“Quit it!”, laughed Mia, breathily. I reluctantly dropped the grey feather I had been tickling her with.

“We’ve been out here for like an hour. I thought it might be time for a distraction.”

Mia had been coming out to this clearing everyday after school for almost two weeks. Yesterday, she insisted that I come with her. She solemnly informed me that she was on the verge of uncovering something “really super amazing”. I wasn’t sure if her definition was the same as mine, but we were best friends, and that meant tolerating the craziest of her whims.

“You’ve been distracting me the whole time! I told you, I think I need perfect concentration.”

“Fine! Twenty more minutes for you to find zen and then we’re leaving.”

I was sitting behind her on a massive oak log, enjoying the golden beams of afternoon sunlight that pierced the forest’s canopy. She acquiesced to my reading a book while she did her kooky druid thing. She was sitting in the way that made me think of Buddhist monks, legs crossed as far as they can go. Her hair, lustrous, straight and perfectly black, added to the Asian monk picture. She wore it unbound except for a lock she tucked behind her left ear, which proved too much a target for me to not tickle.

Instead of reading my book, an autobiography of John Adams that I was torturing myself with for class, I closed my eyes and tried to help Mia concentrate.

“ohmm…”

She sent a wicked glare over her shoulder at me, and I laughed and put my hands up in defeat.

“Okay! I promise, I’ll be quiet.”

I put on my serious face and tried again. I pictured Mia in my mind, and tried to send magical waves of concentration into her. As the minutes passed by, I imagined her glowing. Like usual, I silently conceded. Then Mia whispered feverishly.

“Look to the right. Don’t move.”

I was pretty astonished to see, about ten feet away, perched on the twisted roots of the log, a freakishly large bird of prey; an eagle, maybe. It was silver along its wings and head, with a mostly white belly. It was using one eye to stare directly at Mia, giving us the profile of a fairly terrifying dagger for a beak.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Whoa”, I breathed.

Mia whispered excitedly, “Now watch this!”

Suddenly, the bird screeched. I startled and almost fell off the log. I caught a few squirrels dashing away in the corner of my eye. The bird remained perched, and fairly still.

“Mia, did you… make it do that?!”

“Shh.”

I kept staring at it. It kept staring at her. A few seconds passed and it started to hop down onto the log and towards us. It was a couple feet away and I was getting nervous.

“Mia!” I whispered urgently.

“Don’t worry, Max. It’ll be okay.”

I continued to worry.

When the bird was just about a foot away, Mia raised her hand towards it, and my stomach tightened. I’d like to say it was my confidence in Mia’s apparent discovery of magic powers that kept me from interfering, but really I was just too scared to do anything but watch.

She lowered her hand right atop the birds sleek silver head, and instead of snapping her fingers off, the bird opened its beak a little bit and made a noise kind of in between a squawk and a coo. Huh, I guess eagles have tongues? I realized I’d never really thought about it before.

“Dude, that is freaking awesome!” I continued to whisper, now in awe.

“Hiya sweetie! Yes, you are freaking awesome, yes you are.” Her voice was bubbling over with excitement.

“Do you think it can understand you?”

“She”, she corrected. “I think she can, to a degree. Maybe not the same way that you and I are talking. But there is definitely a connection. And I knew you wouldn’t believe me, unless I brought you out here and showed you this. I can tell that she isn’t afraid of me.” Mia paused, “She is a little afraid of you, however.”

I stiffened and fought the urge to back away.

“This happened yesterday?” I asked. “With the same bird?”

“Yes, Max! Can you believe it!? I have a wizard’s familiar!” Mia’s voice squeaked with delight. “I looked on the internet, and I think she’s a gyrfalcon, based on her size. I named her ‘Ava’.”

I snickered.

“Shut up, you! I considered ‘Wind’.” We both giggled at that. Then Mia grew suddenly serious.

“Oh, Ava, you’re hungry! I’m sorry I took you away from your hunt. Good luck!” The bird nuzzled Mia’s caressing fingertips like they were old friends, and then took off. The blowback caused the pages of my open book to flutter about. Mia turned around to look at me with a big smile and a satisfied glow in her eyes.

“I don’t really know what to say right now. You were right. This is really super amazing.”

“I know!”

A bunch of questions flitted through my head until I came to the most important one.

“Do you think you can teach me?”