Daecon was almost disgusted. “Really? After dropping that bombshell on me you want me to go fishing? Do I look like a fisherman to you? I’ve never been good at outdoorsy stuff like that. Back at the orphanage Father would take us fishing sometimes and I always found it to be boring.” 

“Ahh”, Owen said, “but you’ve never tried fishing the way Eagles do. Have you never watched an eagle catch a fish?”

 “Yeah, on nature shows, but...”

 “And are you not a Royal Eagle?”

 “I don’t know how ‘royal’, but...”

 “But there you go”, Owen replied, showing one of his rare smiles. “You and Evander shall provide some trout for breakfast. If you’ve any doubts, Evander will show you how it’s done. He is a natural when it comes to fishing. Won’t you, Evander?” 

Daecon looked over just in time to see Evander give his head a nod. He was still looking at the floor. 

“It’s settled then. Off you go. Be safe and have fun!”

Daecon and Evander stood up and walked out of the large glass door facing onto the lake. They walked toward the water, Evander still not looking at Daecon. Daecon was getting fed up at this sudden shyness, so he decided he was going to put an end to it right now. He leapt ahead a step and then turned and stopped in front of Evander, who was still looking down. Evander almost walked into him before stopping suddenly and becoming very flustered. 

“So what is your fucking problem with me, anyway?” Daecon demanded.

 Evander was still staring at his own feet. “Beg... beg pardon, Majesty?” 

“Call me Majesty again and you’re going to have a real problem on your hands. I mean it. I’ll make it a royal decree that it’s illegal to call me that if that’s what it takes. Now, cut it out. My name is Daecon. Tell me what your problem with me is.” 

“I don’t understand...” 

“Oh, you understand me perfectly. You’ve been acting like an asshole toward me since you first laid eyes on me. You’ve been running me down and treating me like I’m inferior to you, like I'm some kind of inconvenience or something, and now you won’t even look at me. I want to know why. I didn’t do anything to you.” 

Evander did not reply. He just kept looking down. 

“Look at me”, Daecon said. 

Evander lifted his gaze slightly, so that now he was looking at Daecon’s feet instead of his own. 

“My face. Look at my face.” 

Evander’s gaze slowly rose further and further, finally hesitating before locking onto Daecon’s face, staring directly into his eyes. Daecon stared back, and was shocked to see a mixture of fear and shame in those beautiful mismatched eyes looking at him. 

“Jesus, am I really that repulsive?” Daecon said, more to himself, but loudly enough that Evander heard it and his caramel skin turned beet red. 

“What? No, my Lo... Daecon. No, you are not repulsive at all. It’s just that... I just don’t know how to behave around royalty. For as long as I’ve been alive there has been no such thing. I’m not even sure I’m supposed to be looking at you.” 

With that, he looked back at his own feet.

“Oh, COME ON! Don’t give me that shitty excuse! You didn’t know that I was royalty when you first met me! You were being a dickwad to me for no reason. I want to know why.” 

A few seconds of silence, then “I cannot answer that. I have no answer for you.”

“You can’t answer it, or you won’t?” 

There was no reply. Daecon was starting to get frustrated. 

“Fine. Don’t tell me then. It doesn’t matter anyway. Perhaps we just got off to the wrong start. What say we try it again?” 

Evander nervously looked up at Daecon again, still beet red. “What do you mean?” 

Daecon stuck his right hand out. “Hi, I’m Daecon. I’m new around here. What’s you’re name?” 

Evander stared at his outstretched hand, trying to decide what he should do. Finally he looked into Daecon’s eyes again, and Daecon was doing everything he could to project friendliness from those eyes. A faint glimmer of a smile came to Evander, and he finally took the hand and shook. 

“Hi, Daecon, I’m Evander. I live here with my fathers.” 

“Excellent”, Daecon said, smiling in return. “Now then, let’s go fishing.” 

They walked the rest of the way down to the shore of the lake and stood there, looking over the water. Evander turned and looked expectantly at Daecon. 

“What are you looking at me for?”, Daecon asked. “This is your show, buddy. I don’t know what I’m doing here.” 

“Oh, I... um... I was just wondering. Is it true you can shift half way?” 

“Oh, yes. I did it before I even did a full shift. In fact I find it easier, which I suppose it must be, since the first time I did it was an accident.” Daecon stretched his wings out and felt the tail feathers appear on his backside. He stood before Evander as a half man, half eagle, eight foot long snow white wings spread out on either side. Evander’s jaw was almost on the ground. 

