Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

that collected in the tree lap.
    He paused as he caught sight of her perched on a mossy hump. Her back was to him. He did not want to startle her. She seemed to be studying the stalks of a cladonia, one of the most beautiful lichens.
    “Vreeling cladonia mich vaargen, scmuttz engen guneer gunden,” Cleve spoke softly.
    Otulissa gasped. Her gizzard shuddered. She dared not turn around. Was she dreaming? This could not be true. Someone was speaking to her in beautiful Krakish about the amazing diversity of cladonia lichen. It had been so long since she had heard Krakish spoken.
    She slowly turned around. Tears spilled from her one good eye. “Bisshen ninga Krakish y faar son.”
    “You speak lovely Krakish, Otulissa. I never forgot your voice. I never will.”
    “Cleve! Cleve!” That was all she could say. Her gizzard quaked with so many emotions that she could hardly speak. He is still so handsome. How could he ever…
    But he had flown right up to her and wrapped her in his wings. “I have missed you, Otulissa.”
    “But, Cleve, I am so different now.”
    “You are the same beautiful, smart Spotted Owl that I fell in love with long ago.”
    She extricated herself from his wings and raised a talon and tore off the bandanna. The pit where hereye had been had healed but the scar was still fresh. “Look at me!”
    “What do you take me for, Otulissa? It is the whole owl you are that matters.”
    “But, Cleve, I got this wound in battle. You are a gizzard-resister. I am a warrior. That is why we parted, remember?”
    “I remember.”
    “Have you changed?”
    “No. Have you?”
    Otulissa didn’t answer but looked down at her talons. What was she to say? She wasn’t just a warrior, but she still believed that there were times when force was called for.
    “I thought so.” Cleve nodded. “You haven’t changed and nor have I. But, Otulissa, we are both much more than we were. You are more than a warrior, and I am more than a gizzard-resister. I am a healer now, an herbalist. That was what I was studying at the retreat. You see, we are both more than the sum of our parts. And together…”
    I can’t believe this is happening , Otulissa thought. But it was. Could she raise young’uns with only one eye? It seemed to her that it took at least a dozen eyes to keep chicks in order. So what difference did one eye more or less make?
    In another part of the tree, in the King’s hollow, Coryn poked at the fire and watched the flames flare up, then settle down. He bent forward. Once again, he was seeking the rich images between in the central plane. These were the shapes that one with firesight sorted out to make some kind of sense from the images. And these were making a kind of sense, though a dreadful one. Coryn saw another cave, not the one in the canyonlands, but an ice-bright cave, and in it he saw two owls huddled. One cast a blue shadow on the wall of ice. The other raised her face. It loomed like a pitted ice moon. Coryn touched the scar that ran down his own face. It was not his own reflection in the flames. It was Nyra’s and, facing her, stood the Striga. His gizzard turned. He was horrified, but at the same instant he felt something stronger and more powerful. For deep in his gizzard, Coryn finally knew that he was free—free from the haunting doubts about his mother, his own blood. I know at last who I am. And who I am not. I was born of a haggish owl, and though her blood flows through me I am my own owl. My gizzard is mine. I am a king, but more important, I am a Guardian .
    Coryn knew that he needed only courage to make strong the weak, mend the broken, vanquish the proud, and make powerless those who abused the frail. Hereached for the first book of the legends, and placed his talon on it. And began to whisper the oath of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. “I am the eyes in the night, the silence within the wind. I am the talons through the fire, the shield that guards the innocent…” And finally Coryn thought, I am free, truly free!

OWLS
and others
from the
GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE SERIES
    The Band
    SOREN: Barn Owl, Tyto alba , from the Forest Kingdom of Tyto; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls; a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree and close advisor to the King
    GYLFIE: Elf Owl, Micranthene whitneyi , from the desert kingdom of Kuneer; escaped from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls; Soren’s best friend; a Guardian at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree and ryb of the