It was... embarrassing. And humiliating. Being carried around by someone who looked like a twelve-year-old girl firstly, and being a stuffed animal secondly. She very clearly wasn't a prepubescent girl, or at least not a human one, but the harpy was still only about half the size of a human adult. She ran with him tucked under one of her arms, his head poking out of the slit along the front of the brown-and-gold-feathered cloak that had been her wings. He supposed that he should be grateful; she could have just left him behind after all, and the nightmare horse had become a creeping fire that slowly consumed the grass behind them once it hit the reality shift. She kept them moving faster than the fire could spread, but he would have been almost completely helpless to escape it without her assistance. He was also furious at Angelmaris, but that didn't do him much good. There had to be some way that the fae could have cheated to get him turned into something better. Of course, better was a relative term. The harpy liked to turn and look back every few minutes, checking on the competition, and several of them had seemed to just outright vanish when hitting the edge of the reality shift. What they had been turned into, or if they had just been evaporated, was anyone's guess. He supposed that he should just be glad that he was in one whole piece at the moment.


The real problem was the distance. Flying was a lot, lot faster than walking. The previous zones, now that he had time to consider things, had been a good half-mile across at least, and probably more. While the harpy was obviously familiar with running around on two human legs instead of bird-like ones, she didn't have any shoes, and the ground was not all soft grass. He could look down and see the lacerations and prickle burrs that covered her feet, but she kept pressing on despite the pain. It didn't help that she had to throw herself to the ground when what looked like an 80's sci-fi rocket ship went roaring just overhead to race past them, landing her in a bush with razor-sharp leaves that began twisting and writhing to slice at her. He could feel some of the stuffing poking out of himself as well once she managed to wrench herself free of it, but he felt no pain from it. He hoped that they would both be healed once they reached the end of the reality shift zone, or else he might find his insides on the outsides, and she would almost certainly not be able to fly with the way her cloak had been torn and shredded otherwise.


Fortunately, the edge seemed to be very, very near by that point. She got out of the bush just in time for Richard to see the rocket ship suddenly pop like a soap bubble, turning into, of all things, a bunny rabbit. It had been going at a rather impressive speed, though only about half a dozen feet above the ground, and it plowed a furrow through the turf when it hit. He could just about imagine the surprised squeal before it became a smear across the terrain. They reached the edge only a few minutes later, and he was incredibly happy to find himself suddenly nestling beneath a wing with his own plumage and skin intact. He let out a soft screech as the harpy came to a halt and let him drop to the ground, and he shook himself out to settle his feathers.


She let out an avian squawk as well, and he looked up to find her grinning down at him with those sharp teeth of hers on display, which had become far less intimidating. He gaped his beak in his best imitation of a grin in return. She seemed just as happy as he to have survived that particular part of the course, and he was equally glad that she had survived as well. He was, surprisingly enough, finding that he liked the harpy. For someone controlled by the Queen of Air and Darkness, she seemed like a pretty decent kind of person. Then she leaned down to preen at his crest, and he wished that he could gulp. Yet again, that was more of an affectionate gesture between birds, and he was really getting some mixed signals.


Instead, he quickly ran forward on his talons and gave several strong flaps to get himself airborne once more and headed towards the next part. The finish line was getting close, the waterfall at the end of the valley. The only thing he could see between themselves and the fall was a small forest of very tall trees that spread darkness below them like midnight. If he had been an owl, it might have made a difference, but he couldn't pierce past the second row of trunks. The obvious route was to try and fly over them, but that made it all the more suspect. A glance back showed that the harpy was just as trepidatious as he was about their prospects. She jerked her head upward then did a wing wave to dip one side and then the other, an easily translatable gesture of uncertainty. It wasn't until they got within several dozen feet of the first redwood-sized trunks that he suddenly realized the forest wasn't unpopulated.


The thick branches of the trees were lined from trunk to twig-end in black-feathered forms. Crows. Hundreds of them. Possibly thousands of them. And that was very bad news. Crows, ravens, and jays were death to hawks, mobbing them in vicious swarms that could rip a raptor apart mid-air or blind one until it crashed into something. However, they were no more maneuverable than he in the air and they could see no better than he in the dark. Going above would invite them to make quick and easy work of him. But going under and through would put them on at least even odds, at least at an individual level. He had gotten himself up level with the canopy, but that was obvious suicide.


