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Queen Nyra had always been known for her ferocity. As a younger owl

queen she had led her army from the front, her consort Kludd at her

side, his great wings flashing white at the edge of her considerable

range of vision, his helmet glinting darkly in whatever light might be

available. Powerful he was and always had been, and dedicated to his

queen. Their silent flight had been their perennial opening gambit in

war, prior to the piercing of their sharp, predatory talons into the

backs of their enemies. They were as deadly as a fall of fresh snow, she

had often privately thought. Beautiful, silent and relentless.

It was a ferocity that did not need to be broadcast, so they did not,

and Nyra had always believed they were stronger warriors for it. So

many ferocious leaders had war cries. Not so this army. Why screech when

it might galvanize the opposition? It made no sense to her and the

natural owl talent for silence was one she was proud to possess.

However, a leader who worked so hard deserved the downtime she most

desired, and Nyra's favourite past-time was to eat. No, not to eat - the

eating was the means by which she fulfilled her desire - but more

specifically to be fed. After a bloody and violent day in battle she and

Kludd would often bond over dinner. It reminded them of their mutual

tenderness and together, they adored the ritual. Kludd would feed her, a

token amount at first but over time it evolved. Later he would take to

feeding her a good portion from his own plate, picking up morsels with

his beak and delivering it to her own, her eyes half-closed in bliss,

her beak half-open and ready to receive. Over time she became more and

more entranced by the act and made her adoration clear to Kludd with

quiet squeaks of pleasure and lingering with him over their meals. It

fulfilled a part of her that she would not have been able to explain

even if she had felt inclined to explain herself in any capacity at all,

for a monarch had no need to explain herself. A mere smattering of

morsels was no longer enough, so he began to feed her the food from her

own plate instead of leaving her to feed herself.

So tender. So blissful. The almost-inaudible clack of his beak

against hers with each delivery. The taste of vole meat, so much more

delicious for being given to her. His gentle breath that sounded so

intimate when he dipped close, and the occasional brush of his feathers,

ruffled from so many battle scars, against her own.

Her love of being fed meant she ate more and more, and she began to

gain weight. She knew this but did not mind, and neither did Kludd, for

he appeared to love feeding her too. She saw the warmth in his eyes as

he drew close, beakful by beakful, and she knew that he felt as much

love as she did. Such a contrast to his cold warrior-stare. She loved to

be privy to it. Perhaps Kludd loved to see her tenderness too, this

lethal warrior queen.

And then... and then they'd had a brief spell of awkwardness between

them, something the fearsome Queen Nyra had not experienced before.

It'd lasted around three weeks. Kludd had taken to feeding her so

much from his and her plates that little was left over for him. In her

bliss she had not spotted this at first, but a warrior had to eat and

her special warrior was going without. Perhaps she was simply not used

to nurturing another and revelling only in his nurturing of her, but the

result was that she had driven him to begin eating in secret before or

after their meals.

To do that, Kludd had had to steal away from her side. His sneaking

about had had a furtive quality much at odds with what she'd always

known of him. Nyra had never been prone to the sensation of a broken

heart but his desertion had worried her. Finally it had flustered her

too much and she brought it up in a conversation.

 xXxNyra and Kludd finished the night's meal in the dark and

woody-smelling confines of the ancient oak tree that served as their

meal-hall, she satiated and feeling plump with mouse meat, and he...

vaguely distracted, somehow. She had seen it lately, this distraction,

this other-whereness, and it had to stop. He is my mate and I must solve the mystery. I will get to the bottom of this.

"Shall we retire, my love?" she asked quietly, her eyes in deep contact with his own, a slight coo in her voice.

He cooed appreciatively in his love-softened yet always-rough voice,

but again it sounded... off, somehow. As if he was acting. Nyra knew

fake emotion when she heard it - monarchs had to be aware of deception

always, especially monarchs who were their own generals. She listened

for his next words.

He groomed the corner of her beak, perhaps to tidy it of a streak of

blood. "Retire... Ah yes, perhaps we shall sit in the beech by the

barley field," he suggested.

The barley field. At this time of the high summer the barley was

grown to full height but not yet golden. It would sway in the night's

breeze and the field at large would ripple in a hypnotic rhythm, shining

a little in the moonlight and calming two owls who desired to relax.

Perhaps they would talk together, perhaps sit in silence. It did not

matter; the time spent together in mute appreciation of beauty was the

goal.

"Yes," she whispered. Perhaps at some time in the evening Kludd would swoop down and catch prey and feed it to her.

He ducked so that he could nuzzle her developing chin. "I will meet you there. I must first speak with Captain Rass."

