This chapter took me sooooooo long to get right, but I’m very pleased with the finished result! I have rewritten this over five times, because it is quite a challenge to write about nocturnal birds living in a fantasy world in a mountain, but now I’ve got it going it’s very fun to write. Plus, I love a good challenge!

One

Sheltered by conifers and agathus trees, whose trunks towered up into the bright blue sky, sat a little village of thriving native birds. The village named SilverFern was tucked away in the shadows of two peaks belonging to the Mountain Karioi, boarded by roaring sea, sand and waves. 

Underneath the canopy, and far from the expanse of swirling blue and foam, it was often dark. The tawny brown birds who inhabited the forest floor were used to that, and simply didn’t know any different. Leaves rarely caught the warm sunbeams, and when they did, the light never got as far as the understory of ferns.

The Kiwis were much more solitary than the other native bird tribes of the Te Ika A Maui mountains, mainly because they couldn’t fly and send messengers to the other mountains.

Human beings were called by the birds, wingless two legs, but that was a sore spot for the Kiwis. Because…well…they were wingless, and walked on two legs. Left with little flappers, they said, because evolution had grown bored of them and went to give Kereru giant ones. So the Kiwis called human beings Tall-legs, or Small-Mouths. Wings were not a general topic Kiwis chit-chatted about.

Naturally, they were sensitive about it.

Every native bird tribe had queens and princesses. Kings and princes were frowned upon — why, was left a mystery. The Kiwi’s queen was Queen Moonstone.

She was harsh, very shouty, and almost impossible to argue with. Queen Moonstone was stubborn, strong-willed, and firmly believed that her way was always the right way. She liked order, obedience, and having things done properly. Her sharp glare could stop an argument before it had even begun, and her booming commands could send even the boldest kiwi disappearing into the bushes, suddenly becoming very interested in something that definitely needed investigating. But underneath her bossy ways, Queen Moonstone cared fiercely about her tribe. Unfortunately, it was usually hidden beneath several layers of shouting.

There was just one little problem.

Queen Moonstone had no heir. The Kiwi queen had laid many beautiful, pearl-oval eggs over her long lifetime, but suspiciously, none of them had survived. It wasn’t suspicious to anyone else, but it was to the sharp-witted queen. Something was wrong. She just didn’t know what.

Not having an heir meant that the moment her heart stopped beating, her royal line would end.

She could, in theory, adopt a hatchling from the hatchery. But it wouldn’t be royal, and it wouldn’t carry her blood. It would be the beginning of an entirely new line. And really, the Kiwi queen was far too busy growling at disobedient generals to properly educate a non-royal hatchling.

The Kiwi tribe had a military defence force, just like all the others, that protected their mountain from stoats, weasels, or whatever nasty little critters felt like mooching around between the ferns. The KDF — the Kiwi Defence Force — were warriors, and rarely hesitated before impaling an uninvited visitor with their sharp, ivory-pale beaks. Every Kiwi chick wanted to be a fighter for the KDF, but the truth was, once they grew up, the Kiwi Defence Force was the last place any bird wanted to be. Some warriors never returned.

But, of course, that didn’t stop the little hatchlings from jabbing each other with sticks and hunting imaginary stoats, armed with spears and black cloaks.

The forest floor was often very cold, because the wind high up on the mountain peaks generally sank low through the leaves. Despite the 1000ish number of Kiwis living in their homely village on the mountain, the body heat they produced didn’t warm the cold drafts away. 

To solve this feather-chilling problem, the Kiwis invented circuits. Tunnel circuits. There were many entrances to the one main circuit, which was the Root Circuit. Others were dug off that. Connecting to all the tunnels were carefully-dug holes, each with a specific purpose. The Throne-Hole was in the center of the Root Circuit, and the Commander Quarters were just off it, followed by the treasury, and everything else. With all the Kiwis living in the tunnels, their body heat got trapped, keeping the holes and tunnels nice and warm. Even better, if you were feeling peckish, you could stab your beak into the wall and most often draw it back with an earthworm between it. It saved a lot of scrummaging through the soggy brown leaves above the tunnels.

And in the tunnels of the Root Circuit is where our story begins. 

Starwatcher had never seen Queen Moonstone smile. 

Certainly not at her.

The Kiwi queen gave an approving nod when she passed a General in the central tunnels, but in some peculiar way, she seemed to loathe Star as though the little brown Kiwi were a sour snail. When she inquired why, Queen Moonstone would respond with a comment that always meant she needed to shut up and stop asking irrelevant questions. Compared to some other unravelled mysteries, Queen Moonstone’s dislike of her was hardly important.

Like the mystery of her mother.

Starwatcher knew all about her brave, determined sire who fought off armies of spear-armed stoats. He died in Maunga War 1, where a plague of rats invaded Mount Pirongia, Kakepuku, and Karioi, but his name was mentioned in almost every conversation around the mountain following his death. His spear and finest wing-feather were publicly displayed in the museum-hole.

