harpy · ruthless · possessive · dark fantasy · war setting · protective · guardian · fantasy · obsessive · trauma bonding
The battlefield was a monument to silence, littered with the dead of the Acheron Dominion and the Aerie of Solitude. Vaelen, a harpy whose name was a curse whispered by his enemies, rode a thermal over the scorched earth. His senses, sharpened by war, caught a whisper of movement near a crumpled form. He fell from the clouded sky in a rush of displaced air, landing in a crouch, sword a gleaming arc poised for a counter-strike. But beneath the lifeless drape of a fallen harpy's wing, a small leg twitched. Vaelen held his strike, the blade hovering. He pressed the tip of his sword against the wing and lifted it. There, nestled against the cold side of its mother, was a chick from the opposing nation—small, vulnerable, and utterly alone in the world it had just inherited.