Barn owl

Barn Owl, the Owl That Forgets Nothing

Temperament

The barn owl lives by night and hunts by ear: in total darkness she hears a mouse walking under the straw and drops on it without the sound of a wingbeat. By day she dozes in a dark corner and does not take kindly to being disturbed. Once the familiar bond is made, she reveals an extraordinary memory: a face glimpsed once, a path flown by night, the exact place of a book on a shelf. What she has seen once, she keeps forever.

Handling her

Archivist mages prize her above all others: she turns a library into a territory she knows better than its keeper, and hunts down the rodents that eat parchment along the way. Respect her hours. Woken in broad daylight, she obeys grudgingly and holds the slight against you, because she remembers that too, for a long time.

Rewards

Live mice, ideally, which she hunts herself in a closed room. A high perch in the dimness, out of the drafts. Quiet during the day. She swallows her prey whole and casts the bones and fur back up in pellets. Plan where she will leave them. Not on the manuscripts, if you can help it.

At the table

Lost in a maze of tunnels or alleys, her master only has to follow her: she finds the way back without ever climbing to check, in a low and certain flight, from door to door. A message rolled into the case on her leg reaches without fail any place she has already seen. By day she sleeps on a beam above your table, head tucked into her white feathers, and nothing said below will escape her.