Podarge hovered at the entrance to the Great Nest's hatching chamber. An
honor, that, to attend the Queen on the eve of a royal birth. Once the
princesses emerged from their eggs, the Harpy Court would feast for a moon
and a month as custom dictated. Perhaps then the Queen would invite Podarge
to join her personal guard. Another great honor.
Podarge clenched her whip as a stranger approached, nearly piercing her own
flesh with the spiny talons capping her fingers. Good. Sharp. The two
other harpies stationed with her assumed the same posture. "Will the queen
receive petitions?" The stranger asked. In the days after a hatching, the
Queen doled out boons, titles, and other ceremonial gifts, even granting an
audience to the lowest harpy among the Nest if she so petitioned. But not
until the feasting began, and certainly not until the Queen's coterie
departed the chamber.
Podarge regarded the stranger. Patches of sparse, graying feathers dotted
the harpy's frail wings. Podarge had never seen her like before, though she
smelled of crowded kennels and the lower runs. "Leave this place, crone,"
Podarge said. "The hatching yet continues."
"Take me to the Queen. I must see her immediately," the stranger said.
Podarge unspooled her whip as a kitten might a ball of string, pivoting at
the last moment to backhand the stranger with the full force of her blunt
grip. The elder harpy staggered backward through the air. Her broken nose
gushed runnels of blood, and she shed a number of feathers in distress.
"I said leave!" Podarge could not keep the fury from her tone. Royal
hatchings were inviolate, sacred, among the most blessed of harpy rites.
Who would dare disturb this moment? Her two attendant guards tittered like
mockingbirds.
"You turn me away, Handmaiden? All is not as it seems." The stranger spoke
with icy composure despite the bib of blood now staining her breasts.
Podarge would not endanger her chance to join the Queen's guard. Not for
this soiled bird. Not even for her own nest mother. "Leave now, or die,"
she said simply.
"Podarge ... Podarge, I think ..." One of the harpies behind her whispered
as the crone produced an amulet from her belt pouch. Podarge did not so
much as blink as she discerned the three interlocking runes indicating a
direct connection to the Queen's royal line. After all, Podarge had
feathered this nest; now she would roost in it.
Podarge prostrated herself on the cloud before the ancient harpy. She did
not understand. All who bore this amulet were presently in the chamber,
assisting the princesses as they shed their shells. All except ...
"Celaeno," Podarge whispered, the Dark Queen, kidnapped by the men and elves
of Valour in an attempt to cripple the harpies forever. All assumed her
dead, had mourned her passing decades ago--long before Podarge and her
sisters had even hatched. Young harpies learned her name as both legend and
cautionary tale. What did this mean for the Nest?
The stranger turned toward Podarge as she drifted toward the chamber doors.
Those large, impenetrable portals to the hatching chamber seemed to open for
the Dark Queen of their own accord. "Podarge, was it? Yes, yes. Well,
Podarge, you and I shall speak again soon." Her voice dripped acid despite
her wide smile. She slipped into the hatching chamber.
And, with that, Podarge felt the doors slam shut.
Description (commended):
Snatched from the clouds by the hand of a drunken god, this creature
conjures to the mind comparisons both ravaged and ravishing. For her
humanoid features embody the standard of beauty: lips, nose, and charcoal
eyes refined; bosom pert; arms and legs slender and athletic, even if each
tapers into a set of spiny claws. But fetid feathers festoon her wings,
which expand at their span to match her height roughly. An occasional
feather drifts through the air as she pulses those wings, wafting with it
the stench of roosting prey birds. Her coloring, from the hair on her head
to the odorous plumules studding her girth like scales, shifts in the light
from reddish brown to tawny copper. When she smiles, it is more a grimace
or a bearing of teeth.