Children of the First

So here's chapter twenty, right on schedule... at 3 a.m.
So, holiday stuff: I'm going to try to do at least one or two regular chapters between now and January 2nd, with bonus stuff going up on update days that lack chapterage (or chapterosity, if you prefer).
Thanks for reading!
Rock on. \m/

I was pretty excited to get to Fantastic Creatures Wednesday morning—partially because I was looking forward to seeing Fallon, but mostly because I was proud of the use for a Pirouette I’d come up with and couldn’t wait to tell Lenis. On my way to class, I went over how I would explain it:

First, I would go over circular spellcasting—most of the other students should already have taken Magic Theory, so I wouldn’t have to spend too long on it. Next, I would explain the Pirouette lets—or makes— you feel everything, including magic itself. I wouldn’t be able to tell them about my first-hand experience, so I’d have to say I did some research on the internet or something. Some of them would probably have caught on by the time I reached my conclusion. “Damn, that guy’s smart,” they would think. “Why didn’t I think of that?” Lenis would smile and nod approvingly, glad to have such a bright student in his class—and a freshman, no less.

Fallon waved as I walked into the class’ handling room. “Hey, Freckles,” she said as I took the seat next to her. “You’re in a good mood this morning.”

“Yep,” I grinned. “I had a good day yesterday.”

She raised her eyebrows and gave me the “are-you-an-idiot-or-did-you-just-forget-yesterday-altogether” look.

“Okay, so I had a good evening yesterday. I’ve been in a good mood ever since the mountain.”

“Ah yes,” she mused. “I can see it now: ‘Telepath got you down? Well you’ll feel right as rain in no time, with new and improved Break-anArm!’”

“Hey,” I shrugged, “if it works, it works.”

“Good morning, class,” Lenis said as he entered the room. “Please pass your assignments forward and we’ll pick up where we left off on Monday.”

“Wait—so we’re not going over them in class?” I asked.

Lenis frowned and shook his head. “Why would we? We don’t have time to waste reviewing homework. If you want to talk to me after class, that’s fine—but right now we have a new beastie to attend to.”

I was utterly deflated. Sure, Lenis would still read it and be duly impressed, but I wouldn’t get to see it. Oh well, I thought. Maybe he writes good comments.

After all the assignments were in, Lenis called us to the front of the room where we gathered around the birdcage in the containment circle. The cage was covered, but it would have been hard to call it anything other than “birdcage-shaped,” and it stood atop something distinctly “birdcage-stand-shaped” (which was, in fact, a stand for birdcages).

“I had wanted to get to this little beauty as a finale to the first class, but Bridget sort of stole the show. It’s just as well though; the Red-eyed Owl deserves a class all to herself.” He grinned. “She’s a particularly nasty one.” Lenis yanked the cover off the cage and, with a flourish, presented the Red-eyed Owl.

“Huh,” I said, which seemed to be the general reaction; the cage contained a small white owl, which happened to be acting exceptionally benign and unimpressive. Its small black beak and talons looked pretty sharp, but extremely delicate, like they’d break trying to catch anything tougher or more lively than a tube sock. It was hard to see how this thing could be “particularly nasty,” or even much of a pest, really.

“Hey!” Another Nedrak guy pointed at the owl. “Its eyes aren’t even red! Grab the wrong cage, didja Professor?”

Lenis glared at him. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Geddan. Geddan Praeggis.”

“No, Mr. Praeggis, I did not ‘grab the wrong cage,’ and if you’ll keep your mouth shut for two minutes, you might actually learn something.

“There’s a screen over the cage,” Lenis told the class. “So, for the time being, we can see her, but she can’t see us.”

I looked closer; there was a kind of silvery film hanging over the cage. I waved my hand right in front of the bird, just to make sure. Not that I didn’t believe Lenis, but I wanted to see it for myself.

“It’s Shawn, right?”

I looked up at Lenis and nodded.

