Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole

this every time he woke up; it had become a habit. It was still hot in the desert as the sun set, and by drooping and stretching his wings, Cletus exposed the unfeathered area under each wing, which cooled him slightly. It took him half a moon cycle’s worth of sleepily bumping into the walls to learn that if he tried to stretch both wings, he could barely unbend his elbow joints.
    Not many Great Gray Owls lived in ground burrows in the desert. In fact, Cletus knew of only two, including himself. The other was his older brother, Tavis. Ground burrows were usually occupied by much smaller owls. Cletus was painfully aware of this fact. He was particularly large for a Great Gray Owl. Tavis was even larger. It was a wonder that Cletus and Tavis found a burrow big enough to accommodate them. They guessed that it must have belonged to some foxes, or maybe a family of coyotes.
    The two brothers were originally from the Forest Kingdom of Ambala. Ah, Ambala. They remembered the place fondly—so lush, so green, so different from this remote corner of the southwestern reaches of the Desert of Kuneer. This place was the very opposite of lush and green. The parched earth stretched as far as the eye could see. Trees were as rare as rain showers. The only plants were small shrubs and alien-looking cacti. During the day, the sun beat down on the pale earth and baked the surface of the landscape. At night, the biting cold set upon the land as quickly as an owl on a fat mouse. This was one of the areas of the desert where not many owls lived. Those who did live here mostly kept to themselves.
    If Tavis and Cletus could have lived all their lives peacefully in the forests of Ambala, they certainly would have. Growing up, they had shared a comfy hollow in a large oak tree with their mum and da. One day, their da had gone out hunting and never came home. Their mum had found out that he was killed by one of the earliest leaders of the Pure Ones, known only as the High Tyto. Their father’s death had been particularly devastating for the whole family because their mum had just laid an egg. Then, not a moon cycle later, their mum disappeared while Tavis and Cletus were out hunting. She had been sitting the egg in their nest. They had found her body a few nights later. Mum and Da had always been very outspoken against the notions of “owl purity” touted by the so-called Pure Ones; their mum and da said it loud and clear on many occasions: Owl purity was a load of racdrops. Tavis and Cletus had suspected that it was their opinions that got them both killed. The egg that their mum had been sitting looked as if it had hatched, but the brothers had found no sign of the chick.
    After that, Tavis and Cletus knew that their days in Ambala were numbered. The hollow they had shared with their parents was a constant reminder of their loss. The owls of St. Aggie’s were still patrolling the area, stealing eggs and owlets and recruiting thugs. The Pure Ones were moving in as well, savagely targeting any owl who disagreed with their “philosophy.” The two brothers decided that they had to leave Ambala for good.
    For much of that summer, the two owls roamed the Southern Kingdoms, spending time in abandoned nests here and there. None had felt like home. And as vagabond owls, they continued to have run-ins with the Pure Ones and St. Aggie’s patrols. When autumn came, Tavis and Cletus decided they needed to settle down. They found themselves in a wide, shallow, crater-shaped region in the Desert of Kuneer. Locals called it the “Broken Egg” for the jagged, packed earth ridges that rimmed the edges like fragments of an eggshell. Large, abandoned ground burrows were plentiful. The Pure Ones and St. Aggie’s owls never ventured here. The land was vast and the brothers lived far from their nearest neighbors. The owls around here weren’t very sociable, but they looked out for one another because they were together in their solitude. For the first time since their father’s death, they felt safe. And so they stayed and made the ground burrow their home. That was years ago.
    One evening, Cletus poked his head out of the burrow he shared with his brother Tavis. To the west, the last remaining glow of the sun cut the earth ridges black against the sky. The northern edge of the Broken Egg sloped up behind him, dimming into gray as stars began to dot the sky. His eyes adjusted to the twilight, and he looked for the larger Great Gray, who had already