Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

perched before her.
    “Oh, so sorry. I was quite absorbed here,” Otulissa said.
    “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
    But you did , thought Otulissa. She had little tolerance for the indiscriminate use of words. Wouldn’t it have been better to say simply, “Sorry to disturb you”?
    “What is it, might I ask, that absorbs you so?” the Striga asked.
    “I have for some time been immersed in a study of weather and air currents. I am a member of the weather-interpretation chaw.”
    “Oh,” the Striga said with a jovial note in his voice. “I approve!”
    Otulissa blinked. She did not quite understand. “Approve of what?” she cocked her head to one side. What in the name of Glaux is there to approve of? And why should you be the one doing the approving? But she, of course, said none of this aloud.
    “I approve of the practical studies such as weather.” He swung his head slowly around. “But not the inessential, the frivolous, the, how should I put it? The heretical texts.”
    “Heretical?”
    “Yes. You know, the anti-Glaux books such as those the young owlets are giggling over.” He nodded toward the young owls gathered around a desk reading a book with great glee.
    “It’s a joke book! That’s all!” Otulissa then told one of the few lies she had ever told in her life. “I read it myself when I was an owlet.” Otulissa had never read a joke book, but she would never deny another owl the right to read one.
    “But such books are fripperies, indulgences, vanities!”
    She looked at him closely. What is this owl talking about? This word “vanity” was often in his speech.
    “I am not quite sure what you mean by the word ‘vanity’ in reference to literature.”
    “Literature?” He paused. “But surely, Otulissa, you need not concern yourself with literature, for you are a student of practical disciplines—like this er…uh…weather and—what is it you are reading now?”
    She didn’t like the way he asked the question. It was interfering, beaky. Why should she have to tell him what she was reading or studying? It wasn’t as if she had anything to hide. In fact, she was quite proud of this book, because it had been written by one of her own ancestors, a most distinguished scholar, the most renownedweathertrix of the previous century, Strix Emerilla. The book had the rather ponderous title Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide . She held it up. “Written by my thrice-great-aunt, maternal side.”
    “You must be proud,” the Striga answered softly.
    “I am. I am very proud,” Otulissa replied curtly.
    “You must be careful of too much pride.”
    “Another vanity?” Otulissa leaned forward a bit and peered more closely at him. His face looked different from when he had first arrived at the tree. The feathers had thinned. Indeed, his face was almost bald. There was just a thin mist of blue over the gray-and-puckered skin.
    “Exactly, Otulissa! Exactly!”
    Otulissa flexed her head to one side, then to the other, running through a series of head postures as if she were studying the blue owl from every possible angle.
    “I am curious,” Otulissa began in a reflective tone. “Just what do you mean by this word ‘vanity’?”
    “Oh, I am so glad you asked.”
    I’m sure you are! Otulissa thought to herself.
    “As you know, Otulissa, I came from the Dragon Court, a most impractical place.” The Striga gave special emphasis to the word “impractical.” “It had become this way because of excess—excess of luxuries, of pampering, of every kind of indulgence imaginable. At the verycenter of this excess, the driving force, the fuel that fired it, was vanity.”
    “But what is vanity?” Otulissa asked.
    “Vanities are all the indecent things in life, the fripperies, the impracticalities that distract us from Glaux and our true owlness.”
    “True owlness?” Otulissa blinked.
    “Yes, we are, by nature, humble creatures.”
    “Hmm.” Otulissa sniffed, and thought of Twilight. Humble, my talon!
    “We must practice humility,” the Striga continued. “Anything else is vanity.”
    Otulissa was tempted to say, Well, to each his own . But she thought better of it. “One last question,” she said.
    “Of course.”
    Her eyes fastened on his face. “Are you suffering from mite blight? I notice the feathers on your face are quite thin.”
    “Oh, nothing of the sort,” the Striga answered almost cheerfully. “No. You see, for a long time, I