“Great. You might want to back up a bit there, Shawn; I’m about to take the screen off and you don’t want to be there when I do.”

I jumped back a little too quickly and a couple of people giggled. “Easy now,” Fallon laughed softly.

“Hey, you never know,” I said. “That thing could explode or something.”

More giggles, but Lenis quickly brought the focus back on the owl. “Now,” he said. “It is extremely important that you don’t look her straight in the eye; she has a fun little mind-control trick, so you would be serving the will of a two-pound bird until something broke the line of sight, she released you, or she killed you.”

“That little bird couldn’t kill me,” the Cat girl protested.

“Maybe not, but she wouldn’t have to,” Lenis said darkly. “She’d just have you kill yourself—but not with a nice quick fireball to the face or a knife to your throat. No, she’s still a bird, and she doesn’t always think to have you use tools or magic she doesn’t use or understand. She would just say ‘kill yourself’ and that could default to ‘with your fingers.’”

A couple of students had gone pale and started backing toward the door.

“Relax,” Lenis said. “She’s a bird, but she’s not stupid; she couldn’t just start killing us, even if we did look her in the eye—she would at least need us to open the door first.” His lips curled in a wry smile. “Everybody ready?”

Fifteen pairs of eyes shot to the ceiling. “LOOK,” Lenis commanded. “You won’t see anything if you don’t look. Just focus on her feet if you’re worried about it; you’ll be able to see her eyes in your periphery.”

I kept my eyes fixed on the space a few inches away from her head as Lenis waved his hand, dispelling the screen. The owl immediately straightened to her full height and stood stock-still. Even though I wasn’t looking straight at her, I saw her eyes widening as a bright red streak coiled out from each pupil and spread outward.

The golden-brown owl-eyes were gone. In their place, glowing like drops of molten iron, were two maliciously empty red orbs. Now I saw the “particularly nasty” creature Lenis had been talking about.

“As you can see—or are too chicken-shit to see—the Red-eyed Owl, gets its name from its defense mechanism, which also happens to be its hunting technique. ” As soon as Lenis finished his sentence, the owl let out an ear-splitting shriek.

“Ah!” He smiled. “That would be part of the hunting technique, designed to draw the prey’s attention—“ He broke off in mid-sentence when a human girl stepped forward and, in one smooth motion, slapped the girl’s hand away from the cage latch, covered her eyes with his other hand, and turned her around to face the class.

“As you can see, it is quite effective, even when the prey knows better. In this case, the prey was our dear Elizabeth. Luckily, we are much smarter than the owl, and I am faster than Elizabeth, or we would have a much bigger mess to clean up. Elizabeth, you may sit down if you like.

“If this little monster had gotten out, it most likely would have told Elizabeth to attack one of us while it made a getaway. Either that or it would have told her to do nothing and killed her itself.”

Two more students stepped forward towards the cage. Lenis sighed. “Fallon, would you mind covering Mr. Praeggis’ eyes and turning him away from the owl? Thank you.” He quickly did the same with the half-elf girl coming from his right and sent her to go sit down.

“Now, the good news is that if you are killed by a Red-eyed Owl, you won’t really be conscious for it. That is to say, you’ll be conscious, but not aware of your body as part of you—it would be like watching someone else be killed.”

Another two students started to step towards the cage. “Oh for Gaia’s sake, people,” Lenis said impatiently. “You don’t have to look at it every time I say it would kill you.” He waved the screen back up, the bird relaxed, and the students stopped. “Really,” Lenis continued. “Use your heads; looking at it is how it kills you—that’s the last thing you want to do.”

I chuckled—he was right, but I completely understood wanting to see the thing you’re afraid of; if you can’t see it, you can’t stop it. Unfortunately, in this case, if you can see it, you can’t stop it.

