The Boy With Black Eyes

Vespers

The sun was beginning its slow descent to the horizon when Melissa rushed out the front doors of the castle, through the clock courtyard, trudging through the snow in her high boots, a woolen cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders, over her winter coat. A cloth backpack banged against her back,  hanging heavy toward the bottom, the straps pulling tight as she broke into a run. 

She might have made it half-way across the grounds when a speck dropped from the highest point of Ravenclaw Tower, tumbling toward the snow-banks piled up against the walls of the castle. Just in time, the speck elongated, Turul snapping out his wings and zooming towards her, rapidly beating his wings. He might not speak aloud, but Melissa knew that he understood what the cloth bag meant, and knew where they were going. With the sun rapidly setting in the sky, she would run to a secluded spot on the far side of the loch, with Turul keeping an eye on her from above, spinning and occassionally diving to set his talons into the woolen cloak that streamed out behind her, and tug. A reminder to go faster, to push herself through the snow, to pick up her feet so she went over instead of through the majority of the snow. 

They were going to go play. 

Pausing for a moment to catch their collective breaths, when they reached the rocky outcropping, a few feet off of the level of the loch, like a stage waiting for the pair of them to perform on. Melissa shrugged off the cloth backpack, and pulled out the short lengths of kangaroo leather, tying a button knot in one end, before holding the ends in her teeth, breathing through her nose. Next, she pulled out a thick leather glove and slipped it onto her left arm, making sure that her fingers reached the very end of their designated spots, and that the glove reached about halfway up her forearm. More than one person had wrongly assumed that the scars high on her left arm were from self-harm, but no. Turul had sloppy landings as a fledgling, and more than once would have had to tighten his grip in order to ensure he didn't fall. 

And ten-year-old Melissa, thrilled with the idea of a falcon, wasn't exactly wearing the correct gear. 

Out of the backpack came a very sharp knife, about fifteen centimeters long, which she strapped to the belt of her jeans. Turul was nearly bouncing with anticipation, and with a smirk, Melissa lifted her left arm and swept away from her chest, "Well, go on, then."

With a sharp squeal of excitement, Turul took off, soaring up into the Scottish mountains that surrounded the loch, her bright yellow eyes watching him, flapping up and up and... He then changed direction sharply, and instead of climbing up into the clouds, which were rapidly fading from gold to purple, he circled on rising air drafts, hunting. 

It would be something he caught, he killed, but Melissa fed to him in long strips, as a reward for catching what she pulled out of the bag next. The wooden handle, with white string wrapped tightly around it, would be used to fly the hunk of rabbit fur and pheasant feathers hand-tooled by her Grandad. Attaching the lure with a tight knot, she unlooped the line, about three meters long, into a neat pile beside her, the handle gripped tightly in the fingers of her right hand. 

A small rabbit was dropped at her feet, as Turul attacked the lure playfully, ripping at the fur and the feathers with his talon and beak. Melissa could feel the tugging on the end of the line. She let him, sighing as she skinned and cleaned the rabbit with her knife. This was the one thing she did constantly and consistenly with her father. Every summer, they would spend a week hawking, competing with each other to see who could catch the most, release the most, whose hawk knew the most tricks. Turul was good at tricks, when he wanted to do them. Tempermental bird, and a little bit older than her father's gyrfalcon, Ekaterina. 

A sharp whistle came from between her lips and teeth, and Turul flapped to her arm, pealing softly, eagerly wolfing down a strip of rabbit haunch, raw and bloody. Melissa had popped the heart, tender and salty, into her mouth, and was chewing on it thoughtfully as she attached short jesses to her bird, just for the sake of keeping him safe, slipping the knot through a hole in the leather, tightening them to Turul's ankles before throwing the bird into the air. He flapped up high, disappearing into the rapidly darkening sky, the lure spinning at her side, in a circle about two meters across. Another sharp whistle, to get his attention, and the bird dove, claws outstretched, determined, before she jerked it out of his way and he screeched at her in irritation, flapping up to gain height, watching the lure with bright, intelligent eyes.