Mary arrived at home an hour later, where she was awaited by Diane. “Did you pass dear?”

“Of course I did!” Her mom came forward and enveloped her in a hug.

“Be careful, you will crush Starshadow!” She cried. The Baroness looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“Who is Starshadow?” Mary opened her hands.

“This is Starshadow!”

"Where did you get him? And why is it you have to collect birds like your father?”

“We don't collect every bird! Dad only collects falcons and that's because they are awesome! Starshadow is one too.” Mum sighed defeated.

“I know who will be happy you share his fascination with these birds. But you are filthy and full of dirt, so take a bath now!”

Mary nodded and happily ran in her room where she was awaited by a horrified Elaine.

“That's not how a young lady runs around!” Being used to the other girl’s antics, Mary ignored her and deposited Starshadow on her bed, casting a spell to keep him warm.

“Watch out for Starshadow Elaine!”

Ten minutes later she came out again, and found Elaine looking at Starshadow helplessly.

Mary took Starshadow again and went in the garden, a bird of prey had nothing to do in a house, no matter how large. When she arrived at her fountain, she cast a spell that created a hole for him to live in in one of the small trees. Afterwards she cast several wards around it, that would warm him as well as keep predators away. Afterwards she went off again to catch some mice and insects, returning soon after and feeding the adorable little bird as much as he could eat.

Afterwards she left him there, returning to the mansion for dinner.

“How was your day Mary, did you pass the test?” The Baron inquired after they had settled down. “Obviously I did, though the testers cheated, they used magic and intentionally withheld information.

Not that there was a real problem though, I managed everything without magic like I promised.”

“Congratulations then, though I expected nothing less. I was told something else happened as well?”

“I found a falcon chick and took him with me. I already made him a home in the garden.” Dad smiled at that, a falcon you say, perhaps you can introduce me tomorrow? Did you feed him already?”

“Of course I can and I caught a mouse for him to eat.”

On the next morning after breakfast, Mary and her dad were off towards the fountain. Mary already fed Starshadow in the morning, and he chirped adorably when he saw her. Mary took Starshadow out of the hole she created for him.

“Dad, that's Starshadow, Starshadow that's my dad!”

“Pleasure to meet you little Starshadow.”

Starshadow chirped again. “Starshadow says hi to.”

“Are you sure you want to keep him here and not put him to my falcons, while you would surely help him to the best of your abilities, you are no bird and as such don't know how to teach him how to fly or hunt.” Mary deflated, but she knew he was right, so she nodded.

They went to the falconhill, where guardian greeted them. He spotted Starshadow and immediately went to search for a fitting nest to deposit him. He returned a few minutes later, carefully taking Starshadow from Mary’s hands and led them to a nest of falcons that had chicks about the same age as Starshadow.

“Goodbye Starshadow! I will visit you.”

In the next three weeks Mary visited Starshadow every day, always bringing some treats out of the kitchen with her. About three days after she found him, he slowly started to grow normal feathers and started to rapidly gain weight. After two weeks he had already grown normal feathers and was starting his first attempts to fly.

Currently, she was once again enjoying the rising sun, when suddenly she heard a bird calling out from behind her. When she turned around, she could see Starshadow coming out of the home she made for him. She immediately went over to him, and he greeted her by tapping her nose with his break. By now, he reached about thirty centimeters of height, while he would still grow a bit, it wasn't much.

Mary started to hesitantly pet him at first, but as he seemed to enjoy it she continued with glee.

After using the tree’s bark to create an improper glove, she held out her arm like she had seen the guardian do, and he hopped on. He was really light, perhaps reaching a third of a kilogram at most.

Starshadow really grew to be a beautiful bird. The feathers on his belly were white with specks of brown. The feathers on his back were in shades of brown as well, though darker than his belly. His black eyes had a certain cunning in them.

Mary had to go to breakfast though, she was already late. “I have to go now, but I will visit you in the afternoon.” Of course the bird wasn't able to understand her words, but she told him the same by modulating her mana. Something he understood intinctically. He croaked goodbye and flew off as well.

