A hush fell over as the sun fully disappeared from the horizon and the forest floor went ink black.
The clearing less so, as the bright silver moonlight reflecting off the pool graced the owl family and Noctis watched the shadowy trees coalesce with dancing silver sheen.
The owlets sat in a circle, huddled close. Their feathers were fluffed, tufts soft as whispers, eyes bright as tarnished amber.
Noctis saw curiously as one reached out with its beak, careful and deliberate, preening the ruffled down behind a sibling’s ear. Another leaned into the gesture, half-asleep, blinking slowly, calmly.
Without a haste or hurry in their movements, the siblings helped each other with any dirt stuck in a position they couldn’t reach and decluttered any debris stuck in the course of reaching for prey in between the complex web of tree-tops.
Noctis sat a little behind, half-naked, as his only pair of clothes hung to dry in the windy night. Not quite apart but neither really part of the click of the critters.
As Noctis saw the affectionate display with a hint of sourness, he suddenly felt a touch on his arms startling him, as he looked down to see one of the owlets looking up to him.
This one a bit smaller than the other three of its siblings, a girl, as it looked from the higher percentage of darker brown plumage on its snowy back.
The owlet the size of a normal owl pruned its head to the side showing its nape to him.
Noctis sat silent as the owlet stood still in that position unsure what to do.
He looked at the owlet and its siblings ahead huddled together and gently picked some fluffy from the tangled feathers.
The owlet thus extended her wings into his laps as Noctis hesitated at first, but started brushing them gently, eventually relaxing into the moment and letting the owlet lead him on.
Above them, the first stars stirred in the velvet dark, and the breath of the forest moved around them like a lullaby that transcended all language barriers.
Noctis woke up again in the shadowy cave that the family of owls inhabited on the ridge cavity.
Outside the sun blazed in its full glory filling the air with afternoon laze and humid aftertales.
Spending almost the whole night together with the owls he slept well into the first hours of the daybreak and slept through the day waking up only a few hours before the sun set once again.
Noctis sat up on the edge of the shadow before the sunlight claimed the land and half yawned and half stretched his way into reality.
He couldn’t be bothered with making the whole trek towards the pond at the bottom of the pool first thing after waking that too in bare yellow scare outside and thus just sat looking out towards the blue sky and faintly visible tree-line.
And what would he even do with those hounds at every movement of him. Not even able to hunt properly like a cat with their claws taken, might as well laze about here and wait for the night to fall before joining the owlets.
Monologuing his rationalizing for a lazy day Noctis crept back into the cave and slept beside the giant owl along with owlets cuddling the floofy bed of feathers.