Graymoss

Moss prefers to blend in with the surroundings.

## Description

Graymoss is a Boreal Owl from Ambala. His feathers, apart from the white spots, are dun and moss-coloured, giving him, at first glance, the appearance of a top-heavy Eastern Screech and looking for all in the world like grayish bark. On a leather thong around his neck, he wears a Great Horned Owl´s primary feather and a curved shard of blue-tinted glass.

## Personality

Gruff and taciturn, Graymoss is difficult to befriend. Having lost his mate and son to a St. Aegolius´ egg-snatching squad, his rough manners and abrupt behaviour hide the fact that he is simply afraid to love and care again. He prefers to be at the edge of a crowd, observing, rather than in the middle, trying to keep a gruff distance to other owls whom he might start to like. Once he strikes a friendship, though, he is utterly loyal and willing to die for that owl.

Life has little meaning for Graymoss. When he came to the Great Tree, he was intent only on revenge against the owls who killed his family. Long talks with Ezylryb and Boron changed his mind; while he is not exactly enjoying the cup of life, he has found some measure of peace in his work as a Guardian, fighting evil and making sure no other owls suffer the same fate as his mate and chick did.

## History

Graymoss had a nest and family in Ambala. He loved his mate Piper dearly, and he was looking forward eagerly to the hatching of their first clutch of eggs. When the first of his eggs hatched on a bed of his own breast down, he was ecstatic.

A few days after, when he and Piper returned from a hunting foray, they found their nestling in the talons of a Great Horned Owl, and their eggs being carried away by a pair of Long-Eared Owls. Aghast, they attacked, Graymoss striking at the Great Horned´s eyes, Piper snatching the owlet from her. With her chick in her talons, Graymoss´ mate zig-zagged frantically, trying to evade the egg-snatchers and get the owlet to safety. The Long-Eareds dropped the eggs - Graymoss nearly went yeep - and dove for Piper, killing her in an explosion of feathers. The chick fell to the forest floor, struck a rock and lay very still.

Graymoss mauled the Great Horned´s wing and tore off a few feathers, but he was no trained fighter. The owl shook him off and took to the sky, following the other owls in retreat. Graymoss didn´t pursue. He alighted softly as a piece of down, and with his gizzard terribly still, he cradled his dead son in his talons and cried.

He sang the Boreal Owls´ lament under an old bronze bell when he laid his mate, eggs and chick to rest under the weather-marked metal. At a loss about what to do, he took to roaming the forests of Ambala, searching for traces of the brutal owls. He kept one of the feathers he had taken from the Great Horned Owl, carrying it with him to remind himself of the death of his family. From a magpie trader, he bartered a shard of glass that magnified whatever he looked at through it; he found it very useful in reading tracks.

When he found out that the egg-snatchers had come out of the canyons of St. Aegolius, Graymoss nearly despaired. The canyons were unassailable. He was going to need help, and he would not find it in Ambala. He remembered the good-light stories he had told his chick, half-believed legends of a knightly order of owls who rose each night with hearts sublime. In his grief, he set out on a desperate journey across the Sea of Hoolemere, fully expecting to die; but the mists parted for him, and he found the Great Tree.

Now, as a Guardian, and with St. Aegolius Academy defeated, he still carries the feather of Skench. It reminds him of his duty to ensure that no other owls will ever suffer the fate of his dear family again. He often volunteers for patrol duty in Ambala, and sometimes visits the keeper of the bell where his mate´s and chick´s bones are buried. The elderly Boreal Owl urges him to open up his heart and gizzard again, to make peace with his loss and find new owls to befriend and care for. But Graymoss shies away from that. New friends, new love, he fears, will make him vulnerable and hurt him - because he knows it is not always possible to protect whom one loves.