Swooping, soaring, turning wide arcs high up in the night sky. Her immense wings seemed to block the stars completely from view. Short hoots shot out from her beak, and carried far and wide throughout the forest. In one swift maneouvre, she ducked low among the trees. Her talons spread out before her, long, sharp and thin, as she fanned out her tail and wings and perched silently within the dense foilage of a tree. Faint moonlight dancing between the leaves only slightly revealed her form.

I could have sworn I was flying in a straight line...

Poppy rose into the warm, summer night air. Once again, she had tried to escape what seemed like some sort of force field, and this time was tugged downwards harder. She felt her gizzard changing slightly and her mind growing foggy as her flight became sluggish and her wings began to lock in place. The forest floor swirled towards her, dauntingly getting closer to her very quickly. As the last of the pine needles blew up in her face, the call of a male Whiskered Screech Owl echoed in her ear slits, and that was the last thing she remembered.

When she came to, Poppy found that her head ached, and the Screech Owl had poised carefully on her chest. He peered down at her with his squinty gaze. "Are you alright there? You nearly knocked me out of that tree over there," he rasped, guesturing with his wing to a large bush. Poppy gave him a quizzical look and rolled onto her side, only to find her left wing searing with pain. She managed to sit up, and examined the owl in front of her. He seemed unnaturally confused, and kept muttering strange things under his breath. She saw that he constantly checked his mangled foot, and seemed to be looking around the forest floor for his missing toe.

"Who are you?" Poppy hopped over to the deranged owl, dragging her lame wing across the forest floor. He stared at her blankly. "What do you mean, who am I? I, am Ezylryb." he cocked his head to one side and churred dramatically. Poppy shook her head before looking up at the trees around her. Smoke drifted from three trees, and she watched in awe as owls threw bright, flaming hot coals at those trees, never missing their target. Poppy noticed that as the trees burned, her mind became clearer, and she was sure the same effect was happening to the old owl in front of her. "What's going on?" she asked as he hopped up onto a low tree branch to get a better view.

"That would be the Chaw of Chaws," he answered simply, and called out a greeting to a young and handsome Barn Owl.

"We'll be needing a stretcher for this one" she heard Ezylryb say, and before she knew it, a ruddy-coloured Short Eared Owl and a large, silvery Great Gray made their way down before her with a net of tightly-woven vines stretched between them. The Short Eared Owl smiled warmly. "Step on, and we'll to the rest," she said, holding out a wing to steady Poppy.

As she got onto the vine stretcher, and was gently lifted up and away from the leafy undergrowth, strange, warm, fuzzy feelings swirled around Poppy's gizzard. Is this love? she thought, And if so, who is the owl making me feel this way?