Dustscrape

The Red Talons. From left to right: Dustscrape, Rook, Kellick and Klaive.

*"I must be the most miserable owl in this forest. How did I get into this?"*

* Dustscrape to himself, while tracking Teleria and Splinter

Dustscrape is a character from a series of role-playing sessions set shortly after the Siege of the  in the *Guardians*  background.

## Description

Dustscrape is small for a Lesser Sooty Owl, with smooth gray colour, mottled on his chest, back and the top of his head. His facial disc is round and darker around the beak and the lower corners of his eyes, giving him a helpless expression that constantly provokes his team-mates Kellick and Klaive to torment him. His feathers are permanently ruffled from the other owls cuffing him; even Rook will join in when he has to get something out of his system. It is difficult for him to fly silently with his frayed plummels, which has worked against his team on two occasions at least.

When doing tracking and scouting duty for the Red Talons, Dustscrape will forgo the red paint of Pure Ones in favour of his natural camouflage.

## Personality

Dustscrape is the team´s doormat. He is bullied, threatenend and cuffed, deathly afraid of his squadron leader Scylla, and just trying to do his job and get through the day with a minimum of pain. While Scylla prefers to keep the other members of the team on a tight leash, she thinks nothing of sending Dustscrape on long missions, in the safe knowledge that he would go yeep with fear before he tried to do anything contrary to her will. In fact, she even likes him a bit, in a crooked way, because she can *trust* him.

For his part, Dustscrape at once hates Scylla with all his heart and is dependent on her - since she is the only one not engaging in petty bullying, she is the only owl he can turn to if he needs a respite from the constant jibes and knocks. So he does his utmost not to get her angry at him, and that means following her orders to the letter.

Dustscrape is far more intelligent that the other owls give him credit for, but he has learned that playing the dumb Sooty and keeping his beak shut will keep him out of trouble.

## History

### Hatching and chickhood

Dustscrape (then still called Cavain) and his parents were press-ganged by Tytonic Union enforcers. His parents both died in the first moments of the Siege , thrown at the nets strung up by the Guardians as talon-fodder to blaze a trail for the more important soldiers. Dustscrape was still a branchling, so he did not have to serve yet, although his older sister Siobhan (called Ashkin in the Union), who was just fledged, had to work as a batowl for the officers, fetching mice and running errands, and she was left behind in the retreat. Not able to keep up with the other Pure Ones, she was cornered by two Guardian Pygmy Owls and raked with battle claws - she was frightened but could not surrender, because the Pure Ones had never taught her the owl truce sign. Unconscious and bleeding, she was taken to the Great Tree and nursed back to health, although her scarred wings never again allowed her to fly farther than a few feet before having to land. She was made welcome at the Great Tree and later chose to stay, becoming an assistant librarian and friend of the young Short-eared Owl Teleria who shared her fascination with books.

Meanwhile, Dustscrape was told by Ruthven that his sister was in the Guardians´ clutches and likely being tortured. He knew this wasn´t true but had to pretend he believed the lie, and pretend it made him angry enough to contribute to the war effort against the Tree.

As soon as he had been trained, Dustscrape was introduced into the Red Talons and placed under Scylla´s command. Despite his ability as a tracker and his valuable contribution to their efforts, the team took out much of its anger about the defeat at the Tree on him. While the Talons were idle, bullying Dustscrape was a favourite pastime; he started to crave any kind of action, even though he was nearly scared yoicks at the prospect of combat, just so the constant cuffs and abuse would let up a bit.

### The Scouring of Ambala

When Ruthven´s brigade scoured Ambala to capture the young owls searching for the Lost Books, Dustscrape and the other trackers were sent ahead, and he felt it was the first time since being pressed into service that he had time to think. He flew noisily, due to his damaged plummels from the constant pinching and cuffing, and Teleria and Splinter were able to hear him coming. They managed to trap him on a perch while they had the higher ground - he could not take off without the two owls being on him in a heartbeat and raking his wings. For greater effect, Teleria wore her Others-wrought compass tied with strands of moss as a helmet and clutched the needle like a blade, to give the impression of an armed and armoured Guardian. It certainly frightened Dustscrape.

Teleria was sympathetic when she saw his roughed-up feathers, and she convinced Splinter to let Dustscrape go after getting from him the promise that he would not report them to his superiors. The Sooty Owl kept his promise despite his fear of Scylla.

### Death in Kuneer

Communications were a mess in Ruthven´s brigade. Scylla, disgusted with the other lieutenants´ bickering and inefficiency, disengaged from the search pattern and had her Talons monitor a narrow wind-channel into the Desert of Kuneer. Her intuition paid off, but again, Dustscrape´s rough feather edges gave them away. The two young owls escaped barely, and could outdistance their pursuers, due to not wearing armour. Tracking them through the desert was a thankless job; the Red Talons had to fly by day, having several standoffs with vultures, because the shifting sands quickly covered any traces of the young owls. They also lost precious time chasing after Burrowing Owls for interrogation, who took refuge in their warrens where the Pure Ones could not follow. After a sandstorm blew them off course, they stumbled over the young´uns´ hideout more or less by chance.

The cave the young owls had fled to was inhabited by a large and brutal Feral Owl called Isohar. While Scylla tried to strike a bargain with the brute, Kellick and Klaive became enraged by the Eagle Owl´s insults and taunts. They rushed him, even as Scylla screeched at them to hold back. Dustscrape tried to back away but bumped into Rook, and until he managed to disentangle himself, Scylla had grasped the fact that they were in a deathtrap. She decided to sacrifice her team then and there, to buy herself time to escape. She came at Dustscrape, who looked up at her trustingly - she, the cunning tactician, would have a plan to save them, wouldn´t she? - slashed him with her battle claws from wing to hip and threw him, still yeep with disbelief, into Isohar´s way. The Feral Owl, having fended off the first attack by Kellick and Klaive, hooted a deep, strumming note that resonated through the cave and was echoed a thousandfold, stunning the Pure Ones and letting them crash to the ground. He dispatched Kellick and Klaive with contemptuous ease, ripped apart Dustscrape, and flew at Rook, all in the space of two heartbeats. Rook, only half stunned, tried to put up a fight, but the Eagle Owl just batted him aside with his good wing and cracked his skull against the cave wall. Scylla had nearly reached the safety of the cave mouth when she was stunned, but the frenzied Isohar pounced on her and killed her by breaking her spine and then slashing her throat.

Teleria, nearly as stunned by the violence as the Pure Ones by Isohar´s battle hoot, crawled (her wings would not work) to where poor Dustscrape lay with his wings torn off. She tried tearfully to comfort the dying owl, and with his last words he asked her of his sister. She replied that Siobhan was all right, that she was Teleria´s friend and an honoured member of the´s community, and with infinite relief Dustscrape closed his eyes and passed into glaumora.

There were no coals to burn the Pure Ones, and Isohar, after stripping them of their battle claws, dumped them unceremoniously out of the cave onto the pile of mummified pellets and bones below. Teleria protected Dustscrape´s body from the still-angry Feral Owl, who had had no siblings or family and did not understand the concept of caring for a friend´s brother. But when the young owls told him about a Final Ceremony for a passed-away owl, he was intrigued and relented. With his help, Teleria placed the Sooty´s body and his torn-off wings on one of the high pillars, arranging him in death as if he was curled up and sleeping peacefully in a downy nest, the way she had so often seen Siobhan sleep during the day. Holding vigil, she and Splinter sang Madame Plonk´s "Night is Done" song for him, moving the old battered Feral Owl, who watched from a nearby stone pillar, to tears.