Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (17 page)

Pushing himself away from the plant, Leyoht
slowly turned around. “Fa-father?” he asked, wondering whether or
not he had spoken the word in the correct manner.

As the sound of this one word penetrated his
eardrums, Leyoht’s father placed a dumbfounded expression on his
face. After only a heartbeat of silence, he rushed off to his
sleeping mate and began shaking her by her shoulder.

Her eyes opening up, Sahemawia groaned,
“Wh-what? What’s going on?” She suddenly found herself looking in
every possible direction to find what had caused Ulpheir so much
stimulation. “Is my baby okay?”

“Leyoht just spoke his first word!” Ulpheir
replied, snapping Sahemawia out of her tiredness.

“What?” shrieked Sahemawia, her eyes flicking
wide open. “What did he say? What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Father.’” It was then when Ulpheir
took notice of his mate stumbling toward her son, curiosity
scratching at her mind. He then walked up to Sahemawia side as they
both took a look down at Leyoht.

As Leyoht’s yellow eyes met up with his
mother’s, he squeaked, “Father.” Their ears vibrating with the
sound of his squeak, both of his parents began to huff with
laughter at the thought of his confusion.

“I’m
mother
,” Sahemawia chuckled while
Ulpheir continued cry out in hilarity.

Leyoht gave a small blink in response, but no
words passed from his beak. Embarrassment from his blunder swelled
within him until he shrunk to nearly half his original size.

Noticing how embarrassed their son was, the
parents’ laughter came to a stop. It was then when Sahemawia bent
down—her gaze meeting up with Leyoht’s viscous eyes—when she calmly
told him, “We’re sorry.”

Looking up at his seemingly-blurry mother,
Leyoht heard her explain, “We weren’t making
fun
of you; we
were—just thinking of how it would have been if I really was your
father.” A pause occurred before Leyoht gave a blink of relief. At
the same time did he grow back to his previous volume.

Tilting her body back to where it was before,
Sahemawia felt Leyoht’s downy wings wrap around her leg when he
exclaimed, “Mother!” A bead of sweat nearly dragged its way down
her face as her beak came together in a somewhat relieved smile. A
harmless chuckle formed in her stomach when she noticed Leyoht’s
beak stretch out in a yawn.

“Come on,” Sahemawia beckoned as she made her
way toward the hollow’s nest. “You look as if you’re about to pass
out. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Giving his head a quick jerk toward the nest,
Leyoht slowly stumbled over to his mother as Ulpheir stood on the
edge of the hollow’s opening. The young owlet had nearly fallen
asleep on this short journey, causing his eyelids to unwillingly
cloud his sight for nearly half of the way through.

But finally when he found himself a short
distance from his destination did Leyoht increase his pace to twice
the speed it once. While doing so did he nearly trip over the edge
of the nest as he made his way in. When he
did
come into the
nest, however, he found himself falling asleep shortly after
crashing into his mother’s chest.

--

As the next day shone its light unto Leyoht’s
sealed eyes, the snowy owlet noticed as his body coursed with more
energy than ever before. His senses slightly keener than before,
Leyoht was able to take hearing of a group of voices as they grew
ever-stronger in his ears.

Curious to know where these voices had drawn
forth from, the owlet excitedly removed himself from his parents
and hopped over to the exit in hopes of taking a look outside of
the hollow tree. The images illuminating his eyes proved to him how
his surroundings were even greater-spread than he could have
imagined.

As his head poked through the hole in his
home, Leyoht noticed many owls with feathers containing the same
colors as his parents. Taking into mind how the feathers’ color was
the same color as the outside ground, it was rather difficult for
Leyoht’s young eyes to spot the many owls lingering outside.
Compared to his parents’ feathers, however, the feathers on most of
the outsider snowies held many spots of a muddy-brown color.

Taking a look down at the ground, he noticed
many green plants sticking their way through the snow—which caused
a spark of memory to flash in his mind. Upon taking sight of these
plants, he began to wonder if they carried the same scent as the
purple plant he had before encountered.

