that long and, well, I just…” Here, she began to sob uncontrollably.
    A bunchy Barred Owl poked her head in. “Any tea here?”
    “Oh, yes, I think a cup of milkberry tea would be lovely.”
    “I dropped the egg. I don’t deserve to live.” Primrose emitted a long sound halfway between a whistle and a wail.
    “Don’t say that!” Soren exclaimed. “Of course you deserve to live. Every owl deserves to live. That’s why we came here.”
    Matron stopped what she was doing and cocked her head and regarded the young Barn Owl. Perhaps he was learning; just perhaps he was beginning to catch a glimmer of the true meaning of a noble deed. She would leave him to comfort this little Pygmy Owl and send in an extra cup of tea and some milkberry tart.
    Soren stayed with Primrose for the rest of the evening. She was sometimes a bit feverish and would begin to mumble about the little brother she was sure she had killed. She had wanted to call him Osgood. Other times, she was quite lucid and would blink and say to Soren, “But what about Mum? What about Da? What will they think when they come home and find our forest burned, our tree gone? Will they look for me?”
    And Soren simply did not know how to answer her, for, indeed, he had asked himself the same question so many times. Near daybreak, Primrose was sound asleepand Soren decided to make his way back to his own hollow. He meandered through the central hollow of the tree and more than once took a wrong turn that led down another passageway. While wandering down a particularly twisty one, he met up with an elderly Spotted Owl.
    “Ah, one of the new arrivals, part of that band that flew in from the Ice Narrows,” she hooted softly.
    “Yes, well, we don’t come from the Narrows. We were blown off course. We’d left from The Beaks but somehow…”
    “Oh, dear…Yes, The Beaks, only for the strongest gizzards.”
    Soren blinked. Now what did she mean by that?
    “I’m Strix Struma, here. Perhaps you need to sharpen your navigational skills. I am the navigation ryb. It’s getting to be First Light, so I suggest you hasten to your hollow. And if you are very quiet, you shall hear the music of Madame Plonk’s harp. It is lovely to go to sleep to and she has a fine voice.”
    “What’s a harp? What’s music?” Soren asked. He remembered the awful songs of St. Aggie’s. Surely this must be different.
    “Oh, dear. It’s hard to explain. Listen and you’ll begin to know.”
    When he got back to his hollow, they were all having cups of milkberry tea. “It’s amazing, Soren,” Gylfie said. “Nest-maid snakes brought the tea around on their backs.”
    “Yes, I really think there will be a place for me here, Soren. I think I can serve.” Mrs. P. almost glowed as she said the word.
    Everyone seemed quite content except for Twilight. “I didn’t kill those two fiends of St. Aggie’s, I didn’t battle crows and tear out the throat of a bobcat to sit on my tail feathers and be served tea.” Twilight seemed to swell to twice his size.
    “Well, what can you do, Twilight?” Gylfie said.
    “I think we have to have a word with the head owls—Boron and Barran. I don’t think they