An Owl's Rise

After a short flight away from the burrowing owl\'s home, Evelyn, Rehni, and Otis landed in front of the emergency burrow that had once been used by the burrowing owls and Evelyn had repurposed as her group\'s temporary shelter.

Immediately when they walked in, Evelyn found that the traps at the entrance meant to alert them of intruders were still active.

Of course it was easy enough for Evelyn to bypass these traps since she was the one who had taught Bylur how to set them up in the first place.

Once the three of them had made it past the entrance and into the main chamber, Bylur quickly flew out from deeper in the burrow.

The moment he laid eyes on Evelyn a great big smile formed on his face. Though when he turned his gaze towards Otis, his expression soured.

In response Otis gave him a victorious smile, basically telling Bylur that he was already ahead of him now.

Evelyn being at the front of their group, did not notice this little exchange between Bylur and Otis, and was instead looking around for her siblings. Now that she had brought Otis back with her, she would need to introduce him to them and inform them of their actual reason for coming to the Velinis Desert.

"Bylur, where are Aralee and Verrader?" Evelyn asked seeing that they were not around.

"Both of them are in the back. Since you left Verrader has not been in the best place. I am not sure what has been going on, but he has spent the entire time cooped up in a small chamber, sometimes even mumbling to himself in an almost deranged way. Aralee has been trying to help him, but he rarely responds to her. As for me he will not even turn my way." Bylur said, a grimace on his face.

From his expression Evelyn could tell that it had not been a pleasant experience.

"Otis, Rehni, would you wait here." Evelyn said before turning back to Bylur. "Please take me to wear my siblings are."

Nodding his head, Bylur hurriedly took to the air and flew towards the area he had come from.

A half minute later Evelyn saw Aralee sitting dejectedly outside of one of the burrow\'s chambers and looking in with a look of concern.

When she strained her ears, Evelyn could hear the sounds of low hoots and chirps that sounded incoherent.

\'Those noises must be the mumbling that Bylur told me about.\'

As Aralee noticed their approach, she turned her head their way and her eyes lit up the instant she saw Evelyn

"Sister, thank goodness. Maybe you can get through to you. Whenever I make a connection with him to speak, he only sends back mostly unintelligible messages or cuts of the connection without telling me anything. I do not know what is wrong, but he has barely eaten and will not leave this area. He has said your name and something about retrieving a spherical magic item for someone I am unfamiliar with several times. Frankly, I am not sure what is happening. He never acted like this before. It all happened after you left." Aralee said to Evelyn frantically.

Yet Evelyn felt a sudden chill wash over her when Aralee mentioned Verrader having been talking about a spherical item from her.

\'How did I not see this. He practically already told me.\' Evelyn thought, a fog seeming to clear from her mind.

Sha had had her doubts about Verrader, and he had just mentioned to her not long ago that a human had rescued him from his cage. Yet she had failed to connect the dots.

"Both of you leave us now!" Evelyn said sternly, a heavy weight to her voice.

Feeling the seriousness in Evelyn\'s tone, both Aralee and Bylur did as she said. Bylur only stopping once to cast her a concerned glance.

Walking in front of the chamber\'s entrance, Evelyn looked in and stared at Verrader.

Currently he was facing away from her with his head leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the room.

With one look Evelyn could tell that he was mentally unstable and dealing with some deep-rooted issues.

\'I knew it in my gut that there was something wrong about him. The way he acted, his stories that seemed filled with half-truths. If I just thought about it more I should have realized how suspicious he was. Why I didn\'t, I can only believe I was blinded by my familiar ties to him. Maybe I just did not want to see it.\' Evelyn thought, as she prepared herself for a confrontation.

Truly she wanted to reconnect with her family which was why she had given Verrader so much more leeway than she would have anyone else.

The fact that she felt she would also have to give up associating with Aralee should she have cut off Verrader was also another attributing factor. While Verrader had rubbed her the wrong way a few times, she had taken to Aralee almost immediately.

Moving into the chamber Evelyn carefully approached Verrader, ready to react in case he lashed out at her.

Before she could reach him however, Verrader noticed her presence and turned around abruptly.

Tensing up, Evelyn waited to see what he would do, but he just stood there, a manic look in his eyes.

And while seeing this may have been off-putting to most, it actually helped Evelyn to calm down.

She recognized the expression that Verrader was making. It was one filled with indecision and pain. Something Evelyn herself was all too familiar with.

"Verrader, I want you to-"

"WHY!? Why did you have to forgive me? If you had just kept looking at me with disdain it all would have been so much easier!" Verrader shouted out, cutting Evelyn off.

His face was twisted in rage, saddens, and confusion.

"I forgave you because I realized I did not want to hate you. We may not have spent all that long together, but we are family Verrader. It was the human that hurt us, not each other. I already told you that we need to stop blaming ourselves and each other for what happened. "Evelyn said a sympathetic look in her eyes.

"Now tell me exactly what is going on. You are in league with the humans, are you not?"