Nightstars

"To Mom"

-M.N

Nightstars

Chapter 1: One Owl

Nightstars. The word that changed the world. There were an army group that was made in the Great Owlen War, a long, bloody war that lasted for many years.

It was a war between the Owlen forces and the allies of the eagles. Hundreds of thousands owls moved away from the war scene and hid. Some stayed and helped.

The Nightstars changed the war; each member was a strong, brave and hopeful war bird that fought to end this war. One way or another. That’s what the Nightstars were.

My name is Wing, and I'm alone like always, just talking to myself, counting the stars, making little crafts to amuse myself. 

But I have no dignity and no friends and hardly a family. Life is difficult for me, but for many, it is a life of pleasure and happiness.

At my home, life is happy and joyful place, with enough food to eat, water to drink, love to share and friends to be merry with. And yet one owl isn't enjoying himself with playing with friends, hunting for rodents, and mating with an owl.

Forgot. It’s almost mating season. Mating season is the next following season, spring and in the meantime, we all have to find a mate, an opposite sex partner, and mate.

Mating is one of the most important things in the owl world. And in most worlds too. There is the most important of all of the things in the owl origin, hunting. Then shelter. 

And next in line is mating.

Mating is also another way to show your value of what an owl is. The better that you are at things, like hunting, the more chance that you have to find a mate.

Mating is also another way not to get kicked out of the colony. The owl leaders are very serious about mating, and if you don’t mate, or in other words, give offspring or risk getting kicked out of the colony.

It is about twenty minutes into sundown, and it's another day of learning at our home. Now we are learning about the Nightstars, this army group that fought in war. I explained what the Nightstars were, an army. It was an interesting class.

After class, I saw some owls starting hunting, and I thought that maybe I should hunt because I was a bit hungry and my supply of food is getting lower each day.

Hunting is pretty easy for some types of prey, like rodents. But some creatures are harder to hunt, the ones that contain the most meat.

I remember that my dad was a good hunting. Quiet as a cat, but swift as a tiger. All of the females loved him. But in the end, there was only one choice. 

My dad. Don't like talking about it to other owls, but myself. A human with a gun killed him, and I suppose the human was out hunting or doing something human, but I don't know a lot about my dad.

I miss him.

Chapter 2: Ambush

He died when I was born. He was in the Great Owlen War. My mother told me that his name is Hapay, which is Owlen for "happy". He must have been very happy.

In Owlen law, names are a given thing. They are not just spat out when owls have children, like the humans do. Names represent an owl’s character, the lifestyle that they were raised. In other animal laws, naming is different.

I was named “Wing” because I have good wings, which is true. I have good wings, but my cowardice and my dignity are the weak points in my life.

My dad was named “happy” because of the happiness in his life. But how can you be happy in war? War is obviously not something to be happy about, unless you like it.

 He was killed one spring night, when the moon was full and the night was dark. Hapay was hunting for some food.

Spring is the best time to hunt, because all of the animals are outside their homes and awake, so owls take advantage of that. Hapay did, but with his life.

A human hunter shot him with a gun. Humans like to hunt for meat, like owls, but use different methods of killing. Guns, that shoots little cylinders that kill, not-waiting-and- killing-with-all-of-your-might killing.

Later in the night, an owl found him and reported that he was killed to the owl colony. When my mother heard about the news, she was very sad.

 Suddenly there was a scream and the whole colony shook with fear. We waited a few moments to see if it was safe to go outside in the forest.

 But then large rocks and pinecones bombed below us and the assault injured many owls that were still outside.  

When the bombing of the rocks and pinecones was still happening, there were still many owls outside. I was one of them.

And then something grabbed the other owls and I that were with me. There we were soaring in the sky, no clue where the creature was taking us.

We descended from the ground, and were taken to a room that was full of owls. The owls were caught like me, trapped from their freedom, in a cage.

Chapter 3: War

I woke up in a dark hollow room with lots of owls in lots of cages. Besides the owls in the cages, there were pigeons, eagles, crows and blue jays. They are the birds that were not locked up in cages.

There were hundreds of owls locked up in the big metal cages, all of them worried or lacking hungry or scared of what the leaders might do. It’s a big and scary world out there.

All members of PECK were here, judging by the faces of what I have seen in our school at the colony that we were taught there. But only now it’s reality, and with real power-hungry birds in front of the line.

“Thank you pigeons, crows, eagles and blue jays."

