Chapter Text
Rogue looks at her wing joint and winces. Right where the wing meets her torso, there is a bloody, jagged wound. The large parts of the arrow had fallen away in the harpy’s tumbling fall, but she can still feel smaller pieces she cannot see stabbing into her flesh. She tries a wing flap and screeches in pain, her body revolting from the feeling and her eyes seeing dancing sparks of dark. So … no flying. No flying. She should feel grateful. She had survived this long. It had taken three days to disentangle herself from the low branches of the tree she had woken in with odd fibers of a fishing net tight around her talons that kept her stuck.
But not being able to fly…
The thought is horrifying and she presses her talons down into the loose dirt of the island she had crashed down into. Not being able to fly means she cannot get back to her flock or to their perch. She shivers. She is an easy target. Easy to kill and easy for her to starve.
Rogue does not want to die! Being downed is dangerous. She takes a self-soothing breath and starts preening her feathers. Her teeth and tongue move across the shafts and barbs, sorting it into something resembling order. Salt tangs in her mouth bitterly and pangs her already swollen tongue. Water. She needs water.
She then rises on shaking legs. She arranges herself into the least painful position and starts walking. Hobbling really.
Everything aches. She finds a bit of shaded dirt softer than the rest and settles. A sliver of a spring bubbles nearby and is cold and sweet to drink. Rogue sips as she glances about.
This is as good as any place of the ground for a nest. She can see a small blocked in cove and suspects that there will be fish in there. She… she will have to go over there later. Right now she aches so, so bad. She barely notes the splashing noise from the cove. Must have been a fish.
--
Rogue wakes up to the feeling of talons in her stomach. She is so, so hungry. Rogue slowly stands and whimpers at the shooting pain through her wing joints. She grits her teeth and steps forward, snarling a little to herself. She is strong. She can push through this pain. She had seen Logan battle a great sea serpent with two broken talons. He had won and not complained a bit. She straightens and determinedly steps forward, puffing up her chest a bit. She moves forwards. It hurts worse than anything, but she is determined not to falter or fail.
Arriving at the cove’s shore, Rogue digs her talons in the sand. She stares at the shimmering water. It looks like the cove is decently deep, with a rather sharp drop-off into the water. A few plants trail into the water and she can see the shadows of fish in the shallows. She shifts her weight and bites her lip almost bloody to keep in the noise of pain from escaping.
Rogue stares at the fish and then hops, striking fast. But not fast enough. The creature escapes and her stomach grumbles. She attempts again after the water stills. It hurts to jostle so much and her injury screams at her. She tries a few more time and exhaustion crashes through her. She gives a pained sob and flops down in the shallows, tired and done. She sobs and wants to rip something to bits with her rage.
There is a small splash and she looks up. A face framed by copper-colored hair peeks out of the water. She rears back and fluffs out her feathers even though it hurts so bad. Rogue shifts back and claws at the sand and hisses.
The water creature flicks a large tail and comes a little closer. A siren. Her flock had warned her about the water bound tricksters that try to sing everyone to their deaths at their claws and fangs. She snarls and flares her wings as best she can. The creature's shimmering red eyes set in midnight sclera widen. The siren shifts back a little and makes a tiny bubbling noise.
She clacks her teeth in warning. She might not be able to win this fight. The siren dives under the water with no sound other than the disrupted water. Rogue slowly relaxes and limps back to the ground nest and sips from the spring, eyes closing as she lays there.
--
Remy flicks his tail as he moves through the tight cove. That harpy had some of the prettiest feathers that he had ever seen. Shiny red, black, and white, flaring and puffing out to make her seem bigger. His pod had always warned him about harpies being stunning terrors of the sky, as beautiful and dangerous as the storms they ride in on. And they have lured so many others to their doom.
Remy wishes they could have talked. He has been stuck in the cove for four days since that huge storm knocked him into this tiny cove. He cannot get out over the large jagged rocks and back into the great vastness of the ocean.
He sighs and beats his tail faster. There are small crags, too small for him to move through, where fish swim into the cove from the ocean. So he has not been starving. But he cannot escape.
That harpy had been trying to catch fish, he is sure of it. He had been watching from underwater, first scared of this new foe near his prison and then simply curious about the pretty patterns of her feathers. He has no idea why she had not just swooped down and gotten the fish, but she hadnt. And she had looked so sad. He catches a few fish, killing them quickly. He swings his tail up and down to break the surface of the water. He sees that the harpy has moved away to rest underneath a large tree as he moves close to the shore.
He tosses up the fish and hopes she’ll accept them. The harpy jerks up with a hiss.
“For you Mademoiselle!”
Remy calls and flicks his tail to dive back under the water to watch through the shimmering surface. She slowly approaches the fish and nudges it. She then tears into it and Remy grins. Maybe if he brings her more fish, she might talk to him more. Then he can stop babbling to himself just to hear someone speak.