“You are practically glowing dear, what delayed you?”

“Starshadow visited me this morning! He slept in the nest I built for him when I found him.”

“That's great to hear. What will you do with him?”

“I told him I’ll be back after my classes, and than he flew off to get something to eat.”

Later that day, Mary had just finished her classes, and was on her way to the fountain, when she heard a falcons cry from above. Looking up, she to hovering above her, using a technique only a few birds were able to do in order to stay above her.The w Like this morning, she made herself a glove out of bark and held it up for him to land on.

A minute later he was seated on her left arm. She stroked him again, something he seemed to enjoy greatly. While he wasn't sentient like her, she could still talk to him by altering her mana signature. She had the feeling though, that he waswas smarter than the average falcon, as he was capable to understand and even answer basic questions with yes or no.

Over the course of the next months, Mary taught him basic commands and understanding of the a language. While he was perfectly capable to hunt his own food, he always liked to be fed by her. She could slowly feel a bond growing between them, the bird losing its caution around her more and more. He still retreated if more than two others were around though.

Somewhere along the way, Mary had taken to wear a shoulder pauldron, as always creating a glove for Starshadow to land on was impractical and impacted the garden in a negative way.

They were currently watching the rising sun when something strange happened with Starshadow.

Every living being had a barrier of their mana in their skin, that kept their own mana in and at the same time stopped other mana from entering ones body. The only exception she knew were benevolent spells, which were allowed to enter through the barrier. Suddenly the barrier surrounding Starshadow vanished, it didn't really vanish but rather opened up to her.

She didn't know what that meant, but could feel some of her mana responding. As she had been taught her mana couldn't hurt her, she extended the responding part in his direction. When her mana connected to him, some sort of ripple went through her entire being, and all her mana fought her control in order to get to Starshadow.

After the moments she needed to process the new development, she regained some control over her mana. While it still flowed to him through the established link, she could now somewhat control the speed and observe what was happening.

Until she had her mana under control again, nearly all of the responding man had been consumed, about a quarter of her total mana already flowing towards Starshadow. In his body, she could observe his mana and hers mixing.

Every living being had unique personal mana, and as such was easily discernible from another being, unless said person hid their mana emissions of course. Their mana mixed with a two hundred ten to one ratio, as she had more mana available than he did, the mana density in her body exceeding that of a falcon by a great amount, furthermore she was about a hundred times his weight.

Some of the responding mana returned, the returning mana was different, while it was in the sleeping state mana was in when unused, it seemed a little more responding to her will than before. Mary, while still keeping up the tight leash on her mana, extended a strand of new mana and to her surprise, it eagerly responded to her will, being easier to control that before.

I took about an hour to completely change their mana, as she had to slow down the transfer several times because the mixture nearly mixed in a different ratio than before. Mary managed to avoid that though, and after the magic stopped, they both had the exact same personal mana. Furthermore, she now felt a connection between them, their identical mana linking them together.

She spent some of her mana, to try if the new mana would deplete itself, but her mana seemed to have changed for good, as she regenerated the new mana as well. She didn't really know what to think about that change, while it obviously improved her manacontrol, she didn't really have to work for that and had no idea of its implications.

First of all though, she was going to explore the connection she had to Starshadow. She concentrated on the feeling, and was surprised she could feel his presence on her shoulder. There was more though, she was sure of it, so she sent a little bit of mana towards the bond, and something interesting happened, she had a feeling he could now understand her better than before, if she talked to him with the bond open. Mary noticed though, the bond didn't use the mana she dedicated to open up the it.

To test her theory, she asked Starshadow to lift one of his feet, which he did shortly afterwards. Just as she was about to continue her experiments, she could hear someone approaching from the direction of the mansion.