"You have all helped in controlling the areas that were once lived by other races of birds, now controlled by pure birds, PECK birds” said one of the leaders.

“Today we have attacked and caught owls on one of the biggest and oldest owl colonies in the area. It is a great achievement by PECK."

"Thank you PECK” the leader finished. 

"Thank you PECK" the crowd echoed.  

 PECK is a bird war organization that focuses on controlling areas that are controlled by other bird races. The war organization is made of Pigeons, Eagles, Crows and Blue Jays, or in short, PECK. 

Blue jays are known as the Kindlies, so that is the word in the group word of “PECK” Recently, PECK attacked the hummingbird race.

Now PECK is controlling daily by the eagles on all of the wins that were fought by PECK that resulted in mass murder of the hummingbirds and other allies of the hummingbirds.       

It’s like a colonization organization, controlling and killing, controlling, killing. Wow, four strong, controlling, power-hungry words that were put together and formed into a mass murder group, killing non-PECK birds everyday.

 Also a war, that's bad. And the hawks have friends. Now why is the world so crazy sometimes? I know that the world isn’t perfect, but why did it have to be crazy?

War. A word of survival, a word of chaos, a word of destruction, a word of.... And now we're in the middle of war. Did the leaders in our owl colony know this? That they didn't tell us we're now in war?

Escape. I want to escape now, but also the other trapped owls want the same.

Chapter 4: Escape

To escape, I needed a plan, and to get a plan, I have to think... Very hard. 

The leaders had left the hollow room hours ago and there were only three-PECK guards scanning the room for anything that is dangerous to the PECK organization.

I thought for a long time, but nothing came wondering into my empty brain. There were too many witnesses, and also too many owls. Even if my plan worked, they would attract too much attention that would give me away. 

But none the less, I thought and thought for a long time, the only hope that would keep me thinking was home at the colony.

How much I wanted to go back home again was another matter though. I couldn’t let myself and the other owls down because of my thoughts of greed.

Thinking of going home was a sin now. I have to concentrate of the present. No thoughts of greed. Nothing. I can’t fail right now.

I touched the metal cage and thought that there must be some chemical or tool that may break the cage. If I could make something to separate the metal bars in the cage... That could work for my benefit of others and I.

With the materials that I found around my cage and some materials from the other owls’ cages, I was able to make a tool that ripped the bars of the metal cage.

But the PECK guards noticed that I had something interesting to them and tried to take this strange tool from me and attacked me for it.

It was a good thing that I was very quick to rip the bars because they were very close to catching me in the metal cage. Lucky me.

But then, crows and eagles came out from nowhere, and I had no choice but to fight. Fight for my freedom and the freedom of others.

I tried to rip some of the bars of the other owls’ cages and I only opened three cages before they caught me. I fought to free myself from the grip of the eagles and crows.

Suddenly, one of the freed owls knocked out the bird gripping me and I was able to help free the other owls, but still fighting the eagles and crows to protect myself.

Soon, all of the once-caged owls were free from the cages and then we all escaped, locking the eagles and crows that were fighting us.

Now one problem: Where am I? Maybe still near the colony, far away. I don’t know. I’m bad with navigation, but with my few good senses, I figured out that I was far away from home.

Suddenly I heard a noise.

"Food, food, food" was the sound. Then something poked its head out from the bush the noise was coming from.

"Sorry" said an owl.

"Shut up you idiot, shut up” said another voice.

"No, you shut up, Roy."

"Quiet."

"Hi, I'm Wing. What are your names?" I asked.

"I'm Roy, and this is Squirrely" Roy explained. "Sorry about the noise, but we were hungry" said Roy.

"We haven't eaten for two days" said Squirrely.

"We're traveling, and we wouldn't mind having anybody with us" asked Roy.

"OK, I'll go" I said. "Thank you."

"Welcome."

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

“The south” answered Squirrely.

“ Like the USA and Mexico?” I asked.

"We travel lots" said Roy, embarrassed.

Not one of us talked when we traveled but suddenly we spotted an army of hawks.

"Where's that stupid owl that helped the other owls escape?" one of the hawks shouted.

“They're talking about me” I whispered to the others. “I helped the other owls in a dark room escape.”

"I hear something" the hawk spotted. "Our owl" said the hawk, his eyes full of malice.

"Hawks, get them!" shouted the hawk, his voice roaring like a lion.

The chase is on.

Chapter 5: The Chase

After a great victory at the hollow room with all of the caught owls, locking the PECK guards and freeing all of the owls, another challenge is here again.

