Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

genius what I have done!” Kreeth exclaimed several times a day and into the night. And despite all her protestations about not wanting to be a mother, she seemed genuinely fond of Lutta in an almost maternal sense.
    “But all this changing—it’s not natural,” Pleek protested in the gentlest way.
    Kreeth blinked her beady little eyes. “You think either one of you is natural? Who needs natural? Lutta is interesting. She’s a fascinating phenomenon.”
    “Yes, yes, of course.” Pleek and Ygryk nodded. Silently, they reminded themselves that they had a unique and wonderful chick. But each one silently thought, We didn’t want a phenomenon, we just wanted a chick! Something we can call our own. Still, they tried to appreciate this wondrous chick. To learn her ways. To come to love her and delight in her.
    And for a while, it worked. Pleek and Ygryk told themselves that underneath the plumy whiteness of a Snowy Owl or the speckled splendor of a Spotted Owl or the silvery mist featheration of a Great Gray, she was still their little Lutta. Although it was especially upsetting to Pleek when he had brought her a plump little ice mouse for her first Meat-on-Bones ceremony that Lutta changed species a half-dozen times during the ritual. She started off as a Great Horned, then slid into the dark sleekness of hags-fiend. Pleek and Ygryk both churred at this, for they took it as an homage to themselves. “So respectful!” Ygryk murmured. And it would have been if it had ended there. But it did not. A moment later, Lutta had become a Pygmy Owl, of all things, and dwindled to such a tiny size that she could hardly get the plump thigh of the ice mouse down her gullet.
    “Great Glaux, why would she do a thing like that?” Pleek fumed. Lutta blinked at him. “Why are you calling me she, Da, and not Lutta?” Pleek didn’t answer.
    “Mum, why’s he calling me she? I’m your chick. It’s like you don’t know me.”
    “We find it…hard sometimes, dear,” Ygryk stammered as she watched the Pygmy swell into a Barn Owl, then peered into the shining dark eyes that gleamed blackas river stones in that stark white face. “It is you in there, isn’t it?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
    From a corner in the ice hollow, Kreeth cast a sly glance.
    Pleek and Ygryk were becoming less and less sure of Lutta. When out on their hunting flights, they would discuss their peculiar owlet.
    “I just don’t know what to make of it, Pleek.”
    “I know what you mean, my dear. I suppose we’ll have to teach her to fly,” Pleek said wearily. “As you say, it’s hard to know how to feel.”
    Any child, bird or otherwise, can sense their parents’ doubt, and Lutta was no exception. At first it made her angry, but then she began to feel rather indifferent. What did she care what they thought? Kreeth was always good to her. Kreeth liked her the way she was—whatever that was. She began to dread when Pleek and Ygryk returned from their hunting trips. They always seemed to be whispering about her. She could sense it just before they entered the cave. And then they would either stare at her and not say anything or turn their heads as if it hurt them to look at her. But Kreeth was the opposite. She seemed to delight in all of Lutta’s transformations.
    On this particular night, her parents had just returnedand she was perched on her ice ledge as a crow, which she thought Ygryk would like, but Ygryk just got this hard look in her eye. By the demons of smee holes, thought Lutta, using a favorite curse of Kreeth’s, why is my haggish, so-called mother staring at me like this? “Look!” She blurted out. “I can’t help what I am and what I am not.” Kreeth craftily observed all this from a corner in the cave.
    “I suppose that is so,” was all that Ygryk said. And Pleek went silently to his ice perch without even greeting Lutta.
    At noon the following day, as Kreeth and Lutta slept, Pleek and Ygryk left. They abandoned their longed-for chick to the hagsfiend who had divined her.

CHAPTER SIX
The Education of Lutta
    T he inside of the ice cave danced with the light of the stars outside. They were called frost stars because their images were reflected perfectly on the ice walls as they rose in the night.
    Lutta blinked. “I overslept.” She swiveled her head, which, at this time, had taken the form and featheration of a Barn Owl. Her eyes, like black mirrors, reflected the frost stars. Even Kreeth was struck by her beauty.