Nyra almost asked 'Why?', but she stopped herself for she already

knew the answer. On the face of it, Kludd would need to discuss Rass'

recent difficulties with managing a wayward yet promising new recruit.

Since she had gained so much weight Nyra was no longer the

leader-from-the-front she had been in her earliest youth. Now Kludd ran

errands for her that involved travel, and Rass' hollow was a

semi-distant flight from the royal feeding quarters.

Yes, on the face of it, Kludd had an errand to run. Underneath it

however, Kludd wanted to leave her side for his own reasons. It broke

Nyra's enjoyment of the evening and if she had been the type to admit

such things to herself, would have said it made her feel sad.

"Yes, my love," she answered, taking to a spot of acting herself to

appear heedless of the lie. "I will wait for you by the barley."

He had reserved one last look of love for her - Deceitful, she

accused in her mind. And yet, how could she bear to call such

tenderness deceitful? - and hopped up onto the edge of the great oak

bough. She watched as he spread his pale wings and flapped away until he

was out of sight, and prepared to fly the short distance to the beech.

For she could still fly, albeit with difficulty.

Finally, under the light of an almost-full moon that coloured

everything blue and charcoal and silver, Nyra's mate joined her and

landed on the branch next to her, edging his talons along until the

folded shoulder of his wing brushed her own.

"Where did you go?" she asked, settling her body against his but unable to make her mind follow suit.

He paused. "You know where I went, my love."

She turned her head to look at him and deliberately refrained from making her gaze too piercing. "Where did you really go?"

He looked at her then, visibly taken aback. He fluffed up his

feathers but did not take flight. And then he sighed and allowed them to

lay flat again. "My love." There were more words in his meaning than

his choice of phrase. Nyra already knew it was his way of acknowledging

her astuteness. Or perhaps the unspoken words were ones of regret.

"Tell me the truth," she stated, their eyes locked as if in battle. A loving yet sad and fearful battle. How is one to win this? How does one back down from it? She did not know.

"I had to eat," he said simply.

At first Nyra was confused. "But we have eaten already." And then the reality of the situation dawned on her. "Oh."

He looked at her with determination, perhaps as if he expected a battle, but he said nothing more.

"Kludd, you have not been eating. Not at our meal times," she

breathed, and bent close to groom the edge of his moon-like face, her

way of offering apology. "How could I not realise?"

Kludd relaxed and she groomed him more deeply, relieved beyond measure to know the reason for his deceit.

"We must make amends," she continued.

"We must," he answered, turning to face her once again so that he

could look into her eyes with the greatest sincerity. "And our rituals

will remain as they always have."

"There will be more mice?" she asked, excited at first, for more food

would mean more feeding, but she quickly understood the ramifications.

He would feed her more and remain hungry once again. "No, the solution

must be different."

"You are right, my love."

"Do you have a proposition?" she asked.

 xXxThis was how they came to this point in time, to be looking at these

candidates. Nyra re-settled her talons on her perch as she tilted her

head and examined the pair of short-eared owls before her. They looked

suitably submissive - just as she liked her subjects - and seemed

agreeable enough in personality.

She paced a little, eager to impress upon them a vision of her bulk,

the sinuous strength in her wings, her majesty. "My senechal has told me

your names. Skitt and Han, you are welcome. You will have been informed

of your duties, but I will reiterate them for you."

Kludd had offered her his suggestion. At first she had felt a sinking

in her heart. Their feeding ritual had been an intimate one and she

wished she had not unwittingly cornered herself into admitting strangers

to take part. However, that was how events had turned, and Kludd had so

badly needed succour. She could not deny him so she, the queen of the

barn owls, had decided to give his suggestion a fair try. She took a

breath and continued. "You will be domestics, employed only in the early

evenings. You will be punctual, for you are required to be present at

every royal evening meal time.

"I require of you to feed me until I ask of you to stop, and then to

leave my consort and I in peace. That is all." She turned to face them,

her legs strong despite the great weight they supported these days. "Do

you have any questions or concerns?"

Skitt glanced at Han, but Han apparently did not dare to return the

gaze. "I have no questions, my queen," he said with a respectful bow.

She nodded, and cast a subtly enquiring glance at Han.

He shifted his own talons uncomfortably. "I have one question, your

highness. I understand you asked for non-barn owls for this task and I

am happy - no, honoured - to serve you. Are we now subjects of yours,

along with the barn owl kin?"

The question was a good one, but one of the complications of her and

Kludd's proposed new arrangement. Both had agreed that they did not want

barn owls for the task, and to have other, smaller species instead.