They must have found to get out of the prison if they are.  We're all dead now, Roy, Squirrely, and I. It’s a live or die challenge that peace cannot solve.

“You are a tricky one, but I’ve faced many like you and caught them. And you’re a young one, the ones with courage” commented the hawk.

I see that this hawk is trained for battle. Many scars mark his reputation of fighting his enemies. Words won’t prove his talent of his warrior-like fighting.

Before I defend myself or Roy or Squirrely, I lose altitude rapidly when the hawk knocked me out the air and sent me falling to my death.

But I saved myself; with control and a calm mind, I was able to save myself from plummeting to my grave. The hawk was angrier now.

   

He tried to hit me with his wing, but all of the scars from his previous battles of fighting the owls; the wing was not of a big damage to me.

Then I kicked him and now the hawk was losing altitude by the second, feeling the same pain and adrenaline as I felt when I was in his position.

Suddenly Squirrely called out "Retreat, hawks!"

The Hawks did not question his command; they flew away as fast as they could in their own time. I saw looks of panic and fear when the Hawks left.

Chapter 6: Pigeons

We flew four miles, and slept in a cave, and in the morning, we all slept peacefully. 

Suddenly something happened to Roy, and then Squirrely, and something got me too! 

Pigeons. Great, and now we're in jail.

"Here, hawks, your owls" said the pigeon leader, glowing like he won the lottery or something.

"Thank you, pigeons."

 "Welcome, owls."

In the prison, one foot was tied to a chain, and we were all trapped, and I, once more, was trapped, my freedom chained.

Chapter 7: The Chain fell

I was trying to see how to escape, and I got it: I needed to push hard enough that the chain fell out and I was free. 

Now I told the two my plan. 

"Great" said Roy.

 "One, two, three!" I told them. 

We pulled the best we could, and I'm glad we did, because the chain almost didn't fall out!

The three of us were getting out of jail, when three hawks ambushed us, and I had enough time to slash one hawk in the face.

They were very hard to get away from, but in the end, we escaped and got out!

Chapter 8: Traveling

I got them to not go the USA border, and we were still in Canada, my homeland.

The leader of the hawks was mad again, I guess but I slipped from his cage of horror and I'm free... again, but don't forget Roy and Squirrely as well!

Traveling again, hoping to get home and get to my normal life. I want home badly, but waiting and surviving the trick for that.

A few days later, we hit Alberta, and not a single hawk was in the scene.

Roy and Squirrely are back to normal, not scared every moment, thinking a hawk is watching us.

Whistler, my home, was bombed by hawks. That's what I'm telling my kids when the war is over. That.

Now we're resting at 3:00 AM, human time, just taking a nap, resting and relaxing in the middle of a war. A war. How the heck do you relax with a war on? No clue.

Why would the hawks, plus allies, go and kill everybody? The hummingbirds were scared, I bet.

Now the key to defeat the bad guys are the humans. I mean, the humans are so powerful, because of being so tall and big, and are very, very smart too.

One thing. The humans don't help animals, because they can't understand us and they wouldn't help animals fight a war.

Roy was very good at hunting. Always watching his prey closely, and trapping it in the last second.

Squirrely wasn't very good at hunting, but caught a few mice, but he has a very small  appetite, so no worries about him.

I caught some baby mice and the mother from a fur tree, and shared them with Squirrely.

Squirrely, like, lives for mice, and loves eating baby mice too, but mice are not bad, but are very annoying to eat, but are not bad.

A week later, we stopped in Saskatchewan, and relaxed in the wheat fields, just lying there, in the nice warm sun.

Then it was sleep time, and we all tossed and turned, but went to sleep.

The next morning I asked myself "why is our sleep time wrong?"

"War" I told myself.  "War is the answer because from the war, we were scared and all that and because the war made us different." "It's hard to explain."

Chapter 9: The Duel

We were all getting to Manitoba's border when we saw a group of blue jays, and we knew that they were bad guys too.


"Get them!" the leader shouted.

 They were after us, and were after us like lightning.

We escaped them, and hid in a cave, and not one of us said a word. Not one word.

The next morning, at dawn, we heard the blue jays again, and we knew that that was  the blue jays.

Suddenly the blue jays stopped, and they were yelling the word "duel!"

One blue jay who looked tough, took side in the air, and I went to the other.

I've never been in a duel, but I knew that you fight to the death.

