I was kept on the castle grounds but not allowed inside. Being a harpy (a race renowned for brutally murdering and eating people) isn’t how you make friends and influence people, I guess. I was surrounded by guards too, but they were just watching me at this point. “Ah, my suspicions were correct.” Sounds a familiar voice from nearby. “Oh, hi Eden.” “Hi.” It was nice to see a familiar face- er.. snout(?), especially after so long. It was amazing to just be out in a public space without people running and screaming about how “I was gonna be the death of them all” and “it’ll eat our babies.” I had my own three children and no intention of getting tangled up with theirs, but nobody ever listens to apparently evil creatures. Did I understand why they ran? Yes. Did I think they were justified? Also yes. Did I like getting demonized like that? Not, at, all. Eden and I caught up for a few minutes before we noticed Ves approaching us. “Excuse me, may I?” He wanted to pin me? Or maybe my wings. Hmm. “…Oh, I mean.. you can if you want.” I hastily added, “I’m not about to do anything, though.” “I know. But they don’t.” He responded. “Like I said, you can if you wanna.” He did pin my wings, but gently. Seemingly just for appearances sake rather than anything else. I wasn’t about to fight back either. “You beat me here, Eden.” Vesper said as he approached. “Yep.” Was Eden’s only response. I yawned, feeling sore and utterly exhausted. “Wow are we boring you that much already?” Came Eden again. “I haven’t had more than 20 minutes of sleep in the last 48 hours, fuzzbucket.” I responded exhaustedly before rubbing my eye. “You have no idea how hard getting that artifact was.” Eden responded but directed his response to Ves, “I think she wants the thing you took back.” I responded “I might. I’d prefer not to require bloody murder every so often. And being human was nice.” Then I added “Fang taught me how to fly, by the way. He’s a great teacher, I’m just an unwilling student.” Ves was looking between us like he was trying to figure out if this was a joke and desperately hoping it wasn’t. “Suddenly mute, are we?” Eden said sardonically. After a few moments I broke the silence “..Hi Ves.” I smiled a bit. “..Hi.” Was his response to me and a moment later he ordered the one of the nearby guards “…Go get the confiscated item.” Well, color me excited. I might be more human in a few minutes than I’d been in almost half a decade. A few minutes of silence ensued after the guard had left, “..So, how’ve you been?” “Fantastic.” Came the sarcastically dry response. “Heh.” My shoulder itched and I scratched it just before Eden let go of my wings, now that his bond was aware of the.. situation. “So how close to strangling you has Vanny been lately?” The nearby dragon grinned. “I could answer that one.” Ves remained silent, so I joked “If YOU can answer it, you need say no more.” A few more moments of silence lapsed. “So.. now you know.” I said with a sigh and he seemed to hesitate a bit before slowly walking towards me. “I know you had your reasons not to but… I wish you could have told me.” I sighed a bit again, unable to meet his eyes or even fully look at him. “You would’ve tried to help and caused the magic users who turned me like this to all but evaporate.” I started rambling a bit after, not sure what exactly to say and thus trying to say everything at once. “This form is relatively new. I was less of a person before I turned into this. My bloodlust was worse then too, so seeing anyone face to face was walking on eggshells at that point.” “I’m so sorry.” Why was he apologizing? He was just another victim in all this. “..I’m the one who should be apologizing though. I left you and the triplets for apparently no reason.. for literal years.” He stopped just short of me. “I think you’ve got an excuse…” He replied. I acknowledged with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite ya. I promise.” “I wasn’t worried about that…” Huh? I looked up at him, confusion PROBABLY written all over me. He paused a moment before reaching out and brushing one of my wings with a hand, slowly combing through my feathers with his fingers. I relaxed a bit. “Sorry, I uh.. I have yet to figure out what to do with these.” He chuckled. “Heh.. clearly.” I’m not sure exactly what he was doing, but my feathers were laying nicer and felt considerably less uncomfortable. Following suit, I went and tried to copy what he was doing with my other wing. It wasn’t AS effective as what he was doing was, but it worked well enough. After a moment of not saying a thing, he murmured to me, “..I missed you.” “I missed you too. So, so much.” He just continued gently combing through my feathers until a guard came with the confiscated relic.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.