Giving another glance back, he tried to signal the harpy of his intentions by flaring his tail upward before actually plunging into the maneuver. It slowed him slightly and gave him a gentle downward skew, which was quickly increased when he tucked his wings. Yet again, he was turning height into speed. He aimed to intersect with the first line of trunks at about mid-height, hoping that the wide spacing between them held true deeper in. As fast as he was going, someone was going be having roasted red-tail otherwise. Even the slightest impact would shatter his hollow bones and probably rupture his organs. It would be most likely instantly fatal, at least, so he might not even know that he was dead before he found himself in the afterlife, or whatever passed for one in the fae realms.


He couldn't waste another glance to see if the harpy was trailing him, but she seemed smart enough to get his plan. He was more worried about the crows attacking him as soon as he broke their ranks, figuring that the edge of the forest was the demarcation for the zone. But they didn't so much as flutter a feather when he zoomed past, merely watching him with their beady eyes and opening their beaks to let out a raucous caw that seemed closer to thunder than any sound a bird might make, every voice joining into a single blast of sound that nearly smacked him out of the sky. Then, of course, Angelmaris had to put in his two cents.


"RICHARD! GO TO GROUND! NOW!" The fae's mental voice was at least as loud as the crows, and all the more so for its unexpected suddenness. "It's the Wild Hunt! If you flee, they'll chase until you're dead, but they'll leave you alone if you don't run, but if you don't keep going you can't get to the end, and then we both die, and I don't know how Mab managed to convince them to join, but -"


Richard heaved a mental sigh of relief as the voice was cut off. He guessed that the fae lord had overrun his time or what he was allowed to say. The lack of distraction gave him time to think. He was still shooting through the trees, needing to make only slight course corrections to rise or fall above the widely-spread branches and enormous trunks, the crows still silently watching him. It was eerie, but he dared not question his fortune so far while he wracked his brains to recall what he knew of the Wild Hunt. He had a basic understanding of the fae, the Seelie and Unseelie courts and their rulers, but he was pretty sure that those in the Hunt didn't answer to either. Either outside both or just not bowing to either set of royalty, whichever it was, he was pretty sure that they didn't play by the same rules as everyone else. Granted, the rules that the fae played by were arcane to begin with, but fae without rules was... terrifying.


Richard nearly had a heart attack when the silence was broken. He actually felt his heart jump in his chest when dozens of horns suddenly sounded, coming from all directions, both high and low. It was a rather unmistakable sound to anyone who had ever watched any of the old movies where they had a fox hunt: the call of a hunting horn. He judged that he was about half way through the zone, if it was about the same size as the rest of them had been, and he hoped that he could clear it before he had to find out what or who had sounded it, but that was not to be. Maybe it was instinct, maybe the basic predatory part of his brain that was hardwired to catch the slightest movement saw something, or maybe it was just intuition; whichever was to thank for alerting him, he flared his wings just in time. A trio of silver-tipped arrows blazed past him close enough to actually brush the feathers on his keel, and he turned the stall into a dive, falling backwards and winging it as hard as he could towards the ground so that he could swoop along close to the earth. That, of course, added the obstacle of having to dodge bushes and much smaller saplings, but it was a lot better than becoming a pincushion.


Unfortunately, that didn't get him out of danger, or anything close to it. He heard a sharp clack behind him and felt something brush his tail feathers, dragging through them almost like a comb. He didn't bother to try and see what had done it, just flapped for his life, cursing Angelmaris every second as his muscles began to burn from the lack of breeze to provide lift. The heavy thumps of feet hitting the earth behind him fed terrified energy into him to combat the swiftly growing exhaustion, but the air beneath the trees was entirely dead. There wasn't even the slightest wisp of wind to give him any assistance. He knew that he couldn't flap like that forever, or even for a very extended period. Hawks were meant for soaring, not beating the air into submission like a goose, meant to work with the flow of air rather than powering on despite it or without it. Even the fact that he didn't have to take in huge gulps of air like he would have done as a human didn't help; circular respiration could only do so much for extended exertion like this. He was going to tire, he was going to die, and it was only pure, unbridled terror that kept him moving forward, even though he wasn't sure that forward was even the right direction any more. The undergrowth had him confused and turned around, and the exhaustion and panic were fogging his brain, confusing him.


