An hour before dawn, as she headed for her roost, the owl watched as a kill and a claw rushed through the field below. The claw, with its blades withdrawn and its tail whipping about, mocked the kill as it tried to rush past. With a bat of its paw the bigger creature knocked aside the smaller one when it ran, and as the kill tried to burrow into the earth, the claw ran toward it and forced a retreat. The owl watched this exchange with interest, particularly when the kill managed a little distance from the claw. The prey thought only of survival, the predator enjoyed its play, but the owl watched for opportunity.

            Amid one of the claw’s rounds of feigned disinterest, as the kill ran as fast as its tiny legs could carry, the owl descended. Neither the kill nor the claw saw anything of her before she sank her talons into the kill and slammed it against the ground with a crunch of bones. Body tilted downward, she consumed the tiny creature whole with a few undulations of her mouth and throat.

“Hiss!” the claw snarled and glared at her. With its haunches raised it bounded toward the owl, but she took flight before it could strike. The claw fixed its slit eyes on her as she took to the sky. The kill she’d stolen was her second of the night, so with a full belly, she flew back toward her roost.

            On the way back home, the owl passed the settlement of the keepers. Across much of the world of creatures, there was only kill and claw, but the keepers were something else. Keepers moved slowly, built roosts from felled trees, and ate kill. But they also kept other creatures in their roosts, some to eat, some to use as claws of their own. At the edge of the roost was a small pond, where the tiniest of the keepers sometimes hunted for the kill that swam beneath the water. The keepers were strange creatures, the owl reflected, but at least—

            “Scree!”

            The bird cried out in pain as something clamped hard into one of her wings. With a rapid flap she struggled to free herself, and the first bite was followed by more that snapped harder and tighter. In disorientation and pain collapsed into the dirt next beside the pond. A thin material she could barely make out wrapped tight multiple times around the wing and forced it upward as she pushed off the ground. At the end of the line was a slender hook of that shining, unbreakable material keepers used. The snare was some discarded object the smallest keeper use to hunt  water kill. She flapped and cried against the bond, but it seemed the harder she fought, the deeper the line bit.

            Crunch.

            Between two struggles the owl froze. With her powerful ears, she heard another attack from the direction she’d flown. But after the initial chomp came the grind of meat and bones. Then the night again went quiet before there came the gentle sound of steps on grass. She was certain, it had to be the claw she’d stolen from.

            The owl beat both wings hard enough to force herself a few inches off the ground, but the intertwining agony of the line, hard enough to slice into her flesh, forced her to stop. From the sky, owls thought nothing of claws, but grounded she was at the beast’s mercy. With nothing she could even see, the owl snapped with her beak at the places the line held her tightest.

            Tiny beads of blood welled from the tightest bites of the chord. The smell was sure to draw the other hunter, so the owl fumbled about and bit blindly for the knots in the line. Each chord that wrapped her was like a minscule, thin stream of light. Her eyes were not made for this hunt, and her beak never needed to be so precise. But her ears did just as they were meant to, and she heard every one of the near-silent footsteps the claw took toward her. The creature, still far out, let out another crunch of bone as it was drawn to the smell of her blood.

            With one lucky bite the owl tore free one of her bonds. She concentrated on where the pain tormented her worst and snapped, mostly at thin air, but with some struggle cut another chord free. Between moments of her fight, she looked up toward the keeper’s roost. And in the light of dawn her black eyes locked gaze with a pair of green-surrounded slits.

            The scruffy claw tilted its head and slowly prowled toward her. Frozen with fear, the owl did not respond until the beast slammed its paws forward. The movement was just a feint, but the owl fell back on instinct and flapped her wings with all her might. Again, agony rushed to the last knot that clung to her and blood welled to the surface. She rose no more than two feet off the ground, the claw observed this and slowly ran its tongue over its mouth. With front legs bent downward and haunches raised, it prepared to strike.

            As the claw leapt, the final bit of chord cut clean through the flesh and feathers on the tip of the owl’s wing. Blood spurted and the flap was agony, but the owl rose into the air and crumpled onto a tree branch an instant before the claw was upon her. Head raised, the claw glared up at the owl, and just as she turned down to nurse the wound, it dug nails into the bark and climbed the tree.

            The owl searched about, frantic. She could try flying across the pond, but with her wing so mangled she may just fall in and drown. As the claw reached her branch, she flew toward the next closest tree, but the pathetic flaps racked her body with pain. The claw gracefully leapt to the same tree, lost only a little distance in the jump, and followed the owl upward. She looked toward the keeper’s roost. Perhaps another insidious trap awaited her, but maybe something there that could ensnare the claw as well. If reckoning from that creature was inevitable otherwise, it seemed her best chance.

            Down from the tree the owl threw herself and waved a few pathetic flaps toward the smallest structure of the keeper’s roost. In a far more graceful leap, the claw pursued just behind. The owl’s injured wing gave out fast and she hit the ground, she pushed on as best her little legs could carry her. The small structure bore a flap at its front, and from within she smelled other birds. Perhaps the claw couldn’t fit through the opening? It was worth a try.

            As she ran in and the claw followed, there came the bark of one of the keeper’s claws from the larger structure. And while the hens the owl passed paid her no mind, one awoke and let out a fearful “Squawk!” as the claw followed her inside. One screech led to another, and another. The owl saw each bird was contained behind a small barrier and could do little but shriek and flap their wings. They were all helpless, perhaps the claw would feed on them instead. She went to hide in a corner, but a different structure stood there. It was a box formed of that shining, unbreakable substance keepers used. Opposite of the opening was a branch with a tiny piece of kill hooked to it. The owl did not know what any of this was, only that she was backed into a corner.

            True to its predatory nature, the claw paid no mind to the other shrieking birds. It had played with the owl from the moment it had caught up with her, and it was determined to finish one game before it went on to the next. The owl scrambled into the furthest corner from the opening as her pursuer took slow, deliberate steps. With no where left for her to run, the claw bent for a last time and pounced.

            With all of her remaining strength, the owl took one more excruciating, bloody flight. The claw sailed underneath her and tried to skitter to a stop, but crashed into the end of the box and the branch that held the kill.

            Bang!

            A fourth wall of the structure, latched to the branch in a way the owl couldn’t see, slammed down, and trapped the claw within. The predator’s eyes went wide, its stoicism was lost as it unleashed a furious “Hiss!” and batted at the hard walls. But the keeper’s trap remained unmovable. The owl was too weak even to step away as the claw tried to reach for her, but it did not matter, the predator could not escape.

            A creak cut through the shouts of the contained birds, and a keeper stepped inside. The owl had never been so close to one before, and its incredible size made her quiver. To survive the claw took everything she had, there was no fight left in her little body. On instinct alone she uttered a pathetic, “Squawk,” and tried to shrink into nothingness.

            The keeper paid her no mind as it crossed and studied the claw in the trap. “Dyam et, enuter bopkut.”

            With another “Hiss,” the claw similarly scrunched itself into the corner of its enclosure.

            After a few seconds of studying the claw, the keeper looked down and saw the owl. “Wutsis nao?” Out from one leg the keeper produced a pair of flattened, wooly appendages and slipped each over their matching extremity. As the keeper knelt, the owl looked away and anticipated the end.

            Gently, the keeper lifted the owl, departed from the roost, and set her down near the pond. When the keeper looked in the tree, it uttered an annoyed sound. “Dyammit Joee, tolyu tekwit leven yer lynes autere.” It then turned its attention for the last time to her. “Gu aun nao, git.”

            And the little owl watched as the most powerful, terrifying predator she’d ever seen left her to heal.

​

The End