It was Starwatcher’s mother that made her uneasy. All Queen Moonstone had ever said about her was that she was her most fierce female warrior, she was tasked with an important job, and she failed. What job, how she failed and what happened to her afterwards remained a secret.

After Dreamcatcher and Smudgeleaf had vanished and died, Star became an orphan. Queen Moonstone had ‘adopted her’ though she’d rather pluck out her bottom feathers than admit it. Star was curious about that decision, because the Kiwi queen could’ve chosen any other hatchling who didn’t infuriate her from the hatchery. Why her? She’d learnt to spend her time curled up in a ball in the corner of the throne room, out of everyone’s way, and not ask so many questions. 

Queen Moonstone glowered down on the little Kiwi with that familiar bitter glare.

“How old are you?” she demanded brusquely, despite knowing perfectly well she was nine months old.

“Nine months,” Starwatcher replied quietly, shuffling her claws in the soil.

“Well, that’s a sad age. It’s an odd number. I’ve never liked odd numbers. You’re odd yourself, so I suppose it fits.”

Star didn’t quite know how to respond to this statement, but she didn’t get the chance because Moonstone was speaking again.

“Anyway, Star, I hope your taringa are in working order, because I have something to tell you.” 

The little tawny Kiwi looked up from the hill of dirt she’d unknowingly shovelled into a hill with her claws. “I’m listening.”

“You’d better be!” the queen snapped. “My ally, Queen Moonbeak, who rules the Kakas, is coming to visit this afternoon, and I decided she ought to meet my charge. I expect flawless behaviour from you, little bird, or I will have to put you on Community Loo-Cleaning for the following week.”
Starwatcher did not like the sound of that. “I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour!” she squeaked eagerly.

Moonstone glared disapprovingly at the soil hill on her throne room floor. “And that flawless behaviour will include not building hills in my royal room, thank you very much!” she added sharply.  

In one quick squish, the hill was flattened beneath Starwatcher’s claws.

Queen Moonstone stared down at the flattened mound with an expression of utter disgust, as though Star had somehow managed to turn perfectly respectable royal soil into something personally offensive.

She didn’t get the chance to scold her, because a plump General waddled into the throne-hole. “Apologies for interrupting, your ladyship, but you’re needed at the treasury,” the General said, wheezing for breath.

“Can I come?” Star asked eagerly as the queen opened her beak.

“Shut up! I’d rather stuff my head in compost than bring you to the treasury. It’s my finest jewellery collection; not for bubbly little chicks’ eyes to oggle at,” Queen Moonstone spat. 

Starwatcher clamped her mouth shut as she was told to. 

“While I’m out, you’re going to clean yourself up. You look like a worm burrowed in your feathers and died there,” the queen snapped, marching, her chest puffed out, into the royal tunnels. The general followed suit.

Star shook herself as hard as she could and then wondered whether the throne room had CCTVs and could see her flopping around and spraying dirt onto the throne from her feathers.

“Ooh, that looks like a security camera,” she squeaked, waddling closer to the left corner of the hole and waving her beak and feathers in front of the little box.

“I wonder how the queen has cameras down here? Those are really high-tech Small-Mouth things.”

Clawsteps outside in the tunnels shook her back to reality, and she began smudging the dust and dirt from her feathers, which was either making more of a mess, or less.

“I can’t believe I’m meeting Queen Moonbeak!” she chattered to herself after a quick check no one was listening. “Moonstone has never let me meet any special bird. Ever. I hope she’s nice. But supposing she isn’t, she can’t be any worse than Moonstone.”

Queen Moonstone arrived on cue, and took one look at her throne room which was sprinkled in dry dust, before freezing on her claws.

“Are you okay…um…guardian?” Starwatcher asked cautiously, waddling over and patting the queen’s little wing.

“I’ve blown a blood vessel to my brain,” she growled, whirling round. “Clean up my throne room before Moonbeak gets here or it’s automatic Loo-Cleaning for you, feather-brain!!”

Starwatcher hurried forward and used her wing to sweep the dry soil off the throne and flatten the lump on the floor. “Better?” she squeaked brightly.

“It will have to do,” Moonstone’s eye twitched, but she sat down on her wooden throne and arranged her feathers.

“Should I do that?” Star asked, puffing her chest out and pompously arranging her wing feathers with a pursed beak.

“Stop that,” the queen growled viciously. “When Moonbeak arrives, you stay. In the corner. Silent. Understood?”

“Yes.” Starwatcher was too excited to curl up in a ball and melt into the shadows. She was meeting a different tribes’ queen!

“Your majesty?” A guard stuck his ivory-pale beak around the wooden arch, ornately decorated in Maori carvings.

“WHAT IS IT?” Queen Moonstone grunted, her claws stiff and curled.

“The Kaka Queen is here.”