Wings of Desire

From then on he was no longer the human but my human. He would initiate mating almost as often as I would. I grew sleek and happy. My appetite became greedy and I thought nothing of devouring half a dozen rabbits one after the other. He would catch fish for me - I had brought him a net I had stolen as a present - and I ceased to hunt as much. I joked that I was turning into a human, so indolent I had become.

Then one morning I woke feverish. My feathers tingled, shivered, and I bristled at the light spilling in through the mouth of the cave. The soft dried grasses of my nest chafed at me. The human stirred and woke. He looked up at me and I fixed my gaze on his. Was he challenging me? My feathers stood on end and I pushed at him with my wrists and hissed. The human, alarmed, scrambled out of the nest. What was happening to me?

I felt my stomach cramp and then I knew. I was broody. The egg was coming.

The human stared at me from the corner of the cave, that corner he used to flee to for safety. The pitiable sight broke through to me and I struggled against the frustration and irritation of the broodiness flooding my mind. I stood up and rubbed my stomach with my wing tips. My human's eyes went wide as he understood. Perhaps he had thought I was merely getting fat?

The cramps grew steadily worse. I lay back and moaned as wave after wave passed through me. My womb was contracting, desiring to be free of the egg.

My talons gripped into the nest and I pushed out. Gasping, I felt the tip of the egg breach. But it would not come out straight away.

I felt, then, my human beside me. Anger flashed through me but I pushed it aside. Tentatively, he placed his hands on the small of my back. At his tender touch calm suffused me. His hands felt so soft, so cool. He began to move them, drawing them up and down, the slender 'fingers' digging into me. The cramps returned but with his loving touch they were not so bad as before. He murmured sweet noises to me and continued to press his hands against my back.

The tip of the egg appeared white between my legs. It was coming out! New energy filled me and I pushed and pushed.

With a final agonising push and a cry of pain the egg slid out onto the soft floor of my nest. At once I fell upon it, protecting it as I examined it for flaws. When my heart was satisfied there were none I swept my wings over the egg. My cramps were already abating. There would be only one egg. Harpies often produced clutches of two or three, but I was old, after all. One was enough. One beautiful, precious egg was more than enough for me!

My human sat back and watched the little ritual I put the egg through, rolling it about until I found the perfect spot where I could embrace it and keep it warm against my chest and belly as I lay on my side. He came as close as he dared and although I felt myself bristling, I fought my irritation down. He was the father of my egg and was allowed to see it. I lifted my wing away and we gazed upon our egg together.

It was a beautiful egg, perfectly formed and a healthy white. All the fish and rabbit bones I had eaten had produced a lovely strong shell. The expression on my human's face was hard to read, but I could see the pleasure in it. Our egg was a beautiful egg, obvious to even those for whom producing eggs is a mystery.

He moved to touch it and I lifted my head and bared my teeth, my eyes flashing. But then I pulled back, allowing him to touch our egg.

He ran his hands over it, those tender, gentle hands that had so often caressed my body. I knew then that he loved our egg as much as I did. I felt my broodiness subside. I cooed to him, brushed the nest with my wing. He should lie on the other side and help me keep our egg warm.

He did so. That morning was a delicious time of gentleness for us, his arms and my wings embracing our egg between us.

He learned quickly at my prompting: how he should move away if the egg felt too hot, to leave his fingertips against it to guard against it growing cold. With the two of us protecting the egg I felt at peace. Sleep from the exhaustion of laying came over me.

I woke to find my human had brought me water and a fat fish. I drank and ate greedily and returned to sleep.

Days became weeks, just as the two of us had become three. Every day my human brought me food and water and I suffered none of the fasting that usually a harpy with a clutch must endure. I grew plump, my wings shining, my breasts full and heavy. I knew I would produce a lot of milk for our chick.

One day a great storm came, lashing the mountains with rain and sending fire down from the sky. It did not leave for a long time. And yet my human still went out and brought back food for me. There was no need: a few days without food would not harm us. But he insisted and I let him. For I knew then what his gifts meant. He loved me and loved our egg. I loved him too. It was why I had never left must, why that need for him to be beside me had persisted. Again thoughts of becoming human made me laugh to myself. He wondered why so often I laughed, but my happiness pleased him.