Richard let out a death rattle shriek when bright light suddenly burst inside his head, still beating at the air, adding slashing claws to the mix with the hope that he would at least leave whatever came to eat him with a few scars for its trouble. Then his vision started to clear, and he realized that it hadn't been the bright burst of something hitting him or him hitting something. It had been the sun, nearly forgotten in the abysmal darkness of the forest. And he was about to run into a very solid cliff face.


He craned his neck upward and tilted his tail, cupping his wings and extending his talons to brace. It only helped a little bit. He smacked into the rock hard enough to set stars sparkling in his head, and it felt like his entire body was one big bruise. He did his best to blink it away and shake it off as he tumbled through the air. He was slowly revolving end over end, but he wasn't falling. Instead, he was gently rising. Taking stock of his surroundings, he guessed that falling up was rather natural. The waterfall beside him was doing the same exact thing. He twisted around to right himself and let the gentle cushion of air rising up from below him carry him higher, and now he took in deep, gulping breaths. He was severely overheated and under-oxygenated. He could feel the lactic acid building up to poison his muscles. He was going to be out of commission for days while he rested, and he was going to need lots of protein to rebuild the muscle he was burning. He was not built for this kind of thing.


But it wasn't over. Richard was half of the way to the top of the inverted waterfall when he heard a despairing cry from below him. The harpy had just exited the trunks, but she wasn't alone; the giant wolf that he'd seen at the start of the race had made it through as well. He was rather impressed with its speed. It must have gotten turned into something pretty good during the reality shift, because the nightmare had been their closest competitor before that. The wolf, unfortunately, did not seem to understand the concept of sportsmanship. Richard saw as it leapt from the edge of the forest, dark shadow-forms of similar shape trailing behind it. The shadows burned away as they touched the light, but the massive wolf continued on, gaining height above the female avian and coming down atop her with all four of its paws to drive her into the ground. They hit with the canine on top, and it bounded away to leave her crumpled in the dirt before turning around to snarl at her.


Richard was already in a dive before the thought had finished formulating in his mind. Talons raked forward and dug in, feeling yielding flesh tear and shred in their grasp, and he left a high wail of agony in his wake as he swept towards the harpy. She was just starting to struggle back to her feet when he collided with her chest, throwing her backwards and bruising both of them even further. Of course, she would have like having a dozen spear shafts skewered through her even less than she liked the him-shaped imprint on her chest, and she didn't even bother chastising him. Instead, she bit him. Well, gently. She took him between her teeth any way you looked at it, and he could feel just how very sharp they actually were. He was definitely going to be bleeding a bit, especially from the jostling as she rolled over and started running to gain flight speed.


She gave a mighty flap and jumped as they neared the cliff face, possibly knowing about the updraft because she angled her wings into it and began running up the cliff face. She spat him out once they were about two dozen feet above the ground, and he tumbled once more for a few seconds before regaining his balance. He risked a look down to see that the wolf hadn't been quite so agile or lucky. At least three long harpoon-like spears had been lodged into its side, ropes trailing back into the trees, and it was being dragged into the dark between the trunks despite its struggles. He had to admit that he wasn't very sorry for it, despite the puppy-whimpers that drifted up to his ear holes. He just couldn't feel that sorry for someone who had tried to sacrifice his friend to save their own hide.


Richard turned his attention back to the heights, hoping as hard as he'd ever hoped for anything that there weren't any more obstacles between him and the midpoint of the race. The only thing that he could see was a slightly luminous cloud at the top, sort of like the foamy fog that was at the bottom and probably caused by the fact that it was going in reverse. There weren't any other threats that he could see. Of course, that was only the halfway point. They still had to make it back through everything.


