Side-Story – Lilly –A Wingbeat – Prologue – To be an Owl

I was used to… just standing back. Behind everyone. At a distance.

To watch from afar, in the shadows, like the owl I was.

I was not just fine with it, I was happy with it. I liked my place in the world. It was comfortable on the rim. I was comfortable to… be whom and what I was.

Proud, even.

But I wasn't comfortable here and now. Nor was I proud.

"Vim…?" I whispered; my voice cracking as I tried to summon the courage to speak.

He didn't acknowledge me. He kept still… kneeling in front of the freshly made graves.

This wasn't a scene I hadn't seen before. I've not only watched Vim bury many people over these last few years… I've helped dig the graves myself on many occasions. I wasn't even too surprised to see a few tears leak from the man's eyes, though it was shocking at how many had fallen from them. But there was no denying this was different. You could feel it in the air. My feathers felt… heavy, as if soaked and burdened. But it wasn't raining. It wasn't even humid or damp, the weather was pretty nice. The setting sun was warm, the breeze gentle and kind.

Yet still I felt as I if was stuck in a bog. As if in a swamp, I was even finding it hard to breathe… almost as if…

"Vim," I said his name again, this time without any cracks in my voice. The protector of the Society shifted ever so slightly at my beckoning, and he turned his head just enough to glance back at me.

I held the single eye facing my way, and tried not to realize just how… serious of an expression he had on his face.

Wanting to say something, I found myself incapable. So instead I just… softly nodded, hoping he understood.

His hard gaze softened a little, and he turned away to face the graves once more. At first I thought he hadn't grasped my meaning, but he took in a deep breath and released it with a heavy sigh. "I know," he said.

My stiff wings relaxed a little, and thankfully I felt as if I could breathe easily again. Yet although no longer feeling crushed by something I couldn't explain, I now suddenly felt exhausted. As if I'd just flown half the world and back. But I hadn't. I'd not taken flight in three days.

Not since we'd found them.

Found them dead.

I looked away from Vim for a moment to study the graves we'd made for Rungle and Stumble. We were up on a hill, a very pretty one. We were on hard ground, since usually the lands this far north were cold, but there was a layer of very green grass and blue flowers all over. There were trees scattered around, and even they looked pretty. They all had these little pink flowers upon them. Sometimes when the wind blew strong enough they fell off, floating along in the wind until they landed in the grass nearby.

It was a gentle place. A place fitting to be buried in. Though kind of far from their home, a few miles away… I didn't argue with Vim's decision of choosing here instead of there. Their home had been nice too, but this was something else.

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This was a fitting place for such gentle people. For such good, honest, people.

I wonder where I'll get buried… and I wonder if Vim will kneel and weep at my grave too?

"I know," Vim whispered again as he stood. As he did, I readied myself… expecting the ground to shift, or the world to rumble, but instead nothing happened.

Studying the protector's back, I noticed the dirty hands and arms. He had rolled up his sleeves to dig the graves and prepare them, but they had fallen down about half way into it and he simply didn't care. He didn't look as dirty and stained as a typical man would from working in the fields, but at the same time I couldn't help but notice the dirt that clung to him. Vim got dirty often, and rarely seemed to care if and when he was, but right now it seemed… wrong for him to be so. I couldn't explain why I thought so, though.

He took another deep breath, and then with one final nod he turned away from the graves. He stepped upward a bit, which made me frown… until I realized why.

Vim stepped out of the small indent-like hole he had been in. For him it wasn't much of a step to exit it, but for me it would have been a large one. He stepped out of the hole, nodded gently at me and then kept on walking. He left me and the graves behind as he descended the hill… heading for what I assumed was their home. To likely check it for anything that needed to be dealt with, such as something from the Society.

I turned to follow him, to help him, but paused… as I found myself fixated on the hole he'd just left.

That hadn't been there before.

Vim making a hole wasn't weird. I'd seen him split the earth in two. I've seen cracks pop and emerge from beneath him, shooting off in random directions, many times. I've seen him shift and cause a whole new hill to form, or the side of a mountain to break off and collapse into itself.

So seeing a small indent from where he'd been kneeling, likely from his knees and feet, was not surprising at all… yet…

I hadn't heard the earth shift or move at all. I hadn't noticed until he left it. Yet it was deep. Deep enough that anyone who happened upon it would think it had been where a stump of a tree had been removed or something, maybe.

When'd he make it? Or had it simply became like that over the couple hours where he had knelt there…? Or had I simply not noticed him do it as he knelt, or stood, because I had been uneasy myself?

No matter… Vim's odd abilities and strength were not important right now. What was important were the two wonderful people we had just buried deep in this hill.

"Sorry," I whispered to the graves once more. We hadn't marked them. No crosses. Not even a small stack of rocks. I knew in a matter of months the grass and flowers around us would overtake the graves entirely, and make them not even noticeable. Vim hadn't said a word as we dug the graves and finished them, but I knew better than to argue with his methods.

The humans in this region saw us as spirits of the forests. They liked to use our bones and other parts for their weird medicines and spells. None of it was real, as far as I was aware, but their attempts were as real as death. Vim didn't want the graves of his friends to be disturbed.

No… they weren't just his friends.

It was too bad. I'd only met them a few times, but they had been such good people. I had respected them. Their decision to not properly join the Society, yet to aid it in their own way, had been very… thought provoking. I myself had found my own way in life, somewhat mimicking their own ideals in a way. And not just because Vim so obviously respected them either, I genuinely had found Rungle and his family to be the personification of how we non-humans were supposed to be.

Though maybe this was proof their way really wasn't the right way either. Since obviously they were here in the ground now, their lives taken early.

This world wasn't kind enough for those with gentle hearts to survive for long, was it?

"You were too good for this world," I whispered my final eulogy, and turned away.

Hurrying down the hill after Vim, I felt sorry for whoever had done this. Vim would eventually find them. He always did.

And although I too wished nothing but death and ill on those who had done this… I couldn't help but feel for them all the same.

Vim's wrath was not something you hoped to survive.

It was something you hoped ended quickly.

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