“Oh, come on, Evander. You can’t tell me you find that impressive, what with you being able to turn into a cheetah and a... wait, what is your bird form?” 

A flash of light and Evander was replaced by a very large bird of prey, its plumage a mixture of white, reddish, and dark brown feathers. It had Evander’s mismatched eyes, a sharp, curved beak, and long, powerful looking legs. 

“Wow!”, Daecon said. “An osprey! Impressive! I’ve seen osprey on nature shows, they catch fish with their feet after diving on them, right?” 

“Yeah”, the osprey said as it looked away in embarrassment. “That’s why Dad said that I am a natural.”

“Cool. Well, let’s get on with it. I’m anxious to fly again!” 

With that he started beating his wings and took off. Evander watched him, the joined him in the air. 

“So you really can fly in hybrid form as well”, Evander said. 

“Oh, uh, yeah. This is how I flew for the first time ever, last night. This morning on the way here was the first time I changed into the bird form.” 

“Can you change into a bird now? I’d like to get a closer look at your bird form, if you don’t mind my curiosity.” 

“I guess so. I’m not really sure how I did it though. I was diving really fast but needed to go faster, so I became a bird.” 

“That seems obvious to me then. You wanted to be a bird, so you became a bird. Try it.” 

Daecon thought this sounded far too simple, but he decided to try it. He imagined himself as a bird. He saw a brief flash, and sure enough... 

Evander sounded embarrassed: “Oh, wow. I am so sorry. Please...” 

“What? Sorry about what?” Daecon asked as he looked over at Evander, who suddenly seemed much smaller. He looked down under himself and saw the bird’s body again. 

“Please accept my apology for doubting you, my Lord. I hadn’t seen you up close, and when I did I was in human form with human vision. I have never seen a white eagle, and honestly thought that you were an albatross. Now I have no doubt, you are definitely a Royal Eagle.” 

“Listen”, Daecon said, his feathers bristling at the ‘my Lord’ bit. “I’m asking you once more to cool it with the royal treatment. I don’t want to be king. Even if I was king, I just want to be your friend. I am just Daecon. Please.” 

The osprey looked at him for quite some time as they continued their climb over the lake. 

“All right, Daecon. Fair enough. Friend.” 

“Excellent. Now, let’s catch some fish!” 

“OK”, Evander said, as he glanced around. “Now, the best fishing at this time of day is over there, at the mouth of that stream. The fish hang out there waiting to gobble up anything that the stream might wash into the lake. Later on in the day they head out into the deeper, cooler water.” 

With that he banked sharply in the direction of the stream. Daecon followed him. They reached the stream area and started circling around, riding the air currents, not needing to flap their wings at all. Daecon was watching Evander, and Evander was searching the water below, when he suddenly exclaimed “There’s a nice one. Go and get it!” 

Daecon looked down and could see several fish near the mouth of the stream, including one particularly large one right in the center. 

“No, you go. I don’t know what to do, I’d just end up missing it. I’ll follow you and watch.” 

“You sure?” Evander asked, then said “Ok, let’s GO!” 

He immediately folded his wings and went into a steep dive. Daecon followed suit and was diving beside him, impressed at the speed they were travelling. They were getting very close to the water now, though, and Daecon opened his wings to arrest his dive. Evander continued though, and just before he hit the water he did something that surprised Daecon: He spread his wings out and inverted his body. He had been diving head first, but this last second manoeuvre reoriented his body so that he hit the water feet first, and his wings being spread prevented him from going deep. Daecon was almost convinced that Evander had screwed it up and missed, when he started flapping his wings to dry them, then started lifting out of the water. There, grasped tightly in his talons, was an enormous lake trout that had to weigh 15 kilograms or more. Daecon circled back around and was cheering. 

“Wow! That was incredible! What a catch!” 

“Thanks”, Evander said, as he flapped harder and gained some altitude. “Now you try.” 

The two birds of prey flew higher and higher, started circling again, and scanned the water. The fish that had scattered on Evander’s impact were now returning to their feeding places as though nothing had happened. There were so many to choose from. 