Having a different owl species would help keep a cultural barrier

between Nyra and Kludd, and their assistants, and that would help keep

their time together special. Smaller owls would offer no physical threat

when the royal couple's battle defences were down. But it raised a

political question: did the new owls have barn owl kinship for being in

the employ of the royal pair, or were they to be seen as foreigners in

barn owl territory? It would not be fair to insist that they remain

legal foreigners, even ones with diplomatic immunity. They had agreed to

extend kinship to the assistants.

"You will become barn owl kin, and will be welcomed by my subjects," she said with a gracious bow.

 xXxNyra felt nervous as she entered her and Kludd's feeding quarters and

waited for her servants to bring in the first mice and voles or

whatever they had managed to catch, but she kept this a closely-guarded

secret. She kept her wings strong and still, her claws firm, not

flapping, not fidgeting. However, she offered Kludd one warm look and

saw that he too was nervous. The scarred warrior had always been so good

at hiding his nerves. But not from her, not from her...

The sound of barn owl talons on rotten wood sounded around the corner

and Minchen, the most senior of her servants and a most excellent

hunter, approached with a vole. Without a word he deposited it on the

small dais from which Nyra and Kludd ate, bowed, and left, his

fawn-and-grey mottled back straight.

His task, as always, was to hunt and retrieve. Not to feed.

She listened, but did not hear, the instruction that he must have

given Skitt and Han in turn. Perhaps they had pre-agreed that he would

simply nod at them when it was time for them to enter, or they would

take his retreat from the royal feeding room as he passed by them in the

tunnel as their signal.

Either way they came humbly in, Skitt leading the less-confident Han.

Skitt hesitated and then seemed to commit himself, then hopped up onto

the feeding dais. He pinned the vole down with one small foot, pulled a

section of fur off the little body and tore off a strip of meat. He

stretched up and offered it to Nyra, his eyes lowered in deference.

She leaned forward and took it, aware of her every movement and how

it might be interpreted. She did not want this process to have undue

intimacy - that was something she treasured with Kludd only - but she

wanted so very much to be fed. And... truly, this feeding process could

not be without intimacy, for that was precisely why she had taken to it

in the first place. But she would not make eye contact unless necessary,

she would not coo or purr in appreciation of Skitt or Han's efforts,

she would not nibble fragments of meat off the corners of their beaks.

She would do these things only with Kludd - and the end of her feeding

session, when he took over, would be all the more loving for it.

Perhaps she would develop a sense of mutual tenderness with Skitt and

Han, but she would have to consider how to do that without making her

relationship with Kludd less precious.

She avoided catching Skitt's gaze also to avoid intimidating him, and

paid no attention to Minchen as he returned with a second rodent for

Kludd. The warrior clamped his foot on it to tear off a piece for

himself, and in this way, ate it slowly as Skitt and Nyra became

acquainted with the task of feeding.

Nyra's vole was soon reduced to nothing but a few hairs, and Skitt

retreated to clean himself. Minchen, who had evidently been listening or

watching from the shadows, soon arrived with a mouse. He left it on the

dais and retreated. This time it was Han who stepped up.

Han had evidently watched his colleague's approach and decided to

improve on it. Or perhaps he'd fed others before at some point. His

delivery was smoother, more... loving, somehow, but in a way that seemed

appropriate. He crowed very quietly at the back of his throat in

response to some signal from her that she became abstractly aware of,

and Nyra allowed this to continue for a few mouthfuls as she deliberated

over whether or not it was acceptable. She found it difficult to decide

so looked at Kludd to judge his opinion.

Kludd looked vaguely stern about this so on her next mouthful she

looked into Han's eyes. She paused, each of them holding an opposite end

of this latest strip of meat. He stopped in response and looked at her

lovingly - and then warily.

I am not angry, was her message, but No.

He nodded - a tiny bow of acknowledgement - and let go of his end of the strip.

The mouse was nearly finished when Nyra decided to sit up and decide

how full she felt. She took the opportunity to verbalise some of the

thoughts in her head. "Han," she said with a little prim warmth - the

way she'd often found worked when speaking semi-informally to her

servants. "You feed like you are used to it. Tell me - have you fed

before?"

He bowed before he spoke. "Yes, my queen. I have had two clutches of

owlets with a third on the way." He spoke with a kind of humble pride

that she found so endearing that she fluffed up her feathers before

she'd realized what she'd done.

She decided to go with the feeling. "Oh, how charming! You feed very

well!" Then, aware that Skitt may be fearing for his own prowess, she

sought him out too. "Skitt, will you approach please?" She thought about

his performance as he approached so that she could compliment him too,

although Han had been her favourite.

He stood on the far side of the dais, for Han already occupied the space.

"Your polite manner was very much appreciated, Skitt. Thank you for

your show of respect. Kludd and I will discuss taking you both on

permanently this evening. Now, please excuse yourselves and I will speak

to you on the morrow."

THE END.