The Sentinels and all the living creatures, look on with mortal fear

The forest he had been reared within had fallen. The world had met its end in an apocalyptic event long anticipated by his kin. But he, the oldest owl of the wood, was the forests guardian. It was his calls that had let others live; but he had seen many fall for it. The old Owl had seen much, and been taught more. Prophecies and witchlore. Owl had been told things by the mice he had picked off and let live; those creatures ran everywhere, and heard all that he could only see from above. The forests end had been havoc; his apprentice had been caught beneath a felled tree. With all done and destroyed, Owl had rest in a gnarled tree half-destroyed and asked for guidance. What was his purpose, now? He had lived for so long, and still he lived though others younger had died. He wept at the unfairness of it all.

Spirits came to him and told him he must survive yet. His apprentice was dead; he must take another, teach him The Ways, give them The Sight. He dreamed of a forest, and when he woke, he took flight.

Months it had taken him to find it. But from above he recognized it, felt that he had seen this before (long ago, his family had traveled and lingered in these same woods, but he did not know his dream was only a recollection). And so he descended, lingered in the trees. He slept for some hours, but woke when the world grew quiet. He had not known such silence as this. It gripped his heart; the superstitious man felt there was power here he had missed. But as his keen gaze combed the woods, he saw only a child there. The little one looked heavenward, and he felt the spiritual call of the question that begged an answer.

He flapped his way to a branch just overhead, but out of her reach. He had not survived this long by being a fool. We see you weeping, he spoke in his deep voice. We have all of the answers you seek. A presumptuous claim, but one the enigmatic, aged owl believed. What was it that a child could wonder? Simple things, sweet things, surely, from such an angelic cherub that stood mournfully beneath him!