A glance behind over the top of the trees showed that he'd been right in his initial estimation of the challenge. The nightmare horse had apparently burned its way past the reality shift and was clopping its way through the air over the trees, galloping for all it was worth. It looked only slightly less scary with foam frothing at is mouth and its flaming eyes peeled wide in fear as it was mobbed viciously by a swarm of crows that only left it visible through them because it had burst its flaming mane and tail into white-hot infernos that scorched the crowns of the trees below it. It was burning its way through despite the fact that the birds were dive bombing it and turning themselves into crispy missiles to pelt it downwards anyways. Still, it was closer to the far edge than it was to the falls, so it didn't seem like an imminent threat. Richard had to wonder just how anything was really expected to get through all this mess, but he supposed that there were some creatures that must be able to do it. The harpy and he had gotten this far, after all.


Speaking of which, they were coasting up over the edge, and the updraft died as they passed through the rainbow glitter at the top. He wished that it had carried them further upwards, but he supposed that whatever wonky rules let the fall run backwards ended at the top. The problem was that his exhausted muscles had stiffened along the way. It was taking all that he had just to keep them stretched outward, bouyed by the updraft, just hanging in the air over the water's edge. He couldn't remember ever having burned himself out so hard before, but he also couldn't recall a time when his life had been in such deadly threat of ending either. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to make it back through the forest, not a chance. At the very least not without a nice, long rest.


Then a pair of very large talons gently closed around him, trapping his wings against his sides. He didn't even bother to fight it, letting himself drape limply in their grasp. The harpy winged her way upwards until she was just about grazing the underside of the clouds that capped the race course, well above where the crows could fly, and Richard was very, very thankful. He was going to have to find a way to show her just how thankful he was, but he wasn't sure if she would get any kind of normal show of gratitude. Maybe he could get Angelmaris to invite her over so that they could perch and preen together. She seemed to enjoy that kind of activity, far more avian in her own shows than human, though he supposed that might just be natural. Well, if you considered being part human and part bird natural to begin with.


He was loopy, his mind fogged with the sheer weight of tiredness piled onto him from his flight, and he only realized just how out of it he had been when it suddenly disappeared. The harpy spat his stuffed body out of her mouth into her hands and gave him a worried look, turning her head from one side to the other to peer her eyes into his glassy ones. He managed to get the mechanics in his toy body to flap a few times and emit that song line once more, which set her to grinning. She tucked him beneath her arm and took off running. This time, things were slightly more in her favor. The nightmare's burn path had left a wide area completely free of greenery, showing off the rocks, dips, and slight rises over the area. It let her run with far more surety and far less damage to her feet, able to avoid the pitfalls and keep out of the dangerous plants entirely. She threw him into the air just before they reached the edge of the reality shift zone, and he was exceptionally glad to find himself in absolutely excellent health when he poofed back into a flesh-and-blood bird again. The exhaustion still weighed on him mentally, but his body was as full of energy as it had ever been, ready for the rest of the flight back to the start.


Thankfully, the last stretch was the easiest part now that he already knew the tricks of it. The gravity zones were absolute cake compared to the reality shift and Wild Hunt, and the inversion was more of an annoyance than anything. But then he got a sinking feeling as they neared the finish line. He could see the gathered fae nobility clearly, his raptor vision able to pick them out despite the height and distance. Mab did not look pleased. She looked distinctly unpleased, with dark rimes of frost rippling out from where the bottom of her dress touched the grass, and the space of several feet around her completely clear of any other being. They probably didn't want to be in grabbing range in case she decided to lash out with the claw-like nails tipping her fingers.


He cast a glance around him to try and figure out why, and it was pretty plain once he got a glimpse of the harpy. He had made it about two thirds back to the start after leaving the inversion, and she was still fumbling and flapping her way through it. Apparently she had never gotten the hang of things the first time through, and she was only barely keeping airborne. Richard didn't need to see Angelmaris's pleading expression and frantic gestures to get the hint. Upsetting Mab was unhealthy at the absolute best of times. Showing up her prize pet when she had specifically called for the race was never going to be good for him, especially when he almost certainly owed the harpy his life, even if he had returned the favor. On the plus side, they seemed to be alone in their lead, without anything even close to making it as far as they had, so there wasn't any reason to think that helping her would be any more hazardous to his health than it had been so far.


