Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (16 page)

Oh boy,
Ulpheir thought as the cold
air brushed through his feathers.
Winter’s coming up very
quickly this year.
The thought of winter coming up—just at his
son’s birth—caused a thorn of worry to pierce through his
thoughts.

As the breeze continued to blow through his
feathers, Ulpheir sensed a speck of ice fall upon his beak. As it
began to melt, he wiped the drop of freezing-cold water off of his
beak with his wing. Once his wing came back to the left side of his
torso to warm the rest of his body up, he took notice of a storm of
snowflakes emerging from the sky.

Feeling the snow melt into his feathers,
Ulpheir gave himself a shake just before coming back into the
hollow. He sniffed as he made his way to the center of the tree.
Making an attempt at squeezing the moisture from his feathers, he
pressed himself against his sleeping family.

Closing his tired, yellow eyes, he quickly
found himself falling asleep. The rustling from the snowstorm
outside became a mere whisper in the wind as a night of peace
filled this hollow.

--

Unlike most snowy owls, this family of three
was fortunate enough to find a tree with the correct size and
strength for them to live in. Every other owl in the area they had
lived in was forced to build nests in the ground as a means of
shelter.

If the young owlet’s eyes had not been sealed
shut, he would have taken sight of a strange, dark place. The wood
on the inside of the hollow gave an old and chipped
appearance—while the outside bark was just the opposite. This
outside layer of bark acted as a shield against the cold, blowing
winds which headed their way.

Although they were not aware of it, this
large tree was older than many of the parents’ known relatives. For
all they knew, this tree probably hadn’t any breath flowing through
any speck of its bark.

As the chilling wind blew against Leyoht’s
downy fluff, his entire body gave a chronic shiver. A freezing
blade seemed to seep into his spine, causing his entire body to
grow numb.

It wasn’t as much as the coldness of the wind
which made his spine shiver, but it was rather the feeling
something was trying to impetuously cause harm. Feeling fear and
freezing temperatures surround him, Leyoht pressed as cozily as he
could against his mother.

Despite the chilling wind, Leyoht had
experienced a peaceful sleep that night. Often when he felt an
uncomfortable breeze blow against on his down, he would try to find
a comfortable corner in one of his parents’ feathery wings.

--

As the next day drew near, Leyoht could feel
his eyes gradually open up for the first time in his short life. He
could just barely make out his sleeping parents’ images, their
white feathers reflecting into his eyes. Such a sight made him now
realize how every sensation, sound, and scent came from an object
he had the ability to see with his own two eyes.

Sacrificing much of the strength contained in
his legs, Leyoht slowly picked himself up away from his parents.
Letting out a small grunt of weariness, his bent jet-black legs
continued to straighten until Leyoht began to feel giddiness swell
up in his head. At the same time did he realize how his legs had
straightened up completely.

In his success, Leyoht found himself falling
backwards toward his mother’s chest. Thankfully, the only thing she
had done in response to this disturbance was turn her head in the
opposite direction from where Leyoht had ran into her.

Trying to rebalance himself back on his feet,
Leyoht pressed his tiny head against his mother’s wing while he
strained the muscles in his ankles. He attempted to lean forward on
his feet, only to find himself falling on his chest as a result of
pushing himself too far forward.

Panting in great weariness, Leyoht used his
weak down-covered wings to push himself from the floor of the
hollow. Once back on his feet, he lifted his left leg from the
floor, feeling an imbalance in his posture. Such a sensation caused
a spark of fear to ignite in his mind.

Just when the little owlet was on the brink
of falling over on the floor once again, he swiftly rested his left
talon to a spot a short distance in front of him. In this awkward
position, Leyoht carefully lifted his right leg—another sense of
imbalance forming in his head until he placed it even further from
where he just was.

His talons spread apart, Leyoht quickly
viewed what he had just performed as an enjoyable activity. A smile
nearly forming in his beak, he lifted and moved his feet with the
effort needed to do so, noticing how the amount of effort required
started lessening every time he made the attempt to move
forward.

