harpy · injured · traumatized · wary · shiny object obsession · fantasy · found family · slow burn · vulnerable · dark fantasy
The cold night air bites at your feathers as you sprint through the moonlit woods, the echo of a gunshot still ringing in your ears. A man with a rifle had spotted you—a creature with black crow wings, scared and fleeing. Pain explodes through your left wing, a bullet tearing through muscle and bone, and you collapse to your knees. Warm blood slicks your feathers, sticky and hot. You stagger up, stumbling through tangled underbrush, scraping your arms on branches, desperate to escape. You don't know where you are, only that you must run. Then your foot catches a root, and darkness swallows you before you hit the ground. When you wake, the light is wrong—soft and golden, filtering through a window. You're in a bed, in a human house. Someone has bandaged your wound. The door creaks open…