The Grey Tower

Calira shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly around her, but the novice didn't even consider giving up on her walk and going inside. She knew from experience that if she moved faster, she'd be warm enough soon. The novice hurried her steps and studied the snow covered landscape that surrounded her. It might be cold, but Calira thought the snow was beautiful, especially when it was nearly untouched, as it was right now. With weather like this, few others bothered to come outside. Calira thought she was alone until the path drew closer to a frozen pond. A small girl wearing the bands of the Accepted stood near it, seeming to watch something on its surface.

Calira turned to see what the Accepted was looking at and saw something small and white scooting across the pond. Is that a bird? It didn't look like any of the small brown or grey birds that Calira was used to seeing, and she'd never seen one on ice. The bird looked rather silly, making Calira giggle. "What is that bird doing?" she called to the Accepted as she got closer. As she watched, the bird left the pond and plopped into the snow besides the Accepted. "Is it supposed to be out in the cold?" She'd never heard of birds liking the snow, but Calira was far more familiar with horses than birds. It wouldn't surprise her at all if this one, far larger and prettier than any bird she'd ever seen, was some sort of strange bird who liked it.

"My name is Calira, I'm a novice," she responded, though most of her attention was focused on the bird, who had flown up to sit on the Accepted's arm as though it were completely normal behavior. "Tempest is beautiful, is she your pet? How did you get her to sit on your arm? Is she friendly?" Calira would have liked to touch the bird, but the bird flew off Avyra's arm and landed right back in the snow. Her hazel eyes followed the bird, distracted from the Accepted by her fascination with its strange behavior.

The novice grinned down at the bird sitting in the snow. To her surprise, the bird looked right at her before turning her head upside down. It was a strange sight, and Calira bent down to get a closer look. She picked her dress up off the ground and tried to scoot just a bit closer so she could see it better, but slowly. She didn't want to scare the bird off. "Will she mind if I watch her?" she asked as an afterthought. The bird didn't seem to have taken any further notice of her so far, but Calira wasn't sure when or if Tempest would begin to object to her presence.

Calira backed away from the bird, scrambling to her feet and looking guilty.How did she know? She'd only wanted to touch one of the bird's feathers, to find out if they were as soft as they looked. She'd never find out now. The little bird hadn't moved despite Calira's haste to get away from it, and Calira had a hard time imagining it being even remotely a threat to her. "But if she's wild, how did you ever get her to sit on your arm?" Calira asked. "And why is she just sitting there and not flying away?"

She studied the bird, trying to work out how it could be a wild animal as Avyra said and also clearly amenable to being used for hunting by the other woman. I suppose it's not much different than our horses the novice thought, thinking about the horse farm her family ran back home. Calira had always treated the horses like pets, but she knew they were there to be trained as working animals and then sold. Perhaps the bird was much the same, even if it did look more like a cute little ball of fluff than an animal with a job to do.

Calira winced at the idea of a bird who was large enough, and strong enough, to break bone. She didn't think she'd want to run into the eagle Avyra had mentioned, but she still stubbornly thought the smaller bird was rather cute. Calira glanced at the bird who was sitting on Avyra's hand, appearing to be quite content. "You're going to let her go? Why? What if she doesn't want to? Won't you miss her at all?" She couldn't imagine working with an animal that closely and not having difficulty letting it go. Back home, she'd always found it difficult when the time came to sell any of the horses she'd worked with, even though Calira had known the entire time that she was training them so that they could be sold. That knowledge had never made it easier for her to part with them, and it confused Calira that the Aceepted could speak so calmly about releasing her bird.

The bird didn't appear interested in leaving at all, not even struggling although the Accepted held it down. It looked calm, not much like the vicious hunter Avyra had described. "What do you do with the animals she hunts? Does she eat them herself?"

"She must be very intelligent," Calira commented. It seemed a bit odd to her to think of a bird that way, especially one that looked more like a pet bird than a wild animal. The novice giggled at the bird turning her head upside down, and tilted her own head, blinking at the bird. "You're a pretty bird," she cooed to the animal, whose eyes almost seemed to be watching her for a minute before turning back to the Accepted.

While interacting with the bird, another thought occurred to her. "Where does she live? Surely she isn't allowed in your room?" She laughed, imagining the bird swooping through one of the Accepted rooms. Not knowing what the rules for an Accepted were, Calira supposed that Avyra might be able to keep the bird in her room, but it didn't sound like a good idea to her, especially considering the Accepted's insistence that she was wild. She could only imagine the destruction the bird might bring to the Accepted's possessions and worked if she were contained in that sort of small space. It didn't sound possible, but Calira also couldn't imagine the bird living outside with the other wild birds and still being willing to hunt with the Accepted. It was a puzzle to her, one she thought Avyra would be able to solve much more quickly than she could.