Leyoht’s enjoyment came to a pause when he
stopped in his tracks and allowed his weak eyes to take notice of a
strange, circular, white light in the faint distance. A spark of
wonder suddenly flared within Leyoht’s mind as he began to walk
toward it.

Drawing himself nearer to the light, the
young owl found himself surprised how he hadn’t yet touched it.
There were often points in his seemingly infinite journey where
Leyoht would feel disappointment wash over him when he discovered
he was nowhere near as close to the light as he had once
thought.

Through Leyoht’s long first walk, he soon
found the white light having been the only thing clouding his
sight. He was astonished to have discovered this sphere of white
proved to be even larger than both his parents combined.

Curiosity taking control of his mind, Leyoht
lifted his left leg from the ground once again as he drew it toward
the light. Strangely, his outstretched leg took absolutely no
sensation of a solid surface when he made an attempt to touch what
he believed would be a white wall.

Nearly losing his balance, Leyoht took a hop
back away from the white light. Now imbalanced in the opposite
direction, he quickly found himself falling on his back as he let
out a squeak of pain. He soon realized he now had an entirely
different predicament for him to surpass.

Making many attempts to pick himself off the
floor and onto his feet, Leyoht noticed weariness clawing at him
with even more ferocity than what it had shown on his journey to
the light in the distance. His body gave many great shifts with the
effort to put himself back on his feet again.

To resolve his conflict, Leyoht began to tilt
his head backwards, causing it to push against the floor. The
muscles in his stomach, legs, and neck gave out all their strength
to put him back into his former position. Finding himself high
enough to move his wings, the fragile owlet pressed his two wings
against the ground. Using less effort to push himself from the
ground, Leyoht arduously stumbled back on his feet once again.

Finding himself perfectly balanced, he
frightfully brought himself over to the light once more. Leyoht
cautiously poked his head toward the light, his tiny eyes noticing
there was an even deeper ground below the floor on which he
stood.

Peering into the ground, he began to consider
the white upon the ground he was seeing was made from the same
material as his parents’ feathers. Stretching through what he
believed had been feathers were very few slightly thin strands of
green.

Giving her body a quick jerk, Sahemawia
yawned as her yellow eyes opened up. She gave her eyes a quick
series of blinks before turning her head—taking notice of her son
near the edge of the hollow’s opening. The sight of such an
occurrence caused her body to jolt in awakening almost
instantly.

Wondering how such a thing could have
happened without her knowledge, Sahemawia gave her neck a stretch
before hopping over to Leyoht’s side. “Hello, my little baby!”
Sahemawia greeted her son, walking up behind him.

Confused of where these words had drawn forth
from, Leyoht slowly turned around—almost tripping over his own feet
in the process. Once he had taken sight of his recently-awakened
mother, his head tilted upwards to notice her flashing yellow eyes
and jet-black beak—both of which remained blurred by his eyes. The
sight caused Leyoht to wonder what image he himself resembled.

As she bent her legs to create a focused gaze
into her son’s eyes, Leyoht flinched when he felt Sahemawia’s
breath brush through his down. At the same time did Sahemawia
notice Leyoht’s little wings wrap around her towering leg. In
response to Leyoht’s loving hold on her leg, Sahemawia gently
allowed he corners of her own wings to gently nuzzle her son.

Allowing her arms to release their grasp on
the little owlet, a rush of thanks surged through Sahemawia’s
blood. Her thanks formed in the fact that her only son had
successfully made it through his first harsh months of life as an
egg. Far too often had she witnessed unborn owlets never emerging
from their eggs.

Regardless of her thankfulness, a great sense
of worry still surrounded Sahemawia’s head. She was well-aware of
how many owlets born during winter were likely to find themselves
face-to-face with death shortly after birth because they hadn’t
received enough warmth. The fear of such a thing happening to
Leyoht was just enough to wash her once-present happiness away.

