An Owl's Rise

Once Evelyn had arrived back at the shore of the magic spring with Otis in his owl form again, a loud rumble could be heard to her left.

Looking over she saw Otis looking embarrassed since that had come from his stomach.

Naturally, after going through the evolution process his body had expended a considerable amount of energy and he was incredibly hungry.

Luckily the burrowing owls had prepared for this and brought forth a great feast that their leader could eat.

Immediately Otis dove into the food and began eating.

In this situation with how hungry he was he wanted to just tear things apart ravenously but held himself back and ate calmly since Evelyn was watching. Even when feeling extremely hungry he kept his composure around her.

'That is impressive. He has already eaten more than three times his body weight in food.' Evelyn thought seeing Otis devour the food in front of him.

Is current state allowed him to process the food incredibly quickly and turn it into magical energy to replace everything he had lost during his evolution.

When Otis had finally eaten his fill, fatigue took over him again and he was unable to stay conscious any longer.

"Po, would you carry him to his room so that he can rest." Evelyn said.

For a few moments Po hesitated, but Evelyn's stern look forced him to act.

Very carefully he picked Otis up using earth magic and began the process of carrying him away to rest.

'Now comes the hard part.' Evelyn thought.

With Otis having become a tyrant rank beast, there was little need for him to stick around any longer. Even with the magic spring the Velinis Desert had little in the way that it could offer him to further advance. He had now reached the limit of where his home could take him.

It was customary for the leader of the burrowing owls to leave at this point and leave things to their heir.

However, Otis did not have any remaining family and would have to appoint someone new to take over.

Among the burrowing owls there were currently no other peak awakened ranks so he was going to need to chose from those at the high tier.

Just looking around Evelyn could see the half dozen strongest of the burrowing owls, minus Po who was currently moving Otis, trying to consolidate their support.

'Well, if it becomes too much of a mess, I will step in. All of the candidates were around when I helped them reclaim their home and will listen to me if I force the issue.' Evelyn thought.

Of curse she wanted to leave this internal matter to the burrowing owls, but there was no way she would allow them to fall into infighting. The magic spring was still far too valuable to her to allow it to be damaged or lost.

Stifling a yawn, Evelyn felt that she was quite tired herself. At this point she had been up more than an entire day since she watched Otis' entire evolution.

"Rehni, I am going to sleep. Wake me in three hours, or if Otis wakes up." Evelyn said before flying off to her room.

She had given Rehni a break and allowed her to rest in the middle of Otis' evolution, so she was not especially tired.

After Evelyn made it to her room, she set up a few defenses to alert her if anyone tried to sneak up on her promptly passed out. The fatigue of the day catching up to her the moment she relaxed.

…

'Ah, I feel pretty refreshed.' Evelyn thought as she slowly came back to consciousness.

She slowly raised her head and stretched out her wings, leisurely getting up, until she realized something.

Evelyn was certain that she had slept for longer than three hours.

It was easy enough for her to tell that her rest had not been the nap she was expecting but a full rest.

Swiftly she left her room to make sure that nothing was wrong, but felt relieved to see Rehni waiting outside.

"Oh, you are awake Evelyn." Rehni said happily.

"Rehni, how long was I asleep? It was certainly more than three hours."

"Ten. You were asleep for ten hours. Otis has not yet woken up so I saw no reason to force you to lose out on much needed rest." Rehni said, not apologetic at all.

She had noticed how exhausted Evelyn was and opted not to follow her orders and let her sleep as long as she needed.

"I told you I only needed three hours. With Otis being out right now and a power vacuum upcoming I need to be able to monitor the situation to make sure it does not get out of hand." Evelyn said turning towards the main chamber.

Rehni put herself in between Evelyn before she could take off though.

"Everything is fine. A few disputes came up not long after you went to sleep, but I was able to handle it fine on my own. There is nothing you need to worry about."

Frowning, Evelyn wanted to chastise Rehni further, but could not bring herself to.

She knew that her friend had let her sleep for her own wellbeing.

"Fine, but I still want to check on things myself." Evelyn said, now having calmed down a bit.

When she arrived at the central chamber she found that it was relatively clear except for the guards that were always stationed to protect the magic spring.

It seemed that despite the burrowing owls forming into factions, they were still doing their jobs.

"Lady Evelyn. I finally found you."

Flying into the chamber was Otis. He had woken up not long after Evelyn and had immediately sought her out.

"Otis it is good that you are awake. You should call a meeting with all of the strongest burrowing owls present. I am sure you have thought about it already, but it is time that you pick a new leader." Evelyn said.

Otis nodded in response; he knew that this was his duty. He may not have been the leader for long, but he had held the position through the burrowing owls' most trying time and knew what was excepted of him.

Within a few hours all of the high tier and a couple of the mid-tier awakened rank burrowing owls had gathered at Otis' order.

Each and everyone of them were nervous for Otis' announcement. Being the leader came with a great deal of responsibility, but also a tremendous amount of power. Whichever one of them took up the position would be able to get ahead of the others and become the new ruling family as Otis' had been for centuries.

"As I am sure all of you know, I will be leaving with Evelyn soon. Now that I have reached the tyrant rank it is customary for me to take my leave and pass my position on. Normally my strongest child would inherit the position, but as I have none, I will be leaving it up to one of you. Each of you before me now, lived through the hardest time in our flock's history. We had been kicked out of our home, but thanks to all of our perseverance and Lady Evelyn's help, we took back what was ours. Now any of you could become great leaders and thus I could not just chose one of you. At Lady Evelyn's council, I have decided that the best leader is the strongest amongst all of you. To that end you will fight random one on one battles with each other until a victory has been crowned. Whoever that is shall be the new leader."

After Otis' declaration on how the new leader would be chosen, each of the burrowing owls that were among the candidates let out cheerful hoots.

With the method that Otis had chosen each and everyone of them had a fair chance to take the leadership position. Until now they had thought that Otis would just pick one of them, which had honestly been his initial plan.

Evelyn had told him that allowing them to fight for the spot would be better though. This way none of them would feel as much resentment if they lost. All of them were getting a chance after all.

'Things are going well. All we need to do now is wait for the winner to be determined and then we can leave. If we stay too long Aralee and Verrader are likely to start asking Bylur questions about where we went and try to come after us.' Evelyn thought.

Thankfully the tournament was set up to begin post haste and it took only a few hours for the battling to complete. In the end the winner was Po just as Evelyn wanted. She had set up the brackets to give him the easiest battles, so it came as no surprise that he ended up as the ultimate victor.

Of the remaining burrowing owls he was the one she was closet to and his loyalty to her was almost equal to Otis'. Leaving him in charge was going to be for the best.

"Po, you are now the new leader of our flock. Make sure to keep our legacy going and our people strong. I will almost certainly be coming by with Lady Evelyn in the future and do not want to see our home having fallen into ruin." Otis said to Po as they stood at the entrance to the burrow.

"You can count on me Otis. I promise to make sure that we continue to grow until we are the greatest beasts in the desert." Po said.

Having said their farewells, Evelyn, Rehni, and Otis, left the burrowing owls' home and began the short journey to where Bylur and Evelyn's siblings were waiting.