Hawkmaiden by Terry Mancour

Author:Terry Mancour [Mancour, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2015-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Market Day

After her disconcerting experience with bilocation in the fields, Dara kept close to home for a few days, quietly working over the same routines with Frightful and the lure she always had.

Only now there was something additional in their relationship. Dara was wary of the bird – not of her sharp talons or beak, but of her mind. The more she worked with the bird, the more Dara was aware of the capacity to slip her mind behind Frightful’s eyes.

Finally, tired of being scared of her own bird, Dara dared to try to will the bilocation to happen. The first time Dara managed to consciously make the transition was in her room. She stared at Frightful, who was preening on her block. Remembering how she managed it the first time, Dara allowed her mind to wander, unfocused as she stared at Frightful, who was grooming her feathers. She felt the connecting rapport between them, but instead of pushing it away, she welcomed it. Before she realized what was happening it was Dara who was doing the preening.

It was frightening, at first.

The sense of dislocation and the change of perspective and perception was daunting. Falcons see things differently than humans, hear things in different ways. Frightful’s eyes saw things very differently than Dara’s, and in those seconds the way the room around her warped and twisted as she chased mites in her feathers was strange and thrilling. They noticed the smallest movements while ignoring large objects.

The sensation lasted for a few brief seconds, but during that time Dara experienced Frightful’s emotional perspective as well: bored, vain, a little hungry, and feeling a little pressure on her tiny tummy, as a casting prepared itself for ejection. Only when Frightful suddenly looked up at Dara – and Dara got the unique and chilling sensation of seeing herself through her falcon’s eyes – did the moment of intense intimacy end. She was startled at how her falcon regarded her. She looked strange and inhuman, her hair and eyes featuring prominently to the bird. It would take time to acclimatize herself to filtering what she saw through Frightful’s perceptions, she realized as she withdrew from the rapport.

Sweat poured from her brow and her chest heaved like a bellows as she recovered from the shocking experience. She could feel her pulse in all of her limbs as her mind settled back down.

As frightening as the experience had been, she did not hesitate to repeat it, after she had recovered. From then on, she increased her magical rapport with her falcon a little each day until she could manage to “be” inside Frightful’s mind for several minutes at a time. She never did much more than observe the world from her bird’s perspective, allowing Frightful to get used to the sensation. For Dara could tell that Frightful was aware of her intrusion, even if the falcon had little idea of its nature.

Dara was reluctant to share the news of her unusual gift with anyone else, though she desperately wanted to discuss it at least with Uncle Keram.

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