“Now then, the last thing we’re going to do today is feed the little devil,” Lenis said. “However, those of you who do not wish to watch it eat will be excused—I want to encourage the students sitting down to consider this, and only stay if they are sure they want to. You will still be responsible for your normal field journal entry and assignment, which is to come up with a defense against the Red-eye other than simply avoiding its gaze. Here’s a hint: mirrors don’t work.

“Now, I would like to be clear that this is a one-time deal, and I would like all of you to try to stay as long as you can—if you don’t see, you can never understand. And besides,” he said, looking around the room. “A little gore isn’t going to get you out of class time under normal circumstances—and in fact, blood and gore tend to accompany some of the most important lessons, wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Plainview?” Lenis asked.

“Mmm-mmm, entrails, sir.” Fallon licked her lips.

Lenis laughed. “You’re disgusting,” he said, shaking his head. “The reason today is different is that it’s not normal blood and guts; watching a Red-eye eat can be quite… unsettling.”

“You’re fucking right it is!” Fallon said enthusiastically.

“Ah,” Lenis said, “I see we have a volunteer. The rat will be so relieved that you’ll be taking his place. Or you could shut up. Either way,” Lenis shrugged. “Alright, everyone who’s leaving may do so now. See you all on Friday.”

Only a few of us stuck around to see the feeding: two humans, two half-elf girls, a Saurian, Fallon, and me.

“Glad some of you are still here,” Lenis said. "I’ll just grab the rat and we’ll get started.” He walked through a door in the corner of the room and emerged a second later, rat in hand.

“Stand back from the kennel,” he said, placing the rat on the floor inside the circle. “We’ll need a little more room than a birdcage for this.”

Lenis waved his hand; the carvings in the floor started to glow orange and a silvery film surrounded the containment circle. “The orange light means the kennel’s active and the animals can’t leave,” he explained. “I’ve also put the same screen around the kennel that I had on the owl’s cage—we wouldn’t want her getting distracted from the task at hand, would we?” We shook our heads.

“Alright then,” he said. “Here we go.”

With a flick of his wrist, the owl’s cage door sprung open and she shot out, flew around the circle, and landed back on top of her cage.

For a minute, nothing happened—the rat sniffed at the floor, completely oblivious to the owl perched less than ten feet away. Then she noticed him; her back went stiff, her eyes widened and turned red, and still the rat didn’t notice.

Then she let out an ear-splitting shriek. The rat froze and looked up.

I held my breath as they stared at each other, then the rat relaxed and walked towards the cage.

“No, stop,” the girl to my left hissed. “Run away, she’s gonna eat you.”

The rat stopped below the cage and, without taking its eyes off the owl, turned over onto its back and lay still.

“No no no,” the girl pleaded under her breath.

I felt bad for her—she knew what was going to happen but couldn’t do anything to stop it. At least the rat wasn’t conscious of what was happening to it and wouldn’t feel any pain.

I didn’t have long to think about it though, because the Red-eye had silently swooped down next to the rat. She kept her eyes locked on the rat’s as she stepped up to it and calmly pulled a talon across its belly, spilling blood and intestines onto the tile floor.

“Oh goddess.” The girl covered her mouth and quickly left the room. I couldn’t blame her; seeing the rat let itself be disemboweled like that was enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

“Oh Gaia,” said one of the guys. “It’s still alive.”

He was right. The rat was still breathing and still had it’s eyes fixed on the owl, even as she pulled it apart. The Red-eye was using her talons to tear the rat into bite-sized pieces and lift them to her beak—I assume so she wouldn’t break eye contact.

The gore was disgusting, by all means, but the really disturbing part was how calm both owl and rat were during the whole ordeal; there was no savagery, no animalistic hunger or panic, just… business.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the rat shuddered and went limp, leaving the owl to tear into it without having to maintain control—though her eyes stayed red until she had finished. She then returned to her perch on top of the cage and set to work cleaning the blood off her pure white feathers.

“Class dismissed,” Lenis said quietly.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008 at 3:11 am and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story, Guest Content, Podcasts, Web Fiction Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.