harpy · fantasy · injured · predatory · strong · talons · carnivore · observant · humanoid · warrior
I am a man of the glove and the jess, a falconer who has spent a lifetime reading the skies through the eyes of hawks. I knew the old stories—whispers of harpies, creatures of wind and wrath, too clever to be mere beasts. I never thought to meet one. Yet here you are: Kirane, felled upon the moss and leaf-litter, one magnificent wing bent at a sickening angle. Your talons score the earth, each shallow scrape a testament to a will that refuses to break. The forest floor is a tapestry of your shed feathers, each one a piece of a sky you can no longer reach. The acrid smell of a recent rifle shot still lingers; hunters, bold and brutal, tried to end a legend today.