Spreading Their Wings

Weiss looked out the window of the car as she pulled into the driveway. Normally she would have taken the girls with her, but in this case, she wanted it to be a surprise. They had gotten a surprise day off from homeschooling which they had been rather pleased about. They were seven and nine, nowhere near old enough to be left alone for even a few hours, but Oscar had happily promised to watch over them as long as they helped him out with his chores. Thankfully, the girls did enjoy their farm and bird-related chores, so it wasn’t a huge deal to keep them occupied for a good chunk of the day. Their Uncle Oscar was more than good enough to keep them occupied. She pulled through their very long driveway, the greens of summer waving happily in the slight breeze. It was a gorgeous day out and the sun was a bit past its zenith, though the dense forest they lived in made it harder to see the sun. She wasn’t a fan of the sticky heat that came from living in a forest, but it was the best falconry land money could buy. They owned over a thousand acres on a lake that had wetlands all around as well as some plains and scrubland. The plains and scrubland fit her personally preferred falconry style which was longwings, or falcons waiting on the wing to stoop down on prey that had been flushed. The girls wouldn’t be flying her aura breed gyrfalcons, let alone her goshawks or eagles right off the bat… They really needed to learn basics first. She opened the car door and got out, going into the house. She couldn’t sense anybody around, so they were probably still outside. She called Oscar quickly and told him to tell the girls to come into the house. She balanced her scroll precariously between her cheek and her shoulder, carrying two rather large boxes in. Thankfully, one was a bit smaller, but the larger one was heavy for the package it contained. The smaller one was infinitely lighter, but its cargo was just as precious as the large box. She entered the kitchen and hung up with Oscar, setting the two boxes on the table. The girls came in. One with white hair and blue eyes, the other with black hair and also blue eyes. Both had Blake’s trademark Faunus ears, though. They both looked at the boxes with wide eyes. “What birds are in the box, Mater?” Vera, the black-haired one, asked. “Is this why you went all the way to Vale by yourself and gave us a day off?” Weiss smiled and nodded, gently patting the larger box. “Yes, this is exactly why I went to Vale. I found a good couple breeders that I wanted to buy birds from. And these birds are special.” This day had been long in arriving and she knew the girls were going to be overjoyed. Realistically, they shouldn’t have their own birds yet, but she could often get the government to look the other way. Plus, it wasn’t like two little girls starting to learn falconry early was going to hurt anybody. Weiss was a master-class falconer that could keep as many birds and as many as she wanted to legally. She had pretty much exclusively aura breeds but these birds… “Why is one so small?” Aleka, the one with the traditional Schnee features, asked. “You’re not really one to like microhawking… You’re a longwinger mostly! Though sometimes you do shortwings too… And why are they special?” “Can you two go get your gloves?” Weiss asked. The girls looked at each other but nodded before they started sprinting up to their rooms. Even though, for kids, they were somewhat low energy, they could still be a lot to handle. Hard to believe Blake had managed to convince her to have a couple of kids… She was still so thankful that Coco had carried for them since being pregnant definitely would’ve left long-term trauma on either her or Blake. Caring for kids was definitely hard, but it was rewarding… Seeing them blossom and live in an environment where they didn’t have to worry about abuse or really anything was good. She tried to give the girls everything she’d personally never had while still keeping them responsible and reasonable members of society. The two girls came back with their falconry bags and wearing their gloves which sat on their right hands. “Good girls.” She smiled. “Aleka, come here.” The younger, white-haired girl came over and looked around, not entirely certain what was going on. Weiss opened the smaller box and put it behind the bird, making it step up. She tied a falconer’s knot to the jesses and Aleka’s eyes widened. “A kestrel! Why did you get a kestrel?” Aleka asked. “Because I think it’s high time you girls trained your first birds yourselves. You’ve had it pretty easy, using my birds which are already trained, and aura breeds to boot. They don’t need special handling. You’ve grown up around them and they know who you are. You’ve flown them here and there during the falconry seasons, but you two should really train your own birds.” The two stared at Weiss, their eyes wide. She chuckled a little bit. Yeah, this was definitely shocking to them… The legal apprenticeship age was thirteen in Vale. Technically, Weiss was the owner of the birds, but she was skirting around the law a bit by giving the birds to the girls. “However, these birds are special because they aren’t aura breeds.” Vera wrinkled her nose. “Why are you just giving us lousy normal birds? Why didn’t you help us imprint aura breeds for our first birds? That’d be so much better than this!” Aleka also deflated a bit though she didn’t complain. She couldn’t entirely blame them for being upset. They were used to having the best of the best and, for falconry, one couldn’t get much better than aura breeds. Aura breeds were the standard at the house. Blake had some aura corvids for pets while Weiss had numerous white gyrfalcons, a couple of goshawks, a golden eagle, and more than a few owls. All of them were aura breeds. The girls had never really taken care of a normal bird before. “Because you’re going to lie down the basics of falconry down best with normal birds. You’ve hunted and learned to make hoods and such, but you’ve not really learned how falconry actually works yet. You don’t understand how things like weight management, behavior, and so on work together, and you’ve never troubleshot the behaviors of misbehaving birds. If you imprinted aura breeds, you’d have very few if any behavioral problems especially with me helping you.” She was definitely putting a challenge on them, especially so young, but it was best to start young. She’d learned falconry with aura breeds and wished she’d started off with a normal bird, but she’d not had any choice in the matter. She was stuck with the Branwen tribe for a good six months and they used white gyrfalcon aura breeds for their main birds. She’d hunted and learned with birds that already knew everything. There was little challenge for her to learn. So she’d had to have Qrow teach her from scratch… “Aww, but Mater…” they whined. Weiss shook her head. “You’ve never fully trained a bird on your own. All of my birds are fully trained and know the way things work with falconry. These birds were hatched this year and are normal birds. They were chamber raised by their parents. You’ll have to train them from scratch. You won’t be able to just expect them to understand everything right off the bat. These are essentially wild passage birds.” She smiled at the two girls.  “Aleka, I know how detail oriented you are, so I figured a kestel would work for you pretty well. You want to take her from me?” Aleka nodded and walked over, though she still seemed deflated. She took the bird onto her glove and tied her off to the leash.  “What did you get for me?” Vera asked. Weiss opened the much larger box and pulled out a redtail. “A female redtail. And, yes, both of them are female. Females will have a much wider range of prey you can take. Just keep in mind, Aleka, that you’ll be hunting songbirds and it’ll be a bit of an uphill battle. We’ll have to train for that specifically. Kestrels are more used to hunting mice and grasshoppers, though this one is still a bit of a baby. No hunting experience yet. And weight management is going to be pretty hard. Kestrels can die if you drop their weight too much and even a couple of grams can cause issues. But you’re incredibly detail oriented especially when it comes to things like science. I think I can trust you with a harder bird despite the fact you’re younger. “Vera, you’ll have a bit of an easier time with the female redtail. You have more give and leeway in weight management. But you’re also more reckless than your sister. You’re detail oriented in your own way, but not in the way I’d trust you with something as easy to kill as a kestrel. You’ll be hunting rabbits mainly, though we can also train for ducks.  “Now, you two, keep in mind it’s not like I’m going to totally going to abandon you and make you figure things out on your own. I’ll be teaching you and double checking everything you do. You’re going to need to keep track of your birds’ weights so that way you know when and how they’re going to fly. But, for now, we’re not going to worry about weight management. These are still babies. Vera, yours has a little bit of hunting experience because the breeder put wounded by live prey in with her so she could start getting some experience before going into the field. She was born in mid-March, but I had the breeder hold onto her until now so that way Aleka didn’t feel left out.” She smiled at the girls. “All right?” “Okay…” Neither of them sounded terribly thrilled and both looked down. They really didn’t understand why these birds would be good for them. She didn’t want to get them Harris hawks either because Harrises were easy. Kestrels and red tails were still forgiving, but not as forgiving as Harrises were. They were the only bird approved for apprenticeships in Vale. Once they took their apprenticeship tests, they would already have all the basics they needed. Once Vera was a little older, she’d probably have the two girls swap birds so that way Vera would be challenged and on a tighter rope. Aleka would have way more wiggle room than she was used to that season. But that probably wouldn’t be for a few seasons in… Vera needed to calm down more and understand the importance of just a few grams and how much impact that could make. Aleka was definitely smarter than her sister when it came to small details like that.  She walked over to Aleka, then Vera, and gave each of them a kiss on the head and ruffled their hair. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but these birds will teach you what a lot of aura breeds can’t unless they were chamber raised. When you get older, I’ll help you imprint some aura breeds, all right? But, for now, you have these birds. Do you know what the first step in getting a bird to trust you is?” This would actually be a challenge for them. They were used to birds that were automatically friendly to them. These birds would be standoffish until they fully warmed up. It would be a good challenge for them for certain. Aleka screwed up her face. “Um… Free flight?” Weiss shook her head. “Wanna try, Vera?” “Um… I don’t know, Mater.” She looked down. “I know you can’t just get them hunting immediately, but it’s so hard when all we’ve had are aura breeds that already know everything. This feels like torture…” she whined. Weiss smiled. “You haven’t seen me deal with any bird that wasn’t an imprint. These are passage birds. The first thing to do with them is to get them to feed off the fist. Aleka, you’ll want to keep your girl inside once it starts to get cold. Micros are very sensitive to weather and can burn through a lot of energy you don’t want them to once the hunting season starts. Vera, you can keep your girl outside in the mews, regardless of season. Though you don’t want to feed a redtail in the mews. Do you know why?” Vera was quiet for a bit, her ears down as she thought. “Aggression?” Weiss smiled and nodded. “Bingo. Redtails get very territorial if you feed them in their mews too much. So how do you stave that aggression off?” Aleka perked up but Weiss smiled at her to tell her to keep silent. She wanted Vera to answer. “Take them to their food?” “Yep, exactly. You don’t really have to worry about that with aura breeds anywhere near as much, but with normal birds, you have to manage their aggression a fair bit more. Now, how about we see if you two can get these two feed off the fist?” Weiss paused. “Any idea on why feeding off the fist too much is a bad idea?” She was really challenging them right now to see how much they had learned form her. Of course, she would teach them as they went along. She wasn’t just suddenly going to expect a seven and nine year old to handle something as intense as a raptor on their own. Especially not a micro. Micros were fairly challenging even as aura breeds since their weight management had to be dialed in so precisely… She wasn’t going to put that all on Aleka. She was smart and detail oriented, but she was still a child. A child didn’t fully understand how to handle things by themselves. “Um… Mantling?” Vera hazarded. “More aggression?” Aleka tried. “You’re on the right track.” She gave Vera the redtail and had her tie the bird off to the leash. “They can begin to see the glove as a kill and they can become aggressive about it. So they can become aggressive if they eat off the fist too much. It’s all about finding the right balance during training.” Weiss paused. “The only thing I ask if you two make sure I’m around when you’re handling your birds. You know aura breed body language which is similar enough, but you may miss smaller things that aura breeds show more openly. Normal birds won’t be as loud in their body language as most aura breeds. Do you understand?” The girls nodded. “Yes, Mater.” Weiss smiled. “Good girls. Now, how about we get some quail and see how they handle eating off the fist?”