His talons curling around the rim of the
hollow’s exit, Leyoht peered down at the ground below him. All the
while did he make an attempt at inhaling whatever scent these
plants may have released into his lungs. His attempt was
interrupted when the sound of laughter rang in his ears. With a
flick of his gaze did he catch sight of a group of owls—all of
which seemed many days older than him.

With further investigation, Leyoht came to
realize each of these older owlets had already learned how to fly.
At the same time did most of them carry cockier personalities than
Leyoht had seen from his parents and voices which brought forth
deeper notes than what his own throat could create.

Sighing, the jealous owlet brought his body
back into the hollow as the other owls’ voices faded away from his
earshot. A sad look befalling his face, he leaned up against one of
the hollow’s walls. His moment of anxiety came to an end when he
heard his mother’s voice ring through the hollow.

“Leyoht!” Sahemawia called out to her son.
“Come here, Leyoht!”

Taking a look toward what lay ahead of him,
Leyoht took sight of his mother beckoning him from across the
hollow. It was then when he realized Ulpheir wasn’t anywhere in
sight; the only person in sight was his anxious mother.

“Wh-where’s father?” Leyoht asked with much
difficulty.

After a short pause of silence, Sahemawia
replied, “He went to get us something to eat. I just wanted to tell
you some stories about what lies outside of this tree— at least
until he gets back.”

Excited and slightly confused at the same
time, Leyoht rushed up to his mother. As he wobbled over to the
nest in which his mother sat, his level of fatigue matched up
almost perfectly with his level of excitement.

Coming up to the nest, Leyoht nearly tripped
over the edge once again until he found himself being safely
captured by Sahemawia’ wings. Using the muscles she usually
reserved for flight, she lifted him from the edge of the nest until
his feet touched down onto the nest’s interior.

Another pause came into play before Sahemawia
finally started her story. “This starts with my sister, brother,
father, and mother having an ordinary day until I ran into a new
kind of creature. Molea—my sister—and I were talking about our
little brother, Kenyei.”

“From oldest to youngest, my family was set
up with me being the oldest, followed my my sister Molea, and
finally my brother Kenyei. Each us had very little interaction with
the humans.”

Looking over to her son, Sahemawia noticed a
look of confusion crossing over his face. To ensure the confusion’s
disappearance, she explained with a small chuckle, “Humans are very
smart creatures that use their surroundings to their best
advantage.” She sighed before continuing, “They can become very
greedy, through. Some of them are nice, but there are still others
that will do anything to get what they want.”

After a short pause of silence, Sahemawia
continued on with her story. “I didn’t have a very good
relationship with Kenyei when I was young, yet I had a very strong
relationship with Molea. Us being so young, Kenyei was extremely
annoying to both of us.”

“At this age, each of us had a lot of
dark-brown spots on our feathers that would someday be replaced by
white. Most of our gray down was unnoticeable to anybody who looked
at us from one simple glance, as our feathers covered much of it
up. It was also at this time where we were all learning the first
steps of flight.”

“It was a very peaceful day, and it was
nearly time for me to leave your grandparents and find a home for
myself. I couldn’t wait to leave, as Kenyei constantly egged me on
to hurt him.”

“Having some time for myself, my sister and I
decided to fly away from Kenyei and our parents. We eventually
found our boulder—where we sat, talked, and relaxed for the day.
Although this was usually meant to be a peaceful time of day for
us, I wasn’t feeling as cheerful as I usually did.”

“Molea and I walked over to the boulder after
making our landing after a flight. To help us make our way on top
of the boulder, we both gave ourselves a boost by creating an
explosive rush of air with our wings. It was an old trick that
Molea had taught me one day when we were both having trouble making
our way on top of the boulder.”

“Once on top of the boulder, I already began
to start complaining about what your uncle had done that day. The
usual complaints I would make would be for what he had done to
irritate me. His clumsiness didn’t make him a very good flier, so
he usually bumped into things while in flight.”

“‘You won’t believe what Kenyei did earlier!’
I complained once we came up on the boulder.”

“‘What did he do?’ Molea asked me with her
soft voice.