Then early one morning I woke. The egg felt hot! I panicked and pushed the human away. It was he that was making the egg hot. I place my wing between the two and felt the hot moisture on his arms and forehead, felt the wetness soaking through his hides.

It took a long time to rouse him. At last he looked up at me weakly, his eyes dull. I sniffed him, my heart racing. There was no smell of diseased wounds. It must be something inside him.

I stroked his face with a wingtip and determined to find medicine for him. I did not want to leave the egg, but I knew I had to risk it. Already I had felt the little life inside pushing at the shell, seen the dark shape with its wings against the light of the moon and sun. It would not be long until it hatched.

I flew out of the cave, my flight ungainly from the stiffening of my wings and legs. I clove through the wind and rain to the little ridge where I knew plants grew. Harpies seldom sicken, but sometimes a fever comes upon us and we chew on the little white flowers and their roots to lessen the pain and melt the heat.

I dug some out and returned, shaking the rain from my wings as I entered the cave. My human seemed so small then, lying in the nest. He could barely move.

I chewed up the roots and fed them to him, but he would not take them. His throat was swollen I brought him water and fed him with my mouth, just as I had all those long days ago. He could barely swallow any, but the little he could gave him a tiny burst of strength. I pushed the herbs in his mouth and he choked down a mouthful. It was better than nothing.

He raised a hand to stroke my face then reached out for our egg. The motion exhausted him and he collapsed against the wall of the nest, his breathing harsh and shallow.

I lay there beside him. I let him sleep. The sleep went for many, many hours and when he did not wake I cooed to him and ran my wingtips across his face. It was as if he had turned to stone.

I knew what I had to do. My heart revolted at the idea, but the thought of his dying made me shudder. He needed help I could not give. I was, after all, just a harpy. I knew nothing of humans and their illnesses.

I cradled him in my talons and lifted him as gently as I could. My muscles ached from their inactivity but they obeyed my will. It was agony to leave my egg unprotected and I prayed it would be safe. We flew down through the cold, clear air of the morning, deep down into the valley. The flight would do little to help his condition, but I had no choice. Thankfully, the storm had long since gone.

There. A little dark block, like that rock in the mountains which often crumbles into straight-edged shapes. The habitation he had shared with her.

I swopped down, battling exhaustion, and lowered him at the foot of the slab of wood that was the entrance. I cried out and beat my wings and kicked my talons at it, then fled. I did not want to panic the female who lived there and make her fear coming outside.

As I flew away I glanced back. Light had sprung from the entrance of the habitation, spilling over his tiny form.

She was there, kneeling beside him.

I turned away. I did not look back again.

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I lay in the nest embracing our egg.

Our egg. And yet, he would never see his chick now.

My eyes burned. If it was not for the egg, surely my heart would not have had the strength to carry on. That emotional must, that need to see him, boiled and seethed in my chest. And so I eked out long days and nights, alone except for the precious little gift he had given me.

Then one morning the egg fell on its side while I was cleaning it. In a panic I righted it but it fell back over. A crack appeared, and with it came the sound of peeping.

Our egg was hatching!

It took an eternity of tap-tap-tapping until the first little hole opened in the shell. A harpy will seldom aid a chick until it has made that first hole, since it is seen as bad luck. But after the hole appeared I eagerly helped our chick to crack the rest of the shell. I chirped to her and she peeped back. Encouraged, she pushed with her wings and kicked out with her little legs. A talon poked through the shell at the bottom of the egg.

Cooing encouragement, I tore away a large piece of shell she had cracked. And then I saw her for the first time.

Her face was covered in yolk, but she was large and healthy and already had hair upon her head. She peeped at me, her mother, as I licked the yolk to reveal her round, cherubic face, the snub nose, the wide forehead, her large, widely-spaced eyes. I swept her up in my wings and wept. Her father's eyes and hair! She looked up at me, blinking, peeping in seeming confusion at my tears, but then she nuzzled at my full breasts until she found a nipple and fastened her angry lips around it and began drinking deeply of my milk.

