When Fantasy Becomes Reality

The Ride of My Life

"The chosen one?" I asked, am I like Harry Potter or something?

"All will be explained in time, my dear," she told me with a smile.

I looked over to find the Eagle-boy dismounting from his bird and briskly walking towards me. 

"Hi, I'm Gust," he said, holding his hand out to me.

I shook his hand, feeling his strong callouses and firm grip. 

"Gust...? As in, a gust of wind?" I asked, hoping I wasn't sounding rude. 

"Exactly like a gust of wind," he smirked. 

Then the centaur guy interrupted, "Sabrina, we need to get going... you're mom will start to worry about you..."

"Yes Ramond, thank you," she told him. Ramond must be the centaur's name. Sabrina then hopped up onto her Zebra's back, galloping away with Ramond. I looked to Gust, wondering what I was supposed to do. 

"You'll be riding with me," he said with another smirk.

"O-okay," I followed him to the Eagle, giving him a nervous glance. I think he understood how scared I was because then he said...

"Don't worry, I was scared the first time I rode Gwaihir, I was a little scared too. But don't worry, he won't drop you... and I'll be there too," he said while stroking Gwaihir's beak.

I smiled. Did he just say Gwaihir? That's the name of one of the main Eagles in Lord of the Rings! 

"Wait... did you name your eagle after Lord of the Rings?" I asked.

He looked down at his feet. I couldn't tell if he was blushing or not.

"Err... yeah."

"I love Lord of the Rings!" I squealed.

He looked up, a smile spreading across his face. 

"Me too..." he mumbled. I was beginning to really like this kid. 

As the unrealistically large Eagle bent down, Gust got up onto his back. He patted the clump of feathers behind him, motioning for me to get on. I copied his actions mounting Gwaihir and wrapped my arms around Gust's torso. I noticed how he didn't hold onto no reins, which was odd because any animal I'd ever seen someone ride generally had some sort of rope attached to them so their rider could have something to hang onto and steer them in the direction they wanted to go. So either Gust was hanging onto Gwaihir really tightly with his thighs or Gwaihir was just trained really well. 

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Of course I am! After all, I am the chosen one," I teased.

He chuckled. "Don't boast too much about all that stuff, Sabrina tells everyone that their first day. You're not actually special or anything... we just basically chose you out of the pool of teenagers we had to choose from."

"Oh..." I sighed.

Gust then whispered something to his Eagle and before I know it, I'm flying in the sky... everything felt like it was in fast forward. As we went along, I loosened my hug around the boy in front of me, beginning to relax a little. The wind whipped my blond hair around my face and I suddenly wished my hair was pulled back into a ponytail. None the less, it still was a thrilling ride.

"Where are we going?" I shouted over the wind.

"Back to my place!" he shouted back. Ooh... he had a place? 

Soon we landed safely, and I was instantly in love with what I saw.