A small mouse wiggled in eir clutches, struggling against the cold talons and screaming for mercy. It begged and it pleaded, crying and flailing with pain and agony so full in its small, little chest.

And then the screams that echoed in the corridor fell silent with a sickening crunch. Clamping eir talons down the morsel ceased to move, think, or feel. It lay limp in eir clutch, dead, as blood began to seep and ooze from the warm flesh and splatter on the icy floor below.

And then ey took flight. Upon large, silent wings ey ascended into the air and followed the patterns of the unseen. Using the currents to gain distance from the ground with minimal effort, soon ey was back upon eir loft.

Nine or ten meters tall, the pillar of ice (born from a stalagmite whose age could not even be fathomed) housed the remnants of a quartz egg. From there ey had hatched, and here ey had remained. Truth be told eir size and competency was misleading – the owl had been hatched for only a few hours before becoming as acquainted to 'hunting' and 'flying' as ey had. What had followed was purely instincts, but instincts were not all that the young owl contained.