A Good Soul

It was hard for the Owl King, looking out over a world so filled with humans he could barely stand it. He had to sit there and watch them make a mess of the world. Such a mess there had never been when the Owl's had ruled here. That of course, had been a long time ago.

Instead, he plotted. He plotted how he was going to get to sit back on his throne again, how he and his army would take the world back from the filthy humans who so ruined it with their machines and litter, their smoke and buildings. All he could see around him was ruin and it was spreading. Almost on a nightly basis as he flew over the land, there were new lights, new structures and deformities sitting on a landscape that had once been beautiful and rolling.

The Owl's were clever, they could have built machines and towns but they chose to live in harmony with nature. Not once thinking that they could be so easily overrun by a species as ridiculous as humans.

It had been hundreds of years and of course he had not lived that long but Owl's are unique, they possess all of the memories and the wisdom of their forebears. It is both a beautiful and a tragic thing to remember things you have never lived. For the King, it was especially so. He could see how great the earth had been when his ancestors ruled. How everyone in the land had revered and worshipped his line. Now, he was nothing but an animal. Barely noticed or thought about by anyone who had any power.

Now, if they had half the brains they were born with, the humans would have known about the magic and the wisdom of the owls. They would have gone to them seeking counsel and guidance in difficult time. They could have worked together to solve problems. This now, was what the King pondered. How could he get the humans to trust him, to seek his aid and then take all that they had from them? Grind everything to ash and let the world in all of it's glory grow through the debris of fallen towns and cities. That was his dream. That was what almost drove him to madness every night as he hunted and every day as he slept.

It was not until he met a very young girl in the woods that the Kings feelings softened towards humankind.

This little girl had gone exploring, she loved exploring. She was not one for playing with other little girls and boys. She certainly wasn't one for noisy places. The woods were not far behind her house and she was still little enough to squeeze into them through the bushes. Her parents were always too busy to notice whether she was in the garden or not. It was a large garden and they could not much be bothered walking through it to find her. They trusted she was there and that could not have been more perfect for her.

On this particular day when she met the King of the owls, she was skipping through a bit of the wood she had come to know particularly well. She was singing to herself and only stopped when the sweets she had loaded into the pockets of her dress fell out and had to be picked up again. It wouldn't do to waste good sweets! She had made herself a little den not far down this path where she could sit and play pretend games by herself all day long if she wanted to. Sometimes she even met little animals and shared her food with them. When she came to her den today, she saw that it was in an awful mess as if a tornado had blown through it and scattered everything about. She stamped her foot and huffed at the mess but started to clean it up and set her den right again.

She didn't keep many things here, a jar of sweets, something to drink, an old blanket for sitting on. It was this old blanket that caused such an uproar. As she lifted it off the ground, she got a face full of feathers and a horrible screeching noise almost deafened her. She threw the blanket back down and backed away quickly. Her breathing came hard and fast but she was not scared and went back to the blanket. This time, she could see very clearly that it was an owl. He was magnificent! Large and white with grey flecks through his feathers. He had the biggest amber eyes she had ever seen and was regarding her with a look that said quite clearly "idiot".

She held out her dress and with a curtsy, apologised most profusely to the bird, who still stood there staring and regarding her with utter disdain. She took a couple of steps closer to him, staring right back into those huge eyes. "I'm not scared of you" she said "this is my den but you are welcome to sleep in it whenever you like" and with that she sat on the ground and started loading her sweets out of her pockets into the special jar she kept for them. She was careful to leave one sitting unwrapped on the ground. She thought the owl might want one of them.

As she sat there, pretending not to see him and be busy about her task, the owl started to come out of the den to investigate a little further. This was not a human as he usually saw them. Yes she was wearing clothes and had clearly brought things out here with her but she was so happy and content out here in the woods. He had never seen anything like it. Here she was sitting on the ground, singing and content with none of those machines around her. What a little anomaly she is!

He watched her for some time before going right over to her. He peered up into her face and she sat there, still and calm, looking back at him. He had never been this close to one before that didn't shriek and cry or try to hit him with something. Another special magic of the owls was to be able to read souls, not thoughts or minds but they could see how inherently good a person or animal was by looking deeply into their eyes. As he looked into her eyes, he knew that he would never be the same again. This little girl in the blink of an eye had shown him that not all humans were the same. Yes they still built their machines and did things that he did not approve of but this one, she was special!