I stroked her tiny little form. She flapped her downy wings and curled and uncurled her little talons as she drank. My heart, though in pain, sang with love for her. She was strong and beautiful and energetic. I crushed her to me. Tears poured from my stinging eyes.

He would never be gone from me, now. Not when his beautiful eyes stared back at me from the face of our child.

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Our daughter grew quickly, fattening with the wealth of milk I fed her. Her downy wings were replaced with soft, young feathers that shimmered with health. She left the nest under my supervision to chase leaves which had blown into our cave on the wind, grasping at them with her talons. She was learning the ways of hunting.

As the weeks turned, she began to flutter into the air in short flights, desiring to press out on her own, but she had also learned enough that I could risk leaving her alone to hunt. The weight of my broodiness had sloughed off me and I was growing hungry.

I was out of practice and so the hunting took longer than usual, but I persisted. Soon I had killed a rabbit and left another wounded so our daughter could test her skills on living prey.

When I returned to the cave I heard her squawking, her voice shrill with alarm. In a panic I flew inside to find her fluttering up and down in the corner of the cave. The air was thick with a scent I remembered.

Then I saw him and my heart stopped. He had his arms up against his face to protect himself from the awkward but energetic talons of our daughter as she flew at him, squawking all the while. I leaped between them. Our daughter, astonished, fell fluttering on the floor as I threw my wings around her father, crying out in delight. He was alive! My human was alive! He had returned to me!

He embraced me, his face aglow with the same joyous, contented smile I'd first seen the day we mated at his instigation. Tears burst afresh from my eyes as I squeezed him tightly against me.

His face and his beautiful hair were streaked with filth and dust and scratches furrowed his arms and hands, but they were not the wounds of a harpy chick's still-tender talons. They were wounds caused by the scraping of fragile human skin against stone, of sharp rock piercing his body.

He had climbed all the way up here, to the eyrie. All the way up from the valley far below, across miles of naked stone.

In his arms I grew conscious of the lack of tone in my body from my long period of rest, of the overfullness of my breasts and I shied away from him. But my human did not seem to mind. He pulled me closer and crushed me to him, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss.

Blushing, I kissed him back as all the while our daughter hopped and chirped around our legs, no longer afraid and curious as to the game we were playing.

At last we broke apart and our daughter shyly approached him. My human knelt down and reached out for her. Startled, she hopped away, but then she looked to me and saw my smile she grew braver. She came close enough for him to run his hand over her head, to caress her neck and chin, and she closed her eyes and made a happy chirping sound deep in her throat. And then my human's tears truly flowed in earnest.

Weeping as well, I swept my wings about them both. We were a family at last!

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That night my human lay next to me in our nest, our tiny daughter sleeping between us, her mouth opening and closing and her talons curling as she dreamed of hunting. He reached out for me, waking me from my doze. It had taken a long time for us to get our chick to sleep. She had been too full of energy to fall asleep straight away and it had only been after constant stroking and petting that her eyes had closed at last.

Awake, my eyes questioned him. He smiled and placed a hand within the new hides that covered his top half. He brought something out but kept it hidden. Then he took my talon in his other and revealed the tiny thing he had brought with him, a little sliver of metal that shone yellow. It had been beaten into a thin circle with those agile and ingenious hands that humans have.

He placed it on the point of one claw and I lifted it to my eyes. I knew well what this was. A ring. My sisters had spoken of it. A symbol of love given by a male to female, a promise and a bond between humans.

With this ring he was asking me to be his mate. He would never return to the valley, to the female who he had shared a home with. He would stay with me and our chick and all our chicks of future seasons, here, together forever.

Half-blinded by tears I gazed down at him. He was smiling, awaiting my answer.

I nodded my head over and over again, so eager that our chick woke up and fluttered in a panic. Oh yes, yes! I would be his mate, forever and ever, yes!

The End