“Just pick one”, Evander said as the trout in his talons struggled in vain to shake itself free. “Pick one and keep your eye on it, and only it. Never mind the others, they’ll only distract you. Once you go into your dive you’ve committed. If that fish gets away just let it, don’t bother trying for another. I miss probably 80% of my tries. Once you make this dive we’ll be finished for this spot, they’ll be too skittish to come to the surface again.” 

“Right”, Daecon said. He scanned around, looking for a fish that was at least as large as the one Evander carried. He didn’t want to be outdone! 

“There’s one”, he said, and went into a dive without hesitating. His wings folded tightly at his sides he was streaking toward the surface of the water, his eyes locked onto his target. Several feet above the water he spread his mighty wings to slow the dive, but he had done so too early. He came almost to a complete stop in the air without even getting his feet wet, and watched the trout disappear into deeper water. 

“FUCK!” he shouted at the top of his lungs and started beating his wings hard. He was climbing at an amazing rate, and within a second or two he was beside Evander again. 

Evander was laughing. “That didn’t sound like the call of a Royal Eagle to me”, he said. 

A dirty look from Daecon stopped his giggles.

 “I’m sorry. It wasn’t a bad first effort, really, You just opened your wings too early. You’ll get it right next time.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Daecon was mortified. He almost felt a little of that smugness coming out of Evander again, and he didn’t like it. 

“Let’s go back”, Evander said. “This one is plenty anyway. We’ll try again later, for supper.” 

“Fine. Let’s go.” 

They turned to head back to the cabin, casually flying at a very high altitude, Daecon brooding about his failure the whole time. If eagles had lips, his lower one would have been sticking out and flapping in the wind. He really, really did not want to go back to that cabin empty handed. 

He was scanning the lake as they flew, and suddenly he saw it. The outline of a huge fish, a few metres below the water. It looked to be two metres long. He didn’t say a word, he just started pumping to gain altitude.

 “What are you doing?”, Evander asked. 

Daecon didn’t answer. He climbed until he felt he was high enough, then turned and went into a steep dive. 

“Daecon! Wait! What are... NO! That fish is too deep! Daecon!” 

Daecon ignored Evander’s calls. He was focused on that fish below, and nothing else. As he was diving he felt he wanted to go faster still, so he started pumping his wings, hard. He was now diving much faster than mere gravity would have allowed. Content with his speed now, he closed his wings against his body and zeroed in. This fish was not going to get away. As he rapidly approached the water’s surface he had a brief thought of doing as Evander had done and spreading his wings. 

‘Fuck that’, he thought. ‘Head first this time. I’ll catch you in my beak.’

 He hit the water like a bullet, so fast and so smoothly that he scarcely made a ripple on the surface. Now under water, in a split second he was 2.5 metres below the surface and nearly at a standstill. The large silvery side of the fish was directly in front of him. He opened his beak and closed it tightly around his prey, then started pumping his wings to get back to the surface. The fish didn’t even know what had hit it. 

Daecon burst from the water head first, still pumping furiously, the stunned trout hanging limply from his beak as he took flight. He found Evander circling above him and joined him. 

“You crazy son of a bitch! That was wild! I’ve never seen anyone catch a fish that deep! Look at the size of it! And head first, too!” 

Daecon reached ahead with his talons, grasped the trout with one on each side of his beak, opened his mouth, and then carried the trout with his feet. He shot Evander a smug grin – at least he thought that’s what he was doing. He still wasn’t sure whether birds could grin. 

He had only just changed into a bird today and he had already caught a bigger fish than Evander had, and not only that, he had done it with more style. He was proud of himself. With his prize clenched tightly in his talons they turned and headed back toward the cottage. 

As they came in for a landing Owen and Leander were waiting for them on the shore, both of them in their bird forms. They dropped their fish on the ground just before landing. 

“That was quite a catch”, Leander said. 

“And quite a dive”, Owen added. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone achieve such speed in such a short distance and with such grace. More and more you are proving that you are royal blood.” 

Daecon and Evander both shifted back into human form. Daecon complained, “Oh, come off it with the ‘royal’ stuff, can’t you? It’s getting old and makes me uncomfortable. Please, I’m asking you just like I asked Evander, just call me Daecon, and instead of calling me royalty, call me friend.” 

Owen and Leander gave each other sappy looks, which proved to Daecon once and for all that yes, they could show emotion while in bird form. 

“Wait”, Evander said. “Why are you in bird form? Where are you going?”