“Ahem.” The owl cleared his throat. Otulissa’s head jerked up from her labors. The blue owl, the Striga, perched before her.
“Oh, so sorry. I was quite absorbed here,” Otulissa said.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
But you did, thought Otulissa. She had little tolerance for the indiscriminate use of words. Wouldn’t it have been better to say simply, “Sorry to disturb you”?
“What is it, might I ask, that absorbs you so?” the Striga asked.
“I have for some time been immersed in a study of weather and air currents. I am a member of the weather-interpretation chaw.”
“Oh,” the Striga said with a jovial note in his voice. “I approve!”
Otulissa blinked. She did not quite understand. “Approve of what?” she cocked her head to one side. What in the name of Glaux is there to approve of? And why should you be the one doing the approving? But she, of course, said none of this aloud.
“I approve of the practical studies such as weather.” He swung his head slowly around. “But not the inessential, the frivolous, the, how should I put it? The heretical texts.”
“Heretical?”
“Yes. You know, the anti-Glaux books such as those the young owlets are giggling over.” He nodded toward the young owls gathered around a desk reading a book with great glee.
“It’s a joke book! That’s all!” Otulissa then told one of the few lies she had ever told in her life. “I read it myself when I was an owlet.” Otulissa had never read a joke book, but she would never deny another owl the right to read one.
“But such books are fripperies, indulgences, vanities!”
She looked at him closely. What is this owl talking about? This word “vanity” was often in his speech.
“I am not quite sure what you mean by the word ‘vanity’ in reference to literature.”
“Literature?” He paused. “But surely, Otulissa, you need not concern yourself with literature, for you are a student of practical disciplines—like this er…uh…weather and—what is it you are reading now?”
She didn’t like the way he asked the question. It was interfering, beaky. Why should she have to tell him what she was reading or studying? It wasn’t as if she had anything to hide. In fact, she was quite proud of this book, because it had been written by one of her own ancestors, a most distinguished scholar, the most renowned weathertrix of the previous century, Strix Emerilla. The book had the rather ponderous title Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide. She held it up. “Written by my thrice-great-aunt, maternal side.”
“You must be proud,” the Striga answered softly.
“I am. I am very proud,” Otulissa replied curtly.
“You must be careful of too much pride.”
“Another vanity?” Otulissa leaned forward a bit and peered more closely at him. His face looked different from when he had first arrived at the tree. The feathers had thinned. Indeed, his face was almost bald. There was just a thin mist of blue over the gray-and-puckered skin.
“Exactly, Otulissa! Exactly!”
Otulissa flexed her head to one side, then to the other, running through a series of head postures as if she were studying the blue owl from every possible angle.
“I am curious,” Otulissa began in a reflective tone. “Just what do you mean by this word ‘vanity’?”
“Oh, I am so glad you asked.”
I’m sure you are! Otulissa thought to herself.
“As you know, Otulissa, I came from the Dragon Court, a most impractical place.” The Striga gave special emphasis to the word “impractical.” “It had become this way because of excess—excess of luxuries, of pampering, of every kind of indulgence imaginable. At the very center of this excess, the driving force, the fuel that fired it, was vanity.”
“But what is vanity?” Otulissa asked.
“Vanities are all the indecent things in life, the fripperies, the impracticalities that distract us from Glaux and our true owlness.”
“True owlness?” Otulissa blinked.
“Yes, we are, by nature, humble creatures.”
“Hmm.” Otulissa sniffed, and thought of Twilight. Humble, my talon!
“We must practice humility,” the Striga continued. “Anything else is vanity.”
Otulissa was tempted to say, Well, to each his own. But she thought better of it. “One last question,” she said.
“Of course.”
Her eyes fastened on his face. “Are you suffering from mite blight? I notice the feathers on your face are quite thin.”
“Oh, nothing of the sort,” the Striga answered almost cheerfully. “No. You see, for a long time, I was burdened with an indecent abundance of feathers. These feathers were the ultimate vanity. We dragon owls cultivated them with a disgusting mixture of pride and pleasure, preening all day. There were even special servants whose only job was to stroke and comb our feathers.” The Striga seemed to wilf just talking about it. “I can’t tell you how vile it was.”
“But you did it. You preened your long blue feathers,” Otulissa said curtly.
“I knew nothing better. I was deluded,” the Striga said.
Otulissa blinked. There was so much that she did not understand about the Panqua Palace and the Dragon Court. She thought of Theo, that noble owl from ancient times they had all read about in the legends. When Otulissa had been in the Middle Kingdom, she had learned that it was Theo who had realized that the best way to distract owls with evil intentions was to engulf them in luxury. The result was overweening vanity, so that their attention could focus only on one thing—themselves—to the point where they were reduced to powerlessness. It was an ingenious strategy for quelling the most dangerous kinds of owls, which had found their way into the Middle Kingdom long ago.
“But I still don’t understand,” Otulissa said to the Striga. “You now have fewer feathers than any of us. Especially on your face.”
“I strip them out. It is my personal penance. Thus I relinquish the unnecessary things, the distractions.”
“I’ve never thought of feathers as a distraction, frankly. They are a most essential part of our bodies.” She paused. “Our true owlness, as it were.” She emphasized the word “owlness.”
“But not your spirit! And how can the spirit rise, become everlasting, when burdened by the vanities of feather and bone?” The Striga blinked his pale yellow eyes.
What did the Striga mean by “everlasting”? Life was the here and now. One must be able to rise into the air above this earth and fly. Was it not an abuse to pluck the very gifts Glaux had given owls to make a life for themselves? But Otulissa, for whom arguments were like a tonic, had no desire to engage in any further discussion with the Striga on the subject. Indeed, after this odd conversation, Otulissa was rendered speechless for one of the very few times in her life.
Copyright
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Text copyright © 2007 by Kathryn Lasky.
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> E-ISBN: 978-0-545-28344-1
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Kathryn Lasky, The River of Wind
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