We slashed one another, and it was on for a few minutes, when I slashed him very hard, and was falling down.

I didn't mean to slash him that hard, but I won the fight.

Then the rest of the blue jays flew away, and I felt proud.

Chapter 10: The Trip to Quebec City

The weather is getting colder, the more we go east, and the season is going to be winter soon. 

Food is harder to catch, (like when Roy only got four mice), but lucky that we found a hollow tree, and we're lucky.

We just arrived in Ontario yesterday, and we had to leave our hollow home, and found another tree.

Now we're traveling tree to tree, home to home and we move all the time.

The next day, I was out hunting, while Roy and Squirrely were at our tree, making sure that no hawks came and nothing happened to our home.

I caught some mice, a hare, and seven voles, and all ate happily.

The next morning, we traveled a bit more, and soon I think we're going to reach Quebec City.

Five days later, we reached the border of Quebec, and the first thing we saw people, lots of people, but not as much as Ontario, but a fair amount, and lots more than in British Columbia.

People were talking in French, because they were French-Canadian, and lots of snowy white owls were around us, and I felt very safe.

We rested for the rest of the day, and ate vole for dinner, and later we were sleeping happily, nothing stopping our sleep.

The next day, we awoke to a new day, rising from our beds (we found a strong block of wood for the floor) and ate breakfast, meat.

We have two more days until we reach Quebec City, and I wonder what's in store.

Two days later, we entered the capital of Quebec: Quebec City, the place that we hoped to arrive!

Chapter 11: The Danger of Quebec City 

Quebec City was nothing like I thought it would be.

Hawks ambushed us, and we're in a battle with hawks, and pigeons.

We slashed for our freedom, but they were too much for us and we couldn't escape.

They won and we were sent to prison again, rotting for the rest of life, begging for freedom, heavenly freedom.

They watched our every move, seeing if we would try to escape once more, slipping though their defense, to see what we do, and not let us escape for freedom, but just let us rot to our heart... The loving of us and the loving of other beings, bird or bird, human or human.

We were weak from hunger, and our spirit trapped from life, from reality, and from the world, hungry to free, free as a bird, and free from evil, no peril happening, just "joy to the world" like the joyful song said, that song of the world, that song of happiness.

I tried to free myself, but they chained me and the others in chains everywhere: legs ears, and even my beak, but I could still hale and exhale my breathing, but they wouldn't give you a thing to eat, and still will all die from hunger.

Slashing and kicking won't to a thing to the chains, and I better save my energy for something useful.

I was about to give up hope when I heard something. An owl was rushing in the jail, and came in me, and freed me! The weapon he used to free me was something like a saw, and he told me to use the weapon to free my friends.

When we all got out of there and away from the hawks, he told me that he was here on a mission to save us from the bad guys.

His name was Roslet, an owlen name, and he said his parents were Nightstars, and he was here also to bring us to a owl camp where we will be safe.

"Where is the camp?" I asked.

"It's in the United States- in Montana." answered Roslet.

We traveled to the United States, and arrived at the border two days later.

He was leading the way to the camp, and I was wondering what the camp may be like, because I was thinking very hard about that.

It was getting boring traveling to the camp, and thought that he may be tricking us into a hawk base, but I sensed that he was a good guy.

No danger flew to us on the way, so we were lucky for that, and it was a sort of "relaxing trip" when we were flying high in the clouds, the wind whistling in the air, and sending a merrily tune to us in the sky.

After a lot of flying, we rested for the day, and later ate mice and voles for dinner, and were eating happily, talking about what'll happen tomorrow, about the journey (we told Roslet about the amazing journey when we were traveling across Canada, the three of us) and about how I missed my home, my family, and I lost it all.

The kin I have left is my mom but she died in the bombing I think and before my dad, my sister and my brother died, not by the bombing, but died some how, and I don't know.

Roslet told us about his kin and about how his mom died in war as a Nightstar and his dad died in battle too and before war, they married and had him, and later they died in war.

We went to sleep, and woke up the next day to journey to Montana, where the camp is, and stay safe for the rest of the war.


In the afternoon, Roslet said that we reached the camp at last.

Chapter 12: Camp

Now the camp was more or less what I thought it would be, like the barbed wire fence and the lines of owls, training to be men- real men, but some was not like I thought it may be, but oh well.


The area where the owls like me, just wanting to be safe, wanting no harm coming to them in the middle of wartime, the worst time of life.


Maybe the camp is not going to be so bad, maybe I'll get a new life here.