“When you enter a conflict with someone who cannot be reasoned with, there are two things you need; intelligence and conviction.”
“Lemme clue you in on a little story Aurora heard when she was a wee li’l twinkle in the sky. There were four plants of land, smack dab next to one another – three were owned by farmer brothers, and the fourth was kept by a bird of prey enthusiast, especially into owls. Now, this fourth guy? Bit of a cunt. Not the language my ma and pa used, but it still holds up. He wanted all that land for himself, so that little shitlord used his expertise to train some of his birds to attack the farmers. The authorities would do nothing, because ‘they’re animals, he can’t control them!’, ‘You want us to arrest animals?’ and more pertinently, ‘his family have money and ties. I ain’t going there’.”
“The falconer approached the rest with a most ‘gracious’ offer. ‘It seems your plans and work are no longer possible. I’ll take that land of your hands, at a cut price for the convenience. I mean, nobody else is going to want to buy it with the problems you’re having, eh?'”
“So we come to the first farmer. He’s having none of it. He is a man of conviction, and nobody is gonna bully him off of his land that he bought with his hard earned money and cultivated with his blood, sweat and tears. So, he hatches a plan – he can’t control the animals if he doesn’t have any animals, right? So, he sneaks into the aviary at night, opens one of the cages and grabs the owl inside. Now, he knows how to deal with birds, right? He’s slaughtered chickens, turkeys and pheasants. Just snap their necks. So he twists that owl’s neck, 180 degrees… And lets go.”
“Needless to say, the owl survived. As it’s talons tore into his face, the other birds went into uproar. Alerted by the commotion, the falconer came in and opened a few more cages. The farmer’s death was ruled a tragic accident, caused by his attempts at sabotage.”
“The second farmer? He was already going to sell up, but that was very much the final nail in the coffin. His farm wasn’t worth his health, and certainly not his life, so he was smart enough to get out of dodge. His farm (and his half of his deceased brother’s) now belonged to the falconer.”
“The third farmer had smarts AND conviction. He refused… And strangely, the next day the local tyrant’s cabin was burned to the ground with him inside.Cooking fat accident, the authorities say, and the survivor said no different. You’re smart, Malakai, but you lack conviction. You don’t care about Gravedigger or what he wants, because you don’t care about what anyone wants. When you leave either your territory or this mortal coil, those owls will die in their cages. It just takes a bit of light in the sky to make you and the forces of darkness recede quicker than your hairline.”