A Healing Wing

You're curled into a ball again when you hear footsteps. Your curiosity demands you to look up, but it's so damned cold that your body refuses to move. The rain saps the heat from you one tiny drop at a time, and whenever you think you've gotten used to it, the wind picks up and chills you straight to the marrow. The rain echoes like a drumbeat around your head, almost masking the sound of hurried feet, and the shrill whistle of the gale drowns out any voice that might be calling to you.

And then it stops.

Warmth, so weak you know you'd never notice it if you hadn't been so near to freezing yourself, begins to spread over you. Light pants tickle your neck, and against the backdrop of the muffled storm, you can hear the harpy's soft voice in your ear. Her wings rustle against each other, their feathers tickling your arms as they move in time with her breath.

Slowly, you look up into Blue's eyes.

She looks back, and for the first time since you first saw her - keeping her distance as her sisters had her way with you - there is no timidity in her eyes. There's a wild tenseness, sure, but as she continues to shield your shivering body, your image of the shy she-bird starts to transform. You bask in her heat, all of it captured under the little tent of wings, and you can't resist drawing a little closer. You'd be lying if you said you hadn't noticed that - with her wings raised over your head as they are - she's fully revealed herself to you, but right now your mind is on other things and you body is simply **** for more warmth. Blue certainly seems to become aware of it when you do scoot closer, voicing her surprise with a faint chirp. There isn't enough light to really tell, but you can picture her blush, the way it wraps around to her ears as it does whenever she closes the gap between you.

You smile to yourself, blowing into your hands and rubbing them against each other, careful not to jostle her as you do. The icy pins in your fingers fade, replaced by more of that wonderful heat so quickly that you half-expect to see your hands glowing like iron from a forge. You repeat the process a few times, rubbing your hands up and down your sides until your teeth stop chattering.

You notice Blue staring at you, now that the immediate chill has subsided some, and then realize she's specifically watching your hands. You look down at them yourself, noticing the wrinkled texture of your fingertips and the countless little scratches they bear from sleeping on the mountain. Your attention returns to Blue, and it hits you that only her head and legs are covered by her wings. Her back has to be completely exposed for her to cover you like she is. Are harpy's resistant to the cold?

A slight tremble as the wind rustles her wings answers that question for you, and you feel your own face start to burn. When did this come over her? Since when had she been ready to sit out in the cold and rain for your sake? Since your first trip to the stream? Earlier than that, even? Had it been concern in her eyes as she watched you from afar day after day, rather than curiosity?

You strangle that line of thought, your heartbeat wild. You can't afford to think like that. You were burned once without realizing you'd even exposed yourself in the first place. They're your captors, not hosts, and if Red doesn't stamp out any acts of sympathy, then you suspect Greywing will. And besides, all of it is just an excuse to use your body for convenient pleasure, as it had been from the start...

But Blue is different, a distant voice insists over the angry mantra. Blue hasn't tried that, and she's here now...

It's not wrong, either. As you'd expected, Red made it quite clear you weren't welcome in their den, but Blue came to you instead. When even Orange once again gave into her fiercer sibling's demands, Blue ignored them, as she had when she pulled you from your fence-less pen.