“What are you doing out here young miss, you missed breakfast and will be too late to your lessons with the Lady.” Startled, Mary looked at the sun and involuntarily had to curse. While she had noted the passing of time, she wasn't actually aware of it. While she would like to further experiment with the new bond, she had other duties to attend to, so she told Starshadow to do what he wanted and started to move to the house. Obviously Starshadow wanted to stay with her, as he didn't leave her shoulder. With the falcon perched on her shoulder, she couldn't move as fast as normally so she was to late.

Mom quirked an eyebrow when Mary entered with Starshadow on her shoulders, as the bird normally didn't like staying inside at all, as well as shying away from groups of more than two people other than Mary.

“What happened that you are to late, you are not one to be too late or one to miss eating?”

“Something strange, when we were enjoying the sunrise together, Starshadows mana started to behave strangely, it kinda opened up to me. Mine reacted to it, and then mixed with his, and now I have different mana, that's easier to control!”

Diana had felt something was up the moment Mary didn't appear for breakfast, the girl was real glutton and never missed a single meal. When she wasn't at their laboratory in time said feeling was amplified.

Just as she wanted to sent out a servant to fetch her, Mary had appeared with her pet bird perched on her shoulder. While at first Diane didn't understand why her daughter seemed different than yesterday, she understood soon after, as the girl told her she had taken her bird as a familiar.

That wasn't the smart thing to do, as mages normally took the bigger animals or monsters as familiars. While you got some benefits from airborne creatures like a falcon, the biggest benefit you got from a familiar was the ability to use your familiars mana as well. They had planned to get one of the bigger monsters as her familiar to compensate for the miniscule manapool Mary had. That would sadly wouldn't happen as a mage only had one familiar in his entire life.

You got a familiar, when a monster or animal trusted you with its life, and opened up his mana for you, if you cared for said animal, your mana would react. Then a mage had to extend his mana into the animal. Afterwards the mana would mix, creating new mana both shared, which would connect them regardless of distance. The connection had a magnitude of uses, for example the animal could understand even way more complex orders.

Furthermore the animal could share his mana with his mage, with a little loss of course. Likewise the animal was able to share its sensation with the mage. That wasn't all that useful though, as the shared sensations were very basic, and normally you only got a vague feeling of the sent information. A downside was though, your mana got harder to control, the more mana you had the worse.

What surprised her though was her daughter’s delay, a familiar binding only took up to ten minutes maximum, all the mana both had would rush to mix itself after the first contact.

“So you bound him as you familiar, something that explains why he choose to accompany you, as the bond still has to settle in correctly and that's easier if you stay in each others proximity. That doesn't explain why you were so late, a familiar binding only takes up to ten minutes!”

“It took an hour!”

That took the wind out of her, Mary had no reason to lie. “Why did it take so long?”

“Because I had to slow down the transfer several times, or the mana wouldn't have been uniform!”

“Uniform?”

“Well yes, the responding part of our mana mixed with a two hundred ten to one ratio, but the rest would not have, at least if I didn't slow it down!”

“You observed what happened, tell me everything, our research won't run away. And afterwards I will teach you what you need to know about your bond.”

After Mary recounted the mornings occurrences, mom told her she could actually see and hear what Starshadow saw. Without further ado, she asked him to show her what he saw. She was momentarily overwhelmed by the sensations, suddenly seeing the world through two pairs of eyes instead of one. She didn't even want to know how he really saw the world, when what she saw now was more detailed than even her eyes could perceive.

“Wow Starshadow has really good eyes!”

“You didn't hear my last sentences, did you? Why would you say he has really good eyes though, the one time I looked through my familiar’s eyes the world was completely blurred!”

“I can see so many details I never noticed before!”

“That's strange. A falcon does have eyes good enough to see what you experience, but not that good. Ask him to sent you some of his mana, you should feel how much he sends and how much you recieve.”

So Mary asked Starshadow to sent her some of his mana, which he promptly did. Mom was right, she could feel the amount of his mana he send to her, which she got nearly instantly. “There is no loss whatsoever mom!”

“Could it be, again?” Her mom seemed to faze out, mumbling to herself. Ten minutes later mom got herself under control again, and after she told her the rest she knew about familiar bonds, they went to find dad.