An Owl Adventure

A very short story about my owl shapeshifter

“Strigime,” came the request of her mother, “Will you go find your brother for me? Tell him his friend can come home for dinner too, if he’d like.”

                The young owl girl looked up at her mother, cooking over the small fire in their tree top home. She didn’t want to go find her brother, but she couldn’t just deny her mother. She worked so hard to keep her two children happy, even though she was a single parent.

                “Yes Mama.” She replied quietly before exiting the trunk of their hollow. She jumped off the branch before gracefully turning into a beautiful, black and white Boreal. With a strong flap of her wings she was off to her brother’s favorite spot.

                When she was near she could see her brother, Strigidae, and her brother’s best friend, Tytonidae. Both names were very common for owls, especially male owls. Her older brother was a tan and white Boreal owl, just like their mother. His friend was, as his name meant, a casual brown and white barn owl.

                She changed forms when she got near them and dropped to the ground as a human. She landed on her feet easily, used to the change. She walked toward them, but before she could say anything she was spotted.

                “Hey Striga!’ the barn owl said in a hooting fashion, although he was in human form, “Look! It’s your little sis’, Strigine.”

                Strigime bared her teeth at the boy and hissed, “Hey! That’s my mom’s name. Not mine.”

                “Well that’s not very owlish,” he laughed in response, knowing just how mad it made her.

                “Ah, leave her alone Tyto. What do you want, Strigime?” Striga asked casually, looking like his usual bored self.

                “Mama wants you home for dinner. Tyto can come too, if he’s done being a d****e.” She explained.

                Tyto narrowed his eyes at the girl, but Striga just laughed. He finally stood up and motioned for Tyto to come along with them. With a resonated sigh, Tyto stood up as well. All three children turned into their owl forms and flew off in the direction of Strigime and Striga’s tree.

                It was about half way through the flight when they came across a forest fire.

                “This wasn’t here when I came through!” Strigime cried.

                “Whoa it’s huge!” Tyto gasped.

                “We have to go through it,” Striga commented nonchalantly, “It’s too big to go around. We live just on the other side. Stay close, alright?”

                Striga, the biggest owl, led the way. The other two followed close behind. The smoke was almost impossible to see through, though, and it was extremely hot.

                “Why’s it taking so long?” Tyto grumbled a little bit later, giving a slight cough at the end of his question.

                “I’m not sure where we are…” Striga admitted honestly.

                “Well that’s just great!” Tyto retorted, annoyed.

                Strigime barely heard their conversation though. She was feeling faint and was having a hard time breathing. She felt her wings just give out, and she suddenly spiraled toward the ground.

                “Strigime!” she heard her brother cry.

                “Damnit! Leave her, we can’t save her now! We’ll be lucky to get out!” she heard Tyto say in the distance, but that was all she knew before she felt heat surrounding her and heard the deafening roar of the flames.

 

 

                “Misty?”

                An annoyed looking black haired woman turned from the campfire she was making. When she saw one of her immortal crew had returned from his scouting, she asked, “What did ye find?”

                “A lot of shapeshifter remains. This must have been one of their forests, before it burned down. How strange…they normally take quite good care of their forests, and keep away from common vacation spots…” the tall, black haired man replied.

                “Did ye find anythin’ worth mentionin’, Duke?” she asked impatiently.

                “Well…I found some remains that I think are in good enough shape to be made immortal. It looks like a female, though I can’t tell what kind of shapeshifter. She’s pretty badly burned still…but I found her body inside a rock crevice. She must have fallen there.” Duke explained.

                “Take me to her.” Misty commanded, standing up.

                “Hey guys!” came a distant cry. Duke and Misty both turned in the direction it came from to see their other scout, an average looking brown haired man, approaching.

                “What is it, Dante?” Misty asked.

                When he got close enough, Dante said, “Well, I was just thinking. Doesn’t this look like the forest we stopped at last night? Except, you know, a burned version.”

                Misty and Duke exchanged a glance before looking back at Dante simultaneously.

                “Dante…” Duke said slowly, “Do you remember when we were leaving and I told you to make sure the campfire was out?”

                “…no…” Dante replied.

                “Ye idiot!” Misty growled, “Come! Jus’ follow me, both of ye. We ‘ave work to do.”

Author's Note

I know, I know. What the crap, right? It was awful. I wrote it quickly in a few hours. I just wanted to write, so I chose a short story about Strigime's history. I actually only posted it because it was the only thing I wrote recently that was even slightly post worthy. I just felt like I needed to post something, I wrote this a few weeks ago. Anyway, please do review to let me know what I should fix and how to improve and whatnot. Please don't be mean about it >.<

Oh yeah, and the picture is made by my friend Tiny. It's Strigime as a human. I had written this story to amuse both her and myself in the first place...

Reviews

[Sakib]

I loved this, trust me. I hadn't read this kind of story before. It was captivating and interesting. But I thought it was incomplete. I want to know more. I want you to illustrate this story. It would be great. Keep writing. You are a great writer. :)

[Amber Tasch]

Okay so first of all I love owls, so this may be a little baised, but I really enjoyed this story! The vernacular that you used was very creative^^ The name "Strigime" was a little bizzare to me at first but that the only thing I was iffy on. This is an amazing story!

[Meat of Dog]

I was excited when I saw you post this because I’m a huge sucker for animal POV stories. The names that you have chosen are interesting and unique, and I like that they all have the same sort of ring to them, connecting the characters together right away. Also, I wasn’t expecting shape-shifters! That’s an interesting twist’ some of the humanizing language confused me at first, such as the word ‘girl’ and the description of her mom cooking, but this fact shed light on that. I find it humorous that despite being a different species and shape shifters, they still aren’t free of the human conflicts like young bickering and name calling. This keeps a more modernized element in the story which isn’t seen as often in stories like this.

It makes sense that while they retain some human intellect, enough to think little of the fire itself, they are childish enough to get lost in it and have the decision to come back to bite them. I would say this is a good balance of maturity vs. immaturity. Strigime’s brother led them through it, trying to be the most mature and strong of the three, but didn’t consider the consequences of his leadership (such as Strigime fainting and falling into eminent danger. Tyto’s statement of betrayal surprised me, making me wonder about his cowardly behavior, and how he stands to possibly detriment their little dynamic. Will he back out again when she needs him? Will he betray her brother?
I like that you shifted focus to the immortals, because I don’t trust them, and this creates an atmosphere for a bad guy. A good villain(s) is essential to creating the conflict for a story’s plot. The fact that they started the fire by the idiocy of not putting it out feels common (in a good way, relatable because people are often that careless) , but the fact that Misty blew if off like nothing and told them to move on is infuriating, especially after what happened to poor Stigime in the crossfire.

This story is cool; I would REALLY like you to write more. I feel like there’s a lot of potential and stuff happening here that could be much longer in chapters. If you’re up to it, post more! :D

Other suggestions:

There’s a might too much telling rather than showing in this story, and I think it could be a little more enriched if modified. What I mean by that is instead of stating that they saw a forest fire, maybe build up to it with descriptions like the smell of smoke and glowing light/ heat, such as you did later when they began flying through it.

[Star Wolf]

Nicely done! I really enjoyed this. I think it would make a really great longer story if there's more to this.

[Black Cat Fever]

This really is a very captivating and interesting story. The reader (Me!) can't help but want to know what is going to happen next to these characters. It is good writing and storytelling.

[Tina Kline]

I really enjoyed as much as you posted. It is quite good and I fell right into it, it's quite interesting. I hope you add more. I really want to know what happens next!