Being such a young owl, Leyoht did not
understand such words as
winter
or death. Although no owlet
his age had any sense for vocabulary, each of them could sense what
their parents felt deep inside of them. And as far as he was
concerned, the thoughts within Sahemawia’s head were thoughts he
barely knew existed. As these thoughts flew about in his head, his
mother remained by his side, cautiously looking over her son.

Despite his mother’s feelings of fear and
remorse, Leyoht managed to remain positive. Throughout the air,
Leyoht could sense the wonder and beauty of the world—as much as
the severity and malice it could show.

With every breath he took, Leyoht felt as if
he had discovered something new about his world. Such a feeling
gave him a warming sensation—in addition to a strange,
uncomfortable pressure—inside of his chest.

This pressure caused the young owlet to
quiver in fear—as if his heart were being pulled downwards from his
body. With both the unfamiliar warmth and pressure ever-present,
Leyoht felt as uneasy as an ill elder in the midst of a
blizzard.

This strange pressure crashed into him on
every corner of his body as Leyoht soon found his eyelids too heavy
to remain open any longer. Once his eyelids had fully wrapped
themselves around his blur-shaded eyes, he began to lean against
his mother.

It must have been tiring for him to walk
all the way to the other side of the hollow,
Sahemawia
inferred. She let out a soft sigh as she wrapped her warm feathers
around Leyoht and protected the sleeping owlet from the freezing
temperatures. Moving by one tiny step at a time, she slowly made
her way back to the nest to sleep the night away with Ulpheir and
Leyoht.

--

The next thing Leyoht could remember was
waking up at midday, his head resting on Sahemawia’s chest. He gave
a blink before letting out a yawn. As his eyes opened for the first
time in a while, he realized his vision made a great improvement
over the night.

For the first time ever, Leyoht’s eyes held
enough strength in them for him to see exactly what images his
world had to offer. The sight of his parents and home no longer
gave him the idea of the world being a land of blurred
pictures.

Taking a look down, he noticed two strange
and somewhat triangular black figures below him. He peered down at
these two little things and noticed they were connected to his
body. In slight confusion, he shifted one of his legs upwards and
studied it with care. Placing it down, he observed the other one to
notice how it was identical to the one he had just placed down on
the floor.

After placing both his black legs down to the
floor, he strained his back and took a look down to notice his
stomach was covered in a strange, dark-gray fluff. Curious at what
this fluff was supposed to do, he began to poke his beak into it as
a swarm of questions rang through his mind.

Drilling his beak into the fluff, Leyoht
wondered what it would have felt like to lie in a pile of this
material. He imagined such an experience would have been heavenlier
than if he were to wallow in his parents’ feathers.

A faint thumping sound in the distance caused
Leyoht’s head to give a great jerk. What could it have possibly
been? From what he could understand, this sound was clearly
emanating from a place somewhere outside from his home’s walls.

The pounding made a song—or so it had seemed
to the young owlet’s ears. A mixture of a million emotions spilled
out from the song—which led Leyoht to believe this song involved
conflict.

Having before seen, tasted, felt, and heard
the world’s wonders, Leyoht wasn’t sure how he would sense the
world next. He wondered how there could have possibly been any
other way to sense his surroundings, as his little mind had been
sucked dry of any possible idea.

This subject was dropped completely when his
eye was caught by a strange and beautiful plant. He noticed how
this plant contained a series of elegant, violet petals sitting on
a green stem—the likes of which seemed to sprout out of a large
bush just outside of his home.

He walked over to the beautiful plant and
suddenly took sensation of its beautiful scent lingering in his
nostrils. Drawing himself closer to the plant, Leyoht realized the
plant was releasing an exotic aroma. Once the realization came into
mind, he pressed his beak up against the plant’s petals as he
inhaled the fragrance.

Sniffing at the plant before him, Leyoht
nearly froze when his ears took caught hearing of footsteps
thumping one by one through the hollow. The footsteps increased in
volume until they came to an abrupt stop. After a moment of
silence, a voice greeted him, “Hello, Leyoht!”