Feral Creatures (Hollow Kingdom #2)

by Kira Jane Buxton

There were flammulated owls, with their adorable oversize pupils and Pixar-rendered cuteness (don’t be fooled; they’ll fuck you up). Northern saw-whet owls, their rain boot–yellow eyes hosting a centrifugal blast of facial feathers. Short-eared owls, intricately speckled, and long-eared owls with ear tufts like a Viking warrior’s horns. Great gray owls in their dapper charcoal suits, faces a hypnosis of misty moons. Northern pygmy owls, little crackle-and-pop predator puffs. Burrowing owls, the elusive Mr. Beans of the owl kingdom, frowning quizzically. There were even great horned owls, who are known to snack on other owls, earning them the nickname tiger owl. These sky hunters, many nocturnal and nomadic, had come to this unfamiliar land from faraway places under a bidding. A potent parliament of owls. Here to defend the last MoFo on earth.

This is a reference to a MoFo movie. Watching television and movies is how I became a MoFo expert. Star Wars was a space opera about an incestuous brother and sister who used telekinesis and the help of a green gremlin to get vengeance on their angry asthmatic father and blow up both his balls. I loved it. Two wings up!

Bees loved her deeply, dancing in swarming synchronicity around her body. They taught her how to hum. I’d watch, mesmerized, as she gingerly dipped her arm into the sticky palpitating mass of a natural nest, the bees forming her second skin. And the queen bee—a young queen of the free bees—sang to Dee, a serenading like the gentle berceuse of a kazoo, an unparalleled honor, really. I believe the hive thrummed inside her, and it was these connections to the natural world that kept her afloat. She’d lick their honey off her forearms, the sky’s dusky powdering of pink illuminating her sly smile. And then of course, there was Oomingmak. Fucking Oomingmak.

“Fuck,” said Dee. I gasped. I have no idea where she learned that sort of language.

He was now nervously snipping at nothing with his claws, eyeballs akimbo, and I was beginning to lose my patience with this unstable crustacean.

“When I first laid my eyes on you is when I vowed to teach you everything I could about how to survive the sharp edges of where we now live. And my big journey, the one I slowly tell you as a bedtime story—along with The Hobbit because that’s a goddamned classic—is how I know what I’ve told you is true. About how Mother Nature is not kind, but she is balanced. Every single one of us, from amoeba to blue whale to the tenacious bloom that dares to dream of tomorrow, has their own destiny-fulfilling journey as long as their minds and hearts are open. And we are all connected by a web that looks gossamer and silvery but is stronger than a chain-link fence. And though she is tough, she is always conspiring for your success, encouraging you to evolve. You can even hear her if you listen carefully.”

“Ghubari, you’re not wrong often, but about this, you’re way off base. It is not symbiosis. You have forgotten how much you once loved a brilliant MoFo named Rohan. In this wild, wild world, Dee is the reason I open my eyes; do you understand me? Her heart opened mine, its beat is the soundtrack of my soul. She is the feeling of flight. She gives me back my wings. I will tear the sun out of the sky to protect her, and as long as the ocean breathes, I will love her with the feather and fur and ferocity of every living beast on this big beautiful blue.” That buttoned his beak.

“Birds on lofty boughs should be wary upon whom they shitteth, for they may endeth upeth on a less lofty one the following night and be shatteth upon themselves.”

Listen, I’ll always be a work in progress.

Mother Nature is deliberate with her palette. When she paints you with unique colors, it’s because she trusts you can handle adversity and inspire others to greatness.