He wheeled around and headed back towards the harpy.


It was... stomach churning to keep his eyes open when the sky turned into down and the ground turned into up, but he did it and managed far better than the harpy. She looked decidedly green, and he guessed that she had vomited at least once considering the slime that coated her lips and cheeks. She had an absolutely miserable expression as he came around to fly beside her, and gave a helpless, pitiful squawk. He shrieked in return then very purposefully closed his eyes for a long moment before looking at her once more. She quirked a brow in confusion, so he glided over in front of her and spread his feathers to create purposeful turbulence in his wake. It wasn't anything like enough to throw her off with her much wider wingspan, but it was something that she could feel and hopefully follow. He fell back once more and closed his eyes again before giving her another look. Her smile was as grateful as the one he wished that he could have given her at the top of the waterfall. She closed her eyes, and he moved in front of her to let her follow his tailwind, guiding her out of the inversion.


As they passed out of it together, he gave another glance back to see her expression had turned apologetic, and he understood why. Despite their camaraderie along the way, there was no way that she wasn't going to be punished if it was obvious she hadn't even tried to foul him up at the end. He didn't blame her in the slightest, and he let himself tumble as she blazed past him, twirling end over end until he was nearly to the ground. He caught himself with a good dozen feet to spare, then winged his way to the finish the hard way, a few minutes behind the harpy. The queen had vanished by the time he arrived, so he landed on Angelmaris's outstretched arm, though he dug his claws in with slight alarm when he was pulled against the elven fae's chest in a tight hug.


"Oh, Shard, you wonderful, brilliant, beautiful bird, you!" the lord cheered as he danced around despite the talons sunk into his flesh. "That was just brilliant! Brilliant! Oh, I hope you have some reward in mind, because I am going to give you one!"


HOME! Richard thought with furious intensity. I want to go HOME.


The fae released him from the crushing hug and held him up so that they were eye level with a strained smile in place. "Why, of course, my dear Shard. You can have as many rats as you'd like. I'll have you stuffed like a feast-day hen."


Richard understood both the misdirection and the threat. Who knew what the other fae might be doing, and it was almost certain that a few would try and scope him out to see if any cheating had taken place. He did his best to fill his thoughts with the forests and meadows he had flown over during his transformations before becoming the fae lord's captive hunting pet and the thrill of hunting live prey during those times. It had been a thrill, no matter how much he might wish it otherwise. And he had to hunt, no matter how much he stuffed himself before the change. The shift from human to animal burned through any and all excess calories that he ingested and always left him starving. The only cure for that was to eat, and roadkill or a burger joint dumpster weren't always handy, especially out around the national park where he went if at all possible during that time of the month. Unfortunately, his thoughts were intruded upon, though it wasn't exactly unwelcome.


He kept thinking about the harpy. He wondered what had happened to her, hoped that she was alright, wished that he could know she hadn't come to harm from Mab. The standard definitions of good and evil didn't really apply to the fae in general, but Titania tended to want to be viewed as the more benevolent and giving of the pair while Mab was the vengeful ice queen. Summer and Winter, Seelie and Unseelie. It wasn't until hours later that he found out.


He was, as promised, stuffed like a feast-day hen, filled so full of plump rat that he probably couldn't have flown if he wanted to. Angelmaris had kept shoving bits of them into his beak until he'd started coughing them up, then shoved some more in. They had to make it look good, he'd said, but Richard was pretty sure that the fae was taking at least a little petty revenge by filling him to bursting. His crop and stomach ached with how full they were, and it was just as bad in its own way as being on the edge of death by exhaustion. Still, this particular malady was far more easily cured by time than the other.