“‘I was trying to build a tower of rocks, and
he crashed into it when he was trying to land from a flying
trip.’”

“Back at that age, I loved building things
out of materials like rock, leaf, and sticks. Unfortunately, they
would either become too hard to build or destroyed by Kenyei. To be
honest, I find this much funnier these days than I did back
then.”

“However, I thought Kenyei’s blunders had
become very old and unwanted for me at this age.
And—unfortunately—I had a negative habit of eating when I was
stressed. At the moment I began talking to Molea, and I could feel
my stomach growling with every word.”

“I’ve never been much of a fan of bugs, but
the one thing I wanted more than anything at this moment was a worm
to munch on. Since there had been a recent storm, I was sure that
there
had
to have been many warms making their way out of
the ground. To my displeasure, I couldn’t find the tiniest worm
anywhere
!”

“I took myself off of the boulder—with Molea
following me—to see what we could find. We looked around at every
direction until I heard Molea calling me over.”

“‘Sahemawia, look at this!’ she yelled while
holding what she thought was a nice, pink, plump worm in her
talon.”

“‘Wow, that one is huge!’ I exclaimed. I took
a closer look at the worm and noticed something strange about it.
Yes, it was pink, and it was wiggling like any other worm, but it
also seemed to be flicking out a tongue! It was odd how Molea—the
owl holding the creature—had no idea of this.”

“When I thought things couldn’t get any
weirder, I turned over to see a snake come out of a hollow tree!”
At the sound of these words, Leyoht gave a small shriek of fear
just before his mother continued on with the story.

“The snake’s skin appeared very soft with a
light-pink color showing. Both of us gasped as the angry mother
snake tasted the air by flicking out her forked tongue. Both of us
slowly backed away from the snake until we could barely see her
hissing at us.”

“Once we thought were safe, I asked Molea,
‘Can I have that?’”

“Molea nodded and handed me the baby snake.
Although it wasn’t a worm, I had tasted snakes before; I knew that
this would have brought my cravings to an end.”

“Right when I was about to put the snake in
my mouth, I felt the mother snake’s teeth bite into my wing—which
made me let go of its baby. Although I wasn’t sure where the baby
had gone, I placed my uninjured wing over the injured one to stop
the bleeding.”

“For what seemed like a very long time did I
lie on the ground. I screamed for help, but your Aunt Molea was too
scared to even speak.”

“I still don’t know how long I stayed there
on the ground, but it was long enough for somebody to come to my
aid. After a long time of lying in wait, I slowly fell asleep. Most
of what happened for a while after that is a blur to me.”

Sahemawia gave a sigh before continuing on
with the story. “When I woke up after a long sleep, I found my
brother, sister, and parents sitting over me—each of them looking
as if they hadn’t slept in days.”

“‘Sahemawia!’ Molea screamed once I opened my
eyes. I felt her rush over to me, crying as she and Kenyei hugged
me.”

“
I’m still alive?
I thought as my
family continued to surround me. By the way they were crying, I
could tell that they had also felt the same way.”

“‘Maybe it wasn’t a venomous snake,’ I heard
my father say to my mother.”

“Through the rest of that day, I heard many
people telling me how much they thought I would die from the
snakebite. Because of all these people telling me this, I learned a
very important lesson:
never
mess with another mother’s
child!”

A short pause of silence coming into place,
Leyoht placed a smile on his face when he exclaimed, “Good story!
How were you saved?”

“I was saved by the one person I had never
expected.”

“Who?”

“You’ll find out one day,” Sahemawia assured
him. Changing the subject, she asked Leyoht, “Do you want to hear
another one?”

“Yes!” the owlet squeaked, nearly bouncing up
and down on his feet.

Giggling, Sahemawia assured, “Okay.” As
anxiety pushed Leyoht at every corner, his mother set herself into
a comfortable position. Her wing wrapped around her son as she
began to tell her second story.

“Leyoht, you will one day be able to go in
and out of the hollow as you please. There are many,
many
things for you to see out there. I’ve been told many times in my
life that the world is larger than even I could possibly imagine,
and there are things that even your grandparents haven’t seen.”