The fae courts had gathered once more by the starting line, and Richard could see that only eight of the dozens that had taken part had survived to the end. A massive banquet table was laid out with the cooked carcasses of those who hadn't, and he was actually rather pleased to see the wolf among them. He vowed to take at least one beakful out of it, no matter how glutted he already was, but then he spotted the harpy. Titania sat at one end of the table with Oberon at her side, and Mab and Dagda at the other end. Beside Mab was a large bird perch, and the harpy was frozen atop it. Literally. She was encased in ice that glimmered like cut crystal, clinging tightly to her feathers and skin in a thin layer that showed her off in a take-off pose, her expression one of horror. No doubt it had been intended as a "reward" for winning, but it was very obviously not one. He could see the harpy's eyes moving behind the glassy surface, rolling to fix on him as he came into their range, and it hurt his heart. He wanted nothing more than to see her flying free again. She hadn't needed to help him, had every reason not to, but she had, and he liked her. She didn't deserve that.


"Granted," boomed a voice from the opposite end of the table, and Richard lifted a wing as the ice shattered along with the silver chain that trailed from the harpy's leg to the perch.


The harpy's wings clapped downward to complete the flap, and she immediately blazed over to dart behind Angelmaris, cringing down to hide behind his legs as he danced and tried to avoid letting her. Richard was utterly confused. At least until the fae lord hissed at him in anger.


"You just had to waste a boon on this useless feather duster? You could have wished for anything, and this is what you wanted?"


Richard blinked very slowly at the very rankled fae, then gave a flap to hop over Angelmaris, purposefully batting the lord in the face in passing, so that he landed atop the harpy's shoulder instead. He did his best not to grip too tightly and tolerated the nuzzles she burrowed against his tucked wings and cheek.


"Granted," Oberon boomed for a second time. "But... after the feast. We must celebrate our victors properly, after all!"


Richard was doubly confused when he found himself flopping to the ground. Beside him stood a golden hawk, the richer brown and gold of her feathers only slightly tinged with the deeper brown and red of his own. The eyes were still blood red, but her beak didn't have any dagger-sharp teeth in it at least. He looked up in helpless confusion at Angelmaris as she began to preen at his neck and crest.


"Well, fine, you feathered nuisances. Fine!" The fae threw up his hands in resigned ire, then set them on his hips as a malicious grin spread across his lips. "But I'm not done with you, and I wonder how she'll feel once we get there. She might not like your home as much as she thinks she will."


Home? Hope flustered his heart, nearly as painful as the bloating of his crop or the horrific terror that the Wild Hunt had inspired.


"Oh, yes, her boon, dear Shard. She wanted to go home with you and be your mate. Seems that she's fallen in love with you somehow, or at the very least come down with a severe case of lust. The latter would be far more understandable; I've never considered love to be a real emotion, just a hiccup on the way to sex. Anyhow, since you wanted her free, and she wanted that, it seems like the two of you will be going back to the human world. I should have..."


The fae paused before he could finish, but Richard had a good idea of what he meant. Angelmaris wished that he had made Richard into nothing more than a dumb bird again so that his wish could have been something more easily manipulated to the fae's benefit, but that hadn't happened. Richard hadn't even known that he would be getting a boon, and it might well have been better spent on other things, but he wasn't about to try and take it back. The harpy, now some golden-hued variant of a red-tail, deserved to be free. He might not be able to give her everything that she wanted, especially not in the mate department, but he could most definitely make her comfortable at his home.


Home... I'm going home...


It was an impossible thought, but it was true. Somehow, through sheer dumb luck, he had managed to get free of Angelmaris, or at least free of the fae realms. He knew that the lord would make good on that promise of not being done with him, but at least he would be back in the mortal realms. He wondered how many classes he had missed. He wondered if he had been gone long. He wondered if anyone was worried about him. He really hoped not. Still... all of that was for later. Not much later, hopefully, but he didn't need to worry about any of it right this second. Instead he tucked his head against the former harpy's neck and returned her preening, unable to express just how much thanks he had in any other way.





Tags: story series, red-tailed hawk, avian, bird, harpy, fantasy, fae, faerie, Seelie, Unseelie, nosex, no sex, clean, transformation, violence (not in yiff), fear, danger, race, competition, wolf, slave, slavery, freedom, race, implied death, implied snuff,